Herodotus plays tour guide/ethnographer and gives us a glimpse of the land of Lydia and its people. But should we believe him?

The Tomb of Alyattes today

Some ancient knucklebones

Ajax and Achilles maybe playing pessoi

One last look at our favorite Lydian before moving on: why does Herodotus spend so much time talking about him, and why put his story at the start of the entire Histories?

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Staring death in the face, Croesus channels his inner sage, and saves his own life.

Cyrus uses the power of camels to defeat Croesus, and a botched prophecy allows him to capture Sardis. Plus, Spartan hair styles!

Croesus makes his opening move against the Persians—guess how well that goes? Plus cannibalism, a solar eclipse, and ancient hydraulics.

We get a look at how Sparta became the militarized city-state that we know and love(??), and Croesus picks his Greek ally.

As Croesus chooses between the Athenians and the Spartans as allies against the Persians, Herodotus introduces us to Pisistratus, the tyrant of Athens, who used trickery to conquer Athens on three separate occasions. We also explore what it meant to be a tyrant and what Herodotus actually thought of the whole tyranny thing.

Croesus decides to play Bachelor with some Greek oracles to figure out which is the True One, and so we take a long look at the Delphic Oracle. Plus, the voice of Apollo!

Croesus meets with tragedy.

In this episode, we finally meet Croesus, hear about his domination of Anatolia, and witness his schooling by the sage Solon of Athens. We'll also learn more about Lydia, and take some time to talk about the origin of money.