Instant Classics

Medea 3: The Immortal (with Edith Hall)

Mary and Charlotte explore Medea’s afterlife, from Ancient Athens into the 21st Century - the way her story continues to beguile and challenge us. To do this, they are jo

BONUS Instant Classics live at the FT Weekend Festival

In September, Mary and Charlotte appeared at the FT Weekend Festival for a wide-ranging conversation covering Greek tragedy, Ukraine, the Bayeux Tapestry, tech bros and -

Medea 2: Princess and Witch

Last episode, we saw how Medea was driven to murder her own children, using Euripides’ famous play as our primary source. In this episode, Mary and Charlotte delve deeper

Medea 1: Child killer

Medea is one of the most intriguing characters in Greek mythology: a sorceress, scion of the sungod, and a serial killer. In the first part of a new series, Mary and Char

Exploring Anne Carson

It’s not every year that a classicist wins the Nobel Prize for Literature (in fact, it hasn’t happened since 1959), so Mary and Charlotte interrupt the schedule to reflec

Roman Cancel Culture

We think of cancel culture as a 21st-century phenomenon, but it’s been going on since the ancient Egyptians (if not earlier) and the Romans were enthusiastic adopters as

What did Roman emperors really look like?

There are thousands of surviving busts and sculptures of Roman emperors, but… do we actually know what they looked like? The problem is that the function of these statues

The Bayeux Tapestry: Britain’s Lost Latin masterpiece

Mary and Charlotte delve into the stitching of the Bayeux Tapestry, a 224-foot long narrative embroidery charting William the Conqueror’s successful invasion of England i

Classic Chats: Daniel Mendelsohn on translating the Odyssey

Mary and Charlotte talk to Daniel Mendelsohn, one of America’s most revered classicists, whose new translation of the Odyssey was published last year.  Daniel’s decision

How Homer’s Odyssey Conquered the English-speaking World

Last episode, Mary and Charlotte looked at how Homer’s Odyssey was reinterpreted in the Ancient World by writers like Euripides, Virgil and Ovid. In this episode, they sh

How Homer's Odyssey Conquered the Ancient World

Ever since the Odyssey was composed, people have retold the story, played with it or used it as a departure point for similar or related stories. In this episode, Mary an

The Vestal Virgins - just how virginal were they?

Few elements of ancient Rome have inspired quite such lurid speculation – by the Romans as well as ourselves – as the vestal virgins. Mary and Charlotte enter the (imagin

Classic Chats: Robert Harris on ‘Agrippa’

Mary and Charlotte talk to best-selling author Robert Harris about his new novel ‘Agrippa’. Robert Harris has published 16 novels, of which nine have been made into films

Marcus Agrippa: Power behind the throne

Of all the Roman Emperors, Augustus has the reputation of being the most… well… august. That is to say, competent, level-headed and judicious. Not to mention one of the f

BONUS Emily Wilson on translating the Odyssey

A few months back we spoke to Emily Wilson on our subscriber series Exploring the Odyssey. Emily has been in the news recently, partly because her acclaimed 2017 translat

Classic Chats: Charlotte Higgins on Ukrainian Lessons

Mary talks to Charlotte about her book Ukrainian Lessons: Art in a Time of War. For the last four years, Charlotte has returned repeatedly to Ukraine to report on the cul

BONUS: Which Translation of the Odyssey should I read?

With the world gripped by Odyssey fever, Mary and Charlotte keep being asked the same question: which translation should I read? So here is a quick bonus episode to help

Classical Beach Reads

Summer is here (in the northern hemisphere at least) and with many listeners eyeing trips to the beach, Mary and Charlotte are here with some cracking beach read suggesti

Classic Chats: Count Binface (Bonus episode)

In this Clacton byelection special, Count Binface takes a break from the campaign trail and zooms in from his spaceship to chat with Mary and Charlotte about his deep int

Classic Chats: Tom Hiddleston on Pompeii

Last week, actor Tom Hiddleston launched his new series - not the further adventures of Loki (at least, not yet), but Pompeii: Out of Time with Tom Hiddleston. Mary and C