The Maritime History Podcast

Welcome to our third annual Halloween special here at the Maritime History Podcast. Rather than choose a grim, frightening, or eery tale, this year I felt that a more lighthearted fare was in order. This story was written by an Englishman named Richard Middleton. It tells of a quiet countryside village named Fairfield where the townsfolk are as comfortable with the ghosts that populate the village as they are with their neighbors. After a storm one night, a villager finds a ghostly ship at anchor in his turnip garden, and the story continues to elaborate the rather humorous consequences of having a ghost ship in temporary residence in "the ghostliest place in all England."

Backing music for this story comes courtesy of Danish pianist Peter Bille Larsen. This specific song is Piano Nocturne No. 2 (A Loving Venus Brought You Stars).

Direct download: The_Ghost_Ship_-_by_Richard_Middleton.mp3
Category:history -- posted at: 8:34pm CDT

If Episode 031 covered the heady, opening stages of the Ionian Revolt, then today's episode covers the denouement and rather anticlimactic conclusion of the revolt. At the start of the episode we follow Aristagoras as he goes on a recruiting trip to Sparta and Athens, using a world map to try and sway the Spartan king into joining the revolt. Athenian ships join the revolt, but after some early success in Ionia, Athens quickly withdraws. She has gained the attention of the Persian king by briefly aiding Ionia, but before Darius repays Athenian meddling he resubjugates Ionia and the surrounding regions. The end of the Ionian Revolt and Darius' campaign to retake Ionia centers on Miletus, naturally. The conclusion of our episode focuses on the naval battle that brought an end to the revolt, a letdown of a naval encounter off the island of Lade. Herodotus gives us some great detail about the training of the Ionian navy and the events of the battle itself, so today's episode takes us all over the ancient Greek world.

Direct download: 032_-_The_Letdown_at_Lade.mp3
Category:history -- posted at: 8:37pm CDT

In today's episode we begin our look at the events that directly contributed to the beginnings of the Greco-Persian War. After a brief summation of the events that brought the early Persian Empire into contact with the Ionian Greeks, we take a look at the evidence and theories about what the naval situation was like in the Aegean during the late 6th century BCE. We then consider how and why Persia went about building up its navy, including how Ionian Greek cities fit into the Persian system once they were subjugated. We then meet a tyrant of Miletus, Aristagoras, who's ambition and cunning spurred an Ionian/Persian invasion of Naxos, where a fleet of 200 ships besieged the island. Following this attempted invasion, we conclude by seeing how Miletus and an Ionian confederation decided to instead seize part of the Persian navy and start revolt against the empire from the east. Somewhere in there we also consider a unique form of punishment aboard a trireme.

Direct download: 031.mp3
Category:history -- posted at: 8:23pm CDT

Today we have a lengthy primer focused only on the trireme. After a jaunt through some of the evidence related to when the trireme first came into use on the seas of ancient Greece and the Near East we then take a deep dive into the numerous aspects of the ship itself. We discuss the materials used by ancient shipwrights, the process of building and outfitting a trireme, and the design of this ship that set it apart from the oared galleys of archaic Greece. The trireme was essentially an oar-powered maritime missile, so we then outline the various sailors who made up the typical 200-man contingent of each trireme. The trierarch functioned as a ship captain, and from there we meet the other 199 men, 170 of whom were oarsmen. Much of what we know about the trireme has been confirmed via the reconstruction of Olympias and the ensuing sea trials that she underwent. After a bit about Olympias, we conclude with a look at the naval tactics that developed in the wake of the trireme taking over the naval scene in ancient Greece. All in all, what we've got is a 105-minute ode to the most important ship of the ancient world: the trireme.

Direct download: 030_-_Trireme_101-_How_to_Build_Sail_and_Ram_an_Ancient_Greek_Warship.mp3
Category:history -- posted at: 4:51pm CDT

In this installment, we continue to follow the Greeks as they expand yet further. Our first destination is Egypt, where the Greek emporion at Naukratis was set up by a diverse group of mercenaries and traders. The recently discovered port of Thonis-Heraklion also makes an appearance, and we see that mercenary sailors worked for the pharaoh at various times. Greece also like Egyptian prostitutes, apparently. The second part of the episode focuses on the extent of Greek meddling in the far western Mediterranean. There the Phocaeans founded Massalia, and tried to get on friendly terms with the locals. But, Cyrus the Great sacked Phocaea in 546 BCE and the Greeks fled to the colony of Alalia on the island of Corsica. Feeling hard done, the Greeks turned to piracy and thereby united Carthage and the Etruscans against them, which resulted in the Battle of the Sardinian Sea. We cover a lot of ground in today's episode!

Direct download: 029_-_Trade_with_Egypt_Conflict_with_Carthage.mp3
Category:history -- posted at: 8:23pm CDT

In today's installment, we'll tell a tale of two cities in one sense. The age of colonization in Greece had an early leader in the island of Euboea, but as the Euboeans were stretched thin, Corinth and Miletus rose to become the leaders of Greek colonization. We'll look at the wealth that Corinth controlled thanks partially to her location, but also to the diolkos and other maritime innovations that she instituted. Our second city of focus is Miletus, the 'jewel of Ionia'. She was at the forefront of the Greek push into the Euxine Sea, or, the Black Sea. So after laying out the geography of the 'Pontus Euxinus' and her approaches, we'll look at the colonies, resources, and importance of the Greek effort to unlock the Black Sea. We also consider the aeinautae, a group of magistrates who ruled Miletus by sailing out to sea and weighing anchor until they'd made whatever decision was at hand. An interesting method of governing, to be sure.

Direct download: 028_-_Unlocking_the_Pontus_Euxinus.mp3
Category:history -- posted at: 9:07pm CDT

1