Instant Classics

When Paris, a Trojan prince, abducted Helen of Sparta, the Greeks came in hot pursuit and besieged Troy for ten years. But what was Helen’s role in all this? Was she really kidnapped, or did she elope? And whose side was she really on during the ensuing war? Mary and Charlotte turn to a variety of ancient texts to explore these questions.  In Homer’s The Iliad - the longest and greatest account of...

Sex goddess. Whore. Temptress. Adulteress. Victim. Helen of Troy has been called many things. In the run-up to Christopher Nolan’s adaptation of The Odyssey later this year, amidst swirling rumours about who is playing Helen, Mary and Charlotte look beyond the labels and ask: who was Helen really and what role does she play in myth?  This isn’t an easy question to answer. Accounts of Helen’s chara...

We may think of Ancient Greek warfare as scantily dressed musclemen thrashing it out on the desert plain (and there may have been an element of that), but there was a whole other side of spy work too. Much of this was the result of its fraught relationship with the vast Persian empire to the east - a centuries long rivalry which makes the Cold War look like a hot skirmish. Mary and Charlotte share...

Naomi Alderman is an author and games designer. Her books include Disobedience (adapted into a film starring Rachel Weisz), The Power (also an Amazon Prime series) and most recently The Future. She’s also an emerging classicist and reached out to Instant Classics after our episode on the toga came happily close to her MA thesis on the same subject.  In this episode, Naomi sets the record straight...

Since Instant Classics launched, we’ve loved getting your questions and ideas for topics. So for our New Year’s Day episode, Mary and Charlotte respond to some of those which have tickled their curiosity too.  Where did the Romans stash their cash? What was a trip to the doctor like for women? Why do some people still try to speak (rather than just read) Latin? Was there a Jewish community in Roma...

Every December, the Ancient Romans took part in a festival of feasting, drinking, gift-giving and awkward office parties. So far, so Christmas. But, in this episode, Mary and Charlotte ask what really went on during the Roman festival of Saturnalia and whether the comparisons to Christmas really hold?  As is so often the case, we discover a people and culture similar to us in some ways, yet also c...

The Ancient Greeks, it’s often said, invented theatre - and the plays they wrote are still big box office today, particularly when you have a Hollywood star in the main part. In this episode, Mary and Charlotte wonder what a day at the theatre in Ancient Athens was actually like. Did it bear any resemblance to theatre-going experience in the West End or Broadway today?  The more one gets into the...

From Asterix to Up Pompeii to Life of Brian, there are lots of modern comedies about the Romans, but what did the Romans themselves find funny? In this episode, Mary and Charlotte share their favourite Roman jokes and ask the bigger questions: what can Roman humour tell us about the world of ancient Rome itself? Can we still ‘get’ Roman jokes and do any of them still have the power to make us laug...

Recorded live in an actual Roman amphitheatre underneath the Guildhall Art Gallery in London, Mary and Charlotte uncover the (Roman) origins of one of the world’s great cities.  London’s Roman amphitheatre may not be the Colosseum, but it’s thought it could hold up to 7,000 spectators, which is not nothing in the ancient world. London was founded soon after the invasion by the Romans in 43 CE as a...

Athena: goddess, shape-shifter, helper of heroes, fashion guru, patron deity of Athens and a bit of a daddy’s girl. She’s also one of the most elusive and puzzling characters in Greek mythology. In this episode, Mary and Charlotte ask who exactly is Athena? Is she a female role model for feminine power? More importantly, what exactly is a god in Greek mythology?  Part of Athena’s appeal is that sh...

In the second of this two-part special, Mary and Charlotte rejoin Boudica as she marches on London, continues her path of destruction, and finally meets the Roman army on the battlefield.  It’s a dramatic story, complete with Boudica’s rousing speeches to her troops and her death by suicide when she realises the battle is lost. The Roman historians who tell this story depict her as a brutal perpet...

Boudica. Britain’s original badass. A warrior queen who almost defeated the Romans, gave voice to the oppressed and inspired countless school children ever since. But what do we really know about her? Mary and Charlotte trace her story, asking how much of the myth is true and whether we should really celebrate her today.  History is told by the victors - and everything we know about Boudica comes...

Any Greek hero worth their salt makes a trip to the Underworld at some point during their adventures. Mary and Charlotte follow in their footsteps, crossing the River Styx to ask: what exactly was the Underworld? How was it different to the Judeo-Christian ‘Heaven’? And why has the idea of it proven so enduring even though nobody believes in it?  The Underworld can’t be mapped (although some schol...

As the Halloween season hits, Mary and Charlotte turn to the wealth of ghost stories from the ancient world to ask: did the Greeks and Romans really believe in ghosts and why are their stories so similar to ours when many of our beliefs are so different?  Mary and Charlotte recount a ghost story recounted by Pliny the Younger about a haunted house in Athens and the successful attempt by a philosop...

Exciting News! Vespucci, in collaboration with the City of London Corporation and the Culture Mile Business Improvement District, is thrilled to present the very first live recording of Instant Classics on November 26th, 2025.   Join hosts Mary Beard and Charlotte Higgins as they journey back nearly two millennia to uncover what life was really like in Roman London. What did a typical night out lo...

‘Fiddling while Rome burns’ is an accusation flung at every political leader at some point in their career. In this episode, Mary and Charlotte uncover the origins of this phrase and ask: why has it proved so resonant that it has carried through the centuries and right around the world?  In 64 CE, a huge fire broke out in Rome. It lasted for over a week and devastated much of the city. Today, what...

Can it really have taken seven episodes of Instant Classics to get to everyone’s favourite Roman meme: the toga party? Mary and Charlotte grasp the thistle - or rather the sinus (fold at the front of a toga) - and ask what exactly is a toga? Who wore them and when? And how do you make one?  In this fact-filled episode, we discover that - despite the antics of students around the world today - a to...

Who was the mythical Cassandra and why have pop stars started singing about her? Mary and Charlotte turn sleuth and track the elusive Trojan princess through the pages of ancient texts - from Homer’s Iliad to Virgil’s Aeneid.  Today, Cassandra is most famous as a prophetess who could predict the future, but was cursed to never be believed. As a result, Troy burned and Agamemnon and Cassandra herse...

We all know what Rome became - largest empire of the ancient world, public bathing, gladiators, aqueducts, excellent roads and all that - but how did it begin? Who founded it? When? And why? Mary and Charlotte sift through the various myths that give some insight to these questions.  Peel back the layers of history and Rome’s origins are lost in the bog on which it was built. Archaeology offers us...

The Parthenon is one of the most celebrated and recognisable buildings in the world, but what did it mean to the Ancient Greeks? What role did it play in Greek society? And what did it look like in its heyday? Together, Mary and Charlotte decode the Parthenon.  By happy coincidence, Mary is not just co-host of Instant Classics, but author of Charlotte’s favourite book on the subject: The Parthenon...

In the wake of recent conflicts over free speech and acts of political violence, Mary and Charlotte discuss how - then as now - free speech dominated the political agenda in the ancient world, with wildly different interpretations about what it meant and who got to decide.  They discuss two distinct, yet complimentary principles in Ancient Athenian democracy: Parrhesia (free or frank speech) and i...

Tell me about a complicated man, muse… In this episode of Instant Classics Book Club, Mary and Charlotte dwell on the first ten lines of The Odyssey (as translated by Emily Wilson) and show how it contains not only a summary of the story that follows, but introduces the themes, the subject, and the way the story will be told. Whoever Homer was, they were not a blind sage belting out rudimentary ly...

In Ancient Greece, the Iliad was the poem above all other poems - an epic full of war and bloodshed that tells of the great heroes who fought and died for Troy.  But not so long after the supposed composition of the Iliad, a woman on the Mediterranean island of Lesbos, close to the coast of modern-day Turkey, introduced a new and enduring note to poetry: desire.  Her name was Sappho. She was rever...

Think ‘Roman sport’ and images of Kirk Douglas, Russell Crowe, Paul Mescal and other Hollywood gladiators may come to mind. But while the Romans were partial to blood-sports, chariot-racing was the really big thing.  The archaeological remains of chariot-racing tracks have been found all over the Roman Empire, but none suggest a scale or grandeur close to the Circus Maximus in Rome. At full capaci...

In this first episode of the Instant Classics Book Club, Mary and Charlotte explain why The Odyssey is such a pleasure, as well as historically significant, and provide the basic facts necessary to get going.  Sign up here: https://instantclassics.supportingcast.fm/ Pick a translation - any translation - and get reading with us. The Odyssey, along with its sister text, The Iliad, is often consider...