Spartan History Podcast

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 digression into the evolution of the story itself and take a look at possible eastern influences along with a quick look through it's references by pre-Apollonian authors. Picking up the mythical thread...

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 that would one day dominate Greece as it was the time that saw it's foundation. Although anachronistically mentioned by Homer in his works, archaeology has as yet not detected any Mycenaean pal...

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 and the Golden Fleece myth.  ​The masterpiece that is Apollonius of Rhodes' work, the Argonautica, starts with the eponymous heroes departure to Colchis to retrieve the fleece. Covering the jo...

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 players in the eastern Mediterranean region in the previous episode, it's time to discover the fate of Homer's Achaean, aka the Mycenaean's.  I expound upon the various ills besetting t...

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 part, the scene for collapse will be set. Focusing on the empires and city-states that were within the Mycenaean sphere of influence to understand the various factors at play during this period of turmo...

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 hero would rise above his apparently low birth to become one of the premier monster hunters of the age. ​Next it will be the story of Bellerophon and Pegasus that will be our focus. He conquered all b...

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 ruling house of Sparta, that of Tyndareus, the pair grew to manhood rubbing shoulders with the likes of Heracles, Theseus and Jason. In this episode I go through the ambiguity surrounding their birth an...

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 ashes of Troy. We see the major role Helen played in that cities climactic destruction along with the fate of the Trojan women she had spent a decade with. Finishing with her emotional return to Spar...

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 behind the walls of Troy, we'll conclude this section in the same way that the Iliad finishes, with her oration at the funeral of mighty Hector.  For the first time we get to hear the voice of Hel...

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 shining, this mythical woman's story is rather a dark one punctuated by male transgression.  From her conception on the banks of the Eurotas river, through to her marriage to Menelaus, join me as we...

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 been an impossible task if it wasn't supported by the ancient foundation of oral traditions, some of the tricks employed are fascinating and in some ways, still used today in the body of bedtime sto...

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 would put it an Achaean and we take a look at this culture in detail. Special attention being paid to their architecture, religious and burial practices. Finishing with the doomed return of King Agamem...

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 antiquity. Taking a heavily paraphrased look into the Iliad and the Odyssey to establish the traditions of the Trojan heroes.  CONTRIBUTE HERE https://www.buymeacoffee.com/spartanhistory https://paypa...

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.  CONTRIBUTE HERE https://www.buymeacoffee.com/spartanhistory https://paypal.me/SpartanHistory FIND ME HERE https://www.facebook.com/spartanhistorypodcast https://twitter.com/Spartan_History