333. Bronze Age Apocalypse: The Fall of Troy with Stephen Fry (Ep 2)

We seem to be in the middle of a Hermeric revival. The Odyssey is about to hit our screens and Stephen Fry's wonderful retelling of the story of the Iliad and the Odyssey is at the top of the bestseller lists. We have him here with us. We are recording in Jaipur and he's going to tell us how much of the story in the Iliad and the Odyssey has a basis in reality. We know Troy and Mycenae from Homer and the ripple of novels and TV series and movies which have come from his work.

But what was the actual history? What was the archaeology behind those stories? What happened in the Bronze Age? collapse that led to Troy and Mycenae turning into empty ruins, just goat herds and olive trees. Today we have none other than Stephen Fry, author of four spectacular books on the Greek myths and the Iliad and theology, as well as all his other wonderful work in comedy and movies.

And he'll be joining us to tell us what actually happened to inspire the works of Homer. Sing goddess of the rage of Achilles, we are back. We're doing our Empire Pod series on the Bronze Age collapse. I'm William Dalrymple. And I'm Anita Arnand and we are absolutely thrilled.

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