Lost Roman Heroes - Episode 97: Gregory the Great (Part 2)

Rome is an island in a Lombard sea. The emperor is in Constantinople, offering criticism instead of troops. The plague is killing people in the streets. And Gregory, the man who tried to flee his own election hidden in a wine cask, is the only one left to save it. In Part 2, we watch a reluctant monk become the de facto ruler of Italy, negotiate face-to-face with a Lombard king, and send a nervous monk to convert an England that Rome had abandoned for nearly two centuries. He fed the hungry, freed slaves by name, and kept the light burning when no one else would. He built the foundation of medieval civilization while thinking he was just keeping the ancient world alive. He never wanted the title. He never stopped earning it. The last man built from truly Roman parts, trying, until the very end, simply to be good, he wound up being truly Great.