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by Gladio Free Europe
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- 1 weeks ago54 min
E129 - Ghosts of the Ancient Mediterranean
3000 years after the collapse of the Bronze Age Near East, the glories of Pharaonic Egypt survive only in ruins, the splendid cities of the Babylonians have crumbled to dust, and the very existence of the mighty Hittites is all-but forgotten. The religions and languages and attitudes of such great peoples have passed into oblivion. However, one aspect of the Bronze Age spiritual universe continues to haunt us today: a belief in ghosts. For a Halloween bonus episode, Liam and Russian Sam explore commonalities in beliefs around ghosts, demons, and the risen dead from the Bronze Age Epic of Gilgamesh to the Golden Ass of Apuleius. Across the Mediterranean sea and 2000 years of ancient history, we can observe strikingly similar attitudes about the ability of the dead to remain among the living. Whether visible or invisible, ghosts were nearly-universally agreed to maintain an interest in the mortal world, often appearing to surviving enemies or relatives to demand particular treatment, often causing bodily or spiritual harm if their conditions are not met. Ghosts and related spirits, such as malevolent demons, were believed to possess physical spaces and even physical bodies, able to be exorcised only through highly specialized rituals conducted by special mediums. These ghostly attitudes, and even specific methods of paranormal communication, survived the end of the Bronze Age and became part of the spiritual universe of the Classical Mediterranean. In the Greek and Roman world, both epic poetry and drama are replete with ghostly encounters. Everyday people feared and respected the spirits of the dead, at times even using trickery to convince a rival that a ghost or spirit had cursed them. Such entities are clearly present not only in the mythology and spiritual manuals of pagan societies, but also across the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament scriptures. For centuries, some Jewish and Christian scholars have been troubled by the possibility that ghosts could be real. The presence of the dead in the world of the living may contradict theological assumptions about the permanency of the afterlife. Moreover, rituals used in communing with the dead, including that used by the mysterious Witch of Endor, were highly reminiscent of polytheistic religious practice. However, a belief in ghosts has survived in monotheistic cultures, and related attitudes about spirits, both holy and unholy, are a key part of Christianity. Through their preservation in Greek and Roman literature and the Biblical canon, ancient attitudes about ghosts, dating back as least as far as ancient Mesopotamia, would remain an enduring element of modern culture. With the spread of Abrahamic Religions, ghostly attitudes originating in the Ancient Near East would be exported across the entire world, defying the rise of rationalism. Even today, huge numbers of people believe that the spirits of the dead can be seen and spoken to, without realizing that this particular set of beliefs can be trace back to the anxieties of Ancient Egyptian priests and the recommendations of Babylonian exorcists.
- 1 weeks ago1h 27m
E128 - The Bronze Age Collapse ft. Alexander Thatcher
Support us on Patreon---In the 12th century BCE, the Ancient Near East represented the apex of human achievement. Mesopotamia and the Eastern Mediterranean boasted hitherto unknown developments in urbanism, written literature, agricultural technique, and commercial exchange. Yet by the end of that century, nearly all of that had vanished. Cities were debased or abandoned, entire writing systems were forgotten, and the great trade networks ceased to circulate across the Middle Sea. But despite the magnitude of that collapse, until the turn of the 20th century CE, historians and archaeologists had no idea that it happened.We are rejoined by Alexander Thatcher @ThatchEffendi for a look at the twilight of the first great civilizations of the Mediterranean. Traditionally only of interest to specialized academics, recent works of popular media as well as breakthroughs in archaeogenetic research have made the Bronze Age hot for the first time in thousands of years. We discuss Alexander's recent Substack article on the earliest Near Eastern civilizations and their Proto-Indo-European contemporaries, with a particular focus on contemporary uses and abuses of this history. Then, we move onto a more general discussion on the tumultuous collapse of the Bronze Age world and the aftershocks that radiated across the Mediterranean.Though highly visible in archaeology, the Bronze Age Collapse left only faint traces in the literary tradition, and was completely unknown to western academics who drew their understanding of the ancient Mediterranean entirely from the works of Greek and Roman historians and the Hebrew Bible. This invisibility in ancient literature does not indicate that the collapse of the Bronze Age was not strongly-felt, but rather the opposite: urban literate societies declined so quickly in the late 12th century that nobody was able to write down what had happened. Further to our previous discussions, we examine potential links between the poetry of Homer and the cultures of the Ancient Near East, as Homer's Iliad and Odyssey represent our clearest memory of this antediluvian society. Though compiled in the Iron Age, partially contemporary to Homer, the Hebrew Bible also presents some interesting hints toward Near Eastern cultural memory of a lost Bronze Age glory.Of great importance to academic and amateur discussions of this topic are the mysterious Sea Peoples. Though their identity, activities, and even existence are debated by scholars, it is evident that maritime marauders were present to witness the end of the Bronze Age. Though extremely little is known about these people for certain, generations of shoddy discourse has turned these people from the sea into rhetorical puppets for contemporary politics. As Alexander Thatcher explains, this too is true of the Proto-Indo-European from the start of the Bronze Age, whose relationship to these later Sea Peoples continues to elude and intrigue scholars.Read "Dechudding the Aryan" here.---Outro Music: Hektor Slain By Achilles
- Oct 3, 20261h 26m
E127 - America A and America B ft. Grace Cathedral Park
As far back as the Neolithic, the rhythms of life in city and country have led to vastly divergent attitudes, anxieties, and aspirations. But what happens when new technologies of communication and commerce begin applying these sets of characteristics not to entire communities, but to individual consumers? Jackson @Gracecthdrlprk returns to Gladio Free Europe to discuss a typology of American life, examining two new and rival tribes currently coming into form. Shaped by recent capitalistic trends in education, land use, and advertising, these two sets of citizens are the urbane and self-critical “America A” and the exurban and self-satisfied “America B.” The hosts of Gladio Free Europe developed this concept across the last several years, and Jackson had just come out with a riveting essay on just what these categories are, and how their nuance can lead to more thoughtful analysis of the United States.America A, derived from the logic of the city, is a mindset and values system that purports to celebrate openness to experience, purity of thought and deed, and education over ownership. These preoccupations can even be seen in many Americans who do not live in the city, but instead orient toward the anxieties of urban life. America B, the logic of the sprawling exurbs, emphasizes common sense, hard work, practicality, and material attainment over intellectual reward. Both of these categories include Americans of all classes, all colors, and all political persuasions. Both are fundamentally bourgeois, deriving from different relations to capitalistic production. And both are fundamentally American, the modern expressions of tendencies reaching far back into this country’s history. While these categories do not describe all Americans, they offer new means of understanding social division within the United States, and might help explain otherwise puzzling cultural trends and political developments. And though both of these tribes can be petty and petulant, hideously self-absorbed in light of the oppression and exploitation required to maintained their ravenous consumption, they each offer a persuasive vision of what the good life ought to entail.
- Aug 27, 20261h 54m
E127 Homer and the Hittites P. 2 ft. Alexander Thatcher
Support us on Patreon---Gladio Free Europe returns to the lofty walls of Troy for a continuing discussion of the Bronze Age background of the Greek epic tradition with Alexander Thatcher @ThatchEffendi.Calling in from Turkey, Alexander explores the Anatolian, Balkan, and Caucasian resonances of the works of Homer, from the parallel martial values of the heroes of the Iliad and those of the Ossetian Nart Sagas to the use of Albanian traditional music in Christopher Nolan’s recent adaptation of The Odyssey. Later on, Liam and Russian Sam dig through the Hittite imperial archives to find scattered references of conflicts and characters on the western fringe of the Bronze Age world, that of Mycenaean Greece. These ancient aristocratic adventurers were clearly involved in Anatolian affairs, likely as both mercenaries and marauders. Of particular interest is the evidence of Greek or Ahhiyawan activity in the city of Troy or Wilusa, particularly under the rule of the enigmatic King Alaksandu — a figure of indeterminate origin who is both the earliest known bearer of the name Alexander and a possible historical analogue to the legendary prince Paris. Both archaeology and literature reveal strong similarities between the world of the Anatolian Bronze Age and the Mycenaean Greeks and Trojans as described by Homer. In addition to the notable physical similarities between Mycenaean palaces and Anatolian citadels such as Wilusa and Hattusa, we can identify clear parallels between the early Greek poetry of Homer and Hesiod with surviving Hittite religious texts.No discussion of the Bronze Age context of the Trojan War could be complete without wild speculation about the mysterious Sea Peoples, who Egyptian and Hittite records assert laid waste to ancient settlements all across the Eastern Mediterranean. Though the invocation of these Sea Peoples in Christopher Nolan’s film has led to criticism by some scholars, it is now evident that the activities of these interlopers were both a cause and a symptom of the 12th-century collapse of the entire Bronze Age symptom. Mycenaean Greeks were found among the victims and the vultures of this chaotic time. While their network of palace economies would collapse, and their original writing system would be lost, Greek-speakers would also expand far across the sea in this period. These Sea Peoples would lay the foundation for later maritime dominance in the Iron Age and leave a fascinating footprint not only in the works of Homer, but also the Hebrew Bible.
- Aug 20, 20261h 26m
E126 America A & America B ft. Grace Cathedral Park
Support us on Patreon---As far back as the Neolithic, the rhythms of life in city and country have led to vastly divergent attitudes, anxieties, and aspirations. But what happens when new technologies of communication and commerce begin applying these sets of characteristics not to entire communities, but to individual consumers? Jackson @Gracecthdralprk returns to Gladio Free Europe to discuss a typology of American life, examining two new and rival tribes currently coming into form. Shaped by recent capitalistic trends in education, land use, and advertising, these two sets of citizens are the urbane and self-critical “America A” and the exurban and self-satisfied “America B.” The hosts of Gladio Free Europe developed this concept across the last several years, and Jackson had just come out with a riveting essay on just what these categories are, and how their nuance can lead to more thoughtful analysis of the United States.America A, derived from the logic of the city, is a mindset and values system that purports to celebrate openness to experience, purity of thought and deed, and education over ownership. These preoccupations can even be seen in many Americans who do not live in the city, but instead orient toward the anxieties of urban life. America B, the logic of the sprawling exurbs, emphasizes common sense, hard work, practicality, and material attainment over intellectual reward. Both of these categories include Americans of all classes, all colors, and all political persuasions. Both are fundamentally bourgeois, deriving from different relations to capitalistic production. And both are fundamentally American, the modern expressions of tendencies reaching far back into this country’s history.While these categories do not describe all Americans, they offer new means of understanding social division within the United States, and might help explain otherwise puzzling cultural trends and political developments. And though both of these tribes can be petty and petulant, hideously self-absorbed in light of the oppression and exploitation required to maintained their ravenous consumption, they each offer a persuasive vision of what the good life ought to entail.Read Jackson's new piece on America A and America B, with an introduction by Liam: https://newmoralworld.substack.com/p/alphabet-america
- Aug 8, 20261h 52m
E125 Homer and the Hittites ft. Alexander Thatcher
Renowned Caucasus correspondent Alexander Thatcher joins Gladio Free Europe from the land Anatolia for the first of several episodes examining the historic bronze-age context of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey. Written in the 8th or 7th century BC but set a half-millennium before, the Greek epic cycle recounts events that were ancient even to an Iron Age audience. While the historicity of the mythic Trojan War cannot be proven, scholars from the days of Schliemann onward have proven that the city of Troy really existed. In its heyday, this archaeological site in Anatolia was closely involved with the affairs of the early Mycenaean Greeks as well as the great empire of the Hittites.Identified shortly after the discovery of Troy, the Hittites were a civilization previously only known to western culture due to a few references in the Hebrew Bible. Not attested in any of the chronicles of the Greeks or Romans, the Hittites would be the first great civilization known primarily through archaeology. The decipherment of Hittite texts at the turn of the 20th century led to two shocking revelations: that these Hittites led an empire stretching from the Aegean down to Canaan, the greatest power in the Bronze Age Mediterranean after the New Kingdom of Egypt. Second, it was proven that their language was Indo-European. These discoveries would reorient the western understanding of the ancient past, and cause some Europeans to project their own image onto the Ancient Near East. Alexander Thatcher helps Liam and Russian Sam contrast the various nationalist and mythological narratives of the Bronze Age with what we actually know about the Hittites and their fascinating society. Recent breakthroughs in archaeogenetics and completing linguistic models provide fascinating insight into how the Hittites emerged in the deep past, and to what extent they were related to the Greeks of the west and the Semitic peoples of the east. Also discussed are the mysterious disappearance of one Hittite prince, the existence of an obscure Levantine kingdom of apparently Indian origin, and of course, the infamous Hittite legal code with its very specific attitudes toward certain interactions with horses.While the Hittites are not mentioned once in Homer, their fall around 1177 BC may be the most dramatic episode of the famous Bronze Age collapse. This episode and its follow-up look at what the Iliad and the Odyssey can tell us about the folk memory of this catastrophic event, and to what extent the Greeks themselves were implicated.
- Jul 25, 20261h 28m
E124 Arthurian Romance
At the court of a French princess in the middle of the 12th century, an obscure poet named Chrétien de Troyes would begin to write and distribute fanciful stories of the Knights of the Round Table. In doing so, he would propel the figure of King Arthur to an unforeseen level of fame and create the medium of fiction as we know it. Following the previous discussion of earlier lore surrounding Arthur, and his potential historic basis, this episode of Gladio Free Europe explores the literary development and legacy of the Arthurian Romance. Liam and Russian Sam pick up with the release of Britain's first bestseller, Geoffrey of Monmouth’s fanciful Homeric pseudo-history, Historia Regnum Britanniae. As this book and its account of King Arthur spread across Europe, many derivative texts would be composed in prose and verse, sometimes elaborating further on King Arthur and his court. During the reign of King Henry II of England and Eleanor of Aquitaine, whose vast territories included England and half of France, the brilliant court poet Chrétien de Troyes would synthesize the matter previously chronicled by Geoffrey and his predecessors with the poetic and heroic traditions of France. In Chrétien’s five Arthurian stories, the tone and themes of the older Song of Roland would be applied to the deeds of Arthur and his knights to create a genre of literature entirely its own. The works of Chrétien and his followers would illustrate the chivalric values idealized by the aristocrats of the high and late Middle Ages. King Arthur’s knights are valiant fighters, but also passionate lovers, merciful Christians, and fully-realized humans, exhibiting an interiority not seen in any European literature since classical antiquity. The chivalric romance would spread out of the French-speaking courts of England and France into popular circles across Europe, leaving a mark on the literature of Norway, Italy, Islamic Andalusia, and the Jewish diaspora. Chivalric romance, and Arthurian stories in particular, would become Europe’s first tradition of popular fiction and remain eminently popular until the end of the chivalric age itself. These stories were read not only for entertainment, but also for moral instruction. For good or ill, chivalric ideals such as courtly love and the knightly quest would impact the real behavior of the medieval warrior elite. By the later Middle Ages, Arthurian stories would become more solemn and meditative, particular in Arthur’s own land of Britain. After the carnage of the Wars of the Roses, a knight and prisoner named Thomas Malory would compose Le Morte Darthur, a sprawling biography that would become the most famous Arthurian work of all time. Written without any of the whit and whimsy as earlier French stories, this text would effectively conclude the chivalric romance tradition and define the legacy of King Arthur for centuries. Following a long period of neglect, artists and aesthetes in the Victorian age began to reappraise the works and values of the Middle Ages, with particular attention to the mournful chronicle of Thomas Malory. Writers such as Walter Scott and Alfred Tennyson would create new works in the chivalric tradition. Arthurian and medieval scenes would be of sudden interest to the painters of the 19th century, in particular the Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood that included John William Waterhouse. This Victorian medievalism took many forms, and was at times associates with earnest progressive politics as well as deeply reactionary yearning for an imagined period of innocent morality and unquestioned hierarchy. Although Chrétien may not be a household name (unless your household is the French royal court) his contributions are everywhere. In all popular division, but in particular the modern genre of medieval fantasy, the images and themes first popularized by Chrétien de Troyes would rise again, as was prophesied of King Arthur himself.
- Jul 2, 20261h 38m
E123 The Birth of Arthur
Support us on Patreon---In the sixth century, the island of Britain was quite possibly the most miserable place on earth. A decades-long combination of civil war, imperial neglect, seaborne savagery, and the great freeze of 536 contributed to a level of deprivation beyond all living memory. But although the Britons had lost their paved roads, well-oiled trade networks, Latin school system, and even their land, they still held onto their hope. They called this hope Arthur. This episode of Gladio Free Europe is the first in a series on the Arthurian cycle, the body of legends and literature that would become medieval Europe’s most significant popular culture. Starting with the unanswerable question of the historic Arthur of the sixth century, Liam and Russian Sam explore the emergence of Britain’s most recognizable literary icon and most valiant king. This episode of Gladio Free Europe situates Arthurian literature in its various contexts, from Welsh and Breton oral traditions deeply rooted in the stories of the ancient Celts to the French-language courtly literature of High Middle Ages. Together, these various ancient and medieval influences combined to create the most iconic genre of medieval literature, and one which contributes exert a profound influence on fiction today — the chivalric romance. From the time of Geoffrey of Monmouth in the middle 12th century to the publication of Thomas Malory’s Le Morte Darthur at the close of the 15th, the romance was the defining vernacular literature of medieval Europe. These stories, produced to entertain and to pacify a violent aristocratic class, are both a fascinating look at the values of their time and some of the most amusing and exciting works of fiction produced before the printing press. The first part of this series connects the earliest known references of the legendary Romano-British Arthur to the literary King Arthur of the High Middles. Listen to this episode to learn how the Angevin Empire of Henry II was essential for the development and proliferation of the Arthurian romance, as well as the dark, smelly secret behind Merlin’s name.
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