Gary’s Q&A

Listener question & Gary’s response · Transcript passage

Kevin Hultgren asks,

Was your interest with Rome and The Roman Empire brought on by your travels or were they the reason for your travels? My suspicion? You’ve always been interested and traveling it gave a much better base of knowledge.

It was definitely something that was developed while I was traveling. I had read several general books about ancient Rome before I started traveling, but it was definitely something that piqued my interest while I was on the road. There are simply a LOT of Roman ruins around the Mediterranean, many of which are in pretty good shape for being 2000 years old. Many of them can be found in places that you don’t think of as being Roman, like the city of Jerash in Jordan, Caesarea in Israel, Merida in Spain, and a whole host of what are some of the best sites in the world in North Africa, most of which I have yet to visit.

We simply know more about the Romans than we do about the Ancient Egyptians, Babylonians, Sumerians, etc., because they left behind far more written material. Most of what we have from other Ancient cultures consists of stone engravings or archeological finds.

In comparison, we have Julius Caesar’s first-hand written account of his campaign in Gaul.

Also, as you probably might have seen from the various episodes I’ve done, the western world is still profoundly influenced by ancient Rome, down to our calendar and alphabet.