May 3, 2024 • 35 mins
Liv reads a selection from Book 1, chapter 1 of Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War, translated by Richard Crawley. The ancient Athenian historian recounts the cultural "history" of the Bronze Age during the Classical period. Help keep LTAMB going by subscribing to Liv's Patreon for bonus content!
This is not a standard narrative story episode, it's a reading of an ancient source, audiobook style. For regular episodes look for any that don't have "Liv Reads..." in the title! For a list of Roman/Latin names and who they were in the Greek, visit: mythsbaby.com/names
Attributions and licensing information for music used in the podcast can be found here: mythsbaby.com/sources-attributions.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Hello, this is Let's talk about Miss Baby and I
am your host live so today. Because Tuesday's episode was
that incredible conversation with eric ahe Klein, I thought I
would bring you something a little simpler today. It was
going to be just a regular reading episode, continuing on
(01:01):
with the fall of Troy. But then then see all
the episodes we've just done on the Bronze all those
narrative episodes I gave you just with the brief details,
the brief history of those I was really really drawn
in to the Thucidides quotes that MICHAELA had added in
(01:21):
to all of those research scripts. Thucidides is not ever
a source that I have used before, because I love
my mythology, and he wrote, you know, this history of
the Peloponnesian War, this war between Athens and Sparta slash,
this war basically between all of Greece, and you know,
so I've never really really dove into his work. But
(01:44):
learning that the opening chapter too, Thucidides History of the
Peloponnesian War is actually a kind of cultural memory of
the Bronze Age. I've been using that phrase so often
it will continue to be used. But the fact that
it looks at the Homeric history quote unquote history presented
(02:06):
in the Iliad and the Odyssey and other myth of
the ancient Greeks and presents it as this kind of
historical background for the founding of Greece. And you know
how it eventually led to the city states that Thucydides
was writing in in the fifth century. It was just
utterly fascinating to me that he had written all of
(02:28):
this as their kind of acknowledged history. So, since we
have gone through this sort of archaeological that our knowledge
of the Bronze Age history as modern people, since we've
spent a month going through that, I thought we would
cap things off with a reading of an ancient Athenian,
(02:51):
a classical Athenian, so Thucidides, someone writing nearly one thousand
years after the height of Mycenie. I thought we would
look at how someone like that, someone living in that
time in Athens. It's time that is so ancient to
but compared to the Bronze Age is not so ancient
(03:12):
at all. Look at how someone living through that saw
the Bronze Age history. So I'm going to just read
this section, this sort of opening of Thucydides's history, and
we can all just really dive into this idea of
how they saw their own history. I just think it's
an absolutely fascinating way of looking at both the mythology
(03:36):
that I love so much and the Bronze Age and
just how these things interacted in the ancient world. This
(04:09):
is a selection from Book one of Thucydides's History of
the Peloponnesian War from four thirty one BCE, translated by
Richard Crawley. Thucydides, an Athenian, wrote the history of the
War between the Peloponnesians and the Athenians, beginning at the
(04:30):
moment that it broke out, and believing that it would
be a great war and more worthy of relation than
any that had preceded it. This belief was not without
its grounds. The preparation of both the combatants were in
every department in the last state of perfection, and he
could see the rest of the Hellenic race taking sides
in the quarrel, those who delayed doing so at once
(04:53):
having it in contemplation. Indeed, this was the greatest movement
yet known in history, not only of the Hellenes, but
of a large part of the barbarian world. I had
almost said of mankind. For though the events of remote
antiquity and e even those that more immediately preceded the war,
could not, from lapse of time be clearly ascertained. Yet
(05:15):
the evidences which an inquiry carried as far back as
was practicable, leads me to trust all point to the
conclusion that there was nothing on a great scale, either
in war or in other matters. For instance, it is
evident that the country now called Hellas had in ancient
times no settled population. On the contrary, migrations were of
(05:38):
frequent occurrence, the several tribes readily abandoning their homes under
the pressure of superior numbers, without commerce, without freedom of
communication either by land or sea, cultivating no more of
their territory than the exigencies of life required, destitute of capital,
never planting their land, for they could not tell when
an invader might not come and take it all away,
(06:00):
and when he did, they had no walls to stop him.
Thinking that the necessities of daily sustenance could be supplied
at one place as well as an other, they cared
little for shifting their habitation, and consequently neither built large
cities nor attained to any other form of greatness. The
richest spoils were always most subject to this change of masters,
(06:21):
such as the district now called Thessaly Boeotia, most of
the Peloponnese Arcadia excepted, and the most fertile parts of
the rest of Hellas. The goodness of the land favored
the aggrandizement of particular individuals, and thus created faction, which
proved a fertile source of ruin. It also invited invasion. Accordingly, Attica,
(06:44):
from the poverty of its soil, enjoying from a very
remote period freedom from faction, never changed its inhabitants, and
here is no inconsiderable exemplification of my assertion that the
migrations were the cause of there being no correspondent growth
in other parts. The most powerful victims of war or
faction from the rest of Hellas took refuge with the
(07:05):
Athenians as a safe retreat, and at an early peace,
the area becoming naturalized, swelled the already large population of
the city to such a height that Attica became at
last too small to hold them, and they had to
send out colonies to Ionia. There is another circumstance that
contributes not a little to my conviction of the weakness
(07:26):
of ancient times. Before the Trojan War, there is no
indication of any common action in Hellas, nor indeed of
the universal prevalence of the name. On the contrary, before
the time of Helen, son of Deucalion, no such appellation existed,
but the country went by the name of the different tribes,
in particularly of the Palasgian. It was not till Helen
(07:48):
and his sons grew strong in Phythiotis and were invited
as allies into other cities, that one by one they
gradually acquired from the connection the name of the Hellenes,
though a long time elapsed before that name could fasten
itself upon all. The best proof of this is furnished
by Homer, born long after the Trojan War. He nowhere
(08:10):
calls of them by that name, nor indeed any of them,
except the followers of Achilles from Phibiotis, who were the
original Hellenes. In his poem, they are called Danaans, Argives,
and the Achaeans. He does not even use the term Barbarian,
probably because the Hellenes had not yet been marked off
from the rest of the world by one distinctive appellation.
(08:34):
It appears therefore that the several Hellenic communities, comprising not
only those who first acquired the names city by city
as they came to understand each other, but also those
who assumed it afterwards as the name of the whole people,
were before the Trojan War, prevented, by their want of
strength and the absence of mutual intercourse, from displaying any
(08:56):
collective action. Indeed, they could not unite for this expedition
till they had gained increased familiarity with the sea, and
the first person known to us by tradition as having
establishish a navy is Minos. He made himself master of
what is now called the Hellenic Sea, and ruled over
the Cichlides, into most of which he sent the first colonies,
(09:20):
expelling the Karians and appointing his own sons governors. And
thus he did his best to put down piracy in
those waters, a necessary step to secure the revenues for
his own use. For in early times the Hellenes and
the barbarians of the coast and islands, as communication by
sea became more common, were tempted to turn pirates under
(09:43):
the conduct of their most powerful men, the motives being
to serve their own cupidity, and to support the needy.
They would fall upon a town unprotected by walls and
consisting of a mere collection of villages, and would plunder it. Indeed,
this came to be the main source of their livelihood,
no disgrace being yet attached to such an achievement, but
(10:04):
even some glory. An illustration of this is furnished by
the honor with which some of the inhabitants of the
continent still regard a successful marauder, and by the question
we find the old poets everywhere representing the people as
asking of voyagers, are they pirates? As if those who
are asked the question would have no idea of disclaiming
(10:25):
the imputation, or their interrogators of reproaching them for it.
The same rapine prevailed also by land, and even at
the present day, many of Hellas still follow the old fashion,
the Azolian Locrians, for instance, the Aetolians and the Arcanians
in that region of the continent, and the custom of
carrying arms is still kept up among those continentals from
(10:48):
their old piratical habits. The whole of Hellas used once
to carry arms, their habitations being unprotected and their communication
with each other unsafe. Indeed, to where arms was as
much part of everyday life with them as with the barbarians,
and the fact that the people in these parts of
Hellas are still living in the old way points to
(11:10):
a time when the same mode of life was once
equally common to all. The Athenians were the first to
lay aside their weapons and to adopt an easier and
more luxurious mode of life. Indeed, it is only lately
that their rich old men left off the luxury of
wearing undergarments of linen and fastening a knot of their
hair with a tie of golden grasshoppers, a fashion which
(11:33):
spread to their Ionian kindred and long prevailed among the
old men there. On the contrary, a modest style of dressing,
more in conformity with modern ideas, was first adopted by
the Lacedaemonians, the rich, doing their best to assimilate their
way of life to that of the common people, They
also set the example of contending naked publicly, stripping and
(11:55):
anointing themselves with oil in their gymnastic exercises. Formerly, even
in the Olympian contests, the athletes who contended wore belts
across their middles, and it is but a few years
since the practice ceased to this day among some of
the barbarians, especially in Asia, when prizes for boxing and
wrestling are offered, belts are worn by the combatants. And
(12:20):
there are many other points in which a likeness might
be shown between the life of the Hellenic world of
old and the barbarian way of today. With respect to
(12:41):
their towns. Later on, at an era of increased facilities
of navigation and a greater supply of capital, we find
the shores becoming the site of walled towns, and the
isthmuses being occupied for the purposes of commerce and defense
against a neighbor. But the old towns, on account of
the great prevalence of piracy, were built away from the sea,
(13:03):
whether on the islands or the continent, and still remain
in their old sites, For the pirates used to plunder
one another, and indeed all coast populations, whether seafaring or not,
the islanders too were great pirates. These islanders were Karians
and Phoenicians, by whom most of the islands were colonized,
(13:24):
as was proved by the following fact during the purification
of Delos by Athens in this war, all the graves
in the island were taken up, and it was found
that above half their inmates were Karians. They were identified
by the fashion of the arms buried with them and
by the method of interment, which was the same as
(13:45):
the Karians still follow But as soon as Minos had
formed his navy, communication by sea became easier, as he
colonized most of the islands and thus expelled the malefactors.
The coast population now began to apply themselves more closely
to the acquisition of wealth, and their life became more settled.
(14:05):
Some even began to build themselves walls on the ste
strength of their newly acquired riches, For the love of
gain would reconcile the weaker to the dominion of the stronger,
and the possession of capital enabled the more powerful to
reduce the smaller towns to subjection. And it was at
a somewhat later stage of this development that they went
on the expedition against Troy. What enabled Agamemnon to raise
(14:31):
the armament was more, in my opinion, his superiority in
strength than the oaths of Tindarius, which bound the suitors
to follow him. Indeed, the account given by those Peloponnesians
who have been the recipients of the most credible tradition
is this first of all, Pelops, arriving among a needy
population from Asia with vast wealth, acquired such power that stranger,
(14:56):
though he was, the country was called after him. And
this power fortune saw fit materially to increase in the
hands of his descendants. Eurystheus had been killed in a
hour by the Heraclids. Atreus was his mother's brother, and
to the hands of his relation, who had left his
father on account of the death of Chrysippus. Eurystheus, when
(15:19):
he set out on his expedition, had committed Mycenae and
the government. As time went on and Eurystheus did not return,
Atreus complied with the wishes of the Mycenaeans, who were
influenced by fear of the Heraclids. Besides, his power seemed considerable,
and he had not neglected to court the favor of
(15:39):
the populace, and assumed the scepter of Mycenae and the
rest of the dominions of Eurystheus. And so the power
of the descendants of Pelops came to be greater than
that of the descendants of Perseus. To all this Agamemnon succeeded.
He had also a navy far stronger than his contemporaries,
so that, in my opinion, fear was quite as strong
(16:02):
an element as love in the formation of the Confederate expedition.
The strength of his name is shown by the fact
that his own was the largest contingent, and that of
the Arcadians was furnished by him. This, at least is
what Homer says, if his testimony is deemed sufficient. Besides,
in his account of the transmission of the scepter, he
(16:23):
calls him of many an isle and of all argos king. Now,
Agamemnon's was a continental power, and he could not have
been master of any except the adjacent islands, and these
would not be many. But through the possession of a fleet,
and from this expedition, we may infer the character of
(16:44):
earlier enterprises. Now, Mycenie may have been a small place,
and many of the towns of that age may appear
comparatively insignificant. But no exact observer would therefore feel justified
in rejecting the estimate given by the poets and by
tradition of the magnitude of the armament. For I suppose
if Lacedaemon were to become desolate, and the temples and
(17:07):
the foundations of the public buildings were left, that as
time went on there would be a strong disposition with
posterity to refuse to accept her fame as a true
exponent of her power. And yet they occupy two fifths
of the Peloponnese and lead the whole, not to speak
of their numerous allies without Still, as the city is
(17:29):
neither built in a compact form, nor adorned with magnificent
temples and public edifices, but composed of villages after the
old fashion of Hellas, there would be an impression of inadequacy.
Whereas if Athens were to suffer the same misfortune, I
suppose that any inference from the appearance presented to the
(17:50):
eye would make her power to have been twice as
great as it is. We have therefore no right to
be skeptical, nor to content ourselves with an inspection of
a town to the exclusion of a considered of its
own power. But we may safely conclude that the armament
in question surpassed all before it. As it fell short
(18:10):
of modern efforts. If we can hear also accept the
testimony of Homer's poems, in which, without allowing for the
exaggeration which a poet would feel himself licensed to employ,
we can see that it was far from equalling hours.
He has represented it as consisting of twelve hundred vessels,
the be ocean complement of each ship being one hundred
(18:31):
and twenty men, that of the ships of Philiktts fifty.
By this I conceive he meant to convey the maximum
and the minimum compliment. At any rate. He does not
specify the amount of any others in his catalog of
the ships. That they were all rowers as well as warriors.
We see from his account of the ships of Philiktidis,
in which all the men at the ore are bowmen.
(18:53):
Now it is improbable that many supernumeraries sailed if we
accept the kings and high officers, especially as they had
to cross the open sea with munitions of war in
ships moreover that had no decks, but were equipped in
the old piratical fashion. So that if we strike the
average of the largest and smallest ships, the number of
those who sailed will appear inconsiderable, representing as they did
(19:17):
the whole force of Hellas, and this was due not
so much to scarcity of men as of money. Difficulty
of subsistence made the invaders reduce the number of the
army to a point at which it might live on
the country during the prosecution of the war, even after
the victory they obtained on their arrival, and a victory
there must have been, or the fortifications of the naval
(19:39):
camp could never have been built. There is no indication
of their whole force having been employed. On the contrary,
they seemed to have turned to cultivation of the Chersonese
and to piracy from want of supplies. This was what
really enabled the Trojans to keep the field for ten
years against them, the dispersion of the enemy making them
(20:00):
always a match for the detachment left behind. If they
had brought plenty of supplies with them and had persevered
in the war with its out scattering for piracy and agriculture,
they would have easily defeated the Trojans in the field,
since they could hold their own against them with the
division of service. In short, if they had stuck to
(20:21):
the siege, the capture of Troy would have cost them
less time and less trouble. But as want of money
proved the weakness of earlier expeditions, so from the same
cause even the one in question, more famous than its predecessors,
may be pronounced on the evidence of what it effected
to have been, inferior to its renown and to the
(20:42):
current opinion about it formed under the tuition of the poets.
Even after the Trojan War, Hellas was still engaged in
removing and settling, and thus could not attain to the
quiet which must precede growth. The late return of the
Hellenes from Ilium caused many revolutions, and factions ensued almost everywhere,
(21:04):
and it was the citizens thus driven into exile who
founded the cities. Sixty years after the capture of Ilium,
the modern Baeotians were driven out of Arne by the
Thessalians and settled in the present Baeotia, the former Cadmeis,
though there was a division of them left there before,
some of whom joined the expedition to Ilium. Twenty years later,
(21:27):
the Dorians and the Heraclids became masters of Peloponnese, so
that much had to be done, and many years had
to elapse before Hellas could attain to a durable tranquility,
undisturbed by removals, and could begin to send out colonies,
as Athens did to Ionia and most of the islands,
and the Peloponnesians to most of Italy and Sicily, and
(21:49):
some places in the rest of Hellas. All these places
were founded subsequently to the war with Troy. But as
(22:25):
the power of Hellas grew and the acquisition of wealth
became more an object, the revenues of the states increasing,
tyrannies were by their means established almost everywhere, the old
form of government being hereditary monarchy with definite prerogatives, and
Hellas began to fit out fleets and apply herself more
(22:46):
closely to the sea. It is said that the Corinthians
were the first to approach the modern style of naval architecture,
and that corinth was the first place in Hellas where
galleys were built, and we have Emaniacles, a Corinthian shipwright
making four ships for the Samians, dating from the end
of this war. It is nearly three hundred years ago
(23:06):
that Emoniocles went to Samos again. The earliest sea fight
in history was between the Corinthians and the Corkyrians. This
was about two hundred and sixty years ago, dating from
the same time planted on an Isthmus, Corinth had from
time out of mind been a commercial emporium. As formerly,
(23:26):
almost all communication between the Hellenes within and without Peloponnese
was carried on over land, and Corinthian territory was the
highway through which it traveled. She had consequently great money resources,
and is shown by the epithet wealthy bestowed by the
old poets on the place, and this enabled her, when
traffic by sea became more common, to procure her navy
(23:49):
and put down piracy, and she could offer a mart
for both branches of the trade. She acquired for herself
all the power which a large revenue affords. Subsequently, the
Ionians attained to the great naval strength in the reign
of Cyrus, the first king of the Persians, and of
his son Cambises, and while they were at war or
with the former, commanded for a while the Ionian sea. Polycrates,
(24:13):
also the tyrant of Samos, had a powerful navy in
the reign of Cambises, with which he reduced many of
the islands, and among them Rhnea, which he consecrated to
the Delian Apollo. About this time, also, the Phocaeans, while
they were founding Marseilles, defeated the Carthaginians in a sea fight.
(24:33):
These were the most powerful navies, and even these, although
so many generations had elapsed since the Trojan War, seemed
to have been principally composed of the old fifty oars
and longboats, and to have counted few galleys among their ranks. Indeed,
it was only shortly the Persian War and the death
of Darius, the successor of Cambises, that the Sicilian tyrants
(24:56):
and the Corkyrians acquired any large number of galleys. For
after these there were no navies of any account in
Hellas till the expedition of Xerxes. Agina, Athens and others
(25:21):
may have possessed a few vessels, but they were principally
fifty oars. It was quite at the end of this
period that the war with Agina and the prospect of
the Barbarian invasion enabled Themistocles to persuade the Athenians to
build the fleet with which they fought at Salamis, and
even these vessels had not complete decks. The navies then
(25:43):
of the Hellenes during the period we have traversed were
what I have described. All their insignificance did not prevent
there being an element of the greatest power to those
who cultivated them, alike in revenue and in dominion. They
were the means by which the islands were reached and
reduced those of the smallest area falling the easiest prey.
(26:04):
Wars by land there were none, none, at least by
which power was acquired. We have the usual border contests,
but of distant expeditions with conquest for object we hear
nothing among the Hellenes. There was no union of subject
cities round a great state, no spontaneous combination of equals
for confederate expeditions. What fighting there was consisted merely of
(26:28):
local warfare between rival neighbors. The nearest approach to a
coalition took place in the Old War between Calcus and Eritrea.
This was a quarrel in which the rest of the
Hellenic name did, to some extent take sides well nerds.
(26:59):
That was most of chapter one, book one of Thucinides's
Peloponnesian War. It goes into a little bit more, but
we're looking deeper at the Persian Wars which of course
they had a much better grasp on the actual historicity
and the archaeology associated because the Persian Wars were like
one hundred years before Thucididies maybe less. I'm not gonna
(27:21):
look at a timeline because this is ostensibly still about
the Bronze Age, but I'm just utterly fascinated with how
Thucidides is showing us this really really interesting combination of
what we now know to be fairly reasonably true history,
combining it, blending it with this epic history that is
(27:46):
the Homeric Epics, you know, to the classical Greeks and
the Greeks that came before them, the Epics were what
they knew of their written history. It was the only
grasp they really had. Because, of course, as we looked
at in such detail, there was this loss quote unquote
loss of the earlier languages used in the Bronze Again,
(28:10):
it wasn't really a loss so much as those writing
systems linear A and linear B served a very specific
purpose that just no longer existed after the collapse of
the Bronze Age, and so the use of the writing
just died out Before a few hundred years later, we
get the introduction of the Greek alphabet again from the
(28:33):
levant from the south where they are establishing this new alphabet,
and as we talked about in you know, in the
earlier the Conversation episodes, like we're seeing a lot of
playing with what letters are coming out, what they're actually
going to finalize their alphabet as because they're introducing this
this brand new alphabet and figuring things out. And then
(28:53):
so like us one of the earliest forms of this
this usage that then you know, a few hundred more
years later somebody like Thucinides has access to is going
to be Homer right, it is. It is like not
only as a written source. We can't really presume that
he was reading a written source of homer you know,
(29:13):
like Joel Christensen went into great detail on my show.
What we know is that somebody like Thucidity is really
any Athenian, I mean any probably in a larger area
of the Greece, but we are working with Athens in
this case. They're going to know the Homeric epics as
told by these poets as their own kind of oral
epic history. It's just the assumption that like, because they
(29:36):
align with the modern areas and they tell this epic history, like,
of course it is going to be the historical narrative
that then later Greeks attach to their own you know, history,
and for all intentsive purposes, it is history to them.
It's only much later that we are able to look
and see, you know, like in that conversation, how we
(29:57):
looked at looked at just exactly how the Iliad in
the Odyssey is certainly at least as we have them
are really interacting with the archaic period, the classical period,
like where they really are not necessarily history so much
as this kind of way of understanding what was left
behind by those Bronze Age people. But somebody like Thucydides,
(30:20):
this Athenian who is facing down what seems like it's
going to be an incredibly incredibly big war, you know,
ostensibly against Sparta, but really we're talking like a war
like he's saying, like he is using this introduction to
the war that his people are facing in that moment.
He's using this introduction of like the time before the
(30:42):
Hellenes became unified as these Greek people, you know, the
Trojan War is his example of how that started to happen,
how it became that all of these people associated themselves
with this Hellenic culture, this Hellenic tradition, and then formed
you know, all of the different city states. But what
would ultimately become, you know, the Athens and Sparta of
(31:04):
at all fighting each other. It's just this utterly incredible
way of looking at how history was perceived historically, how
somebody twenty five hundred years ago understood the history of
his people from a thousand years before him. Like, it
just has so many levels. I just think it's such
(31:26):
a really it's just such a particularly interesting way of
looking at both the Bronze Age and classical Athens like
squished into one. Basically, it's aligning everything I love because
archaic and classical Greece is my time period of obsession,
but also Homer and thus it's connections with this perceived
(31:50):
history of the Bronze Age. And I just what a
joy I cannot believe I just read four thousand words
of Thucidities on this show and actually liked it. Thanks Thucidities. Honestly,
that was so much fun. Thank you all for listening.
Just thought it was a great way to kind of
cap off this series. That said, over the next week,
(32:11):
I guess, try and remember what I've planned. Over the
next week, there are going to be some re aired episodes.
Mikaela went back and looked at a lot of the
earlier myths that I had covered on the show that
have these connections to the Bronze Age, you know, myths
like those on crete and the origins of the Minoans
and and then the Trojan War and the installment of
(32:32):
Myceni and Sparta and things like this, these mythologies that
again are coming from the archaic period, but are you know,
intentionally looking to what they believed the Bronze Age was,
or rather this earlier time that we would now you know,
kind of associate with the Bronze Age. So it's gonna
be reairing some of those little bits and pieces. There's
(32:55):
also a playlist of all the Bronze Age related kind
of episodes that that Mikaela put together. That's all linked
in the episode's description. But frankly, we're doing that so
that I can actually take a week of not working
because if I'm just being so honest, I had a
full anxiety meltdown and I'm now trying to figure out
how to exist as a person and also figure out
how to get back on my ADHD medication so that
(33:16):
I can function as a human. So I'm taking a
week off and I'm excited about it. H that was
so much fun. Thank you so much. I'm gonna stop
talking now. Let's talk about Mithsaby is written and produced
by me Live Albert Michaelasmith is the Hermes to My Olympians,
my assistant producer who basically gave me the idea to
read the Thucinities. Wrote all the scripts for the Bronze
Age episodes. Couldn't have done it without her. She's an
(33:37):
absolute queen. Laura Smith is a production assistant and audio
engineer who worked tirelessly on all of the conversations for
the Bronze Age series and all conversations broadly. Laura is
a gem. Select music in this episode was by Luke Chaos.
The podcast is part of the iHeart Podcast Network. Listen
on Spotify or Apple or wherever you get your podcasts.
Help me continue bringing you this incredible content by donating
(34:01):
to the show via Patreon at patron dot com slash
myths Baby, you get access to loads of past episodes
I've been doing over the past seven years. And hopefully
more soon once I get myself in check. I am live,
and I love this shit, and I'm excited to breathe
for a couple of days. Thank you all for coming
along on this Bronze Age ride. It has been an
(34:24):
absolute thrill and I can't wait to get back to
some mythological roots. I already said that I am lived.
That's how well this is going. I'm living. I love
this shit. I don't know how times I've said it's
done now bye. Thanks
Hello, this is Let's talk about Miss Baby and I
am your host live so today. Because Tuesday's episode was
that incredible conversation with eric ahe Klein, I thought I
would bring you something a little simpler today. It was
going to be just a regular reading episode, continuing on
(01:01):
with the fall of Troy. But then then see all
the episodes we've just done on the Bronze all those
narrative episodes I gave you just with the brief details,
the brief history of those I was really really drawn
in to the Thucidides quotes that MICHAELA had added in
(01:21):
to all of those research scripts. Thucidides is not ever
a source that I have used before, because I love
my mythology, and he wrote, you know, this history of
the Peloponnesian War, this war between Athens and Sparta slash,
this war basically between all of Greece, and you know,
so I've never really really dove into his work. But
(01:44):
learning that the opening chapter too, Thucidides History of the
Peloponnesian War is actually a kind of cultural memory of
the Bronze Age. I've been using that phrase so often
it will continue to be used. But the fact that
it looks at the Homeric history quote unquote history presented
(02:06):
in the Iliad and the Odyssey and other myth of
the ancient Greeks and presents it as this kind of
historical background for the founding of Greece. And you know
how it eventually led to the city states that Thucydides
was writing in in the fifth century. It was just
utterly fascinating to me that he had written all of
(02:28):
this as their kind of acknowledged history. So, since we
have gone through this sort of archaeological that our knowledge
of the Bronze Age history as modern people, since we've
spent a month going through that, I thought we would
cap things off with a reading of an ancient Athenian,
(02:51):
a classical Athenian, so Thucidides, someone writing nearly one thousand
years after the height of Mycenie. I thought we would
look at how someone like that, someone living in that
time in Athens. It's time that is so ancient to
but compared to the Bronze Age is not so ancient
(03:12):
at all. Look at how someone living through that saw
the Bronze Age history. So I'm going to just read
this section, this sort of opening of Thucydides's history, and
we can all just really dive into this idea of
how they saw their own history. I just think it's
an absolutely fascinating way of looking at both the mythology
(03:36):
that I love so much and the Bronze Age and
just how these things interacted in the ancient world. This
(04:09):
is a selection from Book one of Thucydides's History of
the Peloponnesian War from four thirty one BCE, translated by
Richard Crawley. Thucydides, an Athenian, wrote the history of the
War between the Peloponnesians and the Athenians, beginning at the
(04:30):
moment that it broke out, and believing that it would
be a great war and more worthy of relation than
any that had preceded it. This belief was not without
its grounds. The preparation of both the combatants were in
every department in the last state of perfection, and he
could see the rest of the Hellenic race taking sides
in the quarrel, those who delayed doing so at once
(04:53):
having it in contemplation. Indeed, this was the greatest movement
yet known in history, not only of the Hellenes, but
of a large part of the barbarian world. I had
almost said of mankind. For though the events of remote
antiquity and e even those that more immediately preceded the war,
could not, from lapse of time be clearly ascertained. Yet
(05:15):
the evidences which an inquiry carried as far back as
was practicable, leads me to trust all point to the
conclusion that there was nothing on a great scale, either
in war or in other matters. For instance, it is
evident that the country now called Hellas had in ancient
times no settled population. On the contrary, migrations were of
(05:38):
frequent occurrence, the several tribes readily abandoning their homes under
the pressure of superior numbers, without commerce, without freedom of
communication either by land or sea, cultivating no more of
their territory than the exigencies of life required, destitute of capital,
never planting their land, for they could not tell when
an invader might not come and take it all away,
(06:00):
and when he did, they had no walls to stop him.
Thinking that the necessities of daily sustenance could be supplied
at one place as well as an other, they cared
little for shifting their habitation, and consequently neither built large
cities nor attained to any other form of greatness. The
richest spoils were always most subject to this change of masters,
(06:21):
such as the district now called Thessaly Boeotia, most of
the Peloponnese Arcadia excepted, and the most fertile parts of
the rest of Hellas. The goodness of the land favored
the aggrandizement of particular individuals, and thus created faction, which
proved a fertile source of ruin. It also invited invasion. Accordingly, Attica,
(06:44):
from the poverty of its soil, enjoying from a very
remote period freedom from faction, never changed its inhabitants, and
here is no inconsiderable exemplification of my assertion that the
migrations were the cause of there being no correspondent growth
in other parts. The most powerful victims of war or
faction from the rest of Hellas took refuge with the
(07:05):
Athenians as a safe retreat, and at an early peace,
the area becoming naturalized, swelled the already large population of
the city to such a height that Attica became at
last too small to hold them, and they had to
send out colonies to Ionia. There is another circumstance that
contributes not a little to my conviction of the weakness
(07:26):
of ancient times. Before the Trojan War, there is no
indication of any common action in Hellas, nor indeed of
the universal prevalence of the name. On the contrary, before
the time of Helen, son of Deucalion, no such appellation existed,
but the country went by the name of the different tribes,
in particularly of the Palasgian. It was not till Helen
(07:48):
and his sons grew strong in Phythiotis and were invited
as allies into other cities, that one by one they
gradually acquired from the connection the name of the Hellenes,
though a long time elapsed before that name could fasten
itself upon all. The best proof of this is furnished
by Homer, born long after the Trojan War. He nowhere
(08:10):
calls of them by that name, nor indeed any of them,
except the followers of Achilles from Phibiotis, who were the
original Hellenes. In his poem, they are called Danaans, Argives,
and the Achaeans. He does not even use the term Barbarian,
probably because the Hellenes had not yet been marked off
from the rest of the world by one distinctive appellation.
(08:34):
It appears therefore that the several Hellenic communities, comprising not
only those who first acquired the names city by city
as they came to understand each other, but also those
who assumed it afterwards as the name of the whole people,
were before the Trojan War, prevented, by their want of
strength and the absence of mutual intercourse, from displaying any
(08:56):
collective action. Indeed, they could not unite for this expedition
till they had gained increased familiarity with the sea, and
the first person known to us by tradition as having
establishish a navy is Minos. He made himself master of
what is now called the Hellenic Sea, and ruled over
the Cichlides, into most of which he sent the first colonies,
(09:20):
expelling the Karians and appointing his own sons governors. And
thus he did his best to put down piracy in
those waters, a necessary step to secure the revenues for
his own use. For in early times the Hellenes and
the barbarians of the coast and islands, as communication by
sea became more common, were tempted to turn pirates under
(09:43):
the conduct of their most powerful men, the motives being
to serve their own cupidity, and to support the needy.
They would fall upon a town unprotected by walls and
consisting of a mere collection of villages, and would plunder it. Indeed,
this came to be the main source of their livelihood,
no disgrace being yet attached to such an achievement, but
(10:04):
even some glory. An illustration of this is furnished by
the honor with which some of the inhabitants of the
continent still regard a successful marauder, and by the question
we find the old poets everywhere representing the people as
asking of voyagers, are they pirates? As if those who
are asked the question would have no idea of disclaiming
(10:25):
the imputation, or their interrogators of reproaching them for it.
The same rapine prevailed also by land, and even at
the present day, many of Hellas still follow the old fashion,
the Azolian Locrians, for instance, the Aetolians and the Arcanians
in that region of the continent, and the custom of
carrying arms is still kept up among those continentals from
(10:48):
their old piratical habits. The whole of Hellas used once
to carry arms, their habitations being unprotected and their communication
with each other unsafe. Indeed, to where arms was as
much part of everyday life with them as with the barbarians,
and the fact that the people in these parts of
Hellas are still living in the old way points to
(11:10):
a time when the same mode of life was once
equally common to all. The Athenians were the first to
lay aside their weapons and to adopt an easier and
more luxurious mode of life. Indeed, it is only lately
that their rich old men left off the luxury of
wearing undergarments of linen and fastening a knot of their
hair with a tie of golden grasshoppers, a fashion which
(11:33):
spread to their Ionian kindred and long prevailed among the
old men there. On the contrary, a modest style of dressing,
more in conformity with modern ideas, was first adopted by
the Lacedaemonians, the rich, doing their best to assimilate their
way of life to that of the common people, They
also set the example of contending naked publicly, stripping and
(11:55):
anointing themselves with oil in their gymnastic exercises. Formerly, even
in the Olympian contests, the athletes who contended wore belts
across their middles, and it is but a few years
since the practice ceased to this day among some of
the barbarians, especially in Asia, when prizes for boxing and
wrestling are offered, belts are worn by the combatants. And
(12:20):
there are many other points in which a likeness might
be shown between the life of the Hellenic world of
old and the barbarian way of today. With respect to
(12:41):
their towns. Later on, at an era of increased facilities
of navigation and a greater supply of capital, we find
the shores becoming the site of walled towns, and the
isthmuses being occupied for the purposes of commerce and defense
against a neighbor. But the old towns, on account of
the great prevalence of piracy, were built away from the sea,
(13:03):
whether on the islands or the continent, and still remain
in their old sites, For the pirates used to plunder
one another, and indeed all coast populations, whether seafaring or not,
the islanders too were great pirates. These islanders were Karians
and Phoenicians, by whom most of the islands were colonized,
(13:24):
as was proved by the following fact during the purification
of Delos by Athens in this war, all the graves
in the island were taken up, and it was found
that above half their inmates were Karians. They were identified
by the fashion of the arms buried with them and
by the method of interment, which was the same as
(13:45):
the Karians still follow But as soon as Minos had
formed his navy, communication by sea became easier, as he
colonized most of the islands and thus expelled the malefactors.
The coast population now began to apply themselves more closely
to the acquisition of wealth, and their life became more settled.
(14:05):
Some even began to build themselves walls on the ste
strength of their newly acquired riches, For the love of
gain would reconcile the weaker to the dominion of the stronger,
and the possession of capital enabled the more powerful to
reduce the smaller towns to subjection. And it was at
a somewhat later stage of this development that they went
on the expedition against Troy. What enabled Agamemnon to raise
(14:31):
the armament was more, in my opinion, his superiority in
strength than the oaths of Tindarius, which bound the suitors
to follow him. Indeed, the account given by those Peloponnesians
who have been the recipients of the most credible tradition
is this first of all, Pelops, arriving among a needy
population from Asia with vast wealth, acquired such power that stranger,
(14:56):
though he was, the country was called after him. And
this power fortune saw fit materially to increase in the
hands of his descendants. Eurystheus had been killed in a
hour by the Heraclids. Atreus was his mother's brother, and
to the hands of his relation, who had left his
father on account of the death of Chrysippus. Eurystheus, when
(15:19):
he set out on his expedition, had committed Mycenae and
the government. As time went on and Eurystheus did not return,
Atreus complied with the wishes of the Mycenaeans, who were
influenced by fear of the Heraclids. Besides, his power seemed considerable,
and he had not neglected to court the favor of
(15:39):
the populace, and assumed the scepter of Mycenae and the
rest of the dominions of Eurystheus. And so the power
of the descendants of Pelops came to be greater than
that of the descendants of Perseus. To all this Agamemnon succeeded.
He had also a navy far stronger than his contemporaries,
so that, in my opinion, fear was quite as strong
(16:02):
an element as love in the formation of the Confederate expedition.
The strength of his name is shown by the fact
that his own was the largest contingent, and that of
the Arcadians was furnished by him. This, at least is
what Homer says, if his testimony is deemed sufficient. Besides,
in his account of the transmission of the scepter, he
(16:23):
calls him of many an isle and of all argos king. Now,
Agamemnon's was a continental power, and he could not have
been master of any except the adjacent islands, and these
would not be many. But through the possession of a fleet,
and from this expedition, we may infer the character of
(16:44):
earlier enterprises. Now, Mycenie may have been a small place,
and many of the towns of that age may appear
comparatively insignificant. But no exact observer would therefore feel justified
in rejecting the estimate given by the poets and by
tradition of the magnitude of the armament. For I suppose
if Lacedaemon were to become desolate, and the temples and
(17:07):
the foundations of the public buildings were left, that as
time went on there would be a strong disposition with
posterity to refuse to accept her fame as a true
exponent of her power. And yet they occupy two fifths
of the Peloponnese and lead the whole, not to speak
of their numerous allies without Still, as the city is
(17:29):
neither built in a compact form, nor adorned with magnificent
temples and public edifices, but composed of villages after the
old fashion of Hellas, there would be an impression of inadequacy.
Whereas if Athens were to suffer the same misfortune, I
suppose that any inference from the appearance presented to the
(17:50):
eye would make her power to have been twice as
great as it is. We have therefore no right to
be skeptical, nor to content ourselves with an inspection of
a town to the exclusion of a considered of its
own power. But we may safely conclude that the armament
in question surpassed all before it. As it fell short
(18:10):
of modern efforts. If we can hear also accept the
testimony of Homer's poems, in which, without allowing for the
exaggeration which a poet would feel himself licensed to employ,
we can see that it was far from equalling hours.
He has represented it as consisting of twelve hundred vessels,
the be ocean complement of each ship being one hundred
(18:31):
and twenty men, that of the ships of Philiktts fifty.
By this I conceive he meant to convey the maximum
and the minimum compliment. At any rate. He does not
specify the amount of any others in his catalog of
the ships. That they were all rowers as well as warriors.
We see from his account of the ships of Philiktidis,
in which all the men at the ore are bowmen.
(18:53):
Now it is improbable that many supernumeraries sailed if we
accept the kings and high officers, especially as they had
to cross the open sea with munitions of war in
ships moreover that had no decks, but were equipped in
the old piratical fashion. So that if we strike the
average of the largest and smallest ships, the number of
those who sailed will appear inconsiderable, representing as they did
(19:17):
the whole force of Hellas, and this was due not
so much to scarcity of men as of money. Difficulty
of subsistence made the invaders reduce the number of the
army to a point at which it might live on
the country during the prosecution of the war, even after
the victory they obtained on their arrival, and a victory
there must have been, or the fortifications of the naval
(19:39):
camp could never have been built. There is no indication
of their whole force having been employed. On the contrary,
they seemed to have turned to cultivation of the Chersonese
and to piracy from want of supplies. This was what
really enabled the Trojans to keep the field for ten
years against them, the dispersion of the enemy making them
(20:00):
always a match for the detachment left behind. If they
had brought plenty of supplies with them and had persevered
in the war with its out scattering for piracy and agriculture,
they would have easily defeated the Trojans in the field,
since they could hold their own against them with the
division of service. In short, if they had stuck to
(20:21):
the siege, the capture of Troy would have cost them
less time and less trouble. But as want of money
proved the weakness of earlier expeditions, so from the same
cause even the one in question, more famous than its predecessors,
may be pronounced on the evidence of what it effected
to have been, inferior to its renown and to the
(20:42):
current opinion about it formed under the tuition of the poets.
Even after the Trojan War, Hellas was still engaged in
removing and settling, and thus could not attain to the
quiet which must precede growth. The late return of the
Hellenes from Ilium caused many revolutions, and factions ensued almost everywhere,
(21:04):
and it was the citizens thus driven into exile who
founded the cities. Sixty years after the capture of Ilium,
the modern Baeotians were driven out of Arne by the
Thessalians and settled in the present Baeotia, the former Cadmeis,
though there was a division of them left there before,
some of whom joined the expedition to Ilium. Twenty years later,
(21:27):
the Dorians and the Heraclids became masters of Peloponnese, so
that much had to be done, and many years had
to elapse before Hellas could attain to a durable tranquility,
undisturbed by removals, and could begin to send out colonies,
as Athens did to Ionia and most of the islands,
and the Peloponnesians to most of Italy and Sicily, and
(21:49):
some places in the rest of Hellas. All these places
were founded subsequently to the war with Troy. But as
(22:25):
the power of Hellas grew and the acquisition of wealth
became more an object, the revenues of the states increasing,
tyrannies were by their means established almost everywhere, the old
form of government being hereditary monarchy with definite prerogatives, and
Hellas began to fit out fleets and apply herself more
(22:46):
closely to the sea. It is said that the Corinthians
were the first to approach the modern style of naval architecture,
and that corinth was the first place in Hellas where
galleys were built, and we have Emaniacles, a Corinthian shipwright
making four ships for the Samians, dating from the end
of this war. It is nearly three hundred years ago
(23:06):
that Emoniocles went to Samos again. The earliest sea fight
in history was between the Corinthians and the Corkyrians. This
was about two hundred and sixty years ago, dating from
the same time planted on an Isthmus, Corinth had from
time out of mind been a commercial emporium. As formerly,
(23:26):
almost all communication between the Hellenes within and without Peloponnese
was carried on over land, and Corinthian territory was the
highway through which it traveled. She had consequently great money resources,
and is shown by the epithet wealthy bestowed by the
old poets on the place, and this enabled her, when
traffic by sea became more common, to procure her navy
(23:49):
and put down piracy, and she could offer a mart
for both branches of the trade. She acquired for herself
all the power which a large revenue affords. Subsequently, the
Ionians attained to the great naval strength in the reign
of Cyrus, the first king of the Persians, and of
his son Cambises, and while they were at war or
with the former, commanded for a while the Ionian sea. Polycrates,
(24:13):
also the tyrant of Samos, had a powerful navy in
the reign of Cambises, with which he reduced many of
the islands, and among them Rhnea, which he consecrated to
the Delian Apollo. About this time, also, the Phocaeans, while
they were founding Marseilles, defeated the Carthaginians in a sea fight.
(24:33):
These were the most powerful navies, and even these, although
so many generations had elapsed since the Trojan War, seemed
to have been principally composed of the old fifty oars
and longboats, and to have counted few galleys among their ranks. Indeed,
it was only shortly the Persian War and the death
of Darius, the successor of Cambises, that the Sicilian tyrants
(24:56):
and the Corkyrians acquired any large number of galleys. For
after these there were no navies of any account in
Hellas till the expedition of Xerxes. Agina, Athens and others
(25:21):
may have possessed a few vessels, but they were principally
fifty oars. It was quite at the end of this
period that the war with Agina and the prospect of
the Barbarian invasion enabled Themistocles to persuade the Athenians to
build the fleet with which they fought at Salamis, and
even these vessels had not complete decks. The navies then
(25:43):
of the Hellenes during the period we have traversed were
what I have described. All their insignificance did not prevent
there being an element of the greatest power to those
who cultivated them, alike in revenue and in dominion. They
were the means by which the islands were reached and
reduced those of the smallest area falling the easiest prey.
(26:04):
Wars by land there were none, none, at least by
which power was acquired. We have the usual border contests,
but of distant expeditions with conquest for object we hear
nothing among the Hellenes. There was no union of subject
cities round a great state, no spontaneous combination of equals
for confederate expeditions. What fighting there was consisted merely of
(26:28):
local warfare between rival neighbors. The nearest approach to a
coalition took place in the Old War between Calcus and Eritrea.
This was a quarrel in which the rest of the
Hellenic name did, to some extent take sides well nerds.
(26:59):
That was most of chapter one, book one of Thucinides's
Peloponnesian War. It goes into a little bit more, but
we're looking deeper at the Persian Wars which of course
they had a much better grasp on the actual historicity
and the archaeology associated because the Persian Wars were like
one hundred years before Thucididies maybe less. I'm not gonna
(27:21):
look at a timeline because this is ostensibly still about
the Bronze Age, but I'm just utterly fascinated with how
Thucidides is showing us this really really interesting combination of
what we now know to be fairly reasonably true history,
combining it, blending it with this epic history that is
(27:46):
the Homeric Epics, you know, to the classical Greeks and
the Greeks that came before them, the Epics were what
they knew of their written history. It was the only
grasp they really had. Because, of course, as we looked
at in such detail, there was this loss quote unquote
loss of the earlier languages used in the Bronze Again,
(28:10):
it wasn't really a loss so much as those writing
systems linear A and linear B served a very specific
purpose that just no longer existed after the collapse of
the Bronze Age, and so the use of the writing
just died out Before a few hundred years later, we
get the introduction of the Greek alphabet again from the
(28:33):
levant from the south where they are establishing this new alphabet,
and as we talked about in you know, in the
earlier the Conversation episodes, like we're seeing a lot of
playing with what letters are coming out, what they're actually
going to finalize their alphabet as because they're introducing this
this brand new alphabet and figuring things out. And then
(28:53):
so like us one of the earliest forms of this
this usage that then you know, a few hundred more
years later somebody like Thucinides has access to is going
to be Homer right, it is. It is like not
only as a written source. We can't really presume that
he was reading a written source of homer you know,
(29:13):
like Joel Christensen went into great detail on my show.
What we know is that somebody like Thucidity is really
any Athenian, I mean any probably in a larger area
of the Greece, but we are working with Athens in
this case. They're going to know the Homeric epics as
told by these poets as their own kind of oral
epic history. It's just the assumption that like, because they
(29:36):
align with the modern areas and they tell this epic history, like,
of course it is going to be the historical narrative
that then later Greeks attach to their own you know, history,
and for all intentsive purposes, it is history to them.
It's only much later that we are able to look
and see, you know, like in that conversation, how we
(29:57):
looked at looked at just exactly how the Iliad in
the Odyssey is certainly at least as we have them
are really interacting with the archaic period, the classical period,
like where they really are not necessarily history so much
as this kind of way of understanding what was left
behind by those Bronze Age people. But somebody like Thucydides,
(30:20):
this Athenian who is facing down what seems like it's
going to be an incredibly incredibly big war, you know,
ostensibly against Sparta, but really we're talking like a war
like he's saying, like he is using this introduction to
the war that his people are facing in that moment.
He's using this introduction of like the time before the
(30:42):
Hellenes became unified as these Greek people, you know, the
Trojan War is his example of how that started to happen,
how it became that all of these people associated themselves
with this Hellenic culture, this Hellenic tradition, and then formed
you know, all of the different city states. But what
would ultimately become, you know, the Athens and Sparta of
(31:04):
at all fighting each other. It's just this utterly incredible
way of looking at how history was perceived historically, how
somebody twenty five hundred years ago understood the history of
his people from a thousand years before him. Like, it
just has so many levels. I just think it's such
(31:26):
a really it's just such a particularly interesting way of
looking at both the Bronze Age and classical Athens like
squished into one. Basically, it's aligning everything I love because
archaic and classical Greece is my time period of obsession,
but also Homer and thus it's connections with this perceived
(31:50):
history of the Bronze Age. And I just what a
joy I cannot believe I just read four thousand words
of Thucidities on this show and actually liked it. Thanks Thucidities. Honestly,
that was so much fun. Thank you all for listening.
Just thought it was a great way to kind of
cap off this series. That said, over the next week,
(32:11):
I guess, try and remember what I've planned. Over the
next week, there are going to be some re aired episodes.
Mikaela went back and looked at a lot of the
earlier myths that I had covered on the show that
have these connections to the Bronze Age, you know, myths
like those on crete and the origins of the Minoans
and and then the Trojan War and the installment of
(32:32):
Myceni and Sparta and things like this, these mythologies that
again are coming from the archaic period, but are you know,
intentionally looking to what they believed the Bronze Age was,
or rather this earlier time that we would now you know,
kind of associate with the Bronze Age. So it's gonna
be reairing some of those little bits and pieces. There's
(32:55):
also a playlist of all the Bronze Age related kind
of episodes that that Mikaela put together. That's all linked
in the episode's description. But frankly, we're doing that so
that I can actually take a week of not working
because if I'm just being so honest, I had a
full anxiety meltdown and I'm now trying to figure out
how to exist as a person and also figure out
how to get back on my ADHD medication so that
(33:16):
I can function as a human. So I'm taking a
week off and I'm excited about it. H that was
so much fun. Thank you so much. I'm gonna stop
talking now. Let's talk about Mithsaby is written and produced
by me Live Albert Michaelasmith is the Hermes to My Olympians,
my assistant producer who basically gave me the idea to
read the Thucinities. Wrote all the scripts for the Bronze
Age episodes. Couldn't have done it without her. She's an
(33:37):
absolute queen. Laura Smith is a production assistant and audio
engineer who worked tirelessly on all of the conversations for
the Bronze Age series and all conversations broadly. Laura is
a gem. Select music in this episode was by Luke Chaos.
The podcast is part of the iHeart Podcast Network. Listen
on Spotify or Apple or wherever you get your podcasts.
Help me continue bringing you this incredible content by donating
(34:01):
to the show via Patreon at patron dot com slash
myths Baby, you get access to loads of past episodes
I've been doing over the past seven years. And hopefully
more soon once I get myself in check. I am live,
and I love this shit, and I'm excited to breathe
for a couple of days. Thank you all for coming
along on this Bronze Age ride. It has been an
(34:24):
absolute thrill and I can't wait to get back to
some mythological roots. I already said that I am lived.
That's how well this is going. I'm living. I love
this shit. I don't know how times I've said it's
done now bye. Thanks
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Nikki Glaser Podcast
Every week comedian and infamous roaster Nikki Glaser provides a fun, fast-paced, and brutally honest look into current pop-culture and her own personal life.