Teaser: Architect of the Delian League (Patreon)

Empires are easy to spot at the end and maddeningly hard to identify at the start. We pick up the Delian League story with one stubborn question: when Aristides helps organize the alliance in 478 BC, ...

26 Sep 7min

Sparta’s biggest breakthrough after Sicily isn’t a new tactic or a better admiral. It’s cash, and Persia is willing to pay. The problem is that Persian money comes with Persian priorities, and those p...

24 Sep 49min

Sparta can’t beat Athens at sea without money, and Persia can’t claw back Ionia without Greek help. That single, uncomfortable truth kicks off the Ionian War, and it turns the late Peloponnesian War i...

27 Aug 41min

This is a teaser of the bonus episode, "A League by Choice?" found over on Patreon. A voluntary alliance can feel like freedom right up until the day you try to leave. After the Greek victory over Per...

25 Jul 6min

A king is murdered, a throne becomes a prize, and the world’s biggest empire has to prove it can still hold together. We pull away from the Peloponnesian War just long enough to track the Persian succ...

24 Jul 50min

Athens wins at Salamis, but what happens when the man most associated with that victory becomes politically untouchable? We close out our Themistocles series by following the messy aftermath of the Pe...

29 Jun 6min

Athens doesn’t just lose a battle in Sicily, it loses the foundation of its power. We start with Thucydides’ brutal assessment of the Sicilian Expedition: a fleet shattered, an army trapped, commander...

26 Jun 40min