All Episodes

#	Episode Title	Text(s)	Author	Timeframe	Description	Duration	Listen	Read	Quiz
Season 1: Ancient Literature (18:05:00)
1	The Tower of Babel	Cuneiform	Unknown	BCE 3100-539	For thousands of years, cuneiform was the means of transmitting information through space and time in the Ancient Near East. Then, something happened.	01:28:00
2	Before the Flood	Enuma Elish and Atrahasis	Unknown	BCE 1700-1500	The Enuma Elish and the Atrahasis, in circulation 3,800 years ago, were Mesopotamia’s creation and flood epics, making them 1,000 years older than Genesis.	01:11:00
3	He Who Saw the Deep	The Epic of Gilgamesh	Unknown	BCE 1500-1100	The Epic of Gilgamesh, composed 3,000-5,000 years ago, and first translated in the 1860s and 70s, was one of the greatest literary discoveries of all time.	01:01:00
4	Divine Judgment	The Book of the Dead	Unknown	BCE 1550	In the 3,500 year old Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead, we can find the roots of the world’s religions.	00:48:00
5	Beneath the Obelisks	Ancient Egyptian folktales	Unknown	BCE 2000-1800	We know about Ancient Egypt’s pyramids, temples, and sarcophagi. What about its folktales and stories?	00:53:00
6	The Pros and Cons of Wisdom	Ancient Egyptian wisdom literature	Unknown	BCE 1100	Ancient Egypt produced a great deal of proverbs and wisdom literature. Some of it even slipped into the bible. But how wise is wisdom literature?	00:49:00
7	Hesiod’s Lands and Seasons	Works and Days	Hesiod	BCE 700s	Before Aristotle, Socrates, and Plato, there was a grouchy farmer poet whose Works and Days continues to fascinate us.	01:10:00
8	Before Orthodoxy	The Theogony	Hesiod	BCE 700s	Elementals, giants, titans and gods! Hesiod’s Theogony chronicles a great war – one which would leave a single entity sovereign over the cosmos.	00:57:00
9	Glittering Bronze Men	The Iliad	Homer	BCE 700s	The Iliad, Books 1-8. Homer’s Iliad is the Tyrannosaurus Rex of ancient epics. And at the core of its 24 books is one shiny metal.	01:51:00
10	Homer’s Gods	The Iliad	Homer	BCE 700s	The Iliad, Books 9-16. The violent and spellbinding middle books of the Iliad leave us with questions about Homer’s theology.	01:47:00
11	Who Was Homer?	The Iliad	Homer	BCE 700s	The Iliad, Books 17-24. As the Iliad reaches its spectacular climax, it’s time to ask a big question. Who wrote it?	01:41:00
12	Kleos and Nostos	The Odyssey	Homer	BCE 700s	The Odyssey, Books 1-8. Adventure, monsters, temptresses, and a whole lot of wine-dark Aegean. Learn all about the world of Homer’s Odyssey.	01:47:00
13	His Mind Teeming	The Odyssey	Homer	BCE 700s	The Odyssey, Books 9-16. The most famous part of Homer’s Odyssey sees Odysseus through perilous adventures and begins to give us a sense of who he is.	01:48:00
14	The Autumn Leaves	The Odyssey	Homer	BCE 700s	The Odyssey, Books 17-24. As we reach the violent climax of Odysseus’ great adventures, it’s time to spend some time considering Homer’s worldview.	02:11:00
Bonus Series: Before Yahweh (07:30:00)
Season 2: The Old Testament (16:11:00)
15	Canaan	Biblical Archaeology	n/a	BCE 1670-586	The Old Testament, Part 1 of 10. 1207 BCE. Two world empires. And between them, an unassuming strip of seacoast land that has been at the center of history, ever since.	01:32:00
16	Four Main Parts	The Old Testament	various	BCE 750-50	The Old Testament, Part 2 of 10. There are tons of books, thousands of proper nouns, and many versions of the Old Testament. But all of it fits into four main parts.	01:14:00
17	Roots of the Pentateuch	Genesis-Deuteronomy	various	BCE 750-50	The Old Testament, Part 3 of 10. Hear the Biblical story of creation and the first founders of Israel, and the texts that may have influenced this story.	01:56:00
18	The 613 Commandments	Genesis-Deuteronomy	various	BCE 750-50	The Old Testament, Part 4 of 10. Eden, the Flood, the Commandments– all fine. But what’s with all the stuff about tents, sacrifices, and – uh – testicles?	01:44:00
19	The One Who Struggles with God	Joshua-Esther	various	BCE 750-50	The Old Testament, Part 5 of 10. The Historical Books tell of Israel’s conflicts with Syria, Assyria, Egypt, and finally, exile to the corridors of Babylon.	02:08:00
20	The Problem of Evil	The Book of Job	various	BCE 750-50	The Old Testament, Part 6 of 10. If God is so good, then why do the good and innocent suffer? The Book of Job’s aim is to answer this question.	01:28:00
21	The Bible’s Magic Trick	The Book of Psalms	various	BCE 750-50	The Old Testament, Part 7 of 10. In the Book of Psalms, a single, fascinating, familiar linguistic device propels the world’s most famous poems.	01:24:00
22	Fatalism	Ecclesiastes	various	BCE 750-50	The Old Testament, Part 8 of 10. If there is one Biblical book that explains all of life, thick and thin, love and anguish, that book is probably Ecclesiastes.	01:34:00
23	Love, Desire, Exegesis	The Song of Songs	various	BCE 750-50	The Old Testament, Part 9 of 10. What’s the Song of Songs doing in the Bible? Is it a pious hymn to God, or just a couple of horny lovers talking to each other?	01:18:00
24	God May Relent	The Prophetic Books	various	BCE 750-50	The Old Testament, Part 10 of 10. The seventeen Prophetic Books, produced during war and diaspora, are both despairingly bleak and searingly hopeful.	01:53:00
Bonus Series: The Astounding Apocrypha (08:07:00)
Season 3: Classical and Hellenistic Greece (29:19:00)
25	Lyrical Ballistics	Archaic Greek Poetry	various	BCE 750-500	The work of Sappho, Pindar, and other remarkable Greek lyric poets makes us question everything we think we know about poetry, what it is, and what it does.	01:53:00
26	Ancient Greek Theater	The History of Classical Athenian Theater	n/a	BCE 508-404	Masks. Choruses. Huge prosthetic penises. Before you read Sophocles, Euripides, and company, it’s a good idea to know a bit about Ancient Greek theater.	01:30:00
27	The Bloody King	Agamemnon	Aeschylus	BCE 458	Aeschylus’ Oresteian Trilogy, 1 of 3. A terrible family curse. A wronged queen. The Trojan War was only the start of the bloodshed.	01:53:00
28	A Mother’s Curse	The Libation Bearers	Aeschylus	BCE 458	Aeschylus’ Oresteian Trilogy, 2 of 3. The infernal House of Atreus had witnessed almost every imaginable act of depravity. Except for one.	01:37:00
29	The Mound and the Furies	The Eumenides	Aeschylus	BCE 458	Aeschylus’ Oresteian Trilogy, 3 of 3. Pursued all the away to Athens by the monstrous Furies, will Orestes prevail, or be torn apart?	01:29:00
30	Two Legs in the Afternoon	Oedipus the King	Sophocles	BCE 429	Sophocles’ Theban Plays, 1 of 3. Oedipus the King is one of literature’s great stories. It’s also a haunting window into the fears of war torn Athens in 429 BCE.	01:54:00
31	The Requiem at Athens	Oedipus at Colonus	Sophocles	BCE 401	Sophocles’ Theban Plays, 2 of 3. Oedipus at Colonus, out of the ashes of the Peloponnesian War, is a story about a man who has lost everything but his own dignity.	01:29:00
32	Trees Bending to the Torrent	Antigone	Sophocles	BCE 441	Sophocles’ Theban Plays, 3 of 3. Antigone is a timeless and dark story about a clash of wills. But it’s also fascinating snapshot of the philosophical brawls of 5th-century BCE Athens.	01:59:00
33	Woman the Barbarian	Medea	Euripides	BCE 431	Euripides’ Medea is Ancient Greece’s most famous play. But what did it mean to the Athenians in 431 BCE who watched it on the Acropolis?	01:57:00
34	The Traditions of Our Forefathers	The Bacchae	Euripides	BCE 405	Euripides’ The Bacchae, one of the darkest and bloodiest works of Ancient Greek tragedy, is about the spread of cult religions during the late Peloponnesian War.	02:06:00
35	The Great Thundercrap	The Clouds	Aristophanes	BCE 423	Aristophanes’ The Clouds is a dazzling satire on Athenian philosophy, showing a very different Socrates than Plato’s.	01:39:00
36	War and Peace and Sex	Lysistrata	Aristophanes	BCE 411	Aristophanes’ Lysistrata, with all of its nudity, sex, and explicit language, was nonetheless his most powerful salvo against the Peloponnesian War.	01:40:00
37	The New Comedy	Old Cantankerous	Menander	BCE 316	Menander’s Old Cantankerous (316 BCE), produced during the New Comedy period, shows theater beginning to take on its modern form.	01:36:00
38	The Epic Anti-Hero	Jason and the Argonauts	Apollonius	BCE 250 (c)	Jason and the Argonauts, Books 1-2. Journey with Jason to find the Golden Fleece, and learn about the Greco-Egyptian writer, Apollonius of Rhodes.	01:51:00
39	Medea and the Argonauts	Jason and the Argonauts	Apollonius	BCE 250 (c)	Apollonius’ Jason and the Argonauts, Books 3-4. Mesmerizing Medea takes center stage at the Argonautica’s end, dominating the epic’s events.	01:36:00
40	Hellenism and the Birth of the Self	n/a	n/a	BCE 330-30	The Hellenistic period – 330-30 BCE, saw Alexander’s successor kingdoms rotting away in the east, the rise of Rome, and the birth of modern consciousness.	01:55:00
41	Everything So Far	n/a	n/a	n/a	A retrospective of everything L&H has covered so far, plus some special announcements.	01:22:00
Bonus Series: Rad Greek Myths (15:14:00)
Season 4: Roman Literature (64:20:00)
42	The Beginnings of Roman Literature	n/a	various	BCE 364-160	Roman literature grew slowly from Greek traditions during the 300s and 200s BCE. Learn about its earliest figures, and how they paved the way for the age of Cicero.	01:50:00
43	On the Move	The Rope	Plautus	BCE 195-85	Plautus (c. 254-184 BCE) was a prolific comedy writer. His late play, The Rope, captures the dizzying changes sweeping Rome after the Second Punic War.	01:55:00
44	Homo Sum	The Brothers	Terence	BCE 160	The Roman playwright Terence (c. 184-159 BCE) produced a string of brilliant comedies in the 160s BCE. His masterpiece, The Brothers, continues to astonish us today.	01:55:00
45	The Uncuttables	On the Nature of Things	Lucretius	c. BCE 60	Lucretius (c. 94-53 BCE) is our most important source for Epicurean philosophy, perhaps the most misunderstood school of thought from the ancient world.	01:50:00
46	The Republic at Twilight	Cicero’s Early Life and the Late Republic	Cicero	BCE 106-80	Cicero (106-43 BCE) was the undisputed master of the Latin language. During his first thirty years, he witnessed events that heralded the Republic’s end.	01:32:00
47	O Tempora, O Mores!	Cicero’s Career Up to 62 BCE	Cicero	BCE 106-80	The story of Cicero’s career is an epic tale, filled with courtroom dramas, corruption, conspiracy, greed, and Cicero’s own enduring hope for a better future.	01:42:00
48	The Right and the Expedient	Cicero’s Career After 62 BCE	Cicero	BCE 106-80	Following his consulship, Cicero did his best to salvage the battered Republic, eventually going head to head with the powerful young general Mark Antony.	01:35:00
49	The Strange Roots of Love	The Poetry of Catullus	Catullus	BCE 84-54	Catullus (c. 85-54 BCE) is Rome’s most famous early poet. Departing from epic tradition, Catullus wrote a canon of short works that have been famous since antiquity.	01:54:00
50	Our Brutal Age	The Poetry of Horace	Horace	BCE 35-13	The Roman poet Horace (65-8 BCE), a contemporary of Augustus, endured wars, regime changes, and became a literary spokesman for the new principate.	01:52:00
51	Horace and Augustan Poetry	The Poetry of Horace	Horace	BCE 35-13	Horace (65-8 BCE) was a central figure in shaping Augustan Age tastes in satire and literary criticism. His bumbling, self conscious persona has been charming readers for millenia.	01:43:00
52	White Flowers Die	The Eclogues	Virgil	BCE 38	Virgil’s Eclogues (c. 38 BCE) are poems about country life. Far from being innocent celebrations, though, they are often cryptic, and filled with a haunting darkness.	01:50:00
53	Then Came Hard Iron	The Georgics	Virgil	BCE 29	Virgil’s Georgics (c. 29 BCE), or agriculture poems, show the poet reaching his full strength as a writer, and using an old form to analyze the history around him.	01:53:00
54	Out of Troy	The Aeneid Books 1-3	Virgil	BCE 19	Virgil’s Aeneid, Books 1-3. The Aeneid is Rome’s great epic. Learn the story of its first three books, and when and why Virgil began writing it.	02:13:00
55	Among the Shades	The Aeneid Books 4-6	Virgil	BCE 19	Virgil’s Aeneid, Books 4-6. The story of Dido and Aeneas, and his subsequent journey to the underworld, is the heart of Rome’s most famous poem.	02:23:00
56	I Shall Release Hell	The Aeneid Books 7-9	Virgil	BCE 19	Virgil’s Aeneid, Books 7-9. Aeneas’ arrival in Italy begins auspiciously enough, but soon things take a turn for the worse.	01:58:00
57	The World Grows Dim and Black	The Aeneid Books 10-12	Virgil	BCE 19	Virgil’s Aeneid, Books 10-12. The end of Rome’s great epic is about something Romans of Virgil’s generation knew very well indeed. War.	01:58:00
58	She Caught Me with Her Eyes	The Poetry of Propertius	Propertius	BCE 29-15	Propertius (c. 50-1 BCE) took the Latin elegiac form to new heights of complexity and passion, even weaving subtle satire throughout his work.	01:44:00
59	Early Ovid	The Amores and Heroides	Ovid	BCE 23-3	The love poetry of Ovid (43 BCE-17 CE) was standard Latin curriculum for hundreds of years, but it was also the product of a very specific historical moment.	01:30:00
60	How to Make Love to a Roman	The Ars Amatoria and Remedia Amoris	Ovid	BCE 4	Ovid’s Art of Love is ancient Rome’s manual of seduction – a record of the steamier side of the Augustan Age.	01:50:00
61	Changes of Shape	The Metamorphoses, Books 1-5	Ovid	CE 8	This book influenced thousands of years of later literature, and remains one of our best source texts on classical mythology.	02:14:00
62	A Curious Passion	The Metamorphoses, Books 6-10	Ovid	CE 8	Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Books 6-10. In the middle portion of Ovid’s great poem, psychological transformations become as gripping as physical ones.	02:07:00
63	All Is In Flux	The Metamorphoses, Books 11-15	Ovid	CE 8	Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Books 11-15. The vast Metamorphoses draws to a resonant conclusion as Ovid brings his great poem to Rome itself.	02:11:00
64	Ovid’s Exile	The Tristia and Epistulae Ex Ponto	Ovid	CE 8-13	For mysterious reasons, in 8 CE, Ovid was exiled from Rome. Ovid’s last works were composed an ocean away from Italy, on the western shore of the Black Sea.	01:39:00
65	Seneca and the Julio-Claudians	The Life and Works of Seneca the Younger	Seneca	CE 40-65	Seneca the Younger (c 1 BCE-65 CE) practiced the philosophy of stoicism over the course of several volatile, and very different imperial reigns.	02:07:00
66	Stoicism, Seneca, St. Paul	Senecan Philosophy, Acts, and the Epistles	Seneca	CE 40-65	Stoicism, starting with Zeno in 300 BCE, was a popular philosophy by the lifetime of Seneca, perhaps even making its way into the New Testament.	01:34:00
67	Jaws Dripping Blood	Thyestes	Seneca	CE 54-65	Seneca’s Thyestes, probably written around the 50s CE, is one of the most horrifying and influential plays ever written.	01:13:00
68	Love Means Sin	Phaedra	Seneca	CE 54-65	Seneca’s Phaedra (c 50s CE) is the story of an illicit passion, a stoic cautionary tale and simultaneously vivid character study.	01:35:00
69	Rome’s Comic Novel	The Satyricon	Petronius	CE 60-3	Petronius’ Satyricon is a contender for history’s first novel, a picaresque filled with sex, misadventures, and details about daily life.	02:00:00
70	Rome’s Forgotten Epic	The Thebaid	Statius	CE 92	Statius’ Thebaid, Books 1-6. This epic is hardly ever read or taught these days, but in 100 CE, it was as famous as anything in the Roman world.	01:55:00
71	The Gods Depart	The Thebaid	Statius	CE 92	Statius’ Thebaid, Books 7-12. Six hundred years after Aeschylus, Statius once again brought the Theban epic to a thunderous conclusion.	02:16:00
72	Bread and Circuses	Juvenal’s Satires	Juvenal	CE 100-130	Juvenal’s Satires, produced some time in the decades around 100 CE, mercilessly mock some of the more colorful aspects of Roman life.	01:51:00
73	The Golden Ass	The Golden Ass	Apuleius	c. 160 CE	Apuleius’ The Golden Ass is Ancient Rome’s only novel to survive in full – a strange, often disturbing fairytale that had a huge influence on posterity.	02:35:00
74	Marcus Aurelius	The Meditations	Marcus Aurelius	c. 165-180 CE	Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations shows an intelligent emperor coping with the realities of an empire buckling under its own weight.	01:51:00
75	Dusk and Starlight	None	None	100-800 CE	A retrospective on the material we’ve covered thus far as we head into Early Christianity and Late Antiquity, plus some announcements.	02:06:00
Bonus Series: More Greek Plays (09:21:00)
Bonus Series: Christianity’s Roots (09:51:00)
Season 5: The New Testament and Early Christianity (21:46:00)
76	Judea Under Herod	None	None	73-4 BCE	The Roman client king Herod (c. 73-4 BCE) ruled Judea for thirty years. Learn about his rule, and the political and religious climate of Judea just before the birth of Christ.	01:52:00
77	The Gospels	Matthew, Mark, Luke and John	Various	c. 60-90 CE	Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are the heart of the New Testament. And today, historians and Biblical scholars know more about them than ever before.	02:40:00
78	The Book of Acts	The New Testament Book of Acts	Anonymous	c. 85 CE	The story of Christianity’s first missionaries is a sweeping , intercontinental narrative, filled with danger, strange encounters, and the hope for a better future.	02:16:00
79	The Pauline Epistles	The Letters of Saint Paul	Paul of Tarsus et. al.	c. 50-65 CE	Possibly the most influential theologian in history, Paul codified and clarified Christianity as it emerged into the diverse world of the Eastern Mediterranean.	02:17:00
80	The General Epistles	The Epistles of James, John, Peter and Jude	Various	c. 50-120 CE	The later epistles of the New Testament show early Christian theology expanding and evolving in the ancient Mediterranean.	02:04:00
81	Revelation	The Apocalypse of John	John of Patmos	c. 70-100 CE	One of the most spectacular pieces of writing in the world’s religious texts, Revelation influenced generations of writers and theologians.	02:18:00
82	Zoroastrianism	The Avesta and Early History of Zoroastrianism	n/a	1,000 BCE – 1,000 CE	Learn the basic tenets and early history of Zoroastrianism, one of the most important and widespread religions in the ancient world, and possibly earth’s oldest living monotheism.	02:19:00
83	Gnosticism	The Nag Hammadi Library, Codex Tchacos, and Berlin Codex	n/a	c. 100-500 CE	The Nag Hammadi Library, Codex Tchacos, and Berlin Codex, as they came to light in the twentieth century, radically changed our understanding of early Christianity.	02:16:00
84	Manichaeism	Manichaean Texts from Egypt and Xinjiang	n/a	c. 224-500 CE	After 300 CE, Manichaeism spread quickly from its origins in modern day Iraq and Iran. Recent archaeological discoveries have finally allowed us to learn about it firsthand.	01:59:00
85	River	A retrospective of Early Christianity	n/a	n/a	A primer on Biblical canon formation, retrospective on what we’ve covered so far, and introduction to the upcoming season.	01:56:00
Bonus Series: The Rejected Scriptures (10:20:00)
Season 6: Late Antiquity (current)
86	An Introduction to Late Antiquity	n/a	n/a	c. 200-700 CE	Once pervasively described as a period of fall and decline, today Late Antiquity is often understood as a period of cultural flowering and economic revolution.	02:23:00
87	Lucian of Samosata	The Short Works of Lucian	Lucian of Samosata	c. 160-180 CE	The satirist Lucian (c. 125-180) was popular in his own time and during the Renaissance, among other things probably being the first author of science fiction.	01:42:00
88	Ancient Greek Sci-fi	A True Story	Lucian of Samosata	c. 160-180 CE	In roughly the 160s CE, the Greek satirist Lucian of Samosata wrote A True Story, one of history’s earliest surviving novels, with strong tinges of what we’d call science fiction.	01:56:00
89	The Aethiopica of Heliodorus	The Aethiopica	Heliodorus of Emesa	c. 250-370 CE	Heliodorus of Emesa (3rd/4th century CE) wrote the longest novel to have survived from antiquity, an adventurous romance that reemerged into Europe in the 1500s.	02:12:00
90	Ante-Nicene Catholicism	n/a	n/a	c. 60-200 CE	Learn the documentary history behind how the Catholic Church was founded and set up as an organization, together with some of the works of the earliest church fathers.	02:04:00
91	The Passion of Perpetua and Felicity	The Martyr Narrative of Saint Perpetua of Carthage	unknown	c. 203-9 CE	In Carthage, in 203 CE, a Roman noblewoman and her retinue were butchered in an amphitheater. Learn her story, and the earliest history of Christian martyrs.	02:12:00
92	Athanasius’ Life of Antony	Early Christian Eremitic Saints’ Lives	Athanasius	c. 355-95 CE	Athanasius (c. 297-373) wrote a wildly popular biography of the desert hermit St. Anthony, touting the ideals of asceticism and triumph over demonic temptation.	02:06:00
93	Severus’ Life of Saint Martin	The Life of Saint Martin and Priscillianist Controversy	Sulpicius Severus	c. 397 CE	Sulpicius Severus’ (c. 363-425) Life of Saint Martin is one of the great hagiographies – a portrait of a timeless saint, but also of a human being and working bishop.	01:58:00
94	Ausonius	The Poetry of Ausonius	Ausonius	c. 330-390 CE	One of the later Latin poets of the Empire, Ausonius’ expansive body of work gives us a window into the changing world of fourth-century Roman culture.	01:53:00
95	Rutilius Namatianus	De Reditu Suo	Rutilius Namatianus	c. 417 CE	In 417 CE, the Roman poet Rutilius Namatianus journeyed from Rome back to his homeland of Gaul, not knowing whether there was a home to return to.	02:03:00
96	The Last Pagan Epic	The Dionysiaca, Books 1-24	Nonnus	Fifth Century CE	The last epic from Greco-Roman antiquity that survives in full, Nonnus’ fifth-century Dionysiaca tells of the wine god Dionysus’ journey eastward, to India.	02:14:00
97	Blood and Ivy	The Dionysiaca, Books 25-48	Nonnus	Fifth Century CE	The Dionysiaca, Part 2 of 2. The last surviving Greek epic of antiquity draws to a close with Dionysus fighting wars far to the east, in India.	02:32:00
98	The Life and Works of Saint Jerome	Saint Jerome’s Generation and Catholic Theology, 370-420	Jerome	370-420	Polyglot Jerome (347-420) had a gigantic impact on all subsequent Christian history, leaving behind a huge body of works, including the Latin Bible.	02:10:00
99	The Boy Who Stole Pears	The Confessions, Books 1-7	Augustine of Hippo	397-400	Augustine’s Confessions, Part 1 of 2. The first half of Augustine’s Confessions tells of his wayward early years, his intellectual journey, and his spiritual awakening.	01:55:00
100	Late Have I Loved You	The Confessions, Books 8-13	Augustine of Hippo	397-400	Augustine’s Confessions, Part 2 of 2. The second half of Augustine’s Confessions contains some of the most famous theology in Christian history.	02:05:00
101	Against the Pagans	The City of God, Books 1-10	Augustine of Hippo	413-17	Augustine’s City of God, Part 1 of 2. The first half of the City of God is a broadside against paganism – its culture, religion, and history, subjects about which Augustine had much to say.	02:16:00
102	An Old Man’s Book	The City of God, Books 11-22	Augustine of Hippo	417-27	Augustine’s City of God, Part 2 of 2. The second half of the City of God contains some of Late Antiquity’s most influential writings – most notably Augustine’s take on Original Sin.	02:28:00
103	Boethius	On the Consolation of Philosophy	Boethius	523	In the twilight of the Western Empire, Boethius (c. 476-523) served as consul, but ended his life imprisoned by the Ostrogothic King Theodoric, writing The Consolation of Philosophy.	02:21:00
104	An Introduction to the Talmud	The Babylonian Talmud	Various	100-600 CE	Second only to the Tanakh, the 63 tractates of the Talmud are the main text of Rabbinic Judaism, containing the teachings of thousands of ancient rabbis.	02:21:00
105	Gregory of Tours, Part 1	The History of the Franks	Gregory of Tours	591 CE	Gregory of Tours (c. 539-594) completed The History of the Franks in 591. The long book’s account of Clovis and the Merovingian Dynasty has been one of our most important sources on early Medieval History, ever since.	02:27:00
106	Gregory of Tours, Part 2	The History of the Franks	Gregory of Tours	591 CE	The second half of the History of the Franks (591) is a deep dive into the grime and intrigue of the Merovingian dynasty, written in a style that’s as medieval as it is classical.	02:08:00
107	Venantius Fortunatus	The Court Poetry of Venantius Fortunatus	Venantius Fortunatus	~566-600	The Merovingian court poet Venantius Fortunatus (c. 530-600), at work in Francia in the late 500s, shows us the world of the Middle Ages blooming from Roman ruins.	02:12:00