When I chose to begin this endeavor, I had a choice of two recent obsessions around which to center my first post. Although I’ve been toying with a lengthy Believer style appreciation of Monk for some weeks now, I decided ultimately to enact my personal rites of spring for “The History of Rome” podcast. The show is a simpler pleasure, really not much more than its title implies, and, more importantly, a shorter write-up. Having not let my thoughts linger on it too much, my mind can’t over-step my hands or my intestinal fortitude. Deciding to write this morning, and to start and finish on the same afternoon means (one would hope) avoiding the (my) common pitfalls of overly ambitious abstraction and endless chains of connection.
“The History of Rome” podcast isn’t much more than its title implies, an episodic narration of the history of the Eternal City and its empire. In most releases host, producer, and writer Mike Duncan recounts with some detail the action and motivation of high politics of Roman history. On occasion, he will take breaks from the story to offer listeners topics of social and cultural historical importance – dedicating whole episodes to religious practice for example, or what the structures of daily life looked like for the non-elites usually left out of the podcast. Ultimately, however, one can think of the project (still on going at nearly two hundred episodes) as a massive aural textbook history of Rome.
Which is not to call it boring. I’ve just listened to a bit comparing Commodus’ gladiatorial dabbling to the “finding the President in a crackhouse.” It’s the first time I’ve laughed out loud at one his jabs, but hardly the first occasion to prompt a snicker or a bursting grin. For the most part, Duncan uses punch lines and tags judiciously. There might be an occasional clumsy extra reference to Russell Crowe or Kirk Douglas, but the man tends to pick his moments carefully for extra-curricular commentary.
Carefulness describes endeavor as a whole. It’s almost clear from the content alone that each week’s content derives from any number of primary and secondary sources. The host confirms the observation in his hundredth episode, a half-hour dedicated to questions from listeners. Asked how the show came together week after week, Duncan described a process wherein he spent much of the week reviewing a life’s time worth of reading on the days of Rome or perusing something new but relevant for that week’s topic, then two days drafting and re-drafting a three-thousand word script, then twenty minutes reading it into separately recording tracks on his computer, before editing and uploading the whole thing. When all is said and done, he drinks a beer to celebrate, then gets back to work for the next week’s show.
Even granting some understandable exaggeration, it sounds more like a calling or a career than a hobby. All the more so when one considers that it is almost purely hobby. Until audible.com stepped in to sponsor episodes – as it seems to be required by law to do for all podcasts - a year into its run, Duncan did it entirely for free. Even when offered what little money or technical support the sponsor offered, the host deferred to his audience, asking the listeners if he should take the money or not. To take it – to essentially not have to worry about paying for all of that research, server space and software – might somehow have corrupted the endeavor. If the audience thought lucre might taint their appreciation of Roman history, he would not take it. To the credit of his fans, they offered no resistance and the sponsorship went forward.
One wonders at the heart and dedication of a man who would spend so much time and life on a project and balk at the prospect of accepting pay for it. It might make sense were he a graduate student or professor using the platform to practice his game or make his name. As far as public information offers, however, Duncan lives outside of the ivory tower, and mightn’t have even majored in Classics or History in college. It appears that when the podcast began he worked as a fishmonger or in some other retail food capacity in Portland, Oregon. He did marry and move to Austin for school during the show’s run, but to study domestic Public Policy not the tribunate of the Gracchi.
“The History of Rome” runs on pure enthusiasm. Clearly, its fans are nerds, but none as much as its creator. But it’s a realer, purer, nerdiness than the “nerd culture” that drives much of the Internet and pop culture today. This isn’t a blockbuster comic book movie, or Sheldon Cooper getting in better shape each season, or a drive for all to wear Abed-inspired t-shirts or plastic glasses. Duncan doesn’t nerd out over the Roman era as an expression of any kind of zeitgeist. As a little boy, he found himself obsessed with the physical aura of his grandfather’s leather-bound volumes of Gibbon. He opened them up on a busy holiday, and lost himself in the story, then spent much of his free cultural consumption (and later production) to finding out more. An eight year old falling obsessively into enlightenment scholarship and prose defines nerd in its older, non-cool sense.
It makes one appreciate the podcast all the more. There are moments when “the History of Rome” drags. All things - especially those dealing with the past which are never as exciting as we’d like it to be – will drag. That the project is so clearly a labour of deep love pushes the listener to carry on through when it does. It’s as if, in a world that worries constantly about collaboration and mediatisation in cultural production, we’ve found something of an artisanal work. Here is the product of a deep dedication to craft and energetic apprenticeship. In a world where it feels like a crowd of individuals seeking to become brands rushes to the podcast mic or blogger for “exposure,” Mike Duncan plods on for the Republic, then the Empire, and ultimately for himself.
Which is why, ultimately, he might provide fodder for an ideal inaugural post for this blog at least. I don’t expect readership for this thing to reach into to the tens, let alone twenties. I do hope that I will continue to churn out posts and the like even when it doesn’t, and that I’ll get better at it as I do. It’s easy to let these things fall by the wayside, or to get caught up in AdSense, or catching the right links or readers, especially for me. Mike Duncan took to the internet not worrying a damn about those things, worried only about Romulus and Remus and continuing the feat for however long it took until he arrived at Romulus Augustus. As a project, it educates and entertains. As a symbol, for me at least, it does a hell of a lot more.
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