“Everybody says Augustus is the goat. But Augustus is Augustus because he had Agrippa.”
Matthew and Matteo Storm are uncovering forgotten Roman heroes … and tearing down the celebrated ones.
In this eye-opening interview for Ancient Origins, the father-son hosts of the Lost Roman Heroes podcast reveal why figures like Trajan, Hadrian, and Scipio Aemilianus don’t deserve their heroic reputations (“We don’t like bullies”), while champions like Majorian (the last Western emperor who accomplished miracles in two years), Agrippa (the man who actually made Augustus great), and Belisarius (who reconquered Italy with just 5,000 troops) have been nearly erased from history.
What makes this conversation fascinating:
Their candid “coolness factor” ranking system for heroes
Why Byzantine emperors through 1453 are still Roman (and academics who disagree are “factually incorrect”)
How bedtime stories became a podcast spanning 2,000 years
What video games teach us about Roman military strategy
Why history’s darkest hours produce the greatest champions
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