This... Is... Sparta!!!
Imagine a state where no citizen works for a living; where children are kept hungry to encourage them to steal; where the most powerful military force in the known world is reluctant to fight far from...
1 Feb 59min
Poetry Slam: Early Greek Politics in Verse
No one was writing history in Greece during the 7th and 6th centuries BCE. But that doesn't mean we have no voices speaking to us from that time. Fragments of works by early Greek poets can provide re...
15 Jan 32min
Not Such an Ugly Word: Tyranny in Archaic Greece
In modern English, a “tyrant” is someone who rules oppressively. To the ancient Greeks, the word tyrannoscould just refer to a king, but more specifically it meant an autocrat who had come to power by...
1 Jan 48min
Light Infantry, Cavalry and Mercenaries: What Were They, Chopped Liver?
The hoplite infantry was the backbone of a Greek city-state's land army. But hoplites weren't the only ones who served. Those who couldn't afford hoplite armor served as light infantry, hurling javeli...
15 Des 202523min
Tales of the City-State: The Rise and Flourishing of the Greek Polis
The polis was the defining sociopolitical system of ancient Greece. It was the environment where Greek drama, architecture, philosophy, and other cultural developments reached their peak. In this epis...
1 Des 20251h 1min
Delphi: The Magic Eight Ball of Greece
In Greek myth, Delphi was the literal center of the world. In real-world religious practice, it lived up to its reputation. People came from all over the Greek world — and even outside it — to seek Ap...
15 Nov 202539min
Straight Outta Greece: The Age of Expansion
Ancient Greece was defined by its culture, not by its borders. Starting in the 8th century BCE, Greeks planted settlements in southern Italy and Sicily — so many that the area came to be known as Magn...
1 Nov 202545min
(Bonus Episode) The First Truly Historical Greek War — Maybe
The Lelantine War between Khalkis and Eretria was the first major historical conflict that drew in combatants from around the Greek world. And yet, we know next to nothing about it. Ancient historians...
22 Okt 202520min
