Radio War Nerd EP #546 — Byron & the Greek Revolt, Pt. 3: The Peloponnesian Massacres

I’m still kind of stewing five months later over the disrespect shown (on what may be the best podcast on the internet, bar none) to Wordsworth’s poetry. The great Socialist historian E P Thompson was a defender of Wordsworth, BTW. Here is a famous passage in which he describes his memories of ice skating as a boy. All shod with steel, We hiss’d along the polish’d ice in games Confederate, imitative of the chase And woodland pleasures .... So through the darkness and the cold we flew, And not a voice was idle: with the din Meanwhile the precipices rang aloud; The leafless trees and every icy crag Tingled like iron; while the distant hills Into the tumult sent an alien sound Of melancholy, not unnoticed, while the stars, Eastward, were sparkling clear, and in the west The orange sky of evening died away. Not seldom from the uproar I retired Into a silent bay, or sportively Glanced sideway, leaving the tumultuous throng, To cut across the image of a star That gleam’d upon the ice; ---Wordsworth, The Prelude, 1798-99

Mark, the movie with the cyclops roasting sailors is the Seventh Voyage of Sinbad. Like Jason and the Argonauts the animation is done by Ray Harryhausen. John’s description of the Greek bandit warfare reminds me of the style of warfare the Byzantines adopted after the Arab conquests. They couldn’t afford to fight pitched battles so they would shadow the Arab raiding parties and allow them to enter and plunder unopposed, then ambush them after they were laden with loot and discipline was weakest.

Ypsilanti, Michigan where Iggy Pop grew up in a trailer park—only reason I’ve heard of it.

This series is bringing me back to my senior thesis days

This series is great. I didn’t know nearly enough about this

Woa Daniel Johnston mentioned nice hahaha. And no less appropriately in reference to poor religious insurgents being lauded for their authenticity up until the point their middle caste fans realize what that actually means

Love the painting saga. Is there a photo of it?

John, can we have a list of your main historical readings on the Greek Revolution? Thank you!

One of my interests is folk music , particularly war folk songs. Can anyone point me towards a jumping off point to learn more about folk songs from this war or about this war from all sides !

Great episode as always. If anyone wants a laugh, Stavros Halkias (Greek american comedian) had on a guest and points out she looks like the Greek folk hero Bouboulina lol.. The side by side and her reaction are hysterical. https://youtube.com/shorts/A7tKQpfWjcI?si=XvB07cKT8pWhchq6

Great episode as usual! And John, you mentioned this in passing but would you be interested in an episode on the real vs. perceived violence in the French revolution? It always seemed like the Burke-ian approach (mainly just fearmongering) was used to keep any future peasants from getting any ideas... (Maybe similar too with the emphasis on Leviathan). But what do I know. Not sure if Annibale would have any thoughts on this too. Anyway, great episode!

Byron’s arrival to Greece and the reaction reminds me of Lafayette. And I’m curious if anyone at the time made that comparison. It actually makes me think some enterprising member of the PH probably even asked the marquis to join them.

was refreshing the patreon app all day at work, thinking how am I supposed to do my long drive tonight without a new RWN episode? just got in the car, refreshed the app and here it is. sometimes life works out. thanks guys!