A podcast for all ancient history fans! The Ancients is dedicated to discussing our distant past. Featuring interviews with historians and archaeologists, each episode covers a specific theme from antiquity. From Neolithic Britain to the Fall of Rome. Hosted by Tristan Hughes. Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.
484 episodes transcribedFamous throughout antiquity, yet retold only in fragments today - who is Sappho? Her poetry inspired generations, from Catullus to Byron, so how...
Discovered by local farmers in 1974, the Terracotta Army is one of the most astounding archaeological finds on record. A piece of funerary art, dedica...
It's often thought that the ancient Greeks were devout in tradition, strict in their ways and beliefs. But how true is this? When it comes to creative...
Indigenous Australians have lived on the vast continent of Australia for thousands of years - but how have they survived isolation, extreme conditions...
St. Valentine of Rome, patron saint of beekeepers and epilepsy, among many other things. But who exactly is the real St Valentine, and how has the sto...
Fishbourne Roman Palace in West Sussex was first constructed just three decades after the empire’s legions conquered Britain in the first century AD....
London is today one of the greatest cities in the world, and the story of its origins is fittingly spectacular. Founded by the Romans as Londinium in...
Imagine you are a traveller sailing to the major cities around the Mediterranean in 750 BC. You would notice a remarkable similarity in the dress, alp...
It’s here! Today is the publication date of Tristan’s first book, Alexander’s Successors at War: The Perdiccas Years. Focussing in on 323 – 320 B...
Tens of thousands of clay tablets containing texts written in the ancient Cuneiform script of the Assyrian Empire have been discovered, giving us inva...
In this second part of Tristan’s explainer, he takes us right into the heart of the battle dubbed the Persian Thermopylae. Listen as Alexander begins...
In January 330 BC, Alexander the Great faced one of his most difficult challenges to date. A small Persian force, entrenched in a formidable defensive...
16 January 27 BC is a date sometimes associated with the beginning of the Roman Empire. It was on that day that Octavian received the name Augustus, e...
At its height, the Seleucid Empire stretched from Thrace (modern day Bulgaria) to the Indus River Valley. Emerging from the tumultuous ‘Successor Wars...
Spinning held an important place in ancient society, and no, we're not talking about ancient exercise classes. A task for women and slaves, it was use...
It’s a macabre topic to discuss, but also one that has fascinated people for generations. So what has archaeology revealed about cannibalism among pre...
They’ve both been described as the greatest military commander in the ancient world, but who really takes the title (if either of them)? Alexander, th...
We’re finishing off 2021 with what is perhaps Julius Caesar’s greatest legacy. It’s not a military victory or battle, but one of the many political re...
For the first 4 centuries AD/CE, the ancient Greek novel was the most popular literary form in the Roman Empire and at the heart of these popular text...
It’s fair to say that winter battles weren’t commonplace in the ancient Mediterranean world. There is, however, one striking exception. A clash that o...
