Long Reads: Class Struggle in Ancient Rome w/ Sarah Bond
Jacobin Radio
Jacobin
4.7 • 1.5K Ratings
🗓️ 20 December 2024
⏱️ 45 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
As with many other periods, the history of the Roman Empire has often been told from the vantage point of a minoritarian social elite. Sarah Bond, a professor of classics at the University of Iowa, set out in her research to uncover something different: a "history from below" detailing the class struggle in ancient Rome. She joins Long Reads to discuss this project. Sarah's book Strike: Labor, Unions, and Resistance in the Roman Empire will be published in February of next year.
Long Reads is a Jacobin podcast looking in-depth at political topics and thinkers, both contemporary and historical, with the magazine’s longform writers. Hosted by features editor Daniel Finn. Produced by Conor Gillies, music by Knxwledge.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This episode of Long Reeds is brought to you by A Sense of Rebellion, a new podcast from tech critic, |
| 0:06.6 | F. Ganye Marozov. The podcast explores the countercultural project at the dawn of the digital revolution. |
| 0:14.5 | From LSD and Scientology to artificial intelligence and the CIA, each episode blends drama, mystery and deep research. |
| 0:25.0 | A sense of rebellion is available wherever you get your podcasts. |
| 0:30.6 | Hello, you're very welcome to Long Reeds, a Jacobin podcast where we look in depth of political topics and thinkers. |
| 0:38.6 | My name is Daniel Finn. On the Features editor, you're at Jacobin podcast where we look in depth of political topics and thinkers. My name is Daniel Finn. |
| 0:46.7 | On the Features Editor, you're at Jacobin, and I'll be presenting the show. In the 1930s, Bertolt Brecht composed a poem with the title, Questions from a Worker Who Reads? This reading of the poem is by the actor John Gillett. |
| 0:54.6 | Who built Thebes of the Seven Gates? |
| 0:59.5 | In the books you will find the names of kings. |
| 1:03.5 | Did the kings haul up the lumps of rock? |
| 1:08.0 | And Babylon many times demolished. who raised it up so many times. |
| 1:16.0 | In what houses of gold glittering lemur did the builders live? |
| 1:21.4 | Where the evening that the wall of China was finished did the masons go. Great Rome is full of triumphal arches, who erected |
| 1:32.5 | them. Over whom did the Caesar's triumph? Had Byzantia much praised in song only |
| 1:41.1 | palaces for its inhabitants? Even in fabled Atlantis the night the ocean engulfed |
| 1:47.0 | it, the drowning still bawled for their slaves. The young Alexander conquered India. |
| 1:56.0 | Was he alone? Caesar beat the Gauls. |
| 2:01.6 | Did he not have a cook with him? |
| 2:03.6 | Philip of Spain wept when his armada went down. |
| 2:08.6 | Was he the only one to weep? |
| 2:11.6 | Frederick the second won the seven years' war. |
| 2:16.6 | Who else won it? Every page of victory. Who cooked the |
... |
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