Ancient History Fangirl

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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 are leaving this season with a healthy amount of trepidation--and even more determination than ever to vote while we still have the right to. Join us as we discuss what we just did, what's in store for next season, and what's going on with our books and creative projects.

Find Jenny's book, ⁠⁠Enemy of My Dreams⁠⁠, and preorder the sequel, Game of Thieves, through an exclusive deal with Burning Pages!

Get Genn's most recent book, the ⁠⁠Official Lore Olympus Cookbook⁠⁠, here!

Find our book Women of Myth ⁠here⁠!

And check out Genn and Jenny's individual author Patreons!

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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 events, murders and suicides, disappearances and hauntings, and a strange 200-year-old floating log that probably controls the weather.

But the history of this lake goes back even farther: to the volcanic eruption that created it 7,700 years ago. People were there to witness that event—and its memory is preserved, both in archaeology and an ancient mythological tradition that describes the eruption with scientific precision.

Join us as we plumb the depths of Crater Lake.

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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. Ovid loved city life, and he adored tweaking the nose of Rome’s First Citizen through his writing.

In this episode, we chart Ovid’s rise and fall--from a cheeky, subversive poet to a tool in Augustus’ autocratic agenda, and finally to an exile. And we compare it to Donald Trump’s handling of his loudest critics—including the press and our nation’s late night TV hosts.

Is the Trump regime taking a page out of Augustus’ playbook? And what warning can an exiled poet from 2,000 years ago have for us all today?

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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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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 of the BRAND NEW CAMP HALF BLOOD BOOK: Camp Half-Blood: The Wild Zone!

In this episode, Rick Riordan and Annabelle Oh share their mythical inspirations, what's going on at Camp Half Blood in the new series, and more.

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This episode was brought to you by Vinted. Download the Vinted app for free, sell clothes you no longer wear, and keep everything you earn.

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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 the deadlyYersinia pestis. No, we're not talking about the Black Death of Medieval Europe. We're talking about the Plague of Justinian.

The Plague of Justinian was just one part of the fallout of the global volcanic eruption of 536 AD. Three eyewitness accounts have survived--and, in the grand tradition of this podcast, we decided to read them to you whilst Yule-level drunk. Buckle up. It is a wild, plague-tastic ride.

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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. It’s an Odyssey for children, but one which readers of all ages will find it very easy to fall in love with.

Join us as we delve deep into this ancient tale in a wide-ranging conversation spanning gods, goddesses and monsters; Odysseus’ status as a problematic narrator (and self-admitted liar), and just what is it about him that continues to fascinate.

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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 earth for the last 10,000 years. Or did they?

It turns out that the last mammoths didn’t disappear 10,000 years ago. For thousands of years after their extinction in the rest of the world, a small population still lived on a remote island in the Arctic called Wrangel Island. And in their last days? In the end times? Things got weird.

This is a story about a natural disaster that happened—to mammoths. Let’s dig in.

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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 Virgil’s skill as one he could exploit.

Augustus commanded Virgil to write the Aeneid—an epic poem tying him (Augustus) to an ancient past going all the way back to the Illiad, and elevating his family as descended from Venus and divinely appointed to rule. Virgil’s act of resistance was endlessly writing this poem, never finishing it, and ordering it burned when he died (though Augustus had other ideas).

What happens to an artist’s art when it is used in a way that transcends its creation? And how does an ancient poem connect to the Trump Administration’s war with the Smithsonian?

It turns out one of fascism’s most potent weapons is nostalgia. Join us as we dig into it.

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Enemy of My Dreams is just $2.99 on Kindle!

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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 tendencies, the desire to bring on the end times through war in the Middle East, Christian persecution complex, refusal to follow societal norms, demons--were there at the beginning, date to very specific times in the Church's early history, and threatened Roman society in a way surprisingly similar to how they're threatening ours now.

Join us as we attempt to chart the connection between the religious nonsense we're all being tortured with today and its deepest roots in history--with Brad Onishi, scholar of religion, author and co-host of the podcast Straight White American Jesus.

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⁠Enemy of My Dreams is just $2.99 on Kindle!⁠

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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 witch, paired with a hunky navigator) and a wild novella about a woman whose world is rocked by multiple werewolf highwaymen.

Join us as we discuss magic and mythology, the fun and challenge of writing why-choose, and the necessity of centering female pleasure.

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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 never be able to forget him.

Turns out this is…how do we put this…fascism-coded. Other authoritarians have also loved to build things—including, very noticeably, Donald Trump. Why is that? Why do dictators feel a need to build things and slap their names on buildings (even when they didn’t build them)?

In this episode, we’re going to unpack that—comparing the record of Augustus and Donald Trump when it comes to building, defacing (under the guise of "renovation"), slapping their names on buildings and putting their claims on the narratives those buildings tell. Sponsors and Advertising

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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. And in some of the darker corners of the Internet (and real life), wildly rich techbros openly fantasize about a “Red Caesar” who will come to rule us all.

Why is that? Where does this obsession with ancient Rome come from, specifically among our techbro overlords? In this episode, we’re going to attempt to unpack that.

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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 talk to author, historian and podcaster Dr. Emma Southon, host of the History is Sexy podcast and author of Not Built in a Day: How Slavery Made the Roman Empire, to explore this question.

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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 Augustus—Julia the Elder and Agrippina the Elder—were the first generations of the new autocracy. They never knew democracy—and from the beginning, they complied with Augustus’ vision for women: get married young, to whoever he told you to, and have many, many children.

These girls complied, and paid a terrible price for the kingdom their foremothers built—a price we’re still paying today.

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This episode is sponsored by Taskrabbit. Get $15 off your first task at Taskrabbit.com or the Taskrabbit app using promo code FANGIRL.

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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 his propaganda war against his enemy.

Meanwhile, Livia and Octavian had both divorced their spouses, shortly after children were born, to marry each other. Both were equally cutthroat--and Livia refused to ever be on the wrong side of politics again.

Now, as Octavian returns triumphant, these two women work beside him to tear Roman democracy down and start again—with themselves at the apex of power.

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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 glamour and divinity and lots of money. But Fulvia had the gangs. She was a populist firebrand, military leader, and for a while, the undisputed power in Rome: both in the Senate and in the streets.

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This episode is sponsored by Taskrabbit. Get $15 off your first task at Taskrabbit.com or the Taskrabbit app using promo code FANGIRL.

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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 their own oppression—how they were manipulated, how they were used, and how they used their power and influence: for status, for safety, and sometimes for survival.

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This episode is sponsored by Taskrabbit. Get $15 off your first task at Taskrabbit.com or the Taskrabbit app using promo code FANGIRL.

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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 ancient Greeks) surprisingly…healthy?

Today we talk all things Aphrodite with bestselling author Jennifer Saint: her relationship with Ares, her many other lovers, and what her story tells us about how the ancients viewed love and romance.

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This episode is sponsored by Taskrabbit. Get $15 off your first task at Taskrabbit.com or the Taskrabbit app using promo code FANGIRL.

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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 educated, sexually liberated, and unafraid to seize the reins of power. One of those was a woman named Clodia.

Daughter of the aristocratic Claudii, Clodia (and her brother Clodius) changed her name to reflect a more plebeian status. A fierce populist, she was vilified by Cicero even as she was the victim of a murder plot. And she was an unlikely champion of true democratic values.

Join us as we discuss her fascinating life with author and biographer Douglas Boin—and explore what her life tells us about the state of the patriarchy then and now.

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