Jun 18, 2026 · 1 hr 1 min · 10 segments
Dr. James Howard-Johnston, an Emeritus Fellow at Corpus Christi College at the University of Oxford, joins Lexie to discuss his research on the Byzantine army, interests in Sasanian Iran through…
No entities detected.
James Howard-JohnstonGuest
Lexie HenningHost
And the second thing I'm going to do is ask you, how did you get into the study of ancient history and classics and Byzantine history? And, I mean, let's go with history.
And when we got to that stage at school, I was being urged to do the sciences.
And then coming up to university, in my case, Oxford, I got in to read classics.
And then I did read classics, though I did something unusual in those days.
I skipped the first half of of the traditional degree, which was focused on Greek and Latin literature, because in a sense, I'd done it all at school.
So I did a short two-term course, and then got straight on to the second half, the main half of the degree, which was philosophy and history.
And at the very start of this process, in the two terms before I got on to that, it was a short course basically designed for people without very good Greek or Latin to get into it.
And I was taught the awful things I forgot in his name, but he was a great man.
So that was my first introduction to Persia in my first term at Oxford.
Then, going on to the main part of the degree, my Greek history tutor was a man called David Lewis.
And it so happened that David Lewis combined knowledge of classical history, Persian history, and biblical history.
And the second thing I'm going to do is ask you, how did you get into the study of ancient history and classics and Byzantine history? And, I mean, let's go with history.
And when we got to that stage at school, I was being urged to do the sciences.
And then coming up to university, in my case, Oxford, I got in to read classics.
And then I did read classics, though I did something unusual in those days.
I skipped the first half of of the traditional degree, which was focused on Greek and Latin literature, because in a sense, I'd done it all at school.
So I did a short two-term course, and then got straight on to the second half, the main half of the degree, which was philosophy and history.
And at the very start of this process, in the two terms before I got on to that, it was a short course basically designed for people without very good Greek or Latin to get into it.
And I was taught the awful things I forgot in his name, but he was a great man.
So that was my first introduction to Persia in my first term at Oxford.
Then, going on to the main part of the degree, my Greek history tutor was a man called David Lewis.
And it so happened that David Lewis combined knowledge of classical history, Persian history, and biblical history.
The rest of this transcript — segmented and speaker-labeled, so you land on the exact moment something was said
Search every transcript — by keyword, by phrase, or by meaning, across every show Radar indexes
Trends — what is surging across podcasts, measured against its own baseline
Alerts — when a name you follow appears in a newly indexed episode
No account is needed to search Radar.
