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Dr. Matt Maher is an instructor at the University of Winnipeg. His specialty is ancient Greek military architecture. We discussed his latest book on the fortifications of Arkadian city-states.
0:56 – Matt talks about how he started studying classical Greek archaeology.
2:51 – Matt talks about how the book is laid out. He covers nineteen sites in detail in the book out of the forty or so cities that existed in ancient times.
5:41 – The book covers from about the end of the Persian wars to the death of Alexander the Great.
7:33 – Matt talks about how new technologies like catapults affected fortification construction.
12:23 – Matt talks about the material of the walls and what affected how they were physically built.
17:10 – Matt talks about the three different types of fortifications he divides the sites into.
22:56 – Matt talks about how he used Google Earth to find some of the cities that he examined.
29:51 – Matt talks about excavating the fill of the walls he looked at.
31:20 – Matt talks about how he did his research for the book.
36:20 – Matt talks about the vegetation he found around the sites and what vegetation might have existed in ancient Greece.
39:36 – Matt talks about some suprises he encountered as he did his research.
44:00 – Matt talks about how the fortified cities reinforced each other.
48:38 – Matt talks about dependent polis and how they might have been part of the defensive network.
59:51 – Matt is on academia.edu. He’s on twitter @drmattmaher. The book has links to other publications too.
Links of interest
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Guests: Matt Maher
Host: Cris Alvarez
Tags: military, history, military history, conflict, war, interview, non-fiction book, Ancient Greece, Arcadian League, Greek warfare, fortifications, catapults, warfare, spartans, sparta, megalopolis