We go back around 2,500 years to the time of the Ancient Greek Empire. But as we’re not experts on Ancient Greece - in fact, Dad’s poor knowledge of Ancient Greece has always been his Achilles' elbow – we are joined by an expert guest. We discover why kids were taught to steal, and we explain why people run a marathon today. And the episode comes to a climax with the Spartans last stand at the Battle of Thermopylae – as depicted in the movie 300., and (kinda) Star Wars: Rogue One.

Many thanks to Cooper Broxup for bringing us extra jokes, and to special guest and Ancient Greece expert, Mark Selleck. His podcast series, Casting Through Ancient Greece, is aimed at the biggest kids – adults! 

Here are 6 questions to see how well you were listening:

1. About how many years ago were the Persian Wars with Ancient Greece?
2. Which empire came first: Ancient Romans or Ancient Greeks?
3. The ancient Greeks took over land in 3 different continents: can you name them?
4. How far from Athens was the Battle of Marathon?
5. Can you name at least 3 ancient Greek city-states?
6. Can you explain what “city-state” means?

Read industry reviews of Dad’s World War II novels, A Chance Kill and The Slightest Chance, at paulletters.com. Available on Kindle, as well as in paperback. Dad’s first wartime novel, A Chance Kill, is a love-story/thriller based on real events in Poland, Paris, London and Prague. The Slightest Chance follows the remarkable true story of the only escape from Japanese imprisonment by a Western woman during World War II.

Please rate and review us wherever you get podcasts. And share our podcast on social media and recommend it to friends – that's how we'll keep going.

We’ll be back on the first Saturday of next month!

Podcast cover art by Molly Austin

All music is from https://filmmusic.io and composed by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com) License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Sound effects used under RemArc Licence. Copyright 2020 © BBC