Gaius Marius (157 BC – 86 BC) was one of the first warlords of the late Roman Republic, a general and statesman who held the office of consul an unprecedented seven times during his life.

Famed for his momentous reforms to the Roman armies - such as instituting professional soldiery and improvi...

Roman connections with Britain stretch back to (at least) the mid 1st century BC. But what has archaeology revealed about the Late Iron Age British societies they interacted with? Do we have any concrete evidence for the druids? Was human sacrifice a thing? Sit back and enjoy in this very special...

In Ancient Greece, the symposium was no ordinary after-dinner drinking party, but one in which the Hellenic men of society got together to wine, recline and philosophise. They took various forms depending on the whim of the leader of the symposium - the symposiarch - but were exclusively male aff...

Man's best friend has been at our side for thousands of years. Ancient Greece was no exception, and although some of the breeds that were popular back then might seem unfamiliar to us today, tales of their loyalty, dependability and downright cuteness certainly are not.

From dog names, to their ...

The legacies of the Ides of March stretch from that very afternoon on March 14th 44BC to the modern day.

From Roman times to the Medieval period, from Dante to Shakespeare, and from Brutus to the other infamous assassin he inspired in John Wilkes Booth, the echoes of Julius Caesar's assassinati...

Dinosaurs! Spectacular resilient beings who were able to adapt and survive the most terrifying of events. Evolving from a group of mostly humble-sized creatures, into the most enormous beasts that ever existed on land. But how did the first true dinosaurs emerge? In this episode, Tristan is joine...

What happened after the Ides of March? How did the Romans go from co-ordinated assassinations to the Pax Romana? From Tyranny to prosperity?

In this third episode of our Ides of March series, Tristan is joined by Dr Hannah Cornwell to discuss the turbulent relations that erupted between Marc Ant...

Man, myth or legend... who was the real Saint Patrick? Did he really banish all the snakes from Ireland? Where did the shamrock tradition come from? And was he even Irish?

In this episode, Tristan is joined by Professor Lisa Bitel of USC Dornsife to find out more about the true identity of the m...

Marcus Junius Brutus is best known as one of the conspirators against Julius Caesar, but there's so much more to his complex story. In today's episode, we continue our mini-series, all about the events of March 15th 44BC. Tristan is joined by Dr. Steele Brand to talk through the rise and downfall...

Helen of Troy, the face that launched a thousand ships - but is there more to her than a beautiful face? To mark Women's History Month, Tristan is joined by author and broadcaster Natalie Haynes to discuss Helen's place in mythology and history. Often viewed through the male gaze, Natalie helps s...

March 15th 44BC is perhaps the most notorious date in all of ancient history. On that fateful day, the Ides of March, 55-year-old Roman dictator Gaius Julius Caesar was assassinated by a group of disaffected senators.

In this episode–the first of our special Ides of March miniseries this month–T...

It's not often we cover current affairs on The Ancients (the clue is in the name), but in light of Putin’s claims that Ukraine was “entirely created by Russia”, we wanted to highlight Ukraine’s extraordinary ancient history. From the Palaeolithic to the Iron Age.
To provide an overview of the cou...

Famous throughout antiquity, yet retold only in fragments today - who is Sappho? Her poetry inspired generations, from Catullus to Byron, so how come we know so little about her life? This week Tristan is joined by Professor Margaret Reynolds from Queen Mary University in London to piece together...

Discovered by local farmers in 1974, the Terracotta Army is one of the most astounding archaeological finds on record. A piece of funerary art, dedicated to the First Emperor of China Qin Shi Huang, it contains over 8,000 figures of soldiers, chariots, and horses. This week Tristan is joined by X...

It's often thought that the civilians of ancient Greece were devout in tradition, strict in their ways and beliefs. But how true is this? When it comes to creative thinking and innovation, the ancient Greeks excelled! In this episode, Tristan is joined by professor and historian Armand D'Angour a...

Indigenous Australians have lived on the vast continent of Australia for thousands of years - but how have they survived isolation, extreme conditions, and caring for the land which serves them? This week Tristan is joined by Dave Johnston, an indigenous archaeologist based in Canberra. Together ...

St. Valentine of Rome, patron saint of beekeepers and epilepsy, among many other things. But who exactly is the real St Valentine, and how has the story been kept alive? In this episode, Tristan is joined by historian and licensed tour guide Agnes Crawford as we piece together the complicated bac...

Fishbourne Roman Palace in West Sussex was first constructed just three decades after the empire’s legions conquered Britain in the first century AD. Rediscovered in 1960, Fishbourne is the largest known Roman residence north of the Alps, and much of its sprawling ruins have still not been excava...

Imagine you are a traveller sailing to the major cities around the Mediterranean in 750 BC. You would notice a remarkable similarity in the dress, alphabet, consumer goods, and gods from Gibraltar to Tyre. This was not the Greek world—it was the Phoenician. Based in Tyre, Sidon, Byblos, and other...

London is today one of the greatest cities in the world, and the story of its origins is fittingly spectacular. Founded by the Romans as Londinium in around 47-50 AD, the metropolis served as a major commercial hub and indeed military target until its abandonment in the 5th century. It wouldn’t b...

It’s here! Today is the publication date of Tristan’s first book, Alexander’s Successors at War: The Perdiccas Years. Focussing in on 323 – 320 BC, the book tells the story of the tumultuous events that seized Alexander the Great’s empire immediately after this titanic figure breathed his last in...

Tens of thousands of clay tablets containing texts written in the ancient Cuneiform script of the Assyrian Empire have been discovered, giving us invaluable insights into the inner workings of the Mesopotamian kingdom on the eve of its collapse in the 1st millennium BC.

In this episode, Tristan ...

In this second part of Tristan’s explainer, he takes us right into the heart of the battle dubbed the Persian Thermopylae. Listen as Alexander begins a full-blooded assault on the Persian Gates, and find out how this battle in the Persian heartlands ended.

Preorder Tristan’s book today: https://...

In January 330 BC, Alexander the Great faced one of his most difficult challenges to date. A small Persian force, entrenched in a formidable defensive position that blockaded Alexander’s route to the Persian heartlands. A narrow pass through the Zagros Mountains that has gone down in history as t...