Our guest on this VIP episode is Dr Rhiannon Evans from Latrobe University in Melbourne! She joined us to talk about the meaning of latin terms like natio (tribe) and babarus (barbarians), which, she says, don’t have the same implication today as they had back in ancient Rome, and to deliberate on the reliability of Caesar’s Commentaries.
Rhiannon teaches Ancient Mediterranean Studies, in particular, the literature and culture of Ancient Rome and its empire, as well as the Latin language and Greek and Roman mythology. She studies Roman literature of the 1st centuries BCE and CE, from Julius Caesar to the early emperors of Rome, and she is especially interested in what they can tell us about ancient Romans’ views of their own and other people’s cultural identity. She has published several articles on ancient ethnicity and a book on Roman culture and utopias.
She has also recorded her own excellent podcast series on Julius Caesar which you can check out here.