It is one of history’s most compelling cold cases. What happened to the Ninth Legion, a crack unit of 5,000 Roman soldiers who vanished from the historical record without a trace?

Tristan Hughes is joined by Roman historian Dr Simon Elliott to investigate the fate of the legion that helped conq...

Before Boudicca, another British leader brought the Roman war machine to a grinding halt. Meet Caratacus; the cunning King of the Britons who spent seven years outmaneuvering the empire.

Tristan Hughes is joined by Dr. Miles Russell to uncover the forgotten story of this charismatic guerrilla fi...

When the asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs, one remarkable avian survivor traded the skies for the sea. Tristan Hughes and paleontologist Dr. Steve Brusatte explore how prehistoric penguins emerged on ancient Zealandia, lost their flight and grew into colossal apex predators. How did these giant o...

How much can we really know about the historical Jesus? The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John have shaped Christianity for nearly 2,000 years, but they were written decades after the events they describe. So how should we treat them as historical sources?

Tristan Hughes is joined by Profes...

How did the Romans ambush a massive Carthaginian fleet from behind a Sicilian island to win one of history's fiercest sea battles? For over 20 years, Rome and Carthage fought a brutal war for supremacy over Sicily. Tristan Hughes is joined by Carthage expert Dr. Eve MacDonald to explore the epic ...

Professor Chris Stringer is on the Ancients podcast to talk about recent discoveries, DNA, and migration patterns of early humans.

The story of human origins is often imagined as a simple journey from Africa, but is the truth actually much messier? Tristan Hughes and leading palaeoanthropologis...

Augustus was Rome's first Emperor. But who made his empire possible? Behind the throne stood Marcus Agrippa, the brilliant general whose victories secured the Roman world yet whose name was consciously erased from the record by his erstwhile great friend.

In this very special episode Tristan Hug...

What kind of predator needs no teeth to terrify its prey? The terror birds were enormous flightless hunters that ruled South America for millions of years, standing metres tall and built for a life of pursuit and slaughter.

In this episode, Tristan Hughes is joined by palaeontologist Dr Steve Br...

Was the Roman Empire really made by conquest? Or was it powered by something much darker?

For centuries, millions of enslaved people sacrificed their lives and their labour on the altar of Roman progress, an integral cog in the grinding imperial machine. And so today on The Ancients, Tristan Hu...

Few rulers humbled Rome quite like Shapur I. A King of Kings, he rebuilt the Sasanian Persian Empire, defeated Roman armies and captured Emperor Valerian in one of antiquity's most remarkable military triumphs.

In this episode of The Ancients, Tristan Hughes is joined by Eve MacDonald to explore...

In 63 BC, Rome faced a conspiracy that threatened to tear the Roman Republic apart. At its centre stood two figures: Marcus Tullius Cicero, the grand old orator of Rome and Lucius Sergius Catilina, accused of plotting violence, rebellion and the overthrow of Rome’s political order. But was the da...

When Odysseus finally returns to Ithaca, his homecoming turns into a ruthless reckoning. Tristan Hughes and Dr Emily Hauser dive into the shocking climax of Homer’s Odyssey, where hospitality, vengeance and survival collide in a blood-soaked finale.

What drives Odysseus to unleash such fury, an...

What if the world’s most famous homecoming was really a nightmare of monsters, gods, and one very stubborn king trying to get back to Ithaca?

In our new series Tristan Hughes and classicist Dr. Emily Hauser dive into Homer’s Odyssey, an epic of shipwrecks, sorcery, giants and divine meddling, wh...

The story of Achilles, Odysseus and the siege of Troy has captivated audiences for millennia, but behind the legends lies a deeper mystery. Was this epic war a myth, a memory of a real Bronze Age conflict, or something in between?

Today Tristan Hughes is joined by Eric Cline to explore the reali...

For more than a thousand years, Delphi was considered the centre of the ancient world. Every year a throng of pilgrims climbed the slopes of Mount Parnassus to seek the words of Apollo through the famous Oracle of Delphi.

Today Tristan Hughes is joined by Michael Scott to uncover Delphi's story,...

How did the Huns, Goths, and Vandals help bring down the Roman Empire - and sack the city of Rome itself, not once but twice?

Tristan Hughes is joined by Professor Peter Heather to explore the dramatic wave of invasions that shook Rome in the late 4th and early 5th centuries. From the arrival of...

538 million years ago, life on Earth changed forever. In an evolutionary burst known as the Cambrian Explosion, complex animals rapidly appeared in the oceans, laying the foundations for almost every major animal group alive today.

Tristan Hughes is joined by the mighty Henry Gee to explore biol...

One of the most famous and recognisable Persian kings of antiquity, Darius the Great was an Achaemenid superstar, ruling the Achaemenid Persian Empire some 2,500 years ago. His tale is preserved in the writings of the Greek historian Herodotus; Darius’ story stretches from India to Ukraine and th...

In 73 BC, a gladiator escaped slavery and launched a rebellion that shook the Roman Republic to its core. His name was Spartacus, and his uprising became one of the greatest threats Rome had ever faced from within.

Tristan Hughes is joined by Ben Kane to explore the dramatic story of Spartacus a...

What if Iron Age Britain was never a land of barbarians at all, but a world of skilled farmers, powerful women, trade, ritual, and spectacle? Tristan Hughes is joined by Professor Tom Moore to reveal a far richer pre-Roman Britain, from roundhouses and hillforts to chariots, feasts, and buried of...

For most of human history, we were not alone. Human evolution was shaped by multiple human species living side by side, from Neanderthals in Europe to Denisovans in Asia, before all but one disappeared.

In this episode of The Ancients, Tristan Hughes is joined by Ella Al-Shamahi to explore the s...

Armageddon is more than just a biblical prophecy hailing the end of days. It is a real place: Megiddo, an ancient city that for thousands of years stood at the crossroads of empires, trade routes and wars in the ancient Near East.

In this episode of The Ancients, Tristan Hughes is joined by frie...

Yersinia Pestis - the most feared disease in human history - has long been thought to be the Plague of Justinian in 541 AD. But new studies of ancient DNA have revealed traces of Yersinia pestis dating back more than 5000 years.

In this episode of The Ancients, Tristan Hughes is joined by Laura...

In 79 AD, life in Pompeii unfolded beneath the shadow of a tremoring Mount Vesuvius. Streets bustled, businesses thrived, and merchants built fortunes, unaware disaster was hours away. But what happened when that disaster struck? How did these ordinary Roman citizens seek to survive the last days...