Legendary historian Will Durant has described the subject of this episode as “One of the great adventures in human history”. In the first part of this two-part series, we meet the main characters of our tale, when a band of over 10,000 Greek mercenaries agree to serve under the Persian prince Cyrus the Younger in a fratricidal civil war against Cyrus’ brother, King Artaxerxes II. This episode will also include a brief history of the Persian empire, tattooed, head-hunting + marijuana-consuming + sweat lodge-partaking tribal peoples, plagues, a cameo by Socrates, Machiavellian political games, the great battle of Cunaxa, and a eunuch worthy of Game of Thrones.

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This episode focuses on one of the greatest archaeological discoveries of the late 20th century: the oldest, fully preserved human body ever found. The man emerged from the ice in the Alps over 5,000 years ago after his death. The more archaeologists discovered about him, the more haunting the mystery of his fate became. This is a tale of murder, Neolithic battles, the possibly European origins of acupuncture, the best mountain climber who ever lived, Brad Pitt’s tattoo, and one of the oldest cold cases ever. This is what history looks like when you have no written sources.

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One of the most legendary characters in history comes to visit us in this episode: Spartacus was an auxiliary soldier in the Roman army, a deserter, an outlaw, a gladiator, and the leader of one of the greatest slave rebellions in history. Under his leadership, over 70,000 people defeated the Roman legions multiple times. This episode features mass crucifixions, Dionysian orgies, a master course in guerrilla warfare, walls built with corpses, the most brutal punishment in military history, pirates, and overambitious Romans losing their heads.

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In the space of a few decades, three major slave wars threatened the Roman Republic. In this episode, we see how the greed of land speculators, tax collectors and slave owners unleashed an orgy of bloodshed as tens of thousands of escaped slaves went to battle against Rome’s armies. Part I of this story covers the first two of the servile wars, and features political intrigues, fire-breathing Syrian prophets, cannibalism, love struck aristocrats arming their slaves, and heroic mass suicides.

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In this quick intro, we explore the guiding philosophy of the podcast, Dan Carlin’s influence, and future plans.

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