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Of Myths and Mortals

Of Myths and Mortals

Written by: Jesse Owen
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Power, ambition, fear, violence, belief and reputation: the real people behind history's most enduring names.Copyright Jesse Owen World
Episodes
  • Bellerophon: The Hero Who Carried His Own Death Warrant

    Bellerophon: The Hero Who Carried His Own Death Warrant
    Aug 30 2026
    A queen’s accusation sends Bellerophon across the sea carrying the order for his own execution. He survives a fire-breathing monster, wars and an ambush, wins Pegasus, a royal marriage and a home—then reaches for heaven and ends farther from human company than ever. This is the brutal Greek story of borrowed power, clean-handed kings and a hero who could conquer everything except belonging. Full transcript: https://www.owenonthenet.com/podcasts/owens-history/bellerophon-24a7039c/ Sources: https://dcc.dickinson.edu/homer-iliad/intro/essay/vi-156-190 https://www.theoi.com/Text/Apollodorus2.html https://research.dial.uclouvain.be/bitstreams/563c2353-5bc7-40b4-95e2-edb687e85e76/download https://gantzmythsources.libs.uga.edu/chapter-10-perseus-and-bellerophontes-part-ii/bellerophontes/p-315/ https://api.repository.cam.ac.uk/server/api/core/bitstreams/da520dfc-e6c2-4e5c-af9f-8cb13403c70a/content https://www.uvm.edu/~jbailly/courses/jdhp/texts/hesiodtheogony104.html https://topostext.org/work/206 https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/ramus/article/myth-letters-and-the-poetics-of-ancestry-in-plautus-bacchides/84A9510FDAA57CE6C33DB916DFE48213 https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Odes_of_Pindar_(Myers)/Olympian_Odes/13 https://topostext.org/work/213 https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/classical-quarterly/article/reconsidering-euripides-bellerophon/46C4167C44149597327F2365B4BA0F6B
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    21 mins
  • Rome's New Man: Gaius Marius and the Power of Rescue

    Rome's New Man: Gaius Marius and the Power of Rescue
    Aug 11 2026
    Gaius Marius rose without consular ancestors to become the commander Roman voters repeatedly chose when established leaders failed. This is the story of the discipline, poor volunteers, hard victories and soldiers' rewards that made him Rome's great rescuer—and of the political power created when a republic began depending on one man's earned authority. Full transcript: https://www.owenonthenet.com/podcasts/owens-history/gaius-marius-bb26147c/ Sources: https://topostext.org/work/659 https://www.attalus.org/cicero/balbus.html https://www.attalus.org/cicero/rab_perd.html https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Lives/Marius*.html https://topostext.org/work/498 https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Velleius_Paterculus/home.html https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antichthon/article/plutarchs-laterepublican-lives-between-the-lines/56E842EAC9A9C8D12DE20DB5107A6E8F https://assets.cambridge.org/97805218/27881/excerpt/9780521827881_excerpt.pdf https://www.jstor.org/stable/45019313 https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:97aec7dd-e956-42b3-8ac1-59f722a07187/files/m79e8395fc7b59ac29535a937113ac081
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    31 mins
  • Marcus Aurelius: The Work of a Human Being

    Marcus Aurelius: The Work of a Human Being
    Aug 2 2026
    The Roman emperor remembered as a philosopher was not born serene, and his private notebook is not proof of a flawless life. This is the story of Marcus Aurelius learning Stoicism through demanding teachers, carrying its exercises into court, epidemic and frontier war, and repeatedly fighting fatigue, anger, distraction, vanity and fear. It follows the making of the Meditations, tests its ideals against the choices and limits of imperial rule, and asks why an unfinished practice of beginning again has survived the empire that produced it. Full transcript: https://www.owenonthenet.com/podcasts/owens-history/marcus-aurelius-a78b7c62/ Sources: https://classics.mit.edu/Antoninus/meditations.mb.txt https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2023/entries/marcus-aurelius/ https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Historia_Augusta/Marcus_Aurelius/1*.html https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Historia_Augusta/Marcus_Aurelius/2*.html https://www.judaism-and-rome.org/citizenship-african-headsman-tabula-banasitana-iam-ii-94 https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1129&context=fll_etds https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:14b2d582-c332-4128-869e-3f5f4d901436/files/m36c6a428405e6eea90a4dbb43ab49141 https://romanlegaltradition.org/contents/2010/RLT6-COLORIO.PDF https://una-editions.fr/the-study-of-the-antonine-plague-and-other-roman-pandemics/ https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/empire-and-religion-in-the-roman-world/germs-and-empire/6B4EF47A8FFE223AC3ADB0E40DBA1142 https://www.judaism-and-rome.org/eusebius-caesarea-ecclesiastical-history-iv131-8 https://resources.metmuseum.org/resources/metpublications/pdf/Roman_Portraits_Sculptures_in_Stone_and_Bronze.pdf https://camws.org/sites/default/files/meeting2016/213.AureliusandVerus.pdf https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-companion-to-marcus-aurelius-meditations/marcus-aurelius/CEC14E78800BD258012CAA0FB8DB2DE7
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    24 mins
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