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169 entries · 132 hours · 26 shows
Available content about Homer. Counts refer to the entries displayed on this page, not complete coverage of their life or reign.
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Start Here the whole story, front to back · 1
Anthony answers what the hype about the Iliad is and why Achilles is so mad, taking the poem book by book; all 20 episodes are here, 1 era, 14 hours.
Minoans and Mycenaeans c. 3000 - 1100 BC · 148
Part of Literature and History
As Homer's Odyssey, Books 17 through 24, reaches the violent climax of Odysseus' great adventures, the episode turns to consider Homer's worldview.
Homer's Iliad, covering Books 1 to 8, is called the Tyrannosaurus Rex of ancient epics, with one glittering, shiny bronze metal at the core of its 24 books.
The most famous part of Homer's Odyssey, Books 9 through 16, follows Odysseus through perilous adventures and begins to reveal a sense of who he is.
The violent and spellbinding middle books of Homer's Iliad, Books 9 through 16, leave the listener with questions about Homer's theology, in this episode of Literature and History.
Adventure, monsters, temptresses, and a whole lot of wine-dark Aegean: Homer's Odyssey, Books 1 through 8, and an introduction to the world of the poem, in this episode of Literature and History.
As Homer's Iliad, Books 17 through 24, reaches its spectacular climax, the episode asks a big question: who wrote it?
Part of Professor Kozlowski Lectures
Professor Kozlowski contextualizes Homer against the Cycladic, Minoan and Mycenaean cultures, tracing Greek history through the Bronze Age Collapse and Dark Age to the beginning of the Classical era.
Part of Let's Talk About Myths, Baby! | Greek Mythology & the Ancient Mediterranean
Liv reads Books 8 and 9 of Homer's Odyssey in Ian Johnston's modern translation, where Odysseus's story finally begins as he starts narrating his adventures.
Liv continues reading Homer's Odyssey, Books 16 and 17, as Telemachus returns to Ithaca and reunites with his father Odysseus.
Liv opens a new audiobook-style reading of Homer's Odyssey in Ian Johnston's modern translation, kicking off what she calls a never-ending Odyssey with Books 1 and 2.
Liv continues her audiobook-style reading of Homer's Odyssey in Ian Johnston's modern translation, moving into Book 4 as another reading of an ancient source.
Liv continues reading Homer's Odyssey, Books 12 and 13, as Odysseus escapes Scylla and Charybdis twice before finally reaching Ithaca.
Part of Have Toga, Will Travel: Exploring Greece and Rome, Ancient and Modern
Before Christopher Nolan's film, Emily and Cam break down Homer's Odyssey, questioning Odysseus's reliability as a narrator and examining Penelope's own craftiness throughout the poem.
Part of New Books in Ancient History
With Michael B. Cosmopoulos
Michael B. Cosmopoulos's The World of Homer (Cambridge UP, 2025) reconstructs the world behind the Iliad and the Odyssey using archaeology, philology, anthropology and oral tradition.
Liv reads Book 22 of Homer's Odyssey in Ian Johnston's modern translation, an entire book that amounts to a massacre after Odysseus finally comes home.
Liv continues her audiobook-style reading of Homer's Odyssey in Ian Johnston's modern translation, moving through Books 6 and 7 as another reading of an ancient source.
Part of Ad Navseam
With Joe Goodkin
Joe Goodkin, a Classics major from the University of Wisconsin turned Chicago musician, performs his own sung interpretations of Homer's Odyssey and Iliad on the show.
Liv reads Book 10 of Homer's Odyssey in Ian Johnston's modern translation, welcoming listeners to Aiaia for a chapter of winds, giants, and witches.
Liv closes her audiobook-style reading of Homer's Odyssey in Ian Johnston's translation, with dramatic reunions of the living and the dead, more unnecessary lies, and a tidy final bow in Books 23 and 24.
Part of The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast
With Emily Wilson
Homer's Odyssey continues with translator Emily Wilson, examining the oikos or estate built on violence, its link to xenia or hospitality that forges military alliances, plus status distinctions and the role of the gods.
Liv continues reading Homer's Odyssey, Book 11, as Odysseus journeys to the realm of the dead.
Liv continues reading Homer's Odyssey, Book 19, as Odysseus and Penelope finally speak together before the story's climax.
Part of Ancient Warfare Podcast
The team discusses magazine issue X.3, Warfare in the Age of Homer, on how the Trojan War stood to Greeks and Romans as the beginning of all warfare and the standard for expected male behaviour.
Athena, disguised as Mentor, wants the punishment of the suitors and disloyal staff, raising hard questions about the deaths of Leodes and the executed maids.
Liv continues reading Homer's Odyssey, Books 20 and 21, as Odysseus and Penelope's household moves toward its climax.
Liv continues reading Homer's Odyssey, Book 14, as Odysseus returns to Ithaca and begins telling more lies.
Penelope wins her battle of wits over their bed as the suitors are sent to Hades, where Agamemnon jeers, while Odysseus tests his old father with one more false identity.
In the underworld Odysseus meets Epicaste, Antiope and Alcmene, then hears Agamemnon's grim homecoming tale, finds a silent Ajax Telamon, and sees Sisyphus, the original rock-n-roller, eternally doomed.
Part of Young Heretics
With a Ralph Fiennes Odysseus movie announced, the show finally returns to Homer, beginning today the whole story of the Homeric epics that it wanted to tell since episode one.
Part of Instant Classics
With Jonty Claypole
Jonty Claypole joins Mary and Charlotte to trace how George Chapman's 1590s translations of Homer influenced Shakespeare, and how the Odyssey later shaped novels by Daniel Defoe and Jonathan Swift.
Part of Ancient Greece Declassified
Classicist Mary Bachvarova, author of From Hittite to Homer, discusses whether Homer was influenced by civilizations east of Greece, and the potential direct and indirect influences of the Hittites on the Greek epic tradition.
Part of Spirits: Mythology, Legends, & Folklore
With Lexie Henning
Scholar and podcaster Lexie Henning joins the hosts to discuss Homer and The Iliad, from traveling bards and days-long performances to a 10 year war.
Liv continues reading Homer's Odyssey, Book 15, as Telemachus prepares to return home from his travels with divine help.
Part of Combat and Classics Podcast
With Scott Hambrick
Brian is joined by guest Scott Hambrick, founder of Online Great Books, to discuss the questions about war raised in Book 6 of Homer's Iliad, and Brian will teach a seminar through Scott's website starting in January.
Odysseus survives Scylla and Charybdis, the Sirens and his men's fatal hankering for a decent steak on the island of Helios, before Athena sends him to Eumaeus's hut on Ithaca.
Liv continues her audiobook-style reading of Homer's Odyssey in Ian Johnston's modern translation, moving into Book 3 as another reading of an ancient source.
Odysseus clocks the mouthy Irus in a bum fight, then Penelope overshares with the stranger, Eurykleia shrieks at a telling scar, and a geesey dream puts his wife in the driver's seat.
Telemachus finally reunites with Odysseus at the hut of the swineherd Eumaeus, complete with bird omens and Odysseus dodging stool legs while disguised as a beggar.
Book XVI of the Iliad, read in Samuel Butler's prose translation, follows Patroclus entering battle wearing Achilles's own armour, a bonus, non-narrative reading of Homer.
Liv continues reading Homer's Odyssey, Book 18, as the disguised Odysseus returns to a palace in crisis.
Part of Lesche: Ancient Greece, New Ideas · Johanna Hanink talks with fellow Hellenists about their latest work
With Emily Hauser
Part of 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.
Euripides staged the Cyclops as a satyr play in the 5th century BCE, and Apollonius of Rhodes drew on the Odyssey's scope for the Argonautica, the tale of Jason and the Golden Fleece.
Emily Hauser's Penelope's Bones (Univ of Chicago Press, 2025) uses archaeology and science to recover the lives of Bronze Age women standing behind Helen, Briseis, Cassandra and Circe.
With Michelle M. Kundmueller
Michelle Kundmueller's Homer's Hero (SUNY Press, 2019) reads the Iliad's love of honor against the Odyssey's longing for home, tracing both through Plato's Republic.
Part of The Ancients
With Daisy Dunn
The Iliad and the Odyssey are two of the world's most famous poems, preserved for almost 3 millennia; Tristan and Daisy Dunn dissect the works and legacy of their author, Homer, from the Trojan War to Ionic and Aeolic Greeks.
After the Cyclops, Odysseus receives the winds from Aeolus then decides on nap time without telling his crew, survives the cannibal Laestrygonians, and reaches Circe's island of Aeaea with help from Hermes.
Part of Ad Navseam · Two classicists in lively discussion; only the Greek episodes are indexed
Harvard's Gregory Nagy and Brandeis' Leonard Muellner, both of the Center for Hellenic Studies, trace what anthropology reveals about the origins of humanity's oldest epic stories and the undying fascination with heroes.
Princeton's Andrew Ford discusses what vision of the world Homer's Iliad offers its audience and what specifically makes the poem an epic.
Liv reads Homer's Iliad Book V in Samuel Butler's prose translation, in which Diomedes runs rampant on the battlefield through this bonus reading episode.
Part of Let's Talk About Myths, Baby! | Greek Mythology & the Ancient Mediterranean · Liv Albert on Greek myths and the wider ancient Mediterranean, told casually and with sarcasm; only the Greek episodes are indexed
Telemachus leaves Ithaca for the Peloponnese, visiting Nestor before reaching Sparta, where Menelaus and Helen give conflicting versions of the Trojan Horse story.
Book XI of the Iliad, read in Samuel Butler's prose translation, follows Achilles sending Patroclus to find out what has been going on in the war.
Book XIII of the Iliad, read in Samuel Butler's prose translation, has a prophet warning Hector about Achilles in this bonus, non-narrative reading of Homer.
Book XXIII of the Iliad, read in Samuel Butler's prose translation, follows the ghost of Patroclus visiting Achilles, a bonus, non-narrative reading of Homer.
With Richard Martin
Mythology expert Richard Martin on why the Odyssey has been considered great storytelling across millennia: episodes inherited from an oral tradition reaching back into the Bronze Age, woven together and ordered for maximum effect.
Zeus sends Hermes to free Odysseus from Calypso after seven years, and Odysseus and Nausicaa have a go at jarts while Demodocus plucks the hottest hits of the Mycenaean Era.
Book XXIV of the Iliad, read in Samuel Butler's prose translation, follows Zeus forcing Achilles to return the body of Hector, a bonus, non-narrative reading of Homer.
Book IV of the Odyssey, read in Samuel Butler's prose translation, follows Telemachus visiting Sparta for news from Menelaus, a bonus, non-narrative reading of Homer.
Homer's Odyssey, an epic poem from around 750 BC, is discussed with translator Emily Wilson, whose eighty-page introduction frames hospitality as a political tool while the episode asks whether that story teaches anything about ethics.
The Odyssey opens with Penelope and Telemachus besieged on Ithaca by greedy suitors, and the poem's first word, andra, might be a guidestone for its deeper themes.
The tour through Homer's Iliad ends with death on all sides as Patroclus and Hector die, with the guys weighing the aesthetics of greaves, shields and the so-called Superman paradox.
Book XVII of the Iliad, read in Samuel Butler's prose translation, covers the fight over the body of Patroclus in this bonus, non-narrative reading of Homer.
Liv continues her audiobook-style reading of Homer's Odyssey in Ian Johnston's modern translation, entering Book 5 and introducing what the show calls a less than heroic Hero.
Part of Ascend - The Great Books Podcast
Deacon Harrison Garlick and Adam Minihan ask who Homer was and whether he really wrote the Iliad and the Odyssey, noting that Troy is said to have fallen in 1184 B.C..
Book XV of the Iliad, read in Samuel Butler's prose translation, follows Zeus sending Apollo to help the Trojans in this bonus, non-narrative reading of Homer.
Honor lost and honor defended frame Book 9 of Homer's Iliad, where Achilles spends the book glamping in his tent.
Part of The Homeric Epic Podcast
The introductory episode of the Homeric Epic Podcast, where Anthony lays out the goals of the podcast, its scope, and background on the Homeric epics.
Part 1 of the journey through Homer's Iliad brings Achilles, Agamemnon, Briseis, Chryseis, Diomedes and a face that launched a thousand ships.
This new series on translation opens by picking apart the first line of Homer's Iliad, using one short sentence to explore how translation works and what challenges it raises.
Part of Expanding Eyes: A Visionary Education · Lectures on literature and mythology; only the Greek lectures are indexed
Book XIX of the Odyssey, read in Samuel Butler's prose translation, follows Odysseus finally speaking with Penelope while spinning even more detailed lies about his identity.
Part of Expanding Eyes: A Visionary Education
Homer's Iliad still carries the rich characterization and the themes of anger, revenge and justice; among its mysteries are whether there was a Homer, whether there was a Trojan War, and the real Troy, excavated by Heinrich Schliemann.
Telemachus searches for his own identity in relation to his unknown parent in book 1 of the Odyssey, a timeless human dilemma set within the poem's complex structure.
Liv reads Homer's Iliad Book I in Samuel Butler's prose translation, opening mid-story as a priest arrives to ask the Greeks to return his captive daughter.
Liv reads Homer's Iliad Book IX in Samuel Butler's prose translation, a bonus episode in which Agamemnon tries to make amends with Achilles.
Book XI of the Odyssey, read in Samuel Butler's prose translation, follows Odysseus traveling to the Underworld to visit with the dead.
Part of The Greek Myth Files
R. Scott Smith works through the Homeric Question, asking whether Homer existed, whether oral poets could sustain a story that takes about a day to narrate, and whether writing was necessary for the Iliad's coherent structure.
A brief recap of the first six episodes of the wanderings in Homer's Odyssey, including the Kikones, the Lotus Eaters, the Cyclops, Aeolus, the Lestrygonians and Circe, before the descent to Hades and meetings with Tiresias and Agamemnon.
Emily and Cam review The Return, starring Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche and directed by Uberto Pasolini, for how it adapts Homer's Odyssey into a modern interpretation.
Anthony answers listener questions and discusses how Homer is foundational to the western notion of literature, the attitude of women in Homer to their unfortunate fates, and Albert Lord's The Singer of Tales.
Book XXI of the Iliad, read in Samuel Butler's prose translation, follows Achilles fighting the corpse-filled river Xanthus, a bonus, non-narrative reading of Homer.
Hector is dead, and Achilles mourns Patroclus by organizing funeral games with chariot and foot races, boxing and wrestling; the Argives compete, and the hosts ask why Homer's description of the chariot race takes up half the book.
Part of Combat and Classics Podcast · Seminars for military members on the great books; the Greek texts are indexed
Book IX of the Odyssey, read in Samuel Butler's prose translation, follows Odysseus telling of his men's arrival on the island of the Cyclopes.
Book XVII of the Odyssey, read in Samuel Butler's prose translation, follows Telemachus returning to Penelope before Odysseus and Eumaeus reach the palace and its suitors.
In the last book of the Iliad, Apollo intervenes after Achilles tries to disfigure Hector's body, and the gods help Priam retrieve his son from Achilles' tent; the hosts weigh whether the ending is decline or tragic insight.
Apollo disguises himself as Agenor to lure Achilles from Troy, then Athena tricks Hector into facing him; Achilles kills Hector and drags his corpse behind his chariot, raising the question of why Hector chose to fight.
Paris and Menelaus duel over Helen and the fate of Troy, and Menelaus wins, so the hosts ask why the war does not end there and who is the better leader among Priam, Agamemnon and Hector.
Book X of the Iliad, read in Samuel Butler's prose translation, follows Diomedes and Odysseus terrorizing the Thracians, part of a bonus, non-narrative reading of Homer.
Book XXII of the Iliad, read in Samuel Butler's prose translation, follows Achilles and Hector fighting before the walls of Troy, a bonus, non-narrative reading of Homer.
Book X of the Odyssey, read in Samuel Butler's prose translation, covers the winds, the Laestrygonians, and the witch Circe, a bonus, non-narrative reading of Homer.
Book XV of the Odyssey, read in Samuel Butler's prose translation, follows Telemachus leaving Sparta for Ithaca while Odysseus talks further with the swineherd Eumaeus.
This bonus reading covers Book XXIV, the final book of Homer's Odyssey in Samuel Butler's prose translation, ending with Odysseus reuniting with his father and a scuffle against the suitors' family.
Achilles gets new armor from his mother and rejoins the battle, facing Aeneas and Hector as Zeus tells the gods to take sides; the hosts ask why the combat with Aeneas is the centerpiece of the book.
This bonus reading of the Homeric Hymn to Demeter tells of Hades, called Aidoneus here, kidnapping Persephone and of Demeter's search for her daughter, translated by Hugh Evelyn-White.
Liv reads the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite, translated by HG Evelyn-White: the Cytherean goddess's encounter with the mortal Anchises and the conception of the Trojan prince Aeneas.
Agamemnon wakes in the night and convenes a war planning committee, Nestor calls for spies, Diomedes and Odysseus volunteer, and on the Trojan side Dolon volunteers; the hosts ask whether the goal of war is to kill or to defeat.
Helenus tells Hector to send the women to sacrifice to Athena after the Trojans are beaten badly, and Hector visits his wife and newborn son; Diomedes and Glaucus exchange armor and agree a personal truce.
Liv reads Homer's Iliad Book VIII in Samuel Butler's prose translation, a bonus episode framed simply as gods versus humans, drama, drama, drama.
Book XX of the Iliad, read in Samuel Butler's prose translation, follows Achilles punishing the Trojans for the death of Patroclus, a bonus, non-narrative reading of Homer.
This bonus reading of the Homeric Hymn to Hermes retells his birth and the plentiful adventures of his newborn days, translated by Hugh Evelyn-White.
Book XIV of the Odyssey, read in Samuel Butler's prose translation, follows a disguised Odysseus weaving an intricate story for his own swineherd, Eumaeus.
Achilles kills so many Trojans that the river Scamander protests, so Achilles fights the river and nearly dies while the gods war among themselves; the hosts ask whether Zeus enjoys the suffering of the gods.
Achilles is crushed by the death of Patroclus, and Thetis helps him revenge himself on Hector by asking Hephaestus for new armor; the hosts ask whether the famous shield conceals the world of the dead.
The Trojans push the Greeks back to their ships, so Agamemnon and Menelaus send an embassy begging Achilles to rejoin the fight, and it fails; the hosts ask how Achilles wants to be remembered.
Following Prof. Richard Whitaker, the guys weigh three Odyssey translations by Anthony Verity, Emily Wilson and Peter Green, and ask whether Wilson's, the basis for Nolan's film, has sufficient gravitas.
Book XII of the Iliad, read in Samuel Butler's prose translation, covers the Trojans attacking the Greek camps in this bonus, non-narrative reading of Homer.
Book XIV of the Iliad, read in Samuel Butler's prose translation, follows Hera pulling one over on Zeus in an attempt to help the Greeks.
Patroclus is dead, and the Greeks and Trojans fight over his body across a whole book; the hosts explore the image of the stretched bullhide and ask whether Patroclus is his body or something different.
Book V of the Odyssey, read in Samuel Butler's prose translation, follows Calypso, on orders from Zeus, finally allowing Odysseus to leave Ogygia.
Book XII of the Odyssey, read in Samuel Butler's prose translation, follows Odysseus and his crew facing the Sirens, Scylla, Charybdis, and the cattle of Helios.
Book XVI of the Odyssey, read in Samuel Butler's prose translation, follows Telemachus returning to Ithaca for a reunion with his father while the suitors plot.
Book XXII of the Odyssey, read in Samuel Butler's prose translation, covers the deaths of the suitors at the hands of Odysseus, Telemachus, and Eumaeus.
Liv reads Homer's Iliad Book IV in Samuel Butler's prose translation, in which Hera influences Zeus to act against the Trojans.
Liv reads Homer's Iliad Book VI in Samuel Butler's prose translation, a bonus episode in which Hector rallies the Trojans.
Book III of the Odyssey, read in Samuel Butler's prose translation, follows Telemachus traveling to Pylos for news of Odysseus from Nestor, a bonus, non-narrative reading of Homer.
Zeus wakes and gives a spoiler of the rest of the Iliad then sets his will in motion, and Apollo fills Hector with chutzpah to lead the Trojans among the Greek ships; the hosts ask about the smile of Zeus.
Book XIII of the Odyssey, read in Samuel Butler's prose translation, follows Odysseus finally reaching the shores of Ithaca, a bonus, non-narrative reading of Homer.
Book XVIII of the Odyssey, read in Samuel Butler's prose translation, follows a still-disguised Odysseus stirring trouble among the suitors of Penelope.
Book XXI of the Odyssey, read in Samuel Butler's prose translation, poses the question of who can string that fabled bow, a bonus, non-narrative reading of Homer.
The hosts wonder what is on the minds of both sides of the conflict and ask whether military prowess gives other virtues, using the example of sports to ask who should command the Greek army.
The gods assemble on Mount Olympus after the Trojans defeat the Greeks, who build defensive fortifications for the first time in the nine year war, and Zeus gives a speech warning the other gods about going against his will.
Diomedes stabs Ares himself in Book 5, and the hosts ask what it means for men and gods to fight one another, wondering whether the Homeric gods are really not radically different from human beings.
Liv reads Homer's Iliad Book VII in Samuel Butler's prose translation, a bonus episode built around the duel fought between Hector and Ajax.
With Gregory Nagy
The Iliad is among the oldest surviving works of literature and went unwritten for a long time; Homer is credited with it, though many storytellers, a lot of them women, more likely composed it.
Shilo, Jeff and Brian continue reading Homer's Iliad and ask why Book 12, the midpoint of the story, is so short, and why the book is so full of similes about war and the natural world.
The hosts trace the hierarchy of Greek heroes on the battlefield and ask who counts as the good guys and the bad guys, while Achilles sends Patroclus to learn who a wounded Greek soldier is.
Book XIX of the Iliad, read in Samuel Butler's prose translation, follows Achilles stewing in grief and anger, a bonus, non-narrative reading of Homer.
Book I of the Odyssey, read in Samuel Butler's prose translation, opens 20 years into Odysseus's absence as Telemachus complains about Penelope's suitors.
Book II of the Odyssey, read in Samuel Butler's prose translation, follows Telemachus gathering together a counsel, a bonus, non-narrative reading of Homer.
Book XX of the Odyssey, read in Samuel Butler's prose translation, follows tension rising between the disguised Odysseus and the suitors of Penelope.
Poseidon interferes with the will of Zeus after Hera seduces him with a sexy belt, while the battle between the Greeks and Achaeans escalates; the hosts return to the question of who should be in charge.
Nine Greeks volunteer to duel Hector and Ajax wins the lottery; Ajax seems to be winning, but the fighters make a truce and take a day to bury the dead. The hosts ask who the Greeks are without Achilles.
The hosts begin their journey through Homer's Iliad, described as humanity's longest surviving poem on war, asking why human rage makes a good subject for a war poem, and the wrath of gods does not.
Answering a substack chat question, Anthony discusses whether the seduction of Zeus scene is an interpolation to Homer, horses in the Iliad, and his thoughts on the trailer for Christopher Nolan's Odyssey.
Book XXIII of the Odyssey, read in Samuel Butler's prose translation, follows Penelope and Odysseus reuniting at last, a bonus, non-narrative reading of Homer.
Liv reads Homer's Iliad Book III in Samuel Butler's prose translation, covering Paris's offer to fight Menelaus one on one.
Agamemnon gets a dream from Zeus telling him to test his troops before Troy, while the Trojans hear from a disguised messenger; the hosts ask whether Agamemnon is crazy or has a plan after nine years of war.
Book VII of the Odyssey, read in Samuel Butler's prose translation, follows Odysseus meeting Alcinous and Arete, king and queen of the Phaeacians.
Book VI of the Odyssey, read in Samuel Butler's prose translation, follows Odysseus arriving on Scheria and encountering Nausicaa, princess of the Phaeacians.
Part of New Books in Ancient History · Scholars on their new books, interviewed by a peer; only the Greek episodes are indexed
Part of Triumvir Clio's School of Classical Civilization
Before the Iliad read-through begins, this episode lays out background on Homer and his epics, the information the host calls useful for what follows.
Book 2 of the Iliad picks up after Agamemnon and Achilles quarrel, as Homer catalogues everyone involved in the war on both sides.
Dark Age and Archaic Greece 1100 - 480 BC · 2
Part of Ancient Greece: Myth, Art, War
Dr Gillian Shepherd surveys Dark Age Greece after the Mycenaean collapse around 1200 BC, from finds at Lefkandi and 9th century burials in Athens to the alphabet borrowed from the Phoenicians in the 8th century BC.
Part of The History of Ancient Greece
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.
Classical Athens and Sparta 479 - 386 BC · 1
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.
The Hellenistic Age 323 - 31 BC · 1
Part of The Hellenistic Age Podcast
After Menander I Soter the Indo-Greeks decline over 150 years as Indo-Scythians seize the Punjab and the last king disappears by 10 AD, though evidence points to Hellenistic culture surviving nearly five centuries after Alexander.
Greek Life, Thought and the Wider World across the centuries · 16
A roundtable of friends wraps up Ascend's exploration of the Greek plays, from the Oresteia and Prometheus Bound to the Theban plays and the Bacchae, tracing themes of divinity, fate, and justice.
With Bettina Joy De Guzman
Conversations: musician and teacher Bettina Joy De Guzman joins Liv to discuss ancient instruments, music, and singing the songs of Greek myths and stories.
Translator Emily Wilson discusses her new book on translating Homer and the many choices involved in rendering his epics today.
With Joel P. Christensen
Joel Christensen discusses the oral storytelling tradition behind the Iliad and Odyssey and current theories on its ancient origins.
Modern Homeric bard Joe Goodkin joins Liv to discuss his musical works Joe's Odyssey and the Blues of Achilles alongside the field of Classics.
Demeter gives the infant Demophoon nightly fire purgations for his mortality, is caught in the act, and decides to set up a cult at Eleusis, while Persphone must beware the pomegranate.
Part of The History of Ancient Greece · The long chronological run, from the Stone Age forward
This archaic hymn to Demeter, running four hundred ninety-five lines, may serve mystery-cult ritual, and gets compared here to the cults of Mithras and Dionysus.
Part of Greek Mythology Retold
With Eirene Allen
Classicist Dr. Eirene Allen discusses her book The Epic Women of Homer and the forms of power Homer gives women including Penelope, Helen, Andromache and Briseis: have modern readers simply overlooked how they wield it?
Part of Lesche: Ancient Greece, New Ideas
With Mirjam E. Kotwick
Mirjam Kotwick, Associate Professor of Classics at Princeton University, discusses her new book The Ancient Interpretation of Dreams, tracing early Greek hermeneutics from Homer's dream scenes to Aristotle's writings on divination in sleep.
Liv reads the remaining, shorter Homeric Hymns to gods and heroes, including Aphrodite, Dionysus, Pan, Hermes, Hestia, Athena, Artemis, and the mother of all gods.
Part of Epic Greek History
The episode argues Homer held a status in Greek literature comparable to a nation's foundational book, tracing his enormous and long-lasting influence on both Greek and Roman culture.
Chris asks how much Homer can be trusted, and whether there are good corroborating accounts that verify or contextualise what he wrote.
This chapter retells Demeter and Persephone's story, a stretch in which Pseudo-Apollodorus manages, the episode notes, to stay on topic.