Tides of History
Episodes
Popular History and Academic History
19 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Academic history and popular history are very different things, but what is their purpose? And how should we, as people who like and consume history, ...
Migration in Human History
12 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
If we want to understand how and why the human story has unfolded in the way it has, then we have to understand migration: large numbers of people mov...
The Last Mailbag!
05 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
It's time for one last mailbag! I cover everything from which historical figure would be the best Poster on social media to how ancient authors collec...
Ancient DNA and the Future of the Past
26 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The ability to recover ancient DNA from archaeological remains is one of the greatest scientific innovations of our time, but how has it impacted arch...
A Voyage Through the Mediterranean at the Fall of Carthage
19 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
What did the Mediterranean look like at the moment of Rome's triumph in 146 BC? Join me as we go on one final trip around the wine-dark sea, checking ...
What is the Atlantic World? Interview with Professor Keith Pluymers
12 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
he Atlantic World is one of the major concepts in academic history, a way of linking together all the various places around the fringes of the great o...
The Life of Publius Afer (Rome, 200 BC)
05 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The best way to understand the impact slavery had on a person's life is to follow their journey through the institution, but the ancient world provide...
Ancient Slaveries
29 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Slavery was foundational to ancient societies, but it was never a single thing: The experiences of the enslaved varied dramatically depending on when ...
Past Lives: Saint Patrick, Slavery, and the Fall of the Roman Empire
26 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Check out Patrick's new show, Past Lives! You can listen on your platform of choice through the links here, and be sure to subscribe to the Patreon fo...
Mailbag!
22 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
It's been quite a while since I've answered listener questions, so here are a bunch on everything from the best depictions of siege warfare in movies ...
Recent Discoveries in the Ancient Americas: Professor Shane Miller Returns
15 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Every year, new archaeological discoveries claim to rewrite what we think we knew about the ancient Americas, but how much can we trust the initial re...
Doing Business in Mid-Republican Rome
08 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The rise of the Roman Republic was built on conquest and war, but also on the massively expanding economy of Italy as a whole and Rome in particular. ...
Interview with Professor Tom Birkett on "Runes: A Concise History"
01 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Runic writing carries connotations of magic and fantasy, but it was a widespread, useful, and long-lasting system of writing. Professor Tom Birkett ha...
How Alexander the Great's Soldiers Spent Their Money
25 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Let's imagine a Macedonian soldier during the time of Alexander the Great. How did this man, whom we'll call Red Cleitus, spend the vast amounts of co...
Two Murders at the Dawn of History (Lost Worlds Audiobook Preview)
18 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Patrick's new book, Lost Worlds: How Humans Tried, Failed, Succeeded, and Built Our World, launches May 5th, 2026! Check out this audiobook preview ch...
Past Lives: Nanaya'ila'i and the Bleeding Edge of the Assyrian Empire
15 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Check out a scripted episode of Patrick's new show, Past Lives!Nearly 2,700 years ago, a woman and her daughter were ripped away from their homes in w...
The Economic Life of Megakles, Farmer of Classical Athens
11 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
We've talked about how rich classical Athens was, but what did that mean for an average person living at the time? In this episode, we follow the life...
Doing History through Movies: Interview with Dr. Jason Herbert
04 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Like many of you, I first fell in love with history through the movies. Dr. Jason Herbert hosted a podcast called Historians at the Movies, now retitl...
Listen to Patrick's New History Podcast, Past Lives
03 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Patrick has a new history podcast, Past Lives! It's all about the experiences of real, everyday people throughout the human past, people just like you...
Why Was Classical Athens So Rich?
27 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Ancient Greece was rich compared to other ancient societies, and Athens was the richest place of all within ancient Greece. But why? The answer lies n...
Listen Now: American Scandal | The West Memphis Three
25 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
On May 5, 1993, three 8-year-old boys were brutally murdered in West Memphis, Arkansas. The tiny local police department launches an investigation but...
Patrick's New History Show, Past Lives, Launches December 3rd!
21 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
From Patrick Wyman (host of Fall of Rome and Tides of History) comes Past Lives, a brand new podcast! Every week, we’ll focus on the lived experienc...
Why the Hundred Years War Actually Lasted Two Hundred Years: Interview with Professor Michael Livingston
20 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The Hundred Years War was the defining conflict of the Middle Ages, but today's guest - Professor Michael Livingston of the Citadel - argues that it a...
The Phoenicians, the Greeks, and the Iron Age Mediterranean
13 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
As the Bronze Age gave way to the Iron Age, the economy of the Mediterranean shifted dramatically. It expanded to encompass the entire sea for the fir...
Love, War, and Diplomacy in the Late Bronze Age: Interview with Professor Eric Cline
06 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Professor Eric Cline, author of the outstanding book 1177 BC: The Year Civilization Collapsed, returns to the show to discuss his new book: Love, War,...
Listen Now: American History Tellers | The Mayflower
05 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The Cold War, Prohibition, the Gold Rush, the Space Race. Every part of your life - the words you speak, the ideas you share - can be traced to our hi...
Building the Pyramids and the Valley of the Kings
30 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Millions of people called ancient Egypt home, and the vast majority of them weren't kings or high priests; they were humble farmers and laborers makin...
The Story of Carbon Dioxide is the Story of Everything: Interview with Journalist Peter Brannen
23 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Carbon dioxide is central to the story of Earth from its beginning more than 4 billion years ago all the way up to the present. Peter Brannen joins me...
Living and Working in Imperial Babylonia
16 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
We don't usually think of the Neo-Babylonian Empire as one of the economic powerhouses of the ancient world, but this short-lived state actually overs...
The Ancient Economy from Assyria to Augustus
09 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What was the ancient economy? Can we even speak of such a singular thing? Today, I introduce the next block of episodes on Tides, an in-depth examinat...
Interview with Dr. Owen Rees (Book, The Far Edges of the Known World releases 9/30/25)
02 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The ancient world was a lot bigger than Greece and Rome. Dr. Owen Rees joins me to discuss his new book on this broader conception of antiquity - The ...
Thucydides, the Greatest Historian of All Time: Interview with Robin Waterfield and Professor Polly Low
25 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Thucydides is perhaps the greatest historian to ever live, a man whose work on the Peloponnesian War has been read, digested, and debated for more tha...
The Celts Invade Greece
11 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The Celts invaded Greece in 280-279 BC, an entirely unforeseen breakthrough of a nearly unknown people into the mainstream of the Hellenistic world. T...
Alexander's Successors and the Danube Frontier
11 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
While Alexander the Great's successors were fighting over control of his empire, Celtic-speaking migrants were moving east along the Danube River, mos...
The First Cities North of the Alps: Interview with Professor Manuel Fernandez-Götz
04 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The European Iron Age is known almost solely through archaeology, and the material record of the period is still showing us fascinating new aspects of...
The Celts of the East and the Iron Age Balkans
28 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
We're most familiar with the Celts of the west, the people who eventually fought Julius Caesar in Gaul and left their languages along the Atlantic fri...
Rome's Deadliest Enemies: The Gauls of Italy
21 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
When we think of Rome's most dangerous foes, our attention usually turns to Hannibal and his ilk, but it was really the Gauls of northern Italy who tr...
Celts and the European Iron Age
14 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
We have long thought of the Celts (or Gauls) as the antithesis of the ""civilized"" cultures of the Mediterranean, but new research shows that they we...
The Forgotten Power-Broker of the Roman Republic: Interview with Professor Douglas Boin
07 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Most people today remember the Roman aristocratic woman Clodia as the target of one of Cicero's nastiest works, but Douglas Boin has written a wonderf...
How the Horse Changed the World: Interview with Author David Chaffetz
31 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
David Chaffetz, author of the recent and truly outstanding book Raiders, Rulers, and Traders: The Horse and the Rise of Empires, joins Tides to talk a...
Why Did Rome Win?
24 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Why did Rome win? It's a simple question, but the answer is anything but. To figure it out, we have to look not only at what made Rome special but als...
Guerrilla Warfare and Insurgency in the American Civil War: Interview with Professor Andrew Fialka
17 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
We usually think of the American Civil War as a conflict fought between massive armies at famous battlefields like Gettysburg, but that's not really a...
Encore: Jakob Fugger: The Richest Man Who Ever Lived?
10 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
At the end of the fifteenth century, the center of European banking suddenly swung from its birthplace in Italy to south Germany. The key figure in th...
Encore: The Rise and Fall of the Medici Bank
08 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The Medici name still carries echoes of power and labyrinthine politics. But the Medici got their start as bankers, and built a financial empire that ...
The Roman Conquest of the Hellenistic World
03 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
For most of its history, Rome barely bothered with the Greek east. Then, quite suddenly, Rome exploded onto the scene, laying low the two most powerfu...
Who was Thomas More? Interview with Dr. Joanne Paul
26 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Thomas More is one of the most fascinating figures of the 16th century: saint, persecutor of Protestants, government official, martyr. But who was he,...
Rome Enters the Hellenistic World
19 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
For most of its history, the Roman Republic had little to do with the Greek East. That changed at the end of the third century BC. As the war against ...
War and the Hellenistic World
12 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The Hellenistic world stretched from Sicily to India and encompassed tens of millions of people for centuries, as new kingdoms sprang up, new ways of ...
On Ancient History and Our Shared Heritage: Interview with Professor Walter Scheidel
05 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Why does ancient history matter? Stanford's Professor Walter Scheidel returns to Tides to discuss his new book, What is Ancient History?, and provides...
The Final Defeat of Hannibal Barca
29 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
More than any other individual, Hannibal defined the Second Punic War. But after his crushing victory at Cannae, Hannibal never again came so close to...
Why Was Carthage Such a Threat to Rome? Interview with Dr. Bret Devereaux, Part 2
22 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Dr. Bret Devereaux returns to the show to discuss why, exactly, Carthage was such a threat to the Roman Republic. The answer lies in the fact that mor...
The Rise of Scipio Africanus and the War in Iberia
15 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Most of Rome's generals were competent but not outstanding, which was more than enough for a power with Rome's structural advantages. Yet the Second P...
Why Didn't Cannae Win the War for Hannibal?
08 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Cannae was a crushing victory for Hannibal, but it didn't win the war for him. Why? The answer lies in the nature of the Roman political system, which...
Experiencing the Battle of Cannae
01 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The Battle of Cannae was the worst defeat Rome ever suffered, and one of the worst battlefield losses in history. What was it like to be there? We exp...
Combining Ancient DNA and History: Interview with Dr. Pontus Skoglund
24 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Ancient DNA has completely reshaped our understanding of prehistory, but what does it offer for periods when we actually have historical texts? Dr. Po...
Hannibal Invades Italy
17 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Hannibal accomplished a great deal during his long and illustrious life, but no feat has captured the imagination more than his crossing of the Alps. ...
The Carthaginian Conquest of Iberia
10 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The disastrous ending of the First Punic War could have destroyed Carthage for good, and it nearly did. But one man had a plan for how to bring Cartha...
Rome, Carthage, and the Punic Wars: Interview with Dr. Bret Devereaux
03 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Dr. Bret Devereaux is one of the world's leading experts on the military history of Rome and on the Punic Wars. We discuss Rome's advantages, what mad...
Rome in the Middle Republic
27 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A century of expansion and conquest in Italy transformed Rome from a minor spot on the Tiber to the hegemonic power in the peninsula, but what did tha...
The First Punic War
20 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The First Punic War put Rome on the map as a major power in the Mediterranean. For 23 grueling years, the war between Rome and Carthage dragged on and...
How and Why Rome and Carthage Went to War in 264 BC
13 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
There was no particularly pressing reason for Rome and Carthage to go to war in 264 BC over the small city of Messana, but one small incident neverthe...
Rebroadcast: Peasants' Rebellions and Resistance
06 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The medieval world relied on peasants. They grew the food, maintained the buildings, produced the craft goods, and made up the vast bulk of the popula...
Soldiers and Labor Markets in the Hellenistic World: Interview with Dr. Charlotte van Regenmortel
27 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The decades after the death of Alexander the Great saw a massive increase in the scale and intensity of warfare over an area stretching from Italy to ...
Interview: Professor Lyndal Roper on the German Peasants' War
20 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The German Peasants' War was the largest popular revolt in Europe before the French Revolution, but it's largely been forgotten. Why? Professor Lyndal...
The Defeat of Pyrrhus and the Road to the Punic Wars
13 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Pyrrhus of Epirus won costly but clear victories over the Romans in their first battlefield meetings, but couldn't win the war. Rome's dogged determin...
Duels, Violence, and Conflict in Early Modern Europe: Interview with Professor Stuart Carroll
06 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Early modern Europe was a violent place, full of duels, bloody encounters, and decades-long feuds. In many ways, it was more fractious and dangerous t...
The Pyrrhic War
30 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
By 281 BC, Rome controlled much of Italy, but the city was still a minor player on the larger Mediterranean scene. That changed when King Pyrrhus of E...
King Pyrrhus of Epirus and a New Age of Mediterranean Politics
23 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
While the Punic Wars mark the stage of Roman history with which most people are familiar, Rome's entrance onto the stage of Mediterranean power politi...
The Tyrants of Syracuse and the Wars with Carthage
16 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
As the fourth century drew to a close, Rome wasn't the only rising power in the central Mediterranean; Syracuse and Carthage were battling for dominan...
Excavating a Scythian Royal Burial Mound: Interview with Dr. Gino Caspari
09 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Dr. Gino Caspari returns to discuss the extraordinary finds at his most recent excavation of an early (maybe the earliest) Scythian royal burial mound...
What If: Alexander the Great had Died at the Granicus River?
02 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
How would history look different if Alexander the Great had died in 334 BC? Would Macedonia still have conquered most of Asia?Patrick's book is now av...
The Birth of the Carthaginian Empire
26 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Carthage spent most of the fifth century BC building up its economy, but in the aftermath of the disastrous Athenian expedition to Sicily, the Carthag...
The Fall of the Carolingian Empire: Interview with Dr. David Perry
19 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Much of what we take for granted about the European Middle Ages was a product of the Carolingian dynasty, particularly its most notable member, Charle...
The End of the Age of the Successors
12 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
By the 280s BC, only a few of the men who had ridden the length and breadth of Asia with Alexander were still alive, and the world they had spent deca...
Being a Soldier During the Thirty Years War: Interview with Dr. Lucian Staiano-Daniels
05 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
What was it like to be a soldier during the Thirty Years War? I spoke with Dr. Lucian Staiano-Daniels, author of the upcoming book The War People: A S...
The Rise of the Hellenistic World
28 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Antigonus the One-Eyed came closer than almost any other figure in the post-Alexander world to recreating the dead king's empire, but his success arou...
Ancient DNA and the Iron Age Mediterranean: Interview with Dr. Hannah Moots
21 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Ancient DNA has transformed our understanding of the more distant reaches of the human past, but what can it tell us about more recent ages of history...
The Foundation of the Hellenistic Kingdoms
14 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
As the dust began to settle after Alexander's death, the possibility of one of his relatives truly ruling the dead king's empire grew smaller and smal...
The Successors of Alexander the Great
07 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
With mountains of treasure, huge armies, and ambitions that no amount of conquest could ever slake, Alexander's Successors spent the next 40 years aft...
The Death of Alexander the Great
31 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The last years of Alexander the Great's reign were a troubled time. The king wanted to keep fighting, but his soldiers were spent after years of campa...
Alexander the Great: Soldier, Priest, and God. Interview with Professor Fred Naiden
24 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Professor Fred Naiden wrote one of my favorite books on Alexander the Great - Soldier, Priest, and God - and it provides a much different view of Alex...
The Other Ancient Civilisations: Interview with Raven Todd DaSilva
17 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
When we think of the ancient world, we tend to think of just a few societies: Egypt, Mesopotamia, and so on. But the more distant reaches of the past ...
Alexander the Great, the End of the Persian Empire, and the Descent into India
10 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Alexander the Great's campaigns didn't end once he had defeated the Persian king Darius III and conquered the heart of his empire; he went still furth...
Henry V, the Greatest Medieval King: Interview with Dan Jones
03 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Henry V of England was the archetypal medieval king, a warrior par excellence whose example inspired English kings for centuries to come, the victor a...
Issus, Gaugamela, and Alexander's Conquest of Persia
26 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
It took Alexander just three years to effectively conquer the Persian Empire. Two decisive battles - Issus and Gaugamela - proved his supremacy over t...
The Fascinating History of Gladiators: Interview with Alexander Mariotti
19 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Gladiators are one of the most enduring symbols of the Roman world, but what do we really know about them? Gladiator historian Alexander Mariotti join...
Alexander the Great Invades Persia
12 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Alexander wasn't yet "The Great" when he invaded the westernmost provinces of the Persian Empire in 334 BC, but he quickly showed that he was a seriou...
The Assassination of Philip and the Rise of Alexander the Great
05 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Philip of Macedonia was a towering figure, and if he had been succeeded by anyone other than Alexander the Great, he would be far better known today. ...
Elite Networks, Mafia Families, and the Rise of Rome: Interview with Professor Nicola Terrenato
29 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
When we think of the rise of Rome, our usual image is one of conquest: Roman armies marching out year after year to subdue their adversaries. But Prof...
Philip the One-Eye and the Macedonian Conquest of Greece
22 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
We all know the name of Alexander the Great, but his father Philip the One-Eye was no less important a historical figure. In just 20 years, he turned ...
Philip the One-Eye and the Rise of Macedonia
15 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
For most of the history of ancient Greece, Macedonia was a backwater: a semi-barbarian kingdom on the fringes of the Greek world, only tangentially in...
Italy Before Rome: Interview with Dr. Kathryn Lomas
08 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
What was Italy like during the period of Rome's rise to power? Dr. Kathryn Lomas, author of The Rise of Rome: From the Iron Age to the Punic Wars, joi...
Summer Mailbag! Patrick Answers Your Questions
01 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
It's time for another mailbag! Patrick answers questions about the Axial Age, the best places to see Iron Age archaeology, and how to be a discerning ...
The Aftermath of the Peloponnesian War and the March of the 10,000 Greeks
25 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The famous Greco-Persian Wars didn't mark the end of the relationship between Persia and Greece, but its beginning. For the next 150 years, the seemin...
The Samnites and the Alternative to Rome
18 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
We tend to think of Rome's rise to power in Italy as inevitable, but it was far from guaranteed. Their most fearsome enemies within the Italian penins...
Summer Reading Recommendations
11 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
It's summer, which means it's time for some pleasure reading! Here are seven books that Patrick is recommending for your next summer reads:1) Svetlana...
The Roman Conquest of Italy
04 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
At the beginning of the 4th century BC, Rome was still not the dominant force in Latium, the small region surrounding the city; by the end of that cen...
The Great Gender Divergence: Interview with Dr. Alice Evans
27 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Gender is one of the fundamental forces structuring our world, but its impact is uneven in time and space. Dr. Alice Evans joins me to talk about the ...
Rome's Patrician Republic
20 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
By 450 BC, the Roman Republic was beginning to take on the outlines of a form we recognize, with elected magistrates, a Senate, and written laws. But ...
The Birth of the Roman Republic
13 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In 509 BC, the last king of Rome - Tarquinius Superbus - was expelled from the city, and the Republic was born. But what do we actually know about the...