And the So, The Hi, I'm Ryan Stid, and we'll come back to the history of ancient Greece. We are taking a break from our regularly

scheduled programming for another special guest episode in a series where I converse with classicists

and ancient historians about either books or articles that they have published, their current research interests,

or just unique classes and topics that they are teaching and exploring further.

In today's special guest episode, I am joined by military historian Mark Desantis.

He is the author of Rome Seizes the Trident,

a book about the rise of Republican Rome's naval forces,

as well as over 200 published scholarly articles that have appeared in a wide range of international publications

including MHQ military history, ancient warfare, military history monthly, history of War, and Ancient History magazine.

In addition to his historical writings, Mark is the author of the Memnon War, a series of science

fiction novels, and he teaches English at St. Peter's University.

Mark's most recent book, A Naval History of the Peloponnesian War, will be the topic at hand today.

So without further ado, here's our conversation.

Ancient Greek history is not an easy thing to wrap your head around. This is a whole bunch of

different phrases, terms, unknown things you never knew about.

How much you read.

I know.

Quite about that.

Much of ancient history in general, but ancient Greek history in particular, is because the written materials are sparse or if they survive they

post date the events they're talking about by centuries that is the reliability of those sources is open to question.

That doesn't mean that it's wrong, but it's open to question.

I would wish that we had the materials that were very soon after the events and crush.

...