71: The Decision

Sparta can’t beat Athens at sea without money, and Persia can’t claw back Ionia without Greek help. That single, uncomfortable truth kicks off the Ionian War, and it turns the late Peloponnesian War i...

27 Aug 41min

This is a teaser of the bonus episode, "A League by Choice?" found over on Patreon. A voluntary alliance can feel like freedom right up until the day you try to leave. After the Greek victory over Per...

25 Jul 6min

A king is murdered, a throne becomes a prize, and the world’s biggest empire has to prove it can still hold together. We pull away from the Peloponnesian War just long enough to track the Persian succ...

24 Jul 50min

Athens wins at Salamis, but what happens when the man most associated with that victory becomes politically untouchable? We close out our Themistocles series by following the messy aftermath of the Pe...

29 Jun 6min

Athens doesn’t just lose a battle in Sicily, it loses the foundation of its power. We start with Thucydides’ brutal assessment of the Sicilian Expedition: a fleet shattered, an army trapped, commander...

26 Jun 40min

This is a teaser of the bonus episode, "Themistocles Pt 3 found over on Patreon. Themistocles doesn’t just “win” the Battle of Salamis, he engineers the conditions that make winning possible. We pick ...

25 Mai 6min

Athens didn’t just lose in Sicily. It ran out of time, ran out of space, and finally ran out of choices. We pick up the story at the moment the expedition is already wobbling, when Nicias can see the ...

22 Mai 41min

This is a teaser of the bonus episode, "Themistocles Pt 2" found over on Patreon. A single line from Delphi forces Athens to gamble everything: “the wooden wall.” Is it an old barricade on the Acropol...

27 Apr 6min