Michael: Alright Kevin, pop quiz. When I say “the Middle Ages,” what’s the first thing that pops into your head from your school history class? Be honest. Kevin: Oh, that’s easy. Mud. Lots of mud. Knights in clunky armor, maybe a plague or two, and a general sense that everyone was miserable and thought the world was flat. Basically, the thousand-year-long opening act for the much cooler Renaissance. Michael: (Laughs) The mud, the plagues, the flat earth… that’s the classic highlight reel! And it’s exactly the kind of cliché that historian Dan Jones is trying to completely dismantle in his fantastic book, Powers and Thrones: A New History of the Middle Ages. Kevin: Okay, I’m listening. So it’s not all mud and misery? Michael: Not even close. Jones is brilliant at this; he's known for making these vast, complex periods feel like a gripping television drama. In fact, critics have widely praised his ability to blend serious scholarship with a narrative style that feels incredibly modern and relevant. He argues that the forces that shaped the medieval world—we're talking climate change, mass migration, pandemics, global networks—sound shockingly like our 21st-century anxieties. Kevin: Wait, climate change? In the Middle Ages? Now you’ve got my attention. Michael: Exactly. To understand how we got from the supposed glory of Rome to the world we know today, we have to start where Jones does: at the end of the world. Or at least, the end of a world.

Michael: He opens with this incredibly poignant story from the early 5th century, in the Roman province of Britain. Imagine a wealthy couple, Aurelius and Juliane. They are the picture of Roman sophistication, living at the very edge of the empire. But they’re terrified. Kevin: Terrified of what? Barbarians at the gate? Michael: Of everything. The system is breaking down. The legions are being pulled away to deal with crises elsewhere, the economy is shaky, and there's a constant, low-level hum of fear. So they do something drastic. They gather their most precious belongings—over 15,000 coins, gold necklaces, silver tableware, even beautiful silver spoons with the inscription, "Use this happily, Lady Juliane." Kevin: Wow, that's so personal. "Use this happily." Michael: It is. And they pack it all into a heavy oak chest, have their servants carry it deep into the woods, and bury it. They planned to come back for it, of course. But they never did. It stayed buried for nearly 1,600 years until a guy with a metal detector found it in 1992. It’s called the Hoxne Hoard. Kevin: That’s heartbreaking. It’s like a time capsule of pure panic. So what was causing this level of dread? Was it just one bad emperor, or was the whole system rotting from the inside? Michael: It was a perfect storm, and this is where the book gets fascinating. It wasn't just one thing. Jones argues it was a cascade of crises. First, and this is the climate change part, tree-ring data shows a catastrophic "megadrought" hit Central Asia around the year 350. Kevin: Okay, but a drought in Asia causing the fall of Rome feels a bit like the butterfly effect on steroids. Weren't they the most powerful military on Earth? How does a drought on the other side of the world topple an empire? Michael: Because that drought set people in motion. It pushed a nomadic group we know as the Huns westward, looking for new grazing lands. The Huns were, as one Roman historian put it, "the most terrible of all warriors." They smashed into the tribes living near the Roman frontier, specifically the Goths. Kevin: Ah, so the Huns displace the Goths, and the Goths show up at Rome's doorstep. Michael: Precisely. In 376, tens of thousands of desperate Goths—men, women, children—arrive at the Danube River, begging for asylum. They’re refugees. And the Roman Emperor, Valens, thinks, "Great! New recruits for the army, new farmers." He lets them in. But the plan is horribly mismanaged. Corrupt Roman officials in charge of the resettlement start exploiting them. They steal their food, sell them dog meat at inflated prices, and even demand the Goths sell their own children into slavery just to survive. Kevin: That is monstrous. It’s hard not to see the parallels with modern refugee crises. It sounds like a total political and moral failure. Michael: It was a disaster. The Goths, starving and humiliated, finally snapped. They rebelled. And this wasn't just a small uprising. It culminated in the Battle of Adrianople in 378, where the Goths didn't just defeat the Roman army—they killed the emperor himself on the battlefield. It was a shock to the system that Rome never truly recovered from. Kevin: So it wasn't just barbarians breaking down the gates. It was Rome's own cruelty and incompetence that opened the door from the inside. Michael: Exactly. And add to that the internal political rot. Ambitious generals were constantly declaring themselves emperor. One of them, Constantine III, pulled all the remaining troops out of Britain in 407 to support his claim to the throne in Gaul. He effectively abandoned the province. The people left behind, like Aurelius and Juliane, were on their own. That’s why they buried their treasure. They were watching their world dissolve, not in a single fiery explosion, but in a slow, creeping tide of chaos.

Kevin: So the Western Empire is crumbling, becoming a patchwork of these new "barbarian" kingdoms. But that's not the whole story of the Roman legacy, right? What was happening in the East? Michael: Right. The idea of Rome, the concept of imperium—supreme power—didn't die. In the East, in the magnificent city of Constantinople, the Roman Empire continued. And that brings us to one of the most complex and contradictory figures in the entire book: Emperor Justinian, who comes to power in 527. Kevin: Justinian. I know that name. Wasn't he the one who tried to reconquer the West and bring the old empire back? Michael: He was. He was brilliant, tireless, and utterly ruthless. And his reign is perfectly captured by two events that happened back-to-back. The first is the Nika Riots in 532. It started, as things often did in Constantinople, at the chariot races in the Hippodrome. Kevin: A riot over sports teams? Some things never change. Michael: Pretty much. The two main factions, the Blues and the Greens, were angry about the execution of some of their members. They united in the stadium and started chanting "Nika!"—which means "Conquer!"—at Justinian. The protest exploded. The mob burned half the city to the ground. Justinian completely lost control. He was terrified, ready to pack his bags and flee the city. Kevin: I mean, I can't blame him. What do you do when your entire capital is on fire and screaming for your head? Michael: You listen to your wife, if you’re lucky. His wife, the Empress Theodora, was extraordinary. She was a former actress and courtesan, tough as nails. She stood up in the council and basically told Justinian and his generals to grow a spine. She gave this incredible speech, saying she wouldn't run, famously declaring that "purple," the color of royalty, "makes a fine shroud." Kevin: Wow. That's a movie scene right there. What incredible nerve. Michael: It completely changed the dynamic. Shamed into action, Justinian ordered his generals to handle it. They sealed the exits of the Hippodrome, where the rioters were gathered, and slaughtered every last one of them. An estimated 30,000 people were killed in a single day. Kevin: Hold on. He massacres 30,000 of his own citizens in a stadium, and then what? How does a ruler possibly recover from that? Michael: By doing something so audacious, so magnificent, that it overshadows the horror. With the city in ruins, Justinian immediately launched one of an unparalleled rebuilding program. His masterpiece was the new cathedral, the Hagia Sophia. He hired the most brilliant minds, spared no expense, and in just five years, they built the most breathtaking building in the world. When he first walked into the finished church, he reportedly whispered, "Solomon, I have outdone thee." Kevin: That is… an incredible pivot. From mass murderer to history's greatest patron of architecture in the span of a week. It's monstrous and magnificent at the same time. Michael: It's the ultimate expression of Roman imperium—absolute power to destroy and to create. But while Justinian was desperately trying to rebuild and reclaim the old Roman world, a completely new power was emerging from the deserts of Arabia, one with a totally different blueprint for the future. Kevin: You’re talking about the rise of Islam. Michael: Exactly. Just a few years after Justinian's death, the followers of the Prophet Muhammad exploded out of the Arabian Peninsula. Jones describes the siege of Damascus around 635. It’s a stunning contrast to Justinian's story. The Arab armies, led by the brilliant general Khalid ibn al-Walid, were fast, disciplined, and fueled by an unshakable religious conviction. Kevin: So how did they take a fortified Roman city like Damascus? Michael: With a mix of patience, cunning, and sheer audacity. According to one account, after a long siege, Khalid’s spies learned the city’s governor was throwing a feast. Under the cover of darkness, Khalid and a small team of elite warriors used ropes to scale the walls, silently killed the guards, and threw open the gates for their army, who stormed in shouting their battle cry: "Allahu Akbar!"—God is Greatest. Kevin: So you have these two models for the future emerging. One, Justinian's Byzantium, is backward-looking, trying to restore past glory through brute force and grand projects. The other, the Islamic Caliphate, is forward-looking, driven by a new faith and expanding with a speed that seems almost supernatural. It feels like a collision course. Michael: It was the collision course that would define the next thousand years. And it shows how the end of one world isn't just an ending—it's the violent, chaotic, and creative beginning of many new ones.

Michael: That's the perfect way to put it. What Powers and Thrones shows so brilliantly is that the Middle Ages weren't a "dark age" just waiting for the Renaissance to turn the lights back on. They were the crucible where the modern world was forged. The collapse of Rome wasn't a single event; it was a long, messy process that created a massive power vacuum. Kevin: And into that vacuum rushed these incredible, competing forces—Christianity, Islam, the new barbarian kingdoms, the ghost of the Roman Empire—all wrestling to define what came next. Michael: And what's so striking, and what Jones keeps circling back to, is how modern it all feels. He’s not just telling old stories; he’s showing us the origins of our own world. Kevin: Absolutely. It's wild to think that themes from 1,500 years ago—climate change triggering mass migrations, the toxic politics of refugee crises, wars fought over religious conviction—are still the headlines we read today. The book makes you realize how thin the veil of history really is. The anxieties of Aurelius and Juliane burying their treasure don't feel so distant. Michael: They really don't. It makes you wonder, what are the 'powers and thrones' of our own time? What are the great forces—environmental, technological, ideological—that are shaping our world right now that we might be too close to see clearly? Kevin: That's a heavy question to end on! And a great one. We'd love to hear what you all think. Drop us a line on our socials and let us know what parallels you see. What parts of this history resonate with you today? Michael: This is Aibrary, signing off.