104- Here Comes the Sun

Alexander was only 13 when he ascended to the throne in 222. With the help of his mother and a few key advisers, he managed to avoid being the kind of disaster that previous teenage Emperors had been.   

After bungling a campaign in the east, Alexander headed to the Rhine where he was assassinated by Maximinius Thrax in 235 AD. 

In 238, a revolt in Africa sparked a revolution in Rome that would eventually lead to six different men claiming the title of Augustus. 

Born Varius Avitus Bassianus, the emperor now known as Elagabalus scandalized ancient Rome with his constant displays of extravagance, his numerous sexual escapades -- and his insistence that all people worship the sun god Elagabal (represented by a mysterious black stone he brou ... Show More

Theodoros Doukas the leader of the Roman state of Epirus leads his people to ever greater heights in the 1220s. He captures Thessalonica and drives towards Constantinople itself. Doukas declares himself Emperor but does he have the resources necessary to reach the Hagia Sophia? P ... Show More

<p>The Eastern Roman Emperor from 527 to 565, Justinian was a ruler who infused even the most mundane tasks with spiritual and religious significance.&nbsp;The challenges he faced - climate change, battles over culture and identity, the first recorded global pandemic - and many o ... Show More

Al Mansur’s long reign transformed the caliphate in countless ways, most of them for the better. It provided a kind of stability the umma desperately needed to absorb the tumult of the Abbasid revolution and adjust to the new status quo. What followed was a golden age of prosperi ... Show More

The sudden passing of Mohammad al Mahdi led his son Musa al Hadi to become the umma’s next leader sooner than anyone would have expected. With a wild disposition and little actual experience in administration, the twenty one year old became the youngest Abbasid to wield power. He ... Show More

<p>Marcus Aurelius was the last of the &apos;Good Emperors&apos;. His son, Commodus, proved to be the exact opposite of his father. A bloodthirsty tyrant, his reign is often seen as marking the beginning of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire.</p><p>For a free ebook, maps an ... Show More

After throwing a huge strop Boniface, the Marquis of Montferrat, is made King of Thessalonica. He sent his men to conquer most of Greece but the Bulgarians were on his tail. Period: 1204-07 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. 

Sulayman’s underwhelming time in charge ended with a twist, and Omar ibn Abdulaziz proved to be a real surprise. The famously pious Umayyad had a vision for the umma, and he used his new position to impose an order unseen since the early, predynastic days of the caliphate. Althou ... Show More

The story of the Roman emperor Heliogabalus is filled with sex, death, decadence and religious extremism, but it also touches on some key questions about imperial Rome. What were the limits of political power? How far should a ruler intervene in the life of his subjects? And what ... Show More