Ancient History Fangirl

Latest Episodes:

Gender Rebels of Greek Mythology: Heracles x Omphale Jun 23, 2022

Show notes

This week, we’re going to talk about that time Heracles, the strong man, son of Zeus and noted impenetrable penetrator, lived as a woman. Yes, you read that right. And not only did he live as a woman, he was the submissive to a powerful female dom who took up his lionskin and club as symbols of her own power.

Get ready for a fun, gender-bending episode that completely overturns the ancient Greek binary.

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Transgender Achilles and Found Family in the Illiad (With Maya Deane) Jun 09, 2022

Show notes

Many of us have preconceived notions about what the Illiad was like. Prepare to have those notions blown away.

In this episode, debut author Maya Deane methodically strips away the lenses of the Victorian era, Classical Greece, and the modern day to reveal an Illiad that’s older and darker and weirder than any of us could ever have dreamed.

This is the Illiad of your darkest and deepest imaginings, an Illiad like you’ve never seen before—but somehow always knew existed. It’s the Illiad of Wrath Goddess Sing—a novel about transgender Achilles and the love of found family in a Bronze Age world as deadly as it is beguiling.

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Zeus x Ganymede: Not Gender Rebels Jun 02, 2022

Show notes

We’re taking a slight departure from our Gender Rebels series to tell you the story of Zeus and Ganymede. This is the story about the time Zeus kidnapped a teenage boy named Ganymede and brought him to Olympus to be his “cup bearer.”

Zeus and Ganymede were not gender rebels. In fact, they set the standard for the erastes-eromenos binary of the time. This story was used to send the message that the gods approved of pederastic practices that were widespread in ancient Greece and Rome.

It’s a dark story, but it’s an important one. Join us as we drag it out into the light.

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Abortion in the Ancient World (With Princess O'Nika Auguste) May 26, 2022

Show notes

Not only was abortion broadly legal in ancient Greece and Rome, but some of the methods used were surprisingly similar to today. And the Bible doesn’t mention it at all—except in one obscure passage, where it tells you how to administer one.

In this episode, we’re joined by feminist Biblical scholar and author Princess O’Nika Auguste to discuss the history of abortion in ancient Greece and Rome, as well as in Biblical times.

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Abortion Rights Takeover: Silphium May 19, 2022

Show notes

This episode is part of our abortion rights takeover series. It was originally dropped on our Patreon.

It deals with the miracle plant of ancient Greece and Rome: Silphium. The people of Cyrene printed it on their money. It was considered a delicacy throughout the Greek and Roman world, as well as a powerful medicine that could be used to cure everything from baldness to epilepsy to poisonings.

And it may have even functioned as a contraceptive--and an abortifacent.

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Abortion Rights Takeover: Bathroom Business (With Kate the Exploress) May 17, 2022

Show notes

This episode is part of our abortion rights takeover. We'll be back to our regularly scheduled series on gender rebels on June 2.

In this re-release, Kate from the Exploress podcast joined us to discuss the intimate lives of sex workers in ancient Greece and Rome--including methods of contraception and abortion. Pliny the Elder interviewed sex workers to get the lowdown on how they dealt with unwanted pregnancies (but we suspect the ladies were having him on).

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The Invisible Thread: Life after Slavery in Pompeii (With Elodie Harper) May 12, 2022

Show notes

What happened to people in ancient Rome who were freed from slavery? Turns out there were still invisible threads--economic pressures, imbalances of status, and debts owed to wealthy patrons--that kept many of them in bondage.

On the streets of Pompeii, freedom came at a steep price--especially for women. Today, we talk to Elodie Harper--bestselling author of the Wolf Den and the House with the Golden Door--about enslaved people, freedwomen, and glamorous sex workers whose lives were far more precarious than they seemed.

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Podcast Takeover for Abortion Rights May 10, 2022

Show notes

As most of you probably already know, abortion rights in the US are under attack. Somebody leaked a Supreme Court initial majority draft that was a full throated, loud and proud revocation of pregnant-capable people’s right to choose who gets to use our bodies.

Abortion is a totally normal procedure that people have been doing for millennia--probably for as long as people could get pregnant, they've been trying to end their pregnancies. We have several episodes that discuss abortion, and in the next few weeks, we’ll be re-releasing those on our main feed twice a week. The series will conclude with a brand-new episode with a Caribbean feminist scholar, discussing the history of abortion in ancient Greece and Rome as well as the Bible.

So tune in to our main feed to hear the re-released episodes. We'll return to our regularly scheduled series on gender rebels on June 2.

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Elektra, Clytemnestra, Cassandra, and the Curse of Atreus (With Jennifer Saint) May 05, 2022

Show notes

This week, we're taking a break from the story of Achilles to discuss the Illiad from an angle that's not as often covered: the story of the women of the House of Atreus, the family of Agamemnon.

In this episode, bestselling author Jennifer Saint introduces us to Clytemnestra and Elektra--Agamemnon's wife and daughter--as well as the priestess and prophetess Cassandra, and the murderous curse that casts a shadow over their fates.

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Gender Rebels of Greek Mythology: Achilles at War Apr 28, 2022

Show notes

In this episode, we explore what happened to gender in the pressure-cooker of ancient war. To do that, we skip ahead ten years to a different beach: the war-blasted, corpse-strewn sands below the walls of Troy.

As the Trojan War dragged on, the most respect went to those who were able to slaughter and pillage and plunder: gender for men devolved into “Smash and Grab” masculinity. Meanwhile, gender for women became “Gender as Property”—in the most explicit terms.

It's in this toxic wasteland that Achilles’ feud with Agamemnon rose to a fever pitch—over a woman called Briseis.

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