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Ancient Greece Declassified

59 The Ancient Novels w/ Doug Metzger (Apuleius, Lucian, Chariton, Heliodorus, Petronius, Achilles Tatius)

Ancient Greece Declassified

Dr. Lantern Jack

History, Education

4.8587 Ratings

🗓️ 1 March 2025

⏱️ 59 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Unveiling the wild world of ancient Greek and Roman novels with Doug Metzger, host of the "Literature and History Podcast."

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Support Ancient Greece Declassified on Patreon: patreon.com/greecepodcast

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Contents of the episode, with timestamps:

04:22 When did novels first arise?

09:12 The four genres of ancient novels

11:39 The typical plot (Callirhoe)

17:55 Daphnis and Chloe

21:10 Euripides' romances

28:17 Narrative in the Bible

32:43 Evolution of the ancient novel

34:27 Leucippe and Clitophon

35:47 Heliodorus' Aethiopica 

37:35 Lucian and the influence on modernity

43:08 The Second Sophistic

47:14 Greek VS Roman novels

53:44 The X-rated stuff

 

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Warning, the following program contains discussions of some very dirty literature.

0:05.2

We'll be talking about the oldest novels in history.

0:08.0

It just so happens that those pioneering works of literature were often X-rated.

0:13.4

Now, for those of us who still read books in this day and age, the novel is probably the archetypal form of literature.

0:19.8

The novel has been the most popular

0:21.7

fictional medium for several centuries now. We learn in school that the novel is a product of

0:28.0

the modern world, and by modern I mean like post-renaissance. But is it really true? Today we'll be

0:34.4

speaking to somebody who claims that this standard origin story of the novel

0:37.8

is in fact a fiction and that novels not only existed thousands of years ago but you can still

0:43.7

read and enjoy depending on your temperament those novels today.

0:53.4

Hi, thanks for tuning in to ancient Greece, Declassified.

1:02.2

Episode 59.

1:04.4

The Ancient Novels.

1:15.8

So I know I promised you guys The Mysticles Part 3, and we will get to that next time. But I just was visited a couple weeks ago by my friend Doug Metzger, host of the Literature and

1:20.6

History Podcast, as many of you are aware.

1:23.1

And he just finished a lengthy deep dive into the ancient novels, which is a topic I've always wanted

1:28.8

to know more about.

1:30.2

And so I couldn't resist having a sit down conversation with him.

1:33.9

We recorded it with video as well.

1:36.0

So if you prefer to watch, you can go to YouTube.com slash lanternjack and find the most recent

1:40.7

video.

1:41.5

And if you just prefer the podcast in your ear as you go about your

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