Skip to content
The Ancients artwork

The Ancients Podcast Transcripts

History Hit · 778 episodes with transcripts

A podcast for all ancient history fans! The Ancients is dedicated to discussing our distant past. Featuring interviews with historians and archaeologists, each episode covers a specific theme from antiquity. From Neolithic Britain to the Fall of Rome. Hosted by Tristan Hughes.

Spoken has transcripts of 778 The Ancients episodes, with the speakers named. The newest listed here is from October 18, 2026.

History

Every The Ancients transcript in one script

778 episodes of The Ancients have transcripts. Fetch them all as speaker-labeled Markdown in one script — 1 credit each, and re-fetching one you already have is free:

archive.sh
curl -s -H "x-api-key: YOUR_KEY" \
  https://spoken.md/podcasts/1520403988/episodes \
  | jq -r '.episodes[] | "\(.id) \(.title)"' \
  | while IFS=' ' read -r id title; do
      slug=$(echo "$title" | tr '[:upper:]' '[:lower:]' | tr -cs 'a-z0-9' '-' | sed 's/-*$//')
      [ -f "${id}-${slug}.md" ] && continue
      curl -sf -H "x-api-key: YOUR_KEY" \
        -o "${id}-${slug}.md" \
        https://spoken.md/transcripts/$id || rm -f "${id}-${slug}.md"
      sleep 0.34
    done

Already-saved files are skipped — safe to re-run after a top-up.

778 credits. Credits never expire. Excludes VAT, added at checkout for EU customers.

Latest The Ancients transcripts

The Ninth Legion: Did They Disappear?

October 18, 2026

Tristan Hughes (0:00)

Ever wondered why the Romans were defeated in the Teutoburg Forest? What secrets lie buried in prehistoric Ireland? Or what made Alexander truly great? With a subscription to History Hit, you can explore our ancient past alongside the world's leading historians and archaeologists. You'll also unlock hundreds of…

It's one of history's most compelling cold cases. The mystery of what happened to over 5,000 experienced Roman soldiers has captured the imagination of authors and filmmakers for decades. This was the Ninth Legion, Legio IX Hispana, the legion that helped Augustus become emperor and helped the Emperor Claudius begin…

Simon Elliott (1:38)

I'm doing really well. I love coming on the show with you, mate.

Tristan Hughes (1:41)

You've come down to our new studio in our History Hit office.

Keep reading this transcript

These are examples, not the full list — see everything available from this show via the API, get started.

Looking for a different show? Search for it to see whether it has transcripts you can fetch.

Thousands of transcripts fetched by people building searchable podcast archives

Any The Ancients episode comes back as Markdown with the speakers named, one credit each.

request
curl -H "x-api-key: YOUR_KEY" \
  https://spoken.md/transcripts/1000796323075

No subscription. Credits never expire. Prices exclude VAT, added at checkout for EU customers. Try free with pt_demo.