This episode originally appeared as a Patreon Exclusive episode. Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon!

In the second installment of our Cleopatra x King Herod arc, the slow-motion train wreck continues. Herod makes increasingly ill-advised decisions as schemes and intrigue simmer around him. Meanwhile, Cleopatra influences things from afar, empowering Herod's enemies and relatives (who are frequently one and the same). 

Find out how it all went down when their feud reached the boiling point. 

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].

Thanks HelloFresh! Go to HelloFresh.com/fangirl16 and use code fangirl16 for 16 free meals plus free shipping!

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

This episode originally appeared as a Patreon Exclusive episode. Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon!

In our episode Cleopatra x Marc Antony: Lovers in a Dangerous Time (Part 3), we alluded to a story about King Herod (yes, that King Herod) and Cleopatra—and an epic feud between them. We didn’t have time to go into that story in the bigger arc on Cleopatra and Marc Antony, but we thought it was a perfect topic for a minisode. 

Unlike Cleopatra and Marc Antony, Cleopatra and Herod hated each other. And not in a sexy-belligerent-sexual-tension way. They were intractable enemies—and it ultimately led to Cleopatra’s downfall. 

This is the first Ancient History Fangirl mini-arc--a two-episode series about two colossal personalities from the ancient world--and what happened when their interests collided.

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].

Thanks HelloFresh! Go to HelloFresh.com/fangirl16 and use code fangirl16 for 16 free meals plus free shipping!

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

Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon!

After the disaster at Actium, Marc Antony's entire army--100,000 strong--surrendered to Octavian. Marc Antony and Cleopatra fled to Alexandria to negotiate the terms of their defeat.

Those were dark, foreboding days. Friends and allies fled the palace. Marc Antony fell into a deep depression, while Cleopatra searched desperately for a way out--one that would keep her kingdom intact and her children alive.

But the reckoning was coming.

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].

Thanks HelloFresh! Go to HelloFresh.com/fangirl16 and use code fangirl16 for 16 free meals plus free shipping!

Thanks Athletic Greens. Go to athleticgreens.com/fangirl to get a FREE 1-year supply of immune-supporting Vitamin D AND 5 FREE travel packs with your first purchase. 

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

Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon!

As Marc Antony and Cleopatra lived and loved in Alexandria, Octavian whipped up a toxic garbage fire of racism, misogyny, and xenophobia in Rome--and then declared war. Not against Marc Antony, but against Cleopatra.

Soon, the lovers would be forced to defend their home, their family, and their life together on the shores of the Ambracian Gulf. Find out how it all went down--at a town called Actium.

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].

Thanks HelloFresh! Go to HelloFresh.com/fangirl16 and use code fangirl16 for 16 free meals plus free shipping!

Thanks Athletic Greens. Go to athleticgreens.com/fangirl to get a FREE 1-year supply of immune-supporting Vitamin D AND 5 FREE travel packs with your first purchase. 

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

We're re-releasing this episode in honor of Maya Deane's book Wrath Goddess Sing coming out in paperback. Available wherever books are sold!

Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon!

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.

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].

Thanks HelloFresh! Go to HelloFresh.com/fangirl16 and use code fangirl16 for 16 free meals plus free shipping!

Thanks Athletic Greens. Go to athleticgreens.com/fangirl to get a FREE 1-year supply of immune-supporting Vitamin D AND 5 FREE travel packs with your first purchase. 

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

Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon!

After four years of marriage with Octavia, Marc Antony followed Cleopatra to Alexandria—and settled into life there. He oversaw festivals and athletic contests, cheered Cleopatra on as she ruled Egypt, and showered her and their children with honors and territories.

For all intents and purposes, he was the consort of Egypt’s beloved Pharaoh, the father of her children—and he was home.

But the propaganda war between Antony and Octavian was building to a fever pitch in Rome, even as the Parthians loomed threateningly in the distance. Soon Antony would be called to war—and face the biggest battlefield test of his career.

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].

Thanks HelloFresh! Go to HelloFresh.com/fangirl16 and use code fangirl16 for 16 free meals plus free shipping!

Thanks Athletic Greens. Go to athleticgreens.com/fangirl to get a FREE 1-year supply of immune-supporting Vitamin D AND 5 FREE travel packs with your first purchase. 

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

Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon!

When Cleopatra and Marc Antony met by the River Tarsus, Antony was smitten. And when Cleopatra went back to Alexandria, he forgot about invading Parthia and followed her home.

The two then spent a magical few months in Alexandria, where they threw each other lavish banquets, made bets and compacts, played ridiculous practical jokes on each other and the public--and fell in love.

But nothing good can ever stay. The real world came knocking, and soon Marc Antony was forced to choose between his heart in Alexandria and his future in Rome.

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].

Thanks HelloFresh! Go to HelloFresh.com/fangirl16 and use code fangirl16 for 16 free meals plus free shipping!

Thanks Athletic Greens. Go to athleticgreens.com/fangirl to get a FREE 1-year supply of immune-supporting Vitamin D AND 5 FREE travel packs with your first purchase. 

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

Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon!

Shakespeare wrote about them. Hollywood glamorized them. For thousands of years, they've come down to us as the ultimate star-crossed lovers: the Ptolemaic queen Cleopatra, and the Roman commander Marc Antony.

In the wake of Caesar's death, Cleopatra fled to Egypt--and began picking up the pieces. Meanwhile, Marc Antony defeated Caesar's assassins in battle, and then set his sights on invading Parthia.

But to invade Parthia, he needed the money and support of Rome's richest client ruler: Cleopatra. And Cleopatra had an agenda, too: she needed another Roman protector to shore up her power in Egypt.

Find out what happened when these two met on the banks of the River Tarsus.

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].

Thanks HelloFresh! Go to HelloFresh.com/fangirl16 and use code fangirl16 for 16 free meals plus free shipping!

Thanks Athletic Greens. Go to athleticgreens.com/fangirl to get a FREE 1-year supply of immune-supporting Vitamin D AND 5 FREE travel packs with your first purchase. 

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

Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon!

When Cleopatra met Julius Caesar, sparks flew. The daring Egyptian queen beguiled the conquering Roman general—and then enlisted him to fight her battles.

Outnumbered five to one in a city full of ancient wonders, Cleopatra and Caesar spent the next ten months barricaded in a luxurious palace while outside, the enemy howled for their blood--fighting a deadly urban war for Cleopatra's throne and both of their survival.

Get ad-free episodes here: https://www.patreon.com/ancienthistoryfangirl

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].

Thanks HelloFresh! Go to HelloFresh.com/fangirl16 and use code fangirl16 for 16 free meals plus free shipping!

Thanks Athletic Greens. Go to athleticgreens.com/fangirl to get a FREE 1-year supply of immune-supporting Vitamin D AND 5 FREE travel packs with your first purchase. 

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

Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon!

When Julius Caesar arrived in Egypt, he walked into a civil war between the country’s new co-rulers: Ptolemy XIII and his sister Cleopatra.

The romance between Caesar and Cleopatra is one of the most epic of ancient times. But we can’t tell you that story until you understand who Cleopatra was. And to understand Cleopatra, you have to understand the political element in which she swam.

In this episode, we take you from the cutthroat intrigue of the Ptolemaic court to the volatile streets of Alexandria—and from Cleopatra’s early life to the events that led her to take an extreme gamble and team up with the man who’d just conquered Rome.

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].

Thanks HelloFresh! Go to HelloFresh.com/fangirl16 and use code fangirl16 for 16 free meals plus free shipping!

Thanks Athletic Greens. Go to athleticgreens.com/fangirl to get a FREE 1-year supply of immune-supporting Vitamin D AND 5 FREE travel packs with your first purchase. 

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