Episode 1 (9 mentions)
Rome is the original imperial capital and the yardstick against which Byzantine identity is measured throughout this episode. Brownworth notes that the empire later called Byzantine never controlled Rome for most of its history, which is precisely why historians felt the need to give it a different name; he also discusses how Rome itself changed enormously between the age of Brutus and the age of Augustus.
“or even surpass that of Rome. It ends in 1453 with the death of the Emperor Constantine Palaeologus,”
“years of decline and decay. In his words, it was a degenerate mongrel of Greece and Rome, which lost”
“had happened in Augustus' time. Rome went from a society that abhorred tyrants to a society that”
Episode 2 (6 mentions)
The historic capital of the Roman Empire, though Brownworth notes Diocletian deliberately shifted the emphasis of imperial government away from the city to wherever the emperor resided. Diocletian visited Rome for the first time in his entire reign only in 304, to unveil his famous baths, before falling deathly ill.
“It's an understandable sentiment, but Rome would pay dearly for it.”
“He renamed Rome Colonia Commodiana in honor of himself, and replaced all the months of”
“He went to Rome for the first time in his entire reign to unveil his baths, and fell”
Episode 3 (7 mentions)
Though of declining importance as a capital, Rome still held certain hereditary rights including an exemption from all taxes. Maxentius seized it, declared it tax-free, and held it as his power base, defended by bribes rather than an army. Constantine entered it triumphantly after the Battle of the Milvian Bridge, and it was here that his triumphal arch, still standing just outside the Colosseum, made careful non-Christian reference to divinity.
“The city of Rome, though of declining importance, had certain hereditary rights, among them”
“Rome itself, and the insulted citizens looked around for a more friendly administration.”
“After sacking Turin and Verona, he appeared outside Rome on October 28th, six years to”
Episode 4 (6 mentions)
The Eternal City that Constantine had not entered since his victory at the Milvian Bridge thirteen years earlier. His visit in January 326 ended disastrously, with mutual contempt between emperor and city; after consecrating the new Basilica of St. Peter's he left and never returned, accelerating his decision to build a new capital in the East.
“So in January of 326, Constantine, his wife Fausta, and two of his sons left for Rome.”
“but his disastrous trip to Rome seems to have convinced him to make it something more.”
“Rome was far away, too hot and malarial in the summers, and too vulnerable to attack.”
Episode 5 (1 mention)
Mentioned in the epilogue as a symbol of the empire's decline after Julian — the city of Rome itself was sacked in less than a century after his death.
“Barbarians poured over the borders with alarming frequency, and the city of Rome itself was”
Episode 6 (5 mentions)
The ancient capital of the Western Empire, sacked by the Vandals for 14 days in 455, stripped of all wealth including gilded copper roofs. The sack and eventual abandonment of Rome as a capital led the populace to turn to the pope for both spiritual and temporal authority, ushering in the medieval papacy.
“This sack of Rome would last a long time in the memory of the West, and the horror felt”
“them for the sack of Rome, Asper saw his chance, and persuaded the emperor to appoint Basiliscus”
“The people of Rome, abandoned as a capital and lacking any secular ruler, turned to”
Episode 7 (1 mention)
“Enemies were all around, barbarians to the West, and to the East Persia, Rome's ancient”
Episode 8 (10 mentions)
Rome was the great symbolic prize of the Italian campaign — embarrassingly un-Roman as long as it was outside imperial control. Belisarius entered it in December after getting the pope's endorsement, then held it for a year and nine days against Vittigis's Gothic siege, improvising flour mills on the city's rivers after the aqueducts were cut.
“the embarrassing situation of a Roman empire that didn't control the city of Rome. He turned first”
“triumphantly marched into the Eternal City as the Gothic garrison moved out. Gaining Rome,”
“angry mood. With the siege of Rome over, he had begun his drive north, mopping up Gothic resistance.”
Episode 9 (10 mentions)
Rome changed hands multiple times in the episode — defended unsuccessfully by the corrupt Bessus, then lost when the garrison betrayed the city and Totila took possession of an almost deserted ruin of 500 people; Belisarius then swept in and repaired it; Totila recaptured it again; and finally Narses restored it to Byzantine control for the fifth time in the war.
“Only four major cities still defied him, Rome, Ravenna, Florence, and Naples, and it was”
“Rome, now little more than a ruin, was restored to Byzantine control, the fifth time it had”
“the empire, eight columns from the Temple of the Sun in Rome, green marble from Ephesus,”
Episode 11 (2 mentions)
The city where Pope Leo III was ambushed and beaten, and where Charlemagne came to testify on the pope's behalf in 800. It was here, at Christmas Mass, that Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne Holy Roman Emperor.
“invited them into Italy to defend Rome against the Lombards.”
“In December of 800, Charlemagne made his way to Rome and testified on the pope's behalf.”
Episode 12 (4 mentions)
The seat of the papacy and the western rival to Constantinople's ecclesiastical authority. Photius challenged Rome's claim to universal spiritual authority, and Basil later played the pope against himself over Bulgaria before recalling Photius.
“Boris I, king of Bulgaria, had long been playing off Rome”
“to which sea did it belong, Rome or Constantinople?”
“four in the east and one in Rome,”
Episode 14 (2 mentions)
The subject of a brutal three-day sack by Robert Giscard in which he set fire to the city and gutted most of its ancient buildings — carried out while Robert was returning to Italy to suppress the Alexios-backed Norman revolt and drive out the German Emperor.
Episode 16 (3 mentions)
The destination of John VIII's desperate embassy seeking a crusade against the Turks. Brownworth notes John found Europe still asleep to the danger and ultimately promised to convert the empire to Catholicism — signing the decree of union there — in a failed bid for military aid.
“Increasingly desperate emperors even considered personally submitting to Rome, but Europe”
“Depending on the West for salvation, John traveled to Rome believing that by now the”
“and Rome, and he knew that they would equip themselves in a fashion worthy of their predecessors,”
Episode 17 (5 mentions)
“The West however with its future stretching out brightly before it seduced by the rediscovered glories of Greece and Rome”
“Irrational and like all the scholars of the Enlightenment he preferred to find his roots in ancient Greece and Republican Rome”
“The shrunken Empire which spoke bad Greek and didn't control the city of Rome was judged to be essentially unimportant”