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You’ve been transported almost 2,000 years into the past, to the streets of Pompeii. It’s a brisk autumn morning, around, oh…10 AM…and all hell is about to break loose. What's your next move?

You could live through it, maybe. If you were lucky. And made all the right choices. At exactly the right time. The actions you take in these first moments could make the difference between life and death.

Yes, this is Ancient History Fangirl – could you survive a volcano – Choose Your Own Adventure edition!

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We’ve covered the deadly day in 79 AD when Mt. Vesuvius erupted, burying Pompeii in a suffocating layer of ash and pumice. But we haven’t covered the aftermath: where did the survivors go? How were they received? And what did the recovery effort look like?

 Today, we’re joined by Elodie Harper—bestselling author of the Wolf Den trilogy, whose last installment, The Temple of Fortuna, has just been released. Join us in exploring how this eruption event left an indelible mark on the psyche of ancient Rome.

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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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The Lupanar, or “Wolf Den,” is the infamous brothel of Pompeii. Elodie Harper’s bestselling novel follows the lives of the sex workers who lived and worked there—their passions, their heartbreaks, and the tightly-knit community they built for themselves. 

Today, we’ve invited Elodie on the show to talk about the realities of sex workers’ lives in the Wolf Den—and how sex work was practiced in Pompeii near the time of the Vesuvius eruption.

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If you know anything about Aphrodite, then you know she is the ancient Greek goddess primarily associated with love, beauty, sex, reproduction, and passion. She was also the patron goddess of sex workers in the ancient Classical world.

Join us as we explore how Aphrodite was worshipped in ancient Greece, the goddess's history and ancient roots, and how the Romans transformed her into Venus.

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Last week, we told you about the lives of five courtesans in Classical Athens. But we left someone out--perhaps the most elite hetaera of them all.

Long-term partner of a leading Athenian statesman, darling of the philosophical set, survivor of the plague of Athens—she threw her own parties, and they were the best parties ever thrown within a hundred-mile radius of Athens. No one has done better since. Her name was Aspasia.

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In our last few episodes on sex workers in ancient Greece, we tried to paint a picture of a group of women, in some cases, with more freedom and independence than most in the ancient Greek world could dream of. But that freedom came at a price.

Now, we’re going to tell you about the lives of some of ancient Greece’s most famous Hetaerae.

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The symposia--all-male drinking parties--were the playground and hunting ground of Athens' elite courtesans. But they had their dangers, too.

Join us as we attend a symposium with the fast set of Ancient Athens. We’re going to hang out with the hetaerae, drink our faces off, flirt outrageously with everyone in range, and debate with the philosophers until the sun comes up.

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The conventional wisdom is that sex workers in ancient Greece were divided into two main categories: pornai who were enslaved in brothels, and hetaerae, who were elite courtesans. That’s actually a drastic oversimplification.

This is the beginning of a journey into the world of sex workers in ancient Greece. Join us as we explore what life was like for sex workers at every level of the profession—including those who didn't fit easily into these categories. 

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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.

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