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All Episodes

Literature and History — 124 episodes

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Title
1

Episode 124: The Last Great War of Antiquity

2

Episode 123: An Introduction to the Hadiths

3

Episode 122: The Early Abbasid Caliphate

4

Episode 121: The Umayyad Caliphate

5

Episode 120: The Rashidun Caliphate

6

Episode 119: The Qur'an, Part 3: Origins

7

Episode 118: The Qur'an, Part 2: Ordinances

8

Episode 117: The Qur'an, Part 1: Overview

9

Episode 116: The Life of Muhammad, Part 3: Conquest

10

Episode 115: The Life of Muhammad, Part 2: Community

11

Episode 114: The Life of Muhammad, Part 1: Cobwebs

12

Episode 113: Antarah ibn Shaddad

13

Episode 112: Pre-Islamic Arabic Poetry

14

Episode 111: Pre-Islamic Arabia

15

Episode 110: Questions

16

Episode 109: Cornerstones

17

Episode 108: Isidore of Seville

18

Episode 107: Venantius Fortunatus

19

Episode 106: Gregory of Tours, Part 2

20

Episode 105: Gregory of Tours, Part 1

21

Episode 104: An Introduction to the Talmud

22

Episode 103: Boethius

23

Episode 102: An Old Man's Book (Augustine's City of God, Part 2 of 2)

24

Episode 101: Against the Pagans (Augustine's City of God, Part 1 of 2)

25

Episode 100: Late Have I Loved You (Augustine's Confessions, Books 9-13)

26

Episode 99: The Boy Who Stole Pears (Augustine's Confessions, Books 1-7)

27

Episode 98: The Life and Works of Saint Jerome

28

Episode 97: Blood and Ivy (Nonnus' Dionysiaca, Books 25-48)

29

Episode 96: The Last Pagan Epic (Nonnus' Dionysiaca, Books 1-24)

30

Episode 95: Rutilius Namatianus

31

Episode 94: Ausonius

32

Episode 93: Severus' Life of Saint Martin

33

Episode 92: Athanasius' Life of Antony

34

Episode 91: The Passion of Perpetua and Felicity

35

Episode 90: Ante-Nicene Catholicism

36

Episode 89: The Aethiopica of Heliodorus

37

Episode 88: Ancient Greek Sci-fi

38

Episode 87: Lucian of Samosata

39

Episode 86: An Introduction to Late Antiquity

40

Episode 85: River

41

Episode 84: Manichaeism

42

Episode 83: Gnosticism

43

Episode 82: Zoroastrianism

44

Episode 81: Revelation

45

Episode 80: The General Epistles

46

Episode 79: The Pauline Epistles

47

Episode 78: The Book of Acts

48

Episode 77: The Gospels

49

Episode 76: Judea Under Herod

50

Episode 75: Dusk and Starlight

51

Episode 74: Marcus Aurelius (The Meditations)

52

Episode 73: The Golden Ass (Apuleius' The Golden Ass)

53

Episode 72: Bread and Circuses (Juvenal's Satires)

54

Episode 71: The Gods Depart (Statius' Thebaid)

55

Episode 70: Rome's Forgotten Epic (Statius' Thebaid)

56

Episode 69: Rome's Comic Novel (Petronius' Satyricon)

57

Episode 68: Love Means Sin (Seneca's Phaedra)

58

Episode 67: Jaws Dripping Blood (Seneca's Thyestes)

59

Episode 66: Stoicism, Seneca, St. Paul

60

Episode 65: Seneca and the Julio-Claudians (The Life of Seneca)

61

Episode 64: Ovid's Exile (The Tristia and Epistulae ex Ponto)

62

Episode 63: All Is in Flux (Ovid's Metamorphoses, Books 11-15)

63

Episode 62: A Curious Passion (Ovid's Metamorphoses, Books 6-10)

64

Episode 61: Changes of Shape (Ovid's Metamorphoses, Books 1-5)

65

Episode 60: How to Make Love to a Roman (Ovid's Art of Love and Cure for Love)

66

Episode 59: Early Ovid (Amores, Heroides)

67

Episode 58: She Caught Me with Her Eyes (Propertius' Poetry)

68

Episode 57: The World Grows Dim and Black (Virgil's Aeneid, Books 10-12)

69

Episode 56: I Shall Release Hell (Virgil's Aeneid, Books 7-9)

70

Episode 55: Among the Shades (Virgil's Aeneid, Books 4-6)

71

Episode 54: Out of Troy (Virgil's Aeneid, Books 1-3)

72

Episode 53: Then Came Hard Iron (Virgil's Georgics)

73

Episode 52: White Flowers Die (Virgil's Eclogues)

74

Episode 51: Horace and Augustan Age Poetry

75

Episode 50: Our Brutal Age (Horace's Poetry)

76

Episode 49: The Strange Roots of Love (Catullus' Poetry)

77

Episode 48: The Right and the Expedient (Cicero's Career, 62-43 BCE)

78

Episode 47: O Tempora, O Mores (Cicero's Career, 80-62 BCE)

79

Episode 46: The Republic at Twilight (Cicero's Early Life)

80

Episode 45: The Uncuttables (Lucretius' On the Nature of Things and Epicureanism)

81

Episode 44: Homo Sum (Terence's The Brothers)

82

Episode 43: On the Move (Plautus' The Rope)

83

Episode 42: The Beginnings of Roman Literature

84

Episode 41: Everything So Far

85

Episode 40: Hellenism and the Rise of the Self

86

Episode 39: Medea and the Argonauts (Apollonius' Jason and the Argonauts)

87

Episode 38: The Epic Anti-Hero (Apollonius' Jason and the Argonauts)

88

Episode 37: The New Comedy (Menander's Old Cantankerous)

89

Episode 36: War and Peace and Sex (Aristophanes' Lysistrata)

90

Episode 35: The Great Thundercrap (Aristophanes' The Clouds)

91

Episode 34: The Traditions of Our Forefathers (Euripides' Bacchae)

92

Episode 33: Woman the Barbarian (Euripides' Medea)

93

Episode 32: Trees Bending to the Torrent (Sophocles' Antigone)

94

Episode 31: The Requiem at Athens (Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus)

95

Episode 30: Two Legs in the Afternoon (Sophocles' Oedipus the King)

96

Episode 29: The Mound and the Furies (Aeschylus' The Eumenides)

97

Episode 28: A Mother's Curse (Aeschylus' The Libation Bearers)

98

Episode 27: The Bloody King (Aeschylus' Agamemnon)

99

Episode 26: Ancient Greek Theater (The History of 5th-Century BCE Athenian Drama)

100

Episode 25: Lyrical Ballistics (Sappho, Pindar, Archilochus, and Greek Lyric Poetry)

101

Episode 24: God May Relent (The Bible's Prophetic Books)

102

Episode 23: Love. Desire. Exegesis. (The Song of Songs/Solomon)

103

Episode 22: Fatalism (The Book of Ecclesiastes)

104

Episode 21: The Bible's Magic Trick (The Book of Psalms)

105

Episode 20: The Problem of Evil (The Book of Job)

106

Episode 19: The One Who Struggles with God (The Historical Books and Biblical Archaeology)

107

Episode 18: The 613 Commandments (The Pentateuch's Prescriptive Materials)

108

Episode 17: Roots of the Pentateuch (The Pentateuch and Comparative Mythography)

109

Episode 16: Four Main Parts (Introduction to the Bible's Structure)

110

Episode 15: Canaan (Biblical History and Archaeology)

111

Episode 14: The Autumn Leaves (Homer's Odyssey, Books 17-24)

112

Episode 13: His Mind Teeming (Homer's Odyssey, Books 9-16)

113

Episode 12: Kleos and Nostos (Homer's Odyssey, Books 1-8)

114

Episode 11: Who Was Homer? (Homer's Iliad, Books 17-24)

115

Episode 10: Homer's Gods (Homer's Iliad, Books 9-16)

116

Episode 9: Glittering Bronze Men (Homer's Iliad, Books 1-8)

117

Episode 8: Before Orthodoxy (Hesiod's Theogony)

118

Episode 7: Hesiod's Lands and Seasons (Hesiod's Works and Days)

119

Episode 6: The Pros and Cons of Wisdom (Ancient Egypt's Wisdom Literature)

120

Episode 5: Beneath the Obelisks (Ancient Egyptian Fiction)

121

Episode 4: Divine Judgment (The Book of the Dead)

122

Episode 3: He Who Saw the Deep (The Epic of Gilgamesh)

123

Episode 2: Before the Flood (The Enuma Elish and Atrahasis)

124

Episode 1: The Tower of Babel (Cuneiform)