seangabb
Published 16 Feb 2026Greece: A Brief History, c.700 BC – 500 AD
The Persian army lands at Marathon. Athens must decide whether to wait or fight. We examine Miltiades’ strategy, the Athenian command structure, hoplite tactics, and Herodotus’ restrained account of the battle.
We also analyse the later legend of the Marathon runner and the political consequences of the victory. Marathon did not end the Persian threat — but it changed Greek confidence forever.
This is not the end of the war. It is the end of its beginning.
August 8, 2026
The Ancient Greeks 03 – Enter the Persians 7 – Marathon, The First Shock
August 2, 2026
The Ancient Greeks 03 – Enter the Persians 6 – Eretria Falls, Athens Stands Alone
seangabb
Published 16 Feb 2026Greece: A Brief History, c.700 BC – 500 AD
In 490 BC the Persian fleet advances island by island across the Aegean. Eretria is besieged, betrayed, and deported. We examine Persian punitive strategy, internal Greek division, and the calculated destruction of Eretria as an example to others.
Athens now faces invasion. Pheidippides runs to Sparta. The Spartans refuse immediate aid due to religious obligation. Only Plataea stands with Athens.
This is the moment before Marathon.
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July 27, 2026
Timeō Danaōs et dōna ferentēs
The tag in my chosen headline means roughly “beware of Greeks bearing gifts”, which anyone who has read anything about the Trojan War can understand. A huge problem for modern translators of works like The Iliad and The Odyssey is that there’s a double layer of cultural change built in before you start: the Mycenaean Greek culture of the Bronze Age — the setting of the Trojan War — is significantly different from the Greek culture of the classic era — when the oral tales were first written down (and attributed to Homer).
Classic Greek culture is often misunderstood by modern audiences through the most prominent survivals of that time: especially Greek philosophy, as the philosophers we think of as most representative of Athenian and the wider Greek culture were actually a fairly small and relatively powerless subculture at odds with the mainstream of their times.
All that said, going from a translation to an on-screen interpretation requires a lot of picking and choosing of elements to highlight and others to leave unrepresented or actively suppressed. In the most recent film of Odysseus and his extended return journey from Troy to Ithaca, director Christopher Nolan chose to portray Odysseus as a modern man in ways that may suit today’s audiences, but don’t accurately portray the Homeric interpretation or the times in which it is set:
Some viewers have described Nolan’s version of Odysseus as suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. But moral injury is the more accurate term. It overlaps with PTSD, but it’s not the same thing. Moral injury occurs when a person commits, witnesses, or fails to prevent an act that violates his moral convictions. In war, moral injury can arise when a person does something that violates his own ideals, loyalties, or sense of right and wrong. The result is lasting guilt. A combat veteran comes to see himself as corrupt, unworthy, or beyond forgiveness.
In the film, Odysseus describes his guilt over the violence he witnessed during the sack of Troy. He is conscience-stricken about his Trojan Horse gambit. Odysseus took an object that appeared to be a gift of peace and used it as a weapon of deception. His stratagem allowed the Greeks to enter Troy, destroy the city, and slaughter its people.
But the Trojan Horse is Odysseus’s crowning achievement. Homer’s Odysseus is a wily trickster, and a trickster would not be tormented by the fact that his trick succeeded.
During his journey, he repeatedly deceives his own men for what he believes is the greater good, and these acts clearly trouble him. The war itself is remembered as grim and pointless. Men are drafted rather than rushing eagerly toward glory.
This is not Homer’s moral universe. In the poem, the Greeks rape, rob, enslave, and pillage without displaying anything like modern guilt. We can tolerate this when reading an ancient text. It is harder to tolerate when those acts are placed directly before us on a movie screen.
This may explain Nolan’s decision. Had he shown the violence of the original story without softening it, would the audience still have been able to sympathize with Odysseus?
Consider what happens to the enslaved women accused of consorting with the suitors after Odysseus returns home. Odysseus orders them to be killed, and Telemachus hangs them. Homer does not present the scene as morally complicated. Their punishment is part of restoring order.
Modern films sometimes allow their heroes to inhabit moral worlds very different from our own. Robert Eggers’s 2022 film The Northman asks us to sympathize with Viking characters who obey codes that most moviegoers today would find reprehensible. But The Northman was a mid-budget film. Nolan made a summer blockbuster that cost hundreds of millions of dollars. A blockbuster can’t afford to depict a hero from whom audiences recoil. Eggers could let his Viking be a Viking. Nolan needs his Greek warrior to be one of us.
Yet such individuals lived in societies that existed before Christian morality reshaped the Western understanding of guilt, mercy, and the value of every human life. The moral injury that afflicts Nolan’s Odysseus belongs more naturally to the AD world than the BC one.
In the film, Odysseus grieves for the men he lost and appears to blame himself for their deaths. But Homer presents that suffering as the result of pride, fate, divine anger, and human foolishness. The original story does not depict Odysseus as a man tormented by the fear that he has violated his own moral code.
The difference is clear in the episode of the lotus-eaters. In Nolan’s film, Odysseus eats the lotus because he seeks mental relief, a kind of ancient Greek version of using psychedelics to treat combat trauma. In the poem, Odysseus does the opposite. He refuses to eat the lotus and orders his men away from it.
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July 26, 2026
The Ancient Greeks 03 – Enter the Persians 5 – Earth and Water: The Logic of Empire
seangabb
Published 16 Feb 2026Why does Persia turn west? In this lecture we examine Persian strategic thinking after the suppression of the Ionian Revolt. We analyse the demand for “earth and water”, the meaning of submission in Persian political culture, and the diplomatic crisis that follows.
Most Greek states comply. Athens and Sparta do not. We also explore the Persian expedition of 492 BC under Mardonius and the calculated preparation for renewed intervention.
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July 22, 2026
The Ancient Greeks 03 – Enter the Persians 4 – The Ionian Revolt and the Fatal Intervention
seangabb
Published 16 Feb 2026The Persian Wars begin not in Athens, but in Miletus. In this lecture we explore the failed Naxos expedition, Aristagoras’ desperate gamble, and the outbreak of the Ionian Revolt in 499 BC. We examine Aristagoras’ appeals to Sparta and Athens, Herodotus’ famous scene before Cleomenes, and the fateful decision of Athens to send twenty ships.
We also analyse the burning of Sardis, Darius’ calculated response, and the suppression of Ionia. This is not yet a world war — but it is the moment when Athens introduces itself to empire.
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July 20, 2026
Eating the Food of Homer’s Odyssey
Tasting History with Max Miller
Published 14 Jul 2026Skewer of roast pork covered in seasoned barley meal, accompanied by the Ancient Greek potion, Kykeon
City/Region: Greece
Time Period: c. 1650-1100 B.C.E., Mycenaean PeriodWhen Odysseus finally makes it back to his home of Ithaca, he goes to the home of the swineherd Eumaeus. Disguised as a beggar, Odysseus is welcomed into Eumaeus’s home, and Eumaeus prepares skewers of roasted pork sprinkled with barley meal.
While I could just make plain roast pork sprinkled with plain barley flour, let’s assume that Eumaeus does the disguised Odysseus the courtesy of seasoning the meal. Archaeologists have found evidence that the people living in Greece during the Mycenaean Period, when The Odyssey is supposed to have taken place, commonly used coriander, cumin, celery, and fennel, so that’s what I used to season the barley flour coating.
This dish is very simple, and surprisingly flavorful. I made mine in the oven, but if you can cook it over an open fire, it would be even better. The cumin and fennel seeds are both very strong flavors, so choose one or the other so as not to completely overpower everything else.
Eumaeus went off to the sties where the pigs were penned. Choosing two sucklings, he carried them in, slaughtered and singed them both, then cut them in pieces and spitted them on skewers. Then, when all was well roasted, he served it to Odysseus piping hot on the skewers, sprinkling the meat with white barley meal.
— The Odyssey, Book XIV
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July 6, 2026
The Ancient Greeks: 03 – Enter the Persians 1 – When Empire Meets the Polis
seangabb
Published 16 Feb 2026Greece: A Brief History, c.700 BC – 500 AD
In this lecture we begin the Persian Wars not with battle, but with misunderstanding. The Greeks did not set out to fight a civilisation-defining struggle against Asia, and the Persians were not driven by irrational hatred of freedom. This episode explores the structural collision between the Persian Empire and the Greek city-state system. We examine the rise of Persian power under Cyrus and Darius, the nature of imperial governance, and the early cultural encounter between Greek and Persian military worlds. Along the way, we meet Herodotus, the first true historian, and consider how his narrative shapes our understanding of East and West.
This is the beginning of a story that ends at Marathon — but whose consequences reach much further.
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June 30, 2026
Sparta vs Athens 2(d): Athenian Freedom – Drama, Free Speech, Trade, and the Economy
seangabb
Published 8 Feb 2026Greece: A Brief History, c.700 BC – 500 AD
This final segment links culture to economics and asks what Athenian “freedom” actually looked like in practice. Drama was not a private pastime. It was a civic institution performed before the citizen body. Comedy could be brutally obscene and politically personal, naming living leaders on stage — evidence of a public culture far less timid about speech than most modern states.
From there I move to Athens as a maritime power: trade, grain dependence, Piraeus, coinage, state pay, and the economic dynamism that supported participation in Assembly and law courts. The images on the slides matter here: artefacts and “industrial art” show what Athens valued in daily life.
I end by returning to Sparta’s deliberately restrictive economy — iron currency, limited trade, enforced uniformity — and why that system could produce discipline but not lasting intellectual fertility.
This is also where I state plainly what we owe to Athens.
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June 27, 2026
Destroyed In Four Minutes – The Battle of Cape Matapan
TimeGhost Cartographic
Published 26 Jun 2026March 1941. As British troops sail to reinforce Greece ahead of the expected German invasion, the Italian Navy sees a chance to strike. A powerful battlefleet puts to sea, hoping to intercept the convoys and seize back the initiative in the Mediterranean.
But the British know something is coming.
With the Mediterranean Fleet stretched to its limits, Admiral Andrew Cunningham must make a critical decision. Relying on intelligence and naval aviation in a race against time, the Royal Navy heads out to meet the tide headed their way.
What follows is one of the most dramatic naval engagements of the Second World War, culminating in a brutal conclusion that would leave a lasting mark on the Mediterranean campaign.
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June 26, 2026
Sparta vs Athens 2(c): Spartan Childhood – The Agōgē, Infant Inspection, and State Brutality
seangabb
Published 8 Feb 2026Greece: A Brief History, c.700 BC – 500 AD
This segment goes straight to the ancient evidence. Using Plutarch’s Life of Lycurgus (with the passages shown on-screen), I explain how Sparta understood itself: infant inspection and exposure, the collective upbringing of boys in the agōgē, deliberate hunger and deprivation, enforced endurance, and the suppression of private loyalties in favour of loyalty to the state.
This is not presented as scandal. Plutarch often writes admiringly, which is precisely why the text is so revealing. The system is coherent. It is also terrifying. Sparta did not merely train soldiers. It manufactured them, beginning at birth.
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June 22, 2026
Sparta vs Athens – 2(b): Ostracism, Demagogues, and Why Athenian Democracy Worked (Until Rome)
seangabb
Published 8 Feb 2026Greece: A Brief History, c.700 BC – 500 AD
Athenian democracy is often dismissed as mob rule. This segment explains why that is too simple. Athens developed habits and structures that stabilised debate: frequent Assembly meetings, repeated exposure to the same issues and speakers, and a politically literate citizen body shaped by practical participation.
I also cover the darker logic: fear of tyranny, fear of dominance, and why Athens accepted instability and even injustice as the price of preventing permanent concentrations of power. Ostracism is discussed as a precautionary tool, and demagoguery as a permanent risk that the system managed rather than “solved”.
Finally, I explain how Athenian democracy ended — not because it decayed internally, but because Rome rendered the institutions meaningless. Empire does not tolerate participation.
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June 19, 2026
Sparta vs Athens – 2(a): Two Greek Worlds (Citizens, Helots, Power)
seangabb
Published 8 Feb 2026Greece: A Brief History, c.700 BC – 500 AD
In this lecture segment I set out the fundamental contrast between Sparta and Athens as social and political systems. Sparta was a permanent military state built on coerced labour and internal discipline. Athens was a quarrelsome democracy that relied on participation, persuasion, and a wider civic culture of debate.
We begin with the basic structures: who counted, who did the work, and how each society organised its citizen body. This is not moral theatre. It is institutional reality. By the end, the students should see why Sparta could produce cohesion and battlefield reliability, while Athens produced instability, argument, and a public life that made intellectual achievement possible.
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June 3, 2026
What is Turkish Delight? How to make real Ottoman Turkish Delight
Tasting History with Max Miller
Published 9 Dec 2025Beautiful red Turkish delight dusted with powdered sugar and starch and flavored with rose water and musk
City/Region: Ottoman Empire
Time Period: 1844I don’t know about you, but I first learned about Turkish delight from The Chronicles of Narnia, where Edmund sells out his family for a box of the confection. True Turkish delight, made in Turkey or Greece, is made of sugar and starch, but when other countries tried to copy it, they often added gelatin, which gives it a completely different texture.
While we can’t be absolutely certain which kind Edmund liked, I hope it was the true Turkish kind that melts in your mouth beautifully. If you’ve never tried musk, it’s a unique flavor that reminds me of clean laundry and perfume, and mixes with the rose water to make a flavor profile unlike anything else I’ve had. All in all, I wouldn’t sell my family out for it, but it is very good.
Rose water or musk aren’t your thing? Feel free to change the flavorings to whatever you like. Almond, orange blossom water, and pistachio were popular at the time.
Rahatu’l-hulkum
Method: Take one kiyye of the finest sugar and prepare a syrup with three kiyyes of water in a tinned pan … take 75 dirhems of the finest pounded starch and slowly stir into the syrup. It must be stirred constantly so that it does not form lumps or stick to the bottom of the pan … Then blend 35 dirhems of rose water with a grain of musk and after adding to the mixture stir a few more times before removing from the heat. Oil a tray with almond oil and pour in the cooked mixture. When cool cut into pieces of the desired size and toss into a mixture consisting half of sieved starch and half of powdered sugar, and stir until they do not stick together. It will be delicious.— Melceü’t-tabbahîn by Mehmet Kamil, 1844
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May 7, 2026
Does the REAL Odyssey Survive From the Ancient World?
MoAn Inc.
Published 17 Dec 2025This video was filmed in July of 2025. I wasn’t going to upload it due to the weird not-really-focused-but-also-kinda-focused-thing my phone camera was clearly going through, but decided I didn’t care that much because the content itself was fine x
(more…)
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April 5, 2026
QotD: The structure of a typical polis government
The Greek term for the structure of a polis government was its politeia (πολιτεία), which would could mean the government (the way we would say “the state”) or the structure of that government (its “constitution”) or the rights and conditions of the citizenry (in the sense of “citizenship”); as with the many meanings of polis, the many meanings of politeia all shade into each other and are understood as blended.
Because this week we’re interested in the politeia of a polis, that’s going to mean we’re mostly focused on the politai, the citizens, who we discussed last time as one of the key building blocks of the polis. Now, as we noted last time, it’s important to keep in mind that the politai are not all of the people in the polis or indeed even very many of them: women, children, resident foreigners, native members of non-citizen free underclasses and slaves were all set outside the politai and often had no means of gaining entrance. We’re going to talk about all of those folks in more depth in the third part, where we’ll look at the status layer-cake of polis society. But for now I just want to note that all of those people are there, even if they won’t figure very prominently in this discussion of the structures of polis government.
Now we’ll explore this question of how a polis was governed: first laying out the standard elements of a polis constitution, which as we’ll discuss were surprisingly similar from one polis to the next. Then we’ll deal with variations in how those elements are structured, which the Greeks understood to define the differences in the three kinds of constitution that a polis might normally have: oligarchy, democracy and tyranny. Then […] we’ll look at what sort of magistrates a polis might have and what their jobs might be as well as the structure of the legal system a polis might have.
THis is going to mean that we’re discussing the “constitutions” of poleis, but I want to be really clear here at the start that these are almost never written constitutions. So when I say “constitution”, understand that we mean this in the broad sense of “the actual makeup of the state’s institutions” rather than in the narrow sense of “a formal set of instructions for the running of the state”. Some poleis did actually have the latter (the oldest we have that I know of is a constitution established by Ptolemy I Soter for Kyrene in 322; the fact that this is a constitution dictated by a king to a subordinated polis should signal how odd it is), but they seem to have been very rare.
Bret Devereaux, “Collections: How to Polis, 101, Part IIa: Politeia in the Polis”, A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry, 2023-03-17.
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