January 2025
This headline was written before… *waves arms* but I’m keeping it because on the personal and professional side of things, 2025 is ready to be big and awesome and full of even more feminist rage!
We’re having a slow-ish start over at LTAMB not only because watching our world descend into overt fascism takes a bit of a toll, but the team is forging on. Rage and knowledge of history are the best tools we have, we won’t be wasting them!
Over the new weeks and months we are going to be looking at the publishing schedule of the Myths, Baby! podcast. I want to keep bringing you all things ancient world but I also need to keep myself from burning out. You might see more re-aired episodes now and then, or diversions from the usual scripted episodes, but we’re not going anywhere.
FINALLY!
We’ve finally gotten our shit together to create ad-free versions of the show! Starting at $5 (USD)/month you can subscribe to the Oracle Edition on Patreon to get access to new episodes ad-free and so much more! Find more details and tiers here.
Or, if you just want a simple way to listen to episodes ad-free (and are an Apple Podcasts user) you can now find an ad-free subscription starting at $6.99 (USD)/month. As you can see the Apple subscription is more expensive for less (ie., none of the extra stuff that comes with the Oracle Edition)… That’s by design as Apple keeps a large percentage of the subscription fees. I wanted to make sure there were as many ad-free options as possible, but I’m also going to be very honest about which is better value (for you and me!).
If you’re looking for the best way to support the show directly (and without support mega-corporations) while also getting lots of stuff for yourself make sure to subscribe to the Oracle Edition via the Patreon website. If you sign up for Patreon via the Apple App then you’ll be charged an additional 30% (because again, Apple takes so damn much…).
There’s a typo in that graphic but I’m not going to take the time to fix it!
There’s been a lot of (slow) behind the scenes happenings when it comes to LTAMB merch. Originally the plan was just a nicer Print-on-Demand company but then many things happened and much festering hatred of capitalist consumerism so INSTEAD we’re having an in house merch shop built where we will have a small selection of merch available and sent directly from me to you! We’ve had enamel pins made with the logo and the (stunning!) Euripides’ Fan Club illustration (everything by @the.angel.incarnate!); tote bags of the same; and lots of fun stickers!
More options will be coming soon once we get an idea what you all want and whether or not we can afford to make it. Stickers and tote bags (and any future clothing) are printed on Vancouver Island, Canada, and all pieces selected to be the most environmentally friendly and (whenever possible!) manufactured ethically and for a fair wage.
We hope the shop will be up and running over the next couple of weeks (and one of these days we will take official photos of everything to show off!), stay tuned!
We ended this month discussing colonization in archaic Greece and now I want to point out the etymological history of this word and its Latin routes. It all goes back to the verb colo which generally means “to till, cultivate, tend to land” but also “to inhabit”.
It moves into the noun colonus which can mean “farmer” but also “colonist” as the word started to be understood as not only someone tending to the land but tending to land that has been assigned to them (thank you Roman imperialism with an air of heavy sarcasm).
Finally, we get the last noun colonina, “colony” or “possession of land”. Rome, with her his great empire, really became the blueprint for western colonization and our understandings of it. And oh boy did the western empires take the idea of colonization and run wild with it.
While my knowledge of modern colonization is scant compared to ancient, I have spent time looking at the ways that western powers have mobilized the past to justify their current greed. Modern powers love nothing more than to point to Classical Greece or the Roman Empire as some sort of “okay” for their actions. There are 2000-2500 years between antiquity and modernity. What applies to then, does not apply to now, nor does it mean it was okay back in antiquity.
Question the way world powers use historic narratives to further their own goals. If you remove those justifications, what is underneath it all?
Your friendly neighbourhood trickster god, Hermes
(PS From Liv: let’s start using masculine pronouns for empire because let’s be perfectly honest here, they started it)
And to the Oracle Edition subscribers… Soon Hermes Historia will be exclusive to you all, but when it comes to topics like ancient colonialism we are making the call to continue to release publicly (though you still get ad-free!) in order to ensure we reach the most people.
We’ve been a bit behind on cat reviews what with my (Liv)’s move across the country (with two new-ish rescue cats!) along with so much behind the scenes business, but the cats are still coming so make sure to get your reviews in on Apple Podcasts!
It’s getting tricky to keep up with everything happening in the world right now. The west is descending into no-longer-veiled fascism and while the people of Gaza can breathe for a moment (thank the fucking gods) our work in Palestine is not done. In the illegally occupied West Bank of Palestine crimes against Palestinians are worse than ever. Stay angry, stay aware, stay engaged. And don’t forget Lebanon where the supposed ‘ceasefire’ has been broken on numerous occasions (and which was meant to ensure withdrawal of foreign troops from Lebanon, a provision which is being ignored by the troops and the legacy media).
On the other side of the Atlantic, a whole other mess is beginning/continuing/getting worse. I’m trying my best to keep you all engrossed in the ancient world while (when I can) educating listeners on the parts of history we most need to be aware of, the parts of history we’re watching repeat in our modern world. While I love that part of my job and find I can’t keep myself from engaging, sometime it takes its toll. I’m working to find the best means of ensuring I keep bringing you stories and histories from Greece and the ancient Mediterranean without doing damage to my mental health. I know you all will be, but I’m looking for some grace and patience while Michaela and I sort out just how much and what type of episodes we can manage (in super good and related news, there will also be a book-related announcement coming soon which also ties in…).
Similarly, you may notice me being less active on Instagram. I love(d) instagram, I love image based social media because I love creating beautiful things and sharing silly stuff in visually satisfying ways. Now, though, things have changed. If you haven’t already heard, Meta (aka Facebook, Instagram, Threads, etc.) have changed their rules around bullying. They now explicit allow LGBTQ people to be bullied based on their sexuality or gender. It’s repulsive and honestly utterly fucking baffling but this is the world we’re living in. I won’t be using Instagram regularly and instead I hope to find other creative ways of sharing silly things and pretty photos, this newsletter being one of them.
You can find me (sometimes, it’s also been nice not to doom scroll quite so much) on Bluesky, here on my website/this newsletter, and over on Patreon (Patrons even get access to a new members only Discord and it’s been a ball!).
Honestly this little rant and ramble was mostly for me, I feel the need to explain things and also to share why you might also consider being less active on (ie., giving less ad revenue to) Meta social media.
Thanks, you’re all the best.
Liv
Here we have two little lamps now in the Archaeological Museum of Mycenae. While the guy in the back is a delightful little pudge of a lamp, I’d like to direct your attention to the one standing tall in the front.
This is a really interesting shape, but what’s of particular note is that it’s a great example of what is original artifact and what is reconstructed. The red parts are all the original material, and the light ceramic that you see is reconstructed by the archaeologists.
Why do we do this? You might ask.
Well, you see, while those of us who are trained in this work can look at fragments and see the form that it originally was, those who aren’t may not be aware of what they are looking at. So we do reconstructions so that the viewer can have a better understanding of what the artifact looked like in antiquity. Some reconstructions are better than others. Good (modern) practice emphasizes what is and is not reconstruction by not trying to make the reconstruction look the exact same as the artifact itself. You might compare this practice to, oh I don’t know, certain frescos now in the site of Knossos, Crete.
