Ancient History Fangirl

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Angela J. Ford is the author of over 30 books, mostly steamy fantasy romance and romantic thrillers. Like Jenny, she fell in love with the Phantom of the Opera at an early age. And she wrote a romance novel inspired by that story--with the mysterious Phantom as the hero.

Join us as we discuss Angela's Phantom-inspired novel, Music of the Night, and what makes a certain Opera Ghost so sexy.

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With the 2024 Olympics beginning any day now, you’re probably (if you’re a nerd like us) asking yourself one question: what would it have been like to attend a day at the world’s first Olympic Games?

The Games in ancient times were not like they are today. The punishment for cheating was being whipped before a screaming crowd, Opening Ceremonies involved making sacrifices at a thousand-year-old primordial mound of gelatinous flesh and bone—and women were not allowed to attend. On pain of death.

What would YOU risk to watch the Olympic Games? Come join us for a day at the ancient-world Olympics—from the perspective of someone who risked death to watch.

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Sav R. Miller is a USA-Today bestselling author of steamy dark romances often inspired by Greek mythology, including the Monsters and Muses series and the upcoming Monsters Within. Her romances are often contemporary, and frequently delve into the dark and steamy side of the underworld, the mafia, and the criminal element.

Join us as we discuss why we’re so intrigued by the dark side of romance—and what is it about morally grey villain-heroes that has us weak at the knees.

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This episode is brought to you by Happy Mammoth. For a limited time, you can get 15% off on your entire first order at happymammoth.com with the code FANGIRL at checkout.

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Hera is one of the most unsympathetic goddesses in Greek mythology. Trapped in a toxic marriage with the King of the Gods, her vast power relegated only to wives and marriage, she often takes her fury at Zeus’s infidelities out on his victims and their children. But is there more to Hera’s story than tragically misplaced vengeance?

Today, we discuss this complicated, fascinating goddess with bestselling author Jennifer Saint—and uncover the hidden and surprising complexities that make this goddess more than what she seems.

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This episode is brought to you by Happy Mammoth. For a limited time, you can get 15% off on your entire first order at happymammoth.com with the code FANGIRL at checkout.

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Introducing History Daily, a podcast that tells the fascinating stories of what happened “on this day” in history, with host Lindsay Graham.

The episode we chose to release tells the fascinating story of China’s Terracotta Army—an entire army of 8,000 terracotta soldiers, each one unique and human sized, along with horses, weapons, chariots and more, dating from the 200s BC.

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This episode is brought to you by Happy Mammoth. For a limited time, you can get 15% off on your entire first order at happymammoth.com with the code FANGIRL at checkout.

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In our last episode, we discussed the Lighthouse of Alexandria during its early years--the Ptolemaic and Roman eras. In this episode, we'll take a look at its later history--during the Islamic era, which is where many of our most detailed descriptions--and fantastical legends about the lighthouse--date from.

The Lighthouse of Alexandria cast a long shadow. It's the shadow of the Dark Pharos, which lives in all of us. Join us as we discuss the real and the fantastical, try to sort out which is which, and explore how the lighthouse finally died--and was brought back to life in modern times.

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This week, we teamed up with the dynamic duo of Donna Herren and Bree Bridges--writing under the bestselling pseudonym of Kit Rocha. They're best known for gritty dystopian romances featuring queer relationships, why choose sexiness, badass mercenary heroines, and an extra dash of kinkiness.

Join us for a fun and fierce conversation where we discuss nontraditional publishing, queer and poly romance, tropes we love, and what rules are made to be broken. Kit Rocha's most recent romantasy, Consort of Fire, is out now--featuring the incendiary combo of sexy bisexual dragons and lady assassins.

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This episode is brought to you by Happy Mammoth. For a limited time, you can get 15% off on your entire first order at happymammoth.com with the code FANGIRL at checkout.

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The Lighthouse of Alexandria became iconic in both the ancient and medieval worlds. People began to call it ‘The Pharos,” after the island it stood on. It changed drastically over the years—and so has what it represented.

It was built during the reign of the Ptolemies in Egypt, and stood for about 1,600 years. In that time it came to represent a beacon of light and learning. But it also represented other, darker things. And looking back at it today—trying to glean its picture—is like looking through a clouded mirror.

Join us as we try to unpack the mystery of the Lighthouse of Alexandria.

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This episode is brought to you by Happy Mammoth. For a limited time, you can get 15% off on your entire first order at happymammoth.com with the code FANGIRL at checkout.

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We're re-releasing this episode because it mentions a Seven Wonder that appears in our next brand new episode!

When Cleopatra met Julius Caesar, sparks flew. The daring Egyptian queen beguiled the conquering Roman general—and then enlisted him to fight her battles.

Outnumbered five to one in a city full of ancient wonders, Cleopatra and Caesar spent the next ten months barricaded in a luxurious palace while outside, the enemy howled for their blood--fighting a deadly urban war for Cleopatra's throne and both of their survival.

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In our last episode, we took you on a tour of the Great Pyramid of Giza: perhaps the greatest of all the Wonders of the Ancient World, and the only one that still exists today. We explored the outside of the Pyramid, the inside of the pyramid, we poked into all the nooks and crannies, and we explored all its secrets.

But we left one secret out—and that is the one we are going to discuss today: how was the pyramid built? And who were the people who built it?

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Carved from the very living bedrock of the Giza plateau, the Sphinx is shrouded in mystery. Archaeologists believe it’s about 4,500 years old. But there’s a fringe theory—the Sphinx Water Erosion Theory—that suggests it’s much, much older.

Join us as we explore this wild theory that completely explodes the prevailing wisdom, and asserts that the Sphinx is in fact 10,000 years old—or maybe even more.

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The list of Seven Wonders of the Ancient World has changed over the centuries. But there’s one item that’s almost always included—and when it’s not, the list-maker has to make it the honorary eighth wonder. Because leaving it out is so egregious.

This is the oldest and largest of the Seven Wonders, the only one to survive into modern times, and it is the mother, the daddy, the true parental unit of all wonders: The Great Pyramid of Giza. 

The Great Pyramid truly is a wonder. It’s an absolute masterpiece of human ingenuity, engineering, and sheer determination. And today, we’re going to get up close and personal with it. Join us!

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It’s our inaugural episode of AHFG Book Club, and we are so thrilled to feature Sunday Times bestselling author Elizabeth May! Join us for a wild conversation where we talk about our favorite tropes, writing queer romance, ne’er-do-well con artist heroes, and why we’re all so into dukes and dragons these days.

Elizabeth May has two recent books out in stores now: the epic romantasy To Cage a God, and the steamy historical romance A Touch Wicked, under the name Katrina Kendrick.

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The story of Orpheus and Eurydice is a tragic story of love and loss. In this gender-bent version, author and prize-winning poet Elyse John crafts the tale of the warrior-poet Orphia, her love for the handsome shieldmaker Eurydicius, and the lasting power of women’s voices. 

Join us and author Elyse John for a fresh new look at one of the most compelling and frequently-retold Greek myths—a story of love, loss, grief, and poetry.

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We're re-releasing our epic story about the Sacred Band--all three episodes in one place!

The time was the 300s BC. The place was Thebes. And in this place, in this time, there was an elite military force—the best of the best special ops shock troops—made up of 150 male lovers.

Their love for each other was the key to their strength. It made them better fighters. More effective. It made them strong enough to break the iron-fisted control of oppressive regimes. This is their incredible story.

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The Statue of Zeus at Olympia is not well remembered today. But in its time, it seared itself into the minds and memories of all who saw it. An enormous, glowering, formidable statue built into a temple of otherworldly, translucent light, it was as tall as a three-storey building. People said it crouched on its throne as if it was about to stand—and break through the roof of its temple.

Zeus’ skin glistened. Made of yards and yards of priceless hippopotamus ivory, it had to be oiled down each day so it wouldn’t crack in the heat. Yes, this was truly the sweatiest, oiliest, stickiest of all the wonders. And there’s more: curses. Lovers’ names engraved in secret places. So much daytime sex. So many naked, athletic men. THE OLYMPICS. Join us on a slightly unhinged deep dive into this truly unique wonder that once held the entire Hellenic imagination in its grip.

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Perhaps the most infamous bad girl of ancient Greek mythology, Medea is also so much more complex than her end game makes her appear. She’s also a betrayed wife, an isolated immigrant in a hostile new country, and a woman trying to survive in a dark and violent world—who is ultimately driven to the brink by the men around her.

In this episode, bestselling author Rosie Hewlett takes us on a deep dive into what makes Medea tick: her magic, her murder, and her surprising passion and vulnerability. 

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Perhaps the first list of Seven Wonders was written by Herodotus sometime in the 400s BC. But the list didn’t really get popularized until the 200s. Why was that? What did this list mean, and why did lists of “Wonders” become popular at this time in the ancient Greek world?

Before we get into each of the Seven Wonders, we thought we’d introduce our series by talking about that list itself: its history, where it comes from, what its original context was—and how it’s changed throughout the centuries. This is that episode: the history of the list of Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

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You’ve been transported almost 2,000 years into the past, to the streets of Pompeii. It’s a brisk autumn morning, around, oh…10 AM…and all hell is about to break loose. What's your next move?

You could live through it, maybe. If you were lucky. And made all the right choices. At exactly the right time. The actions you take in these first moments could make the difference between life and death.

Yes, this is Ancient History Fangirl – could you survive a volcano – Choose Your Own Adventure edition!

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We’ve covered the deadly day in 79 AD when Mt. Vesuvius erupted, burying Pompeii in a suffocating layer of ash and pumice. But we haven’t covered the aftermath: where did the survivors go? How were they received? And what did the recovery effort look like?

 Today, we’re joined by Elodie Harper—bestselling author of the Wolf Den trilogy, whose last installment, The Temple of Fortuna, has just been released. Join us in exploring how this eruption event left an indelible mark on the psyche of ancient Rome.

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What happened to people in ancient Rome who were freed from slavery? Turns out there were still invisible threads--economic pressures, imbalances of status, and debts owed to wealthy patrons--that kept many of them in bondage.

On the streets of Pompeii, freedom came at a steep price--especially for women. Today, we talk to Elodie Harper--bestselling author of the Wolf Den and the House with the Golden Door--about enslaved people, freedwomen, and glamorous sex workers whose lives were far more precarious than they seemed.

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The Lupanar, or “Wolf Den,” is the infamous brothel of Pompeii. Elodie Harper’s bestselling novel follows the lives of the sex workers who lived and worked there—their passions, their heartbreaks, and the tightly-knit community they built for themselves. 

Today, we’ve invited Elodie on the show to talk about the realities of sex workers’ lives in the Wolf Den—and how sex work was practiced in Pompeii near the time of the Vesuvius eruption.

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If you know anything about Aphrodite, then you know she is the ancient Greek goddess primarily associated with love, beauty, sex, reproduction, and passion. She was also the patron goddess of sex workers in the ancient Classical world.

Join us as we explore how Aphrodite was worshipped in ancient Greece, the goddess's history and ancient roots, and how the Romans transformed her into Venus.

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Last week, we told you about the lives of five courtesans in Classical Athens. But we left someone out--perhaps the most elite hetaera of them all.

Long-term partner of a leading Athenian statesman, darling of the philosophical set, survivor of the plague of Athens—she threw her own parties, and they were the best parties ever thrown within a hundred-mile radius of Athens. No one has done better since. Her name was Aspasia.

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In our last few episodes on sex workers in ancient Greece, we tried to paint a picture of a group of women, in some cases, with more freedom and independence than most in the ancient Greek world could dream of. But that freedom came at a price.

Now, we’re going to tell you about the lives of some of ancient Greece’s most famous Hetaerae.

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The symposia--all-male drinking parties--were the playground and hunting ground of Athens' elite courtesans. But they had their dangers, too.

Join us as we attend a symposium with the fast set of Ancient Athens. We’re going to hang out with the hetaerae, drink our faces off, flirt outrageously with everyone in range, and debate with the philosophers until the sun comes up.

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The conventional wisdom is that sex workers in ancient Greece were divided into two main categories: pornai who were enslaved in brothels, and hetaerae, who were elite courtesans. That’s actually a drastic oversimplification.

This is the beginning of a journey into the world of sex workers in ancient Greece. Join us as we explore what life was like for sex workers at every level of the profession—including those who didn't fit easily into these categories. 

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Janus is the two-faced god of the Roman pantheon. He was the god of beginnings and endings, of dual natures, of passageways and passage through time. He’s the god of thresholds and doorways and gates, and the god of change, both concrete and abstract. He’s constantly in motion; he’s the god who’s always just passing through.

Janus may not be very well-known. But in his time, he was considered one of the most important gods—perhaps more important than Jupiter himself. Today, we’re going to tell you all about him.

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It's the end of Season 11--and we had so much fun putting this season together! We've got some big changes in store for Season 12--tune in to find out more!

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This year, we’ve found one of the most metal and wild Yuletide goddesses yet – Frau Holle.

Human sacrifices, spindles in yer vag, plague, starvation, caves of offerings and bones, the Grimms brothers, golden showers, child cannibalism, ZOMBIES – are any of these putting you in the Yuletide spirit? They should. Because we’re about to share with you the story of a very Frau Holle Christmas.

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Ah, Christmas—it's a time of cheer, of gift-giving and generosity; and a time to eat yer babies.

This year, we’re focusing on two different cannibalistic monsters from Christmas folklore: Père Fouettard and Hans Trapp. Because it turns out that child cannibalism really is the reason for the season—and perhaps Santa Claus is the biggest cannibal of all.

What is Santa hiding under those jolly cheeks and that big white beard? Strap in, pour yourself your favorite holiday beverage, and get ready for a wild ride into the dark side of Christmas.

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What do you know about Yule? Maybe a lot. The holiday is widely celebrated in Scandinavian countries, and it's an important part of Wiccan and Pagan tradition. But for many of us, the version that's come down through history is strongly associated with Christmas--and heavily sanitized.

When we scratched the surface, however, we found that the origins of Yule were older and darker and weirder than we ever imagined.

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During the ancient Roman Republic and into the Empire, there was a place all the fabulously wealthy went. An escape from the real world. A place where they could unleash all their most hedonistic and murderous urges. That place was Baiae.

Baiae was the playground of Rome’s rich and infamous, whose baths alone were the size of palaces. It had many secrets—but perhaps the most deadly was that the entire city was built on a supervolcano. Long before Baiae was built, the ancients called this region “the Burning Fields.”

The caldera breathes out, and worlds end in fire. It breathes in, and an entire city sinks beneath the waves. This week, Julius Caesar (THAT Julius Caesar) joins us to walk the drowned streets of Baiae—and pull back the curtain on a secret world of sin.

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Wish you had a holiday all about feasting, drinking, the upending of the social order, blood sacrifices, the harvest, pranks, novelty gifts, honouring a god who devoured his kids, and the returning sun? Don’t we all??? Welcome to Saturnalia.

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Psyche and Eros is an ancient love story that has always had the power to compel. It’s the story of a god of passion who falls in love with the personification of the human soul—and the lengths these two will go to in order to be together.

But the lone source we have for this myth is The Golden Ass by Apuleius—a satirical novel about a man who gets turned into a donkey. What can we learn about this myth by looking at its original source? What was the author of The Golden Ass trying to tell us about love and women’s role in it (if anything)? Today we team up with Luna McNamara, bestselling author of Psyche & Eros, to try to get to the bottom of it.

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This year, we decided that the holiday season wouldn’t be complete without a mythological foray into one of the most famous characters of the season: The Krampus.

And some of you might be saying: wait a minute, Krampus isn’t ancient; he’s modern. Also, everyone knows about Krampus, the festive demon of Christmas. Why are you covering this well-trodden topic?

Wait until you hear the wild things we uncovered about him and his history, and then make your judgements about how old and well-trodden this topic is.

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When we think of pyramids, hieroglyphs, and Pharaohs, most people think about Egypt. But there was a civilization to the south that was just as fascinating, just as complex, just as sophisticated—and it wasn’t Egypt. It was Nubia.

The Nubians built temples, cities, and pyramids to rival those of the Egyptians. And they had a fascinating history of strong female leaders, including warriors, generals and queens. And after Cleopatra lost to Rome, her fellow queen to the south—a one-eyed warrior queen of Nubia—successfully fought off the Roman Army, held a knife to its throat and wrung a peace treaty out of Octavian that kept her kingdom free.

This is the story of Nubia.

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Throughout history, there have been a number of women who had—shall we say—a penchant for poison. Women who poisoned for power and influence; to rid themselves of enslavers and abusive husbands; and for monetary gain.

Who were these women? How did they enact their deadly plans? How did they avoid getting caught (until they didn’t)? Join us as we acquaint ourselves with a dangerous sisterhood of lady poisoners—with Dr. Lisa Perrin, author of The League of Lady Poisoners, as our guide.

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We’ve covered the deadly day in 79 AD when Mt. Vesuvius erupted, burying Pompeii in a suffocating layer of ash and pumice. But we haven’t covered the aftermath: where did the survivors go? How were they received? And what did the recovery effort look like?

 Today, we’re joined by Elodie Harper—bestselling author of the Wolf Den trilogy, whose last installment, The Temple of Fortuna, has just been released. Join us in exploring how this eruption event left an indelible mark on the psyche of ancient Rome.

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This podcast is a member of Airwave Media podcast network. Want to advertise on our show? Please direct advertising inquiries to [email protected].

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Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon!

Greek fire was an incendiary weapon of the ancient world—and perhaps the sole reason that the Byzantine Empire stood long after the rest of Rome. It was a terrifying weapon used for centuries to dominate on land and sea; intimidating vastly more powerful foes into backing down. Those who beheld its power always fled in fear.

Greek fire was a closely guarded secret of the Byzantine Empire. And eventually the recipe for making and using it was lost. Modern historians have tried and failed, many times, to reproduce it. We don’t know how it was made, or why it disappeared. It’s a mystery.

Join us as we explore the untold secrets of Greek fire.

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When we talk about the Vikings, who are we talking about, exactly? What can we learn about Viking culture by looking at their myths? And which of the ancient sources about them (if any) can we trust?

This week, we take a look at Norse mythology and history with Dr. Kelsey Fuller-Shafer, author of Norse Mythology: The Gods, Goddesses, and Heroes Handbook: From Vikings to Valkyries, an Epic Who's Who in Old Norse Mythology (a kind of companion book to our Women of Myth). Join us as we get to know the Vikings.

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Communities all over the ancient world had a problem: their dead wouldn't stay in the ground. They rose up as shambolic corpses, gusts of wind and evil spirits, draining human life force and devouring flesh and blood.

The vampire myth is an ancient one, found on every continent. Join us as we explore the oldest vampire myths we could find from Sumeria, Greece, Rome, and Germania--and discover the clues they leave us about those cultures.

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Introducing History Daily, a podcast that tells the fascinating stories of what happened “on this day” in history, with host Lindsay Graham.

This is a History Daily episode about the Great Fire of Rome–another natural or potentially man made disaster that we felt was perfect for our odds and sods season–topics that just didn’t fit into past arcs or that we didn’t get to.

The day was July 18, 64 AD. When the Great Fire of Rome reduces two-thirds of the city to ashes, Emperor Nero uses the catastrophe as an excuse to persecute a new religious group: the Christians.

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The Celts of the Iron age—roughly 600s BC to 43 AD—had a real preoccupation with severed heads. They took heads in battle. They displayed the heads of their enemies in prominent places. But what did all this decapitation mean?

Some believe there was a set of religious beliefs around severed heads—but nobody knows what they were. And the severed head keeps popping up in later mythology and legend, creating more questions than answers. Join us as we investigate the very mysterious Cult of the Severed Head.

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The werewolf myth as we know it today generally involves getting bitten by a werewolf, transforming during the full moon, and being very susceptible to silver bullets. But werewolves in ancient Greece and Rome were a little different.

Join us for a spooky-season deep dive into ancient werewolf mythology from thousands of years ago. We'll take a look at the pre-Christian origins of the werewolf myth and its connections to death, starvation, cannibalism, and transformation.

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We’ve covered werewolves in the ancient world before—and their connection to the Berserker myth. But wait til you hear what happened to werewolf mythology when the Catholics got their hands on it.

This episode is a wild ride, taking you from the ancient Greek and Roman werewolves to a Medieval monster tied to the mysteries of serial killing, mental illness, domestic abuse, and the paranoia of the Witch Trials. It turns out Catholic werewolves stalked a very dark, very violent landscape—and we are just itching to explore it. Join us.

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In 1942, a forest ranger was hiking on an isolated trail deep in the Himalayas. Rising over 16,000 feet in elevation, he climbed a ridge that looked down a steep-sided funnel of ice and boulders. At the bottom was a small, perfectly circular glacial lake, frozen in a solid blue lens.

And there, strewn about the icy, rocky beach, lay skeletons. Hundreds of skeletons.

Nobody knew whose bones they were. Theories and folklore would proliferate over the years, but the mystery would remain—and the more scientists found out about Skeleton Lake, the more the mystery deepened.

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Men aren’t the only ones who think about the Roman Empire (Or the Roman Republic!) all the time. We do too–and so does Dr. Emma Southon, creator of the History is Sexy podcast and author of many fascinating, women-centered books on ancient Rome. 

Her most recent book, a Rome of One’s Own—the Forgotten Women of the Roman Empire, tells the story of 21 fascinating women often overlooked by history–who nevertheless played a huge role in shaping ancient Rome. These women are rebels, empresses, lovers, firebrands, entrepreneurs, sex workers, whistleblowers, and survivors–and through their stories, we can see this period in history in a whole new light.

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This file contains the first three episodes of our Spartacus series. You'll learn about the conditions in Italy that gave rise to the Third Servile War; how Spartacus rebelled and the pressures he was under in holding together a disparate crowd of rebels with differing priorities. It's a riveting tale that's sure to keep you hooked.

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This is an episode about the shock troops of Viking Armies—the most violent, the most terrifying, the men who ran out ahead of the army to shatter shield walls and break the minds of the enemy. There are accounts of great acts of heroism and self sacrifice among them in the ancient histories—but they were also on the margins of society, mistrusted and despised even by their own side. Why is that? And what drugs were these guys on, exactly? 

What is truth, and what is fiction? What can we uncover about these men (and every once in a while, a woman) who were said to be so terrifyingly transformed? Today’s subject is that most terrifying enigma of the ancient world: Berserkers on the Battlefield.

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Most accounts of Caesar's life start later on--such as during his time in Gaul or crossing the Rubicon. But his early life was just as fascinating; maybe even more so.

This is the Caesar who stood up to Sulla and refused to divorce his wife. The Caesar who made an early career of prosecuting corrupt governors to cement his cred as a populist--even as it made him powerful enemies. The Caesar who, when kidnapped by pirates, demanded they raise his ransom and spent his time in captivity hanging out on the beach and reading them bad poetry.

It's a fun, lighthearted introduction to Caesar's life before it takes its dark turn. We hope you enjoy.

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We'll be back October 5. In the meantime please enjoy this episode from our vault about another ancient natural disaster--and the trauma it inflicted on a people.

High in the mountains of eastern Crete, there’s a secret that has been kept since the 1200s BC. It’s the secret of the strange and still-unexplained 80+ ancient villages hidden in the Cretan mountains that may have been the last refuges of the Minoan people.

The ancient Minoans were master seafarers. But sometime between the 1200s and the 1000s BC, they abandoned their coastal villages, their palaces, their fertile farmlands, their trade routes—and simply withdrew from the world.

Today, we’re going to look at where they went—and why.

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We'll be back October 5. In the meantime please enjoy this episode from our vault about another ancient plague--the Plague of Athens--and one of its most esteemed survivors.

Long-term partner of a leading Athenian statesman, darling of the philosophical set, survivor of the plague of Athens—she threw her own parties, and they were the best parties ever thrown within a hundred-mile radius of Athens. No one has done better since. Her name was Aspasia.

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We're taking a very brief hiatus this time--just until October 5. In the meantime, tune in to hear us talk rivers of pus, transformed worlds, and all things volcanoes--as well as our plans for the upcoming season.

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You’ve been transported almost 2,000 years into the past, to the streets of Pompeii. It’s a brisk autumn morning, around, oh…10 AM…and all hell is about to break loose. What's your next move?

You could live through it, maybe. If you were lucky. And made all the right choices. At exactly the right time. The actions you take in these first moments could make the difference between life and death.

Yes, this is Ancient History Fangirl – could you survive a volcano – Choose Your Own Adventure edition!

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Cultures on every continent have flood myths, and China is no exception. One of China’s founding myths is one about a singular hero, Yu the Great, and his brilliant works of water engineering that tamed a deadly flood—roughly four thousand years ago.

But did this great flood really occur? Was there really a Yu, or someone like him? Join us as we delve into the Bronze-age civilizations of ancient China, the history of its legendary rivers, and an ancient flood that could have been The Big One.

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Off the coast of Israel there is an underwater megalithic stone circle dating back to the 7000s BC – that is perfectly preserved, keeping its secrets from another time.

This is the story of a prehistoric city (well, village) off the coast of Israel. Thousands of years ago, it sank beneath the waves. Its discovery was revolutionary and changed what we thought about the people who lived in this area during the stone age.

Today, we’re going to dive into the past, to a time when the Mediterranean rose up and sunk a city – and froze a time, a people, and a way of life in place. 

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This is an episode about a plague that killed up to 100 million people by the time it was done—as many as 60% of its victims. It’s the first documented occurrence of a pandemic that we have, and it’s the first documented outbreak of the deadlyYersinia pestis. No, we're not talking about the Black Death of Medieval Europe. We're talking about the Plague of Justinian.

The Plague of Justinian was just one part of the fallout of the global volcanic eruption of 536 AD. Three eyewitness accounts have survived--and, in the grand tradition of this podcast, we decided to read them to you whilst Yule-level drunk. Buckle up. It is a wild, plague-tastic ride.

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What was the worst year to be alive? Some researchers have a very specific answer to this question: 536 AD. 

This is a year when the global temperature dropped, and it was winter all year round—for multiple years. The sun disappeared for 18 months as the world was covered in a veil of sulfuric dust. Crops failed. People starved, and fell to eating each other and warring over scarce resources. From China to Mexico, thriving civilizations collapsed.

And the culprit? A volcano. Or maybe multiple volcanoes. But which ones are still a mystery. This is a historical mass murder, and it’s still unsolved.  

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Imagine a desert stretching over 1,500 miles along the Peruvian coastline, between the high Andes to the east and the vast Pacific coastline to the west. A place of brilliant colors and contradictions. This is the driest desert in the world. Astronauts use it to simulate conditions on Mars.

This is the home of the Nazca Lines: huge, beautifully made 2,000-year-old geoglyphs, visible only from the sky. Some are elaborate images of animals, plants, and people. Others are perfectly straight lines that stretch for miles in the empty desert. 

What were they for? What did they mean? Their story–and the story of the people who made them–is so much more than it seems.

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Teotihuacan is an ancient pre-Colombian city in central America, founded two thousand years ago. It’s the home of some of the most iconic Mesoamerican monuments in existence, including the Pyramids of the Moon and Sun.

The city was abandoned after about 750 years of habitation. When the Aztecs first encountered it, it had stood empty for 600 years. Walking through the empty ruin, they marveled at the towering pyramids, the incredible murals, the enormous palaces—and wondered where the people had gone. They thought these people must have become gods.

This city has something for everyone: mysterious skeletons. Volcanoes. An eating of the rich. And so many mysteries, it’s hard to pick just one.

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Deep in the western Sahara—in perhaps one of the driest parts of the driest desert in the world—there are cave paintings that depict people swimming. These cave paintings date to 10,000 years ago. Back then, there would have been plenty of water to swim in. It was a time when the Sahara was green.

Join us as we pull back the curtain on a tantalizing time when the Sahara was a wetland paradise, with enormous megalakes, vast networks of wild rivers, and people who created stunning rock art, built complex megalithic structures, mummified their dead—and whose beliefs and culture may have formed the foundation of ancient Egyptian civilization.

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Crater Lake is a caldera lake in the Cascade Mountains in Oregon—the remnants of an ancient volcanic eruption. It’s the deepest lake in the country and one of the deepest in the world. And this place is steeped in lore: unexplained events, murders and suicides, disappearances and hauntings, and a strange 200-year-old floating log that probably controls the weather.

But the history of this lake goes back even farther: to the volcanic eruption that created it 7,700 years ago. People were there to witness that event—and its memory is preserved, both in archaeology and an ancient mythological tradition that describes the eruption with scientific precision.

Join us as we plumb the depths of Crater Lake.

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Mammoths existed on our planet for roughly five million years, and they were perfectly adapted to the ice age world they inhabited. So perfectly adapted that when the last ice age ended, so did they. No woolly mammoths have walked the earth for the last 10,000 years. Or did they?

It turns out that the last mammoths didn’t disappear 10,000 years ago. For thousands of years after their extinction in the rest of the world, a small population still lived on a remote island in the Arctic called Wrangel Island. And in their last days? In the end times? Things got weird.

This is a story about a natural disaster that happened—to mammoths. Let’s dig in.

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Ten thousand years ago, there was no North Sea. Instead, there was a vast landscape that connected the UK and Ireland to the rest of Europe. Archaeologists call it Doggerland.

This was a Mesolithic paradise. A great biodiversity hotspot where we had all the food and raw materials we could ask for within arm’s reach—an immense forest and wetland paradise as big as a second France. It was the beating heart of Mesolithic Europe.

But nothing good can ever stay. By some accounts, Doggerland was drowning from the day it was born. But its final end came in a single, cataclysmic day.

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The story of The Ten Plagues of Egypt is important in both Jewish and Christian mythology. It’s a dark, haunting tale that features a capricious God meting out increasingly terrible punishments on the Egyptian people for their Pharaoh’s refusal to release the Israelites from slavery.

But that’s not all there is to this story. It’s also a Bronze Age narrative that may be based on an ancient psychic trauma. Just what was that trauma? And could the cruel, unpredictable behavior of the God of the Old Testament be a clue?

Join us as we try to get to the bottom of it.

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In this episode, we return to the beach at Actium with author, historian, and academic Barry Strauss as our tour guide. His new book, The War That Made the Roman Empire: Antony, Cleopatra, and Octavian at Actium, discusses the infamous sea battle Marc Antony and Cleopatra fought against Octavian and Agrippa for love, for supremacy, for their very survival.

Join us as we deconstruct this battle, paint a vivid picture of ancient war at sea, and tackle the one question everyone’s asking: why did Cleopatra flee the battlefield?

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In the second installment of our Cleopatra x King Herod arc, the slow-motion train wreck continues. Herod makes increasingly ill-advised decisions as schemes and intrigue simmer around him. Meanwhile, Cleopatra influences things from afar, empowering Herod's enemies and relatives (who are frequently one and the same). 

Find out how it all went down when their feud reached the boiling point. 

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In our episode Cleopatra x Marc Antony: Lovers in a Dangerous Time (Part 3), we alluded to a story about King Herod (yes, that King Herod) and Cleopatra—and an epic feud between them. We didn’t have time to go into that story in the bigger arc on Cleopatra and Marc Antony, but we thought it was a perfect topic for a minisode. 

Unlike Cleopatra and Marc Antony, Cleopatra and Herod hated each other. And not in a sexy-belligerent-sexual-tension way. They were intractable enemies—and it ultimately led to Cleopatra’s downfall. 

This is the first Ancient History Fangirl mini-arc--a two-episode series about two colossal personalities from the ancient world--and what happened when their interests collided.

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After the disaster at Actium, Marc Antony's entire army--100,000 strong--surrendered to Octavian. Marc Antony and Cleopatra fled to Alexandria to negotiate the terms of their defeat.

Those were dark, foreboding days. Friends and allies fled the palace. Marc Antony fell into a deep depression, while Cleopatra searched desperately for a way out--one that would keep her kingdom intact and her children alive.

But the reckoning was coming.

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As Marc Antony and Cleopatra lived and loved in Alexandria, Octavian whipped up a toxic garbage fire of racism, misogyny, and xenophobia in Rome--and then declared war. Not against Marc Antony, but against Cleopatra.

Soon, the lovers would be forced to defend their home, their family, and their life together on the shores of the Ambracian Gulf. Find out how it all went down--at a town called Actium.

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We're re-releasing this episode in honor of Maya Deane's book Wrath Goddess Sing coming out in paperback. Available wherever books are sold!

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Many of us have preconceived notions about what the Illiad was like. Prepare to have those notions blown away.

In this episode, debut author Maya Deane methodically strips away the lenses of the Victorian era, Classical Greece, and the modern day to reveal an Illiad that’s older and darker and weirder than any of us could ever have dreamed.

This is the Illiad of your darkest and deepest imaginings, an Illiad like you’ve never seen before—but somehow always knew existed. It’s the Illiad of Wrath Goddess Sing—a novel about transgender Achilles and the love of found family in a Bronze Age world as deadly as it is beguiling.

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After four years of marriage with Octavia, Marc Antony followed Cleopatra to Alexandria—and settled into life there. He oversaw festivals and athletic contests, cheered Cleopatra on as she ruled Egypt, and showered her and their children with honors and territories.

For all intents and purposes, he was the consort of Egypt’s beloved Pharaoh, the father of her children—and he was home.

But the propaganda war between Antony and Octavian was building to a fever pitch in Rome, even as the Parthians loomed threateningly in the distance. Soon Antony would be called to war—and face the biggest battlefield test of his career.

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When Cleopatra and Marc Antony met by the River Tarsus, Antony was smitten. And when Cleopatra went back to Alexandria, he forgot about invading Parthia and followed her home.

The two then spent a magical few months in Alexandria, where they threw each other lavish banquets, made bets and compacts, played ridiculous practical jokes on each other and the public--and fell in love.

But nothing good can ever stay. The real world came knocking, and soon Marc Antony was forced to choose between his heart in Alexandria and his future in Rome.

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Shakespeare wrote about them. Hollywood glamorized them. For thousands of years, they've come down to us as the ultimate star-crossed lovers: the Ptolemaic queen Cleopatra, and the Roman commander Marc Antony.

In the wake of Caesar's death, Cleopatra fled to Egypt--and began picking up the pieces. Meanwhile, Marc Antony defeated Caesar's assassins in battle, and then set his sights on invading Parthia.

But to invade Parthia, he needed the money and support of Rome's richest client ruler: Cleopatra. And Cleopatra had an agenda, too: she needed another Roman protector to shore up her power in Egypt.

Find out what happened when these two met on the banks of the River Tarsus.

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When Cleopatra met Julius Caesar, sparks flew. The daring Egyptian queen beguiled the conquering Roman general—and then enlisted him to fight her battles.

Outnumbered five to one in a city full of ancient wonders, Cleopatra and Caesar spent the next ten months barricaded in a luxurious palace while outside, the enemy howled for their blood--fighting a deadly urban war for Cleopatra's throne and both of their survival.

Get ad-free episodes here: https://www.patreon.com/ancienthistoryfangirl

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When Julius Caesar arrived in Egypt, he walked into a civil war between the country’s new co-rulers: Ptolemy XIII and his sister Cleopatra.

The romance between Caesar and Cleopatra is one of the most epic of ancient times. But we can’t tell you that story until you understand who Cleopatra was. And to understand Cleopatra, you have to understand the political element in which she swam.

In this episode, we take you from the cutthroat intrigue of the Ptolemaic court to the volatile streets of Alexandria—and from Cleopatra’s early life to the events that led her to take an extreme gamble and team up with the man who’d just conquered Rome.

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It's the end of our Women of Myth season, and wow, has it been a whirlwind! We had a blast on this season and we hope you did too.

We'll be back July 6 with a brand-new season--one that's all about ancient history and returns to our roots. Listen in to hear some behind the scenes info, and all about our plans for the coming few months and the season beyond.

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Feminism in Lord of the Rings: let’s discuss. How were women depicted in the famous trilogy, and how has that depiction changed from the books to the movies and then to the Rings of Power TV show? Join us and Liv Albert from Let’s Talk About Myths Baby! for a very serious, very scholarly contemplation of women and feminism in Lord of the Rings.

LOL just kidding. Mainly this episode involves Jenny shrieking about Hot Sauron, Genn getting drunkenly aggressive in Lord of the Rings trivia, and Liv reciting huge swaths of Fellowship from memory. Scholarship is low, ridiculousness is high, and Liv may in fact be the One LOTR Nerd to Rule Them All. You’ve been warned.

(Spoilers abound for Rings of Power. Now you’ve been doubly warned.)

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We’re joined today by YA romance author and Tiktok star Bea Fitzgerald, who brings Greek mythology to life on her Tiktok channel Chaos on Olympus.

In this conversation, we talk about the female goddesses, monsters and heroines of Greek mythology: what makes them tick, which ones are the most fun to skewer in bite-sized video format, and the surprising queer romance hiding in monster mythology.

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Just who are the classics for, anyway?

Our guest Jasmine Elmer has been an educator in the classics for decades—through educational charity work, as a TV presenter and through her podcast, Legit Classics. She is passionate about making the classics accessible to all—and the new and important perspectives brought to the field by scholars of diverse nontraditional backgrounds. 

This week, we discuss how to make the ancient world more accessible to everyone, of all backgrounds—as well as Jasmine’s own upcoming book on women in world mythology, and what made us all fall in love with the ancient world.

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This week, we’re taking a deep dive into Welsh mythology from a queer, feminist perspective with the phenomenally talented Welsh artist Mari Catrin Phillips of MythsnTits.

Join us as we get acquainted with the women of the Mabinogion.

Check out MythsnTits: https://www.etsy.com/shop/MariCatrinPhillips

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This week, we delve deeper into the legend of Atalanta, with bestselling author Jennifer Saint as our guide. Join us as we discuss Atalanta’s heroine’s journey, her connection to Artemis and a more ancient concept of the feminine, and what it was really like being stuck on the Argo with all those dudes.

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Atalanta was an avatar of an older, wilder time, created in the image of an ancient Artemis—goddess of the fields and forests who had a strong association with bears. Perhaps Atalanta represents an older image of that goddess before Classical Athens got its hands on her.

Join us as we take a deep dive into the story of Atalanta: a gender rebel and sexually liberated heroine who—maybe—peels back the curtain on what life was like for women on the margins, living pre-agrarian lifestyles outside of the traditional gender roles established by the scholars and writers of Classical Greece.

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Today, we’re joined by Caribbean feminist Biblical scholar and author Princess O’Nika Auguste to discuss the female monsters and goddesses of Caribbean lore, African diaspora religions, and the Bible.

Join us for a wide-ranging discussion where we talk about the most fearsome feminine monsters of Caribbean legend and African diaspora religion, as well as the bad girls of the Bible—including everybody’s favorite patriarchy-smashing rebel of Jewish lore, Lilith.

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Decades after the Spanish conquest, Aztec survivors wrote down their histories and mythology in documents called Codices.

Many were written at the behest of Spanish priests, and come to us through a Spanish lens. But some were written in secret, by Aztecs and for Aztecs, with no Spanish involvement at all. Long ignored by historians, these documents provide us with what is perhaps the most authentic history of the Aztec people in their own voice.

Today, we’re joined by Camilla Townsend, a leading scholar on the history and translation of these important documents. She is professor of history at Rutgers University specializing in Native American and indigenous history in the United States and Latin America, and author of the award-winning book The Fifth Sun: a New History of the Aztecs.

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The Morrigan has many names: Badb, the scald-crow. Red-haired Macha. Nevin of the battle-frenzy. Fea; the deathly. Be Neit; the Woman of Battle.

But first and foremost, the Morrigan was a goddess of war. And to understand her, you have to understand her battlefield. Join us as we get to know the Morrigan—and explore the bloody waters in which she swam.

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Urduja was a celebrated warrior princess who ruled the kingdom of Tawalisi, said to exist in the Philippines. The first recorded mention of her comes from the travelogue of Ibn Battuta, an explorer and scholar who lived in the 1300s AD and who claimed to have met her.

Much is mysterious about Urduja--including whether her kingdom ever existed. However, her story has become so compelling over the centuries that today she is considered a national heroine of the Philippines. This week, we're joined by Agas Ramirez of HERstory: Southeast Asia to discuss the history and mythology surrounding this fascinating woman--and the tradition of female rulers and warriors in southeast Asia.

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The traditional myth about Medusa is that she was the monster—a fearsome snake-haired gorgon who could turn men to stone with a glance—and her killer, Perseus, was the hero of the tale. But give the story a closer look, and it’s not even clear the Greeks always saw it that way.

Ancient depictions of this myth don’t always show Perseus as the hero. And there’s evidence that gorgons originally had a protective role in Greek iconography. In this episode, Natalie Haynes—bestselling author of Stone Blind—guides us in retracing the clues the ancients left us to reclaim our Gorgon Girl. 

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This week, we welcome internationally bestselling author Joanne Harris to our podcast. Joanne is the author of over 29 novels and novellas for adults and children, including Chocolat, which was turned into an Oscar winning film, and the fantasy series Runemarks and Runelight; The Gospel of Loki and The Testament of Loki, and many others.

Join us for a wild conversation that will break down all your preconceptions about Norse mythology, its ancient roots and hidden goddesses, and women’s place and power in ancient pre-Christian Nordic cultures.

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Both Greek and Hindu mythology are populated with fascinating women—goddesses, heroines, and monsters alike. Award-winning and best-selling author and poet Nikita Gill incorporates both into her work, forging a compelling connection between ancient narratives and personal mythologies of place and family.

Nikita’s poetry is haunting, fiercely feminist, and filled with insight and heartbreak. Join us for a conversation about the women of Hindu and Greek mythology, the feminist themes in both, and which “monsters” we identify with most. 

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This week we thought we’d do something a little different–and bring you a sneak peek of our audiobook version of Women of Myth. This version is available for preorder, and we recorded it ourselves, along with Liv from Let's Talk About Myths Baby! who recorded her introduction.

We picked three entries to share, from three different areas of the world. These women are so fascinating and awesome that we're sure you'll love them as much as we did.

We hope you enjoy!

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We’re joined today by Sara Richard—our Eisner and Ringo Award–nominated illustrator for the Women of Myth series. Sara worked with us to create the amazing illustrations for Women of Myth.

Join us as we take you behind the scenes to discuss what it was like illustrating these incredible characters; which women of myth Sara felt the strongest connection to; Sara and Jenny's shared love of SKULLS and historic graveyards; and what's in Sara's Cabinet of Curiosities.

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This episode originally appeared on our Patreon! We're releasing it on our main feed because we also include Atargatis in Women of Myth. We hope you enjoy!

The Spartacus of the First Servile War--a man named Eunus--was a worshipper of Atargatis, an ancient goddess of the sea often depicted as a mermaid.

Atargatis was one of the most important goddesses of ancient Syria--with roots that went all the way back to the Bronze Age. Her temple in Hierapolis had a lake hundreds of fathoms deep, filled with fantastical fishes, and a bejewelled statue of the goddess whose eyes followed your every movement.

But in Rome, Atargatis' religion was one of underdogs, foreigners, and the marginalized--much like the religion of Dionysus. And, like the cult of Dionysus, it threatened the Roman status quo. 

Find out what made this Syrian mermaid goddess so phenomenal, powerful, and dangerous to the Roman aristocracy.

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This week, we explore monster mythology from countries all over southeast Asia—and we invited Nikki and Kalai from the Creepy Conversations podcast to come on our show and creep us out. Hailing from the Philippines and Singapore, they cover all things creepy from southeast Asian mythology, including monsters, urban legends, ghost stories, true crime and serial killers, and more.

Today we try to answer the age-old question: which Southeast Asian country has the creepiest female monsters? Is it the Philippines, home of the bone-chilling manananggal? Or maybe Japan, home of the terrifying kuchisake-onna of urban legend? What about those nightmare-inducing Shadow People who always seem to be creeping around? Or perhaps the most fearsome monsters of all are the real-life female serial killers who walk among us?

Join us as we try to get to the bottom of it all.

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We are SO excited that we have a book coming out in February 2023! Our book, Women of Myth, will be available worldwide from Simon and Schuster. 

Listen in as we talk about our favorite Women of Myth from around the world with Liv Albert from Let's Talk About Myths, Baby!

Our book is about epic women in mythology from around the world. We cover a diverse range of cultures, from Greek and Roman mythology to important figures from regions such as Africa and African Diaspora countries, the Pacific Islands, Asia and the Middle East, indigenous cultures from North, South, and Central America; and more.  

We cannot wait to share these tales with you. Preorder here! https://linktr.ee/ancienthistoryfangirl

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It's the end of Season 8! It's been a wild, weird and wonderful season of ancient mysteries and we are so glad we got to tell you these tales!

We'll be plunging right into our next season the week after this drops--no break this time. Listen in to hear our thoughts about the previous season and our plans for the future. Thank you so much for coming on this journey with us?

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Imagine a desert stretching over 1,500 miles along the Peruvian coastline, between the high Andes to the east and the vast Pacific coastline to the west. A place of brilliant colors and contradictions. This is the driest desert in the world. Astronauts use it to simulate conditions on Mars.

This is the home of the Nazca Lines: huge, beautifully made 2,000-year-old geoglyphs, visible only from the sky. Some are elaborate images of animals, plants, and people. Others are perfectly straight lines that stretch for miles in the empty desert. 

What were they for? What did they mean? Their story–and the story of the people who made them–is so much more than it seems.

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This year, we’ve found one of the most metal and wild Yuletide goddesses yet – Frau Holle.

Human sacrifices, spindles in yer vag, plague, starvation, caves of offerings and bones, the Grimms brothers, golden showers, child cannibalism, ZOMBIES – are any of these putting you in the Yuletide spirit? They should. Because we’re about to share with you the story of a very Frau Holle Christmas.

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Teotihuacan is an ancient pre-Colombian city in central America, founded two thousand years ago. It’s the home of some of the most iconic Mesoamerican monuments in existence, including the Pyramids of the Moon and Sun.

The city was abandoned after about 750 years of habitation. When the Aztecs first encountered it, it had stood empty for 600 years. Walking through the empty ruin, they marveled at the towering pyramids, the incredible murals, the enormous palaces—and wondered where the people had gone. They thought these people must have become gods.

This city has something for everyone: mysterious skeletons. Volcanoes. An eating of the rich. And so many mysteries, it’s hard to pick just one.

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The Indus Valley civilization is one of the oldest, largest, most sophisticated Bronze Age civilizations we know about today. Roughly 80 cities and towns have been unearthed that were part of it. The biggest—perhaps the most important—was a city called Mohenjo Daro.

There were no kings at Mohenjo Daro, no priests and few signs of organized religion. There are few if any signs of war, slavery, wealth inequality or violence. There was a very high standard of living for its time, including indoor flushing toilets in every home.

But they don’t call it “Mound of the Dead Men” for nothing. It turns out this peaceful, utopian ancient city has a gruesome secret…

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For over a thousand years, the ancient Egyptians sent their ships out to trade with a fabulous kingdom. They dragged their ships from the Nile to the coast of the Red Sea, and those ships returned groaning with luxuries beyond anyone’s wildest imaginings.

The place they got it all from was the Land of Punt—known to the Egyptians as the Land of the Gods. The Egyptians described just about everything about it, except how to get there.

Was Punt in Africa? Was it in Arabia? Was it an island in the far-flung Indian Ocean? Or did it ever exist at all? Today, we try to unravel the mystery.

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Perched on a cliff at the edge of the world in the remote Orkney Islands, the ancient village of Skara Brae is a picturesque and dramatic sight. Carved into an ancient midden, it’s a warren of interconnected dwellings with built-in furniture, secret compartments, and more than a few mysteries.

What did the people of Skara Brae get up to when the lights were out? Why did they build their village so that you had to go through your neighbors’ houses to get to your own? How many people were sleeping in a bed again? Was this in fact a sex cult??

In this episode, we try to get to the bottom of it.

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Hundreds of years before European contact, the biggest city in North America was located along the Mississippi River. At its peak, perhaps 15,000 people lived there—and over 30,000 in the surrounding suburbs. Today, we call it Cahokia.

Nobody knows what the original name of this city was. But there was a time when everybody knew its name—from the Great Lakes to the Eastern Seaboard, and from the Rocky Mountains to the Gulf of Mexico. What was that name, and why was it lost to time and memory? That’s just one of the many mysteries of Cahokia.

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In our episode on the Sphinx Water Erosion Theory, we discussed the theory that the Sphinx was 10,000 years old. This date would require us to completely reorder our sense of how humanity evolved. We decided it’s simply too out there to be true.

But what if we told you that there is an archaeological site 10,000 years old whose shocking discovery did indeed require archaeologists to change the way they interpreted history? It’s like if the Sphinx really did turn out to be really 10,000 years old, except it’s not the Sphinx, and it’s not in Egypt. It’s in Turkey. It’s called Gobekli Tepe.

Join us as we explore a wild, weird world of decapitated megaliths, menacing animals in high relief, gardens of megapeens, and a lost culture far closer to the last Ice Age than they are to us.

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Introducing History Daily, a podcast that tells the fascinating stories of what happened “on this day” in history, with host Lindsay Graham.

Today, we're hosting two episodes from History Daily, both about famous pirates from the Golden Age of Piracy!

First up: The arrest of famous pirate captain William Kidd ends the reign of plunder of one of history's most infamous pirates and sparks rumors of buried treasure. And second: The trials of notorious pirates Anne Bonny, Mary Read, and John Rackham begin in Spanish Town, Jamaica.

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Serial killers may seem like a modern phenomenon. But there were serial killers in operation in the ancient world—or so it would seem. Evidence for them is everywhere—in mythology and in history, we see predators killing their victims in surprisingly modern ways. 

Was it easier to be a serial killer in ancient Greece and Rome? Could they find victims more easily and operate more anonymously than they can today? Were there roles and professions that gave cover to those born with an urge to kill? Were the streets of Rome and the hills of Greece a playground for serial killers?

In this episode, author and expert Debbie Felton helps us answer those questions. 

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Who built the modern world? The answer to that question might surprise you. (Or maybe not...) There's a long list of global innovators and trailblazers who’ve been erased from history books because of who they were: women, people of color, LBGTQ and more. Each week They Did That tells one of these people's stories and how their life’s work has changed our lives for the better. Hosted by Takara Small.

A Somethin’ Else & Sony Music Entertainment production. 

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In this episode, we’ll delve into the mystery of Aokigahara, known in Japanese as the Sea of Trees—and to the rest of the world as the Suicide Forest. After the Golden Gate Bridge, it is the second most popular suicide destination in the world.

 The forest is over a thousand years old. It grew over lava floes laid down in a devastating volcanic eruption on the slopes of Mt. Fuji, a holy mountain believed to be a gateway to the spirit world. Perhaps this is why it’s said to be the birthplace of the Yurei—a ghost in Japanese folklore created out of deep trauma. 

It’s no wonder Aokigahara is associated with death. But the forest is also filled with life and incredible natural wonders. Join us as we explore the haunting history and folklore of Aokigahara.

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Who were the witches and sorceresses of ancient Greece and Rome--and how did they wield their power? In this episode, ancient occult expert Daniel Ogden introduces us to the world of Greco-Roman witchcraft--including necromancy, love spells, curse tablets, and real-life magical manuals written thousands of years ago by Alexandrian sorcerers.

Join us as we explore both mythology and history to uncover a forgotten world of clandestine magic, primarily wielded by women.

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In 1942, a forest ranger was hiking on an isolated trail deep in the Himalayas. Rising over 16,000 feet in elevation, he climbed a ridge that looked down a steep-sided funnel of ice and boulders. At the bottom was a small, perfectly circular glacial lake, frozen in a solid blue lens.

And there, strewn about the icy, rocky beach, lay skeletons. Hundreds of skeletons.

Nobody knew whose bones they were. Theories and folklore would proliferate over the years, but the mystery would remain—and the more scientists found out about Skeleton Lake, the more the mystery deepened.

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Did you know that the ancient Greeks and Romans didn't have a word for sharks--despite the fact that they must have seen them eating sailors during sea battles all the time? For that matter, they didn't have a word for "whale" either. But they did describe the most fantastical sea creatures, including Nereids, Ketos, and "sea dogs." Whatever those were.

Just what were the ancients seeing in the sea, anyway? In this episode, ancient sea monster expert Ryan Denson helps us unpack it all.

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High in the mountains of eastern Crete, there’s a secret that has been kept since the 1200s BC. It’s the secret of the strange and still-unexplained 80+ ancient villages hidden in the Cretan mountains that may have been the last refuges of the Minoan people.

The ancient Minoans were master seafarers. But sometime between the 1200s and the 1000s BC, they abandoned their coastal villages, their palaces, their fertile farmlands, their trade routes—and simply withdrew from the world.

Today, we’re going to look at where they went—and why.

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Carved from the very living bedrock of the Giza plateau, the Sphinx is shrouded in mystery. Archaeologists believe it’s about 4,500 years old. But there’s a fringe theory—the Sphinx Water Erosion Theory—that suggests it’s much, much older.

Join us as we explore this wild theory that completely explodes the prevailing wisdom, and asserts that the Sphinx is in fact 10,000 years old—or maybe even more.

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We're on hiatus until September 22. Until then, please enjoy this deep dive into Hadrian's Wall. 

Hadrian’s Wall is a jaw-dropping engineering achievement stretching 73 miles across hundred-foot-high escarpments and rushing rivers, its earthworks dug deep into unforgiving igneous bedrock. From its walls, Roman and auxiliary soldiers had a unique view of the fall of the Empire.

We visited Hadrian's Wall this May, and are currently releasing videos on our Patreon that we filmed during our visit. Don't miss out!

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We're on hiatus until September 22. Until then, please enjoy our entire Boudicca series, all in one place. 

The story of Boudicca’s revolt is as epic as you can get. It’s got murder and pillage, Romans behaving badly, cities on fire, and a layer of destruction that was scorched into the earth. But it's also the story of a people on a precipice of great change.

Who was Boudicca? Who was this iron-age warrior queen who stood up to the Romans—and whose name was so revered and feared that stories of her are still being spun almost 2,000 years later? In these episodes, we’re going to find out.

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We're on hiatus until September 22. Until then, please enjoy this deep dive into Celtic mythology.

We've assembled here some of our favorite episodes dealing with Celtic myths and legends: including the Hound of Ulster, the Morrigan, and The Pictish Beast: What Is It?

Join us for a lighthearted, high-energy and very bingeable series that will put you in a good mood this summer.

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We're on hiatus until September 22. Until then, please enjoy this deep dive into the life and times of Spartacus.

This file contains the first three episodes of our Spartacus series. You'll learn about the conditions in Italy that gave rise to the Third Servile War; how Spartacus rebelled and the pressures he was under in holding together a disparate crowd of rebels with differing priorities. It's a riveting tale that's sure to keep you hooked.

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We're on hiatus until September 21 Until then, please enjoy all the Vercingetorix episodes in one long, binge-able file. 

This is the story of an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object: Julius Caesar bringing the might of the Roman military machine to bear against a proud warrior culture that had existed for centuries.

Most accounts of Julius Caesar in Gaul focus on the Battle of Alesia. We broaden our scope, centering the Gauls, their culture and the increasingly terrible trade-offs Vercingetorix had to make to keep his people alive.

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We're on hiatus until September 22. Until then, enjoy this long, binge-able episode on Julius Caesar's early life.

Most accounts of Caesar's life start later on--such as during his time in Gaul or crossing the Rubicon. But his early life was just as fascinating; maybe even more so.

This is the Caesar who stood up to Sulla and refused to divorce his wife. The Caesar who made an early career of prosecuting corrupt governors to cement his cred as a populist--even as it made him powerful enemies. The Caesar who, when kidnapped by pirates, demanded they raise his ransom and spent his time in captivity hanging out on the beach and reading them bad poetry.

It's a fun, lighthearted introduction to Caesar's life before it takes its dark turn. We hope you enjoy.

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This file contains the first three episodes in our series on Marc Antony and Cleopatra: Lovers in a Dangerous Time, all in one place.

This series has everything: love, war, violence, betrayal, Marc Antony barfing everywhere, and Cleopatra being extremely glamorous at all times. If you've listened to our interview with Barry Strauss on the Battle of Actium, you may be in the mood to dive into this story--or revisit it.

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We're on hiatus until September 22. Until then, enjoy this long, binge-able episode on all things Aphrodite. 

Some of you may be here because you saw our presentation on Transgender Aphrodite at Intelligent Speech. If so, welcome! We thought we'd put together our first long file all about the goddess so you can learn more about Aphrodite--how she was worshipped in the ancient world, the. main mythology about her, and our original deep dive into transgender Aphrodite.

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It's the end of Season 7! We can't believe we made it...something like 42 episodes later?

It's been a wonderful, weird, challenging, and heartbreaking season, for many different reasons. Find out what went on behind the scenes, and what we've got planned for the future.

We'll be back September 22. Have a great summer!

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It’s the last episode in our Gender Rebels of Greek Mythology series—and perhaps you’ll agree we saved the best for last.

Atalanta was an avatar of an older, wilder time, created in the image of an ancient Artemis—goddess of the fields and forests who had a strong association with bears. Perhaps Atalanta represents an older image of that goddess before Classical Athens got its hands on her.

Join us as we take a deep dive into the story of Atalanta: a gender rebel and sexually liberated heroine who—maybe—peels back the curtain on what life was like for women on the margins, living pre-agrarian lifestyles outside of the traditional gender roles established by the scholars and writers of Classical Greece.

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When you think of Artemis, what springs to mind?

 Perhaps it’s a fierce huntress with a bow and arrow, a sort of female Peter Pan—wild and untamed, haunting forests drenched in moonlight—a goddess who’s taken a stern vow of chastity, and refuses all company save that of her nymphs.

That’s one version of Artemis—the Classical version. But there’s an older, wilder version that pulls back the curtain on a more ancient way of life in Greece. Join us as we explore who Artemis was, how she was worshipped, and how she evolved into a goddess who fit into the Classical Athenian idea of what an ‘eternal maiden’ should look like.

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This week, we’re taking a bit of a detour into a previous, much-loved topic: Marc Antony, Cleopatra, and How it All Went Wrong.

In this episode, we return to the beach at Actium with author, historian, and academic Barry Strauss as our tour guide. His new book, The War That Made the Roman Empire: Antony, Cleopatra, and Octavian at Actium, discusses the infamous sea battle Marc Antony and Cleopatra fought against Octavian and Agrippa for love, for supremacy, for their very survival.

Join us as we deconstruct this battle, paint a vivid picture of ancient war at sea, and tackle the one question everyone’s asking: why did Cleopatra flee the battlefield?

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Most myths say that Athena sprung from Zeus’ head fully formed, totally brilliant, and just a badass war goddess. We don’t get a lot of stories about her youth, the way we have about Dionysus, or Artemis, or Heracles. Right from the start, Athena is just a fully formed adult who does adult things. Right?

Well, not exactly. There’s this one story that tells of how, when Athena was young, she had a very intense relationship with another girl named Pallas—perhaps the only person Athena ever truly loved. This is their story.

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This week, we’re going to talk about that time Heracles, the strong man, son of Zeus and noted impenetrable penetrator, lived as a woman. Yes, you read that right. And not only did he live as a woman, he was the submissive to a powerful female dom who took up his lionskin and club as symbols of her own power.

Get ready for a fun, gender-bending episode that completely overturns the ancient Greek binary.

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Many of us have preconceived notions about what the Illiad was like. Prepare to have those notions blown away.

In this episode, debut author Maya Deane methodically strips away the lenses of the Victorian era, Classical Greece, and the modern day to reveal an Illiad that’s older and darker and weirder than any of us could ever have dreamed.

This is the Illiad of your darkest and deepest imaginings, an Illiad like you’ve never seen before—but somehow always knew existed. It’s the Illiad of Wrath Goddess Sing—a novel about transgender Achilles and the love of found family in a Bronze Age world as deadly as it is beguiling.

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 We’re taking a slight departure from our Gender Rebels series to tell you the story of Zeus and Ganymede. This is the story about the time Zeus kidnapped a teenage boy named Ganymede and brought him to Olympus to be his “cup bearer.”

Zeus and Ganymede were not gender rebels. In fact, they set the standard for the erastes-eromenos binary of the time. This story was used to send the message that the gods approved of pederastic practices that were widespread in ancient Greece and Rome.

It’s a dark story, but it’s an important one. Join us as we drag it out into the light.

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Not only was abortion broadly legal in ancient Greece and Rome, but some of the methods used were surprisingly similar to today. And the Bible doesn’t mention it at all—except in one obscure passage, where it tells you how to administer one.

In this episode, we’re joined by feminist Biblical scholar and author Princess O’Nika Auguste to discuss the history of abortion in ancient Greece and Rome, as well as in Biblical times.

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This episode is part of our abortion rights takeover series. It was originally dropped on our Patreon.

It deals with the miracle plant of ancient Greece and Rome: Silphium. The people of Cyrene printed it on their money. It was considered a delicacy throughout the Greek and Roman world, as well as a powerful medicine that could be used to cure everything from baldness to epilepsy to poisonings.

And it may have even functioned as a contraceptive--and an abortifacent.

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This episode is part of our abortion rights takeover. We'll be back to our regularly scheduled series on gender rebels on June 2.

In this re-release, Kate from the Exploress podcast joined us to discuss the intimate lives of sex workers in ancient Greece and Rome--including methods of contraception and abortion. Pliny the Elder interviewed sex workers to get the lowdown on how they dealt with unwanted pregnancies (but we suspect the ladies were having him on).

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What happened to people in ancient Rome who were freed from slavery? Turns out there were still invisible threads--economic pressures, imbalances of status, and debts owed to wealthy patrons--that kept many of them in bondage.

On the streets of Pompeii, freedom came at a steep price--especially for women. Today, we talk to Elodie Harper--bestselling author of the Wolf Den and the House with the Golden Door--about enslaved people, freedwomen, and glamorous sex workers whose lives were far more precarious than they seemed.

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As most of you probably already know, abortion rights in the US are under attack. Somebody leaked a Supreme Court initial majority draft that was a full throated, loud and proud revocation of pregnant-capable people’s right to choose who gets to use our bodies.

Abortion is a totally normal procedure that people have been doing for millennia--probably for as long as people could get pregnant, they've been trying to end their pregnancies. We have several episodes that discuss abortion, and in the next few weeks, we’ll be re-releasing those on our main feed twice a week. The series will conclude with a brand-new episode with a Caribbean feminist scholar, discussing the history of abortion in ancient Greece and Rome as well as the Bible.

So tune in to our main feed to hear the re-released episodes. We'll return to our regularly scheduled series on gender rebels on June 2.

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This week, we're taking a break from the story of Achilles to discuss the Illiad from an angle that's not as often covered: the story of the women of the House of Atreus, the family of Agamemnon.

In this episode, bestselling author Jennifer Saint introduces us to Clytemnestra and Elektra--Agamemnon's wife and daughter--as well as the priestess and prophetess Cassandra, and the murderous curse that casts a shadow over their fates.

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In this episode, we explore what happened to gender in the pressure-cooker of ancient war. To do that, we skip ahead ten years to a different beach: the war-blasted, corpse-strewn sands below the walls of Troy.

As the Trojan War dragged on, the most respect went to those who were able to slaughter and pillage and plunder: gender for men devolved into “Smash and Grab” masculinity. Meanwhile, gender for women became “Gender as Property”—in the most explicit terms.

It's in this toxic wasteland that Achilles’ feud with Agamemnon rose to a fever pitch—over a woman called Briseis.

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In our last episode we looked at Achilles’ early life and his relationships with the women who crossed his path. In this episode, we follow him to the beach at Aulis—where all the Greek kings and heroes, anyone who was anyone, had gathered at the start of the Trojan War.

Achilles left Pyrrha behind, but his time as a dancing girl followed him to that beach. This is where the wind stalled. This is where Achilles first clashed with that titan of fragile masculinity, Agamemnon. And this is where a girl named Iphigenia met her fate.

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Achilles is so often portrayed as the most masculine of heroes, but those portrayals generally leave out that he spent a few years of his life passing as a girl. Today, we’re going to explore that time in Achilles’ life, and what it tells us about his gender.

We’ll also delve into his relationships with the women in his early life: his mom, Thetis, and a girl named Deidameia. 

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In the first part of our Gender Rebels series, we talked about queer history—queer women, Intersex people, transgender people, and eunuchs. Now, we’re going to begin another series that takes that lens to Greek mythology.  

There are plenty of queer myths that break the binary as the ancient Greeks saw it—and heroes and gods who were gender rebels. Sometimes those gender rebels aren’t who you’d expect—and who they’re usually portrayed to be. That’s what this episode is all about.

Join us as we explore the mythology of a genderqueer Achilles and the man who loved him.

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Last week, we told you about the Sacred Band’s first important military victories—victories that depended on the intense trust and love the Sacred Band members had for each other. Victories that showed that the Spartans weren’t so tough after all.

But as Spartan control in Greece receded, opportunistic warlords and upstart city-states rose up to take advantage of a power vacuum. One of their most dangerous new opponents was a man named Philip of Macedon—and his 18-year-old son, Alexander.

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In our last episode, we told you the story of how the Spartans took over the city of Thebes and how an intrepid and very queer group of Theban rebels, led by a firebrand named Pelopidas, took it back while dressed as women.

The Thebans had their city back. Now they had to figure out how to hold it against the Spartans, because the Spartans would strike back. Their solution was to form an elite 300-man fighting force to counter the dreaded Spartan hippeis—held together by the bonds of love. 

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The time was the 300s BC. The place was Thebes. And in this place, in this time, there was an elite military force—the best of the best special ops shock troops—made up of 150 male lovers.

Their love for each other was the key to their strength. It made them better fighters. More effective. It made them strong enough to break the iron-fisted control of oppressive regimes. This is their incredible story.

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Last week, we focused on people who chose to undergo castration for religious reasons. But this probably wasn’t the most common experience most people had who were castrated. Enslaved people were castrated as well--often in childhood.

Today, we're going to take a deep dive into their lives and circumstances.

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In ancient Rome, there were a lot of eunuchs. Some were enslaved, some were free; some were members of religious cults, some were not. No study of queer history in ancient Greece and Rome would be complete without them. 

Today, we’re going to take a look at the history of people who underwent castration in the Roman Empire—why they did it, when they did and didn’t have a choice, and what their lives were like.

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Intersex people are sometimes featured in Greek mythology in a positive way—for instance, the beautiful child of Aphrodite who became an important part of her entourage.

But the ancient Romans saw Intersex people as imbued with a specific kind of magic associated with frightening signs and portents—and that made it dangerous to be Intersex in the ancient world.

Join us as we explore the lives of Intersex people in ancient Greece and Rome.

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We are SO excited that we have a book coming out in August 2022! Our book, Women of Myth, will be available worldwide from Simon and Schuster. 

Listen in as we talk about our favorite Women of Myth from around the world with Liv Albert from Let's Talk About Myths, Baby!

Our book is about epic women in mythology from around the world. We cover a diverse range of cultures, from Greek and Roman mythology to important figures from regions such as Africa and African Diaspora countries, the Pacific Islands, Asia and the Middle East, indigenous cultures from North, South, and Central America; and more.  

We cannot wait to share these tales with you. Preorder here! https://linktr.ee/ancienthistoryfangirl

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Join us for a deep dive into queer history in ancient Greece and Rome. This week, we focus on transgender men and women.

It's a common belief that being trans is somehow a "modern" invention and there were no trans people in the ancient world. But nothing could be further from the truth.

From the trans women who led the worship of an influential state cult to the trans guys who lived right under the noses of Greek and Roman society, transgender people were gender rebels in an extremely patriarchal culture. Join us as we explore their lives and experience.

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This mini-series-within-a-series will be a deep dive into queer history in ancient Greece and Rome--starting with queer women.

Because how could we do a season about sex and sex magic without talking about the magical provenance of those who fell outside the accepted binary?

Women who loved other women were gender rebels in the ancient world. They challenged the gender binary in some of the most basic and fundamental ways—ways that the ancient Greeks and Romans found profoundly destabilizing.

Join us as we find out why.

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She's the Tenth Muse, Western literature's first lyric poet, and a woman who openly, unabashedly loved women and wrote about it--in an extremely patriarchal society where queer women's experiences were almost universally erased.

But what has come down to us about the life and times of Sappho?

Like her poetry, our picture of Sappho's life is very fragmentary. This week, we team up with Leesa Charlotte from Sweetbitter to try piecing the puzzle together.

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In this episode, we talk to Jennifer Saint, bestselling author of Ariadne, to discuss myth, storytelling, the lives of women in Minoan Crete--and the process of recreating mysterious, ancient religious rites based on the clues left in mythology.

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Janus is the two-faced god of the Roman pantheon. He was the god of beginnings and endings, of dual natures, of passageways and passage through time. He’s the god of thresholds and doorways and gates, and the god of change, both concrete and abstract. He’s constantly in motion; he’s the god who’s always just passing through.

Janus may not be very well-known. But in his time, he was considered one of the most important gods—perhaps more important than Jupiter himself. Today, we’re going to tell you all about him.

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This year, we decided that the holiday season wouldn’t be complete without a mythological foray into one of the most famous characters of the season: The Krampus.

And some of you might be saying: wait a minute, Krampus isn’t ancient; he’s modern. Also, everyone knows about Krampus, the festive demon of Christmas. Why are you covering this well-trodden topic?

Wait until you hear the wild things we uncovered about him and his history, and then make your judgements about how old and well-trodden this topic is.

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How did sex workers in ancient Greece and Rome manage their periods? What were the most popular fashions for pubic hair? What underwear was everyone wearing? And how did sex workers handle contraception and unwanted pregnancies?

In this episode, we team up with Kate the Exploress to delve into the most intimate aspects of daily life for sex workers in ancient Greece and Rome, including the most powerful sex magic of all: the blood magic of periods.

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Despite inspiring desire of all kinds in people of all genders, Aphrodite herself is often depicted as a cisgender woman. But not always.

Ancient writers tell us of mystery cults that worshipped Aphrodite as a transgender woman--or perhaps as nonbinary or intersex. And when you delve into her most ancient roots, there’s an even older tradition of worship led by transgender priestesses.

Join us as we uncover the historical and mythological evidence for a transgender Aphrodite.

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Goddess of sex workers, Our Lady of the Castration Foam, the walking embodiment of orgasm herself—Aphrodite was one of the most powerful goddesses in the Olympian pantheon. And as a free, unattached woman with lots of sexual agency, she directly threatened the patriarchy.

In this episode, we’ll examine the stories told about Aphrodite--and what they reveal about how the Ancient Greeks felt about women, love, lust, and relationships. 

Join us for a mythology-packed episode that will demystify the goddess of love.

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If you know anything about Aphrodite, then you know she is the ancient Greek goddess primarily associated with love, beauty, sex, reproduction, and passion. She was also the patron goddess of sex workers in the ancient Classical world.

Join us as we explore how Aphrodite was worshipped in ancient Greece, the goddess's history and ancient roots, and how the Romans transformed her into Venus.

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Liv Albert from Let's Talk About Myths Baby! has an obsession, and the name of that obsession is Assassin's Creed Odyssey.

This game immerses you immediately in Ancient Greece--and provides loads of historically accurate settings from the world we've been exploring this season: the symposia of Athens, the pleasures of Corinth, the Peloponnesian War and exactly who's responsible, and the mysteries of Crete and other Greek islands.

Come join us on a tour of Ancient Greece as Assassin's Creed Odyssey sees it. You may even meet some old friends. Warning: Spoilers abound.

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The werewolf myth as we know it today generally involves getting bitten by a werewolf, transforming during the full moon, and being very susceptible to silver bullets. But werewolves in ancient Greece and Rome were a little different.

Join us for a spooky-season deep dive into ancient werewolf mythology from thousands of years ago. We'll take a look at the pre-Christian origins of the werewolf myth and its connections to death, starvation, cannibalism, and transformation. 

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Dads who devour their children. Disembodied baby heads. Corpses that stand up on the battlefield to prophesy doom. Women who return from the grave to carry on steamy affairs.

The Ancient Greeks did ghost stories...a little differently. This week, we team up with Liv Albert from Let’s Talk About Myths, Baby! to bring you three ghostly tales from ancient Greece that will send a shiver down your spine.

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The Lupanar, or “Wolf Den,” is the infamous brothel of Pompeii. Elodie Harper’s bestselling novel follows the lives of the sex workers who lived and worked there—their passions, their heartbreaks, and the tightly-knit community they built for themselves. 

Today, we’ve invited Elodie on the show to talk about the realities of sex workers’ lives in the Wolf Den—and how sex work was practiced in Pompeii near the time of the Vesuvius eruption.

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Last week, we told you about the lives of five courtesans in Classical Athens. But we left someone out--perhaps the most elite hetaera of them all.

Long-term partner of a leading Athenian statesman, darling of the philosophical set, survivor of the plague of Athens—she threw her own parties, and they were the best parties ever thrown within a hundred-mile radius of Athens. No one has done better since. Her name was Aspasia.

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In our last few episodes on sex workers in ancient Greece, we tried to paint a picture of a group of women, in some cases, with more freedom and independence than most in the ancient Greek world could dream of. But that freedom came at a price.

Now, we’re going to tell you about the lives of some of ancient Greece’s most famous Hetaerae.

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The symposia--all-male drinking parties--were the playground and hunting ground of Athens' elite courtesans. But they had their dangers, too.

Join us as we attend a symposium with the fast set of Ancient Athens. We’re going to hang out with the hetaerae, drink our faces off, flirt outrageously with everyone in range, and debate with the philosophers until the sun comes up.

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The conventional wisdom is that sex workers in ancient Greece were divided into two main categories: pornai who were enslaved in brothels, and hetaerae, who were elite courtesans. That’s actually a drastic oversimplification.

This is the beginning of a journey into the world of sex workers in ancient Greece. Join us as we explore what life was like for sex workers at every level of the profession—including those who didn't fit easily into these categories. 

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We're on hiatus until September 2. Until then, please enjoy some of our favorite episodes from the back catalog.

Close your eyes and imagine a loving family. Devoted parents and six children: three happy brothers and three happy sisters. The father, Germanicus, is a war hero—beloved by the people, and next in line for the throne. Life is good. Life is perfect.

But nothing good can ever stay. It begins with a cough—a funny turn—and suddenly the family of Germanicus is torn apart, caught in the political riptides of Imperial Rome.

This dynasty would give rise to two of Rome’s most infamous emperors and some of its most legendary women—before it ends in tragedy.

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We're on hiatus until September 2. Until then, please enjoy some of our favorite episodes from the back catalog.

Our only explanation for this episode is that it was Jenny's birthday and she wanted to have some friends over. So we invited Katy and Nathan from Queens Podcast to come on our podcast and drink us under the table.

Join us on a drunken ramble through the Julio-Claudian dynasty, where we go on and ON about our favorite topics: Agrippina (Elder and Younger), Cleopatra, badass women in history, and whether Caligula and Henry VIII were in fact the same person.

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We're on hiatus until September 2. Until then, please enjoy some of our favorite episodes from the back catalog.

Hippolyte and her golden belt. Penthesilea and the fall of Troy. The Daughters of Ares. Atalanta and the golden apples. They're everywhere in Greek mythology: fierce, deadly women warriors.

But in a society as male-dominated as ancient Greece, what did this obsession with strong warrior women mean? We take a look at some of the more well-known Amazon myths of ancient Greece--and the mystery of their meaning in context.

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We're on hiatus until September 2. Until then, please enjoy some of our favorite episodes from the back catalog.

In this episode, the epic story of the elephant of war continues. Join noted elephant adventurers King Pyrrhus of Epirus (he of the Pyrrhic victory), Julius Caesar, Hannibal Barca, and Lady Trieu of Vietnam as they stomp their enemies into submission on the ancient battlefield.

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We're on hiatus until September 2. Until then, please enjoy some of our favorite episodes from the back catalog.

Forget what you thought you knew about Dionysus and his cozy wine-drinking image. This is the Dionysus of Thrace. The Dionysus of Mithradates. Of Spartacus. Of revolutionaries across the classical world. This is the story of how one wandering god inspired people to rise up against injustice.

In this episode, we look at Dio's origin story, his mythography, and how his journey across the ancient world followed in the steps of winemaking.

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We're on hiatus until September 2. Until then, please enjoy some of our favorite episodes from the back catalog.

Think the Amazons of Greek myth were mythical? Think again. The Greeks based their Amazons on the real-life warrior women next door.

Centuries ago, ancient writers claimed that Scythian women of the Eurasian Steppe fought in battle alongside their men. Now, with modern bioarchaeology, the bones of real female warriors have emerged from their grave mounds and begun to speak to us. This is their story.

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We're on hiatus until September 2. Until then, please enjoy some of our favorite episodes from the back catalog.

Ancient Rome was full of rich, ambitious social climbers in a cutthroat political environment—people who had enemies to get rid of, and deep pockets to pay for the service.

Poison assassins were in high demand—and one of the most notorious was a woman named Locusta the Poisoner. Learn her story--and get a crash course on poison and poisonings in the ancient world.

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We're on hiatus until September 2. Until then, please enjoy some of our favorite issues from the back catalog.

On August 24, 410 AD, Alaric and the Visigoths sacked the city of Rome. Before he sacked it, he starved it. Before that, he went toe to toe with the Roman Empire for fifteen years—uniting disparate tribes, holding a people together, and achieving more against Rome than any barbarian leader before him.

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We're going on hiatus! We'll be back September 2.

Thank you so much for joining us on the wild ride that was Season 6. Listen in as we discuss some highlights and behind-the-scenes goings on, and find out what we've got planned for our upcoming season.

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London began its life as Old Londinium—an informal trading community that sprang up around the narrowest point in the Thames, and was burned to the ground by Boudicca’s army just decades after its founding.

This week, we asked bestselling urban fantasy author Ben Aaronovitch to take us on a tour of Old Londinium—say, the day before Boudicca’s arrival.

Join us as we explore the streets and rivers of this diverse and enterprising trading town, and then wander all the way up Watling Street to Hadrian’s Wall.  

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The people of Camulodunum had found out the hard way that Rome’s promises of protection weren’t enough to save them from Boudicca’s rampaging army—and so did the people of London and Verulamium. Boudicca burned these cities to the ground, unleashing a cleansing fire that was seared into the British landscape.

From there, Boudicca and her army set out on Watling Street, an ancient Iron-age road that led all the way to Wales—where the fires of rebellion still burned. If Boudicca could reach the Druids of Anglesey, perhaps together they could drive the Romans out of Britain for good.

But first, she would have to get through the Roman general Suetonius Paulinus.

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When Boudicca rebelled against the Romans, she knew exactly who to turn to for allies: the Trinovantes.

Years ago, the Romans had taken over their town, Camulodunum—and made it over into a veterans’ retirement colony, subjugating the Trinovantes in the process. When the opportunity came to drive the Romans out, they seized the opportunity.

But many of those living in Camulodunum were Britons themselves—some who had been enslaved, and others trying to maintain an uneasy peace with the Roman conquerors. Find out what happened when Boudicca’s army rolled into their town.

This episode was sponsored by the TimeTravelRome app: https://www.timetravelrome.com/

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The story of Boudicca’s revolt is as epic as you can get. It’s got murder and pillage, Romans behaving badly, cities on fire, and a layer of destruction that was scorched into the earth. But it's also the story of a people on a precipice of great change.

Who was Boudicca? Who was this iron-age warrior queen who stood up to the Romans—and whose name was so revered and feared that stories of her are still being spun almost 2,000 years later? In this episode, we’re going to find out.

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Our dear friend Liv (from Let's Talk About Myths, Baby!) wrote a book, Greek Mythology: the Gods, Goddesses, and Heroes Handbook. And it’s already a bestseller in Canada and a #1 new release on Amazon!! We just had to celebrate by dropping an extra bonus episode where we interview Liv about her book like super serious professionals.

At least, that’s how this episode starts.

For the past year, we’ve teamed up with Liv to bring a series of drunken myth retellings to both of our Patreon channels. We decided to bring a tipsy myth to our main feed in the second half of this episode. So settle in, pop open a beverage of choice, and get ready for a drunken retelling of Arachne.

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Hadrian was the Roman emperor who commissioned Hadrian’s Wall--and he probably had a hand in designing it. But the Wall was only a very small part of Hadrian's life, and it’s not the only massive building project that comes down to us today from his reign.

This week, Liv Albert from Let's Talk About Myths, Baby! joins us to talk about how Hadrian combined his obsession with architecture and his passion for all things Greek to transform the city of Athens.

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The Pictish Beast is a mysterious animal carved on Pictish standing stones. Nobody knows what kind of animal it is. But it must have been really important to the Picts, as over 40% of animals carved into their stones are the Pictish Beast.

Is it an elephant? Is it a kelpie? Is it an ancient prehistoric monster the likes of which no living person has ever seen? What is it??

In this episode, Genn and Jenny spend roughly an hour debating what, exactly, the Pictish Beast might have been. We state our cases, lay out our supporting facts, get really opinionated, and knock back a few drinks along the way.

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The Picts burst onto the Romano-British scene as terrifying Celtic pirates, overwhelming Hadrian’s Wall from the north, sweeping in from the sea to ravage and burn Romano-British settlements as the power of the Roman Empire slowly receded.

In the centuries after Rome faded, they were the true Kings in the North—building a powerful kingdom in the northernmost highlands that lasted more than 600 years. Until, around 900 AD, they disappeared from the record. They simply vanished.

Who were the Picts—and what became of them? In this episode, we’re going to find out.

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By the end of the 300s, the soldiers on Hadrian's Wall were hungry, they were under-equipped, and they hadn't been paid in years. Even so, many stayed at their posts--even as the Roman Empire lost its grip on Britain entirely.

Find out how the fall of Rome looked from the view of Hadrian's Wall--and what became of those stationed there, holding the frontiers of an empire as it swiftly crumbled around them.

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The living at Hadrian's Wall wasn't as austere as you might think for those stationed there--especially in the beginning. Merchants flocked from all over the Empire to sell their wares to soldiers with regular paychecks.

But conditions changed drastically in the decades and centuries after Hadrian died. New Emperors--Antoninus Pius, Diocletian, Septimius Severus, and others--would all leave their mark on the Wall and its territory.

This week, we’re going to talk about what became of the Wall—and those who lived there—after Hadrian’s death. 

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What was life like on Hadrian's Wall? This week, we're going to explore the living conditions along the Wall--at the forts and the milecastles, in the officers' quarters and soldiers' barracks, and in the bustling civilian towns that sprang up around the military encampments.

There's a treasure trove of archaeology at forts along the Wall--especially at Vindolanda, where fragile artifacts are perfectly preserved in deep anaerobic soil.

Find out what we've managed to piece together about life on the Wall from the well-preserved clothes, footwear, weapons, tools, jewelry, bodies, and the fort commander's private stash of mail.

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Hadrian’s Wall is a jaw-dropping engineering achievement stretching 73 miles across hundred-foot-high escarpments and rushing rivers, its earthworks dug deep into unforgiving igneous bedrock.

It’s the largest Roman artifact in existence, and yet we still have no idea why it was built. It’s barely mentioned in the ancient sources, but in its rise and fall, you can trace the rise and fall of Roman Britain as a whole.

 This is the epic story we’re going to tell you: the story of Hadrian’s Wall.

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This week, we’re taking a deep dive into Welsh mythology from a queer, feminist perspective with the phenomenally talented Welsh artist Mari Catrin Phillips of MythsnTits.

Join us as we get acquainted with the women of the Mabinogion.

Check out MythsnTits: https://www.etsy.com/shop/MariCatrinPhillips

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If you know anything about Mithras, you might have the impression that he was kind of a proto-Jesus. Turns out that’s wrong.

Think of this as less of a seasonal episode, and more of a seasonal myth-busting episode. Get ready for the epic story of a bull-slaughtering, mushroom-tripping, light-bringing, Emperor-pee-drinking, hierarchy-maintaining, Smurf-hat-wearing cosmic warrior. 

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The Morrigan has many names: Badb, the scald-crow. Red-haired Macha. Nevin of the battle-frenzy. Fea; the deathly. Be Neit; the Woman of Battle.

But first and foremost, the Morrigan was a goddess of war. And to understand her, you have to understand her battlefield. Join us as we get to know the Morrigan—and explore the bloody waters in which she swam.

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In our last episode, we alluded to the fact that there were female as well as male Druids in the Celtic iron age. But if the picture of male Druids is spotty, the picture of female Druids is more mysterious still.

We decided to delve into Celtic culture, myth, and archaeology to see what we could uncover about female Druids in the ancient world.

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When Julius Caesar conquered Gaul, the Druids suffered a swift and catastrophic loss of status and position. Persecuted and demonized by later Emperors, many fled to Britain, where Roman influence didn’t reach.

But eventually, the Romans followed. The Druids were driven to the island of Anglesey— the last stronghold of Druidic life and learning. From there, they incited rebellion among Welsh tribes, firing up a fierce resistance.

Until finally, standing on the last stretch of beach on the last island refuge, the Druids made a heroic final stand against the Roman invaders.

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What tales kept people from thousands of years ago up at night?

This Halloween, Ancient History Fangirl teams up with Liv Albert from Let’s Talk About Myths, Baby! to delve into spooky stories from the ancient world that will send a shiver up your spine—tales of shrieking Banshees, deathly Furies, and the terrors of Samhain.

So spread some salt over your threshold. Settle into your favorite chair. Pour yourself a drink to take the chill from your bones. And if there’s a knock on your door, whatever you do—don’t answer it.

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Ancient History Fangirl is taking a break. We'll be busy getting ready for Season 6--which we're really psyched about.

Listen in as we discuss highlights of the previous season, our big plans for Season 6, and some other important developments.

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More than 1,800 years after Spartacus fought for his freedom, another rebel leader spearheaded the most successful slave revolt in history: the Haitian Revolution. That leader was a man named Toussaint L’Ouverture.

This week, we invited Mike Duncan of The History of Rome and Revolutions to help us compare these two revolutionaries and discuss what advice Toussaint L'Ouverture might have had for Spartacus.

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Crixus is dead. Spartacus has given up on crossing the Alps. And he has a new enemy: a man with endless money, endless resources, and a lot to prove.

Nobody asked for more Crassus. Not Spartacus, not the Roman Senate, and not the hundred thousand people following Spartacus to a better life. But in this episode, that’s exactly what everyone is going to get.

In this episode, Spartacus faces off against the Roman Republic’s richest man, sine missione: to the death. No quarter given; no mercy shown. Only one can emerge from this conflict alive.

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After defeating Glaber on the slopes of Mt. Vesuvius, Spartacus and his rebels enjoyed a glorious Italian summer—taming wild ponies for their infantry, attracting new recruits, and raiding in the rich Italian farmlands.

But all good summers come to an end. The Roman Senate continued to send more experienced generals against Spartacus--even as he struggled to reign in his followers' worst instincts toward violence. And meanwhile, Rome’s foreign wars were winding down. The clock was ticking.     

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In our last episode, Spartacus and his compatriots broke out of the ludus and began their rebellion. Spurred on by the Dionysian prophecies of his lover, the Thracian Lady, Spartacus’ legend grew. 

But the Roman Senate was not going to let his army rampage unchecked—and soon Spartacus would face troubles without and tribal conflicts within. It all came to a head on the slopes of Mt. Vesuvius.

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The story of Spartacus is the story of the Roman Republic at a crossroads.

In the 70s BC, the city of Rome was a powderkeg, the peninsula was wracked with starvation and violence, the Mediterranean was crawling with pirates, and two major wars raged overseas.

This was the state of affairs when Spartacus rebelled. Join us as we explore the volatile conditions that allowed a hero to rise.

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Join us as we travel back in time to the amphitheatre of Capua—mainland Italy's largest amphitheatre in its day—and experience a day at the gladiatorial games during the time of Spartacus. This episode was sponsored by Oneshi Press. Sound sculpting by Lens Group Media.

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Mr. Guy

Lens Group Media

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What did it take to be a gladiator? Who ended up in the arena, and why? And how did the gladiatorial games—one of the bloodiest sporting events known in the ancient world—come to be?

From the ancient roots of Etruscan funeral games to the height of Roman spectacle, we examine the history of gladiatorial combat—and explore what life was like for gladiators in the time of Spartacus.

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We're thrilled to announce we'll both be participating in Intelligent Speech 2020 this year! This year, the conference will be held entirely online, from 10 AM to 6 PM on June 27. Tickets are $10 (early) and $15 (starting June 19). We had the pleasure of sitting down to talk podcasting, history, and our upcoming presentation with Roifield Brown, producer of six podcasts including DumteeDum, 10 American Presidents, and How Jamaica Conquered the World.

Get tickets for Intelligent Speech here.

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We invited the Partial Historians onto our show to discuss one of their favorite topics and ours: Spartacus in film and pop culture. Join us in a no-holds-barred conversation in which Dr. Rad unleashes the beast, Dr. G stages a rebellion-within-the-rebellion, and Dr. Rad's cat has a LOT to say.

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The Thracians were the most feared professional killers of the ancient world—serving as hired assassins, enforcers, and mercenaries in famous battles from one end of the Mediterranean to the other. They were the ones the Romans and Greeks hired for their really dirty work.

But there was more to the Thracians than violence. In this episode, we use ancient sources and modern archeology to build a picture of how these epic people lived, loved, fought, and died.

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Who was Spartacus, really? It’s not an easy question to answer. The ancient sources agree that he was Thracian, but even this is up for debate. Still, we’re going to go out on a limb and say that to know Spartacus, you have to know the Thracians.

The Thracians were a fierce warrior people, consummate mercenaries who fought in every major Greek and Roman war—and believed that they would never die. Join us as we try to breathe life into these epic people by exploring their unique mythology and religious beliefs.

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During the First Servile War, the epic prophet and fire-breather named Eunus led a rebellion that threatened the Republic to its foundations. For a time, Eunus controlled all of Sicily. But he ended his life devoured by lice in a jail cell.

After Eunus’ death, the great Sicilian latifundia recovered. Within a few years, they were up and running again—just as strong, profitable, and cruel as before.

But just 28 years later, another major uprising—the Second Servile War—would shake that system to its core once again. Find out how it all went down.

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The First Servile War started in 135 BC—about 62 years before Spartacus led his rebellion. It lasted about twice as long as the Spartacus war, and involved hundreds of thousands of people.

The Spartacus of this rebellion was a man named Eunus—a fire-breather and miracle worker whose courage inspired additional revolts throughout the Italian peninsula and beyond. This is his story.

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This week, Ancient History Fangirl teams up with Liv Albert from Let’s Talk About Myths, Baby! to drink wine, drop some f-bombs, and dish about everyone’s favorite god of theatre, orgies, booze and madness.

Join us as we explore all the ways Dionysus subverted the Roman patriarchy, theatre practices of the ancient Greeks, woman-centric retellings of Medea and Medusa, and the most radically feminist Greek playwright of his time: Euripides.

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https://www.mythsbaby.com/

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So, up until this point all the episodes we've put out recently were recorded before the coronavirus hit us where we lived. But the world has drastically changed since then.

We wanted to give our audience an update about what we're up to, how we're coping, and the direction for the podcast in the coming weeks and months.

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In our last episode we talked about the journey Dionysus took to become a god. We followed his travels across the Mediterranean as he went on an epic quest to spread the cultivation of wine.

In this episode, we'll focus on what happened after Dionysus won his place as a god on Mount Olympus--how people worshiped him on earth, and what made him so dangerous to the Roman status quo.

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Forget what you thought you knew about Dionysus and his cozy wine-drinking image. This is the Dionysus of Thrace. The Dionysus of Mithradates. Of Spartacus. Of revolutionaries across the classical world. This is the story of how one wandering god inspired people to rise up against injustice.

In this episode, we look at Dio's origin story, his mythography, and how his journey across the ancient world followed in the steps of winemaking.

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So...we have no idea what we're doing. Season 4 is officially over! Listen in as we discuss our big plans for Season 5.

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Our only explanation for this episode is that it was Jenny's birthday and she wanted to have some friends over. So we invited Katy and Nathan from Queens Podcast to come on our podcast and drink us under the table.

Join us on a drunken ramble through the Julio-Claudian dynasty, where we go on and ON about our favorite topics: Agrippina (Elder and Younger), Cleopatra, badass women in history, and whether Caligula and Henry VIII were in fact the same person.

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https://queenspodcast.libsyn.com/

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After the disaster at Actium, Marc Antony's entire army--100,000 strong--surrendered to Octavian. Marc Antony and Cleopatra fled to Alexandria to negotiate the terms of their defeat.

Those were dark, foreboding days. Friends and allies fled the palace. Marc Antony fell into a deep depression, while Cleopatra searched desperately for a way out--one that would keep her kingdom intact and her children alive.

But the reckoning was coming.

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As Marc Antony and Cleopatra lived and loved in Alexandria, Octavian whipped up a toxic garbage fire of racism, misogyny, and xenophobia in Rome--and then declared war. Not against Marc Antony, but against Cleopatra.

Soon, the lovers would be forced to defend their home, their family, and their life together on the shores of the Ambracian Gulf. Find out how it all went down--at a town called Actium.

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Why were Civil War-era female spies so successful in smuggling guns across enemy lines? What secret superpower gave Scythian women an edge in battle? In heavily patriarchal ancient Greece, what made athletic, confident Spartan women so exceptional?

Badass women have existed throughout ancient history. In this bonus AHFG episode, Kate from the Exploress Podcast joins us in a freewheeling conversation that finds those women throughout the ages--from Civil War battlefields to ancient Egyptian bathrooms.

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https://www.theexploresspodcast.com/

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What do you know about Yule? Maybe a lot. The holiday is widely celebrated in Scandinavian countries, and it's an important part of Wiccan and Pagan tradition. But for many of us, the version that's come down through history is strongly associated with Christmas--and heavily sanitized.

When we scratched the surface, however, we found that the origins of Yule were older and darker and weirder than we ever imagined.

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After four years of marriage with Octavia, Marc Antony followed Cleopatra to Alexandria—and settled into life there. He oversaw festivals and athletic contests, cheered Cleopatra on as she ruled Egypt, and showered her and their children with honors and territories.

For all intents and purposes, he was the consort of Egypt’s beloved Pharaoh, the father of her children—and he was home.

But the propaganda war between Antony and Octavian was building to a fever pitch in Rome, even as the Parthians loomed threateningly in the distance. Soon Antony would be called to war—and face the biggest battlefield test of his career.

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When Cleopatra and Marc Antony met by the River Tarsus, Antony was smitten. And when Cleopatra went back to Alexandria, he forgot about invading Parthia and followed her home.

The two then spent a magical few months in Alexandria, where they threw each other lavish banquets, made bets and compacts, played ridiculous practical jokes on each other and the public--and fell in love.

But nothing good can ever stay. The real world came knocking, and soon Marc Antony was forced to choose between his heart in Alexandria and his future in Rome.

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Last time we covered vampires, we were struck by the haunting connection between vampire myths and real disease. Between that and the many vampire myths from around the world that we didn’t have time to cover, you might say we had unfinished business with vampires.

This Halloween, Ancient History Fangirl teams up with Raven Forrest Fruscalzo from the Tiny Vampires podcast to explore the intriguing connection between vampires and disease.

Join us as we discuss some fascinating vampire myths from regions outside the Greco-Roman world—and the real diseases that may have given rise to these myths.

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Tiny Vampires podcast

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Shakespeare wrote about them. Hollywood glamorized them. For thousands of years, they've come down to us as the ultimate star-crossed lovers: the Ptolemaic queen Cleopatra, and the Roman commander Marc Antony.

In the wake of Caesar's death, Cleopatra fled to Egypt--and began picking up the pieces. Meanwhile, Marc Antony defeated Caesar's assassins in battle, and then set his sights on invading Parthia.

But to invade Parthia, he needed the money and support of Rome's richest client ruler: Cleopatra. And Cleopatra had an agenda, too: she needed another Roman protector to shore up her power in Egypt.

Find out what happened when these two met on the banks of the River Tarsus.

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The romance between Mark Antony and Cleopatra has beguiled us for centuries. What most people don’t realize is that when Mark Antony met Cleopatra, he was already married—to someone just as epic. Her name was Fulvia.

Cleopatra had glamour and divinity and lots of money. But Fulvia had the gangs. She was a populist firebrand, military leader, and for a while, the undisputed power in Rome: both in the Senate and in the streets.

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Season III is over, and we're gearing up for Season IV! We'll be back on October 3. Listen up to find out what we've got coming up! Also, if you want to get more of us during our break, subscribe to our Patreon!

We've got exclusive episodes up just for Patreon subscribers. For just $2 a month you can get more Fangirl episodes and support the podcast!

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When Julius Caesar returned to Rome after his last military campaign, he had big plans. Plans like remaking Rome in the image of Alexandria—as a beacon of light and learning. Transforming the Roman calendar and enacting sweeping government reforms. Invading Parthia for some reason. And making himself Dictator for Life—and the next best thing to a king and god.

But Caesar should have been more on his guard--because a secret movement to assassinate him was building steam. Find out how it all went down.

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After winning the Alexandrian War and restoring Cleopatra to her throne, Julius Caesar returned to Rome. And then—he kept busy. Settling an insurrection among his troops, getting himself declared dictator for another 10 years, cleaning up the resistance, packing the Senate with his friends, and throwing himself not one, not two, not three—but four epic Triumphs.

All Caesar's barriers to power had been removed. Now there was no one to stop him from doing exactly what he wanted with the Roman Empire.

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When Cleopatra met Julius Caesar, sparks flew. The daring Egyptian queen beguiled the conquering Roman general—and then enlisted him to fight her battles.

Outnumbered five to one in a city full of ancient wonders, Cleopatra and Caesar spent the next ten months barricaded in a luxurious palace while outside, the enemy howled for their blood--fighting a deadly urban war for Cleopatra's throne and both of their survival.

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When Julius Caesar arrived in Egypt, he walked into a civil war between the country’s new co-rulers: Ptolemy XIII and his sister Cleopatra.

The romance between Caesar and Cleopatra is one of the most epic of ancient times. But we can’t tell you that story until you understand who Cleopatra was. And to understand Cleopatra, you have to understand the political element in which she swam.

In this episode, we take you from the cutthroat intrigue of the Ptolemaic court to the volatile streets of Alexandria—and from Cleopatra’s early life to the events that led her to take an extreme gamble and team up with the man who’d just conquered Rome.

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