RE-AIR: Liv Reads Ancient Spooky Selections from Pliny, Ovid, Aeschylus, and Lucan

This episode originally aired in October 2023. Liv reads a selection of spooky content from ancient authors: Aeschylus' Agamemnon, translated by Herbert Weir Smyth https://www.theoi.com/Text/AeschylusAgamemnon.html; Aeschylus' Eumenides, translated by Herbert Weir Smyth https://www.theoi.com/Text/AeschylusEumenides.html; Lucan's Pharsalia https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/602/pg602.html; Letters of Pliny the Younger, translated by William Melmoth https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/2811/pg2811-images.html. Submit your question for the next Q&A via email http://mythsbaby.com/questions or a voice note https://www.speakpipe.com/LTAMB. Get ad-free episodes and so, so much more, by subscribing to the Oracle Edition at patreon.com/mythsbaby http://patreon.com/mythsbaby CW/TW: far too many Greek myths involve assault. Given it's fiction, and typically involves gods and/or monsters, I'm not as deferential as I would be were I referencing the real thing. Attributions and licensing information for music used in the podcast can be found here: mythsbaby.com/sources-attributions http://mythsbaby.com/sources-attributions. Learn more about Liv's next group trips https://travelbugxlivalbert.my.canva.site/ to GREECE! Application deadline is November 30 (Subject to change due to demand). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Liv Albert?

  Hey nerds, really quick note from me. I want to tell you that we now have the applications open for the next set of listener group trips. This is us going back to the original, the trips that we have held in the past that have been so much fun, so successful, and pretty affordable in terms of wandering around Greece with a bunch of nerds. So, check out the details and get your applications in at mythsbaby.com/groups.

• 0:42Speaker 01

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• 1:40Liv Albert?

  Hi, hello. This is Let's Talk About Myths, baby, and I am your spooky season obsessed host, Liv. And welcome to the first Friday episode of said spooky season. Yes, we're celebrating every day of spooky season here, but I promise I won't make such a show out of it in every episode, maybe? Today, though, today, I'm featuring some selected readings from all the spookiest content that I could find from ancient Greek and Roman texts. And as usual, when it comes to stories from the ancient world, it often ends up a bit more like, you know, the Saw franchise than it does The Haunting of Hill House. But what can you do?

• 2:24Liv Albert?

  Ancient gore is far more enjoyable than modern gore, if you ask me. And thus, a quick trigger warning. I mean, these ancient stories are gross. I don't think any of them feature assault, but they might, because it's Greek and Roman mythology. But they are gross, and horrific, and so enjoyable. So be warned. All of that said, we are beginning today's reading with the closest thing that the ancient world has to The Haunting of Hill House, and I cannot wait to read it to you all. Like, to be honest, I was sure that I'd read this last year, but I went looking and I don't think I did. I think I just did it for, like, TikTok? When I was briefly trying to do TikTok?

• 3:06Liv Albert?

  So bonus for us today, because there is a short, tragically short, but magnificent ghost story, haunted house story from the ancient world, and it is one of my all-time favorites. We're going to be doing a couple of reading episodes this month, all of the best horror and gore and descents into the underworld, the world of the dead that I could possibly find. You can find a list of the sources and translations that I have been reading from in the episode's description, but I'm going to introduce each piece to give you an idea of what is in store. From Pliny's story of Athenodorus and his haunted house, to the angry ghost of a murderous

• 3:45Liv Albert?

  woman, to the varied ways epics describe travels to the underworld, to a Roman witch whose context I don't entirely understand but who seems to be pretty fucking scary, all the same. The ancient world knew how to handle horror.

• 4:29Liv Albert?

  These are readings of Ancient Spooky, selections from Pliny, Ovid, Aeschylus, and Lucan.

• 4:39Liv Albert?

  We begin today with my personal favorite, a ghost story from ancient Athens as recorded by Pliny the Younger, aka the guy who witnessed Vesuvius popping off and taking out Pompeii and Herculaneum, and who wrote down what he saw thus giving us first firsthand account of a volcanic eruption. But he also wrote about this haunted house, clanking chains and moaning ghosts and all.

• 5:11Liv Albert?

  "There was at Athens a large and roomy house, which had a bad name, so that no one could live there. In the dead of the night a noise resembling the clashing of iron was frequently heard, which, if you listened more attentively, sounded like the rattling of chains, distant at first but approaching nearer by degrees. Immediately afterwards a spectre appeared in the form of an old man, of extremely emaciated and squalid appearance, with a long beard and dishevelled hair, rattling the chains on his feet and hands.

• 5:52Liv Albert?

  The distressed occupants meanwhile passed their wakeful nights under the most dreadful terrors imaginable. This, as it broke their rest, ruined their health and brought on distemper; their terror grew upon them and death ensued."

• 6:10Liv Albert?

  Even in the daytime, though the spirit did not appear, yet the impression remained so strong upon their imaginations that it still seemed before their eyes, and kept them in perpetual alarm. Consequently, the house was at length deserted, as being deemed absolutely uninhabitable, so that it was now entirely abandoned to the ghost. However, in hopes that some tenant might be found, who was ignorant of this very alarming circumstance, a bill was put up, giving notice that it was either to be let or sold.

• 6:50Liv Albert?

  It happened that Athenodorus, the philosopher, came to Athens at this time, and, reading the bill, inquired the price. The extraordinary cheapness raised his suspicion. Nevertheless, when he heard the whole story, he was so far from being discouraged, that he was more strongly inclined to hire it, and, in short, actually did so. When it grew towards evening, he ordered a couch to be prepared for him in the front part of the house, and, after calling for a light, together with his pencil and tablets, directed all his people to retire. But that his mind might not, for want of employment, be open to the vain terrors of

• 7:34Liv Albert?

  imaginary noises and spirits, he applied himself to writing with the utmost attention. The first part of the night passed in entire silence, as usual. At length, a clanking of iron and rattling of chains was heard. However, he neither lifted up his eyes nor laid down his pen, but in order to keep calm and collected, tried to pass the sounds off to himself as something else.

• 8:04Liv Albert?

  The noise increased and advanced nearer, till it seemed at the door, and at last in the chamber, he looked up, saw and recognized the ghost exactly as it had been described to him. It stood before him beckoning with a finger, like a person who calls another. Athenodorus, in reply, made a sign with his hand that it should wait a little, and threw his eyes again upon his papers. The ghost then rattled its chains over the head of the philosopher, who looked up upon this, and, seeing it beckoning as before, immediately arose, and, light in hand, followed it.

• 8:44Liv Albert?

  The ghost slowly stalked along, as if encumbered with its chains, and, turning into the area of the house, suddenly vanished. Athenodorus, being thus deserted, made a mark with some grass and leaves on the spot where the spirit left him. The next day he gave information to the magistrates, and advised them to order that spot to be dug up. This was accordingly done, and the skeleton of a man in chains was found there, for the body, having lain a considerable time in the ground, was putrefied and mouldered away from the fetters.

• 9:28Liv Albert?

  The bones, being collected together, were publicly buried, and thus after the ghost was appeased by the proper ceremonies, the house was haunted no more.

• 9:59Liv Albert?

  Next, we're reading something just haunting. These are lines adapted from Aeschylus's play, The Agamemnon. I've cut it together so that it's mostly just Cassandra speaking, cutting out much of the chorus, so that I can just read her words to you. I don't want to spoil the play Thiestes that's to come next week. But there are a lot of relevant references in Cassandra's speech, and I am so here for them. Most of this is said in concert with comments from the chorus, but it is her lines that I care about today. It's her lines that are haunting.

• 10:40Liv Albert?

  This woman whose city was destroyed, whose family was murdered, and who was then raped on the altar to Athena before being made a spoil of war enslaved by Agamemnon and brought home to his wife and kingdom as some kind of sick trophy, only to be killed alongside him for his crimes entirely. Add to that, she sees the future, but no one believes a word she says, and you have got a recipe for horror. The man who's brought her there has just gone inside the palace, Agamemnon, where he is

• 11:20Liv Albert?

  going to be killed brutally by Clytemnestra, and Cassandra is left on the stage with the chorus just to experience it all aloud. Whoa, whoa, whoa, Apollo, Apollo, Apollo, God of the ways, my destroyer, for you have destroyed me and utterly this second time. Apollo, Apollo, God of the ways, my destroyer, ah, what way is this that you have brought me to what a house?

• 12:00Liv Albert?

  No, no, rather to a god-hating house, a house that knows many a horrible butchery of kin, a slaughterhouse of men and a floor swimming with blood. Here is the evidence in which I put my trust. Behold those babies bewailing their own butchery and their roasted flesh eaten by their father. Alas, what can she be planning? What is this fresh woe she contrives here within? What monstrous, monstrous horror beyond love's enduring, beyond all remedy and help stands far away.

• 12:43Liv Albert?

  Ah, damned woman, will you do this thing? Your husband, the partner of your bed, when you have cheered him with the bath, will you? How shall I tell the end? Soon it will be done. Now this hand, now that, she stretches forth. Ah, ah, what apparition is this? Is it a net of death? No, it is a snare that shares his bed, that shares the guilt of murder. Let the fatal pack, insatiable against the race, raise a shout of jubilance over a victim accursed. Ah, ah, see there, see there, keep the bull from his mate. She has caught him in the robe and gours him with the crafty device of her black horn. He falls in a vessel of water.

• 13:24Liv Albert?

  It is doom wrought by guile in a murderous bath that I am telling you. Alas, alas, the sorrow of my ill-starred doom, for it is my own affliction, crowning this cup, that I bewail. Ah, to what end did you bring me here, unhappy as I am, for nothing except to die? And not alone? What else? Ah, fate of the clear-voiced nightingale, the gods clothed her in a winged form, and gave to her a sweet life without tears, but for me waits destruction by the two-edged sword. Ah, the marriage, the marriage of Paris, that destroyed his friends.

• 14:05Liv Albert?

  Ah, me, scumander, my native stream, upon your banks in bygone days, unhappy maid, was I nurtured with fostering care, but now by Coctus and the banks of Acheron, I think I soon must chant my prophecies. Oh, the sufferings, the sufferings of my city utterly destroyed. Alas, the sacrifices of my father offered, the many pasturing cattle slain to save its towers. Yet they provided no remedy to save the city from suffering, even as it has, and I, my soul on fire, must soon fall to the ground.

• 14:49Liv Albert?

  And now, no more shall my prophecy peer forth from beyond a veil like a new-wedded bride, but it will rush upon me clear as a fresh wind, blowing against the sun's uprising so as to dash against its rays, like a wave, a woe far mightier than mine. No more by riddles will I instruct you, and bear me witness as, running close behind, I sent the track of crimes done long ago. For from this roof never departs a choir chanting in unison, but singing no harmonious tune, for it tells not of good. And so, gorged on human blood so as to be the more emboldened,

• 15:31Liv Albert?

  a revel rout of kindred furies haunts the house, hard to be driven away. Lodged within its halls they chant their chant, the primal sin, and each in turn they spurn with loathing a brother's bed, for they bitterly spurn the one who defiled it. Have I missed the mark, or, like a true archer, do I strike my quarry? Or am I prophet of lies, a door-to-door babbling? Bear witness upon your oath that I know the deeds of sin, ancient in story of this house.

• 16:09Liv Albert?

  Ah, ah, oh, oh, the agony! Once more the dreadful throes of true prophecy whirl and distract me with their ill-boating onset. Do you see them there, sitting before the house, young creatures like phantoms of dreams? Children, they seem, slaughtered by their own kindred, their hands full of the meat of their own flesh. They are clear to my sight, holding their vitals and their inward parts, piteous burden, which their father tasted.

• 16:39Liv Albert?

  For this cause I tell you that a strengthless lion wallowing in his bed plots vengeance. A watchman waiting, ah me, for my master's coming home. Yes, my master, for I must bear the yoke of slavery. The commander of the fleet and the overthrower of Ilium little knows what deeds shall be brought to evil accomplishment by the hateful hound, whose tongue licked his hand, who stretched forth her ears in gladness like treacherous ate. Such boldness has she, a woman to slay a man. What odious monster shall I fitly call her? An amphasbina, or a scylla teneting the rocks, a pest to mariners, a raging devil's mother breathing relentless war against her husband?

• 17:21Liv Albert?

  And how the all-daring woman raised a shout of triumph as, when the battle turns, the while she feigned to joy at his safe return? And yet, it is all one, whether or not I am believed, what does it matter? What is to come will come, and soon you, yourself, present here, shall with great pity pronounce me all too true a prophetess. I say you shall look upon Agamemnon dead. Over what I tell, no healing god presides. Oh, no, what fire! It comes upon me, woe, woe, Lucan Apollo! Ah me, ah me, this two-footed lioness, who mates with a wolf in the absence of the noble lion, will slay me miserable as I am, brewing as it were a drug.

• 18:05Liv Albert?

  She vows that with her wrath she will mix requittle for me too, while she wets her sword against her husband to take murderous vengeance for bringing me here. Why then do I bear these mockeries of myself, this wand, this prophetic chaplet on my neck? You, at least I will destroy before I die myself. To destruction with you, and fallen there thus do I repay you. Enrich with doom some other in my place? Look, Apollo himself is stripping me of my prophetic garb. He that saw me mocked to bitter scorn, even in this bravery, by friends turned foes, with one accord in vain. But like some vagrant mountebank called beggar, wretch, starveling, I bore it all.

• 18:48Liv Albert?

  And now the prophet, having undone me, his prophetess, has brought me to this lethal pass? Instead of my father's altar, a block awaits me, where I am to be butchered in a hot and bloody sacrifice. Yet we shall not die unavenged by the gods, for there shall come in turn another our avenger, a scion of the race, to slay his mother, an exact requital for his sire, an exile, a wanderer, a stranger from this land. He shall return to put the coping stone upon these unspeakable iniquities of his house; for the gods have sworn a mighty oath, that his slain father's outstretched corpse shall bring him home. Why then thus raise my voice in pitiful lament? Since first I saw the city of Ilium fair, with it has fared,

• 19:32Liv Albert?

  while her captors by the gods' sentence are coming to such an end, I will go in and meet my fate. I will dare to die. This door I greet as the gates of death, and I pray that, dealt mortal stroke, without a struggle my life, blood ebbing away in easy death, I may close these eyes. There is no escape, no, my friends, there is none anymore. The day has come, flight would profit me but little. Alas for you, my father and your noble children, this house stinks of blood-dripping slaughter. It is like a breath from a charnel-house.

• 20:13Liv Albert?

  No, I will go to bewail, also within the palace my own, and Agamemnon's fate. Enough of life, alas, my friends, not with vain terror do I shrink, as a bird that fears a bush. After I am dead, bear witness for me of this, when for me a woman, another woman shall be slain, and for an ill-wedded man, another man shall fall. I claim this favor from you, now that my hour is come. Yet once more I would like to speak, but not a dirge. I pray to the sun, in presence of his latest light, that my enemies may at the same time pay to my avengers

• 20:57Liv Albert?

  a bloody penalty for slaughtering a slave, an easy prey. Alas for human fortune, when prosperous a mere shadow can overturn it, if misfortune strikes, the dash of a wet sponge blots out the drawing. And this last I deem far more pitiable than that.

• 21:34Liv Albert?

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• 22:18Liv Albert?

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• 23:00Liv Albert?

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• 23:26Speaker 01

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• 24:13Liv Albert?

  Next, we are returning to our good friend Ovid and one of my favorite horror stories from ancient myth. The man who angered a goddess and thus was cursed to be so indescribably hungry that he ate himself, Erisichthon.

• 24:35Liv Albert?

  "Now Erisichthon's daughter, Maestra, had that power of Proteus. She was called the wife of Deft Autilochus. Her father spurned the majesty of all the gods and gave no honor to their altars. It is said he violated with an impious axe the sacred grove of Ceres, and he cut her trees with iron. Long standing in her grove there grew an ancient oak tree, spread so wide alone it seemed a standing forest, and its trunk and branches held memorials as phyllets, tablets, garlands, witnessing how many prayers the goddess Ceres granted.

• 25:18Liv Albert?

  And underneath it, laughing dreedes loved to whirl in festive dances, hand in hand, encircling its enormous trunk, that thrice five ells might measure, and to such a height it towered over all the trees around, as they were higher than the grass beneath." But Erisichthon heedless of all things, ordered his slaves to fell the sacred oak, and as they hesitated, in a rage the wretch snatched from the hand of one an axe, and said, if this should be the only oak loved by the goddess of this very grove, or even were the goddess in this tree, I'll level to the ground its leafy head.

• 26:03Liv Albert?

  So boasted he, and while he swung on high his axe to strike a slanting blow, the oak, beloved of Cares, uttered a deep, groan and shudder. Instantly its dark-green leaves turned pale, and all its acorns lost their green, and even its long branches drooped their arms. But when his impious hand had struck the trunk and cut its bark, red blood poured from the wound, as when a weighty sacrificial bull has fallen at the altar, streaming blood spouts from his stricken neck.

• 26:43Liv Albert?

  All were amazed, and one of his attendants boldly tried to stay his cruel axe and hindered him, but Erisichthon, fixing his stern eyes upon him, said, let this then be the price of all your pious worship. So he turned the poised axe from the tree and clove his head sheer from his body, and again began to chop the hard oak. But from the heart of it these words were uttered: Covered by the bark of this oak-tree, I long have dwelt a nymph, beloved of Cares, and before my death it has been granted me to prophecy, that I may die contented; punishment for this vile deed stands waiting at your side. No warning could avert his wicked arm;

• 27:28Liv Albert?

  much weakened by his countless blows, the tree, pulled down by straining ropes, scathed way at last, and leveled with its weight uncounted trees that grew around it.

• 27:42Liv Albert?

  Terrified and shocked, the sister Dryads, grieving for the grove and what they lost, put on their sable robes and hastened unto Cares, whom they prayed might rightly punish Erisichthon's crime. The lovely goddess granted their request, and by the gracious movement of her head she shook the fruitful cultivated fields, then heavy with the harvest, and she planned an unexampled punishment deserved and not beyond his miserable crimes, the grisly bane of famine. But because it is not in the scope of destiny that two such deities should ever meet, as Cares and Gaunt famine, calling forth from mountain wilds a rustic Oriad, the goddess Cares said to her:

• 28:27Liv Albert?

  "There is an ice-bound wilderness of barren soil in utmost Scythia, desolate and bare of trees and grain, where torpid frost, white death and palsy and gaunt famine hold their haunts. Go there now and command that famine flit from there, and let her gnawing essence pierce the entrails of this sacrilegious wretch, and there be hidden. Let her vanquish me and overcome the utmost power of food. Heed not misgivings of the journey's length, for you will guide my dragon-bridled car through lofty ether." And she gave to her the reins, and so the swiftly-carried nymph arrived in Scythia.

• 29:07Liv Albert?

  There, upon the toad of steepy Caucasus, when she had slipped their tight yoke from the dragon's harnessed necks, she searched for famine in that granite land, and there she found her clutching it scant herbs with nails and teeth. Beneath her shaggy hair her hollow eyes glared in her ghastly face, her lips were filthy and her throat was rough and blotched, and all her entrails could be seen, enclosed in nothing but her shriveled skin. Her crooked loins were dry, uncovered bones, and where her belly should be there was a void. Her flabby breast was flat against her spine, her lean, emaciated body made her joints

• 29:48Liv Albert?

  appear so large her knobbled knees seemed large knots, and her swollen ankle bones protruded.

• 29:58Liv Albert?

  When the nymph with keen sight saw the famine monster fearing to draw near, she cried aloud the mandate she had brought from fruitful Cares. And although the time had been but brief and famine far away, such hunger seized the nymph, she had to turn her dragon steeds and flee through yielding air and the high clouds. At Thessaly she stopped. Grim famine hastened to obey the will of Cares, though their deeds are opposite, and rapidly through ether heights was born to Erisichthon's home. When she arrived at midnight slumber was upon the wretch, and as she folded him in her two wings, she breathed her pestilential poison through his mouth and throat and breast,

• 30:43Liv Albert?

  and spread the curse of utmost hunger in his aching veins. When all was done as Cares had decreed, she left the fertile world for bleak abodes and her accustomed caves. While this was done, sweet sleep with charming pinion soothed the mind of Erisichthon. In a dreamful feast he worked his jaws in vain and ground his teeth and swallowed air as his imagined food, till wearied with the effort he awoke to hunger scorching as a fire, which burned his entrails and compelled his raging jaws. So he, demanding all the foods of sea and earth and air, raged of his hunger,

• 31:26Liv Albert?

  while the tables groaned with heaps before him spread. He, banqueting, sought banquets for more food, and as he gorged he always wanted more. The food of cities and a nation failed to satisfy the cravings of one man; the more his stomach gets, the more it needs. Even as the ocean takes the streams of earth, although it swallows up great rivers drawn from lands remote, it never can be filled nor satisfied. And as devouring fire its fuel refuses never, but consumes unnumbered beams of wood and burns for more the more it is fed, and from abundance gains increasing famine,

• 32:08Liv Albert?

  so the raving jaws of wretched Erisichthon ever craved all food in him, was only cause of food, and what he ate made only room for more. And after famine through his gluttony at last had wasted his ancestral wealth, his raging hunger suffered no decline, and his insatiate gluttony increased. When all his wealth at last was eaten up, his daughter, worthy of a fate more kind, alone was left to him, and her he sold. Descendant of a noble race, the girl refusing to be purchased as a slave then hastened

• 32:49Liv Albert?

  to the near shore of the sea, and as she stretched her arms above the waves implored kind Neptune with her tears, "O you who have deprived me of virginity, deliver me from such a master's power." Although the master seeking her had seen her only at that moment, Neptune changed her quickly from a woman to a man, by giving her the features of a man and garments proper to a fisherman, and there she stood. He even looked at her and cried out, "Hey there, expert of the rod, while you are casting forth the bit of brass concealed so deftly in its tiny bait, God's willing, let the sea be smooth for you, and let the foolish fishes swimming up never know danger till they snap the hook.

• 33:30Liv Albert?

  Now tell me where is she, who only now, in tattered garment and wind-twisted hair, was standing on this shore, for I am sure I saw her standing on this shore, although no footsteps show her flight." By this assured the favor of the god protected her. Delighted to be questioned of herself, she said, "No matter who you are, excuse me, so busy have I been at catching fish, I have not had the time to move my eyes from this pool, and that you may be assured I only tell the truth, may Neptune, god of ocean, witness it. I have not seen a man where I am standing on this shore, myself excepted, not a woman, has stood here." Her master could not doubt it, and deceived, retraced his footsteps from the sandy shore.

• 34:13Liv Albert?

  As soon as he had disappeared, her form unchanged was given back to her. But when her father knew his daughter could transform her body and escape, he often sold her first to one and then another, all of whom she cheated. As a mare, bird, a cow, or a stag, she got away, and so brought food dishonestly to ease his greed. And so he lived until the growing strength of famine gnawing at his vitals had consumed all he could get by selling her. His anguish burned him with increasing heat. He gnawed his own flesh and he tore his limbs and fed his body all he took from it.

• 35:10Liv Albert?

  Now we'll return to Aeschylus's horror show of a trilogy, The Orestia. We heard from Cassandra, that Trojan woman whose life was cursed right from the very beginning, who seems to have never had a chance at happiness. And now the other woman in that story who was doomed to tragedy, Clytemnestra. These lines are from Aeschylus's Eumenides, the last play of the trilogy, after Orestes has killed his mother Clytemnestra for killing his father Agamemnon. The Eumenides, this play, is about what happens next. The Furies that haunt Orestes for his crimes, and even better, the ghost of Clytemnestra alongside those Furies. These are the words of her ghost.

• 35:55Liv Albert?

  Like with Cassandra's lines, I've adapted them from the play so they're more enjoyable for just my voice to read. In this case, though, we need some of the chorus's lines because, well, this is a chorus of fucking Furies. So instead, I've adapted it to clarify when we've got, you know, Furies onstage speaking alongside the ghost.

• 36:20Liv Albert?

  There's a rumor, too, that the audience witnessing this play for the first time was so terrified at seeing Furies, the Renaways, depicted onstage, that they nearly lost their minds, even had spontaneous bodily reactions, the details of which I won't go into, because I don't believe them for a second and they're inexplicably misogynistic. So instead, here is the ghost of Clytemnestra accompanied by this chorus of Furies who sleep fitfully on the stage.

• 36:57Liv Albert?

  "Sleep on, ah, yet what need is there of sleepers? It is due to you that I am thus dishonored among the dead. Because of those I killed, the dead never cease to reproach me, and I wander in disgrace. I tell you that I am most greatly accused by them, and yet, although I have suffered cruelly in this way from my nearest kin, no divine power is angry on my behalf. Slaughtered as I have been by the hands of a matricide. See these gashes in my heart and from where they came. For the sleeping mind has clear vision, but in the daytime, the fate of mortals is unforeseeable.

• 37:42Liv Albert?

  Truly, you have lapped up many of my offerings, wineless libations, a sober appeasement, and I have sacrificed banquets in the solemn night upon a hearth of fire at an hour unshared by any god. I see all this trampled underfoot, but he has escaped and is gone like a fawn, lightly indeed, from the middle of snares. He has rushed away mocking at you. Hear me, since I plead for my life. Awake to consciousness, goddesses of the underworld, for in a dream I, Clytemnestra, now invoke you."

• 38:28Liv Albert?

  The chorus of Furies, still seemingly asleep, begin to whine, to keen on the stage in unison, a haunting and ominous sound.

• 38:41Liv Albert?

  "Whine, if you will, but the man is gone, fled far away, for he has friends that are not like mine. You are too drowsy and do not pity my suffering. Orestes, the murderer of me, his mother is gone."

• 38:57Liv Albert?

  The whining of the chorus of Furies transforms into a low and horrible moaning.

• 39:05Liv Albert?

  "You moan, you drows, will you not get up at once? Is it your destiny to do anything other than cause harm? Sleep and toil, effective conspirators, have destroyed the force of the dreadful dragoness."

• 39:21Liv Albert?

  The chorus of Furies begin to speak in their sleep while still whining and moaning a symphony of horror, but now they, they begin to chant in their sleep. "Catch him, catch him, catch him, catch him, look sharp!"

• 39:37Liv Albert?

  In a dream, you're hunting your prey and are barking like a dog that never leaves off its keenness for the work. What are you doing? Get up! Do not let fatigue overpower you and do not ignore my misery because you have been softened by sleep. Sting your heart with merited reproaches, for reproach becomes a spur to the right-minded. Send after him a gust of bloody breath, shrivel him with the vapor, the fire from your guts. Follow him, wither him with fresh pursuit."

• 40:05Liv Albert?

  Just in time for the chorus to wake, the ghost of Clytemnestra just disappears. And now the chorus is awake and this is their chanting ode. It's signaling the entrance of a god, Apollo, who will be Orestes's advocate in the trial for his matricide.

• 40:28Liv Albert?

  Awake, wake her up as I wake you. Still asleep? Get up, shake off sleep. Let us see if any part of this beginning is in vain. Oh, oh, alas, we have suffered, friends. Indeed, I have suffered much and all in vain. We have suffered very painfully. Oh, an unbearable evil. The beast has escaped our nets and is gone. Overcome by sleep, I have lost my prey. Oh, child of Zeus, you have become a thief. You, a youth, have ridden down old divinities by showing respect to your suppliant, a godless man and cruel to a parent. Although you are a god, you have stolen away a man that killed his mother. What is there here that anyone shall call just? Reproach, coming to me in a dream, struck me like a charioteer with goad held tight under my heart, under my vitals.

• 41:09Liv Albert?

  I can feel the cruel, the very cruel chill of the executioners destroying scourge. They do such things, the younger gods who rule wholly beyond justice, a throne dripping blood about its foot, about its head. I can see the center stone of the earth defiled with a terrible pollution of blood. Although he is a prophet, he has stained his sanctuary with pollution at its hearth, at his own urging, at his own bidding. Against the law of the gods, he has honored mortal things and caused the ancient allotments to decay. And he brings distress to me too, but he shall not win his release. Even if he escapes beneath the earth, he is never set free. A suppliant, he will acquire another avenger from his family.

• 42:06Speaker 01

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• 42:55Liv Albert?

  Oh, this is so fun. Finally, now we are, we're going, hmm, we're going to dip our toes into the bloody waters of Rome. I've talked a lot on the show about the way Romans wrote about witches in comparison to the Greek. In Greek myth, our witches are women like Circe and Medea, or the goddess of witches herself, Hecate. They are powerful and terrifying, but they are also respected and great. Rome, meanwhile, imagines a different type of horror: a woman who is, gasp, old and decrepit. Roman witches are hags. They are ugly and disturbing.

• 43:35Liv Albert?

  They are male fragility. They are a representation of the Roman fear of powerful women who existed beyond the confines imposed by men. And the most famous of them, one could argue, I don't know Rome well enough, but I think so, is a witch named Erycto. Erycto appears most prominently in an epic written by the Roman author Lucan in the first century CE, about 100 years after the death of Julius Caesar and the civil war that preceded it. The epic is ostensibly about this civil war, and frankly, I have done minimal research into the epic itself because I'm really

• 44:16Liv Albert?

  only interested in this witch, not an epic about a Roman civil war. Like many, if not most, witches from Greek and Roman sources, she is in Thessaly, in northern Greece, which was, at that time, controlled by Rome. But it's also where we get this whole massive idea of Thessalian witches.

• 44:38Liv Albert?

  It was there that Caesar fought the Battle of Pharsalus against Pompey, but before this definitive battle comes Erictheo. This is how Wikipedia describes this book, Six of the Pharsalia. Pompey's troops forced Caesar's armies to fall back to Thessaly. Lucan describes the wild Thessalian terrain as the armies wait for battle the next day. The remainder of the book follows Pompey's son Sextus, who wishes to know the future. He finds the most powerful witch in Thessaly, Erictheo, and she reanimates the corpse of a dead soldier in a terrifying ceremony.

• 45:18Liv Albert?

  The soldier predicts Pompey's defeat and Caesar's eventual assassination. This is just the bit of that book about Erictheo. "When in this faded land the chiefs had placed their several camps, foreboding of the end now fast approaching, all men's thoughts were turned upon the final issue of the war. And as the hour drew near, the coward minds trembling beneath the shadow of the fate now hanging over them deemed disaster near. While some took heart, yet doubted what might fall, in hope and fear alternate.

• 46:00Liv Albert?

  Mid the throng Sextus, unworthy son of worthy sire, who soon upon the waves that Skilla guards, Sicilian pirate, exile from his home, stained by his deeds of shame, the fights he won could bear delay no more. His feeble soul, sick of uncertain fate, by fear compelled, forecast the future, yet consulted not the shrines of Delos, nor the Pythian caves, nor was he satisfied to learn the sound of Jove's brass cauldron amid Dodona's oaks, by her primeval fruits the nurse of men."

• 46:42Liv Albert?

  Nor sought he sages who by flight of birds, or watching with Thessalian care the stars, in fires of heaven, or by victims slain. May know the fates to come, nor any source lawful though secret, for to him was known that which excites the hate of gods above: magicians' lore, the savage creed of dis, and all the shades and sad with gloomy rites mysterious altars.

• 47:15Liv Albert?

  For his frenzied soul heaven knew too little, and the spot itself kindled his madness, for hard by there dwelt the brood of Hymon, whom no storied witch of fiction ever transcended. All their art in things most strange and most incredible. There were Thessalian rocks with deadly herbs, thick-planted, sensible to magic chants, funereal secret, and the land was full of violence to the gods. The queenly guest from Colchis gathered here the fatal roots that were not in her store. Hence, vain to heaven, rise impious incantations, all unheard,

• 48:00Liv Albert?

  for deaf the ears divine, save for one voice which penetrates the furthest depths of airs, compelling even the unwilling deities to hearken to its accents. Not the care of the revolving sky or starry pole can call them from it ever. Once the sound of those dread tones unspeakable has reached the constellations, then nor Babylon nor secret Memphis, though they open wide the shrines of ancient magic and entreat the gods, could draw from them the fires that smoke upon the altars of far Thessaly.

• 48:43Liv Albert?

  To hearts of flint those incantations bring, love strange, unnatural. The old man's breast burns with illicit fire. Nor lies the power in harmful cup, nor in the juicy pledge of love maternal from the forehead drawn. Charmed forth by spells alone the mind decays, by poisonous drugs unharmed. With woven threads crossed in mysterious fashion do they bind those whom no passion born of beauteous form or loving couch unites.

• 49:21Liv Albert?

  All things on earth change at their bidding, night usurps the day, the heavens disobey their wanted laws. At that dread hymn the universe stands still, and jove while urging the revolving wheels, wonders they move not. Torrents are outpoured beneath the burning sun, and thunder roars, uncaused by Jupiter. From their flowing locks vapors immense shall issue at their call. Wind falls the tempest, seas shall rise and foam, moved by their spell. Though powerless the breeze to raise the billows,

• 50:04Liv Albert?

  ships against the wind with bellying sails move onward. From the rock hangs motionless the torrent, rivers run uphill. The summer's heat no longer swells the Nile in its course. Meander's stream is straight, slow roan is quickened by the rush of saione. Hills dip their heads and topple to the plain, Olympus sees his clouds drift overhead. And sunless scythia's sempiternal snows melt in midwinter. The inflowing tides driven onward by the moon at that dread chant ebb from their course.

• 50:47Liv Albert?

  Earth's axes, else unmoved, have trembled, and the force centripetal has tottered, and the earth's compacted frame, struck by their voice, has gaped, till through the void men saw the moving sky.

• 51:05Liv Albert?

  All beasts most fierce and savage fear them, yet with deadly aid furnish the witch's arts. Tigers, athirst for blood, and noble lions on them fawn, with bland caresses. Serpents at their word uncoil their circles, and extended glide along the surface of the frosty field. The viper's severed body joins anew, and dies the snake by human venom slain.

• 51:39Liv Albert?

  Whence comes this labor on the gods, compelled to hearken to the magic chant and spells, nor daring to despise them? Does some bond control the deities? Is their pleasure so? Or must they listen, and have silent threats prevailed, or piety unseen received? So great a gairdon! Against all the gods is this their influence? Or on one alone, who to his will constrains the universe himself constrained? Stars most in yonder climb shoot headlong from the zenith, and the moon gliding serene upon her nightly course

• 52:24Liv Albert?

  is shorn of lustre by their poisonous chant, dimmed by dark earthly fires, as though our orb shadowed her brother's radiance, and barred the light bestowed by heaven, nor freshly shines until, descending nearer the earth, she sheds her baneful drops upon the mead. These sinful rites, and these her sisters' songs, abhorred Eric, though fiercest of the race, spurned for their piety, and yet vile her art practiced in novel form. To her no home beneath the sheltering roof her tireful head,

• 53:06Liv Albert?

  Thus to lay down were crime, deserted tombs her dwelling place, From which, the harling of hell, she dragged the dead. Nor life nor gods forbade but that she knew the secret homes of Styx, And learned to hear the whispered voice of ghosts at dread mysterious meetings. Never sun shed his pure light upon the haggard cheek, Pale with the pallor of the shades, nor looked upon those locks unkempt that crowned her brow. In starless nights of tempest crept the hag, Out from her tomb to seize the leaven bolt.

• 53:48Liv Albert?

  Treading the harvest with cursed foot she burned the fruitful growth And with her breath poisoned the pure air. No prayer she breathed, nor supplication to the gods for help, Nor knew the pulse of entrails as do men who worship. Funeral pyres she loves to light, and snatch the incense from the flaming tomb. The gods at her first utterance grant her prayers for things unlawful, Lest they hear again its fearful accents. Men whose limbs were quick with vital power she thrust within the grave, Despite the fates who owed them years to come.

• 54:29Liv Albert?

  The funeral reversed brought from the tomb those who were dead no longer, And the pyre yields to her shameless clutch still smoking dust And bones enkindled, and the torch which held some grieving sire, But now, with fragments mixed in sable smoke and ceremonial cloths, Singed with the redolent fires that burned the dead. But those who lie within a stony cell, untouched by fire, Whose dried and mummied frames no longer know corruption, Limb by limb venting her rage, She tears the bloodless eyes, Drags from their cavities and mauls the nail upon the withered hand;

• 55:13Liv Albert?

  She gnaws the noose by which some wretch has died, And from the tree drags down a pendent corpse; Its members torn asunder to the winds. Forth from the palms wrenches the iron, And from the unbending bond hangs by her teeth, And with her hands collects the slimy gore, Which drips upon the limbs.

• 55:41Liv Albert?

  Where lay a corpse upon the naked earth, Unravening birds and beasts of prey? The hag kept watch, nor marred by knife or hand her spoil, Till on his victim seized some knightly wolf; Then dragged the morsel from his thirsty fangs, Nor fears she murder, If her rites demand blood from the living, Or some banquet fell requires the panting entrail. Pregnant wombs yield to her knife the infant To be placed on flaming altars, And whenever she needs some fierce, undaunted ghost, He fails not her, who has all deaths in use. Her hand has chased from smiling cheeks

• 56:26Liv Albert?

  The rosy bloom of life, And with sinister hand from dying youth Has shorn the fatal lock; And holding often foul embraces some departed friend, Severed the head; And through the ghastly lips, held by her own apart, Some impious tale, dark with mysterious horror, Has conveyed down to the stygian shades.

• 56:50Liv Albert?

  When rumor brought her name to Sextus in the depth of night, When Titan's chariot beneath our earth wheeled on his middle course, He took his way through fields deserted, While a faithful band, his wonted ministers in deeds of guilt, Seeking the hag mid-broken sepulchers, Beheld her seated on the crags afar, Where Hymus falls towards Farsalia's plain. There was she proving for her gods and priests Words still unknown, And framing numbered chants of dire and novel purpose; For she feared lest Mars might stray into another world

• 57:34Liv Albert?

  And spare Thessalian soil the blood, Earlong to flow in torrents; And she thus forbade Philippi's fields polluted with her song, Thick with her poisonous distillments sewn, To let the war pass by. Such deaths, she hopes, soon shall be hers, The blood of all the world shed for her use. To her it shall be given, To sever from their trunks the heads of kings, Plunder the ashes of the noble dead. Italy's bravest and in triumph Add the mightiest warriors to her host of shades; And now what spoils from Magnus's tombless corpse Her hand may snatch,

• 58:16Liv Albert?

  On which of Caesar's limbs she soon may pounce; She makes her foul forecast and eager gloats. To her the son of Pompey said thus: "You, greatest ornament of Hymon's daughters, In whose power it lies, Were to reveal the fates, Or from its course to turn the future, Be it mine to know by your sure utterance To what final end fortune now guides the issue. Not the least of all the Roman host on yonder plain am I, But Pompey's most illustrious son, Lord of the world or heir to death and doom." The unknown affrights me.

• 59:00Liv Albert?

  I can firmly face the certain terror. Bid my destiny, yield to your power, the dark and hidden end, and let me fall for knowing. From the gods extort the truth, or if you spare the gods, force it from hell itself. Fling back the gates that bar the Elysian field, let death confess whom from our ranks he seeks. No humble task I bring, but worthy of Eric those skill of such a struggle fought for such a prize to search and tell the issue. Then the witch, pleased that her impious fame was noised abroad, thus made her answer.

• 59:43Liv Albert?

  If some lesser fates you wish had been to change, against their wish it had been easy to compel the gods to its accomplishment, my art has power when one man the constellations press, the speedy death to compass a delay. And mine it is, though every star decrees a ripe old age, by mystic herbs to shear the life midway. But should some purpose set from the beginning of the universe and all the laboring fortunes of mankind be brought in question, then the salian art bows to this power supreme. But if you are content to know the issue preordained, it shall be swiftly yours, for earth and air and sea and space and Rhodopian crags shall speak the truth.

• 1:00:28Liv Albert?

  Yet it seems easiest where death and these the salian fields abounds to raise a single corpse. From dead men's lips scarce cold in fuller accents falls the voice, not from some mummied flame in accents shrill, uncertain to the ear. Thus spoke the hag, and through redoubled night a squalid veil swathing her pallid features stole among unburied carcasses.

• 1:00:58Liv Albert?

  Fast fled the wolves, the carrion birds, With maw unsatisfied, relaxed their talons, As with creeping step, she sought her profit. Firm must be the flesh, As yet though cold in death, And firm the lungs untouched by wound. Now in the balance hung, The fates of slain unnumbered, Had she striven armies to raise an order back to life, Whole ranks of warriors, The laws had failed of Erebus. And summoned up from the Styx, Its ghostly tenants had obeyed her call, And rising fought once more. At length the witch picks out her victim With pierced throat agape, fit for her purpose. Gripped by pitiless hook, Over rocks she drags him to the mountain cave.

• 1:01:42Liv Albert?

  Accursed by her fell rites, That shall restore the dead man's life. Close to the hidden brink, The land that girds the precipice of hell, Sinks towards the depths with ever-falling leaves. A wood overshadows and a spreading yew Casts shade imprentable. Foul decay fills all the space, And in the deep recess darkness unbroken, Save by chanted spells, reigns ever. Not where gape the misty jaws Of caverned Tinaris, the gloomy bound of either world, Through which the nether kings Permit the passage of the dead to earth. So poisonous, mephitic, hangs in the air.

• 1:02:25Liv Albert?

  Nay, though the witch had power to call The shades forth from the depths, It was doubtful if the cave were not a part of hell. Discordant hues flamed on her garb As by a fury worn. Bear was her visage, And upon her brow dread vipers hissed, Beneath her streaming locks in sable coils entwined. But when she saw the youth's companions Trembling, and himself with eyes cast down With visage as of death, Thus spoke the witch.

• 1:02:59Liv Albert?

  Forbid your craven souls these fears to cherish. Soon returning life, this frame shall quicken, and in tones which reach even the timorous ear, shall speak the man. If I have power, the stygian lakes to show, the bank that sounds with a fire, the fury band and little giants lettered, and the hound that shakes, bristling with heads of snakes, his triple head. What fear is this that cringes at the sight of timid, shivering shades?

• 1:03:32Liv Albert?

  Then to her prayer. First through his gaping bosom blood she pours, still fervent, washing from his wounds the gore. Then copious poisons from the moon distills, mixed with all monstrous things which nature's pangs bring. To untimely birth, the froth from dogs, stricken with madness, foaming at the stream, a lynx's entrails and the knot that grows upon the fell hyena. Flesh of stags, fed upon serpents and the sucking fish which holds the vessel back through eastern winds, make bend the canvas. Dragons' eyes and stones that sound beneath the brooding eagle's wings.

• 1:04:15Liv Albert?

  Nor arabies viper, nor the ocean snake who in the red sea waters guards the shell, are wanting. Nor the slough on Libyan sands by horned reptile cast, nor ashes fail snatched from the altar where the phoenix died. And viler poisons many, which herself has made, she adds, where to no name is given. Pestiferous leaves, pregnant with magic chance, and blades of grass, which in their primal growth her cursed mouth had slimed. Last came her voice, more potent than all herbs to charm the gods who rule in lethhe. Dissonant murmurs first, and sounds discordant from the tongues of men.

• 1:05:00Liv Albert?

  She utters, scarce articulate, the bay of wolves and barking as of dogs were mixed with that fell chant. The screech of nightly owl raising her hoarse complaint, the howl of beast and sibilant hiss of snake. All these were there, and more, the waft of waters on the rock, the sound of forests and the thunder peal. Such was her voice, but soon in clearer tones, reaching to Tartarus, she raised her song. "You awful goddesses, avenging power of hell upon the damned, and chaos huge who strives to mixed innumerable

• 1:05:40Liv Albert?

  worlds, and Pluto, king of earth, whose weary soul graves at his godhead. Sticks and plains of bliss we may not enter, and you, prasserpine, hating your mother and the skies above. My patron goddess, last and lowest form of hecate, through whom the shades and I hold silent converse. Warder of the gate, who casts human awful to the dog. You sisters who shall spin the threads again, and you, oh boatmen of the burning wave, now wearied of the shades from hell to me, returning. Hear me if with voice I cry, abhorred, polluted if the flesh of man has never been absent from my proffered song.

• 1:06:24Liv Albert?

  Flesh washed with brains, still quivering, if the child whose severed head I placed upon the dish but for his hand had lived, a listening ear lend to my supplication. From the caves hid in the innermost recess of hell, I claim no soul long banished from the light. From one but now departed, lingering still upon the brink of orcas is my prayer. Grant for you may, that listening to the spell once more he seeks his dust, and let the shade of this our soldier perish, if the war well at your hands has merited, proclaim the destiny of Pompey to his son."

• 1:07:05Liv Albert?

  Such prayers she uttered, Then her foaming lips and head uplifting present saw the ghost! Hard by he stood beside the hated corpse, His ancient prison and loathed to enter in. There was the yawning chest where fell the blow that was his death, And yet the gift supreme of death, His right, ah, wretch, was reft away! Angered at death the witch, And at the pause conceded by the fates, With living snake scourge as the moveless corpse. And on the dead she barks through fissures gaping to her song, Breaking the silence of their gloomy home. 'Tis symphony, magera, heed you not!

• 1:07:46Liv Albert?

  Flies not this wretched soul before your whips, The void of Erebus! By your very names, she-dogs of hell, I'll call you to the day! Not to return through sepulchers and death your gowler, From funereal urns and tombs I'll chase you forth! And you too, Hecate, who to the gods in comely shape and mean, Not that of Erebus appears henceforth wasted and pallas, As you are in hell.

• 1:08:15Liv Albert?

  At my command shall come, I'll noise abroad The banquet that beneath the solid earth holds you, You maid of Enna, By what bond you loved night's king? By what mysterious stain infected So that carries fears from hell to call her daughter? And for you, base king, Titan shall pierce your caverns, And his rays and sudden day shall smite you. Do you hear, Or shall I summon to my aid that god At whose dread name earth trembles, Who can look unflinching on the Gorgon's head, And drive the furies with his scourge? Who holds the depths you cannot fathom, And above whose haunts you dwell, supernal?

• 1:08:59Liv Albert?

  Who by waves of Styx forswears himself unpunished? Then the blood grew warm and liquid, And with softening touch cherished the stiffened wounds, And filled the veins, Till throbbed once more the slow returning pulse, And every fiber trembled, As with death life was co-mingled. Then, not limb by limb with toil and strain, But rising at a bound, Leaped from the earth erect, The living man! Fierce glared his eyes uncovered, and the life was dim,

• 1:09:39Liv Albert?

  and still upon his face remained the pallid hues of hardly parted death. Amazement seized upon him, to the earth brought back again, but from his lips tight draw no murmur issued. He had power alone, when questioned, to reply. "Speak," said the hag, "and I shall bid you great shall be your gain, if you but answer truly freed for me from all Hymonian art. Such burial place shall now be yours, and on your funeral pyre such fatal woods shall burn, such chant shall sound, that to your ghost no more, or magic song, or spell shall reach,

• 1:10:23Liv Albert?

  and your Lithian sleep shall never more be broken in a death, from me received anew. For such reward, think not this second life enforced in vain. Obscure may be the answers of the gods by priestess spoken at the holy shrine, by who braves the oracles of death in search of truth should gain a sure response. Then speak, I pray you, let the hidden fates tell through your voice the mysteries to come."

• 1:10:56Liv Albert?

  Thus she spoke, and her words by mystic force gave him his answer, but with gloomy mien and tears swift flowing thus he made reply. "Cull'd from the margin of the silent stream, I saw no fateful sisters spin the threads. Yet know I this, that amid the Roman shades reigns fiercest discord, and this impious war destroys the peace that ruled the fields of earth."

• 1:11:28Liv Albert?

  Elysian meads and deeps of Tartarus in paths diverse the Roman chieftains leave, and thus disclose the fates. The blissful ghosts spare visages of sorrow. Sire and son, the deci, who gave themselves to death, in expiation of their country's doom, and great Camillus wept, and Sulla's shade complained of fortune. Scipio bewailed the scion of his race about to fall in the sands of Libya. Cato, greatest foe to Carthage, grieves for that indignant soul which shall disdain to serve. Brutus alone, in all the happy ranks,

• 1:12:13Liv Albert?

  I, smiling, saw first consul when the kings were thrust from Rome. The chains were fallen from boastful Cataline; him too I saw rejoicing, and the pair of Marii and Cethagus's naked arm. The Druisi, heroes of the people, joyed in laws immoderate, and the famous pair of greatly daring brothers, guilty bands by bars eternal shut within the doors. That close the prison of hell applaud the fates, claiming the plains Elysian. And the king throws wide his pallid halls, makes hard the points of Craggy Rocks,

• 1:12:57Liv Albert?

  and forges iron chains the victor's punishment. But take with you this comfort, youth, that there is a calm abode and peaceful waits your father and his house; nor let the glory of a little span disturb your boding heart. The hour shall come when all the chiefs shall meet; shrink not from death, but glowing in the greatness of your souls, even from your humble sepulchers descend, and tread beneath your feet in pride of place the wandering phantoms of the gods of Rome. Which of the chiefs by

• 1:13:38Liv Albert?

  Tiber's yellow stream, and which by Nile shall rest, the leader's fate. This fight decides no more, nor seek to know from me your fortunes, for the fates in time shall give you all your due, and your great sire, a sureer prophet in Sicilian fields shall speak your future, doubting even he what regions of the world you should avoid, and what should you seek. O miserable race, Europe and Asia and Libya's plains, which saw your conquests, now shall hold alike your burial place;

• 1:14:19Liv Albert?

  nor has the earth for you a happier land than this.

• 1:14:26Liv Albert?

  His task performed, he stands in mournful guise, with silent look, asking for death again; yet could not die till mystic herb and magic chant prevailed; for nature's law, once used, had power no more to slay the corpse and set the spirit free. With plenteous wood she builds the funeral pyre, to which the dead man comes; then, as the flames seized on his form outstretched, the youth and witch together sought the camp; and as the dawn now streaked the heavens by the hag's command,

• 1:15:08Liv Albert?

  the day was stayed till Sextus reached his tent, and mist and darkness veiled his safe return.

• 1:15:32Liv Albert?

  Oh, nerds, nerds, nerds. That fucking witch. Like, I know that translation was, was definitely not ideal. It's all I had, but I really, I mean, she's cool. I might not have tried to cover her in a full episode. Whew. Just casually reanimating a dead corpse in order to see the future of, you know, basically like the fate of the Roman Republic, as one does. Totally normal. I won't lie. I'm just kind of obsessed with her, despite her being frustratingly Roman.

• 1:16:01Liv Albert?

  Well, that reading, all of those readings were seriously fun. I hope you agree. Oh, my God, I fucking love doing that. I do. I just appreciate Spooky Season for even just like giving me a reason to go searching for scary, gory, generally horrifying stories and lines from the ancient world. I did source some of those ideas from Twitter, so if you contributed, thank you. It's fun, and we just get such a wealth of different sources this way. But we are not done with any of this yet. There are still more spooky selections of readings to come, so keep listening to this month's Spooky Season episodes, because not only am I going to tell you all the dirty, disgusting details of Seneca's play The Thiestes, which, again, you know, a lot of references in that Cassandra speech at the beginning,

• 1:16:45Liv Albert?

  and which features more infanticide and cannibalism than you ever thought you needed. We are also going to hear about how the ancient Greeks handled gladiatorial games. Just a little hint, it was really mythological and very distinctly Greek, even for a very Roman custom, while all being, you know, still satisfyingly disgusting. And we're also, we're gonna have more readings from Ancient Epic, including varied excursions into the world of the dead, and of course, more conversations to come. And oh, my God, I'm just, I fucking love October. Stay spooky, pals. Let's Talk Oh My Myths Baby is written and produced by me, Liv Albert. Michaela Smith is the Hermes to my Olympians, my assistant producer. The

• 1:17:30Liv Albert?

  podcast is hosted and monetized by iHeart Media. Listen on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Help me continue bringing you the world of Greek mythology and the ancient Mediterranean by becoming a patron, where you'll get bonus episodes and more. Visit patreon.com/MythsBaby, or click the link in this episode's description. I am Liv, and I love this ship, but like, I truly love Spooky Season best of all.

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