TROJAN WAR: THE PODCAST

This hundred-minute finale has Odysseus confront Priam and Menelaus confront Helen on the night Troy burns, closing a twenty-episode arc that began with the apple of discord.

Sixty-five minutes of story open on Homer's invocation of the Muse before Achilles learns of Patroclus' death at Hector's hands, then twenty-five minutes of commentary follow the psyche's journey to the gates of Hades.

Sixty minutes of story carry Odysseus from decoding a prophecy to building the wooden horse, then twenty minutes of commentary weigh a hide-covered battering ram against an earthquake that felled Troy 6 around 1250 BCE.

Fifty-three minutes of story land Agamemnon's hundred-thousand-strong army on the Trojan beach, then thirty minutes of commentary contrast armored warlord heroes like Achilles with the poorly provisioned foot soldiers who made up most of that force.

Fifty-seven minutes of story in which temptation plays the lead, as Agamemnon tempts Achilles, Hera tempts Zeus and Patroclus tempts Deadly Destiny, then twenty minutes of commentary on whether Achilles and Patroclus were lovers.

Fifty-six minutes of story on Athena imbuing the Greek warlord Diomedes with godlike powers of combat, then seventeen minutes of commentary on whether war can be both terrible and glorious in Homer's Iliad.

Fifty-nine minutes of story follow Priam's scheme to have Achilles killed, then fifteen minutes of commentary cite Barry Strauss's 2006 book The Trojan War: A New History to argue a poisoned heel wound could really have been fatal.

Fifty minutes of story cover a dispute over honour that leads to a leadership shift in the Greek army, then twenty minutes of commentary retell how Paris's abandoned wife Oenone refuses to heal the wound that kills him.

A queen's terrifying nightmare, priests who discern what it means and a king faced with a soul-wrenching dilemma, then sixteen minutes of commentary on the role of Fate in the Trojan War epic.

Fifty minutes of story on the griefs of Achilles and King Priam until Zeus and Deadly Destiny unite them under one tent, then nineteen minutes of commentary on why Homer ends the Iliad with the funeral of Hector.

Forty-nine minutes of story track Odysseus hunting for Achilles on Skyros, then fifteen minutes of commentary count twenty-seven operas built on that same episode during one especially fashionable century.

Thirty-seven minutes of story carry Helen from Sparta to Troy, then twenty-six minutes of commentary weigh five competing explanations for her choice, from femme fatale to pawn of the gods.

Forty-three minutes of story send Palamedes to track down the vanished Odysseus, then seventeen minutes of commentary turn to Greek raiding ships and the Trojans who built no navy of their own.

Forty-six minutes of story cover a priest of Apollo whose request Agamemnon refuses, then sixteen minutes of commentary set out the unitarian and separatist arguments over whether one Homer composed the Iliad around 700 BCE.

Forty-five minutes of story confront Agamemnon with the sacrifice of his daughter at Aulis, then sixteen minutes of commentary compare how Aeschylus in 458 BCE and Euripides in 405 BCE reshaped the same sacrifice into their own plays.

Thirty-eight minutes of story on a miraculous child who survives an angry demi-god, an icy immersion in a magic river and a deadly snake, then sixteen minutes of commentary on the popularity of Achilles stories.

The fifty-three-minute opener has an uninvited guest crash a wedding hosted by Zeus and hand over an unwelcome gift, setting the whole Trojan War epic in motion.

Thirty minutes of story on Hermes locating a judge for a beauty contest between three vain and vindictive goddesses, then fourteen minutes of commentary on timeline inconsistencies and Rubens' The Judgment of Paris.

Thirty minutes of story cover Paris settling into Troy and his road trip to Sparta, then fourteen minutes of commentary trace the cliff-throwing stories about Spartan infanticide back to Plutarch, writing five centuries after the events he describes.