EPISODE 7 “THE MAD KING”

TROJAN WAR: THE PODCAST

Jeff Wright

History

4.8 • 650 Ratings

🗓️ 30 August 2016

⏱️ 60 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

THE STORY: (43 minutes) Operation Trojan Storm needs the craft and cunning of Odysseus, Greece’s most clever man. But Odysseus has mysteriously vanished. Agamemnon puts his best man, Palamedes, on the case. “Find Odysseus; bring him to me, one way or another”, Agamemnon commands. But what Palamedes discovers when he finally locates Odysseus ….! Tune in to the podcast to learn the whole, horrifying truth! THE COMMENTARY: GREEK PIRATES vs. TROJAN MERCHANTS (17 minutes; begins at 43:00) I shamelessly spend this entire post-story commentary geeking-out on Greek naval technology and tactics. First I paint a quick picture of sort of ships that Agamemnon was building in order to launch his amphibious invasion of Troy. Then I review Greek naval tactics, explaining how Agamemnon’s fast, nimble and highly mobile ships managed to terrorize the towns and cities of the Mediterranean world. Then I explain how the Greeks of 1250 B.C.E. “looked outward” for economic opportunity: how they proudly sacked, pillaged and raped their way through the Mediterranean with the help of their boats. Then I turn to Troy – a Mediterranean power with no navy at all. I explore the reason for this: namely that the Trojans were merchants who had no need to venture outward for economic opportunity. They simply sat safely behind their high walls and waited for the world’s wealth to come to them. Finally I review doubts expressed by contemporary historians concerning the actual size of Agamemnon’s invasion fleet: were there really 1186 ships, as Homer claims? Lots of fun! Jeff RELATED IMAGES

Transcript

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0:00.0	You are listening to Trojan War, the podcast, history's most awesome epic.
0:34.0	This is episode number seven in the series.
0:37.2	Today's episode is titled The Mad King. So welcome back to Trojan War the podcast.
1:06.6	Now you'll notice that I've titled this episode, The Mad King, and the reasons why I've
1:13.1	chosen that title are going to become apparent very, very quickly. Just if you want to recall,
1:17.8	when we left things at the end of the previous episode, Agamemnon, the king of Mycenae, the most
1:22.9	powerful of the Greek warlord kings, was in the process of assembling a massive coalition army.
1:29.5	An army which Agamemnon hoped when it was complete would be 100,000 men strong and would
1:35.9	then require 1,000 boats. Boats at Agamemnon was currently in the process of building.
1:41.2	And then that coalition army, Agamemnon, was confident,
1:45.1	would sail across the Aegean Sea to the city of Troy. And in a quick pitched battle,
1:51.2	100,000 Greeks against Troy's 75,000 soldiers, Agamemnon would destroy the city of Troy. And
1:58.3	well, Greek ascendancy in the Mediterranean, an age of Greek ascendancy in the Mediterranean an age of Greek ascendancy in
2:03.1	the Mediterranean would begin with Agamemnon as a king of kings who had pulled off the venture in the
2:08.1	first place. Agamemnon was a warlord of overarching ego and ambition and he'd lie awake at night
2:14.1	on the beach at allus where he was assembling this coalition army and
2:18.7	Agamemnon's eyes were just filled with dreams of glory and of possibly even a unified
2:24.5	Greece with all the other warlords deferring and bowing down to him.
2:29.4	Now, over the course of the summer, the warlords assembled, 50 of them assembled initially,
2:35.3	the warlords who had agreed to the oath of the quartered horse and were bound by that
2:41.7	oath to come in an attempt to rescue Helen of Sparta, who was now residing in Troy and was now
2:47.2	Helen of Troy. The warlords were there with their armies for that particular reason, but
	...

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