Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon!

In 450 AD, the Imperial Princess Honoria--daughter of Galla Placidia--was desperate to escape her arranged marriage. So she made an indecent proposal--to Attila the Hun.

On this single action, cities were torched. Saints were raised. Thousands died. And Venice was founded. Find out how it all went down.

Sponsors and Advertising

This podcast is a member of Airwave Media podcast network. Want to advertise on our show? Please direct advertising inquiries to [email protected].

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon!

He was a fierce barbarian warlord—a man who had stood between his people and the Roman Empire since the sack of Rome. She was a Roman Imperial princess with a core of iron strength.

Born enemies, the love of Ataulf and Galla Placidia is marked by tragedy—but in its time, it burned hot enough to reshape an Empire. This is their story.

Sponsors and Advertising

This podcast is a member of Airwave Media podcast network. Want to advertise on our show? Please direct advertising inquiries to [email protected].

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon!

This week’s Book Club author interview is none other than up-and-coming romantasy and historical romance author Jenny Williamson, discussing her upcoming debut Enemy of My Dreams: her huge historical crush on Alaric of the Goths, the inspiration for her entirely-made-up hot-mess heroine, and how she adds “verisimilitude” to her fight scenes.

Join Genn and guest co-host Liv Albert, of Let’s Talk about Myths, Baby!, as they crack open a beverage, and conduct a wild and slightly tipsy author interview.

Sponsors and Advertising

This podcast is a member of Airwave Media podcast network. Want to advertise on our show? Please direct advertising inquiries to [email protected].

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon!

Who was Alaric of the Visigoths, really?

It’s a difficult question to answer. Alaric left no manifesto. There is nothing in his own words to explain his motivations for sacking Rome, or all the choices he made leading up to that fateful day. All we have are the assumptions of his enemies, which sometimes don’t’ make a lot of sense.

Enter Douglas Boin. His groundbreaking biography, Alaric the Goth: an Outsider’s History of the Fall of Rome, explores Alaric’s experience as an immigrant, marginalized by the Roman Empire and fighting for his place in it. Join us as we explore the life and times of this fascinating historical figure and what his life still has to tell us.

Sponsors and Advertising

This podcast is a member of Airwave Media podcast network. Want to advertise on our show? Please direct advertising inquiries to [email protected].

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon!

This week, we feature a conversation with the OG romance novelist—the one all our romance novelist friends list among their favorites. Nalini Singh has an impressive, multi-decade career with several long-running, blockbuster romantasy and paranormal series featuring sexy shifters, fallen angels, and dangerous psychic warriors.

Join us as we explore these fascinating worlds and discuss the secrets to a long-running career in romance and fiction.

Sponsors and Advertising

This podcast is a member of Airwave Media podcast network. Want to advertise on our show? Please direct advertising inquiries to [email protected].

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon!

On August 24, 410 AD, Alaric and the Visigoths sacked the city of Rome. Before he sacked it, he starved it. Before that, he went toe to toe with the Roman Empire for fifteen years—uniting disparate tribes, holding a people together, and achieving more against Rome than any barbarian leader before him.

Sponsors and Advertising

This podcast is a member of Airwave Media podcast network. Want to advertise on our show? Please direct advertising inquiries to [email protected].

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon!

It's the end of Season 12--and what a year it's been! We had some big things happen in 2024 and we hope that 2025 will be even bigger and more exciting.

Join us as we discuss what it was like covering the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, our upcoming books and novel projects, and our plans for the podcast going forward. Thank you so much for taking this journey with us!

Sponsors and Advertising

This podcast is a member of Airwave Media podcast network. Want to advertise on our show? Please direct advertising inquiries to [email protected].

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon!

Janus is the two-faced god of the Roman pantheon. He was the god of beginnings and endings, of dual natures, of passageways and passage through time. He’s the god of thresholds and doorways and gates, and the god of change, both concrete and abstract. He’s constantly in motion; he’s the god who’s always just passing through.

Janus may not be very well-known. But in his time, he was considered one of the most important gods—perhaps more important than Jupiter himself. Today, we’re going to tell you all about him.

Sponsors and Advertising

This podcast is a member of Airwave Media podcast network. Want to advertise on our show? Please direct advertising inquiries to [email protected].

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon!

How would Alaric of the Visigoths celebrate the midwinter holiday (Christmas? Solstice? Yule?). The idea was kicked around a lot between the two of us until it seemed imperative that we actually write this episode. And thus, an episode was born.

In this episode, Alaric is about six years old. He doesn’t exactly understand that his life is hanging by a knife’s edge – caught between the invading Huns and the colonizing Romans. This is the story of a little boy just trying to do the right thing and not get his belly slit open by the Perchta, as one does around this time of year.

So sit back, pour yourself a festive holiday beverage, and enjoy this very fictional, occasionally true episode. 

Sponsors & Advertising

This podcast is a member of Airwave Media podcast network. Want to advertise on our show? Please direct advertising inquiries to [email protected].

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon!

This year, we’ve found one of the most metal and wild Yuletide goddesses yet – Frau Holle.

Human sacrifices, spindles in yer vag, plague, starvation, caves of offerings and bones, the Grimms brothers, golden showers, child cannibalism, ZOMBIES – are any of these putting you in the Yuletide spirit? They should. Because we’re about to share with you the story of a very Frau Holle Christmas.

Sponsors & Advertising

This podcast is a member of Airwave Media podcast network. Want to advertise on our show? Please direct advertising inquiries to [email protected].

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices