Eric Csapo and Peter Wilson join me in the Lesche to discuss their three-volume A Social and Economic History of the Theatre to 300 BC (Cambridge University Press). Volume 1, The Theatre Festivals of Athens: Documents with Translation and Commentary , appeared earlier this year. Volume 2, Theatre Beyond Athens: Documents with Translation and Commentary , came out in 2020. Volume 3, on theater personnel and individuals associated with the theater, is in the works. Ancient texts (many are mentione...
Apr 22, 2026•1 hr•Season 2Ep. 40
Bill Beck joins me in the Lesche to discuss his new translation of the vetera scholia to Iliad Book 1-2: The Ancient Scholia to Homer's Iliad: A Translation, Volume 1 (Cambridge 2025). The book is the first in a series dedicated to translation of the Iliadic scholia. For an episode on the Iliad itself, and its translation, see Lesche episode 1.6, " Translating the Iliad , with Emily Wilson " (by far the most popular Lesche episode ever!). Ancient works Homer's Iliad (and Odyssey ) The various sc...
Apr 08, 2026•48 min•Season 2Ep. 39
Art historian Verity Platt joins me in the Lesche to discuss her much-anticipated new book Epistemic Impressions: Making and Mediating Classical Art and Text (Oxford 2026). On May 11, the Queen Mary University of London Imagination Research Network will be hosting a "launch symposium" to celebrate the book's publication. Information and tickets are available here . The novel that Verity recommends at the end of the podcast is When the Museum is Closed , by Emi Yagi. Read an excerpt here , in Yuk...
Mar 25, 2026•51 min•Season 2Ep. 38
Marie-Louise Nosch, former director of the Centre for Textile Research at the Saxo Institute of the University of Copenhagen, joins me in the Lesche to discuss her new book Time of Textiles in Ancient Greece (DeGruyter 2025). If you like this episode, you might also enjoy Lesche episode 1.10, "Wedding Poetics in Ancient Greek Literature," with Andromache Karanika. Ancient texts Homer, Iliad and Odyssey (lots of weaving scenes) Hesiod, on the creation of Pandora ( Theogony and Works and Days ) Ae...
Mar 11, 2026•52 min•Season 2Ep. 37
Christos C. Tsagalis joins me in the Lesche to discuss the Doloneia, i.e., Iliad 10, which is the topic of both Christos' monograph The Homeric Doloneia: Evolution and Shaping of Iliad 10 (Oxford 2024) and his chapter in Jonathan Ready's recent edited volume, the Oxford Critical Guide to Homer's Iliad (Oxford 2024). The Doloneia/Iliad 10 is traditionally divided into two sections: the Nyktegersia (the 'night watch' or nocturnal council scene, lines 1-179) and the spy-mission itself. Bibliography...
Feb 25, 2026•48 min•Season 2Ep. 36
Rosa Andújar joins me in the Lesche to discuss her new book, Playing the Chorus in Greek Tragedy (Cambridge, 2025). Tragedies mentioned Aeschylus Agamemnon (chorus fragmentation) Seven Against Thebes (use of semi-choruses) Suppliant Women ("choral swarm" with multiple groups) Sophocles Oedipus Rex (actor-chorus interaction) Euripides Phaethon ( "augmentation" and secondary choruses) Trojan Women (chorus entering in fragmented small groups) Hippolytus ( subsidiary chorus appears before the main c...
Feb 11, 2026•55 min•Season 2Ep. 35
Michael Satlow joins me in the Lesche to discuss his new book An Enchanted World: The Shared Religious Landscape of Late Antiquity , which will be published on February 3 by Princeton University Press. Resources "Lived Religion Project" at the University of Erfurt's Max Weber Institute If you're new to Late Antiquity, the foundational work is Peter Brown's 1971 The World of Late Antiquity: AD 150-750 . It's been reissued in various editions, including a 2024 illustrated one from Thames & Hud...
Jan 28, 2026•48 min•Season 2Ep. 34
Piero Boitani joins me in the Lesche to discuss his new book Timaeus in Paradise: Metaphors and Beauty from Plato to Dante and Beyond (Princeton University Press 2025). Ancient texts Hebrew Bible, Genesis Plato: Timaeus, Phaedrus, Symposium, Apology Aristotle: Nicomachaean Ethics Lucretius, De Rerum Natura Ovid, Metamorphoses Philo of Alexandria, On the Creation ( de Opificio mundi : treatise on the Genesis creation narrative) New Testament: Acts of the Apostles Pseudo-Longinus, On the Sublime C...
Jan 14, 2026•50 min•Season 2Ep. 33
Inger Kuin joins me in the Lesche to discuss her new book Diogenes: The Rebellious Life and Revolutionary Philosophy of the Original Cynic (Basic Books 2025). Ancient sources Aristotle, Politics 1.3-7 (on 'natural' slavery) Diogenes Laertius, 2.6, Life of Diogenes Plutarch, Life of Alexander 14 (on the 'get out of my sun' episode) Xenophon, Anabasis 5-6 (on Sinope, Diogenes' birthplace) Other Diogenes testimonia from a variety of sources For an accessible English-language collection of testimoni...
Dec 31, 2025•52 min•Season 2Ep. 32
Tatiana Bur joins me in the Lesche to discuss her new book Technologies of the Marvellous in Ancient Greek Religion (Cambridge University Press 2025). Ancient texts Homer, Iliad 18 (on Hephaestus and his self-moving tripods) Many Athenian tragedies and comedies that made use of the μηχανή or κράδη (in comedy) Aristotle, Poetics (on the theatrical ‘crane’/μηχανή) The Aristotelian/Peripatetic work Mechanical Questions (Μηχανικά) Philo of Byzantium, Μηχανική Σύνταξη Works on mechanics by Hero of Al...
Dec 17, 2025•52 min•Season 2Ep. 31
Mary Beard, Classics editor at the Times Literary Supplement , and Clifford Ando, senior editor of the Bryn Mawr Classical Review , join me in the Lesche to discuss the state of Classics reviewing today. How do the TLS and BMCR assign appropriate reviewers? What makes for a good review? What's the line between critique and nastiness? Why are reviews these days so often lacking in susbtantive criticism? What do editors wish review authors knew or would consider before writing a review? Some bibli...
Dec 03, 2025•1 hr•Season 2Ep. 30
Harvard University historian Paul Kosmin joins me in the Lesche to discuss his recent book The Ancient Shore (Harvard University Press 2024), winner of the American Historical Association's 2025 Prize in History Prior to CE 1000. Works mentioned Agatharchides of Cnidus, On the Erythraean Sea (2nd C. BC) Philip de Loutherbourg, "Shipwreck" (painting, 1793). Demuth, Bathsheba. 2019. Floating Coast: An Environmental History of the Bering Strait. W. W. Norton. Dening, Gregory Moore. 1980. Islands an...
Nov 19, 2025•54 min•Season 2Ep. 29
James Romm joins me in the Lesche to discuss his new biography Demosthenes: Democracy's Defender . The book is a part of Yale University Press's Ancient Lives series, of which James is also the editor. James's author website Ancient texts mentioned Demosthenes, speeches Aeschines, speeches About our guest James Romm is an author, reviewer, and the James H. Ottaway Jr. Professor of Classics at Bard College in Annandale, NY. He specializes in ancient Greek and Roman culture and civilization. His r...
Nov 05, 2025•52 min•Season 2Ep. 28
Sam Holzman joins me in the Lesche to discuss "bilingual" Ionic column capitals (i.e., column capitals that combined an archaic convex style of relief carving with a more modern concave style). These are the subject of his book Retrospective Columns: Ionic Capitals and Perceptions of the Past in Greek Architecture , which just came out with Princeton University Press . Ancient source Vitruvius, de Architectura , esp. Books 3 & 4. Modern works Architectural drawings in James Stuart and Nichol...
Oct 22, 2025•49 min•Season 2Ep. 27
Dan-el Padilla Peralta joins me in the Lesche to discuss the critique of classicism that he articulates in his recent book Classicism and Other Phobias (PUP 2025). Works mentioned (select) Adeshei Carter, Jacoby. “Racing the Canon.” In The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Race , edited by Paul C. Taylor, Linda Martín Alcoff, and Luvell Anderson, 163–174. New York: Routledge, 2017. Baldwin, James. “Stranger in the Village.” Harper’s Magazine , October 1953. Du Bois, W. E. B. Darkwater: Voices...
Oct 08, 2025•1 hr 21 min•Season 2Ep. 26
Patricia (Tricia) Kim joins me in the Lesche to discuss the art of Hellenistic queenship -- i.e., art that depicted Hellenistic queens, art patronized by Hellenistic queens, and art that spoke to the construction of queenship across the Hellenistic world. Egypt Museum on the "Arsinoe-Aphrodite" statue Franck Goddio write-up of the statue Lesche episode 18 is a conversation about Isis Worship in the Greek East (including Egypt) with Lindsey Mazurek. Ancient passage Pliny, Natural History 34.148 (...
Sep 24, 2025•55 min•Season 2Ep. 25
Anthony Kaldellis joins me in the Lesche to discuss an in-progress edited volume about the transmission of classical texts in the East Roman Empire (aka Byzantium), and why, more generally, classicists should be better informed about the Greek Middle Ages, aka the Byzantine Millennium. Anthony is the host of a wonderful podcast called Byzantium and Friends , which was (and still is) a major inspiration for Lesche. Ancient texts mentioned Photius, Bibliotheca Eustathius of Thessalonica's commenta...
Sep 10, 2025•1 hr 12 min•Season 2Ep. 24
Marden Fitzpatrick Nichols joins me in the Lesche to discuss her new book How to Make a Home: An Ancient Guide to Style and Comfort , a curated collection of passages (by Cicero, Juvenal, Ovid, Pliny, Vitruvius, and others) that relate to the design, decor, and ideology of the ancient Roman house and home. The book is part of Princeton University Press's "Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers" series. Preview the book's Table of Contents here . Read Yung In Chae's 2020 article (in the Princeton Alum...
Aug 12, 2025•39 min•Season 1Ep. 104
Emily Hauser joins me in the Lesche to discuss the lives of the real Bronze Age women remembered in Homeric epic, the subject of her new book Penelope's Bones: A New History of Homer's World through the Women Written Out Of It (UK title: Mythica ). We also discuss the popularity of feminist retellings of Greek myth, and why (it's good) they're not going anywhere anytime soon. This is the last regular episode of Lesche's first season. We'll be back with a second season on September 10. Ancient te...
Jul 23, 2025•54 min•Season 1Ep. 23
Clare Rowan and M.E. (Mairi) Gkikaki join me in the Lesche to discuss the use of monetiform tokens in Greek (and a bit of Roman) antiquity. Clare was the PI on the ERC-funded project " Token Communities of the Ancient Mediterranean ." Mairi was a postdoctoral researcher on the project, and her edited volume Tokens in Classical Athens and Beyond was published (open-access) with Liverpool University Press in 2023. See here for the project's Database of Token Types . Ancient texts (selection) Arist...
Jul 09, 2025•58 min•Season 1Ep. 22
Seth Estrin joins me in the Lesche to discuss Classical Athenian funerary sculpture -- the largest single corpus of classical sculpture -- and his emotion-based readings of it. Seth is the author of Grief Made Marble: Funerary Sculpture in Classical Athens (Yale University Press 2024). A couple of images that accompany this episode are on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/leschepodcast/ If you're interested in hearing more about Athenian funerary practice, check out this Lesche episode on The...
Jun 25, 2025•59 min•Season 1Ep. 21
Debbie Felton and Carolina López-Ruiz join me to discuss monsters -- and what they mean and represent -- in classical mythology. Debbie is the editor of the new Oxford Handbook of Monsters in Classical Myth , to which Carolina contributed a chapter on the Sphinx. Ancient sources Apollonius of Rhodes, Medea Avianus/Aesop, " The Satyr and the Traveler " Euripides, Medea Herodotus (esp. 3.38, on the Callatiae) Hesiod, Theogony Palaephatus, "On Unbelivable Tales" (Περὶ ἀπίστων) Plato, Phaedrus Theoc...
Jun 11, 2025•57 min•Season 1Ep. 20
Vincent Azoulay and Paulin Ismard join me in the Lesche to discuss their study of the restoration of democracy in Athens in 403 BC, in which they examine the Athenian civil war through the prism of chorality. A translation of their 2020 book Athènes 403: une histoire chorale (Flammarion, Paris) has just appeared in an English translation by Lorna Coing with the title Athens, 403 BC: A Democracy in Crisis ? (Cambridge University Press). Ancient sources Aristophanes, Frogs Aristotle, Politics Book...
May 28, 2025•57 min•Season 1Ep. 19
Lindsey Mazurek joins me in the Lesche to discuss Isis worship during the Roman Empire, and how it intersected with and contributed to constructions of Greek identity. Ancient texts Apuleius, Metamorphoses (esp. Book 11) Plutarch, Isis and Osiris Also mentioned Barrett, Caitlin E. (2019) Domesticating Empire: Egyptian Landscapes in Pompeian Gardens. Oxford . Bricault, Laurent (2005) Recueil des inscriptions concernant les cultes isiaques I-III . Paris. Brubaker, Rogers (2006) Ethnicity without G...
May 14, 2025•1 hr 2 min•Season 1Ep. 18
Sasha-Mae Eccleston joins me in the Lesche to discuss classicizing and chronopolitics in the contemporary United States. And yes, we talk about that Virgil quotation. Ancient texts Homer, Iliad Euripides & Seneca, Medea Virgil, Aeneid 9.447 ( nulla dies umquam memori uos eximet aeuo ) Also mentioned (selection) Modern creative works Eric Fischl, " Tumbling Woman " (2001) (sculpture) Ben Lerner, Angle of Yaw (2006) Adrienne Rich, Tonight No Poetry Will Serve: Poems, 2007-2010 (2011), esp. " R...
May 07, 2025•1 hr 7 min•Season 1Ep. 103
Buckle your seatbelt and prepare to clutch your pearls! Walter Scheidel joins me in the Lesche to discuss his case for globalizing the study of ancient history -- and for killing off Classics as we know it. Scheidel is the author of What is Ancient History? , a new manifesto published by Princeton University Press. Mentioned Sheldon Pollock, " Future Philology? The Fate of a Soft Science in a Hard World ," Critical Inquiry , Vol. 35, No. 4, The Fate of Disciplines , edd. James Chandler and Arnol...
Apr 30, 2025•1 hr 3 min•Season 1Ep. 17
Scarlett Kingsley joins me in the Lesche to discuss Herodotus' place in the intellectual milieu of the fifth century, the subject of her book Herodotus and the Presocratics: Inquiry and Intellectual Culture in the Fifth Century BCE. If you enjoy this episode, you might also like Episode 11 on The Sophists , with Josh Billings and Christopher Moore. Ancient texts Herodotus, Histories (especially the meeting between Solon and Croesus at 1.30-33, and the Constitutional Debate set in Persia at 3.80-...
Apr 16, 2025•1 hr 1 min•Season 1Ep. 16
Daniel Mendelsohn joins me in the Lesche to discuss his new translation of Homer's Odyssey , out on April 9 with the University of Chicago Press. Daniel Mendelsohn's website Ancient texts Homer, Iliad and Odyssey Also mentioned Previous translations of the Odyssey by Richmond Lattimore, Robert Fitzgerald, and Emily Wilson (and Alexander Pope); also Caroline Alexander's Iliad . Previous books by Daniel Mendelsohn: An Odyssey: A Father, A Son, and an Epic (Knopf 2017), The Lost: A Search for Six o...
Apr 02, 2025•1 hr 1 min•Season 1Ep. 15
Alex Knodell, co-director of the Small Cycladic Islands Project (SCIP), joins me in the Lesche to reflect on this amazing six-season survey project, which wrapped up last summer. Alex's co-directors on the project were Demetrios Athanasoulis (Ephorate of Antiquities of the Cyclades) and Žarko Tankosić (University of Bergen). Works mentioned SCIP publications Christy Constantakopoulou, The Dance of the Islands (Cambridge 2007). NB: Christy was a featured guest on the second(!) episode of Lesche (...
Mar 19, 2025•54 min•Season 1Ep. 14
Christopher Metcalf joins me in the Lesche to discuss his new book Three Myths of Kingship in Early Greece and the Ancient Near East , as well as the potential that Ancient Near Eastern texts and literary traditions have to shed light on early Greek ones -- and vice versa. Ancient texts Gilgamesh The Hebrew Bible Various Sumerian and Akkadian texts about Sargon, Dumuzi/Tammuz, and Inanna Iliad , esp. Book 1 Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite Herodotus Book 1, esp. on Gyges and Cyrus the Great Ctesias, Pe...
Mar 05, 2025•51 min•Season 1Ep. 13
