The Iliad

Speaker 1 Hey there, it's Ryan Seacrest for Safeway.

Speaker 4 As winter approaches, make sure you set aside some time for self-care now through December 2nd.

Speaker 7 Get great savings on personal care essentials when you shop in store or online.

Speaker 3 Buy two participating self-care items and save $3.

Speaker 11 Shop for items like Treseme Shampoo, Dove Shampoo, Dove Men's Care Body Wash, Dove Body Wash, and Axe Shower Gel, and save $3 when you buy two or more items.

Speaker 5 Offer ends December 2nd.

Speaker 10 Restrictions apply.

Speaker 12 Offers may vary.

Speaker 13 Visit Safeway.com for more details.

Speaker 14 Why choose a Sleep Number Smart Bed?

Speaker 15 Can I make my site softer?

Speaker 16 Can I make my site firmer?

Speaker 14 Can we sleep cooler? SleepNumber does that. Cools up to eight times faster and lets you choose your ideal comfort on either side.
Your sleep number setting.

Speaker 14 Enjoy personalized comfort for better sleep night after night. It's our Black Friday sale, recharged this season with a bundle of cozy, soothing comfort.

Speaker 14 Now only $17.99 for our C2 mattress and base plus free premium delivery. Price is higher in Alaska and Hawaii.
Check it out at a sleep number store or sleepnumber.com today.

Speaker 1 Hey there, it's Ryan Seacrest for Safeway.

Speaker 18 Flu season is here, and our pharmacies have you covered with a free flu shot with most insurance plans. Plus, it's cough and cold season.

Speaker 3 And now, through December 2nd, stock up on all the season's essentials and get ready for relief with discounts on items like Musinex Cold and Flu Kickstart, Musinex Fast Max products, VIX Daquil and Nyquil combo pack, Alka Cell Surplus, also airborne and afrin.

Speaker 6 Offers end December 2nd, restrictions apply, and offers may vary by location.

Speaker 13 Visit safeway.com for more details.

Speaker 16 It's one of the greatest epics in history. A 24-book story regarded as one of the most influential pieces of literature ever written.

Speaker 15 The Iliad.

Speaker 16 Centered around just before the end of the fabled the legendary Trojan War, the Iliad covers the stories of famous heroes of mythology like Achilles, greatest of the Greek warriors, Agamemnon, the king of Mycenae, and leader of the Greeks, but also the rival of Achilles.

Speaker 16 Trojans like Hector, Prince of Troy, Priam the king, Hecuba the queen, not to mention Paris, another prince whose golden apple judgment sparked the Trojan War.

Speaker 16 And his lover, Queen Helen, Helen of Sparta or Helen of Troy, the face that launched a thousand ships. Beautifully written, the Iliad features several famous episodes from the Trojan War.

Speaker 16 How Achilles refused to fight for the Greeks and sulked in his tent after Agamemnon took his slave girl Briseus for his own, before the death of Achilles' greatest friend Patroclus sends Achilles back into battle, berserk.

Speaker 16 Something that climaxes with his great duel against Hector outside the walls of Troy.

Speaker 16 The Iliad is a complex tale of wrath and resistance, of friendship and honor, of fate and prophecy, of gods and heroes. And today on the ancients, we're going to explore it.

Speaker 16 I'm Tristan Hughes, your host. Now, the Iliad is a massive topic for us to cover in one episode.

Speaker 16 We're going to tackle it as best we can, and we wouldn't have time to explore it book by book from book one to 24. We're going to do it thematically.

Speaker 16 We're going to explore everything varying from the origins of the Iliad some 3,000 years ago to the main characters of the epic and how complex their stories are and much more.

Speaker 16 Now, my guest today is Professor Edith Hall from Durham University.

Speaker 16 A leading academic on ancient Greek literature and philosophy, including the Iliad, Edith has a new book coming out about the Iliad and how apocalyptic some of its language is.

Speaker 16 I really do hope you enjoy.

Speaker 16 Edith, it is great to have you back on the podcast.

Speaker 14 And I'm thrilled to be back here again.

Speaker 16 And last time we did the massive topic of Atlantis, we've got you on for another big one today. The story of the Iliad.
First of all, Edith, what exactly is the Iliad?

Speaker 15 The Iliad is one of the oldest Greek epics. It is probably the oldest, depending on how old Hesiods are.
It's older than the Odyssey slightly.

Speaker 15 It was probably put together in the form we've got in the middle of the 8th century BCE,

Speaker 15 but it had been in development since at least the 14th century and it is over 16,000 lines long and they're long lines.

Speaker 15 They're a particular meter called the ductylic hexameter which has six beats and is quite a long line. It's much longer than say the iambic pentameter we're used to in Shakespeare.

Speaker 15 And it tells the story of a 40-day 40-day period towards the end of the 10-year Trojan War.

Speaker 16 16,000 lines

Speaker 16 of epic poetry and has its origins more than 3,000 years ago. It is such an extraordinary epic poem to have survived so long and still be so important for the mindset of so many people today.

Speaker 15 It's quite remarkable, it just sort of cultural longevity.

Speaker 15 I mean, one of the reasons for that, though, was that it was, once it was actually written down, this is what happened in the middle of the eighth century it became the absolutely standard fare of ancient education for then more than a thousand years so we know for example that young athenian aristocratic boys were expected to know it off by heart the whole thing off by heart i mean you know it's just incredible but they were expected to know it off by heart if they'd had a good education And it

Speaker 15 remained so throughout the Roman Empire, all the way through.

Speaker 15 This meant it survived in numerous manuscripts in Byzantium when it was lost to the West for about a thousand years between about 400 CE and pretty much when the Turks invaded Constantinople in the middle of the 15th century.

Speaker 15 But thank heavens, enough manuscripts before that happened, and they destroyed half the libraries, enough manuscripts had been got out to Italy to mean that they rolled off the printing presses pretty early on in the history of printing.

Speaker 15 So by around 1550, there were hundreds of printed copies and people were very energetically beginning to translate it, not just into Latin, because then the lingua franca was Latin, but quite early into modern languages.

Speaker 15 And as soon as that happened, everybody started doing operas and paintings and plays and parodies. it became once again an absolute staple of certainly upper class education.

Speaker 15 So that's why it's as big as it is. Actually, until quite recently, it wasn't as big as the Odyssey.

Speaker 15 If you actually think quantitatively, in terms of world culture, there were far more versions of the Odyssey.

Speaker 15 The Odyssey was exported all over the planet, you know, by the Jesuits and things like that.

Speaker 15 The Iliad did not make so much of an impact, but it just had a quite astonishing revival in the 21st century. And I think is now absolutely as familiar.

Speaker 15 as the Odyssey for the first time since antiquity.

Speaker 16 Edith, you mentioned how young Athenians would have to learn the Iliad off by heart. Does that reflect how important epic poems like the Iliad were to ancient Greek culture?

Speaker 15 Yes, it's an entire encyclopedia of their civilization and values. I think they were written down because of Greek colonization.
So not many people really did know them completely off by heart.

Speaker 15 If you were going off to found, as they were in the archaic age, the 8th, 7th, 6th centuries, to found colonies on the far northern coast of the Black Sea or in Marseille or in Egypt, you know, all over the Mediterranean Black Sea periphery, then you needed to take your canonical poems with you.

Speaker 15 I think that that was the spur for them getting written down.

Speaker 15 So you could take your huge papyrus roles of the Iliad, the Odyssey and Hesiod, because they told you everything that you really needed to know. They told you how to do a sacrifice.

Speaker 15 They told you how to fight the enemy. They told you how to arm yourself.

Speaker 15 They told you how to be a heroic male who was going around intrepidly bonking enemies on foreign shores on the head. They were the cultural encyclopedia.

Speaker 15 And at Athens, we know that every year at the Panathenaeus, the big all-Athenian festival in the summer from the sixth century, you know, they were recited all the way through.

Speaker 15 The Iliad was recited all the way through by teams of bards every summer. It actually takes about three days to do that.

Speaker 16 But it's so interesting, Edith, how, as you mentioned, with that kind of Greek colonization period when you get lots of ancient Greek settlers and communities emerging and trading posts emerging at their height from what is Afghanistan today all the way to eastern Spain, that the one thing in common to show that there is that kind of Greek culture there could be that no matter where you were, someone would know the Iliad, would be able to recite it or have a copy of it.

Speaker 16 And it was almost a symbol that, yes, we've gone really far away from maybe like the heart of ancient Greece and Athens and places, but we still remember the values and these stories.

Speaker 15 You take with you this cultural heritage, and the Iliad, of course, because it's about a united effort by Greeks, even though the word Greek doesn't occur in it yet.

Speaker 15 It enumerates all these mainland Greek cities and some of the islands that sent forces to Troy. So, for an awful lot of Greeks, wherever they went in the world, they could trace their ancestry.

Speaker 15 They believed their own ancestors had been on the Greek side at Troy. So, it's an extraordinarily long genealogy that you're taking with you wherever you went.

Speaker 16 Before we explore the story main characters and some really interesting themes from the Iliad, Edith, I feel we must mention the author of the Iliad, Homer, but there always seems to be a bit of debate around this character as well.

Speaker 16 Do we think that the Iliad was the work of one man called Homer?

Speaker 15 I don't. In my head, the pattern is that the story got gradually elaborated.

Speaker 15 It's in 24 books now, but it's got slightly more than that identifiable individual stories that rather than being three days recitation, you could sing of a particular battle during the war, or you could sing the funeral of Patroclus, or you could sing the row between Achilles and Agamemnon, or you could sing the moment that Achilles meets his mother, Thetis.

Speaker 15 you can cut it down into individual like lays

Speaker 15 and i think that's how it was probably performed it got elaborated and elaborated. I think we're probably talking not tens, but hundreds of individual bards.

Speaker 15 They call rhapsodes, stitches of song, who performed it all over the through the dark ages of Greece. And

Speaker 15 for whatever reason, and as I said, I think it's got a lot to do with colonization. Somebody put it all together in the mid-18th century.
Now, that might

Speaker 15 have been an individual genius because the structure is wonderful. There's real artistry in how it's been all put together, if you like.

Speaker 15 The final stitcher, whether he was called Omeros or not, I don't know. It's a very peculiar name.
It means a hostage.

Speaker 15 And about 10 different places in ancient Greece claimed to be the homeland of Homer.

Speaker 15 So I don't think we've got any sense of who this individual was, but I wouldn't be surprised to learn that there wasn't a master hand in putting it all together because it's very aesthetically satisfying.

Speaker 16 And so, the timeline, well, the story, the poem, the epic poem that is the Iliad, you mentioned there, so it's divided into 24 books. Is it? Are they almost like different scenes in the story?

Speaker 15 It narrates a 40-day period, so and it's syncopated. So, we're not talking a convenient day, a book sort of thing.
Sometimes you have a sort of 10-day gap.

Speaker 15 They go out to gather wood on the mountains for nine days for the funeral at the end of Patroclus in book 23. And Priam sends his guys out to the mountains for several days.

Speaker 15 Sometimes there's a whole battle that rages across the middle of the poem, which takes up three or four books, just one battle. So it doesn't neatly fit into temporal units.

Speaker 15 It does neatly fit into sort of thematic and dramatically unified individual episodes.

Speaker 16 And you say that it's 40 days. so 40 days might seem like quite a long time, but in regards the Trojan war that it's set, is this actually quite a small amount of time within the larger war?

Speaker 15 So the war is sort of 10 years, and I think we're meant to feel this is in about eighth or ninth year. Once Achilles kills Hector, which is of course the climax, the final showdown.

Speaker 15 like the shootout in a Clint Eastwood movie that you've been waiting. That's in book 22 of 24.
Just as in the Odyssey, when odysseus finally kills all the suitors it's in book 22 of 24.

Speaker 15 so you've got that sort of whole build-up that is coming but it allows 40 days is an interesting unit apart from the number 40 which often gets is important a lot of storytelling you know it's like nights in the wilderness and that kind of thing but it allows a real psychological build-up because achilles is called the wrath of achilles really the first word is wrath wrath sing me, muse of Achilles, right?

Speaker 15 It's the 40 days that he was incredibly angry.

Speaker 15 He's first angry with Agamemnon. He's angry with Agamemnon for almost all of that.

Speaker 15 But then he gets even angrier with Hector because Hector's killed his best friend or lover, however we like to see it, Patroclus.

Speaker 15 So he actually transfers his anger in book 90 from Agamemnon to Hector. But once he's killed Hector, we know that his own death is not far off.

Speaker 15 That is set up for us in his conversations with his mother, the sea goddess Thetis.

Speaker 15 So it's a kind of dot, dot, dot ending. And also the very last word is the very last line is thus ended the funeral of horse taming of Hector.

Speaker 15 It's horse taming is the last word, which immediately makes you think of the wooden horse. that the Trojans will not be horse tamers for long.

Speaker 15 So it's very much makes you think of the imminent ending of the war and also the death of Achilles. I mean, that's a brilliant structure.

Speaker 15 So it's not a corny American movie where we've got to be told exactly what happened to everybody. It's left on this ambiguous but very dark funeral note.

Speaker 16 And once again, to say, I mean, to the average Joe Bloggs, when you might think about the Trojan War, yes, you think about the Trojan horse, but actually...

Speaker 16 In Homer's Iliad, the Trojan horse isn't, that story isn't in there. It's in a different story, which is interesting.
No.

Speaker 16 And I would also like, you mentioned some of those interesting characters there that we're going to explore, Achilles, absolutely, Hector, Patroclus, Agamemnon.

Speaker 16 But before we get to them, Edith, as this is set for a particular 40-day period near the end of the Trojan War, are there any mentions in the Iliad kind of...

Speaker 16 reminding people of what happened before then, either why they're there, why they're on the plains of Troy, or what's happened in those years previously?

Speaker 16 Is there any attempt to explain, well, what came before this in the last episode kind of thing?

Speaker 15 Yes, but very slight and very late. We don't mention the judgment of Paris, which is what started it all, because he so offended Hera and Athena when he chose Aphrodite.

Speaker 16 With the golden apple, yeah.

Speaker 15 Yeah, which meant that he was then allowed to run away with Helen because he chose the most beautiful woman in the world.

Speaker 15 The judgment of Paris is not mentioned until book 24, and then only very briefly, right at the end. Paris, we do have Helen in the story.
I mean, she's a a very important character.

Speaker 15 And we're very aware, you know, Paris and Helen have sex in book three.

Speaker 15 So that thorn in the side of the Greeks, that their beautiful Helen is actually at it inside Troy, is there. But this poem is not very much interested in the past.

Speaker 15 For example, we don't hear about the sacrifice of a Viginia,

Speaker 15 all those.

Speaker 15 preparations we do hear about a couple of omens but it's it's it's pretty much in the now, and we don't get any real predictions of the future, except just once we're told that the plains of Troy will be completely flattened and obliterated as if nothing had ever been there, which is pretty horrific.

Speaker 15 We hear what the gods and the rivers are going to do after the war to obliterate Troy, but you're very much in the moment.

Speaker 15 You're in this terrible psychological warfare going on between these all of them arrogant, aggressive narcissists, basically,

Speaker 15 on the Greek side anyway and that's something we could talk about is how much more pleasant the trojans are absolutely well we'll get to that very quickly as we will explore the figure interesting figure of achilles first of all and just side note the sacrifice of iphigenia is it's agamemnon's daughter isn't it and he sacrifices her yes in to get these favourable winds fleets are becalmed by artemis for reasons i mean none of this is in the iliad and it's explained differently so in order to get the winds to sail for troy he had to sacrifice his daughter iphigenia That sets up, you know, the audience of the Iliad knows that when Agamemnon gets home, he's for it.

Speaker 15 His wife's going to kill him, but none of that is in the poem.

Speaker 16 None of that is in the poem, though. I just want to clarify, as you mentioned that earlier.
Right, okay, let's explore Achilles. He really does feel like the main character, doesn't he?

Speaker 16 What is his story in the Iliad? It feels like, as you say, it's this kind of unhinged vengeance fury arc that he has.

Speaker 15 Well, he does.

Speaker 15 And the scenes of his when he goes berserk, literally berserk, he's a berserker on the battlefield and loses it in the bloodlust are very, very exciting.

Speaker 15 But those are actually delayed all the way through until we get to the last four, five books. He's kept in his tent nursing his grievance for almost all of the poem.
And in fact, we're on his side.

Speaker 15 One of the reasons this poem is so good is it throws us, when you start, it throws us straight into a crisis in the Achaean camp.

Speaker 15 They're called Achaeans, not Greeks, in the Achaean camp, because they're all dying of plague, because their ridiculous king, Agamemnon, has decided it's okay

Speaker 15 to kidnap the priestess of

Speaker 15 the daughter, the local priest of Apollo, because he fancies her. And Apollo's not having this, so he's killing them all off.
And there's a crisis, what we're going to do, and there's a meeting.

Speaker 15 and Achilles

Speaker 15 has been terribly insulted by Agamemnon. Agamemnon agrees grudgingly to give this young woman back to her father, Chrise.

Speaker 15 But he says, Hmm, what's the next prettiest girl in camp? Oh, I know, it's the one that Achilles has got, Briseis. I'll have her, right?

Speaker 15 I'm kingier than you. There's actually this adjective,

Speaker 15 we have a word for being kingy,

Speaker 15 and there's a superlative, Basiliutatos. I am the kingiest here.

Speaker 16 Oh, yeah, the most king, the superlative of king. Look at that.

Speaker 15 I'm the kingier. Well, it's an adjective.
I'm the most kingly. I'm the kingiest.
I'm going to have Briseus. And Achilles, quite understandably, says, you what?

Speaker 15 And what you have is a row, which sets up this really political theme because Agamemnon is by heredity the most powerful king only because he's the son of the son of the sun.

Speaker 15 By far the better warrior is Achilles.

Speaker 15 He is by far the best warrior on the Achaean side, and he's the best warrior in the poem, and he's the best warrior in the world, and he has gone round and got lots and lots and lots of gold and booty from all the little towns they've already conquered in northwest Turkey, as it is now.

Speaker 15 How do you treat your best lieutenant who has helped you to wage war incredibly successfully and lucratively? You insult him, You take his girlfriend. So Achilles lays it all out.

Speaker 15 He says, You may be kingier than me, but I'm much more soldiery than you. Okay.

Speaker 15 But it's absolutely thrilling because we're still having debates about whether we should abolish the House of Lords hereditary peers.

Speaker 15 You know, these are still issues, whether you should be able to rise on merit or whether you just, it's all about what sort of class and family you're born into. So it's burningly political.

Speaker 15 And we're all on Achilles' side.

Speaker 15 So

Speaker 15 Homer, let's just call all these poets for shorthand Homer, makes sure that although he behaves appallingly, we really get why he's so angry with his boss. We've all had,

Speaker 15 everybody has had a boss at some point who is less able than they are.

Speaker 15 And it is incredibly aggravating having to take orders from them and being exploited and mistreated by them. We've all been in that situation.

Speaker 15 Or we felt like that about a parent being arbitrary, right? There is no human in the world who has not been in Achilles' psychological situation.

Speaker 15 So that is the genius of it, that even though his behavior becomes utterly reprehensible, we're on his side for most of the poem.

Speaker 16 Does it add to the kind of complexity of Achilles' character? It almost feels like there's a dilemma that, yes, he has been mistreated.

Speaker 16 It's like his personal personal honor, perhaps in his eyes, has been attacked through Agamemnon's actions. But at the same time, you know, he is also has other friends amongst the Greeks.

Speaker 16 He's been fighting alongside the Achaeans in the camp for years by this point.

Speaker 16 And yet the person overall in charge, the commander-in-chief, has sliced him in this way. Is there a dilemma as to what he will do, whether he will fight or whether he will not fight?

Speaker 16 Is that a big part of the story?

Speaker 15 Absolutely. And I'm absolutely willing him to stay in his tent and not help the overlord.
The Achaean camp is a pretty dire, violent, aggressive, shouty place.

Speaker 15 You know, there's lots of rows, lots of aggression. The one scene of real peace in the Achaean camp is Achilles' beautiful tent.

Speaker 15 He's got these soldiers who would give their lives for him, the Myrmidons. He has absolute loyalty from his men, because unlike Agamemnon, he will always lead from the front.

Speaker 15 You know, he'll take every risk they do. He'll do anything for them.
And the Myrmidons, he withdraws from the war as well. So they spend their time.
Achilles plays the lyre.

Speaker 15 He becomes a poet who sings songs. Patroclus, his boyfriend, has got pet dogs.
And they retire to their tent and actually have this rather idyllic thing.

Speaker 15 It's ambiguous about homoeroticism. They are madly in love with each other, Achilles and Patroclus, but actually they both sleep with women in this tent.

Speaker 15 So they're having this idyllic time sort of sex and music and all the rest of it while all the other achaeans are not doing very well on the battlefield because they haven't got achilles

Speaker 16 this episode is sponsored by ruler

Speaker 16 Finding a therapist who not only has time for new clients, but also actually takes your insurance can feel impossible. Deciding to reach out and ask for help is huge.

Speaker 16 To then be hit by wall after wall can be so demoralizing.

Speaker 16 Many therapists don't take insurance packages at all, which means that you're stuck paying the full cost out of pocket or paying for an expensive monthly subscription. That's where Ruler comes in.

Speaker 16 They partner with over 100 insurance plans, making the average copay just $15 per session.

Speaker 16 Now that's real therapy from licensed professionals chosen based on your particular situation at a price that actually makes sense.

Speaker 16 You use your insurance benefits to maintain your physical health, so why wouldn't you do the same for your mental health?

Speaker 16 Thousands of people are already using ruler to get affordable, high-quality therapy that's actually covered by insurance. Visit ruler.com/slash ancients to get started.

Speaker 16 After you sign up, you'll be asked how you heard about them. Please support our show and let them know we sent you.
That's rula.com slash ancients.

Speaker 16 You deserve deserve mental health care that works with you, not against your budget.

Speaker 1 Hey there, it's Ryan Seacrest for Safeway.

Speaker 4 As winter approaches, make sure you set aside some time for self-care now through December 2nd.

Speaker 6 Get great savings on personal care essentials when you shop in store or online.

Speaker 3 Buy two participating self-care items and save $3.

Speaker 11 Shop for items like Treseme Shampoo, Dove Shampoo, Dove Men's Care Body Wash, Dove Body Wash, and Axe Shower Gel, and save $3 when you buy two or more items.

Speaker 5 Offer ends December 2nd, restrictions apply, offers may vary.

Speaker 13 Visit safeway.com for more details.

Speaker 1 Hey there, it's Ryan Seacress for Safeway.

Speaker 18 Flu season is here, and our pharmacies have you covered with a free flu shot with most insurance plans. Plus, it's cough and cold season.

Speaker 3 And now, through December 2nd, stock up on all the season's essentials and get ready for relief with discounts on items like Musinex Cold and Flu Kickstart, Mucinex Fast Max products, VIX Daquil and Nyquil combo pack, Alka Celser Plus, also Airborne and Afrin.

Speaker 6 Offers end December 2nd.

Speaker 10 Restrictions apply and offers may vary by location.

Speaker 13 Visit safeway.com for more details.

Speaker 21 If you're a custodial supervisor at a local high school, you know that cleanliness is key and that the best place to get cleaning supplies is from Granger.

Speaker 21 Granger helps you stay fully stocked on the products you trust, from paper towels and disinfectants to floor scrubbers.

Speaker 21 Plus, you can rely on Granger for easy reordering so you never run out of what you need. Call 1-800GRANGER, clickgranger.com, or just stop by.
Granger for the ones who get it done.

Speaker 16 And how central then is Patroclus to Achilles' whole story and his story arc in the Iliad?

Speaker 15 Well, he's crucial. And again, the artistry of Homer, Patroclus most unusually has the attribute of gentleness.
And we're told everybody loved him because he was so gentle.

Speaker 15 This is paradoxical in an Iliadic warrior. But for example, Briseis

Speaker 15 loves him. She's Asiatic.
She loves this friend when she's given back to Achilles. And we learn that she says she really loved him because he was kind to her.

Speaker 15 He was actually kind to a captive slave girl.

Speaker 15 And because he said he would help her to get Achilles to marry her, which would move her up from being bride of the spear, as they used to call it in 19th century translations, basically a rape victim, you know, war rape.

Speaker 15 If she actually got married, she should secure her future. So you've got this person who's given real moral attributes, which are most rare.
in this poem, that he's even kind to slave women.

Speaker 15 And he is a little older than Achilles. He's a sort of an adopted brother.
He was brought up, he'd fled to Achilles' household because he'd accidentally killed someone.

Speaker 15 Well, not quite accidentally, actually, but he'd made a big mistake as a young man. He'd fled, was brought up alongside Achilles.
So they're brought up as brothers, but because they're not actually

Speaker 15 brothers by blood, a very, very intense relationship forms between them. In other ancient Greek sources, it's unashamedly unashamedly homoerotic.

Speaker 15 Homer doesn't have homoerotic relationships in the Iliad. It's just not the cognitive contract with the audience, but certainly the most intense emotional bond in the poem is

Speaker 15 between Achilles and Patroclus. And very interestingly, a psychoanalyst called Jonathan Hsieh wrote a very famous book called Achilles in Vietnam in the 1990s.

Speaker 15 He worked with a lot of veterans and that sort of intense bond happened in Vietnam between squaddies, American Marines and so on who were out there, especially where there was an unpopular commander.

Speaker 16 It's so interesting, isn't it? And Patroclus, before we move on to Hector, obviously kind of another big figure in the story. Yeah.

Speaker 16 His story is absolutely crucial in that kind of transition from Achilles always being in his tent to coming out later in the play and

Speaker 16 that vengeful arc emerging.

Speaker 15 Yes, because

Speaker 15 Patroclus, when the Achaeans are really not doing well at all, persuades Achilles that Achilles isn't going to fight, but he says, just let me go and fight, wear your armor.

Speaker 15 You don't have to, but I'm going to go in. And Achilles doesn't want to let him, but he does go in, and of course he gets killed.

Speaker 15 And it's the death of Patroclus that makes Achilles really relinquish, not relinquish his rage with Agamemnon, but it's that his rage with Hector overshadows that.

Speaker 15 So he no longer thinks the Agamemnon insult, you know, that pales into insignificance besides his bereavement.

Speaker 15 That's the moment when he says he's got to go back into fight, but he hasn't got any arms. So his mother has to go to Hephaestus for the new arms for Achilles.

Speaker 15 And he goes back into battle, very hastily makes up with Agamemnon. Doesn't really matter to him anymore.
And the rage against Hector is, of course, expressed in the most violent terms.

Speaker 15 Achilles actually sacrifices human captives from Troy, some youths, 12 youths from Troy, kills them over the pyre

Speaker 15 of Patroclus, such as his rage. And there is no human sacrifice in the Iliad.
And it's one of the very few times where the authorial voice said he did a bad thing.

Speaker 16 Before looking at Hector in this story, Edith, but keeping on that kind of rage part of Achilles' story, there was this other part which I found really interesting that I know you've done some work on, which isn't Achilles going into battle and fighting mortal humans, but is there a part where he has a fight with a river?

Speaker 15 Absolutely. Indeed, when he goes in, finally goes into battle, He has what's, there's a special word for it.

Speaker 15 It's a certain kind of scene in the Iliad, and other characters get them, called an aristia,

Speaker 15 which means showing off your

Speaker 15 excellence at fighting. Right.
So Diomedes gets one. He's another very good Achaean warrior in book five, where you kill serially, you know, like 10 goals, one after another in a football match.

Speaker 15 You kill the enemy in a fit. of bloodlusts that could go on for for several hours.

Speaker 15 And I think the ancient audience is, I use the goal analogy mindfully because I think it was very exciting to listen to them.

Speaker 15 That yes, another Trojan bites the dust and yes, another one, you know, and they're all killed in slightly different ways.

Speaker 15 So the spear goes through their belly or the spear goes through their larynx or the spear goes through their eye or the, you know,

Speaker 15 lots of stuff. And I suspect that the ancient audiences were cheering with everyone.

Speaker 15 Achilles kills so many that the river Scamander, which is the great river that comes down from Mount Ida to the sea and

Speaker 15 provides water for Troy, gets all blocked up with corpses. They all jump in the river to try to escape.
He kills them in the river. The river is completely dammed with corpses.

Speaker 15 So at that point, the river assumes anthropomorphic form. That means he takes on the form of a human and

Speaker 15 is so angry with Achilles for polluting his lovely waters. And also, Achilles pulls all the trees down that line the riverbank.
He destroys the beauty of the whole riverscape.

Speaker 15 So Scamander fights Achilles in the most terrifying way because he's bigger and he's a god. And he would have defeated Achilles.

Speaker 15 He, in fact, even calls on another river, one of his tributaries, to come and help him. But Hera at that point sends in fire, who fights the river instead.

Speaker 15 But not already, the river has flooded the entire Trojan plain. So you've actually got an it's like a dam bursting.

Speaker 15 I was writing about this in my latest book, this particular scene, when there was that terrible, terrible, terrible, I think it was 2023, the dams burst in Libya.

Speaker 15 I don't know if you remember, and killed tens of thousands of people. And it was caused by human technological failure.
This was not an earthquake, this was a human dam

Speaker 15 that burst, right?

Speaker 15 And that's what it's like with the river Secumander. A human pollutes his waters.
Human blocks it up. This is Achilles.
And the river retaliates and causes far, far more destruction.

Speaker 15 So I see this as an environmental parable.

Speaker 16 It is such an interesting part of Achilles' story that is sometimes overlooked compared to his great fight with Hector, but I'm glad we mentioned it there.

Speaker 16 And I know, because also it's something that you've done a lot of work around, Edith, and hopefully we'll revisit that theme as we go on.

Speaker 16 If we now go on to Hector, because I feel he is another important character we've got to talk about if we're doing the Iliad.

Speaker 15 Oh, gosh, yes. And he's a worthy opponent for Achilles.

Speaker 16 How does he compare to Achilles in terms of heroism? Because we've talked about the Greek perspective in the Achaean camp. I mean, what's been going on in Troy and how Hector fits into this?

Speaker 15 He's more heroic for many reasons. One is that he's 100% mortal.
Achilles has got this advantage that he's bionic, he's half divine, right? His mother is Thetis.

Speaker 15 He's got supernatural powers on the battlefield. The only reason he'll ever die is because of his ankle.
And of course, that's not in this poem. But you know,

Speaker 15 he could have been fully immortal. He's very nearly fully immortal.
Hector is 100% ordinary guy. He's the Prince of Troy.
He loves his dad very much, Priam.

Speaker 15 His dad, Prime, is too old to run military ops. So while Priam is still administrative king, Hector is his commander-in-chief and shares the monarchical duties.
He's a lovely husband.

Speaker 15 This is one of the really big contrasts that were Achilles and Agamemnon are raping all these slave girls by compulsion and coercion. Hector's got this wife who adores him.

Speaker 15 He's not adulterer. He's got a baby son who adores him.
All his people adore him. He's nice to his mother.
He's even nice to Helen. And he is fighting a defensive war.

Speaker 15 And how many of us these days, most of us do not glorify aggressive militarism, but can absolutely identify with somebody who's risking his life to defend his people, his wife and his baby?

Speaker 15 You know, this is the acceptable face of violence for most of us is defensive. So he's got all these moral cards stacked in his favor and he is impetuous.

Speaker 15 That is his main failing, that he doesn't deliberate properly before engaging in military strategies. But he also, there's a crucial moment before the final showdown where he could go back into Troy.

Speaker 15 He could. He's been fighting for days.
He could go back in and he stands on the battlefield and says, it's a very metaphysical moment.

Speaker 15 Shall I go back in and feel shame before the women of Troy with their trailing robes that I'm not out there fighting for them.

Speaker 15 Shall I go inside and survive and be safe, but feel shame? Or shall I just die and do a big thing? And there's this big thing, it's the actual translation of the Greek.

Speaker 15 Megaty Rexum, having done a big thing, and I will at least get immortal fame,

Speaker 15 go down nobly. And that's what he decides to do.
And of course, the gods help Achilles. Hector doesn't have a chance.
But I cry in book 22 when Hector dies.

Speaker 16 It was a few years ago that I remember studying this part of the Iliad, but there's that extraordinary scene of him, as you mentioned, his loving wife Andromache, and they have that whole conversation together.

Speaker 16 And is she the one who's begging him not to go out again? But Hector's like, is it my duty? I have to go back out or something.

Speaker 15 It's extraordinary. It's book six.
He's on the wall. She meets him on the wall with the baby.

Speaker 15 and begs him not to go and then she tries to give him military advice about sticking near the wall where it's safer and this, that, and the next thing. And he will not, he will not heed her.

Speaker 15 And in fact, of course, Troy would fall anyway. I mean, he's right in a way, but it is absolutely heartbreaking.
And even more heartbreaking is when she gets the news in book 22 when he is killed.

Speaker 15 She's actually inside weaving, and she hears the noise and

Speaker 15 runs out, tears off her veil, and faints and collapses. And then we next see her in the final book at leading the women of Troy's lament over her lovely husband.
So

Speaker 15 it's very carefully done. And this is why it's so much better than most

Speaker 15 movies of,

Speaker 15 as I talk about Clint Eastwoods and stuff.

Speaker 15 Usually in Clint Eastwood movies, you don't have with the final shootout, you know, you've got proper bad guys being done in, right? They're very simple morally. The Iliad is anything but

Speaker 15 Homer, although these Achaeans are ancestors of the Greek audiences, they're not as nice as the Trojans. And that is really cleverly done.
So it makes it very morally balanced. And

Speaker 15 Hector's father comes into his own in the last book because Achilles has been abusing the corpse of Hector famously, dragging it, tying him by the ankles to the back of his chariot and driving it round and round Troy.

Speaker 15 He's stopped doing that because the gods intervene, but Priam has to go very bravely, an old man, into the enemy camp and asks Achilles to hand over the body. And you know what? He does.

Speaker 15 And they have this incredible, redemptive moment where they look admiringly at each other. They both lost so much.

Speaker 15 Achilles has lost Patroclus, Priam has lost Hector, and these two warring kings just get each other. And you want to say, why didn't you have that conversation 24 books ago?

Speaker 1 Hey there, it's Ryan Seacrest for Safeway.

Speaker 18 Flu season is here, and our pharmacies have you covered with a free flu shot with most insurance plans. Plus, it's cough and cold season.

Speaker 3 And now through December 2nd, stock up on all the season's essentials and get ready for relief with discounts on items like Mucinex Cold and Flu Kickstart, Musinex Fast Max products, VIX Daquil and Nyquil Combo Pack, Alka Selser Plus, also Airborne and Afrin.

Speaker 6 Offers end December 2nd.

Speaker 10 Restrictions apply, and offers may vary by location.

Speaker 13 Visit Safeway.com for more details.

Speaker 1 Hey there, it's Ryan Seacrest for Safeway.

Speaker 4 As winter approaches, make sure you set aside some time for self-care now through December 2nd.

Speaker 7 Get great savings on personal care essentials when you shop in store or online.

Speaker 3 Buy two participating self-care items and save $3.

Speaker 11 Shop for items like Treseme Shampoo, Dove Shampoo, Dove Men's Care Body Wash, Dove Body Wash, and Axe Shower Gel, and save $3 when you buy two or more items.

Speaker 5 Offer ends December 2nd.

Speaker 12 Restrictions apply. Offers may vary.

Speaker 13 Visit Safeway.com for more details.

Speaker 16 So that's the end of the story, is it, Edith? Because I was going to say, Book 22, that's the climax, that's the fight where Hector dies, but it's 24 books.

Speaker 16 And you've gone from feeling sad for Achilles at the beginning to now feeling being more on the Trojan side with the death of Hector. And I guess it's that wrapping up very quickly.

Speaker 16 It's the Prime getting the body back so it can have the important burial rites, which is so important.

Speaker 15 Yeah, of the actually ordinary human who has sacrificed everything to try and save the people we've come to be very fond of in the course of the poem.

Speaker 16 It's also very interesting, I'll just say this briefly, that you have on the one hand Agamemnon as a leader, militaristic leader, I say compared to Priam, that old man, and yet Priam has such an important role by the end, doesn't he?

Speaker 15 And his wife and Hecuba.

Speaker 16 Well, actually, that leads me nicely on to the next thing is that we talked about Andromache and you've mentioned as well Briseus.

Speaker 16 But do we have many women appearing in the Iliad and do they play a major role in the story?

Speaker 15 Well, we've got goddesses a lot. Thetis is Achilles' mother who will do anything for him and is a very emotionally sophisticated figure who intervenes with Zeus for him, intervenes with Hephaestus.

Speaker 15 We've got Hera and Athena and Artemis. We have the goddesses.
But the gods are really amoral and childish compared with the humans. That's both men and women.
But the women are fascinating.

Speaker 15 So the big women are Criseus and Briseis.

Speaker 15 but they don't get very much to say. Briseus has this one wonderful speech lament for Patroclus when she says how kind he was to her.
We have Andromache, who is very proud and very tender,

Speaker 15 admirable wife and mother, exactly the sort of person whose civilization shouldn't be destroyed. We have Hecuba equally madly loves Hector, so her son.
And of course we have Helen.

Speaker 15 Helen appears in book three and regrets bitterly. She tells us how much she regrets what she's done.
She, I think, fancies Hector rather than Paris.

Speaker 15 She has a bit of a flirt with Hector in book six, and he doesn't blame her. He's kind even to Helen.
He sees this is a man's game and that she's just a porn

Speaker 15 man's game. And she also sings a lament for Hector.
There's four women who sing laments in book 24, and that is Andromache, Hecuba,

Speaker 15 Helen, and Cassandra.

Speaker 15 We meet Cassandra in book 24, who, of course, by having Cassandra in, we know that somebody there knows everything that's going to happen. It's very clever.

Speaker 15 But, I mean, so we've got in the final book, we have Hector's mother, wife, sister, and sister-in-law, right? So it's the full compliment, and they all love him.

Speaker 16 I don't want to say nice, but it's a very kind of poignant end to Hector's story, having got the body back.

Speaker 16 You mentioned also there that other part of the story that I'd like to ask about before we move on, Edith, which is, of course, the role of the gods.

Speaker 16 So is the role of the gods, is it very self, are they portrayed all as being very selfish in their outlook? Are half of them siding with the Trojans, half of them with the Greeks?

Speaker 16 How are the gods portrayed in the Iliad?

Speaker 15 The main way that they're there is to show how much greater humans are as moral agents, precisely because the gods can't die. They're deprived of any real tragic dimension.

Speaker 15 All these humans are facing mortality and the real cost of having to act. The gods are basically unaccountable and can be irresponsible.
They can get injured, they get injured,

Speaker 15 there's some fighting between them.

Speaker 15 The worst one of all, and I'm quite fond of him because he's so awful, is Aries, war god, because all the other gods are on one side or another for historic reasons.

Speaker 15 There are reasons why, to do with their alliances, to do with the judgment of Paris, to do with who of them have got children on the battlefield or grandchildren, except for Zeus, who's kind of up there and a bit kind of weirdly disengaged.

Speaker 15 He's just got to make sure fate takes its course. But he's sad because he says the Trojans were the most wise people who always sacrificed a lot to him.

Speaker 15 But Ares is wonderful because he can't remember what side he's on. He's not on any side.
So Athena is the goddess of tactical warfare and planned warfare. He's the god of just mindless thuggery.

Speaker 15 So in book five, he's on the battlefield and he starts just jumping around killing anybody.

Speaker 16 It doesn't matter which side they're on. Wow.

Speaker 15 There's even a word that says that he's allo procellos, which means he jumps once to one side and then to the other side. And Athena says, what is the problem with you?

Speaker 15 You know, fighting's okay if you've got a motive or a reason that you can explain, but this is just violence for the sake of it.

Speaker 15 And, you know, I've seen scenes like that in Glaswegian pubs late at night. I have.

Speaker 15 And I think you could probably see see them on some football terraces where people just don't care what side they're hitting.

Speaker 16 And it's also, is it just the main gods or are there demigods as well?

Speaker 16 Or actually, you know, as you mentioned, there, so there are some people who are half man, half god who are fighting with the Achaeans or the Trojans.

Speaker 16 I mean, there's all this different mix of hybrid gods and gods and mortals there.

Speaker 15 And river gods.

Speaker 15 And river gods. Yeah.
No,

Speaker 15 there's a whole panoply and they've got different status. And there are arguments about status.

Speaker 15 So the last guy that Achilles kills before he fights the river is called Asteripaeus. And he's come very recently to Troy.
And

Speaker 15 he's the son of

Speaker 15 a Thracian river. So we have this goddough where it's like, is somebody who's the son of a big river more important than someone who's the son of a sea goddess?

Speaker 15 It's like the status game, it's a parody in a way of status in human life. Like,

Speaker 15 am I kingier than you?

Speaker 15 That extends into how much divine blood.

Speaker 16 Am I goddier than you?

Speaker 15 Wow.

Speaker 15 Am I goddier than you? Yeah.

Speaker 15 It's absolutely wonderful.

Speaker 15 But the gods' counterpoint is crucial because they, at the end of the day, you always have this amazing formulae like they just went back to feast and inextinguishable laughter arose amongst the gods.

Speaker 15 I mean, they're up there just laughing while humans are fighting, dying, and losing their nearest and dearest.

Speaker 16 As we move on to themes, I feel we've covered many of the big points and big characters of the Iliad story there, Edith.

Speaker 16 I must also ask, because we've just talked about gods fighting alongside these mythical heroes in the Iliad. Historical basis, though.

Speaker 16 Do we think that there could have been at least some historical basis for a big Achaean Bronze Age fleet crossing over to Troy and there being an actual siege of Troy.

Speaker 15 Oh, definitely, without a doubt. In terms of the general pattern, we know this.
Lineaby is a script that was used by people of the era of Agamemnon and Achilles, right?

Speaker 15 The Greeks subsequently lost that script and lost it for several hundred years until the writing that came in from the Phoenicians with which they wrote down the poems in the eighth century.

Speaker 15 But we know from remains of that script from places in the Peloponnese and Crete

Speaker 15 that there were raiding parties going out from Greece to get women and booty and stuff

Speaker 15 from the eastern Aegean and the Turk, what's now Anatolia, the west coast of Turkey. This is historically attested fact.
That is more historically attested than the actual site of Troy.

Speaker 15 We are not sure whether people have identified there is a Bronze Age Age palace of the right kind of date at a place called Hisalik, which, since the mid-19th century, everybody said is probably Troy, and I think it probably is.

Speaker 15 But whether actually a man called Agamemnon went and led any of these parties

Speaker 15 is irrelevant. There was a thalassocracy, that means a sea power in the Bronze Age of these Mycenaean Greeks who wrote in Linear B, and they were engaged in trading and aggressive activities

Speaker 15 for trading, raiding, I think, in precisely those areas, especially around the Hellespont, which was always a strategic hotspot.

Speaker 16 I'd like to move on to themes now, Edith.

Speaker 16 And one theme in particular that I'd love to ask about first of all, because I know we could talk about, there are so many other major themes linked to the Iliad, whether that be fate and prophecy, friendship, honor.

Speaker 16 But one I find really interesting, having read some of your work before recording, is also this talk

Speaker 16 about

Speaker 16 the world that they lived in, the natural world around them, but also natural disasters that occurred too. Is this also quite an interesting theme in the Iliad?

Speaker 15 It's very apocalyptic in its imagination.

Speaker 15 So strangely, a lot of this happens in similes.

Speaker 15 But you have countless similes that the soldiers descended on the other side, like a wildfire sweeping over a mountain, or they rise up like a wave that crashes and destroys everything in its path earthquake sort of stuff one mention is of terrible hunger famine there's only one and that's in in the last book but i think that there are are echoes or memory no they're memories that they're poetically encoded memories of the collapse of the bronze age civilizations with their tsunamis and fires and famines and displacements.

Speaker 15 I think that we're talking a post-apocalyptic poem. The Greeks of the eighth century could see around them ruins of these great Mycenaean palaces.
They've probably even seen bits of Linear B.

Speaker 15 We know from tomb findings that they discovered relics of the art, the bronze armor, because they're now living in the Iron Age, but they've discovered these bronze relics and so on.

Speaker 15 So they're construing, as we might, what it was like to be in the age of King Arthur from a handful of medieval artifacts and scraps of poetry, that kind of thing.

Speaker 15 So

Speaker 15 I think the apocalyptic tone is partly memory, but I've argued in this new book, which I'm going to plug called Epic of the Earth, reading Homer's Iliad in the fight for a dying world.

Speaker 15 I also think they betray at some level that they knew that they were chopping down too many trees. And they certainly were.

Speaker 15 The deforestation of the periphery of the Mediterranean began in the Bronze Age for three reasons.

Speaker 15 One was you actually just needed a lot of wood to build all those thousand ships at rate and all the watch fires and all the palisades.

Speaker 15 The second was that they cleared land at a disastrous rate for pasturage. All those cattle.
We're facing that now with how much land you need for cattle compared with growing lentils or whatever.

Speaker 15 The third reason, and perhaps the most important one, was smelting.

Speaker 15 The amount of wood you need to make even one piece of bronze armour in terms of the furnaces and the fires is unbelievable.

Speaker 15 So the Iliad is the expression of an age when the Greeks were pushing ever further afield and cutting down ever more forests.

Speaker 15 Whenever they ran out, they would just move further east, further south, further north, cut down more forests to feed this.

Speaker 15 And they believed they were infinite, but they had no knowledge that there were limits to earth.

Speaker 15 Doesn't excuse it, but I think that the Iliad at a subconscious level is letting us know they knew this was a problem.

Speaker 16 So it's almost a sense that, I mean, I said with all this exploiting of resources, not knowing that there was a finite limit at that time, and then with the hindsight several hundred years later, post-Bronze Age collapse, is there a sense in the Iliad that the Trojan War and all the conflict, I mean, it was almost catalyzing a natural disaster?

Speaker 15 Yes, I think so.

Speaker 15 I think you have to read it a bit against the grain and you have to have to, as I say, go for what literary critics call it

Speaker 15 political unconscious, but it's absolutely there, the amount of the trees of Ida that must have been cut down to keep that war going.

Speaker 16 Well, Mount Ida, and that's the big mountain nearby in Anatolia, yeah.

Speaker 15 And it's got this incredibly precious fir tree. There's only a few left.

Speaker 15 only grows in that area of the world and it's called the subspecies, Abies is the fir or pine, but it's called the subspecies trojan horse by botanists because they assume it was

Speaker 15 and the fight for the survival of that forest which is now only at the very top of the mountain is on now

Speaker 15 so we're still living

Speaker 15 the aftermath of the rapacious attitude to natural resources that is expressed in this hyper-consumption that's described with glory in the iliad I do find it so interesting.

Speaker 16 I love how you mentioned all those similes as well and how all those different, having done an interview on the Bronze Age collapse, a couple in the past, how Dr.

Speaker 16 E'Klein kind of explained how it probably is a combination, you know, famine, earthquakes, tsunamis and all those things, you know, and forest fires and everything, how they can all combine to be like a perfect storm.

Speaker 16 So interesting that you have those similes of those natural events as well. Edith, lastly, this has been brilliant, but also bringing it down to the modern day.

Speaker 16 And I know this also relates to your new book too. How useful then can the Iliad be when looking at the modern 21st century and important world issues today?

Speaker 15 Well, I think it can actually help us because we will see that these problems have been going on for 3,000 years and more. I think the Anthropocene started with the invention of bronze, of metallurgy.

Speaker 15 Before metallurgy, you couldn't really do colonial warfare. You can't do siege warfare by blowing darts out of fennel sticks, throwing ceramics.
You can't do it.

Speaker 15 you had to have metal and metal required all that unbelievable amount of wood it also required obscene working conditions for children, slaves, including children in mines.

Speaker 15 It's kind of the turning point. I think the Iliad is the poem of the moment our decline started.

Speaker 15 So, although it's glorious and wonderful, and I want everybody to read it, I think we could read it in a new tragic way that might inspire us to go out and fight for our planet.

Speaker 15 I want us to use the warfare in the Iliad to fight for our planet. And that's why I've written this book.

Speaker 15 And I've dedicated it to my children and all the rest of Generation Z with apologies for the state of the planet.

Speaker 15 Because I am ashamed that I'm 65 years old and I'm handing on, you know, I haven't done more. I really am.

Speaker 16 Edith, well, it's a wonderful book and it's a very, very noble cause. Last but certainly not least, the book is called.

Speaker 15 Epic of the Earth. Reading Homer's Iliad in the fight for a dying world.

Speaker 15 It's going to be published next month by Yale University Press and it's a trade book, so it is not all that expensive.

Speaker 16 Fantastic. Well Edith thank you so much for taking the time to come back on the podcast today.

Speaker 15 Thank you very much.

Speaker 16 Well there you go. There was Professor Edith Hall giving you an overview of some of the key themes, really interesting themes of the epic that is the Iliad.
I hope you enjoyed today's episode.

Speaker 16 If you'd like more of Professor Edith Hall on the ancients, well you're in luck because Edith also featured for one of our most popular episodes ever released at the beginning of this year all about Atlantis and exploring the ancient Greek story of Atlantis preserved in Plato and what Plato's dialogues actually say about this legendary city that was ultimately engulfed by the waves.

Speaker 16 Go and check out that episode if you want to listen to more Edith Hall on the Ancients. Thank you once again for listening to this episode of the Ancients.

Speaker 16 Please follow this show on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. It really helps us and you'll be doing us a big favor.

Speaker 16 Now don't forget, you can also listen to us and all of History Hit's podcasts ad-free, and watch hundreds of TV documentaries when you subscribe at historyhit.com/slash subscribe.

Speaker 16 Lastly, if you want more ancient history videos and clips in the meantime, then be sure to follow me on Instagram at Ancient Tristan. That's enough from me, and I'll see you in the next episode.

Speaker 20 Hi, folks, it's Mark Mark Bittman from the podcast Food with Mark Bittman.

Speaker 20 You know, whether you are doing traditional Thanksgiving, a friend's giving, or something in between, Whole Foods Market has great everyday prices on all the things you need for Thanksgiving.

Speaker 20 No way antibiotics ever birds bring quality to your table at a great price. You can enjoy so many ways to save on your Thanksgiving spread at Whole Foods Market.

Speaker 20 And remember, Prime gives you shop online and delivery or pickup as you like.

Speaker 14 Why choose a sleep number smart bed?

Speaker 15 Can I make my site softer?

Speaker 16 Can I make my site firmer?

Speaker 15 Can we sleep cooler?

Speaker 14 Sleep number does that. Cools up to eight times faster and lets you choose your ideal comfort on either side.
Your sleep number setting. Enjoy personalized comfort for better sleep night after night.

Speaker 14 It's our Black Friday sale, recharged this season with a bundle of cozy, soothing comfort. Now only $17.99 for our C2 mattress and base plus free premium delivery.

Speaker 14 Price is higher in Alaska and Hawaii. Check it out at a sleep number store or sleepbumber.com today.