Spartan History Podcast

The battle of Salamis was the defining naval conflict of the ancient Greek world. Occurring in the wake of the Greek defeat at Thermopylae, the allied Hellenic fleet lined up in the narrow strait betw...

Thermopylae. The title is synonymous with a bygone age of glory, bravery and defiance. It is an event entirely pivotal to the Spartan story and indeed, of this podcast as well. The events at the hot g...

In the third installment of my Greco-Persian war series we take a look at the Interbellum. The years between Marathon and Thermopylae.  A pivotal decade for both Greek and Persian alike.Alliances were...

Second up for my Greco-Persian war series is the Battle of Marathon, fought in 490 BCE. The first time in living and recorded memory that a foreign invader attempted such a thing in Greece. Joining me...

EPISODE 35 A TALE OF TWO TYRANTSThe Greco-Persian wars were a series of truly tectonic engagements fought during the first half of the 5th century BCE. On one side was a lose coalition of free Greek c...

EPISODE 34 THE HISTORY OF PERSIA WITH TREVOR CULLEYThe Persian empire constituted the greatest threat to Greek independence the individual city-states had yet faced. Indeed, it was a threat of such di...

EPISODE 33 CLEOMENEAN SPARTACleomenes the first sat upon the Agiad throne of Sparta from around 520 to 490 BCE. Although his downfall just preceded the advent of the Greco-Persian wars, his reign was ...

EPISODE 32 EMBASSIES AND ENEMIESBy the middle of the 6th century, Sparta was, through her alliances, the most powerful military force Hellas had yet seen. There was just one thorn in their side, one p...

EPISODE 31 A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWNLikely by around 550 BCE, Sparta had the most powerful military in ancient Greece. They used that to their favour and created a coalition of Peloponnesian cities all bo...

EPISODE 30 A SUMMARY OF LYCURGAN SPARTA WITH PROFESSOR PAUL CARTLEDGEOver the past half a century no one has done more to forward the field of ancient Spartan research than Professor Paul Cartledge. H...

EPISODE 29 CASTES OF SPARTAThis time around I take a look at the various castes and sub-castes within Spartan society.  What we see in popular culture is but the tip of the iceberg, those mighty red c...

EPISODE 28 THE BRONZE LIE WITH MYKE COLEI had the honour, pride and privilege of sitting down with author Myke Cole for this instalment of the Spartan History Podcast.His recently released book, the B...

EPISODE 27 HEAVY METAL SPARTANS WITH DR JEREMY SWISTWe're shifting gears a little with this episode as I'm joined by Dr Jeremy Swist, lecturer and classicist at Brandeis University in Massac...

EPISODE 26: THE SPARTAN REGIME WITH PROFESSOR PAUL RAHEAuthor, classicist and historian Professor Paul Rahe was kind enough to sit down with your host for this instalment of Spartan History Podcast.Pa...

EPISODE 25: SPARTIATESWelcome back folks to the Spartan History Podcast. Stepping back into the solo format to once again put another facet of pre-classical Sparta under the microscope. This time it i...

EPISODE 24: PART 2 OF A COLABRORATION WITH CASTING THROUGH ANCIENT GREECE PODCAST.For something a little different this month's release is part 2 of a collaboration podcast I was fortunate enough...

EPISODE 23 : HOPLITES AND THE SPARTAN WAR MACHINEThis time around folks it is my great honour to have Professor Paul Bardunias as my guest on the show. Paul is a co-author of the book 'Hoplites a...

Hello again dear listeners, this month we're back with episode 22, Raising Spartans. The treatment of Spartan children by their society has often been sensationalised by modern depiction, but the...

EPISODE 21 GOVERNING SPARTANSWelcome back folks and to the first of what will be a series of episodes designed to explain the different facets of the Spartan world in the lead up to the Greco-Persian ...

EPISODE 20 THE SPARTAN YOKEHappy new year folks, welcome back to the Spartan History Podcast, the only podcast called the Spartan History Podcast. We're turning 20 with the release of this episod...

EPISODE 19 THE EXPANSION OF SPARTAThe time has come to let Sparta out of the box, so to speak. Trapped as I've kept it since this series began, my aim was to explain the myths and early tradition...

EPISODE 18 JASON AND THE GOLDEN FLEECE, PART 4.Welcome back to the Spartan History Podcast, the agenda for this episode will be the conclusion to my retelling of Apollonius of Rhodes' Argonautica...

EPISODE 17, APOLLO'S FAITHFUL.Welcome back to Spartan History Podcast, we're back on the Spartan narrative this time and taking a look at the early religious practices of the city's inh...

EPISODE 16, JASON AND THE GOLDEN FLEECE  PART 3.Welcome back to the Spartan History Podcast, this time around we'll be working through part 3 of my retelling of the Golden Fleece myth. Apollonius...

EPISODE 15, LYCURGUS, THE WOLF WORKER.Welcome back to the Spartan History Podcast, this time we return to the Spartan narrative and sink our teeth into the most mercurial being of their legend, Lycurg...

EPISODE 14, JASON AND THE GOLDEN FLEECE PART 2.Welcome back to the Spartan History Podcast. This time around it's back to the story of Jason and his quest for the fleece. I begin with a digressio...

Welcome back to Spartan History Podcast. This is the first episode not based in the bronze/mythic age and takes a look at the Dark age era of Spartan history. It's an intrinsic period to the city...

EPISODE 12, JASON AND THE GOLDEN FLEECE PART 1.​Welcome back to Spartan History Podcast, it's an honour to be able to present, as promised, the 1st of what will be a 4 part retelling of the Jason...

Welcome back to Spartan History Podcast, this will be part 2 of my series on the Bronze age collapse, and the final episode set in the Heroic/Bronze period.​After having established all of the major p...

Welcome back to Spartan History Podcast, in this months episode we'll start a two part investigation into the Bronze age collapse of eastern Mediterranean civilisation. ​So in this, the first par...

Welcome back to Spartan History Podcast, in this months episode we'll be taking a look at a few of my favourite myths. ​First, the story of Perseus and Andromeda. From a difficult beginning the h...

This time we take a look at the lives of Castor and Polydeuces, the Dioscuri. They participated in some of the legendary events in greek mythology, a generation before the Trojan war. Born into the ru...

The conclusion to my biographical look into the bronze age's most famous daughter, Helen of Sparta. This time we take her story from the death of Hector through to her eventual trip home over the...

Continuing the story of Helen, this months episode delves into the tale behind her abduction by Paris from Sparta. We carry the story forward from that fateful event and find our subject languishing b...

Helen, the most beautiful woman in the world. Her image has resonated down the generations and she has become the archetypal model of feminine beauty and refinement. With a name meaning bright, or shi...

In this special interest episode I'm exploring some of the ways Homer and his peers remembered and transmitted epic oral works. At nearly 16000 lines of poetry memorising the Iliad would have bee...

Welcome back to Spartan History Podcast, in this episode we set out to describe the predominant bronze age, Greek civilisation. According to modern scholarship Agamemnon was a Mycenaean, or as Homer w...

In this, the first official episode, we delve into our chief literary source for the bronze age, Homer. Briefly having a look at the two works of his that have come down to us, largely complete, from ...

Introducing your host and setting out the terms of reference for what will be a chronological look at the history of the Spartan peoples, set against a backdrop of greater ancient Greek civilisation. ...