Of the estimated 1,500 plays written in ancient Greece, only 33 complete works survive today—the rest were lost because medieval scribes deemed low-brow comedies and mass entertainment unworthy of expensive parchment during the transition from fragile papyrus to durable vellum, prioritizing canonical tragedies and Christian-compatible texts over Menander's seriocomic dramas and experimental works about shapeshifting heroes. The only reason we know anything about hundreds of these vanished plays is Joannes Stobaeus's fifth-century AD Anthologion, a four-volume anthology of excerpts from over 500 Greek authors compiled to educate his son Septimius, preserving bite-sized quotations that warn good people don't always prosper, power favors the shameless, and politics rarely rewards the just.

Today's guest is James Romm, author of Since You're Mortal: Life Lessons from the Lost Greek Plays. We discuss how Stobaeus reveals lost works like Sophocles' Achilles' Lovers featured shapeshifting and humanized heroes far more experimental than surviving plays, why some of the lost plays may have deserved to disspear forever (sort of like VHS copies of B-movies like Deathbed: The Bed that Eats that are rotting away on thrift store shelves and haven’t been transferred to HD format) and how Romm became the first scholar to translate many of these fragments as poetry for English-language readers, restoring the rhythmic force that made them memorable on the ancient stage.

Of the estimated 1,500 plays written in ancient Greece, only 33 complete works survive today&mdash;the rest were lost because medieval scribes deemed low-brow comedies and mass entertainment unworthy of expensive parchment during the transition from fragile papyrus to durable vellum, prioritizing canonical tragedies and Christian-compatible texts over Menander's seriocomic dramas and experimental works about shapeshifting heroes. The only reason we know anything about hundreds of these vanished plays is Joannes Stobaeus's fifth-century AD Anthologion, a four-volume anthology of excerpts from over 500 Greek authors compiled to educate his son Septimius, preserving bite-sized quotations that warn good people don't always prosper, power favors the shameless, and politics rarely rewards the just.
Today's guest is James Romm, author of Since You're Mortal: Life Lessons from the Lost Greek Plays. We discuss how Stobaeus reveals lost works like Sophocles' Achilles' Lovers featured shapeshifting and humanized heroes far more experimental than surviving plays, why some of the lost plays may have deserved to disspear forever (sort of like VHS copies of B-movies like Deathbed: The Bed that Eats that are rotting away on thrift store shelves and haven&rsquo;t been transferred to HD format) and how Romm became the first scholar to translate many of these fragments as poetry for English-language readers, restoring the rhythmic force that made them memorable on the ancient stage.

For history lovers who listen to podcasts, History Unplugged is the most comprehensive show of its kind. It's the only show that dedicates episodes to both interviewing experts and answering questions from its audience. First, it features a call-in show where you can ask our resident historian (Scott Rank, PhD) absolutely anything (What was it like to be a Turkish sultan with four wives and twelve concubines? If you were sent back in time, how would you kill Hitler?). Second, it features long-form interviews with best-selling authors who have written about everything. Topics include gruff World War II generals who flew with airmen on bombing raids, a war horse who gained the rank of sergeant, and presidents who gave their best speeches while drunk.

A show about American history, world history, World Wars 1 & 2, the Civil War, and much more.

History Unplugged Podcast

History Unplugged is one of the longest-running history podcasts of its kind, with over 1,000 episodes covering everything from Alexander the Great's plans for European colonization to the untold story of Alabamians who fought for Sherman deep inside Confederate territory. Topics range from the Bronze Age Collapse to the naval campaigns of the Barbary Wars to Daniel Boone's forced adoption by a Shawnee chief. Guests on the show include history professors, Pulitzer Prize winners, consultants for historical films, and outsiders like Joakim Brodén from Sabaton. The show is hosted by Scott Rank, a history professor specializing in the Ottoman Empire and author of 12 books. And for those who love to spin the wheel of what-if, the show regularly ventures into alternate history, exploring questions like what the USSR's victory in the Cold War would have meant for the modern world, or how our current map might look if the Confederacy had survived the Civil War.

 

History Unplugged is one of the longest-running history podcasts of its kind, with over 1,000 episodes covering everything from Alexander the Great's plans for European colonization to the untold story of Alabamians who fought for Sherman deep inside Confederate territory. Topics range from the Bronze Age Collapse to the naval campaigns of the Barbary Wars to Daniel Boone's forced adoption by a Shawnee chief. Guests on the show include history professors, Pulitzer Prize winners, consultants for historical films, and outsiders like Joakim Brod&eacute;n from Sabaton. The show is hosted by Scott Rank, a history professor specializing in the Ottoman Empire and author of 12 books. And for those who love to spin the wheel of what-if, the show regularly ventures into alternate history, exploring questions like what the USSR's victory in the Cold War would have meant for the modern world, or how our current map might look if the Confederacy had survived the Civil War.
&nbsp;