Episode
Talking Classics with Mary Beard
- Podcast
- Instant Classics
- Published
- Apr 16, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 3442
- Processing state
not_requested
Actions
POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/instant-classics-7455513/episodes/talking-classics-with-mary-beard/transcription-requests
Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode.GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/instant-classics-7455513/talking-classics-with-mary-beard.md
Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource.
Summary
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…