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Hello and welcome back to the Classics podcast and a huge welcome to today's guest,  presenter,

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historian Tristan Hughes, who is best known to perhaps as the host of the Ancients podcast.

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Thanks so much, Tristan, for chatting to us today. You're more than welcome and lovely to see you again, Katrina.

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So, Tristan, you've recorded hundreds of episodes of the Ancients and it's a hugely successful podcast.

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You produced two weekly episodes on all aspects of the ancient world,

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and you have discussions with historians and archaeologists and a different theme from antiquity.

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I know there's a lot to choose from, but I wondered if we could start by you telling us some of your personal highlights from those episodes.

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Do you have a favourite? Is it possible to have a favourite?

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I'm not sure if I've got an absolute favourite,

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but I do look back at some of the stories that we've covered and I am more fond of some more than others.

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But having said that, that's a high bar in itself because actually the greatest joy of the podcast is interviewing

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these wonderful experts and they giving me their time to chat through all the research.

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They've done for years. And I think I do.

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I am starting to really, really enjoy the new archaeological discovery kind of episodes,

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particularly when it goes back to like the shroudy, the origin stories or our deep human pre-history.

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So maybe actually kind of going into that, the anthropology, deep archaeology, maybe even palaeontology.

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So when you're looking at these early fossils, the one that really sticks out was actually when we recorded actually quite near the start, was when

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a group of archaeologists and scientists discovered in a cave in the Indonesian island of Sulawesi,

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these cave art, these cave paintings of warty pigs.

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So this species of pig from particularly from this Indonesian island Sulawesi, and they were able to date,

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it's very colourful, beautiful depictions, and it's 45,000 years old, 45, 50,000 years old.

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And it's the oldest depiction of an animal in cave art that we know of so far.

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So that's really exciting. It pushes back how early it's believed Homo sapiens are in that area of the world.

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So it was a privilege to cover that story basically a day or so after it was announced and to interview one of the leading archaeologists behind it.

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Dr. Adam Brumm I mean, I could pick through so many other ones as well.

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It's just that's the great excitement of it's Katrina. I could go if we sticking in deep human pre-history.

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There was an episode of Homo erectus recently which I absolutely loved all of the first Britains with Chris Stringer.

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But then again, this whole conundrum around the influence of Christianity at the end of the classical period and whether Christianity did help

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destroy the classical world in regards to some of these really well-renowned buildings with the journalist Catherine Nixey.

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That was a great one. There are so many to choose from.

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I would go down too many rabbit holes if we go on this question too, to look, I'm going to stop there.

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I know it's like trying to choose your favourite child. It's really not straightforward, but I think the podcast format must lend itself so well.

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Like you say, one of our brand new discoveries in the field that being able to talk to those experts and people

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there on the ground immediately and discuss those topics and get the information out there.

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It's such a good format for doing that, isn't it? It really is.

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And while I'm always blown away with is how open people are to being interviewed on

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these subjects and to talk about these new discoveries and their excitement behind them,

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I mean, okay, one that has just come to mind, I think is a great epitomising of this is there was an announcement,

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I think it was now two years ago that archaeologists working on these bones in

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Japan had what they believed the remains of the oldest known shark attack,

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which is some 3000 years old. And just because of the bite marks found on these bones they deduced that this

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hunter gatherer in Japan some 3000 years ago from the culture was out fishing,

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attacked by maybe a tiger shark. They're still deducing what type of shark it was.

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Didn't do too well in that struggle. Lost a limb or two.

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However, his remains were then recovered by his companions and brought back to land and he was officially buried.

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And they think that that is the oldest known evidence case of a shark attack.

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And we interviewed one of the one of the people behind this announcement.

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And it was fantastic.

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It was such a lovely insight that that she was brilliant, too, and is you know, once again, that was days after it was announced in the press.

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There's another case where they had this discovery in the British Museum for a Stonehenge exhibition with this 5000 year old Chalk Drum,

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which was labelled the most important piece of prehistoric art ever found in the UK.

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And we not only were able to interview the archaeologist who found it back in 2015, Alice Beasley, but also one of the curators of the exhibition.

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So yes, what you were saying there. That ability to then convey that information to a wider audience really quickly is one of the great joys of the podcast.

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And to be able to work with a team who are equally very much linked in very much, we are all have the same view and opinion that what we are doing,

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you know, we are here to share these amazing stories from our distant past with as many people as possible.

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As I say again and again and again. But we all have that vision and it helps us make sure that when we see those

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discoveries and we have the opportunity that we are able to get someone on the pod,

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interview them about it, and then release it to a wider audience. And it must be so exciting being part of a team like that.

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I think where you are all united by the same goals and that really comes across in your work as well as the podcast.

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You also present and produce on our screens as well as on the airwaves.

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So how do you find the difference between those two different media and do you

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do you have a preference that they're very different ways of storytelling aren't?

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They are. I think overall the TV documentary producing and the presenting is more rewarding at the end of a project because it is so much longer.

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There is so much more preparation in regards to creating a documentary, getting the logistics sorted,

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your contributors, making sure that your cameraperson is all ready to go on a particular days,

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making sure everything's all the logistics behind the scenes, alongside the writing of the scripts,

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getting the approval from the seniors, the head honchos that history here at the HH at HH. 

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And then of course, once you've recorded the footage, once you've done all of the footage being at these places, going on these excavations and and.

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You've now had that vision and you've gone out and you've done the footage to make that vision a reality.

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Then it's the months in the editing room with an edit.

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You're working side by side on cuts, on assemblies and giving improvements what you think can work, making little changes to the voiceover,

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the narration making sometimes massive tweaks to the documentary, maybe sometimes making little tweaks.

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And then ultimately you get to the home straight where it's like almost the final cut and you're getting all the credit sorted.

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You're letting all the contributors know that it's about to be released.

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And then you do make the big social media push. You work with the marketing team and all of that.

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So I think just because of the many more cogs there are in the TV and the documentary world with history.

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I think overall that is sometimes more rewarding.

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However, the great simplicity almost of the podcast,

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the streamlined nature of podcasting in that you can go and interview someone for 40 minutes or something,

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you can interview them in person if they're nearby in London, I love, or even further afield.

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I love driving to places like Oxford and Cambridge to go and interview people in person.

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That is also so rewarding because you can turn around something so quickly.

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You've got a great team behind you, You work closely with your team and also you have the free rein.

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We've listed the engines in the history that you can if you've got, say, an interview from a documentary,

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but you want to turn it into a great podcast episode and you maybe you want to kind of make it a bit more,

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if I say advances the wrong word a bit more. We're going to add more COGS to it than just one interview, one interviewee.

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We're going to add two interviews. We're going to piece them together with narration.

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We're going to tell you an amazing story. We're going to walk, we're going to guide you through this in podcast form.

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You may be say, We did the Hanging Gardens of Babylon recently, massively debated topic.

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No one knows where exactly the gardens are. Even if some people say they do, they don't.

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There's still theories. And what we did was decide just to present all these theories.

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We put one side of the argument with someone who believes that the gods are still somewhere in Babylon, which seems most likely.

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But we also had another argument by the wonderful Dr Stephanie Dalley,

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where she argues that actually these gardens were actually the great gardens that we know from archaeology in cuneiform texts,

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that there were these great gardens further north in Nineveh.

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And it was unique because we had a bit more time to create that because we were thinking ahead in the grand scheme of things,

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the documentary world, which is probably the most rewarding because it takes more time.

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It is. And there are so many more moving parts to it.

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And then when you do see the thing finally come to fruition after, you've kind of grown numb to it because you've been working on it for so long,

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I guess there is that just that allure of television over radio, which I think has always been there, and I think it still is today.

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Yeah, I love it all, basically. Definitely. It's such a dynamic and exciting world, I think.

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And we can tell that from watching, you know, on screen.

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But there must be so many people out there, I think, listening who are thinking, How can I get involved with this?

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You know, how has this come about? This sounds incredible.

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So can we go back a little bit and talk about your own first encounters with the ancient world?

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I know that you grew up in Chichester, which does have its own classical connections,

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so maybe you can tell us a bit about your early encounters with the ancient world.

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Yes, so I was born in Chichester, but I actually grew up about 20 or 30 minutes away from Chichester in a tiny,

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tiny hamlet in the middle of the West Sussex South Downs called Ebbelow, which is near a big antiques town called Petworth.

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And it's basically equidistant between Chichester and Guilford. But you're right, you know, the the Roman connection in Chichester is massive.

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One only needs to mention Fishbourne Roman Palace, you know, the largest Roman palace north of the Alps, as they like to say.

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Potentially also the place of well, it's controversial.

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And talk to Rob Simmons who says you got to take a pinch of salt in how we classify it.

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But sometimes the world's first zoo. I'll mention that too,

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because the troops that the sorts of animals that were brought to fishbourne to roam

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the lands around this villa by their occupants in the Roman period for myself well,

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is an interesting one because neither of my parents are in a TV world now.

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Both of my parents were big history buffs.

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They found it interesting, but they didn't study it at university.

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My dad was a surveyor until he retired.

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My mum is perhaps the most hardworking person I've ever met and she was a housewife from the earliest things I remember is my mum bought me a book,

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bought me a book on Greek myths. Atticus the storytellers, 100 Greek myths.

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I don't know if you know the book. You're nodding, I remember exactly that one.

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And I remember reading through those 100 myths. An author Atticus, his story.

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I think he starts in Crete and he goes all around the Greek world.

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The Aegean War was and I really and the pictures as well, and Odysseus and all those stories I found absolutely fascinating.

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Now, having interviewed amazing experts such as Natalie Haynes, and I know that there's never one particular version of the myth that is correct.

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However, back then, I loved learning about these myths.

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I loved looking at pictures of, let's say, Bellaphoron flying on Pegasus, so and so on and so forth.

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And I was just absolutely blown away. I love that kind of mythological world, but it also had its basis in the ancient world.

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And but growing up, I was also quite a bit of a nerd of a geek and absolutely proud of it, not looking back.

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So I played a lot of video games and one of the first kind of computer video games that I really,

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really played a lot was the first total war Rome, Total war.

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And I loved that game. I played so much of it.

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I learnt like the words of every unit of my how I knew what the hastatae, the principes were.

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I learned about like the armoured hoplites of the Greek city. So it's not exactly accurate I know now, but I just got really fascinated me.

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And then got the Carthaginians and the Sacred Band and the Celts and their

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war bands and the chariots and the spears of Germany and so on and so forth.

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I, I put so many hours into that game and that kind of delved into me.

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A real love of ancient military history just at that young age.

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It's a kick starter into people wanting to learn potentially more about it and maybe going into, you know,

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maybe I want to learn more about what the actual truth is behind all of that stuff at university.

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I didn't mention how they they, they portrayed.

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Ptolemaic Egypt is very unlike actually very much like a Bronze Age.

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But anyway, only the people who are big Roman total war geeks listening to this will know exactly what I'm talking about.

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So I won't dawdle on that for long. But now with an interest in history then, but really focussed in on my classical civilisation, a bit of ancient Greek at school,

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I was fortunate enough to get into the Royal Grammar School in Guildford and learnt ancient

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Greek until A-level did Latin until GCSE and between GCSE and A-level I did basically.

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And I guess it's kind of archaeology course, but it was also, I guess an ancient history course, most of it, but together classical civilisation.

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So we did the tragedian Greek plays of Euripides and Sophocles, but we also did the comedy plays of Aristophanes and also Plautus, the Roman Plautus.

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On the other side of the archaeology side, we looked to Bronze Age mainland Greece for the Mycenaean and also the next year,

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we did the Art of Classical Greece, so things from the Acropolis to Olympia and so on and so forth.

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Zeus Artemsion, or maybe the Poseidon, I suppose, you know, but it was all very, very enjoyable.

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And then Edinburgh university studying ancient history and then history hit.

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What were the things that you've enjoyed most at university and thought, This is something I want to try and pursue as a career if possible?

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Well, for me it was more the ancient history, the non language side.

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It was looking at translations already in English because and then like learning about the stories of these things,

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looking at the source material that we have,

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surviving both primary and secondary and creating great narrative stories out of it from what we know and what we don't know, I always.

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See now, I am not a classicist. I know a basic level of Greek, and I took Greek in first year of university.

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And then I stopped on a basic level of Greek. And I can identify Greek.

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I can read Greek today and I can notice how ancient Greek follows through into

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many modern words and then kind of pick in the past and so on and so forth.

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I know a very basic amount of Latin too. However, I am not a classicist.

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My main focus and love as the years develops,

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as I realise actually ancient history was something I wanted to do was to focus on basically looking at the source material,

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translated, looking at whether it's secondary material, primary material,

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and then actually more of a focus on lesser focussed on areas of ancient history.

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I didn't mind studying the Peloponnesian War or the Persian wars or the rise of Imperial Rome,

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but for me it was things like what happens after Alexander the Great's death,

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you know, between his death and the rise of Rome that I thought was really interesting and I

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guess areas that are less focussed on it also in the primary material that survived.

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So let's say that immediate years after Alexander's death, where you've got main literary sources like Diodorus Siculus,

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you've got a bit of an epitome of Arrians after Alexander, you've got some fragments of other sources surviving,

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and then you've got the most erroneous and massive bag of salt sauce that is justinian and his epitome of Pompeius Trogus

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and Plutarch I think that really then I start to get more interested in

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that kind of area and learning these stories and then sharing these stories.

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I started doing a blog, which was like just kind of sharing my interest in these areas of ancient history with a larger audience.

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So people were like, Oh, my days.

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Sertorius I'd never heard of Sertorius and his war against the Romans in Portugal and Spain at the time that Sulla is has risen to power in Rome,

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which and his fights against Pompey and stuff, which is all fascinating, but.

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If there was a time I could put it, it was probably in third year of university, really, when I was in Brisbane for a year abroad.

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Oh, so how did you get a year abroad as part of your ancient history degree?

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Well, Edinburgh university is very good for that.

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And I actually couldn't have picked a better university to go to for ancient history and to develop my love of Athens.

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They offer something in the four year course that the for courses in Scotland and Edinburgh for humanities.

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You could apply for a year and your third year and this was too good an opportunity to stand down.

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And I must admit that my main choice was Canada.

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And I was really hoping actually for Vancouver, because that was that was an area of the world.

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Absolutely love, love to go.

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However, my next choice was Australia and particularly Brisbane, and I got that and it was one of the best years of my life.

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And I was very fortunate because the Professor Leadis at Brisbane, University of Queensland,

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is none other than Professor Alastair Blanchard and he is one of the most brilliant teachers I have ever had for ancient Greek history in Greek.

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And just his enthusiasm, he's being able to communicate his evident just passion for the subject and also his ability

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just to be able to communicate with students and talk with students about all of this stuff.

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It really helped me realise that actually this is an area that I wanted to focus on more than at that time the archaeology,

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which was getting more and more scientific. And although now I look at the archaeological stuff in the ancient podcasts and like the dating,

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that they do stuff with carbon 14 and dendrochronology and so and so forth.

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And I find it fascinating back then writing up reports about like these

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scientific developments on particular things and very scientific in its wording.

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I wasn't that enthralled by.

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So basically going to Brisbane and studying Rome and Greece for a year made me realise that when I came back for my fourth year of Edinburgh,

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which is the year that really matters, 100% of my course was dependent on that fourth year therefore and I was just going

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to stress ancient history and that's what I did and I'm very glad that I did.

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It sounds like you've had some incredible experiences as part of that degree,

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and then you've equally had incredible experiences as you began your career.

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It's a little bit of a meta question, I suppose, but what are the things for me from your degree, not just the subject knowledge,

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but the skills that a course such as ancient history builds that you think have helped you directly in your career so far?

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Learning to be eloquent when you talk. Learning to build an argument.

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to construct an argument. And that's one of the keys I think of all the essay writing subjects it's why I think essay writing is so important.

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It's being able to put forward your case as to what you believe and add the evidence behind that.

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And some people think, Oh, writing an essay, Well, I've never written an essay in my life since leaving university.

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That's not the point. The point of doing things like that is to be able to put forwards what you believe

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or your points of view in something into so many different areas of life,

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whether it's at work and you're arguing for a particular thing and you can add evidence to,

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I believe, something you put forwards that can really stem,

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I think from essay writing and then from debating with your fellow students,

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which we did for the ancient history courses in small tutorials at Edinburgh,

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but also in the University of Queensland too, which in itself debating and discussing and becoming more confident in your opinions.

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So that level of confidence, that development in your confidence in public speaking is so important in developing yourself.

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When you do finally leave the paddling pool that is university, you had a great time.

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It's great fun. I had many, many times, many, many nights that I had very blurred memories of, you know,

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especially in first and second year when I wasn't as focussed on my studies and just having a good time.

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But then you come out of uni, you know, you put your head down in those last couple of years,

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you develop yourself as a person, you develop your abilities to communicate with others,

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which I think humanities do so well because you have that constant dialogue with others, with teachers, with fellow students.

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And then when you're going into a job, you put forwards your belief, but you also add evidence as to why you believe something.

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And if others, you know, they listen and they say, Actually, I don't think this work.

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That's fine. That's not an issue. You've put forwards your opinion.

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People have listened to you and you have you've explained why.

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I believe it. So you've got reason behind your argument, but you've also developed that ability to listen to others too,

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and you can kind of take on board what other people say. And that can only really help when you're trying to build something together.

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And this is very much the case in the early stages of history here. We're trying to figure out what happened, what we're going to do next.

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Sometimes we make the wrong decisions, but it's okay because we discuss things.

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You have points of view and you're able to put them forwards and you put them in a way you

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become more confident in yourself because you're throwing yourself into those situations.

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It is basically that next step from voicing your opinion in a tutorial and taking that bold step of putting it in front of your peers,

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and then you repeating that in the work world to which it takes a bit of time and you will be nervous sometimes.

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And I was definitely nervous sometimes. But you know, repetition is, you know, is the art, isn't it?

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And then you do get more and more competent each day.

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So I think in regards to my degree and the TV screen history was essay writing where it's debating, where it's dialogue,

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it's the it's the ability to stand up and talk in front of other people and to discuss and to put your thoughts forwards.

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But also that other super important life skill is to listen and pay attention because you learn so much that way too.

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The teaching of listening as well as the art of speaking,

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is something that I know is being pushed a lot more in schools these days alongside literacy and numeracy,

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as building those skills to enable pupils of all ages to be able to talk eloquently in front of others and listen, which we all know.

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They are two skills that don't necessarily always go together and are much better when when matched.

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That's really, really interesting and I think is a great reflection of of what a degree that some people sometimes say isn't the most relevant,

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is extremely relevant and builds such great skills for the workplace.

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About the next stages of how you then got into working for history hit.

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So fourth year of university just submitted my dissertation.

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I went about my results back and

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They got a very good result, which is great. And I was also already good friend with still a good friend of mine now.

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Very eccentric, lovely lad. You know who he is? He's Dr. Simon Elliot.

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So he's a lovely man, Simon.

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But when I was doing a blog all those years ago, he kindly wrote an article for me and our school to about one of his new books.

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And, you know, he's an absolute writing machine and he's a lovely guy.

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But I went down to meet him at Chalke Valley History Festival that summer, just to say hello and to meet in person.

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I thought, you know, might be a good contact to have. And at that stage history hit was very much at its very conception.

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It's a very small Start-Up company, but they had a stand

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And I knew of history hit because I knew Dan had been doing and I read it 

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and I thought it was quite interesting because I wanted to get into history media.

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Well, I thought this is I want to teach history one way or another is to teach history and ancient history in particular.

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And the cocky boy that I was at that time confident in myself because I got my grades and also just kind of life in general.

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I developed my confidence, very happy at that time. I walked up to the.

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Stand and kind of joked with them, you know, because I had a very small blog, very small blog and a small following on social media.

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But when they asked who I was, they're just like, Oh, you're my competition.

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Which I said to them, it's just, you know, blaze and very.

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But I, I guess they must have been a bit of cheek behind how I said I of how I delivered it now.

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basically I said my name is and I would be interested in working, you know, for them in the future kind of stuff like that.

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And you know, it really interesting what they were doing and they remembered me.

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So I got a call a few days later, an email from James Carson, who's now the managing director.

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at history hit. And they said do you want an internship at history hit.

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And I said, When can I start? And he said, Monday. And I said, Great.

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So I packed my bags, left Edinburgh, and I began as an intern writing articles,

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doing it with like kind of the small stuff, but it but still did very important stuff.

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It was a Start-Up company. So one week you're doing social media, another week you're doing lots of articles.

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And then after those four weeks, they decided, you know, we want to keep you on. Would you like to become become basically junior history at that time.

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History hit's still a really small Start-Up company.

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The Ashford site, the TV site has been up for less than a year and it's still very much in its early stages.

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And over the next few months, you know, I kept working and working, working a lot of hours there normally first into the office last out,

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commuting in from quite far because I wanted I knew at that time I needed to kind of make my mark

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to show how serious I was that I wanted to do this and do as best as I can because I was like,

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History Hit is my ticket to me getting where I want to go, which is TV presenting and, you know, sharing these stories with with, with a wide audience.

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So I always knew that. And that was always at the back of my mind, though, was I was writing articles.

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I was seeing if I could potentially go on any shoots with Dan or whatever as like a runner with stuff like that.

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And I did get an opportunity once in a while to do that, which is brilliant. And then the next year Dan went on tour around the UK.

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Because we need you've got a new book out on this day in history. And he was absolutely incredible.

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And I went along with him to sell merchandise on the store. His books, subscriptions to history hit and so on.

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And I did that for quite a few months, the marketing kind of side. So I got through that.

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I got into the marketing, and I guess that was kind of in a way performing too, because you're selling the stuff to passers by.

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You know, trying to sell it, flogging the product, being charming at the same time, but not overly charming.

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So it looks like you're just being an absolute suck up, making, you know, doing well there.

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And that was great. I was really good. Eventually, through this difficult Start-Up phase, we we made really good progress.

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The numbers on the subscription channel started to really grow.

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We focussed it around anniversaries, say D-Day 75, if I remember, was a great one, was Waterloo.

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Yeah, the Battle of Waterloo that was a big one for us and Battle of Britain and so on and so forth.

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Focusing on those anniversaries, first of all, and then being able to get more resources to create even better documentaries,

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getting more people through the door and realising, hang on, this is something that is really now starting to take off.

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And then by 2019 must be 2019.

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Yes, we get bought by Literary dot Studios, which we are part of now and that has just let us go to the next level.

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Like, you know, by that time we're no longer a Start-Up. The COVID pandemic was difficult to say the least.

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It was very interesting, but we got through it. We survived and thrived, and we got to the next level.

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But all through that time I'd started in editorial. I then go into marketing.

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I then kind of gone to social media management and the content management,

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as in making sure that all the documentaries and stuff was uploaded for the given day and time and reviewing that

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basically that kind of Mad Start-Up Rush where one day you're doing something and actually doing something different,

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the next day you're on support and make answering queries and robust.

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Basically, you know, when there's not a clear structure still that because you're, you're getting through that stage.

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And we did. And that was very much testament to the likes of James Carson, Dan and so many others too,

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like Alice Loxton when she came in a bit later, Laura, Peter Curry and all played their parts.

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But in the midst of all of that in 2020, I sent an email to James because I'd seen the well, How Popular Dan's podcast was the well.

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And I knew that, that and I saw that that was really a market for a popular, ancient history alone podcast.

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So I said, I'd really like to get this shot. Would you be willing to let me try an ancient history podcast of the Ancients?

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And he said, Yes. So that was mid 2020.

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The COVID pandemic came around basically the week after with the lockdown and everything the next two weeks.

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But that was kind of a blessing in disguise for the time because it meant all the

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academics were at home and I was able to reach out and interview quite a few,

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including our good friend Paul Cartledge, who did Thermopylae very early on.

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Other good friends like Daisy Dunn and Alastair Blanchard, he was our first guest on Mr. Blanchard and I thought was only fitting like loads as well.

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The eccentric amazing Mike Loades and Simon of course and so many others.

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And we started releasing the episodes with a small team and editor, first Pete Dennis and then Sophie Gee who came on,

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who was absolutely brilliant and deep down inside of me, I told myself, It's going to work.

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It's going to work because this is your this is what you've been waiting for,

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this is the opportunity you've been waiting for, and you're going to do absolutely everything to make sure it works.

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And it did. It became profitable. We started really rising using the social media and starting to spread the word the Ancients podcast and

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getting some great guests on and just putting the time and effort into recording these episodes first,

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really. Rome and Greece and further afield as well. And then, you know, within a few months of the first episode released almost three years ago,

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we got to a stage where we were, dare I say, maybe not profitable, but we were making money from the podcast.

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And I guess the key thing was, was that the team could see that there was growth, that there was real growth, and it was starting really to kick off.

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And then basically it's just kept going on from there.

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I officially moved over to the TV side of the company a few months later because I said, Look, I am now learning to interview people.

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I was kind of still a nervous wreck when I was interviewing people for first because these are amazing professors, lots of ums.

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I look back on me now, I think my voice was perhaps two octave higher too.

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So it's always interesting.

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Go to the first episode and then seeing that develop for myself and lot of, you know, sort of, you know, for lots of ums etc., etc.

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I'm doing ums now anyway. What is interesting is like.

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The more I did it, the more confidence I came in.

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Being able to guide the conversation. And selfishly, when interviewees and I remember one particular case, the lovely guy,

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Dr. Ste Brand, he's been on many times, one of the best speakers I think I've ever interviewed,

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said at the end of his interview when we talked about like the Roman soldiers of the Roman Republic you were really good at this,

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you ask the right questions, so I was just like, okay, maybe, you know, maybe I am really right for this.

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I guess that was kind of the other thing was that because I love this subject,

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it was asking kind of really kind of doing the research and and delving into particular avenues and then kind of as a normal conversation,

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kind of explore those rabbit holes a bit more.

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You know, How was it for a Roman soldier fighting in Macedonia compared to when they were fighting against the Samnites in Italy and so on and so forth?

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Was this a completely different mindset? You were fighting away from it and basically then said, Can I present a documentary kind of thing like that?

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And they were like, Go on then it is fine, yeah, give it a go.

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And it's a very small one.

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At the start, it was just basically a film podcast interview going around Bignor Roman villa, which is another West Sussex site, you know it well with,

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with a professor David Roebling and basically kind of going from looking a few different things and the mosaics and stuff,

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the amazing mosaics that began on the story of being a Roman villa. It's not a TV documentary.

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You wouldn't see it on Channel five or anything like that.

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My one of my best mates, the company, Joe Greenway, who's a director there, he's a senior producer.

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We joke about it all the time now because of the documentaries we do now. But that was the first one and I look at my style back then.

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I've got a big, oversized purple striped shirt that my mum picked out for me because it was lockdown.

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I was at home, my haircut was, you know, kind of my mom's hair cut because all the barbers were shot.

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Okay, But you have to start somewhere. And it was a great starting point and I've no regrets for at all.

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The team at history Hit gave me more and more opportunities. I got to go to Hadrian's Wall for a series that was great.

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That was one of my first big breaks, I guess Then did the Ninth Legion, but then focussed on even bigger stuff,

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which was more like Vindolanda and then Prehistoric Scotland, which is a really big one for me.

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Last year that was a proper TV documentary, kind of size, that one and that's been my favourite one to date and I'm really proud of how it went out.

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And as the company rose and history hit became more clout, we had more and more people.

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We began a real multi-platform history company, and our name was becoming well-known.

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We have more and more podcasts released. History Hit's stable now.

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The common people, not just the Tudors etc. The Ancients.

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I must add as much as Susie, let's doesn't like me to admit this is bigger than not just the Tudors.

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I'm not going to say by how much. But Suzy, we've got a competition going on better.

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I was I was, you know, it's friendly competition, which is great.

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Recently, you know, history has worked for Channel five on a few documentaries, you might have noticed.

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But Dan Snow's discredited discoveries. We got to tag along to do our own documentaries.

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A little side history hits as well.

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So that gave me the chance to go to Egypt to do documentaries at places like Karnak, at Saqqara, The Valley of the Kings, and then more recently,

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 Pompeii that we did as well and interview amazing people like

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Sophie Hay and Valerie Higgins and Mario Grimaldi and so on and so forth.

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00:34:37,920 --> 00:34:45,780
So the opportunities have basically risen and risen and risen and the production quality has risen and risen and risen to the stage where I am now,

377
00:34:46,290 --> 00:34:53,489
where I am still on the production side. But my main job title is presenter, presenter for the Ancients podcast,

378
00:34:53,490 --> 00:34:57,840
which is still growing from strength to strength and presenter of TV documentaries.

379
00:34:57,840 --> 00:35:01,200
Basically all things ancient history at history hit so there you go.

380
00:35:02,500 --> 00:35:06,969
It's a magnificent journey and it sounds like it's been a constant learning process as well,

381
00:35:06,970 --> 00:35:13,270
that you've obviously acquired that experience and that confidence through so much hard work in all of those different areas.

382
00:35:13,870 --> 00:35:17,709
Is there one particular piece of careers advice that you would give to a young

383
00:35:17,710 --> 00:35:22,810
student who would like to enter that world in some way based on your experience?

384
00:35:23,110 --> 00:35:31,310
It's never a straight line. It's easy. What I mean by that is that even when you become more and more confident in something,

385
00:35:31,330 --> 00:35:35,710
that is when you're most susceptible to kind of resting on your laurels,

386
00:35:35,920 --> 00:35:40,030
let's say, you might not research a particular podcast episode as much you might do.

387
00:35:40,030 --> 00:35:44,710
Otherwise you might put less attention into something because you think, okay, I've smashed it, I've done it, I've got to this level.

388
00:35:45,940 --> 00:35:51,670
That quickly comes to bite you in the backside because then you start noticing a slight decrease.

389
00:35:51,830 --> 00:35:55,840
But you will notice it if you really care if your thing for what you do.

390
00:35:55,840 --> 00:36:03,580
And then that will almost kind of kickstart you to go to the next level. So the line will get more squiggly as you start going on that path.

391
00:36:03,970 --> 00:36:11,350
And it may well take quite a lot of time. You know, I guess the start my path was starting a small blog, Turning points in the Ancient World.

392
00:36:11,710 --> 00:36:16,390
battle of the ancients. When I was in our third year of university and, you know, for a year or so,

393
00:36:16,390 --> 00:36:19,990
barely anyone ever read them apart from the small social media following and my parents.

394
00:36:20,650 --> 00:36:24,090
But they were very supportive and they kept going. And I was just I was fortunate.

395
00:36:24,100 --> 00:36:32,320
I was in the right mindset, at the right place at the right time, and made the opportunity to find that history hit avenue after university.

396
00:36:32,920 --> 00:36:36,219
But then there's still all the work you have to do because that was still a start up.

397
00:36:36,220 --> 00:36:40,150
But you could, if you have a vision there, the way you want to go,

398
00:36:40,480 --> 00:36:45,010
no matter how much hard work it's going to take in that time, you still kind of remember that vision.

399
00:36:45,010 --> 00:36:45,700
You write it down.

400
00:36:45,700 --> 00:36:51,040
If that is truly what you want to do, if you realise that that is really your love and that prepares you for the times when it does get squiggly.

401
00:36:51,400 --> 00:36:54,070
So I think the thing to take away is that, you know, have that vision,

402
00:36:54,070 --> 00:37:00,970
but also be prepared that there will be times where you start resting on your laurels and also times where it does feel like,

403
00:37:01,480 --> 00:37:06,070
you know, Oh my God, this is it or have I peaked or something like that.

404
00:37:06,400 --> 00:37:12,640
And as long as you know that vision and you you will get by that and you go, basically, it's not a straight line.

405
00:37:14,410 --> 00:37:24,680
That's very wise advice indeed. Thank you. I have a couple of quickfire questions which I thought we could end with, so I'm going to fire those.

406
00:37:24,680 --> 00:37:29,900
away at you Tristan. The first one ties actually very nicely to your book, which I'll give a little plug to.

407
00:37:30,290 --> 00:37:33,800
You are also author of Alexander's Successes at War.

408
00:37:34,250 --> 00:37:38,900
So my first quickfire question is Ptolemy or Perdiccas.

409
00:37:40,950 --> 00:37:44,460
I like supporting the underdog, so I will go Ptolemy.

410
00:37:45,480 --> 00:37:50,040
But I think I mean, I would be Perdiccas' side, rather than Ptolemy.

411
00:37:50,040 --> 00:37:57,510
But if we're talking about like, who's the better or who's obviously the greatest, it's Ptolemy, because he ultimately won against Perdiccas.

412
00:37:57,750 --> 00:38:02,729
He creates the dynasty, which ultimately ends with Cleopatra's daughter, Cleopatra.

413
00:38:02,730 --> 00:38:09,270
Selene. Not in Egypt, but it also includes the famous Cleopatra the seventh of Shakespeare fame.

414
00:38:10,080 --> 00:38:15,030
And he is such a shrewd, incredible figure in how he's able to form, you know,

415
00:38:15,030 --> 00:38:20,130
how he's able to legitimise his rule first as governor of Egypt and then ultimately as king.

416
00:38:20,640 --> 00:38:26,640
This link between himself and Alexander the Great and the link between Alexander the Great and the last Egyptian Pharaoh.

417
00:38:26,640 --> 00:38:27,690


418
00:38:28,560 --> 00:38:35,130
So though I have big love for Perdiccas and I loved exploring his story, in the end of the day, he mocked up big time and Ptolemy didn't.

419
00:38:35,250 --> 00:38:40,750
So the answer to that question is Ptolemy. That was an excellent answer, although slightly long for my quickfire round.

420
00:38:40,780 --> 00:38:49,210
Sorry, I'll go. I guess I'll go smaller than the promise. Next up, would you rather live a day in ancient Alexandria or ancient Delphi?

421
00:38:50,760 --> 00:38:54,540
Oh, Alexandria. There's so much more to it. delphi 

422
00:38:54,540 --> 00:38:58,830
See? Wow. Delphi I mean, I think he'd get bored after the half a day.

423
00:38:58,860 --> 00:39:02,340
Well, maybe not. Maybe I'm being a bit too unkind that Michael Scott will probably kill me for saying that.

424
00:39:02,970 --> 00:39:07,440
Just go walking back into the mountains after a while. Alexandria has so much to say.

425
00:39:08,630 --> 00:39:11,680
Fishborne or Bignor. Fishborne.

426
00:39:12,850 --> 00:39:17,830
What? You rather be a guest at Nero's domus aurea or the Court of King Darius?

427
00:39:18,340 --> 00:39:21,760
Oh, of course the King Darius. I don't focus that much on Nero.

428
00:39:21,790 --> 00:39:25,359
I think he's really interesting. But I think the Persian. The courts of king, Darius.

429
00:39:25,360 --> 00:39:30,400
And it's just. I wish Darius we're talking about. Well, the purpose of this question, whichever one you pick.

430
00:39:30,580 --> 00:39:34,940
I think we can go to whichever point, like, Oh, let's go, Darius, the 3rd.

431
00:39:34,960 --> 00:39:37,450
Let's go to that, because it would just be absolutely nuts.

432
00:39:37,930 --> 00:39:43,450
King of the world, you know, you basically everything at your fingertips forming like the Babylonian kind of tradition.

433
00:39:45,130 --> 00:39:47,020
Absolutely. Absolutely.

434
00:39:48,230 --> 00:39:55,280
Would you rather find the secret of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon or dig every single day at Pompeii and find all the is to find?

435
00:39:56,810 --> 00:40:00,260
Hanging Gardens because I wouldn't want to take over the Pompeii,

436
00:40:00,260 --> 00:40:04,880
because then there's the conservation around it, and then I feel a bit bad if I just left.

437
00:40:05,200 --> 00:40:11,930
You know, someone else to do all that work. Pompeii is fascinating, but I love the Hanging Gardens Mysteries is really, really interesting.

438
00:40:11,990 --> 00:40:20,060
However, I do think that I would go insane because with the Hanging Gardens archaeologically, there's probably nothing that survives.

439
00:40:20,630 --> 00:40:29,950
So. So it would probably lead me to madness because you probably actually never find real evidence of the Hanging Gardens nowadays.

440
00:40:30,340 --> 00:40:36,309
And, you know, I just want to go and find more of that in Scotland.

441
00:40:36,310 --> 00:40:41,740
I think that's a great one. That's another. That's another one. TV or podcast?

442
00:40:44,620 --> 00:40:48,510
No comment. Keeping us guessing to the very end.

443
00:40:48,900 --> 00:40:55,049
And the final question is slightly longer form, but it's which ancient artefact or place, concept.

444
00:40:55,050 --> 00:40:59,820
Anything you've encountered from the ancient world is the thing that resonates with you the most.

445
00:41:01,970 --> 00:41:04,220
A dog paw print from Vindolanda.

446
00:41:04,820 --> 00:41:11,570
And it's actually not one print, it's two because the dog went through the front paws and the two pillars before that tie was set where,

447
00:41:11,570 --> 00:41:14,490
you know, and it's just an epiphany for the amazing stuff that they found at Vindolanda.

448
00:41:14,510 --> 00:41:21,230
Otherwise, the sarcophagus, the empty big granite sarcophagus at the British Museum, easy to miss in the Egypt gallery.

449
00:41:21,590 --> 00:41:29,000
But almost certainly Alexander the Great was buried for temporary amount of time in that sarcophagus, which is super cool.

450
00:41:31,580 --> 00:41:37,220
Tristan, thank you so much for sharing your story and your expertise on the Classics podcast.

451
00:41:37,640 --> 00:41:39,560
Thank you very much, Katrina. I've enjoyed it immensely.