The Ancients

For the first 4 centuries AD/CE, the ancient Greek novel was the most popular literary form in the Roman Empire and at the heart of these popular texts is discussion over race and identity. Could a Ph...

26 Dec 20211h

It’s fair to say that winter battles weren’t commonplace in the ancient Mediterranean world. There is, however, one striking exception. A clash that occurred in mid/late December 218 BC, in northern I...

23 Dec 202142min

Thanks largely to his feature in the Gospel of Matthew, King Herod ‘the Great’ of Judaea is one of the most infamous figures from the whole of history. So what do we know about this ancient near easte...

19 Dec 202156min

Contrary to popular belief, parties in Ancient Rome were not all depraved wine-fuelled orgies. In fact, Roman get-togethers were relatively tame by the standards of today. They often consisted of nobl...

16 Dec 202145min

What the Book of Genesis is to the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament, songlines are to Indigenous Australians. Epic tales of desire, pursuit, shape-shifting spirits, strength and family tie...

12 Dec 202156min

Frederick the Great, Marie Antoinette and Oscar Wilde. Each of them have talked about, or been talked about in terms of, Ancient Greek ideas of homosexual love. From men taking on young apprentices, t...

9 Dec 202147min

Today we’re talking all about science, Stonehenge and what we know about a massive migration into Britain at the start of the Bronze Age some 4,500 years ago: the Steppe migration. For years the detai...

5 Dec 202139min

Today we’re going back to the beginning – no Romans, Celts, Egyptians or Macedonians in sight. We’re going much further back, covering billions of years of prehistory as we look at the emergence of li...

2 Dec 20211h 24min