The History of Ancient Greece

Myth and archaeology on Minoan Crete: the palace at Knossos, the Thera eruption that was a catalyst for decline and perhaps inspired Plato's Atlantis, Mycenaean subordination, and Ventris deciphering Linear B.

The Trojan War myth, Egyptian and Hittite records of Mykenaian conflict, the Hisarlik layers VI and VII, the Bronze Age collapse and its possible causes, the Sea Peoples and the so-called Dorian Invasion.

The archaeology of the Late Bronze Age Mycenaean Greeks, ca. 1650-1250 BC, particularly at Mycenae, Tiryns and Pylos, what the Linear B tablets can tell about their society, economy and religion, and their Mediterranean trade network.

The archaeological evidence for the early Bronze Age on the mainland and the Cycladic Islands, the arrival of the proto-Greeks, and how Schliemann and Evans excavated Troy, Knossos and Mycenae.

Out of myth and into the Paleolithic: early primate and human activity in Greece, through the domestication of plants and animals, the earliest villages and the development of metallurgy in the Neolithic.

How Sparta worked: the diarchy, gerousia, apella and ephors, the so-called Lykourgan land reform, helots, perioikoi and Spartan women, the stages of the agoge, and why the system ultimately failed.

Peisistratos and his sons Hippias and Hipparchos: warfare, trickery and political marriages, public works, the Greater Panathenaia and Dionysia, and the end through Hipparchos' assassination, Hippias' expulsion and the ascendency of Kleisthenes.

Part two: the Sicilian tyrannies of the first half of the 5th century BC at Rhegium, Himera, Syracuse, Gela and Akragas, the First Greco-Punic War and its legacy, Etruscan decline in Campania, and the voyages of Himilco and Hanno.

Greek emigration to the Chalkidiki, Thrace, the Hellespont, the Bosporus, the Black Sea and northern Africa in the 7th and 6th centuries BC, relations with Lydian and Saite Egyptian kings, and the development of coinage.

Early Lakedaimon: the 1st and 2nd Messenian Wars that brought about the helot system, reform supposedly by Lykourgos yet more likely gradual, losses to Argos and Tegea before defeating them, Chilon, and Sparta's rise to hegemony.

New 6th-century BC thinking about existence and humanity's role in the universe absent from the gods, and the lives and theories of the so-called Pre-Socratics, from Thales and Anaximandros to Pythagoras, Xenophanes and Heraklitos.

Early Athens from its myths, Kekrops, the contest of Athena and Poseidon, Erichthonios, Theseus and Kodras, to oligarchy after the monarchy, the crises of the late 7th century BC, Kylon's failed tyranny attempt and Drakon's constitution.

Solon as sole archon, whose economic, political and legal reforms later formed the backbone of Athenian democracy, and whose moderate stance did not quiet the social and economic problems, after which factionalism set in and, ultimately, tyranny.

Part two on the archaic poets: Mytilene in the late 7th and early 6th centuries BC, where Alkaios, Sappho, tyranny and Pittakos, one of the so-called Seven Sages, meet, and the lawgiver as a response in many city-states.

Kleisthenes defeats the Spartan-backed Isagoras and overhauls the constitution: the boule and ekklesia, Attika gerrymandered into new tribes, a reorganized military, a first diplomatic folly with Persia, and the threat of war with Thebes, Korinth, Sparta, Chalcis and Aigina.

Part one on Greco-Etruscan-Carthaginian relations in the 6th and 5th centuries BC: Carthage's foundation myths, Tyre's decline and Carthage's rise, its alliance with the Etruscans against the western Greeks, and the Battle of Alalia.

Archaeological evidence for the early Dark Age of the 11th and 10th centuries BC, particularly at Nichoria in Messenia, emigration to the Aegean islands and Anatolia, and Homer's Iliad and Odyssey as insight into that society.

The four Panhellenic festivals, Olympic, Pythian, Isthmian and Nemean, and their unifying importance, the evolving Olympic programme, how the events were performed, and some famous athletes with larger-than-life qualities.

Why Greeks colonized, from population growth to civil strife, their settlement of southern Italy, Sicily, France, Spain, Corsica and Sardinia, the trireme, and tensions with Etruscans and Carthaginians until around 550 BC.

Archaic innovation in the 7th and 6th centuries BC: Orientalizing, Korinthian, black-figure and red-figure vase painting, kouros and kore statuary and reliefs, and Doric and Ionic temples, treasuries and stoas.

Tyranny in the 7th and 6th centuries BC through four Peloponnesian case studies: Pheidon of Argos, Kypselos and Periandros of Korinth, Kleisthenes of Sikyon, and Theogenes of Megara, the unsuccessful attempt.

Early Greek religion as Homer and Hesiod formalized it, the earliest sanctuaries and hero cults of the 8th century BC, and Panhellenism at Olympia, Delos, Delphi and Dodona, the latter two with oracular shrines.

The demos and the oikos in the late Dark Age, their unification through synoikismos into the polis, and later Greek philosophical thought on what it meant to live in a polis.

The late Dark Age at Lefkandi and Athens, reconnection with the Near East through the Phoenicians, the Greek alphabet and its impact, trading posts at El-Mina, Pithekoussai and Kyme, and Geometric vase painting in funerals.

Oligarchia and aristokratia replacing the waning basileis, the divide between nobles and commoners brought on by a spike in population, and Hesiod's Works and Days as life in the emerging polis seen by an ordinary citizen.

Poetry of the 7th and 6th centuries BC moving from grand epic to lyric, elegiac and iambic forms, and the first of two parts on poets whose writing gives insight into how archaic Greece was reshaped.

The Persian Wars' aftermath, the Delian League formed under Athens to carry on the war against Persia at sea, and the rival factions in Athens and Sparta struggling over foreign policy in the 470s BC.

The death of Dareios and accession of Xerxes, preparations for a larger second invasion in 480 BC, the Hellenic League, the simultaneous land and naval battles at Thermopylai and Artemision, and the folklore of Thermopylai.

The first Persian invasion in 490 BC: preparations and shifting alliances, regnal squabbles at Sparta, the Battle of Marathon and its aftermath, folklore and monuments, the feud between Athenians and Aiginetans, and Athenian politics in the 480s BC.

Spartan-Athenian tensions in the winter of 480/79 BC, Mardonios trying to turn the allies against each other, the twin victories at Plataia and Mykale in 479 BC, and Athens' first attempt on the Thrakian Chersonesos.

Kyros' conquests of Lydia, the Greek city-states of western Anatolia, the nomadic tribes of central Asia and the Neo-Babylonian Empire, his multi-ethnic army, an empire from Anatolia to the Hindu-Kush, and why later historians called him Great.

Dareios takes the throne and campaigns to the Indus, Ahura-Mazda and Zoroastrianism in his reign, and the reforms: Old Persian script, Persepolis, satrapies, the Royal Road, a canal of sorts and the gold Daric.

Herodotos, the Father of History, with his influences, drawbacks and positives, then the Near East of the 7th and early 6th centuries BC: Medes and Neo-Babylonians destroying Assyria, and Kyros of Anshan overthrowing the Medes.

Kambyses' reign: Amasis II and Psammetichos III, Battos III, Arkesilaos III, Polykrates and Lygdamis, the conquests of Kypros and Egypt, failed campaigns in north Africa, and his "madness", as told by Herodotos, which ended his reign.

The Ionian Revolt: the failed Naxos expedition, Miletos' role, the Greek sack of Sardeis, the Persian counteroffensive, the naval victory at Lade and sack of Miletos, the Spartan destruction of Argos at Sepeia, and the early life of Themistokles.

After Thermopylai the Persians advance on Athens, Themistokles tricks them into fighting in the narrows at Salamis in 480 BC, a stunning Greek victory at sea, and Xerxes' fleet and the bulk of his army retreat to Asia.

The 460s BC: Kimon's dual land and naval victory at the Eurymedon, the assassination of Xerxes, Themistokles' medism trial and defection to Artaxerxes, the revolt of Thasos, the earthquake and resulting Helot revolt, Kimon's ostracism, and the ascendency of Perikles.

Xenophon, ca. 428-354 BC, Athenian military leader, philosopher, historian and pupil of Sokrates, and the Panhellenic campaign into the Persian Empire that his Anabasis made famous, including Kounaxa and the March of the Ten Thousand.

The first three years of the Korinthian War, 395-393 BC: the Persian-backed alliance of Thebes, Korinth, Argos and Athens, Lysandros killed at Haliartos, Nemea and Koroneia, Konon's naval victory at Knidos, and Athens rebuilding its navy and Long Walls.

The years 411 and 410 BC: the final treaty between Sparta and Tissaphernes, Aristophanes' Lysistrata and Thesmophoriazusai, Athens in civil war for the first time in nearly a century as the 400 overthrow the democracy, and factionalism bringing them down.

Spartan imperial policy from 404-396 BC: Lysandros' overreach and downfall, Agesilaos II taking the throne, Kinadon's foiled revolution, and an ultimately ineffective invasion of Persian-controlled Asia Minor, a consequence of which was a Persian-bankrolled fleet under Konon.

The years 409 to 406 BC: Athenian control of the Hellespont and Bosporos, Alkibiades' triumphant return, Lysandros and his bromance with Kyros, defeat at Notion, Kallikratidas beating Konon at Mytilene, and Arginousai with its disastrous consequences for Athens.

The years 426 and 425 BC: Athenian politics dominated by the demagogue Kleon, his feud with Aristophanes in The Acharnians and The Knights, the battles of Pylos and Sphakteria, and the brutal conclusion to the Korkyraean civil war.

The years 421 to 418 BC: the breakdowns of the Peace of Nikias, the rise of Alkibiades, Sparta at odds with dissident allies, the quadruple alliance of Athens, Argos, Mantineia and Eleia, and the decisive Spartan victory at Mantineia.

The year 413 BC: Archelaos rises to the Makedonian throne, Sparta establishes Dekeleia, the Athenian army and navy are defeated at Syracuse, and the Athenian retreat and surrender bring the Sicilian Expedition to an end.

Athenian interests in the west and northeast in the mid-5th century BC, from Thourii to Amphipolis, growing hostility with Makedon, and the breakdown of the Thirty Years' Peace, including the Samian Revolt and the battles of Leukimme and Sybota.

The years 411 and 410 BC: the naval war shifting to the Hellespont, the Athenian democracy at Samos pressing on with victories at Kynossema and Kyzikos, radical democracy restored at Athens, and the switch from Thoukydides to Xenophon's Hellenika.

The years 423 to 421 BC: the succession struggle after Artaxerxes that ends with Dareios II, Brasidas' Thrakian and Makedonian campaign, Aristophanes' Wasps and Peace, and the deaths of Brasidas and Kleon at Amphipolis, culminating in the Peace of Nikias.

The years 413 and 412 BC: Athens responding to the Sicilian Disaster, devastation of Attic agriculture from Dekeleia, the end of the "friendship" between Athens and Persia, a Spartan navy and revolts among Athens' subject-allies, and treaties with Tissaphernes.

The years 430-429 BC: a failed Spartan invasion of Zakynthos, Phormio's naval victories at Rhion and Naupaktos, the Athenian debacle at Spartolos, the end of the Potidaia siege, the deaths of Perikles and Phormio, and a Thrakian invasion of Makedonia.

The Potidaia revolt and the Megarian embargo of 433/2 BC, which led Perikles to claim he could see war coming out of the Peloponnesos, the speeches on the eve of war, and both sides' resources and aims.

The Second Greco-Punic War, 410-406 BC: Hannibal Mago's two invasions of Sicily and the destruction of Selinus, Himera and Akragas, Hermocrates' rebellion, Dionysius rising as tyrant of Syracuse, and a ceasefire leaving Carthage and Syracuse strongest.

The final two years of the war, 405 and 404 BC: Aristophanes' Frogs, Lysandros rebuilding the Peloponnesian fleet and crushing the Athenians at Aigospotamoi, the blockade of Athens and the Peiraieus, and the surrender and peace terms.

The first year and a half of the war, 431-430 BC: the Theban sneak attack on Plataia that began it, Peloponnesian raids on Attika, Athenian naval raids, alliance with Odrysian Thrake, Perikles' funeral oration, and a deadly plague.

The historian Thoukydides, the Father of Scientific History, then Athenian politics under Perikles: his clash with the conservative Thoukydides, and the attacks on him and his associates Pheidias, Aspasia and Anaxagoras.

The years 428 and 427 BC: the introduction of Kleon and Nikias, the revolt of Mytilene on Lesbos from the Athenian empire, and a "prison-style breakout" from Plataia.

How Classical Athenian democracy worked in the mid-to-late 5th century BC: Perikles' role in its radicalization, the magistracies, the ekklesia, the boule and prytaneis, the law courts and jury system, contemporary critiques, and the liturgies that paid for it.

The years 454 to 446 BC: Athens behaving in an increasingly imperialistic way, and the final years of the First Peloponnesian War.

The years 461 to 454 BC, the early part of the First Peloponnesian War, which the episode also calls the Undeclared War.

Rebecca Futo Kennedy of Denison University on race, ethnicity, immigration and multiculturalism in the ancient Mediterranean, the misconceptions around them, and how early modern Fascism, Nationalism and White Supremacism shaped those misconceptions.

Owen Rees on the definition of a hoplite, cavalry and light infantry, and why the concept of an honorable western way of war that seeks its origins in Greek warfare is bogus and hyped up in modern ideology.

Orpheus and his Mysteries, the Orphic Hymns and Theogony, omens, divination and itinerant seers such as Teiresias, Mopsos and Kalchas, and the oracles at Delphi, in Boiotia, and at Didyma and Klaros.

Rhetoric as an art for the law courts and politics, the Sophists as lecturers traveling from city to city, the theories of Protagoras, Gorgias, Antiphon, Hippias, Prodicus and Thrasymachus, and synopses of four of Plato's dialogues.

Greek love and sexuality through pederasty, the theories of love in Plato's Symposion, nudity in art, female and male prostitutes and the evidence for their daily life, and famous hetairai such as Aspasia and Phryne.

Growing up in Athens from birth to adolescence: childbirth, childhood, the rites of passage on the way to the teenage years, Old and New paideia, and the training boys undertook to be accepted as hoplite citizen warriors.

Life for the elderly, the liminal stage between life and death, funeral and burial rituals, the archaeology of the Kerameikos, the demosion sema and epitaphios logos in Athenian democracy, and funerary monuments from archaic to Hellenistic.

The notion of the barbaroi in Greek culture, the origins of slavery and the philosophical theories for it, and the legal status, roles and importance of slaves and metics in the Athenian economy.

Amy Pistone, Visiting Professor of Classics at Notre Dame, on ancient Greek drinking culture with a side of sports, or how college students can relate to the ancient Greeks.

The myths, iconography and worship of Hekate, goddess of magic, crossroads, ghosts and necromancy, her links with Artemis, Selene, the Erinyes, Kirke and Medeia, and the monstrous craft of curse tablets, binding spells, potions and amulets.

Seventy-five minutes with Johanna Hanink on translating Thucydides' speeches for her 2019 book How to Think About War, and on the deeper meaning behind many of his speeches.

The myths, iconography and cultic worship of Aphrodite, goddess of beauty, love, sexual pleasure and procreation.

Healing and medicine in the Greek world: Asklepios and his Asklepieia, the earliest physicians including Hippokrates of Kos, the Hippokratic School and Corpus, and bacterial, viral and mental diseases and disabilities.

Denise McCoskey of Miami University on her book Race: Antiquity and Its Legacy, on the ways ancient cultures thought about race, and a little on why Classics handled the Black Athena controversy so poorly.

How Greeks traveled by land and sea, the port of Piraeus, silver mining at Thorikos and the striking of coins, farming and selling in the agora, Athenian workshops, and elite disdain for the merchant and manufacturing classes.

The myths, iconography and cultic worship of Hera, queen of the heavens and wife of Zeus, and guardian of women, marriage, childbirth and the family unit.

The importance of heroes in Greek myth and the monsters they often fought: Kadmos and the Ismenian Dragon, Perseus and Medousa, Bellerophon, Pegasos and the Chimaira, the Kentauromachia, the Kalydonian Boar Hunt, and Peirithoos and Theseus.

Sixty-four minutes moving from Mesopotamian and Egyptian skywatching into Greek astronomy, ending with Philolaus's Pythagorean model of the cosmos and the astronomical calculations of Oenopides and Meton.

Herakles, also known as Hercules: his iconography, early myths, twelve labors and later life, his worship as a pan-Hellenic divine hero, some of his cults, and his role as a founder of many Greek cities.

The context and themes of the surviving plays Euripides produced against the backdrop of the Peloponnesian War, from Children of Herakles and Hekabe to Trojan Women, Orestes and Iphigenia at Aulis, leaving out Bakkhai.

Fifth-century BC innovation in statuary in the round, stelai and architectural relief, from the Kritios Boy and Antenor's Tyrannicides to the Charioteer of Delphi, Myron's Diskobolos, the Doryphoros of Polykleitos and the Stele of Hegeso.

Hades, Lord of the Underworld, the Greek perception of the afterlife, necromancy, how one makes a katabasis, and Homer's underworld in Book Eleven of the Odyssey compared with Book Six of Virgil's Aeneid.

The Attic agricultural year month by month from sowing to sowing, with particular attention to the Thesmophoria and the Eleusinian Mysteries and a walking tour of Eleusis, plus a dozen or so other festivals, the Dionysian ones excluded.

Basic designs of Greek homes and the furniture, decoration and lighting that might be found in them, the gynakeion and andron, the pitfalls and benefits of urban Athens, Hestia in the oikos, and Athenian clothing and hairstyles.

Medical and philosophical writing on women's bodies, particularly the Hippokratic Corpus and Aristotle, on menstruation, pregnancy and the wandering womb, methods of conception, contraception, abortion and exposure, divorce procedure, and the punishment of adulterers.

Fifty-eight minutes with Donna Zuckerberg, editor of the online journal Eidolon, on her book Not All Dead White Men and the reception of Classics in Red Pill communities.

Greek musical instruments of the Classical Period, and the three 5th-century BC lyric poets who pioneered the epinikion, or victory ode, Simonides and Bacchylides of Keos and Pindar of Thebes, with the lesser known Korrina, Lasos and Timokreon.

The Phrygian goddess Kybele, her cult's arrival in Greece in the 6th century BC and influence on Dionysos, Agdistis and Attis, Dionysos and his companions, Euripides' The Bakkhai, and Dionysiac worship, particularly in Delphi, Boiotia and the Peloponnesos.

The myths, iconography and cultic worship of Hephaistos, god of fire, metallurgy and craftsmen, and Hermes, messenger god of cunning and deceit and protector of thieves, travelers, merchants, athletes and boundaries.

What is known of the earliest tragic poets before Aischylos, his theatrical innovations at the onset of the Classical Period, and the context and themes of his seven surviving plays, from Persians to the Oresteia trilogy.

The life, theatrical innovations and tragedies of Sophokles, the second great Athenian playwright, and the context and themes of his seven surviving plays, from Antigone and Ajax to Oidipous at Kolonos.

The life, theatrical innovations and tragedies of Euripides, the third great Athenian playwright, and the historicity and themes of his earliest surviving plays: Cyclops, Rhesus, Alcestis, Medea and Hippolytus.

Fifty-five minutes with Liz Gloyn of Royal Holloway, University of London, on her forthcoming book Tracking Classical Monsters in Popular Culture, from Ray Harryhausen's creations in Clash of the Titans to the afterlives of the Medusa and the Minotaur.

The Lenaia, the intricacies of Old Comedy, what is known of the earliest comedic poets, and Aristophanes, whose eleven surviving works effectively define the genre today.

Fifth-century BC painting on pottery, walls and wooden panels: vases by the Berlin Painter, Onesimos and the Niobid Painter, wall paintings by Polygnotos, Parrhasios and Zeuxis, the Tomb of the Diver, and the Pitsa Panels.

Zeus in myth, iconography and cult: Indo-European sky god, keeper of order and justice, rain-making agricultural deity, his Arkadian worship tied to werewolf transformation and human sacrifice, the oracles at Dodona and Siwa, and the philosophical Zeus.

The construction, history and significance of the Parthenon, Propylaia, Temple of Athena Nike and Erechtheion, buildings that glorified Athens and served as political propaganda, and that many later considered the symbol of Classical Greece.

Forty-nine minutes at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, where curator Phoebe Segal gives a one-on-one tour of the new Daily Life in Ancient Greece exhibit.

What different subgroups of Greeks ate each day, early cookbook authors, the economic, religious and medicinal role of wine, the Anthesteria that opened the previous autumn's wine jars, and the symposion with its discussion, music, flirting and kottabos.

Drama's origins in the Attic countryside, its relation to the cult of Dionysos, its introduction to Athens in the late 6th century BC, actors from Thespis onward, the Rural and City Dionysia, and drama's civic importance.

Fifth-century BC temple building outside Attika: Aphaia at Aigina, Zeus at Olympia, Hera II at Poseidonia, Victory at Himera, the Valley of the Temples at Akragas, the unfinished temple at Segesta, and Apollo at Bassai.

Part two of four: the so-called Pluralist School of Anaxagoras, Empedokles and Archelaos, other Pre-Socratic physiologoi or natural philosophers such as Hippon and Diogenes of Apollonia, and the medical theorist Alkmeon.

The two goddesses, Demeter and her daughter Persephone: myths, iconography, the abduction by Hades, Persephone's dual role as Queen of the Underworld and agriculture goddess, and their joint worship, particularly in the Peloponnesos and Magna Graecia.

A brief introduction to the podcast, covering who the host is, his motivation and what he hopes to achieve, followed by the geography of Greece (Hellas) and its natural resources.