Ancient History Fangirl
An ancient history podcast run by two Millennial women. Misbehaving emperors, poison assassins, mythological mayhem; it’s like if Hardcore History met up with My Favorite Murder in the ancient world, with a heavy helping of booze and laughter.
Episodes
Why are Techbro Oligarchs so Obsessed with Augustus?
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Have you noticed that our tech overlords cannot be normal
about the Roman Empire?
Elon Musk has approximately 14 known children, which he
refers to as his “Legion.” Mark Zuckerberg famously took the Emperor Augustus on his honeymoon. And in some of the darker corners of the Internet (and real life), wildly rich techbros openly fant
A Democracy Built on Slavery (With Emma Southon)
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Slavery touched every part of life in ancient Rome. Depending on the time period and location, as many as one in ten or one in three people was enslaved.
How does it warp a democracy when so many of its people are not free? Today we talk to author, historian and podcaster Dr. Emma Southon, host of the History is Sexy podcast and auth
The Secret Lives of Julio-Claudian Wives (Part 3)
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In our last episode, Livia and Octavia were at each other’s throats over which one of their sons would be chosen as Augustus’ heir. The unfortunate thing is that the heirs kept dying.
Meanwhile, the daughter and granddaughter of Augustus—Julia the Elder and Agrippina the Elder—were the first generations of the new autocracy. They ne
The Secret Lives of Julio-Claudian Wives (Part 2)
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In our last episode, Octavian had just defeated Cleopatra and Mark Antony. His sister Octavia had refused to renounce her wayward husband (Mark Antony), behaving with an intensity of loyalty that Octavian did not hesitate to use in his propaganda war against his enemy.
Meanwhile, Livia and Octavian had both divorced their spouses,
RE-RELEASE: Fulvia: Original Gangster of Ancient Rome
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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, militar
The Secret Lives of Julio-Claudian Wives (Part 1)
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The First Ladies of Rome—the women of Augustus’ family—played a role in building his empire. Octavia, Livia, Julia, Agrippina—these were the women who helped kill a democracy.
In this episode, we will explore how they were complicit in their own oppression—how they were manipulated, how they were used, and how they used their power
AHFG Book Club: Aphrodite & Ares: An Immortal Affair (With Jennifer Saint)
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Aphrodite, goddess of love and sex, took many lovers in the mythology. But perhaps the most important was Ares. They adored each other; they had many children together; they could not keep apart . Their relationship was (for the ancient Greeks) surprisingly…healthy?
Today we talk all things Aphrodite with bestselling author Jenn
Clodia: Champion of Democracy (With Douglas Boin)
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Due to changing marital laws (among other things), the late Roman Republic saw a rise in a certain kind of wealthy elite woman with more independence and power than her foremothers. These women were financially independent, highly educated, sexually liberated, and unafraid to seize the reins of power. One of those was a woman named
The Lex Juliae: How Augustus Brought Women to Heel
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You may have noticed that MAGA (Republicans in general, really) are weird about women.
That weirdness is ancient. It goes all the way back to ancient Rome, all the way back to ancient Greece, and all the way back to the beginning of the city-state, when gender-based oppression was built into the foundations of the polis. Augustus
AHFG Book Club: If Villain Bad, Why Villain Hot? (With Elizabeth May)
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We are thrilled to welcome #1 Sunday Times bestselling author Elizabeth May to the podcast. Elizabeth May is the author of The Wolf and the Crown of Blood, a bestselling new release about deranged homicidal gods and the equally deranged princesses who drag them around like stuffie toys.
Join us for a fun and laughter-filled conversati
How to Destroy a Democracy (Welcome to the Augustan Age)
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When Augustus rolled into town after defeating Marc Antony
and Cleopatra, he was greeted as a hero—because the Senate ordered its people to stand outside the gates and cheer. The reality was, there was fear on both sides. Augustus was afraid to grab power too quickly—or he’d find himself meeting Caesar’s fate. The Senators feared blo
Was Rome Always Like This? (With Mike Duncan)
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When we look at the demise of Roman democracy, we think of the time of Augustus—and maybe Caesar before him. But in reality, the seeds of the republic’s destruction were planted at the time of its birth.
It’s probably not too far out on a limb to say that Caesar couldn’t have grabbed so much power if there hadn’t been a Sulla, or
AHFG Book Club: Cleopatra: The Last Pharaoh (With Saara El-Arifi)
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Join us as we return to Cleopatra’s Alexandria—the glamor,
the political intrigue, the history—and take a second in-depth look at Egypt's last Pharaoh. Our guide for this episode is none other than Saara El-Arifi, bestselling author of The Ending Fire and Faebound trilogies
and the exciting new release, Cleopatra: A Novel.
In this e
Rome Has No Kings
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When Octavian (Augustus) returned home victorious from his final battle against Marc Antony and Cleopatra, he was met by an ecstatic crowd. The Senate had ordered all classes and priesthoods, including the Vestal Virgins, to joyously greet him at the entrance to the city.
This was the man who would be responsible for demolishing their
RE-RELEASE: Actium, Baby! (With Barry Strauss)
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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
ALL IN ONE PLACE: Marc Antony x Cleopatra: Lovers in a Dangerous Time (Parts 4 & 5)
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This file contains the last two 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. Please enjoy while you wait for us to return from hiatus o
RE-RELEASE: Fulvia: Original Gangster of Ancient Rome
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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
ALL IN ONE PLACE: Julius Caesar Parts 1 & 2
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We're on hiatus until April 9. 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 d
RE-RELEASE: Spartacus vs. Toussaint L'Ouverture (With Mike Duncan)
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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
ALL IN ONE PLACE: Spartacus Parts 1, 2 & 3
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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.
S
RE-RELEASE: Dionysus: Religion of Revolution
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Dionysus was a god of revolutions. He featured prominently in two out of three major Roman slave rebellions. Why is that? And why was that aspect of Dionysus forgotten?
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 dangerou
RE-RELEASE: Teotihuacan: Eat the Rich
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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
ALL IN ONE PLACE: The First and Second Servile Wars
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When we think of large Roman slave rebellions, we usually
think of Spartacus. But what if we told you that Spartacus was only the third in a 30-year cycle of slave rebellions that happened twice before?
The wars that came before Spartacus were larger, more all-encompassing, and maybe more violent—sweeping up hundreds of thousands
RE-RELEASE: The Mound Builders of Cahokia
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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
ALL IN ONE PLACE: Boudicca Parts 1, 2 & 3
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We're on hiatus until April 9. 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 prec
End of Season 14 Announcement
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It is the End of Season 14--a brief but intense season! Big changes have come in our lives over the past year, and in this episode we take you behind the scenes and discuss the past year and our upcoming plans!
Find Jenny's book, Enemy of My Dreams, Here! (And preorder the sequel, Game of Thieves!)
Get Genn's most recent book, the
RE-RELEASE: Janus: God of the New Year
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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
RE-RELEASE: Saturnalia: So Much More than Roman Christmas
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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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This podcast is a member of Airwave Media podcast network. Want to
RE-RELEASE: Krampus: The Goat Knows What You Did
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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
RE-RELEASE: You Don't Know Yule
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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
RE-RELEASE: St. Nicholas and the Christmas Cannibals
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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 bigges
The Ancient History of the Horse (with David Chaffetz)
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For thousands of years, horses have been essential to human
civilization from warfare to trade and empire-building. All over the world, people have captured horses, tamed horses, mythologized horses, and trained them to be ideal companions in the project of human advancement.
How has the relationship between human and horse changed
Like a Wolf but Not a Wolf: The Beast of the Gevaudan (Part 2)
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In our last episode, we detailed the rise of the Beast of the Gevaudan, some of its most gruesome attacks, and the doomed efforts of professional hunters to take it down. In this one, we’ll discuss how the Beast finally died—and the theories that arose after its death about what exactly just happened in the Gevaudan.
The thing is, e
Like a Wolf but Not a Wolf: The Beast of the Gevaudan (Part 1)
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From 1764 to 1767, an area of southeastern France called the Gevaudan was stalked and terrorized by a mysterious beast. Some said it was a wolf. Others that it was “like a wolf, but not a wolf”—far stronger, faster, more brutal and more intelligent than other wolves. Still others provided much more strange and otherworldly descriptions
RE-RELEASE: Catholic Werewolves
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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 k
RE-RELEASE: Werewolves of Wolf Mountain: Terrors of Ancient Greece
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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
Maiden, Monster, Medusa with Ayana Gray
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Today on the podcast, we’re thrilled to welcome bestselling
author Ayana Gray. Ayana is the author of the blockbuster YA novel Beasts of Prey, and is now joining us to discuss her adult fiction debut: I Medusa, an exploration of one of mythology’s most misunderstood “monsters.”
Join us as we discuss all things Medusa—from the true n
RE-RELEASE: Buzzballs and Buboes: The Plague of Justinian (a Drunk Deep Dive)
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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 talkin
RE-RELEASE: The Haunting of Crater Lake
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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
RE-RELEASE: Sea of Trees: The Japanese Suicide Forest
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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 devastatin
RE-RELEASE: Teotihuacan: Eat the Rich
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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
RE-RELEASE: This Episode is Full of Lies: Lucian's A True History (With Liv Albert from Let's Talk About Myths, Baby!)
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Lucian’s A True History has been called the world’s first work of science fiction—but above all, Lucian of Samosata was a satirist. And he had a bone to pick with the famous historians of his time—guys like Herodotus and Ctesias of Knidos. They were Lying Liars who Lied, you see, and Lucian was mad about it.
So he set out to write his
Horses of Fire, Daughters of Bronze (with AD Rhine)
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AD Rhine is the pen name of the authors Ashlee Cowles and Danielle Stinsen, who have been friends and creative partners for over 25 years. Their novels Horses of Fire and Daughters of Bronze follow the Trojan War saga. They are our kind of nerds—so naturally we had to interview them.
The story of Troy and its fall still resonates wi
End of Season 13 Announcement
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It is the End of Season 13--and what a wild ride it's been. We've had so much fun triangulating the Goths for you--and we hope you now are as obsessed with them as we are.
Join us as we debrief the previous season, talk about how our year has gone (it's been a big year for BOOKS, for both of us!) and discuss what's coming up next!
F
How an Empire Ends: Goths vs Goths vs Goths (Part 2)
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In our last episode we talked about the opulence of Goth–Gothic architecture, fashion, and art of all kinds–and the connection between this and the opulence of the Visigoths and their vast state treasure plundered from Roman cities and towns.
But there’s more to Goth than plunder. There’s a romance to Goth. A dark romance steeped in o
How an Empire Ends: Goths vs .Goths vs. Goths (Part 1)
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We have come to the end (or almost the end) of our long, sweeping epic history of the Goths. But we have one corner of Gothic history as yet uncovered: what is the connection between Gothic literature, music, art and fashion, and Goths (the Germanic / Hunnic / etc. people who sacked Rome and occupied Italy)?
Join us as we make som
How an Empire Ends: Germanic Heroic Legend
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Long after the smoke from the battlefields died down, long after the ravens had eaten their fill, the Migration Era lived on in Germanic heroic legend, well into the Middle Ages.
For centuries after the battles and events of that era, people throughout Europe were crafting legends and sagas that repurposed and mythologized those e
How an Empire Ends: Rise and Fall of the Visigothic Kingdom
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We've told you the story of the Ostrogoths, the Amal ruling family, who built an imperial dynasty only to see that rulership dissolve within two generations. But what happened to their cousins, the Visigoths? The Tervingii tribe and the Balthi royal family? Alaric’s Goths?
Turns out they lasted much longer. But they weren’t necess
The Official Lore Olympus Cookbook (with Genn McMenemy)
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For a while now, Genn has been hinting at a "Secret Project" in the works--and now it's out in the wild: the Official Lore Olympus Cookbook. Genn was heavily involved in this project, weaving together the history and mythology of Greek cuisine with the world of Rachel Smythe's Lore Olympus to create a cookbook that's not only delig
How an Empire Ends: Gothic Christianity
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When Alaric of the Visigoths sacked Rome, it shocked the world—not least because Rome hadn’t been sacked in a thousand years. But also, while Rome was a Christian city by now—it had been for decades—the Visigoths were Christian too.
And they weren’t recent converts, either. They had all been Christian for over 160 years. Theirs wa
How an Empire Ends: Gothic Paganism
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In our last episode about Amalasuintha and the end of the Ostrogothic Kingdom, we said we were next going to turn to the Visigothic Kingdom. But the story of the Visigothic Kingdom can’t be told without knowing a little more about the history of Gothic religion.
Both Visigoths and Ostrogoths were Christian by the time they appear i
RE-RELEASE: Buzzballs and Buboes: The Plague of Justinian (a Drunk Deep Dive)
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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
How an Empire Ends: Life of Amalasuintha
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In our last episode, we told you all about the rise of Theodoric the Great and the founding of the Ostrogothic Kingdom in Italy. Now, we’re going to tell you all about the women in his family—and the effect they had on his kingdom.
Theodoric had a wife, a sister, and three daughters—all of whom played an important role in his empire-b
RE-RELEASE: 536 AD: A Volcanic Murder Mystery
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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 f
How an Empire Ends: Theodoric the Great and the Ostrogothic Kingdom
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After 75 years under Hunnic dominion, the Ostrogoths seized their freedom and set about taking over control of the Western Roman Empire. The man who led them was named Theodoric the Great. He was a member of an ancient Gothic family called the Amali, which went all the way back to the Crisis of the Third Century. Supposedly.
Theodoric
How an Empire Ends: 75 Years Under Hunnic Dominion
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In our last episode, we talked about how the Visigoths came to be: forged in the fire of the Gothic War of 376-382 and the immigration crisis that went along with it. Now, we’ll take a look at what happened to their kin who stayed on the northern side of the Danube—the Greuthungi who were not allowed to cross. What happened to them was
How an Empire Ends: the Starving Camps
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In our last few episodes, we’ve told you what we know about pre-Roman Gothic archaeology, culture, and history. We’ve told you about conditions both inside and outside the Roman Empire that kicked off the Migration Era.
And now we’re going to tell you the story of one of those Gothic Wars in detail: the war of 376-382 AD. A war that m
How an Empire Ends: Rome's Gothic Immigrants
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In our last episode, we took a look at the outside forces driving the engine of the Migration Era: Hunnic migrations and invasions, constant displacement and conflict at the Roman borders. But
Goths lived inside Rome too—in the heart of the Italian peninsula, and also in the outer provinces, in territories that were conquered by force.
How an Empire Ends: The Migration Era
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It was the beginning of the Migration Era where the Goths’ history with the Roman Empire begins. The Migration era was a cycle of wars and conflicts lasting hundreds of years. Alaric’s sack of Rome was only a small part of it.
What started it? Nobody knows. But it would have been an extremely chaotic time to be alive, when ordinary p
How an Empire Ends: Culture of the Goths
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In our last episode, we delved into the archaeology of the pre-Roman Goths. But what about Gothic culture? What do we know about pre-Roman Gothic culture, before the Goths were Romanized?
To get a real sense of what is authentically Gothic is really difficult. We don’t have much information about the Goths’ daily lives or culture. We
How an Empire Ends: Origin of the Goths
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The Roman Empire stood for a thousand years. Many causes have been given for its downfall—but if just one group of people could be said to be culpable, it would be the Goths.
They stormed its borders en masse, scored outsized victories that no one had won before, killed two emperors and raised up their own, sacked the city of Rome aft
Rebel Daughters of the Roman Empire (With Tana Rebellis)
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In Enemy of My Dreams, Jenny based her heroine Julia partially on Julia the Elder—rebellious daughter of Augustus who got herself exiled to Pandateria for being, as the ancients say, “too slutty.”
Julia the Elder refused, REFUSED to rein it in. And for that, we adore her. But accounts of her life are told by men, sometimes her politica
RE-RELEASE: Attila the Hun and the Rebel Princess
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In 450 AD, the Imperial Princess Honoria--daughter of Galla Placidia--was desperate to escape her arranged marriage. So she made an indecent proposal--to Attila the Hun.
On this single action, cities were torched. Saints were raised. Thousands died. And Venice was founded. Find out how it all went down.
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RE-RELEASE: Ataulf x Galla Placidia
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He was a fierce barbarian warlord—a man who had stood between his people and the Roman Empire since the sack of Rome. She was a Roman Imperial princess with a core of iron strength.
Born enemies, the love of Ataulf and Galla Placidia is marked by tragedy—but in its time, it burned hot enough to reshape an Empire. This is their story.
Spo
AHFG Book Club: Enemy of My Dreams with Jenny Williamson
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This week’s Book Club author interview is none other than up-and-coming romantasy and historical romance author Jenny Williamson, discussing her upcoming debut Enemy of My Dreams: her huge historical crush on Alaric of the Goths, the inspiration for her entirely-made-up hot-mess heroine, and how she adds “verisimilitude” to her fight sc
In Search of the Real Alaric (With Douglas Boin)
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Who was Alaric of the Visigoths, really?
It’s a difficult question to answer. Alaric left no manifesto. There is nothing in his own words to explain his motivations for sacking Rome, or all the choices he made leading up to that fateful day. All we have are the assumptions of his enemies, which sometimes don’t’ make a lot of sense.
En
AHFG Book Club: Sexy Shifters and Fallen Angels with Nalini Singh
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This week, we feature a conversation with the OG romance novelist—the one all our romance novelist friends list among their favorites. Nalini Singh has an impressive, multi-decade career with several long-running, blockbuster romantasy and paranormal series featuring sexy shifters, fallen angels, and dangerous psychic warriors.
Join us
RE-RELEASE: Stuff Alaric Said
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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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End of Season 12 Announcement
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It's the end of Season 12--and what a year it's been! We had some big things happen in 2024 and we hope that 2025 will be even bigger and more exciting.
Join us as we discuss what it was like covering the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, our upcoming books and novel projects, and our plans for the podcast going forward. Thank you so m
RE-RELEASE: Janus: God of the New Year
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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 no
A Very Alaric Christmas
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How would Alaric of the Visigoths celebrate the midwinter holiday (Christmas? Solstice? Yule?). The idea was kicked around a lot between the two of us until it seemed imperative that we actually write this episode. And thus, an episode was born.
In this episode, Alaric is about six years old. He doesn’t exactly understand that his life i
RE-RELEASE: Frau Holle: Wicked Woman of Yule
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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 shar
AHFG Book Club: Metal Death Goddesses, Ravens, and Bears (Oh My!) With Emily Rath
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You may recognize Dr. Emily Rath from our series on Project 2025. Today, we’ve invited her on to discuss her most recent project—North is the Night, a historical fantasy story with a strong, sapphic romantic thread.
Join us as Emily introduces us to a world of terrifying metal death goddesses, mystical talking ravens, queer witches and w
RE-RELEASE: St. Nicholas and the Christmas Cannibals
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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 c
The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus: Part 3
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In our last two episodes we discussed what worship looked like at the temple of Artemis at Ephesus. How the goddess was worshipped, who worshipped her, and what they believed.
Now, we’re going talk about what the temple looked like, who built it, who burned it to the ground, who rebuilt it, and what people did at the temple (besides wors
RE-RELEASE: You Don't Know Yule
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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 tha
RE-RELEASE: Krampus: The Goat Knows What You Did
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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 thi
The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus: Part 2
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Last week, we discussed the history of the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus—and just who served here, and why. This week, we delve into the mythology of the temple and the goddess worshipped there.
The Artemis at Ephesus was a far more ancient goddess than her Classical Greek counterpart. She has roots in the ancient Near East, and is cousin
RE-RELEASE: How to Train Your Gladiator
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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 l
AHFG Book Club: Hot Mess Heroines and the Alarics Who Love Them (With Thea Guanzon)
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This week, we welcome internationally bestselling author and noted enemies-to-lovers enthusiast Thea Guanzon to the podcast.
Thea’s debut novel, the Hurricane Wars, is an enemies-to-lovers romantasy with complex layers of worldbuilding and intrigue, rich with mythic resonance, airships, elemental magic, world-rending storms and eclipses,
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