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Instant Classics

Instant Classics

By: Vespucci
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Summary

 Join world-renowned classicist Mary Beard and Guardian chief culture writer Charlotte Higgins for Instant Classics — the weekly podcast that proves ancient history is still relevant. Ancient stories, modern twists… and no degree in Classics required. Become a Member of the Instant Classics Book Club here: https://instantclassics.supportingcast.fm/ World
Episodes
  • Cleopatra 3: Life After Death

    Cleopatra 3: Life After Death
    May 14 2026
    For many years, Cleopatra and Mark Antony lived a life of extravagance and passion - or so we’re told. In this episode, Mary and Charlotte look at what happened next. Mark Antony, with Cleopatra, met their enemy Octavian in a sea battle off the coast of Greece - and lost. The Battle of Actium was a turning point for Rome. After this moment, Octavian rebranded himself as Emperor Augustus, bringing an official end to many centuries of republican rule. Rather than face capture and humiliation, both Antony and Cleopatra took their lives. The story of their final days survives through Plutarch, but how much of this official Roman version can we trust? Was Cleopatra really an exotic temptress who seduced Mark Antony into treason? And did she really kill herself with a poisonous snake? Accounts of her death are so tied up in the wider propaganda legitimising Augustus’ rise to Emperor that it’s impossible to know what really happened. Soon after her death, she began to haunt the imagination of writers and artists. Mary and Charlotte believe she probably inspired the figure of Dido of Carthage in Virgil’s Aeneid, written only a decade or so later. The North African queen who takes her life for love of a Roman. But Virgil was by no means the last to take inspiration from her story, as we will be discovering in the next episode…. Mary and Charlotte recommend some further reading: The poem by Horace is his Odes 1.37 (Nunc est bibendum, “Now is the time for drinking”) with a decent translation online. (Charlotte's school song, oddly based on this poem, began “Nunc canendum, nunc laetandum” – “Now is the time for singing, now is the time for rejoicing,” all prime examples of gerundives of obligation, for the Latin nerds) Maria Wyke (who we will meet later in this Cleopatra series, talking about Cleopatra movies) explores the propaganda of the emperor Augustus and the figure of Cleopatra in this article available online: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10143408/1/Augustan%20Cleopatras.pdf And more on Augustan propaganda: https://cleopatradigitized.wordpress.com/cleopatra-and-augustan-propaganda-after-the-battle-of-actium/ The links between Dido and Cleopatra are discussed here: https://womeninantiquity.wordpress.com/2020/11/16/cleopatra-and-dido/ @instaclassicpod for Insta, TikTok and YouTube @insta_classics for X email: instantclassicspod@gmail.com Instant Classics handmade by Vespucci Producer: Jonty Claypole Video Editor: Jak Ford Theme music: Casey Gibson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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    49 mins
  • Cleopatra 2: Cleopatra Meets the Romans

    Cleopatra 2: Cleopatra Meets the Romans
    May 7 2026
    If it hadn’t been for Rome, Cleopatra’s sole claim to fame may have been that she married two of her brothers. But then Julius Caesar arrived in Alexandria… In this episode, Mary and Charlotte recount what happened next. Caesar came to Egypt in pursuit of his great enemy, Pompey the Great, and became Cleopatra’s lover. They embarked on a cruise of the Nile, during which Caesar created the modern calendar system. After Caesar returned to Rome, Cleopatra bore a son, who she named Caesarion. She followed Caesar to Rome and was there at the time of his assassination. Afterwards, Caesar’s ally Mark Antony and great-nephew Octavian defeated Caesar’s assassins, then turned on one another. Mark Antony formed an alliance with Cleopatra and became her second Roman lover. Together, they embarked on one of the most famous romances in history. Passionate, extravagant, and - spoiler alert - doomed. Mary and Charlotte recommend some further reading: Plutarch’s Life of Mark Antony (the main ancient source for his relationship with Cleopatra) is available online: https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Lives/Antony*.html In addition to the books we recommended for the last episode, Adrian Goldsworthy’s Antony and Cleopatra (Weidenfeld & Nicolson pb, 2011) focuses in detail on the politics of their relationship. For the complexity of the Roman calendar (and be warned it is complex), see Jörg Rüpke, The Roman Calendar (Wiley Blackwell, 2011), or more briefly Robert Hannah, Greek and Roman Calendars (Bristol Classical Press, 2005). You can find an online discussion of Caesar and Cleopatra’s Nile cruise online: https://penelope.uchicago.edu/encyclopaedia_romana/miscellanea/cleopatra/egypt.html @instaclassicpod for Insta, TikTok and YouTube @insta_classics for X email: instantclassicspod@gmail.com Instant Classics handmade by Vespucci Producer: Jonty Claypole Video Editor: Jak Ford Theme music: Casey Gibson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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    46 mins
  • Cleopatra: Last Egyptian Pharaoh

    Cleopatra: Last Egyptian Pharaoh
    Apr 30 2026
    In the first episode of a five-part series, Mary and Charlotte tell the story of Queen Cleopatra’s early years. Forget, for the time being, Elizabeth Taylor rolling out of a rug, poisonous asps and baths of asses’ milk. Focus instead on inbreeding and incest, because Cleopatra, child of Ptolemy the Flute-Player, married her brother, Ptolemy 13th. When he died in suspicious circumstances, she married another brother, Ptolemy 14th. Mary and Charlotte discuss why the Ptolemy dynasty of Egypt was so fixed on keeping it in the family. In the second half of the episode, they explore the controversial issue of race in Cleopatra studies. On one hand, she was born into a dynasty from Greece which prided itself on inbreeding. On the other, it seems likely that beneath the official accounts, a great deal of cavorting went on beyond the royal household. The main reason it is so hard to reach any definitive conclusion is that ancient writers were uninterested in race as we understand it. They seemed not to fixate or even be interested in skin colour. The episode ends with Cleopatra primed to meet Julius Caesar. Mary and Charlotte recommend some further reading: There is a whole series of reliable modern biographies of Cleopatra (as well as many more unreliable accounts). This is a short selection of the trustworthy: D. Roller: Cleopatra: a biography (Oxford UP, pb, 2011) S. Schiff, Cleopatra: a life (Virgin books, pb, 2011) J. Tyldesley, Cleopatra: last queen of Egypt (ProfileBooks, pb, 2009) For the wider history of the dynasty: Alan Bowman: Egypt after the Pharaohs (British Museum Press, pb, 1996) L. Llewellyn-Jones, The Cleopatras (Wildfire, pb, 2025) For Alexandria and its culture: E. Richardson, Alexandria: the quest for the lost city (Bloomsbury, pb, 2022) Islam Issa, Alexandria: the city that changed the world (Sceptre, pb, 2024) For Cleopatra and race: In addition to the biographies cited, you can get an idea of the debates, here: https://theamericanscholar.org/black-cleopatra/ https://pressbooks.claremont.edu/clas112pomonavalentine/chapter/haley-shelley-1993-black-feminist-thought-and-classics-re-membering-re-claiming-re-empowering-in-feminist-theory-and-the-classics-edited-by-nancy-rabinowitz-and-amy-richlin-2/ @instaclassicpod for Insta, TikTok and YouTube @insta_classics for X email: instantclassicspod@gmail.com Instant Classics handmade by Vespucci Producer: Jonty Claypole Video Editor: Jak Ford Theme music: Casey Gibson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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    59 mins
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