Echoes of Empires

Welcome to Echoes of Empires. If you’re looking for a podcast about history, you’ve come to the right place! Because you’ll find over a hundred episodes here about the Roman Empire, Byzantium, the Arab Caliphates, Charlemagne’s Empire, the Dark Ages, the Crusades and I’m adding to them all the time. WANT A FREE EBOOK? Then head directly to my website www.nickholmesauthor.com.

Echoes of Empires is a history podcast hosted by Nick Holmes, with 147 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

Nick Holmes hosts Echoes of Empires, a history show with 147 episodes published.

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  Episode #136

  The Secrets of Ancient Nicaea

  Sep 11, 202622 minS1

  In this episode, I tell you about my travels to Ancient Nicaea, a city that changed history from the famous First Council of Nicaea in AD 325, foundational for the Christian church, to the siege of Nicaea, a pivotal moment in the First Crusade. Discover the astonishing historical remains in the city that have survived to this day in my video accompanying this podcast, on my YouTube channel . Support the show For a free ebook, maps and blogs check out my website nickholmesauthor.com

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  Episode #135

  Alexius Comnenus: The True Story

  Aug 28, 202622 minS1

  Alexius Comnenus is a well-known Byzantine Emperor not least because his daughter, Anna, wrote one of the greatest works of medieval literature about him called “The Alexiad.” It’s a cracking read, full of vivid character descriptions, battle scenes, back-stabbing politics and written in an epic style that echoes the Roman and Greek classics. It’s not just central to the history of Byzantium but also to the Crusades since she’s our main non-western commentator on the First Crusade and wrote some of the best descriptions of the fiery leaders of that Crusade, like Count Bohemond. It is of course, a tribute, or a hagiography to use that term, to her father who emerges as an Odysseus-like hero. She describes him thus: “His dark eyebrows were curved, and beneath them the gaze of his eyes was both terrible and kind. When he came into a gathering and began to speak, you were conscious from the moment he opened his mouth of the fiery eloquence of his tongue…” Alexius has gone down in history as the man who saved Byzantium largely because that’s what his daughter has told us, but historians are now questioning whether that was true and, in this episode, I want to suggest his reign was failing by 1095, and his appeal to the Pope for help against the Turks was the result of weakness, and not because he was in a strong position to launch a counter-offensive against the Turks as proposed in the Alexiad. Support the show For a free ebook, maps and blogs check out my website nickholmesauthor.com

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  Episode #134

  Episode 134: The First Crusade: The Battle of Manzikert

  Aug 14, 202627 minS1

  The Battle of Manzikert in 1071 changed history. Not only was it the first step towards the end of the Byzantine Empire but it also established the foundation for modern Turkey. In western Europe, the growing threat of the Seljuk Turks would result in the First Crusade. And yet the the Byzantine defeat in the battle was far from inevitable as so many history books claim. Indeed, it was the opposite. It was the Byzantines who were winning until one of the most outrageous acts of betrayal in history snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. Find out what happened here! Support the show For a free ebook, maps and blogs check out my website nickholmesauthor.com

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  Episode #133

  Episode 133: The First Crusade: The Rise of the Seljuk Turks

  Jul 31, 202624 minS1

  In this episode, we’ll look at why the Seljuk Turks suddenly appeared in the Middle East in the eleventh century. The name Seljuk and the origins of Seljuk power lie with a man called Seljuk, who rose to prominence in the late tenth century. He was an Oghuz Turk, and at that time the Oghuz Turks were a group of nomads living around the Volga River. Originally from Mongolia, the Turks were ethnically similar to the Huns of the late Roman period and the future Mongols of the thirteenth century. Support the show For a free ebook, maps and blogs check out my website nickholmesauthor.com

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  Episode #132

  Episode 132: The First Crusade: The Road to Manzikert

  Jul 17, 202622 minS1

  In the years from 1068 to 1071, the Byzantine emperor Romanus Diogenes tried but failed to stem the Turkish raids into Anatolia. Finally, he decided to lead his army far into the east, to stem the raids at their point of origin, near the fortress of Manzikert. There he would fight a battle that would change history. Support the show For a free ebook, maps and blogs check out my website nickholmesauthor.com

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