History Unplugged Podcast

With Robin Lane Fox

Robin Lane Fox, who has taught Homer for over forty years and wrote 'Homer and His Iliad,' argues Homer directly dictated the epic himself; where, how, and when it was composed remain open questions.

The Bronze Age Collapse of 1177 BC, called the Dark Ages before the Dark Ages, was worse than World War One and the Mongol invasions that killed 40 million; it later inspired Homer's Iliad.

With Michael Livingston

Thousands have lost their lives fighting over the pass at Thermopylae from the Greek Classical Era to World War II; the 300 Spartans of 480 BC were one battle among twenty-six others fought there, with guest Michael Livingston.

With Alex Petkas

Stranded deep in enemy territory with 10,000 soldiers and no clear way home, Xenophon and his Greek mercenaries could escape only on foot; guest Alex Petkas discusses the leadership of this student of Socrates, whose account Napoleon referenced.

With Polly Low

The Peloponnesian War, fought between Athens and Sparta from 431 to 404 BC and documented by the Athenian general and historian Thucydides, lasted 27 years and drew in Greek states as far as Sicily.

With Nic Fields

After his victory at Gaugamela in 331 BC, Alexander's Macedonian and Greek army fought its last major battle in 326 BC against King Poros on the Hydaspes River, moving a select force across it by feints and deception.

With Anthony Everitt

Alexander the Great died in 323 BC at Babylon, leaving an empire stretching from Greece to India; guest Anthony Everitt asks whether, had he lived, he might have conquered Europe and circumnavigated Africa.

Alexander the Great conquered the known world and beyond without modern communications; this episode asks how he supplied tens of thousands of soldiers deep in hostile territory, far from home, for over a decade.

With Bettany Hughes

The Seven Wonders include the Temple of Artemis, the Statue of Zeus, the Colossus of Rhodes and the Lighthouse at Alexandria, alongside the pyramids of Giza and Babylon's Hanging Gardens; guest Bettany Hughes traveled to each site.

With Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones

Behind the singular figure of Cleopatra stood six other women who bore her name, seven queens ruling from 192 to 30 BC; guest Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones unearths their lost stories in The Cleopatras, exploring a part of the Hellenistic World.

After beating the Persian empire and conquering the known world, Greeks who once dominated the Eastern Mediterranean ended up as slave tutors for the Romans or philosophers in their major cities; this episode asks why their armies faded.

With Terry Bourcious

For almost two centuries, Athens filled most public offices and the Council of 500 by lottery, a reform from 508 BC meant to curb aristocratic control; guest Terry Bourcious argues modern democracies should adopt this sortition model too.

Diogenes the Cynic lived in a clay wine jar, owned almost nothing, and defecated in public to argue that social shame is arbitrary; he died in 323 BC, and Hegel later dismissed him as a shock jock.

With David Wharton

Homer, author of the Iliad and Odyssey, described the sea as oinops, or wine-dark; guest David Wharton, editor of 'A Cultural History of Color in Antiquity,' argues the ancient Greeks were never actually color blind.

With Lantern Jack

With Matt Gatton

Socrates remains renowned over two thousand years after his death; impiety, a lack of reverence for the gods, was a religious crime in Athens, and from the perspective of the religious authorities of the time that charge was warranted.

With Myke Cole

Their last stand at Thermopylae made the Spartans legends, but guest Myke Cole's book 'The Bronze Lie' argues their militarism aimed mainly at controlling the helot population, and their hegemony over Greece was brief.

With James Romm

Of an estimated 1,500 ancient Greek plays, only 33 survive complete; a fifth-century AD anthology preserved excerpts from over 500 Greek authors, and guest James Romm became the first scholar to translate many fragments as poetry.

With Robin Waterfield

Aesop's fables, roughly 2,600 years old, were written by a non-Greek slave who may not have existed and was reported to be very ugly; guest Robin Waterfield has newly translated four hundred of them.