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!Chilli warning – adult content!  If you think ancient love poetry sounds dry, think again.  From Sapphic longings to racy hook-ups amongst the fast set, from threesomes to ancient sex manuals, there's not a mawkish rhyming couplet, daffodil, or summer’s day in sight.  If you’ve ever wondered what NOT to give someone for Valentine’s Day, this episode’s for you. 

Battle of the Books - Round 4

• Wildcard:  Sappho – Lesbian Love Poems 

• Catullus – The Love Poems 

• Ovid – The Amores and The Art of Love 

Shortcuts

There are none, but these are SHORT.

Battle of the Booze

Aglianico from near Rome – thought to be the nearest to Ancient Rome’s favourite red grape variety. 

Poll of Champions

We want your votes!  Which book would you save?  Vote here!

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Is it ever a good idea to have ‘sex with your ex’?  We’d love to hear from you with thoughts, comments, questions and suggestions – click here!

 

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If there was ever a case for subsidies for the arts…  Theatre was invented by the Greeks.  The Athenians were actually paid to attend theatrical competitions, as a civic and even religious duty.  Athenian POWs would quote their great playwrites to get their captors to treat them kindly.  But who was the best, are they still relevant today, and is it ever a good idea to have sex with your mum..?

Battle of the Books - Round 3

• Aeschylus – The Oresteia (Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, The Furies).

• Sophocles – The Theban Plays (Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone).

• Euripides – Medea (often packaged up with other great Euripides play).

• Wildcard:  Aristophanes – The Frogs (ditto, usually packaged with other classic Aristophanes plays – look out in particular for Lysistrata). 

Shortcuts

Pasolini – Oedipus Rex; Medea: surreal, mesmeric arthouse adaptations of the two classics. Audible have a full-cast adaptation of the three Theban Plays available for free to subscribers.

Battle of the Booze

• Ariousios Natural Chiotiko from Chios – old school, almost Homeric red from the home of ancient Greek wine.  The perfect match for these ancient stories – and your own severed leg.  Best served at 150 degrees Celsius?  

Poll of Champions

We want your votes!  Which book would you save?  Vote here!

Feedback

Would you sacrifice your daughter to improve the weather? We’d love to hear from you with thoughts, comments, questions and suggestions – click here!

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The stories of the Trojan War and its aftermath are a foundation of Western civilisation.  They’re also some of the greatest books ever written, and much better than modern versions of the stories.  But which is the greatest of all?

Battle of the Books - Round 2

• Homer – The Iliad (available in many translations; Robert Fagles does a very accessible version in modern verse for Penguin Classics).

• Homer – The Odyssey (the Peter Jones translation for Penguin Classics is a good place to start).

• Wildcard: Virgil – The Aeneid (we like the Fagles translation for Penguin; there’s also a good abridged audio version with Derek Jacobi and Ralph Fiennes).

Shortcuts

Oddly, no good ones, unless you count the magnificent 80s cartoon, ‘Ulysses 31’.  The Avenger (1962) – is an Italian sword and sandals adaptation of the Aeneid, but not a patch on the book.  And please, whatever you do with your life, don’t watch the Brad Pitt film ‘Troy’.

Battle of the Booze

• Buck’s Fizz - Take any fizz, add orange juice; the perfect drink for breakfast or long car journeys.

• Nero di Troia – Literally ‘Black Trojan’: an Italian red grape variety.  Goes well with that greatest of Aeneas’s discoveries: pizza.  Proof that Rome was founded by Trojans.

Poll of Champions

We want your votes!  Which book would you save?  Vote here!

Feedback

Are there any sequels as good as or better than the original?  We’d love to hear from you with thoughts, comments, questions and suggestions – email us at [email protected].

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Civilisation began with the brewing of beer, but followed up with another great invention: books!

In this episode, we look at the first great books ever written, and ask which we should save if civilisation is destroyed.  After all, it’s happened before…

Battle of the Books - Round 1

• The Enuma Elish, also known as The Babylonian Creation Myth (available in various editions; Oxford World Classics combines it with Gilgamesh and other stories in ‘Myths From Mesopotamia’)

• The Epic of Gilgamesh (there are various different versions, but Penguin Classics has an easy to read translation which combines the surviving fragments into a short, coherent whole)

• Wildcard: The Tale of Sinuhe (combined with other Ancient Egyptian short stories by Oxford World Classics)

Shortcuts

No good shortcuts this week (with absolutely no apologies to Russell Crowe and Peter Ustinov), but check out Delacroix’s painting of the Death of Sardanapalus – otherwise known as Ashurbanipal: his civilisation was destroyed, but fortunately his best books survived

Battle of the Booze

• Beavertown Neck Oil IPA – hoppy and gluggable: just the way Gilgamesh liked it!

  Beavertown Smog Rocket Porter – dark and complex: perfect for drinking through a straw…

Poll of Champions

We want your votes!  Which book would you save?  Vote here!

Feedback

We’d love to hear from you with thoughts, comments, questions and suggestions – email us at [email protected].