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The podcast opens with a reading from this 1749 poem, which discusses Swedish King Charles XII as a romantic hero figure

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Referenced as a book that Charles XII carried with him wherever he went, modeling himself on Alexander the Great

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Mentioned in comparison to Charles XII's biography of Alexander - noting that Alexander the Great himself traveled with the Iliad

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Referenced multiple times as a book Charles XII read daily, spending an hour each morning discussing it with a bishop and reading from it every night

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Referenced when explaining that Samuel Johnson's poem echoes a satire by Juvenal, the Roman poet, casting Charles XII as a classical hero

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Referenced as 'Peter's great biographer' who wrote about Peter the Great, quoted saying that the Battle of Narva was 'the first step towards his doom'