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
  • Classic Chats: Grayson Perry on why he hates classical civilisation

    Classic Chats: Grayson Perry on why he hates classical civilisation
    Apr 23 2026
    Mary and Charlotte talk to artist Grayson Perry about why he hates classical civilisation. Grayson is one of Britain’s most famous artists - he won the Turner Prize in 2003, has been exhibited in major exhibitions across the globe, published books and presented television programmes. Earlier this year, Grayson delivered the Rumble Fund Lecture 2026 at King’s College London, entitled ‘Why I hate classical civilisation’. Needless to say, Mary and Charlotte want to know why - and also see if they can encourage him to think more positively about his relationship with the ancient world. Grayson talks about the tedium of learning Latin at school, his irritation at the endless classical imitations in British architecture and asks why bad people - names are mentioned - hold up the classics as the peak of civilisation. Mary and Charlotte hit back. Just as many radicals and revolutionaries have been inspired by the classics as dictators or would-be dictators. Mary wishes she’d had the chance to teach Latin to Grayson. There’s a thought… Content warning: This episode features bad words beginning with the letter ‘f’. Mary and Charlotte recommend some further reading: The Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman, a book accompanying Perry’s British Museum exhibition, was published by the British Museum Press, 2011. An image from Perry’s The Rap of the Sabine Women (1981) can be seen on the Stedelijk Museum website. @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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    50 mins
  • Talking Classics with Mary Beard

    Talking Classics with Mary Beard
    Apr 16 2026
    In this episode, Mary and Charlotte’s special guest is… Mary Beard! On the day of publication of her new book, Talking Classics, Mary does just that - talks classics with Charlotte. Talking Classics is a summation of Mary’s 50 years study of the ancient world. In this intimate conversation, Mary talks about discovering a fascination with history as a child and her teenage delight in joining the local dig (and, more importantly, apres-dig) in Shropshire. She also discusses the value she finds in studying the classical world - the way we’re forced to acknowledge kinship and difference with other cultures, develop empathy, tolerate difference and reflect upon our own values. In the second half, Mary and Charlotte look at how the classical world has been adopted by different causes throughout history. Some we might approve of - like resistance to tyranny and gay rights - others which are more uncomfortable, like fascism and imperialism. And we hear the fascinating story of Ranuccio Bianchi Bandinelli, a left-wing classicist in Italy, who had to show Hitler and Mussolini around the sites of Ancient Rome. Mary and Charlotte recommend some further reading: This isn’t meant to be an advert (!), but the new book is Talking Classics (Profilebooks). By the way, this is Charlotte writing, I highly recommend it! The story of Hitler’s visit to Rome is told by Bianchi Bandinelli, not available in English, sadly. The Italian version is Hitler e Mussolini, 1938 (E/O pb, 1995) but it has been translated into French and German. There is a collection of photos of the visit here: https://www.europeana.eu/en/collections/person/165124-ranuccio-bianchi-bandinelli A documentary film has also been made of which there is a short trailer online, with 1930s footage (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3WdVcSybG4) On Classics and the proto-gay movement of the the 19th century, there is a chapter by Philip E Smith in Powell and Raby (eds), Oscar Wilde in Context (Cambridge UP, 2013) and a book by Linda Dowling, Hellenism and Homosexuality in Victorian Oxford (Cornell UP, 1994) The appropriation of classics by far right and misogynist “causes” is the theme of Donna Zuckerberg, Not All Dead White Men (Harvard UP, 2018), and Curtis Dozier, The White Pedestal (Yale UP, 2026) Mary writes of the ambiguities of Roman Britain in the story of the British Empire, in “Officers and Gentlemen?”, in A Swenson and P Mandler (eds), From Plunder to Preservation (British Academy, 2013) @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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    57 mins
  • Perpetua: A Martyr in Her Own Words

    Perpetua: A Martyr in Her Own Words
    Apr 9 2026
    Mary and Charlotte explore the story of Perpetua, a young Christian woman tortured and murdered in the Roman arena in Carthage (modern day Tunisia) for her faith in the 3rd Century CE. Astonishingly, Perpetua kept a diary during her last days - right up until the point she was led into the arena - recording her life, dreams and fearless conviction that death was better than renouncing God. Even more astonishingly, this diary survives, incorporated into a longer account of her martyrdom narrated by another hand.. Perpetua describes the attempts by both her father and the presiding Roman official to convince her to just say the words that will save her life. She describes her inability to do this, even though it means depriving her baby of its mother. She also describes several of her dreams in the days before her death. The narrator takes over to recount what happened next. Perpetua was mauled by animals and finally despatched by a gladiator. Perpetua’s account is so remarkable, many have questioned its authenticity. The current scholarly verdict is that it is real, providing a rare insight not only into female experience in the Roman Empire - but a woman living through extreme circumstances. Mary and Charlotte recommend some further reading: You can find an online translation of Perpetua’s diary here: https://www.ssfp.org/pdf/The_Martyrdom_of_Saints_Perpetua_and_Felicitas.pdf Barbara Gold, Perpetua: Athlete of God (Oxford UP, pb, 2021) and Sarah Ruden, Perpetua: the woman, the martyr (Yale UP, 2025) are accessible introductions to Perpetua (both including translations of the whole or parts of the text) More specialist studies include; Jan N. Bremmer and Marco Formisano (eds), Perpetua’s Passions (Oxford UP, 2012) Thomas J. Heffernan, The Passion of Perpetua and Felicitas (Oxford UP, 2012) @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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    53 mins
  • Antigone: Girl vs Tyrant

    Antigone: Girl vs Tyrant
    Apr 2 2026
    Antigone is one of the most regularly staged Greek tragedies with great actors lining up to play the part. Juliette Binoche, Juliet Stevenson and Gillian Anderson have all had a crack in recent years. In this episode, Mary and Charlotte look at why Antigone is such an enduringly interesting role. She is sometimes framed as a female Hamlet caught between family loyalties and the needs of the state. Antigone was written by Sophocles in the mid-5th Century BCE. It tells the story of King Creon’s attempts to restore order to the city of Thebes following a civil war. He orders that the body of the defeated rebel Polynices should lie unburied as punishment. Antigone, sister of Polynices, disobeys this order and gives her brother proper burial rites (as the gods demand). Creon sentences her to death for betrayal. Antigone is often portrayed as a proto-feminist icon - the brave woman standing up to the patriarchy. But is this really what Sophocles intended? King Creon has far more lines and is, like Antigone, caught in an impossible situation. There’s even one way of viewing the play as a parable on what happens when women meddle in the affairs of the state. It is, of course, precisely these ambiguities that make Antigone so popular. It raises questions that can never be answered and its relevance shifts from generation to generation. Mary and Charlotte recommend some further reading: There is a big book by George Steiner on the history of Antigone: Antigones (Oxford UP, pb, 1986), including Hegel and much more. More approachable are sections of Helen Morales, Antigone Rising: the subversive power of Greek myth (Wildfire, pb, 2021) and the video lecture by Simon Goldhill, https://www.cambridgegreekplay.com/talk-wheres-the-tragedy-in-antigone-by-prof-simon-goldhill Nelson Mandela mentions the performance on Robben Island in his Long Walk to Freedom (Back Bay Books, pb, 1995). Mary describes her own changing views of the play in Talking Classics (Profile books, 2026) @instaclassicpod for Insta, TikTok and YouTube @insta_classics for X email: instantclassicspod@gmail.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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    52 mins
  • Roman Graffiti: The Writing on the Wall

    Roman Graffiti: The Writing on the Wall
    Mar 26 2026
    Expressions of love, bawdy jokes, political satire or even just saying so-and-so was here - few things bring us as close to the Romans as their graffiti. In large part, thanks to Vesuvius preserving the streets of Pompeii and Herculaneum under rock and ash. In this episode, Mary and Charlotte look at what graffiti tells us about Roman society - both the relatable aspects and the unfathomable. Perhaps the biggest difference is the enhanced role graffiti played in a society which did not have forms of mass communication. Roman graffiti is like graffiti today, but also like social media. In both cases, nobody thought anyone would be looking at it 2000 years later. Roman graffiti goes beyond the official documents. It’s a rare glimpse of daily life and opinions that we today weren’t intended to see. Mary and Charlotte recommend some further reading: A searchable database of graffiti in Pompeii and Herculaneum: https://ancientgraffiti.org/Graffiti/ Charlotte’s article on the Spanish amphora scratched with a Virgil quote: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jun/24/ancient-roman-pot-virgil-poetry Charlotte discusses the ‘conticuere omnes’ Virgil quote found in Silchester in her book Under Another Sky, Vintage, 2014 Kristina Milnor discusses Pompeian graffiti in detail in Graffiti and the Literary Landscape in Roman Pompeii (Oxford UP, 2014); there’s a chapter devoted to Virgil. For the brothel graffiti, see Sarah Levin-Richardson, The Brothel of Pompeii (Cambridge UP, 2019), chap 3. The classic study of Greek and Roman literacy is W. V. Harris, Ancient Literacy (Harvard UP, pb. 1991), developed in Alan Bowman and Greg Woolf, Literacy and Power in the Ancient World (Cambridge UP, pb, 2008) @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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    54 mins