Episode 294 - The Rise and Fall of Epirus

I talk to Eric Halsey about his new book State Builders from the Steppe: A History of the First Bulgarian Empire.In it he chronicles the rise and fall of the Bulgars as they arrive in the Balkans and forge a state that would be a thorn in the Byzantine side. I thoroughly recommen ...  Show more

To mark the 1000th anniversary of his death we revisit the bachelorhood of Basil II. My guest is Mark Masterson — until recently Associate Professor of Classics at Victoria University of Wellington (retired 2025). His work explores masculinity, desire, and male social bonds in th ...  Show more

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 position that blockaded Alexander’s route to the Persian heartlands. A narrow pass through the Zagros Mountains that has gone ...

In 1453, after more than 60 years of trying, the Ottomans finally besieged and captured the city of Constantinople. This marked the end of one phase of Ottoman expansion and the beginning of another as the dominant power of the region. It was also the end of the Byzantines, th ...

Alexander the Great and Caracalla. One often considered among the most successful military commanders of all time, the other, one of the worst emperors of Ancient Rome. So is it possible that the latter modelled himself and his army on the former. In this second episode with D ...

The “Age of Discovery” is traditionally known as a period between the 15th and 16th centuries, when European Christian powers sailed west and encountered lands and peoples previously unknown to them. However, speaking to David Musgrove, Professor Marc David Baer contends that thi ...  Show more