Literature and History cover art

All Episodes

Literature and History — 126 episodes

#
Title
1

Episode 126: Kalilah and Dimnah

2

Episode 125: The Zoroastrian Bundahisn

3

Episode 124: The Last Great War of Antiquity

4

Episode 123: An Introduction to the Hadiths

5

Episode 122: The Early Abbasid Caliphate

6

Episode 121: The Umayyad Caliphate

7

Episode 120: The Rashidun Caliphate

8

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

9

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

10

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

11

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

12

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

13

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

14

Episode 113: Antarah ibn Shaddad

15

Episode 112: Pre-Islamic Arabic Poetry

16

Episode 111: Pre-Islamic Arabia

17

Episode 110: Questions

18

Episode 109: Cornerstones

19

Episode 108: Isidore of Seville

20

Episode 107: Venantius Fortunatus

21

Episode 106: Gregory of Tours, Part 2

22

Episode 105: Gregory of Tours, Part 1

23

Episode 104: An Introduction to the Talmud

24

Episode 103: Boethius

25

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

26

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

27

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

28

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

29

Episode 98: The Life and Works of Saint Jerome

30

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

31

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

32

Episode 95: Rutilius Namatianus

33

Episode 94: Ausonius

34

Episode 93: Severus' Life of Saint Martin

35

Episode 92: Athanasius' Life of Antony

36

Episode 91: The Passion of Perpetua and Felicity

37

Episode 90: Ante-Nicene Catholicism

38

Episode 89: The Aethiopica of Heliodorus

39

Episode 88: Ancient Greek Sci-fi

40

Episode 87: Lucian of Samosata

41

Episode 86: An Introduction to Late Antiquity

42

Episode 85: River

43

Episode 84: Manichaeism

44

Episode 83: Gnosticism

45

Episode 82: Zoroastrianism

46

Episode 81: Revelation

47

Episode 80: The General Epistles

48

Episode 79: The Pauline Epistles

49

Episode 78: The Book of Acts

50

Episode 77: The Gospels

51

Episode 76: Judea Under Herod

52

Episode 75: Dusk and Starlight

53

Episode 74: Marcus Aurelius (The Meditations)

54

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

55

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

56

Episode 71: The Gods Depart (Statius' Thebaid)

57

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

58

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

59

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

60

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

61

Episode 66: Stoicism, Seneca, St. Paul

62

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

63

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

64

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

65

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

66

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

67

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

68

Episode 59: Early Ovid (Amores, Heroides)

69

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

70

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

71

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

72

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

73

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

74

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

75

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

76

Episode 51: Horace and Augustan Age Poetry

77

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

78

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

79

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

80

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

81

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

82

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

83

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

84

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

85

Episode 42: The Beginnings of Roman Literature

86

Episode 41: Everything So Far

87

Episode 40: Hellenism and the Rise of the Self

88

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

89

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

90

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

91

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

92

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

93

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

94

Episode 33: Woman the Barbarian (Euripides' Medea)

95

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

96

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

97

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

98

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

99

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

100

Episode 27: The Bloody King (Aeschylus' Agamemnon)

101

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

102

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

103

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

104

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

105

Episode 22: Fatalism (The Book of Ecclesiastes)

106

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

107

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

108

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

109

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

110

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

111

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

112

Episode 15: Canaan (Biblical History and Archaeology)

113

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

114

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

115

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

116

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

117

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

118

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

119

Episode 8: Before Orthodoxy (Hesiod's Theogony)

120

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

121

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

122

Episode 5: Beneath the Obelisks (Ancient Egyptian Fiction)

123

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

124

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

125

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

126

Episode 1: The Tower of Babel (Cuneiform)