Abstract
Metal has been a popular and dynamic medium for the modern reception of antiquity for over four decades, with thousands of songs composed by hundreds of bands across five contents covering a wide range of topics, from the Trojan War to the Fall of Rome and beyond. This vast and growing discography is consumed by hundreds of thousands of metalheads worldwide. Just these numbers alone scream for critical attention by scholars who straddle the fields of Metal Studies and Ancient Studies. In this session we will discuss the makeup of metal’s current discography of songs and albums dedicated to ancient themes, including which topics are more popular than others and why. We will then consider the state of scholarship on this phenomenon, then contemplate future directions.