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You may have noticed that MAGA (Republicans in general, really) are weird about women.

That weirdness is ancient. It goes all the way back to ancient Rome, all the way back to ancient Greece, and all the way back to the beginning of the city-state, when gender-based oppression was built into the foundations of the polis. Augustus was similarly weird about women, and so were (and are) many fascist leaders from more modern times.

Augustus enacted laws called the Lex Juliae two thousand years ago, as part of his project to dismantle democracy and install an authoritarian state with himself at the head. Join us as we deconstruct those laws, compare them to Project 2025 and 2026, and try to figure out why oppression of women is so important to fascism.

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We are thrilled to welcome #1 Sunday Times bestselling author Elizabeth May to the podcast. Elizabeth May is the author of The Wolf and the Crown of Blood, a bestselling new release about deranged homicidal gods and the equally deranged princesses who drag them around like stuffie toys.

Join us for a fun and laughter-filled conversation with an author whose playground is somewhere at the intersection of sex and violence, which is just where we like it.  

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When Augustus rolled into town after defeating Marc Antony

Standing outside those walls, anything could have happened.

But that’s not how it went down. Today we’ll explore how you kill a democracy—with a thousand tiny cuts, or one single stab to the heart.

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When we look at the demise of Roman democracy, we think of the time of Augustus—and maybe Caesar before him. But in reality, the seeds of the republic’s destruction were planted at the time of its birth.

It’s probably not too far out on a limb to say that Caesar couldn’t have grabbed so much power if there hadn’t been a Sulla, or a Marius, or the Gracchi brothers, or innumerable revolutionaries and power players of centuries before.

That is the subject of The Storm Before the Storm, the New York Times bestselling book by author and podcaster Mike Duncan. This week, Mike takes us back to the beginning—to show us the faultlines built into the very foundation of democracy.

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Join us as we return to Cleopatra’s Alexandria—the glamor,

In this episode we’ll discuss Cleopatra’s life and loves, the challenges of breathing new life into a very examined historical figure, and exactly what we do and don’t know about the real Cleopatra.  

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This was the man who would be responsible for demolishing their democracy and ushering in an imperial military state that would last another 500 years (roughly).

What was it like to stand in the shadow of the walls that day? What questions were burning in the people’s hearts? What did they think that they did not dare say? Was the mood celebratory? Raucous? Rebellious? Join us as we travel back in time to the gates of Rome, to watch Octavian return.

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In this episode, we return to the beach at Actium with author, historian, and academic Barry Strauss as our tour guide. His new book, The War That Made the Roman Empire: Antony, Cleopatra, and Octavian at Actium, discusses the infamous sea battle Marc Antony and Cleopatra fought against Octavian and Agrippa for love, for supremacy, for their very survival.

Join us as we deconstruct this battle, paint a vivid picture of ancient war at sea, and tackle the one question everyone’s asking: why did Cleopatra flee the battlefield?

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This file contains the last two episodes in our series on Marc Antony and Cleopatra: Lovers in a Dangerous Time, all in one place.

This series has everything: love, war, violence, betrayal, Marc Antony barfing everywhere, and Cleopatra being extremely glamorous at all times. Please enjoy while you wait for us to return from hiatus on April 9.

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The romance between Mark Antony and Cleopatra has beguiled us for centuries. What most people don’t realize is that when Mark Antony met Cleopatra, he was already married—to someone just as epic. Her name was Fulvia.

Cleopatra had glamour and divinity and lots of money. But Fulvia had the gangs. She was a populist firebrand, military leader, and for a while, the undisputed power in Rome: both in the Senate and in the streets.

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We're on hiatus until April 9. Until then, enjoy this long, binge-able episode on Julius Caesar's early life.

Most accounts of Caesar's life start later on--such as during his time in Gaul or crossing the Rubicon. But his early life was just as fascinating; maybe even more so.

This is the Caesar who stood up to Sulla and refused to divorce his wife. The Caesar who made an early career of prosecuting corrupt governors to cement his cred as a populist--even as it made him powerful enemies. The Caesar who, when kidnapped by pirates, demanded they raise his ransom and spent his time in captivity hanging out on the beach and reading them bad poetry.

It's a fun, lighthearted introduction to Caesar's life before it takes its dark turn. We hope you enjoy.

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