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Radio War Nerd EP #151 — Ancient Athens' Disastrous Sicily Expedition, 415 BC (Patreon)

Published:
2018-09-30 22:10:21
Imported:
2026-06
Tags:

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Content

Guest: Philip Matyszak, author & historian

Recorded: September 28, 2018

The War Nerd embarked on a personal expedition to Syracuse, Sicily, to see for himself the battle sites where Classical Athens went to commit suicide in the catastrophic Sicily Expedition of 415-413 B.C. There's not much to see today, but thankfully we have the perfect guest to walk us through that disastrous campaign in all its tragi-gory resonance: historian Philip Matyszak, author of an excellent, fun book, "Expedition to Disaster: The Athenian Mission to Sicily 415 BC". 

Maps & Images (*from Matyszak's book):

* Map of ancient Athenian fleet's route to Sicily

* Map of Athenian siege of Syracuse

Total time: 1:56:14

Direct link to this episode's mp3 here.

Files

Comments

Chris H

Great interview. Roman history episodes would be fantastic.

Francis Terpening

St. Anthony was the Patron Saint of lost things.

d

This has big Napoleon in Egypt vibes

MoldyTolge

This episode serendipitously came out the day we covered the Athenian empire in my western civ class! Great follow up to the Athens episode from wayyy back.

radiowarnerd

That's a good idea. We could probably take a ferry there from here.

radiowarnerd

Not in my house it wasn't. We were Judists.

radiowarnerd

Yeah, why that fool didn't just cross the Channel and be done with it, I'll never know. Even if he lost half the army to the Royal Navy, it would have been much more effective than losing all of it in Russia.

MoldyTolge

Anthony is lost things, Jude is lost causes. Some sort of deeper, tragic meaning to that could be sussed out by someone smarter than me.

MoldyTolge

Another event that would make a prime episode. He went by Ali Bonaparte and dressed in Egyptian clothing at his birthday party.

John

Which was the original episode? I need to refresh before jumping into this one.

Andy

Phenomenal episode. Excited to pick up some books by Philip to read!

MoldyTolge

War Nerd #97: Thucydides for Dummies

John

Thank you very much. Sounds targeted. 🤔

radiowarnerd

You'll like them I think. He's more in tune with the way we do things than most authors. Wait, that sounded vain...

radiowarnerd

Let me put it this way: a certain mad uncle of mine once was in the habit of answering the phone, "Jude/Anthony Residence. He thought he was both. Now you know my story."

radiowarnerd

Let me put it this way. My mad uncle answered the phone "Jude-Anthony Residence." He thought he was both. Now you know too much.

xnfec

Nice episode. There were times I feared you weren't going to make it to the actual fighting but you did. Well done! On an aside, it was mentioned that subsequent histories very much are seen from the Athenians point of view. In his book Creation, Gore Vidal writes from the point of view of a half Greek, half Persian narrator from the time of Darius the Great and Xerxes who makes this point, in that the Persians had many Greeks in their empire, many of whom were very happy to fight against the Athenians.

Robert Delany

YouTube has a few videos of Olympias sea trials for those interested.

Benjamin Glover

Philip is excellent and you should definitely have him on again.

The Fakir (edited)

Comment edits

2026-09-07 15:00 When you were looking for modern analogies for the type of empire the Corinthian ambassador describes to the Spartans, obviously, it's the British Empire !! I suppose the two of you did not jump at that out of politeness for your (presumably conservative) guest.
2018-10-05 18:03

Sérgio Teixeira da Silva

A bullet, please, need something to bite. UUUNNNGGGHHH!!! - more Matyszak, please. (I expressed opposition to you covering WWII or Mediterranean antiquity before - then you got Annibale and Matyszak. Matyszak's awesome (I first saw his blog, and saw that it was good), the explanation of the walls was great. More please.) That said: the most underappreciated Roman (including Eastern, though you covered part of that already) question is Iran - what, to a great extent, Rome actually broke itself against. BTW, can Matyszak call it that? It's always been its name. Yes, I'm familiar with the word "exonym", but I can argue that "Persia" props up the misconception that Iran "changed its name", when it asked "Hey, can you people call our country *our name*?". On being afraid to deal with YHWH directly, the most common alternative's his mom. Also, in Portuguese "Longinus" ("Longuinho") rhymes with "hop" ("pulinho"), which led to a tradition, which led to ... <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCQo9v7MZeY" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCQo9v7MZeY</a> Reincarnation seems to be the common Indo-European belief, spotted in (at least) the Greek, Celtic, Germanic, and Slavic branches. Hinduism at least from the period that originated Buddhism and Jainism has it, but I'm not aware of it in early Vedic religion (the most Indo-European; definitely might be there, though). Anybody who wants to know more can ask a druid at ecosophia.dreamwidth.org , during Magic Mondays (that's a post type).

Sérgio Teixeira da Silva

Wrong modesty is no better than wrong pride if it prevents people from finding awesome stuff.

GETTODACHOPPAH

I loved this ep! I saw the Athenians in a whole new light. Please bring Matyszak back too : )

Hugh

Matyszak has the most tolerable latent South African accent I've ever heard, which is a feat unto itself. I've been able to get my hands on 2 of his books in NY bookstores following the show, but unfortunately not the Sicilian expedition one.

Jon

Suggestion for WN episode/ Escambray Rebellion against the Castro government (1960-1965)

Tupac Chopra

Matyszak needs to return on a regular basis.