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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Who's the queerest of the gods? It's hard to say...but there's a strong case to be made that it's Dionysus. The god of wine and revolutionaries who rebelled ferociously against the gender binary, Dionysus breaks the mold in so many ways--and he does it with a sense of joy that's irresistible.

In this episode, debut author and unabashed Dionysus fan Cait Corrain joins us to talk about why Dionysus is awesome, why we love him so SO much, and what exactly went on at his wedding to Ariadne.

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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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