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. 

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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).

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‘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

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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? 

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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

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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 herself were murdered. Generally, that disbelieving was done by men. No wonder people talk of Greta Thunberg as a modern day Cassandra, or that Taylor Swift and Florence Welch have positioned her as a pin-up girl for misunderstood (female) celebrities. 

But, with the greatest respect to Taylor and Florence, Mary and Charlotte think Cassandra is rather more interesting than that. From her warnings about the Trojan Horse right through to her very nasty end at the gates of Mycenae, Cassandra’s story tells us about the limitations of human communication and language more generally. That, not just because she said ‘I told you so’, is why she stays with us, meaning different things at different times. 

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Mary and Charlotte recommend some further reading

We focus on Cassandra’s role in Aeschylus’ play Agamemnon in the moments leading up to her death (easily available in translation in eg Penguin Classics or Oxford World’s Classics series).

Euripides’ Trojan Women (likewise easily available in translation) takes the women who appear at the end of the Iliad – Hecuba, Helen, Andromache and Cassandra – and asks: “What happened to these women after Troy fell?”

Lesya Ukrainka’s 1908 dramatic poem Cassandra, translated by Nina Murray (Harvard Library of Ukrainian Literature, 2024), a classic of Ukrainian literature now available in English, brilliantly puts Cassandra at the centre of her own story. A philosophically rich and very moving text.

Emily Hauser, Mythica (Doubleday, 2025; Penelope’s Bones in the USA) explores the figure of Cassandra from “real” early Greek women prophets to Ukrainka’s version.

The rape of Cassandra at the end of the Trojan War was a “favourite” subject for Greek artists. Try: https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/G_1824-0501-35

Or https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/G_1873-0820-366 Or (from the walls of Pompeii) https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b4/Ajax_drags_Cassandra_from_Palladium.jpg/960px-Ajax_drags_Cassandra_from_Palladium.jpg

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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 evidence of Bronze Age huts, burial practice and trade with neighbouring (and far-flung) lands, but leaves many of the big questions unanswered.

This is a problem not only for classicists, but the countless men who apparently think of the Roman Empire several times a day. The Romans themselves struggled with their murky history. Even for them, the question of why they had risen to such extraordinary power was puzzling. The thought of humble origins sat uneasily with the grandeur and pomp of the imperial capital. So they did what many other cultures do and made up stories that explained their path to greatness. 

If you’ve heard of outcast babies Romulus and Remus being suckled by a wolf, that’s just the icing on the cake. Accounts of the Romulus myth vary wildly. In some versions, he eventually ascends to heaven as a god. In others, he is hacked to death by his disgruntled subjects. 

Other myths point elsewhere. The “Roman race” in Italy was founded by a Trojan exile called Aeneas, although he didn’t actually found the city of Rome itself. Maybe, that was a Greek called Evander, long before Romulus. 

It’s easy to dismiss these stories, but Mary and Charlotte argue that they tell us a great deal about how the Romans understood themselves and their city (whether there is some grain of literal truth in them, who knows?). Most of all they point to the way that, at some deep level, they considered themselves to be an immigrant culture - outcasts, exiles and opportunists - searching for a better life.  

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Mary and Charlotte’s recommended reads:

There are many ancient accounts of the origins of Rome. Best known is Book 1 of Livy’s History of Rome which tells the story from Romulus to the last of the seven early kings (translations in Penguin Classics or Oxford World Classics, as The Early History of Rome and The Rise of Rome). 

For Aeneas, try Virgil Aeneid Books 2 and 8. Book 2 takes us to Aeneas’ flight from Troy. Book 8 pictures Evander, who is then living there, showing Aeneas around the future site of Rome). 

The beginning of Mary’s SPQR, written for non specialists, busts a few myths about the origins of the city. The Italian archaeologist Andrea Carandini takes a completely different approach. Try his (short) Rome: Day One.

Interesting, but rather more specialist, books are: Catharine Edwards, Writing Rome (she is very good on the “Hut of Romulus” which supposedly was authentically preserved in Rome for hundreds of years); T. P. Wiseman, Remus (which has an off-beat line about the role of Remus in Roman history, but gives an eye-opening account of all the very different Roman traditions about the world and twins).

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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 (Profile/Harvard University Press, 2002).

In this episode, Mary and Charlotte pick their way through the stones of Parthenon, beginning with its construction in the middle of the 5th century BCE. The building work only took fifteen years (significantly faster than medieval cathedrals), but demanded a huge amount of labour, both enslaved and free. 

Today, the Parthenon looks austere, pale and hardly decorated. A simple monument from a simpler age, perhaps. But what we see bears little relation to what the Greeks saw - and the building, its function and decoration retain many mysteries. For instance… 

It was built as a temple to the city’s patron goddess Athena, but who was Athena and what exactly went on in a ‘temple’? 

We know that it was painted and covered in sculptures - some of which survive - but whether the painting was subtle or gaudy is hard to say, while the significance of some of the sculptures continues to elude us – some of it was hardly even visible from the ground. 

Inside, there were two rooms: one housed a giant, golden statue of Athena; the other was a treasury filled with riches. But where did all this loot come from and how was it guarded?  

Finally, if you are lucky enough to visit, what is the best time of day to go and – is it really worth it – or are you better off going to the beach? 

Find out the answer - or possible answers - to these questions in Decoding the Parthenon. 

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Mary and Charlotte’s recommended reads:

Sorry to repeat the recommendation for Mary’s book, The Parthenon. But there’s more.

You can find Pausanias’ second-century CE description of the temple in his Description of Greece I, 24, 5 ff (online here: https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0160:book=1:chapter=24)

And various criticisms of the project are noted (again in the second century CE) by Plutarch in his Life of Pericles chap. 31 (online here: https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A2008.01.0055%3Achapter%3D31)

Even introductions to Greek religion for general readers can get pretty technical. There is a reasonably accessible discussion of the idea of the temple, in Simon Price, Religions of the Ancient Greeks (Cambridge, 1999).

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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 isegoria (the equal right to speak). In theory, parrhesia preserved the right to speak truth to power, including the scandalous sexual jokes about public figures which pepper the comedies of the Greek stage. Tolerance of these plays suggested the Athenians generally recognised the validity of frank speech - and one of the state warships was even named parrhesia. 

Isegoria embodied the principle that any free man had an equal right to participate in public discourse, although in practice this was rarely the case. Polished public speaking came with a good education and those who lacked it could be physically silenced. 

The principles of free speech and equality are deceptively simple, and - as with today - interpretation and implementation varied wildly, depending on who held power. The life and death of the philosopher Socrates provides an interesting case study. He is often celebrated as a martyr of free speech, dying in its name, but on closer examination this isn’t exactly what happened. 

They also look at free speech in Ancient Rome and the sobering story of Cicero’s final hours, in which his tongue - allegedly - was stitched into silence. 

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Mary and Charlotte recommend some further reading

Plato’s version of Socrates’ response to the charges against him is found in his Apology of Socrates (this, like all ancient works we mention here, is widely available in translation in print and online). NB in Greek apologia means “defence” not “sorry”. 

An important debate in the Athenian assembly that we reference in our discussion (on how to punish the people on Mytilene) is described by Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War  Book 3, 36ff.

The story of Cremutius Cordus is told in Tacitus Annals Book 3, 34-5; that of the tongue of Cicero by Cassius Dio, History of Rome Book 47, 8.

Emily Wilson, The Death of Socrates (Profile/Harvard UP, 2008) is a good introduction to the issues of free speech in 399 BCE and their legacy.

Content warning: references to political violence both in the ancient world and in the past week, and mild sexual innuendo. 

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New episodes will be published every other Tuesday, and available exclusively for members beginning 30th September. Sign up now with the promo code EARLYBIRD25 to receive a 25% discount on membership.] 

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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 lyrics to listeners round a camp fire, but a sophisticated story-teller/s working and re-working their text to technical brilliance. 

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In particular, Mary and Charlotte introduce us to an ancient Greek word in the first line which is the key to everything that follows. Polytropos (πολῠ́τροπος) is almost untranslatable, but it is the secret to not only Odysseus’ character, but the story itself. Deciding how to interpret this word is amongst the biggest decisions a translator takes. 

Our aim in this episode is to get everyone thinking about polytropos - and how you might interpret it over the course of this story. Is it a good thing to be polytropos? Who in your life is polytropos? Try dropping the word into conversation with your boss. Or maybe don’t. 

Send your thoughts to [email protected] 

And don’t worry - the pace will pick up from here on! 

Mary and Charlotte’s recommended reads:

You can find Emily Wilson’s discussion of “polytropos” (and her own debates about how to translate it) here: https://emily613.substack.com/p/on-complicated 

Consistency alert: In the episode we sometimes refer to polytropos, sometimes to polytropon. That is because the main form of the word is polytropos, but it appears in these lines as polytropon (we’ll explain if you want!).

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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 revered through the Ancient World, but today only one work survives in its entirety: a poem usually known as the Hymn to Aphrodite. The rest is fragments - only about 600 lines of the 10,000 lines the Romans were still reading seven centuries after her death. 

Sappho lived in the 7th Century BCE, long before the rise of Athens as the dominant city-state in Ancient Greece. It was before democracy, before the Parthenon and, arguably, before the extreme subjugation of women common in the later “classical” period. Women weren’t exactly liberated in seventh century Lesbos, but it looks like they were a lot freer than in fifth-century Athens.  From her poetry, we can tell she was an aristocrat, a singer, a lover, and a mother. 

Sappho, famously, loved women. And in this episode, Charlotte and Mary explain why they also love Sappho. Not only is she the great poet of desire, but she also writes about nature, motherhood, middle-age, bad knees, and why war - despite what her brothers might say - is boring. 

Charlotte and Mary recreate what they can of Sappho’s life and art. And they ask the big question: why is it that so little of her work survives compared to many male writers of the ancient world? Are medieval monks to blame? Was she, as Otis Redding sang, just too hot to handle? 

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Mary and Charlotte’s recommended reads:

There are hundreds of translations and adaptations of Sappho. Two of Mary and Charlotte’s recent favourites are: Anne Carson: If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho and Stanley Lombardo: Sappho, Poems and Fragments

In her book, Eros, the Bittersweet, Carson also asks what makes Sappho the great poet of desire. 

The world behind the poetry is the subject of Rosalind Thomas’s “Sappho’s Lesbos”, in The Cambridge Companion to Sappho. This is a fairly specialist collection of essays, but takes the story of Sappho’s influence right up to the present, from the USA to India, China and Latin America.

For the controversies around the new discoveries of Sappho’s poetry made a decade ago, start with Roberta Mazza, Stolen Fragments (extraordinary detective work on the world of the illegal  trade in ancient papyri). Three articles by Charlotte also discuss that “new” Sappho and lift the lid on the problems:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/29/sappho-ancient-greek-poet-unknown-works-discovered 

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2020/jan/09/a-scandal-in-oxford-the-curious-case-of-the-stolen-gospel 

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/mar/25/doubts-cast-over-provenance-of-unearthed-sappho-poems

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