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, speechesAeschines, speechesAbout 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....

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 Nichola...

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 ...

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 H...

Anthony Kaldellis joins me in the lesche to discuss an edited volume he's working, 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, BibliothecaEustathius of Thessalonica's comme...

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 Alu...

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. An...

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) Aristo...

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 ...

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, MedeaAvianus/Aesop, "The Satyr and the Traveler"Euripides, MedeaHerodotus (esp. 3.38, on the Callatiae)Hesiod, TheogonyPalaephatus, "On Unbelivable Tales" (Περὶ ἀπίστων)Plato, PhaedrusTheocri...

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, FrogsAristotle, Politics Boo...

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 OsirisAlso 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...

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, MedeaVirgil, 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), es...

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 Arnold ...

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 enjoyed 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...

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...

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 publicationsChristy Constantakopoulou, The Dance of the Islands (Cambridge 2007). NB: Christy was a featured guest on the second(!) episode of ...

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 GilgameshThe Hebrew BibleVarious Sumerian and Akkadian texts about Sargon, Dumuzi/Tammuz, and InannaIliad, esp. Book 1Homeric Hymn to AphroditeHerodotus Book 1, esp. on Gyges and Cyrus the GreatCtesias, Persi...

Carol Atack joins me in the Lesche to discuss Plato's civic entanglements (and disenchantments) with his native Athens. Carol is the author of a new biography of Plato titled Plato: A Civic Life (Reaktion Books 2025). The book is the second in a new series, Great Lives of the Ancient World, edited by Paul Cartledge. Ancient texts Plato: lots and lotsXenophon's Socratic worksIsocrates, Against the sophistsAbout our guest Carol Atack is a fellow and Director of Studies in C...

Josh Billings and Christopher Moore join me in the Lesche to discuss the fifth-century BCE 'sophists', the subject of their new edited volume The Cambridge Companion to the Sophists. Works and fragments of the 'sophists' are most easily accessible in: André​ Laks, Glenn W. Most, Early Greek Philosophy. 9 volumes. Loeb Classical Library, 524-532​. Cambridge, MA; London: Harvard University Press, 2016. Primary texts Lots, but especially Works of the Presocratic philosophersGorgias, Encomium of ...