Welcome to the Ancient Warfare Magazine podcast by the History Network.org.

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Season 10 of the History Network podcast will begin at the start of January

and will be quickly following up with the next ancient warfare episode, Royal Stalemate.

We want to take this opportunity to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and all the best for the new year from all the team here.

Hello everyone. We're back with an ancient warfare podcast.

This time we're discussing Volume 4, Issue 5,

Fighting for the Gods, Warfare and Religion.

With me tonight are my usual guests,

Lindsay Powell, Murray Dom, and Michael Taylor.

Hi guys.

Hello.

Hello. So what should we start with today?

It's a big topic.

I guess maybe we should kind of outline how religion in the ancient world is somewhat different from the way people in the current modern religious traditions, whether it's Islam, Christianity, Judaism, think about religion in that whereas most modern see religion as an issue of personal piety based on a kind of personal relationship with their deity.

The Romans and the Greeks very much saw religion as an almost transactional situation with a broad variety of gods and that the key to success in if you're a Greek or Roman general is make sure you get the ritual right so that the gods in exchange in the in the transaction will bring you success and the Romans I think by

and large are more explicit about this in the Greeks because the Romans even have a

the Vota the vow where you actually say if if I win this battle then I will

vow you know a temple to whatever God whereas you, you know, if you look at, say, Patton,

you know, before the relief of Bastogne just says, oh, please God, please make the weather

...