since I've gotten it in my head to do a Roman history podcast and actually started working on it I haven't listened to other Roman history podcasts in like 6 months. wanted to read the sources and let stuff work in my head without outside influence
but I did go back and listen to Mike Duncan's History of Rome this past week at work. and now that I have firsthand experience with the sources and an idea of what I want from the podcast, HoR really doesn't fit the bill for me anymore
I still understand why I (and so so many others, especially those listening in 2007 through 2012) love it, but now the flaws seem so glaring to me
and it's not so much flaws as different aims in telling these stories, but still. just because it'w long done history doesn't mean you need to front load a short synopsis of what you're about to detail in... more detail. multiple times you get stuff like "he was aiming for this, but he would be dead by the end of the year. but we'll get to that, first let's deal with where we are." that sort of story telling technique has its place, but it's occurring here entirely too often
and a recent comment on one of the episodes drove home another issue with this for me. it muddles the time line. brief mentions of something that happens in 10 or 20 or 100 years generally have no place, especially when the podcast is going to cover those events. the comment talked about how confusing it makes things and while it wasn't well recieved by the rest of the audience, the point is fair
that particular episode was maybe about Nero and jumped around a lot. and it was not necessary. part of it was Duncan trying to explain the historical understanding of Nero with examples from throughout his life, but it means briefly mentioning different events (that may or may not hace happened like that) tyen revisiting them later in the narrative, and maybe even bringing them up again to make a different point
tough to say for sure but I think I will stick with a pretty straight timeline of events for Nero and instead sprinkle in the commentary about how our understanding of those events is created, and thus how contemporaries and we think of Nero is created. mention divorcing and offing his wife once, and how that caused people to dislike him. then when we get to the fire, again the people dislike Nero and this disaster worsens it. no need to muddy the waters as far as the timeline goes
I also think this is in part because at that point in the podcast these events are better known. the punic wars aren't as well known and I think the narrative is a bit more linear (though it still features some unnecessary synopsis spoilers). when he gets to the caesars he's telling stories he assumes people are more familiar with. I'm going to try to stick with assuminh ignorance from my listener. those in the know will have details they can focus on, and anyone actually ignorant of things will hopefully get a clearer understanding of the events
even this mild criticism seems kind of sacrilege in the history podcast scene. History of Rome was one of the first and did it very well. but times have changed and what a history podcast should do has changed
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