Instant Classics

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• Cleopatra 5: Cleopatra on Screen 28.05.2026 58分

  Mary and Charlotte talk to Professor Maria Wyke, classicist and film historian, about Cleopatra’s rebirth on the screen. By far the most famous Cleopatra film is the 1963 epic starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton - at the time the most expensive film ever made and with a steamy on-set love affair between the two stars to match that of the characters they were playing. Almost as brilliant, in its way, is the parody made the following year - Carry on Cleo - giving Kenneth Williams, as Julius Caesar, one of the greatest lines of all time: “Infamy, infamy, they’ve all got it in for me.”  This pair of films hog the limelight, but Maria shows how cinema’s fascination with Cleo goes right back to the early years of silent film through to the 21st Century. Why? On one hand, the Cleopatra story is an opportunity for spectacle and sex appeal - in other words, good business. On the other, the story is reinvented by each generation, playing on the anxieties and desires of the age. Looking at Cleopatra films tells us a lot about changing attitudes to sex, race and politics over the last 100+ years.   Mary and Charlotte recommend some further reading: Maria has written about Cleopatra on film in her books Projecting the Past (Routledge, pb, 1997) and The Roman Mistress (OUP, 2002). Films also figure in Lucy Hughes Hallett’s, Cleopatra: Histories, Dreams and Distortions (Fourth Estate, pb, 2026) A discussion of the Taylor-Burton film on its 60th anniversary: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2023/jun/12/cleopatra-60th-anniversary-elizabeth-taylor-richard-burton  And for the fashion aspect: https://fashionhistory.fitnyc.edu/1963-mankiewicz-cleopatra/  @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
• Cleopatra 4: Cleopatra on the Page 21.05.2026 53分

  Mary and Charlotte talk to Lucy Hughes-Hallett, acclaimed biographer and author of ‘Cleopatra: Histories, Dreams and Distortions’, about Cleopatra’s afterlife on the page. Lucy begins by observing that “the people who write about her aren't interested in describing her as a real person. They use her as a kind of mirror onto which they can project their own prejudices and anxieties and often erotic fantasies.” In the 14th Century, Boccaccio mined the old evil temptress angle. Geoffrey Chaucer, however, went the other way: she was a martyr to love, choosing to kill herself rather than consider life without Antony. For Shakespeare, she provided the perfect character to study the effects of unbridled passion. After Napoleon’s conquest of Egypt, Cleopatra was orientalised - her skin and hair became darker in pictures and she indulged in decadent acts of cruelty.  In recent decades, she has been framed as nationalist freedom fighter and feminist hero, but it feels like - even two thousand years on - there is more to explore in this most elusive of historical queens.  Mary and Charlotte recommend some further reading: The new edition of Lucy’s book is just out: Cleopatra: Histories, Dreams and Distortions (Fourth Estate, pb, 2026). It has discussion of all the texts we mentioned, and more (plus further bibliography). In the modern Egyptian tradition, the best known representation of Cleopatra, the freedom fighter is Ahmed Shawqi’s play, The Death of Cleopatra (there is a recent English translation by Jeanette Wahba Sourial Atiya, though not easy to get hold of). Cleopatra in modern painting and sculpture is the subject of a useful illustrated essay online” https://artuk.org/discover/stories/cleopatras-legacy-in-art-famous-pharaoh-and-femme-fatale @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
• BONUS Mary & Charlotte on the latest trailer for Christopher Nolan's Odyssey 17.05.2026 7分

  Another trailer for Christopher Nolan’s forthcoming adaptation of The Odyssey has just been released, giving more insights into the world the cast and crew have created. Mary and Charlotte give their quick-fire response. Have your say at… @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
• Cleopatra 3: Life After Death 14.05.2026 48分

  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
• Cleopatra 2: Cleopatra Meets the Romans 07.05.2026 46分

  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
• Cleopatra 1: Last Egyptian Pharaoh 30.04.2026 59分

  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
• Classic Chats: Grayson Perry on why he hates classical civilisation 23.04.2026 50分

  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
• Talking Classics with Mary Beard 16.04.2026 57分

  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
• Perpetua: A Martyr in Her Own Words 09.04.2026 53分

  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
• Antigone: Girl vs Tyrant 02.04.2026 52分

  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
• Roman Graffiti: The Writing on the Wall 26.03.2026 54分

  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
• The Great Plague of Athens 19.03.2026 52分

  In 430 BCE, Athens was hit by a terrible plague that ultimately claimed around a third of the population. All the social niceties we associate with Ancient Athens collapsed. Citizens turned on one another. The dead were left unburied. Mary and Charlotte both recount and question the ‘facts’ of the epidemic as told by historian, eyewitness and plague survivor Thucydides.  Thucydides’ account is remarkable in that it aligns with the emerging science of medicine in ancient Athens by focusing on the symptoms and natural causes rather than framing it as  divine retribution from the gods. Yet, for all this, the truth is hard to pin down. We still don’t know what exactly the plague was. And Thucydides’ claims to be an objective historian are undermined by the way he presents the plague as a possible response to Athenian arrogance and hubris.  Yet for all the gaps, we see many of the social characteristics of epidemics that have recurred throughout history. Social collapse, finger pointing, moralising, and arguments about which ‘truth’ to believe.  Mary and Charlotte recommend some further reading: Thucydides describes the plague in his History 2, 47 - 55  Plutarch describes Pericles’ death from the plague in his Life of Pericles 38. There are plenty of translations of Thucydides available online. But NB one of the most often used (a nineteenth-century version by Richard Crawley) is also one of the least reliable.  Thucydides, Apollo, the Plague and the War, Lisa Kallet, The American Journal of Philology, Fall 2013, Vol. 134, No. 3, pp. 355-382 (an interesting article in which Kallet casts doubt on the purely objective, scientific account Thucydides purports to give of the plague) A Plague Like no Other: Beyond the Buboes in Thucydides' account of the Plague of Athens, by Pere Domingo, Paula Prieto, Lluis Pons, Clinical Microbiology and Infection, May 2025 (a useful round-up of the latest medical thinking on the Athenian plague) J Longrigg, ‘Death and Epidemic Disease in Classical Athens’ in V Hope and E Marshall, Death and Disease in the ancient city (Routledge, 2000) Emily Greenwood: https://yalereview.org/article/thucydides-times-trouble (a classicist reflects on the Athenian plague and Covid) @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
• What Did the Romans Eat? Part 2: Plebs’ Food 12.03.2026 44分

  Think Roman food and we imagine extravagant banquets involving rare delicacies. There’s some truth in this, but only for the few. In this episode, Mary and Charlotte ask: what did your average Roman eat?  Cooking at home was only for the very rich - you had to have not only a kitchen, but the staff to manage it. For this reason, most Romans ate on the hoof or at fast food outlets. In Pompeii, for instance, there is surviving evidence of many such establishments: places where citizens could access a pre-cooked meal straight away.  While we know that most Romans ate out, and the sorts of places where they ate, until recently there was very little evidence showing what such establishments served. Modern archaeological techniques are starting to provide answers through the analysis of excrement in Roman lavatories. Comparing the evidence from lavatories in Herculaneum and modern day Scotland, a faeces - sorry, thesis - emerges of people surviving on whatever the local countryside could provide - varying dramatically from region to region - with a few luxury imports for special occasions.    Forget dormice and think cabbage. Lots of it. In myriad ways.  Mary and Charlotte recommend some further reading: There is a good overview of the Herculaneum cesspit here: https://www.cambridgeamarantus.com/topics/topic-vi/63/63-evidence And detailed scientific analysis here: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11457-018-9218-y  For a brief account of the menu at an ordinary Pompeian bar, see: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/fast-food-joint-pompeii-served-snails-fish-and-wine-new-finds-suggest-180976651/  Cato’s On Agriculture – complete with its praise of cabbage – can be found in English translation here. And some information on the Bearsden latrine analysis @instaclassicpod for Insta, TikTok and YouTube@insta_classics for Xemail: 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
• What Did the Romans Eat? Part 1: Posh Food 05.03.2026 54分

  When we think about Roman food, most of us imagine wealthy citizens stuffing their faces with rare delicacies while reclining on their sides and taking occasional breaks to use the vomitorium (urban myth alert). In this two-part special, Mary and Charlotte cut through the fermented fish sauce to look at what the Romans really ate. And no, the vomitorium was not a place where they made themselves vomit.  In this first episode, Mary and Charlotte look at posh food, beginning right at the top - in the imperial palace. Happily, there are some stories of jaw-dropping extravagance, including Elagabalus (a fave of the show) hiding pearls in the rice as a surprise for his guests. And the favourite dish of the Emperor Vitellius involved pike liver, peacock brain, flamingo tongue and lamprey sperm - all mixed together. But just as many emperors favoured a martial diet and household economy. Augustus - a snack guy - boasted about his ascetic preference for with cheese, figs and bread. Tiberius was criticised by the elite for serving leftovers.  You can never trust anecdotes about the emperors, but most of the stories have a plausibility when you read them alongside a surviving cookbook - Apicius’ De re culinaria. Here we find out about garum - or fermented fish sauce (which Mary thinks is less disgusting than it sounds), animal wombs, dormice as well as a lot of vegetarian dishes (more to Charlotte’s taste).  Mary and Charlotte recommend some further reading: Emperors’ reported eating habits are discussed in Mary’s Emperor of Rome (Profile pb, 2024)  You can find a complete (rather lumpy) translation of Apicius online here: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/29728/29728-h/29728-h.htm Several modern writers collect some of Apicius’ recipes and adapt them for “the modern kitchen”: eg John Edwards (Rider pb, 2009),  Sally Grainger (Prospect pb, 2015) and Andrew Dalby (British Museum pb, 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
• Classic Chats: Tom Holland 26.02.2026 56分

  Mary and Charlotte talk to Tom Holland, co-host of the Rest is History. As well as being a podcasting megastar, Tom is a brilliant historian of Ancient Rome. His books include Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman Republic,  Pax: War and Peace in Rome’s Golden Age and his recent translation of Suetonius’ The Lives of the Caesars.  In the first half of this episode, Tom talks about why Suetonius, with his interest in court gossip and trivia, is the historian for the current age. In the second half, he talks about his lifelong fascination with the Romans - from discovering the Asterix books as a boy, the poetry of Catullus as a teenager, and how writing a series of novels about vampires led him to write Rubicon.  @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
• Who's Afraid of Lupercalia? 19.02.2026 47分

  If you were to go back in time to 15 February in Ancient Rome, you might see marauding packs of naked men surging through the streets. If you were particularly unlucky one of them might whip you with a piece of goat skin. This was the Roman festival of Lupercalia. In this episode, Mary and Charlotte ask: what on earth was all this about? What did Lupercalia mean to the Romans? And what was the real purpose of any festival to the Romans?  Despite its mind-boggling oddness, Lupercalia is better documented than many other Roman festivals. This is partly because the Romans themselves didn’t know really what it was about. Lupercalia was something that seemed to have always been celebrated, but opinions varied - then as now - as to what it meant. The wolfiness of lupercalia, and the suggestion the ritual began in the cave where Romulus and Remus were believed to have been suckled, implies it may have been a way for the Romans to connect with their murky origins - an example of the city performing its own past. But even this is contested.  One thing is clear: despite the date, Lupercalia had nothing to do with modern Valentine’s Day - unless, of course, your idea of romance is running naked through the streets flailing a piece of animal skin… @instaclassicpod for Insta, TikTok and YouTube @insta_classics for X email: instantclassicspod@gmail.com Mary and Charlotte recommend some further reading: The Lupercalia is one of Roman religious festivals discussed in Mary’s book, with John North and Simon Price, Religions of Rome (Cambridge UP pb, 1998) volume 2 (with translation of the main ancient texts, including a section of Pope Gelasius’ pamphlet). Mary also discusses how to understand Roman festivals more widely in her chapter in C. Ando (ed.), Roman Religion, Edinburgh Readings in the Ancient World  (Edinburgh UP, pb, 2003). Shakespeare’s Lupercalia is in his Julius Caesar Act 1, scene 2 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
• Villain, Victim... Double Agent? The Many Lives of Helen of Troy pt 4 12.02.2026 55分

  Greece gave way to Rome and the Roman Empire too declined, but Helen of Troy survived. Forever young and relevant, she has been reimagined by generation after generation. In the last episode of this mini-series, Mary and Charlotte look at Helen’s enduring appeal in the modern age.  They show how she appeared in the poetry of medieval bards, inspired playwright Christopher Marlowe to create one of the most famous lines in English literature (the face that launched a thousand ships) - and how Shakespeare, not wanting to be outdone by Marlowe, said her face launched ‘over’ a thousand ships.  Mary describes some of her favourite 19th century paintings of Helen - and discusses the problem of how you paint a face that, by definition, is more beautiful than the face of any artist model. Charlotte talks about how that problem continues in cinema (with a side anecdote about asking Brad Pitt the wrong question at the launch of the film Troy).  Finally, Charlotte and Mary compare some of their favourite Helens in modern literature, including Margaret Atwood’s Penelopiad (2005), Pat Barker’s The Silence of the Girls (2018) and Natalia Haynes’ A Thousand Ships (2019) @instaclassicpod for Insta, TikTok and YouTube @insta_classics for X email: instantclassicspod@gmail.com Paintings referred to:  G Moreau, Helen at the Scaean Gates https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Helene_a_la_porte_scee_-_gustave_moreau_-_2.jpg F. A Sandys, Helen of Troy https://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/artifact/helen-of-troy (The original magazine illustration from which the painting is excerpted: https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O783702/illustration-to-helen-and-cassandra-print-sandys-frederick/ ) E de Morgan, Helen of Troy: https://www.demorgan.org.uk/collection/helen-of-troy/ 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
• Villain, Victim... Double Agent? The Many Lives of Helen of Troy pt 3 05.02.2026 44分

  What happened to Helen after the Trojan War? Mary and Charlotte pick up the trail of mythology’s most famous femme fatale as she makes the long journey home from Troy. The big question at the end of the previous episode was whether her husband Menelaus would kill her as revenge for betraying him with Paris.  Needless to say, her charms win out and, after a long stop in Egypt, where she acquires some amazing accessories, they return home to Sparta. Just in time for Telemachus, son of Odysseus, to arrive and ask them if he knows where his father is? The Helen of The Odyssey Book 4 takes us by surprise. She and Menelaus have settled into a rather humdrum domestic companionship. And it raises the question: was all that fighting and bloodshed worth it? For this?  Just as fascinating as Homer’s surprise depiction is a theory embedded in Greek texts that Helen never actually went to Troy, but sat out the whole affair in relative safety in Egypt. The Helen people saw on the ramparts of Troy was simply an eidolon - an image.  Mary and Charlotte show how the true nature of Helen - villain, victim or double agent? - provided an endless source of debate, and opportunities for creative flights of fancy, in the ancient world. Finally, they look at a few of the different accounts of her final years.  @instaclassicpod for Insta, TikTok and YouTube @insta_classics for X email: instantclassicspod@gmail.com Mary and Charlotte recommend some further reading: In addition to the reading recommended for the earlier episodes: The whole tradition of the phantom of Helen is discussed in detail by Norman Austin in Helen of Troy and her Shameless Phantom (Cornell UP, 2018) Helen and Menelaus in Sparta feature in Book 4 of the Odyssey (with a detailed recent discussion by J Burgess in The Oxford Critical Guide to Homer’s Odyssey, ed Christensen (Oxford UP, pb, 2025)) Herodotus’ account is at his Histories 2, 112 ff Euripides’ play Helen is available online here https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0100 though it is a rather old-fashioned translation (be warned!)  and there is a full performance (by students) on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MVyAZbRaK0 Emily Wilson translated Euripides’ Helen as part of a recommended (if you want to go for it) fat selection of Greek plays in recent translation: The Greek Plays: Sixteen Plays by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides (Modern Library Classics, pbck, 2017) edited by Mary Lefkowitz and James Romm 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
• BONUS Mary & Charlotte on the trailer for Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey 03.02.2026 7分

  Christopher Nolan’s adaptation of The Odyssey is set to be the blockbuster event of the summer. With the first trailers now coming online, Mary and Charlotte take a look to get a sense if the hype is worth it.  Have your say at… @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
• Villain, Victim... Double Agent? The Many Lives of Helen of Troy pt2 29.01.2026 49分

  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 the war - Helen isn’t even one of the main characters. She watches Paris and Menelaus fight a duel in her name, draws the admiration of old men, and spends some sexy time with Paris. In The Odyssey, we find out about her role in the final episode of the war - the Trojan Horse. Here she appears more of a double agent: secretly communicating with Odysseus, but also tormenting his soldiers.   In Virgil’s Aeneid, she is a hate figure and a focus of murderous fantasies for the hero Aeneas. Finally, Mary and Charlotte look at The Trojan Women by Euripides, where Helen defends herself as a victim of the gods and her own beauty. Menelaus plans to slaughter her, but we know by the end of this play that is unlikely. What happens next is the focus of the next episode! @instaclassicpod for Insta, TikTok and YouTube @insta_classics for X email: instantclassicspod@gmail.com Mary and Charlotte recommend some further reading: The key sections of the Iliad that feature Helen are Book 3 (where she appears 4 times), Book 6, 342 ff and towards the very end of Book 24. Helen herself and Menelaus tell her story of the war in Odyssey Book 4, esp. 220ff. Aeneas’s outburst against Helen is in Virgil Aeneid Book 2,  567 ff.  Key modern works on Helen and her role in myth and literature are: Ruby Blondell, Helen of Troy: Beauty, Myth, Devastation (Oxford UP, pb, 2015) Bettany Hughes, Helen of Troy: Goddess, Princess, Whore (Pimlico, pb, 2013) 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