Ancient History Hound

With Lottie Luke

Ancient History Hound and guest Lottie Luke review The Return, a film about Odysseus returning to Ithaca, weighing how it differs from the Odyssey poem.

This episode discusses how Thersites, Scamander and Sarpedon shape the way the Iliad and its other characters are understood, along with wider themes running through the poem.

Ancient History Hound picks elements out of the Odyssey, trying to advocate for the suitors and raising a theme he thinks is often missed, drawing on sources about Homeric ship construction and katabasis in the Iliad.

This podcast follows what Odysseus got up to on returning to Ithaca, from bad practical jokes to the exile, and traces how so many ended up in Agamemnon's army at Troy.

This recap of Troy, Fall of a City examines infanticide, jumping off cliffs with Aphrodite and negotiating with Achilles, with an inevitable nod to Mean Girls along the way.

This recap of Troy, Fall of a City talks about Helen's wedding and why hands should always be washed after a siege, following the show week by week.

This recap of Troy, Fall of a City considers awkward reality TV wedding show moments, and how many Greeks and Trojans really got the point, delivered with a run of puns.

This recap of Troy, Fall of a City unpacks the dialogue between Priam and Achilles, what the chariots did, and wonders where the talking horse went.

This first recap of Troy, Fall of a City weighs the difficulty of adapting oral myth for the screen, alongside large flightless birds and a bad pun of his own.

This episode traces the rise of tyrants and the changing political situation in Sicily between 600BC and the mid-5th century BC, an episode packed with treachery, conquest and even some poetry.

The first of this Sicily miniseries opens with the island's original inhabitants before Greeks and Phoenicians arrive to found colonies there, examining what form these settlements initially took.

At the start of the 6th century BC Athens was in crisis, and by its end a new political system was in place, with bizarre political campaigning, Spartans and tyrants along the way.

This episode examines what a tyrant was and how one rose to power, surveying examples from the Archaic period to the mid-5th century BC using James McGlew's account of tyranny.

With Sonya Nevin

In her book The Idea of Marathon, Dr Sonya Nevin explores the Battle of Marathon from several angles, including how later generations made sense of it, complete with complaining Greeks and disappearing horses.

Starting from the mythical foundation of Thebes, this episode moves through the very real aftermath of the Persian invasion, with athletic cows, wedding drama and walls along the way.

The final part of this Theban trilogy covers the highs and lows for Thebes in the 4th century BC, a whirlwind of alliances and reprisals including a Spartan garrison and gloomy spiders.

This episode asks how Thebes fared in the 5th century BCE after Plataea, examining its position by the end of the century amid revenge, a sporting controversy and the big stage.

This episode follows two separate incidents where Athens became directly involved in Sicilian affairs near the end of the fifth century BC, including a highly consequential eclipse.

With Michael Furman

In the 4th century BCE Thessaly moved from fractured to unified under Jason of Pherae, who became a prominent figure in Greece and earned the admiration of Xenophon before it all ended abruptly.

Dionysius I faces an unstoppable force from Carthage in this Sicily episode, which also includes a surprise wedding, or two, before the encounter plays out.

Ancient History Hound closes its Sicily miniseries with Dionysius I of Syracuse, covering his poetry, his behaviour and a bizarre use for heated walnut shells in a dramatic finish.

After the Sicilian Expedition, Syracuse celebrates victory in this episode, though one empire retreats to lick its wounds, another emerges, and an old habit returns to Syracuse.

This episode follows the tyrant Thrasybulus in Syracuse during the 460s BC amid civil unrest as democracy finally appears, and Ducetius, one of Sicily's most intriguing sons, making a play for power.

This podcast examines the oddity of ostracism in Ancient Athens, why it was needed, and a brief look at tyrants including an instance Herodotus calls the silliest trick in history.

This episode asks how far Thucydides altered his account of the Athenian disaster in the Sicilian Expedition, looking at arguments that suggest he amended it to align with his views through subtle and none-too-subtle techniques.

With Carla Ionescu

Guest expert Dr Carla Ionescu joins to discuss the goddess Artemis, uncovering aspects and associations often left in the background, from bloody rituals to a cake-based rescue.

This episode looks at four mountains that featured in ancient Greece, tracing how they appear in local myths, from bizarre marital advice to singing competitions and bad family cooking.

The Greeks founded numerous colonies in southern Italy, and this episode explores how they interacted with local peoples and each other, featuring dancing animals and a drunken diplomatic incident.

Classical Athens is famous for introducing theatre and Tragedy, and this episode tries to piece together how it developed into a main component of the City Dionysia, with rude puppets and wild processions.

The first of three episodes on Sparta examines the agoge, the syssitia and the Krypteia, asking what the sources say and how these differ from the ways they are sometimes depicted.

The helots of Sparta were indispensable to the Spartan state, and this episode asks what they did, how Sparta had acquired them and how their population was controlled.

This episode asks how piracy featured in ancient Greece and how the Greeks responded to it, giving an overview that runs from Homer through to the Hellenistic period.

This episode traces Wonder Woman's connection to Greek myth, along with the origin of the amazon myth and an overview of several female warriors from ancient history.

This Night of the Livy Dead episode explores the Greek Underworld, the journey there, singing amphibians, figures from Odysseus to Orpheus, and a question to consider on hangovers.

This episode asks what advantages the agoge and syssitia gave Spartan soldiers, what hoplite battle was like, and whether Plutarch's sayings about the Spartans in war were just a later invention.

The first of two episodes on the experiences of a Spartan woman throughout her life opens with a general overview of Sparta before recounting what it might have been like as she grew up.

Over four hundred years, people travelled to the Oracle of Dodona to ask questions, and this episode walks through its history and background before revisiting a few, including advice on relationships and jobs.

The final part of this Spartan miniseries covers marriage, money and mothers, closing out the Sparta episodes with reading drawn from Pomeroy's Spartan Women and other modern sources.

This mini episode picks out some themes from Sappho's famous poem and also includes a performance of it in ancient Greek, courtesy of Seikilo.

A midwinter festival, the Haloa, honoured the goddess Demeter with an all-woman gathering of drinking, fire, an all-night feast and rude language that was a must.