Mary Beard's new book Emperor of Rome is available now Ancient Rome matters. Its history of empire, conquest, cruelty and excess is something against which we still judge …
Mary Beard is one of the world's best-known classicists - a brilliant academic, with a rare gift for communicating with a wide audience both though her TV presenting and her …
WINNER OF THE WOLFSON HISTORY PRIZE 2008 'The world's most controversial classicist debunks our movie-style myths about the Roman town with meticulous scholarship and propulsive …
We might think we are through with the past, but the past isn't through with us. Tragedy permits us to come face to face with the things we don't want to know about ourselves, but …
Rome is an empire with a bad reputation. From its brutal games to its depraved emperors, its violent mobs to its ruthless wars, its name resounds down the centuries like a scream …
The Colosseum was Imperial Rome's monument to warfare. Like a cathedral of death it towered over the city and invited its citizens, 50,000 at a time, to watch murderous …
In 264 BC, a Roman army was poised to cross from southern Italy into Sicily. They couldn't know that this crossing would be Rome's first step on its journey from local republic to …
More than three thousand years ago a sculptor working in the royal city of Amarna carved a limestone bust of an Egyptian queen. The queen was Nefertiti, consort of the 'heretic …
She was the last ruler of the Macedonian dynasty of Ptolemies who had ruled Egypt for three centuries. Highly educated (she was the only one of the Ptolemies to read and speak …
What does the Rosetta Stone tell us about the past? What treasures of Egyptian literature can now be read, thanks to its decipherment? What does it tell us about the history of …
