Ancient History Fangirl
by Jenny Williamson and Genn McMenemy
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
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The Siege of Armageddon
Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon! Most of us are familiar with the concept of Armageddon: signifying the end times: a battle that takes place at the end of the world. In the Bible, that word, Armageddon, is a place. It specifically refers to the location of this...
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An Exclusive Sneak Peek at the Enemy of My Dreams Audiobook: Part 1
Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon! Find Jenny's book, Enemy of My Dreams, and preorder the sequel, Game of Thieves, through an exclusive deal with Burning Pages! In celebration of the release of the epic sequel, Game of Thieves, on December 8, Jenny is bringing...
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End of Season 15 Announcement
Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon! It is the End of Season 15--and we have to say, this was a challenging season for us. We were stepping outside our usual work by focusing on both the ancient and the modern world, but we really felt that the stretch was worth it. We...
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RE-RELEASE: The Haunting of Crater Lake
Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon! 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...
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Quiet Piggy: How Augustus Silenced his Critics
Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon! In the last episode of our season, we’re taking an in-depth look at the life and writing of Ovid: pickup artist, poet extraordinaire, and all-around good-time guy who knew where all the best underground raves were in ancient Rome....
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RE-RELEASE: Sea of Trees: The Japanese Suicide Forest
Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon! 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...
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Liv and Genn Visit Camp Half Blood (with Rick Riordan and Annabelle Oh)
Sign up to our Patreon to get the exclusive video version of this episode! We interrupt our regularly scheduled programming to bring you this brilliant crossover episode! Our very own Genn McMenemy made a guest appearance on Liv Albert's Let's Talk About Myths, Baby! to interview the co-authors…
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RE-RELEASE: Buzzballs and Buboes: The Plague of Justinian (a Drunk Deep Dive)
Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon! 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...
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AHFG Book Club: An Odyssey for Everyone (with Liv Albert)
Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon! What can we believe about the Odyssey? This is the question posed by bestselling author Liv Albert, host of the Let’s Talk About Myth’s Baby! podcast, and author of three books including the brand new The Odyssey: A Modern Retelling....
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RE-RELEASE: Ghosts of Wrangel Island
Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon! Mammoths existed on our planet for roughly five million years, and they were perfectly adapted to the ice age world they inhabited. So perfectly adapted that when the last ice age ended, so did they. No woolly mammoths have walked the...
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Virgil the Virgin and the Creation of the Authoritarian State
Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon! Among the poets of early Augustan Rome, Virgil had a niche: nostalgia. He wrote poems about the Roman countryside, farmers, and a mourned, simpler past that may have never existed. And when Augustus came to power, he recognized...
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Can Christian Nationalists Be Normal in a Democracy? (With Brad Onishi)
Enemy of My Dreams is just $2.99 on Kindle! Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon! Short answer: no. Long answer: no, and they didn't function that well in pluralistic Roman society, either. Many of the qualities of high-control Christianity--spiritual warfare, fascistic...
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AHFG Book Club: Lady Pirates and Why-Choose Werewolves (with Eva Leigh)
Enemy of My Dreams is just $2.99 on Kindle! Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon! We are thrilled to welcome USA Today bestselling author Eva Leigh to the podcast. Eva has had two recent releases that piqued our interest: The Sea Witch (about a lady pirate who’s also a...
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The Builder Emperor: How Augustus Made a City of Marble
Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon! One of the most famous quotes from Augustus’ reign was “I found Rome a city of bricks and left it a city of marble.” And Augustus did that—he had a real thing for construction. Augustus would leave his mark on Rome, and the city would...
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Why are Techbro Oligarchs so Obsessed with Augustus?
Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon! 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....
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A Democracy Built on Slavery (With Emma Southon)
Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon! 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…
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The Secret Lives of Julio-Claudian Wives (Part 3)
Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon! 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...
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The Secret Lives of Julio-Claudian Wives (Part 2)
Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon! 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…
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RE-RELEASE: Fulvia: Original Gangster of Ancient Rome
Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon! 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...
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The Secret Lives of Julio-Claudian Wives (Part 1)
Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon! 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...
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AHFG Book Club: Aphrodite & Ares: An Immortal Affair (With Jennifer Saint)
Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon! 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...
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Clodia: Champion of Democracy (With Douglas Boin)
Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon! 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...
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The Lex Juliae: How Augustus Brought Women to Heel
Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon! 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...
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AHFG Book Club: If Villain Bad, Why Villain Hot? (With Elizabeth May)
Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon! 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...
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How to Destroy a Democracy (Welcome to the Augustan Age)
Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon! 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...
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Was Rome Always Like This? (With Mike Duncan)
Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon! 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…
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AHFG Book Club: Cleopatra: The Last Pharaoh (With Saara El-Arifi)
Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon! 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...
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Rome Has No Kings
Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon! 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...
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RE-RELEASE: Actium, Baby! (With Barry Strauss)
Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon! 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...
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ALL IN ONE PLACE: Marc Antony x Cleopatra: Lovers in a Dangerous Time (Parts 4 & 5)
Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon! 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…
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RE-RELEASE: Fulvia: Original Gangster of Ancient Rome
Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon! 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...
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ALL IN ONE PLACE: Julius Caesar Parts 1 & 2
Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon! 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…
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RE-RELEASE: Spartacus vs. Toussaint L'Ouverture (With Mike Duncan)
Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon! 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...
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ALL IN ONE PLACE: Spartacus Parts 1, 2 & 3
Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon! 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...
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RE-RELEASE: Dionysus: Religion of Revolution
Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon! 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...
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RE-RELEASE: Teotihuacan: Eat the Rich
Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon! 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...
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ALL IN ONE PLACE: The First and Second Servile Wars
Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon! 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...
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RE-RELEASE: The Mound Builders of Cahokia
Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon! 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…
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ALL IN ONE PLACE: Boudicca Parts 1, 2 & 3
Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon! 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...
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End of Season 14 Announcement
Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon! 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…
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RE-RELEASE: Janus: God of the New Year
Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon! 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…
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RE-RELEASE: Saturnalia: So Much More than Roman Christmas
Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon! 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...
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RE-RELEASE: Krampus: The Goat Knows What You Did
Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon! 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;...
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RE-RELEASE: You Don't Know Yule
Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon! 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…
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RE-RELEASE: St. Nicholas and the Christmas Cannibals
Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon! 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...
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The Ancient History of the Horse (with David Chaffetz)
Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon! 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...
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Like a Wolf but Not a Wolf: The Beast of the Gevaudan (Part 2)
Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon! 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...
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Like a Wolf but Not a Wolf: The Beast of the Gevaudan (Part 1)
Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon! 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...
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RE-RELEASE: Catholic Werewolves
Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon! 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…
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RE-RELEASE: Werewolves of Wolf Mountain: Terrors of Ancient Greece
Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon! 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....
About this show
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.
Hosted by
Jenny Williamson and Genn McMenemy