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 laugh now? 

Fortunately, there’s a surprising number of Roman jokes that survive today - whether graffiti, on papyrus and an actual joke book called Philogelos. Despite the contemporary image of Rome as an autocratic, relentlessly bloodthirsty society, their jokes tell a different story. Works like Apocolocyntosis (The Pumpkinification of the divine Claudius) by Seneca show a huge irreverence to imperial grandeur, while the surviving jokes we have very rarely exhibit the cruelty we associate with a society hooked on slavery and gladiatorial games. They also suggest a widespread anxiety around self-identity - jokes about people who don’t know who they are really or how they fit into society. 

Finally, Mary reveals her favourite Roman joke of all time. But will Charlotte laugh? The stakes are high. Listen to find out. 

@instaclassicpod for Insta, TikTok and YouTube

@insta_classics for X

email: [email protected]

Mary and Charlotte recommend some further reading:

Charlotte recommends Laughter in Ancient Rome: On Joking, Tickling, and Cracking Up (UCal press pb, new ed. 2024) by one Mary Beard as ‘the’ book on Roman humour. 

Mary got a lot out of: J, Bremmer and H. Roodenburg, A cultural history of humour (Polity pb, 1997) 

J. Clarke, Looking at Laughter: Humour, Power and Transgression in Roman visual culture (UCal press, 2007). It includes the wonderful images of the philosophers on the lavatory.

S Critchley, On Humour (Routledge pb, 2002)

Though she warns that books on laughter are often quite serious! 

Available online – a translation of Seneca’s Apocolocyntosis

…and of the Philogelos And there are other selections from that collection, usually omitting the ones we don’t get! Try https://diotima-doctafemina.org/translations/greek/45-jokes-from-the-laughter-lover/

The jokes of the Emperor Augustus are collected in Macrobius, Saturnalia Book 2 (you can find a translation in the Loeb Classical Library, Harvard UP)

Instant Classics handmade by Vespucci

Producer: Jonty Claypole 

Executive Producer: Natalia Rodriguez Ford

Video Editor: Jak Ford

Theme music: Casey Gibson

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 port city, on the lowest bridgeable part of the Thames, and it quickly became a hub of trade and commerce. By the 60s CE, it was significant enough for Boudica to have a crack at burning it to the ground (and the archaeology suggests she was successful). 

But what was the city like – and does it bear any relation to its modern counterpart? Evidence suggests, then as now, London was a multicultural city, and part of an administrative and trade network that connected it to the opposite edges of the empire and beyond. From London we have tombstones of men born in Antioch and Athens. And evidence of several religions with origins in far-flung parts of the empire, including the cult of Mithras, which developed in Iran; Isis, originally from Egypt; and Cybele, with its roots in Asia Minor. 

Finally, Mary and Charlotte come back to the ground beneath their feet. Who would have come to this amphitheatre back in the day? And what took place? In all honesty it’s best not to think of Russell Crowe and lions. Rather some local pot-bellied thugs and wild boar from the local forests. But there’s space for both, right? 

Our thanks to the Guildhall Art Gallery, the City of London Corporation and the Cultural Mile Business Improvement District for hosting us. And do visit London’s Roman Amphitheatre. It’s open Monday to Sunday 10am-5pm. It is very much worth a visit and it is FREE. 

Content warning: Mary and Charlotte have a squeamish conversation about a Roman instrument now in the British Museum which may or may not have been used for castration. 

@instaclassicpod for Insta, TikTok and YouTube

@insta_classics for X

email: [email protected]

Mary and Charlotte recommend some further reading:

Mary recommends Charlotte’s Under Another Sky (Vintage pb, 2014), showing how the remains of the city still have an impact now.

Roman Britain, by Richard Hobbs and Ralph Jackson, is a beautifully illustrated and concise guide to the province – with a photo of the infamous castration tool (British Museum Press, pb, 2010)

A recent survey of the whole history of Roman London is: Richard Hingley, Londinium: A biography (Bloomsbury pb, 2018)

For more information on Roman shoes: https://www.londonmuseum.org.uk/blog/these-boots-were-made-for-romans/

For a visit to the temple of Mithras: https://www.londonmithraeum.com/ 

The full text of the document of the sale of Fortunata is here: https://romaninscriptionsofbritain.org/inscriptions/Brit.34.22

Instant Classics handmade by Vespucci

Producer: Jonty Claypole 

Executive Producer: Natalia Rodriguez Ford

DoP:Jéromo Monnot

Camera Operator 1 and Photgrapher: Guillaume Valli

Camera Operator 2: Vera Novikova

Sound Engineer: Nathan Cucharo

Video Editor: Jak Ford

Theme music: Casey Gibson

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 she bucks the perception of Ancient Greece as inflexibly misogynistic. For Charlotte, discovering Athena as a girl was part of what drew her to the classical world. And, as Mary’s mother once said (to the young Mary): “If Athens was the kind of society you tell me it was in which women had no power,I don't understand why their patron deity was a goddess.” Many years later, Mary - and Charlotte - still struggle to answer this question, which is part of what makes her so enduringly fascinating. 

In uncovering Athena’s story and contradictions, they also reveal the origins of the phrase ‘under the aegis’, where Nike shoes got their name from, and why - if Athena were around today - she’d probably be Mark Zuckerberg’s corporate guru. 

@instaclassicpod for Insta, TikTok and YouTube

@insta_classics for X

email: [email protected]

Mary and Charlotte recommend some further reading:

For the Greek texts and myths to which we refer:

Homer, The Odyssey, tr Emily Wilson, Norton, 2018

Homer, The Iliad, tr Emily Wilson, Norton, 2023

Aeschylus, Oresteia, in James Romm and Mary Lefkovitz, eds The Greek Plays, 2017 (a really useful anthology of 16 translations of Greek plays). The Eumenides which we discuss is the third play in Aeschylus’ trilogy on the murder of Agamemnon and its upshot. The title means ‘Kindly Ones’, a euphemism for the Furies who are pursuing Orestes for the mudder of his mother.

Timothy Gantz, Early Greek Myths, Johns Hopkins, 1996 (a mighty two-volume tome, for the serious student)

Charlotte Higgins, Greek Myths, Vintage, 2022

Susan Deacy, Athena, Routledge, 2008 discusses the overall character of the goddess.

On polytheism generally, L Bruit Zaidmann and P Schmitt Pantel, Religion in the Ancient Greek City, Cambridge 1992, is one of the clearest introductions (the full text is available online). 

Instant Classics handmade by Vespucci

Producer: Jonty Claypole 

Executive Producer: Natalia Rodriguez Ford

Video Editor: Jak Ford

Theme music: Casey Gibson

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 perpetrator of war crimes, but… they also present her as a victim, brave warrior and inspiring speech-giver, able to skewer the injustice of Roman imperialism. 

The question is: why? Why do Roman historians, who had sole control of the narrative, portray Boudica as the agent of a just cause? Today, we rarely treat our enemies with such sympathy. The presentation of Boudica’s story gives fascinating insights into how the Romans not only tolerated but, to a certain extent, even encouraged criticism. 

Finally, Mary and Charlotte investigate the after-life of Boudica’s legend, ending with her status as a hero in Colchester - the very town she razed to the ground. And if you fancy driving round the Boudica roundabout a few times, it’s on Turner Road near Colchester North Station!

@instaclassicpod for Insta, TikTok and YouTube

@insta_classics for X

email: [email protected]

Mary and Charlotte recommend some further reading:

The main ancient texts are: Tacitus, Agricola 14-16; Annals 14, 29-39; Dio Cassius, Histories of Rome 62, 1-2, all conveniently collected at https://www.roman-britain.co.uk/roman-conquest-and-occupation-of-britain/boudica-the-iceni-warrior-queen/boudica-classical-references/

Richard Hingley and Christina Unwin, Boudica: Iron Age Queen (Hambledon Continuum pb, 2006) is an accessible account of Boudica from the Iron Age to her modern representations. Hingley reviews the evidence and some of the books on the subject, including his own, at https://fivebooks.com/best-books/boudica-richard-hingley/ 

Charlotte tells the story of Boudica, and discusses some of the ways she has been represented, in her book Under Another Sky: Journeys In Roman Britain (Vintage, 2014)

You can find a detailed history of Thornycroft’s statue in Martha Vandrei, ‘A Victorian Invention? Thomas Thornycroft’s ‘Boadicea Group’, Historical Journal 57 (2014). The verses on the plinth are taken from William Cowper’s poem Boadicea. 

The Roman tombstone of the official who blew the whistle on Suetonius’ reprisals against the British, Julius Classicianus, can be seen in the British Museum.

Instant Classics handmade by Vespucci

Producer: Jonty Claypole 

Executive Producer: Natalia Rodriguez Ford

Video Editor: Jak Ford

Theme music: Casey Gibson

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 from the Romans. It’s almost certain that there really was a woman called something like Boudica who drove terror into the hearts of the Roman colony in Britain. Archeological evidence also suggests the scale of the devastation she wrought. But beyond that, we cannot be certain. 

In this first episode of a two-part special, Mary and Charlotte look at the backdrop to her story - the Roman ‘conquest’ of a few patches of Britain, the delicate network of truces and bargains they forged with local leaders, and the emergence of Boudica as queen of a tribe called the Iceni. The episode ends with Boudica burning the Roman stronghold in (what is now) Colchester to the ground and marching towards London. 

@instaclassicpod for Insta, TikTok and YouTube

@insta_classics for X

email: [email protected]

Mary and Charlotte recommend some further reading:

The main ancient texts are: Tacitus, Agricola 14-16; Annals 14, 29-39; Dio Cassius, Histories of Rome 62, 1-2, all conveniently collected at https://www.roman-britain.co.uk/roman-conquest-and-occupation-of-britain/boudica-the-iceni-warrior-queen/boudica-classical-references/

Richard Hingley and Christina Unwin, Boudica: Iron Age Queen (Hambledon Continuum pb, 2006) is an accessible account of Boudica from the Iron Age to her modern representations. Hingley reviews the evidence and some of the books on the subject, including his own, at https://fivebooks.com/best-books/boudica-richard-hingley/ 

The archaeological evidence for the revolt is very clear but can be difficult to interpret in detail. Some fascinating recent discoveries at Colchester are described and well illustrated at https://the-past.com/feature/the-fenwick-treasure-colchester-during-the-boudiccan-war-of-independence/

Charlotte tells the story of Boudica, and discusses some of the ways she has been represented, in her book Under Another Sky: Journeys In Roman Britain (Vintage, 2014)

Instant Classics handmade by Vespucci

Producer: Jonty Claypole 

Executive Producer: Natalia Rodriguez Ford

Video Editor: Jak Ford

Theme music: Casey Gibson

Production intern: Amelia Reichert

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 scholars have tried) because it didn’t exist, but there are consistent features in the many myths in which it features: the River Styx, Charon the Ferryman, the god Hades, his wife Persephone, and the numberless dead like autumn leaves. Orpheus and Theseus visited. Hercules - hard man that he was - went twice. A human princess called Psyche also went in search of her lover. 

Mary and Charlotte dwell on the longish accounts in Homer’s Odyssey and Virgil’s Aeneid. Through these stories they get some sense of what the Underworld really meant to the Ancient Greeks and Romans - and what it still means to us. 

 @instaclassicpod for Insta, TikTok and YouTube

@insta_classics for X

email: [email protected]

Mary and Charlotte recommend some further reading:

We focus on Odysseus’ encounter with the dead in Homer, Odyssey Book 11, and on Aeneas’ visit to the underworld in Virgil, Aeneid Book 6. But there are more!

https://www.thecollector.com/mortals-underworld-katabasis-greek-roman-mythology/ is an online, well-illustrated, article detailing 14 ancient visits to the underworld.

Modern fictions of the underworld based on the Odyssey are the theme of one chapter of Edith Hall’s Return of Ulysses (available free at https://edithhall.co.uk/) 

Some of our very recent favourites are Carol Ann Duffy’s poem, “Eurydice”, from her collection, The World’s Wife (1999) and R. F. Kuang’s novel Katabasis (2025)

Instant Classics handmade by Vespucci

Producer: Jonty Claypole 

Executive Producer: Natalia Rodriguez Ford

Video Editor: Jak Ford

Theme music: Casey Gibson

Production intern: Amelia Reichert

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 philosopher to both encounter the ghost and lay its spirit to rest. They also tell the story, written down in Greece in the 3rd century CE, about a young man who is seduced by a vampire. And they discover the Roman methods of exorcism, which involves chewing on some beans and throwing them behind you. When it came to ghostbusting, then as now, don’t cross the beans! 

Some Romans even believed that the city itself was haunted by the restless spirit of Remus who - in one telling of Rome’s favourite origin story - was murdered by his brother Romulus to take sole control of the new city. 

@instaclassicpod for Insta, TikTok and YouTube

@insta_classics for X

email: [email protected]

Instant Classics handmade by Vespucci

Producer: Jonty Claypole 

Executive Producer: Natalia Rodriguez Ford

Video Editor: Jak Ford

Theme music: Casey Gibson

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 look like for a Londoner in the first century CE? Were they cheering on gladiators, swapping gossip in the baths, or making offerings to mysterious gods?

We’ll explore all this and more right where history happened, within the atmospheric remains of London’s Roman Amphitheatre at the Guildhall Art Gallery, dating back to the first century CE.

Book Club Members: Check your inbox today for an exclusive early-access link to purchase tickets before the general release on Friday, October 31st.

For those wanting to gain early access, you can join our Book Club at www.instantclassicspod.com. Spaces are limited, and this intimate setting promises an unforgettable evening.

Have any questions? Drop us a line at [email protected].

We can’t wait to see you there and meet you in person (how novel).

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

‘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 is more famous than the fire itself is what the emperor Nero did while it was going on. He watched - and played his lyre. 

This story, perhaps more than any other, has given Nero a bad rap, but ancient writers also say that he supervised rescue efforts, gave free food to the people, introduced sensible planning regulations and was visionary in rebuilding the devastated areas. So why has the fiddling image won out and why is it used so often in contemporary political discourse? 

Mary and Charlotte explore these questions, pointing out in the process that fiddles hadn’t been invented at the time Nero is meant to have played one, that the Colosseum gets its name from a colossal statue of Nero, and that it’s the forgotten parts of the fiddling legend that make the modern use of the term so powerful. 

Finally, they ask: all things considered, did Nero REALLY fiddle while Rome burned? And they give an answer. 

Mary and Charlotte recommend some further reading

The ancient sources are collected and analysed in detail here: https://dcc.dickinson.edu/tacitus-annals/introduction/annals-outline/annals-38-41-outline

Nero has always attracted a LOT of academic interest. 

E. Champlin, Nero (Harvard UP, pb, 2005) is an accessible biography (rather favourable to Nero)

For a focus on the fire itself, and its wider context, see: A. Barrett, Rome is Burning: Nero and the Fire that Ended a Dynasty (Princeton UP, pb, 2020) 

The history of modern cartoons of political leaders fiddling while Rome burned is explored by Ginna Closs here: https://eidolon.pub/x-fiddled-while-y-burned-80abf13e7c08?gi=5d659c5e2688

@instaclassicpod for Insta, TikTok and YouTube

@insta_classics for X

email: [email protected]

Instant Classics handmade by Vespucci

Producer: Jonty Claypole 

Executive Producer: Natalia Rodriguez Ford

Video Editor: Jak Ford

Theme music: Casey Gibson

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 toga wasn’t a bed-sheet turned into a sort of cheap tunic for getting blind drunk in, but an elaborate, woollen garment more like a cloak or robe that signified power. We find out how many kilometres of woollen thread were necessary to make a toga, where the word ‘candidate’ (as in political candidate) comes from and which Roman emperor wore platform shoes to make himself look taller. 

As they go deeper into the folds of the toga, Mary and Charlotte reveal how wearing one was about much more than looking smart but got to the very essence of what it meant to be Roman. 

And… in case you’re wondering… one of our hosts has been to a toga party. But can you guess whether it’s Mary or Charlotte? 

@instaclassicpod for Insta, TikTok and YouTube

@insta_classics for X

email: [email protected]

Mary and Charlotte recommend some further reading

Roman dress has been a bit of a boom area of study recently.

Mary Harlow explains many of the practical aspects (including a fun video showing how to actually put one on) here: https://romanleicester.com/2020/06/30/dress-to-impress/

There is good, accessible stuff on the rights and wrongs of toga-wearing here: https://pressbooks.bccampus.ca/unromantest/chapter/the-roman-man-and-the-toga/

More specialised: 

Camilla Ebert, Sidsel Frisch, Mary Harlow, Eva Andersson Strand and Lena Bjerregaard (eds), Traditional Textile Craft: An Intangible Cultural Heritage? (Centre for Textile Research, University of Copenhagen, 2016)

Judith Lynn Sebasta and Larissa Bonfante (eds), The World of Roman Costume (Wisconsin UP, pb, 1994) 

Jonathan Edmondson and Alison Keith (eds), Roman Dress and the Fabrics of Roman Culture (University of Toronto Press, 2008) 

If you want to follow up some ancient writers: 

the phrase ‘the race that wears the toga’ is from Virgil, Aeneid 1, 282;  Augustus’ rules on wearing togas in the forum are mentioned at Suetonius, Augustus 40; Augustus keeping a handy toga at home at Suetonius, Augustus 73; Claudius’ rules in the court case at Suetonius, Claudius 15. There is a full translation of Tertullian’s (baffling) On the Pallium online here: https://www.tertullian.org/articles/hunink_de_pallio.htm

Instant Classics handmade by Vespucci

Producer: Jonty Claypole 

Executive Producer: Natalia Rodriguez Ford

Video Editor: Jak Ford

Theme music: Casey Gibson

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices