Casting Through Ancient Greece

Dr Owen Rees is Associate Lecturer in Ancient History at Manchester Metropolitan University, where he specialises in the transition of soldiers from civilian life to the battlefield and back again. His books on the topic of ancient Greek warfare include Great Battles of the Classical Greek World (Pen & Sword, 2016); Great Naval Battles of the Ancient Greek World (Pen & Sword, 2018); and Military Departures, Homecomings, and Death in Classical Athens: Hoplite Transitions (Bloomsbury Academic, 2022).

He is also the founder and lead editor of the website BadAncient.com, which brings together a growing network of specialists to fact-check common claims made about the ancient world and expose the prevalent pseudohistory in the modern day.

In this episode I sit down with Dr Owen Rees to focus on his newest scholarly work, Military Departures, Homecomings and death in Classical Athens. Although we are looking at the Athenian experience of war in the Classical Age, the unfolding events of particular battles will not be our focus here. Rather we will be looking at the often overlooked elements surrounding the campaigns that would embarked on. We will be more concerned with the experiences around preparing to leave for war in what would form departure scenes, this looking different to the various parts of society. This will also see us turning to the aftermath of a war or campaign in how the homecoming was also experienced by these elements of society. With wars also comes death and Dr Rees will also take us through how the Athenian War dead were treated where they would receive their own form of homecoming. We also look to how the individual hoplites experience of war may affect them through trauma or more commonly known to us today as PTSD. We view this topic through the competing theories that ask whether ancient soldiers also suffered this disorder as spoilers to today. Though, to begin our talk today I spend a little time getting to know Dr Rees, his background and motivations before we then engage in a little general historical conversation. After this we then draw our focus to the main subject for our talk and spend well over an hour looking at the research behind Military Departures, Homecomings and death in Classical Athens.

Links for Dr Owen Rees:

Owen Rees Website 

Bad Ancient 

Twitter 

Books:

Great Naval Battles of the Ancient Greek World 

Great Battles of the Classical Greek World 

Military Departures, Homecomings and Death in Classical Athens 

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Bernie Taylor is an independent naturalist, thought leader and author whose research explores the mythological connections and biological knowledge among prehistoric, indigenous and ancient peoples. His works in these areas include Biological Time (2004) and Before Orion: Finding the Face of the Hero (2017). Before Orion is premised on Joseph’s Campbell’s hero's journey monomyth that is at the core of stories worldwide among indigenous peoples, the ancients, and our modern society. Before Orion explores a deeper root for this monomyth by looking at how hunter-gatherers viewed themselves within the natural and spiritual worlds through Palaeolithic cave art from 40,000 years ago. Taylor proposes that select cave paintings are fundamental pieces in the human journey to self-realization, the foundation of written language, and a record of biological knowledge that irrevocably impacted some of the artistic styles, religious practices, and stories that are still with us. Taylor addresses a profound archaeological elephant in the room by opening up an uncharted place in our history, which points to the cultural ancestors of mankind in western North Africa. Before Orion will change the idea of who you think you are.

For this episode we are moving away a little from the narrative approach to history that we usually follow. For this episode we will be turning to the realm of myth that we have only really covered in passing throughout the series. Though we will not be running through the usual stories of Greek Mythology, we will be instead looking to the deeper past where Greek civilisation has yet to appear. This will see us looking back some 10’s of thousands of years before the rise of Greek culture where stories that we find familiar in Greek mythology were also present. Bernie Taylor will take us back these tens of thousands of years to a cave site on the Iberian Peninsula, or modern-day Spain. In our talk, Bernie took me on a fascinating journey of his research and the ideas he has developed. I found this then turned into a great discussion and I hope you all enjoy this episode as much as I did engaging with Bernie. A lot of what we talk about is very visual and so I have provided a number of pictures on the episode page over at the Casting Through Ancient Greece website, while I have also provided Bernie Taylors links where you will be able to find even more resources. Any I hope you enjoy the next couple of hours.

Bernie Taylor Twitter @BernieTaylorOr 

Before Orion Twitter @BeforeOrion 

Before Orion website  

Before Orion Kindle 

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This is a teaser of the bonus episode, The Iliad found over on Patreon.

For part three of our look at Homer we now turn the the second great work attributed to him, The Odyssey. Unlike the Iliad this would be a tale of adventure and homecoming, seeing the hero Odysseus attempt to make his way back home to his kingdom of Ithaca, his wife Penelope and his son Telemachus. In his journey he would travel to many strange lands and creatures that would provide his quest home with many dangerous encounters. In this episode we explore the narrative of the poem while also talking about a couple of the themes present throughout.

If you would like to hear more and support the series click on the Patreon link at the bottom of the page or you can head to my website to discover other ways to support the series, Here

New bonus episodes and series updates come out in the first week of every month, 

The Delian League had been campaigning in and around the Aegean for the best part of ten years. Thucydides had given us the picture of Athenian growth in power during this period with the league focusing less and less on the Persian threat and looking to police Greeks in the region before then having to turn to their own members looking to leave the league.

During this period the Persian Empire was also continuing with their policies within their lands, though mostly out of the view of the Greeks. For this reason, we have no narrative accounts of what was taking place, just small pieces of evidence suggesting likely activities. These would range from further campaigning on their boarders, expanding their lands; put down possible revolts and engaging in great construction projects at their capitols.

Although, it had appeared that the Persian threat in the Aegean had died down as the 470’s progressed, just over ten years after the battles of Mycale and Plataea, there would be a renewed effort. The Persian had begun assembling naval and land forces in southern Anatolia to prepare for what appeared to be another campaign directed at the Greeks.

Cimon would receive word of the Persian build up and direct the leagues attention towards southern Anatolia as the campaigning season came on. A naval battle would take place at the opening of the Eurymedon River, then the Greeks would fight a land battle to follow up their victory at sea. There is also the possibility that a second naval engagement followed these two battles against a reinforcing force. The battle of the Eurymedon would effectively end any future Persian attempts at launching an offensive directed at Greek lands.

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The Delian league had now been established with the majority of its members coming from regions throughout the Aegean. In its inception they had all turned to a Greek city state on the mainland, that of Athens who headed the league. In 477 BC the league would now find itself in a position to begin campaigning for the first time, they would set out under the leadership of a relative new comer to the scene of Athenian politics, Cimon.

Thucydides would give us a picture of how the league would evolve over its first decade in operation, as well as highlighting how Athens’s power would grow. The league would first direct itself against Persian controlled regions on the Thracian coast, aligned with the objectives it had been created under. 

Though, it wouldn’t be only the Persians that the Delian league would focus its attentions against. Other Greeks would find themselves becoming the target of the league’s activities in the Aegean. These actions would be justified for a number of reasons, from eliminating piracy in the Aegean, to protecting the common strategic security through cohesion.

As the years passed new challenges within the league would arise. With very little Persian activity in the Aegean league members would have been starting to wonder if the finical costs of supporting the league were in their interests anymore. One member Naxos would act on this and attempt to leave, but this risked seeing the league fall apart. Athens would see that they would remain a member through force. This was an ominous sign of the direction the league was heading in, though the Persian threat had not disappeared just yet. 

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This is a teaser of the bonus episode, The Iliad found over on Patreon.

In our 3 part look at Homer we now turn to the first work of epic poetry credited to him, the Iliad. In this episode we explore what the Iliad is and delve a little deeper into the story that is being presented. We then focus on some of the major themes within the work that Homer would weave into the narrative. Then we look at a couple of questions around the historicity of the Trojan war and then Homers relationship to the Iliad.

If you would like to hear more and support the series click on the Patreon link at the bottom of the page or you can head to my website to discover other ways to support the series, Here

New bonus episodes and series updates come out in the first week of every month, 

I wanted to do an episode that focused on Rome in the same sort of format I had done with my past Greek Periphery episodes. Though, my knowledge on Roman history is quite rusty at best, so I wanted to enlist some help to present this episode. For this I turned to Dr Fiona Radford and Dr Peta Greenfield from the Partial Historians podcast. Unfortunately, the timing didn’t line up with the series of Periphery episodes I had done, but never the less I still wanted to present this look at Rome. So, I decided to present this episode as part of the interview series where we will take a quick break from our narrative.

Like I said this episode is done with a similar idea as the past Greek Periphery episodes where we look back to some of the earliest times in the region we are focusing on. We then move forward exploring the tales and myths surrounding the foundations before then turning to what more tangible lines of evidence tells us. This will then see discussion move into areas where we then have literary accounts that help provide an idea of what was developing. I thought it would be interesting to focus on the city of Rome, rather than the larger regions we had done before, since Rome is such a well-known city of the ancient world. Though, I also wanted to compare its developments to what was taking place in Greece around the same periods.  

In this episode with Dr Greenfield and Dr Radford from the Partial Historians we follow this same formula where we then look at parallels and compare to what was taking place in Greece to help provide some context to the developments in Rome. Instead of looking at Rome over a series of episodes like with the previous periphery episodes we followed the foundations all the way through to the beginning of the republic in this talk stretching for just over an hour and a half. This also coincides with roughly the same period we brought all our other looks at the wider Greek world up to.  

Dr Fiona Radford is an expert on Rome on film and wrote her thesis on Kubrick’s Spartacus. Her research interest in film makes her an exponent of not only Ancient History, but also Reception Studies. Dr Radford’s work has taken her across the globe and into rarely viewed archives.

Dr Peta Greenfield is an expert on the Vestal Virgins, a collective of six priestesses whose aedes (temple) was located at the edge of the Roman forum. Her research interests include: the intersection between religion and politics in Rome, the Late Republic (c. 150 BC – 31 BC) and Augustan Period (c. 31 BC – AD 14), and the role of women.

Together both Dr Greenfield and Dr Radford produce and present the Partial historians podcast were they discuss, spar, and laugh their way through different aspects of the Roman world.

They would love to have you along for the ride! And you can find them where ever you get your podcasts.

Partial Historians website 

Twitter 

Facebook 

Instagram 

iTunes 

Spotify 

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Please sit back and enjoy this extended podcast recommendation, an Introduction to the History of Egypt Podcast where Dominic will share a short tale with you. If you haven't yet come across the History of Egypt Podcast you can find Dominic's show at the below links:

The History of Egypt Podcast website

iTunes

Spotify  

Twitter

Facebook

Support the show

💬 Stay Connected with Casting Through Ancient Greece
Follow us for updates, discussions, and more ancient Greek content:
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Birth of the Delian League:

Leagues in Greece were not a new concept, with many being in existence in one form or another. So, far the major leagues that we have followed have been the Peloponnesian league and the Hellenic league, with both of these still in operation by 477BC. These were primarily defensive in nature and were formed around city states that had shared interests or a common foe. Though, what would happen once interests were conflicted or a threat had been extinguished?

In 478/477 Athens would find herself in this position now that Persian had been ejected from Greek lands and campaigning had moved into the eastern Aegean. For Sparta and the Peloponnesians, campaigning could begin to wind down with the threat now far away from their lands. Though Athens and the new eastern Greek members of the league saw the threat still present to their interests in Anatolia. This time interests were far more divided than they were in the disagreements before Salamis and Plataea.

We are told the various Ionian and other eastern Greeks would unite together in the face of the harsh treatment by Pausanias and the Spartan commanders. They would approach Athens with support to take control of the leadership, eventually leaving Sparta no alternative with all of the other Peloponnesians having returned home. Though, how involved was Athens in ensuring this support would be fostered towards them and their bid on the leadership?

What would eventuate though, with the new circumstances and realities would look very different to the framework and objectives of the Hellenic league. What Athens and the eastern Greeks now recognised, was that they have created something new, with differing goals and objectives. This new group of city states would end up holding their first congress on Delos, establishing the mechanisms and objectives of the league. Today we call this league the Delian league and it would be the beginning of future events that would unfold in the Aegean that would be so influential to the area of the Classical Age in Greece.  

This episodes podcast recommendation: Warlords of History Podcast 

Support the show

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This is a teaser of the bonus episode, Homer found over on Patreon.

I have decided to remain in the Archaic period for a little longer. This time we are going to turn to Homer and what is seen as the birth of epic poetry in Greece. The poetry Homer would produce and the works that would appear to imitate it would be labelled Homeric Poetry. In my look at Homer I plan to do a 3 part mini series over the next 3 bonus episodes. In this, the first, we will look at the man Homer, who he was and what has been attributed to him. We will then turn to the different elements that would make up Homeric poetry, before then briefly looking at two of his major works, The Iliad and The Odyssey. Though over the next 2 episodes we will be devoting one each to both of these works where we can explore them a bit deeper.

If you would like to hear more and support the series click on the Patreon link at the bottom of the page or you can head to my website to discover other ways to support the series, Here

New bonus episodes and series updates come out in the first week of every month,