Ancient Lives with Mary Beard ..... Being Greek

Now, this is one I will listening to.

It's Ancient Lives with  Mary Beard, Being Greek.*

I am a great fan of Mary Beard, have her books, listened to her on the Romans on the wireless and always follow her TV programmes.

"From Marvel movies to presidential elections their powerful influence endures on our stories, philosophies and politics, but what it was it like to be an Ancient Greek? Scattered clues need to be gathered until they form a living, breathing human, witness to the cultural powerhouse that was Ancient Greece.

In Being Greek, Mary Beard, Britain’s best-selling historian of the ancient world, rebuilds the lives of six people, from a priestess to a murderer. 

Her investigations reveal the limits of female independence and take us deep into the marriage of an Athenian power couple. 

Themes of faith, politics and justice reveal the foundations of Greek society, but it’s the thoughts, feelings and lifestyles of individual Greeks she’s really interested in. Gods and legendary heroes are easy to come by, but Mary looks behind the temples and beyond the classic myths, filling in her stories with the relatable detail of Greek life, uncovering what they ate, how they decorated their homes and raised their children.

Mary visits the sites that help cast fresh light on past lives- the grave of a powerful woman in prehistoric Mycenae, an exquisite temple clutching the slopes of the Acropolis and the dusty plains of Marathon. Experts in Greece and the UK help Mary interpret the clues, along with film director Martin Scorsese who’s fascinated by the story of a gangster of the ancient world who pulled powerful strings to escape imperial justice.

In the first episode we meet Euphiletos, on trial for the murder of his wife's lover. Can he convince the jury that this is a crime of passion, not a calculated act of mob violence?

Producer: Alasdair Cross

Researcher: Anna Charalambou

Expert Contributors: Rosanna Omitowoju, Cambridge University and Rebecca Sweetman, Director of the British School at Athens

Actors: Robert Wilfort as Euphiletos and Laura Dos Santos as the old woman

Translations by Mary Beard

Special thanks to Elizavet Sioumpara and the Hellenic Ministry of Culture".

Leaving me just to fall back on one of my favourite historian of children's books, Looking at Ancient History by R J Unstead

Location; BBC Radio 4

Picture; cover of Looking at Ancient History, R J Unstead, 1959

*Ancient Lives with Mary Beard Being Greek, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002xzjn

** R J Unstead, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/R.J.Unstead

Back with Being Roman ...... with Mary Beard ... the whistleblower

Now I am a great fan of the Roman historian Mary Beard, and so I was pleased to see she is back on Radio 4 with a new series on Being Roman.*

Artemidorus, Hawara, Egypt, second century

It is a series which explores the lives of what we might call "ordinary" Romans.

"Beneath starched Shakespearean togas and the pungent fug of gladiator sweat there are real Romans waiting to be discovered. To know what it was to be Roman you need to gather the scattered clues until they form a living, breathing human, witness to the highs and horrors of Europe’s greatest empire.

Mary Beard, Britain’s best-selling historian of the ancient world, rebuilds the lives of six citizens of the Roman Empire, from a poet to a squaddie. 

Her investigations reveal death and deceit on the Nile and the art of running a Roman pub, but it’s the thoughts and feelings of individual Romans she’s really interested in.

It's 61CE. The rebellion of Boudicca has finally been quashed, but London and other Roman cities lie in ruins. A new finance officer for the province, Gaius Julius Classicianus arrives, to face an enormous recovery job. 

Standing in his way is the Governor, busy exacting terrible reprisals from the local population. Classicianus does what brave subordinates have done ever since. 

Boudicca. London

He whistle-blows – writing to the emperor to remove the Governor from British shores. The stage is set for an imperial face-off. For the people of Britain, the stakes could not be higher.

Producer: Alasdair Cross

Expert Contributors: Matthew Nicholls, University of Oxford and Michael Marshall, Museum of London Archaeology

Cast: Tacitus played by Robert Wilfort

Translations by Mary Beard

Special thanks to the British Museum"*

Models of Roman soldiers, 1974

Picture; portrait of Artemidorus, Hawara, Egypt, second century, British Museum, taken from cover image  of the Poems of Catullus, Penguin Classics, 1968, statue of Boudicca, from the collection of Stephen Hall, models of Roman soldiers, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Being Roman, https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/live:bbc_radio_fourfm

Being Roman ...... with Mary Beard ... what an excellent series

I am a great fan of Mary Beard who has that ability to recreate the world of the Romans in all its complicated, messy and fascinating way.

Woman with wax tablets and stylus

Soover the last six weeks  I have be listening to her Radio 4 series on "Being A Roman" and the first of the six on Loving an Emperor.*

"Beneath starched Shakespearean togas and the pungent fug of gladiator sweat there are real Romans waiting to be discovered. To know what it was to be Roman you need to gather the scattered clues until they form a living, breathing human, witness to the highs and horrors of Europe’s greatest empire.

Mary Beard, Britain’s best-selling historian of the ancient world, rebuilds the lives of six citizens of the Roman Empire, from a slave to an emperor. Her investigations reveal the stressful reality of Roman childhood, the rights of women and rules of migration, but it’s the thoughts and feelings of individual Romans she’s really interested in.

In the bloody chaos of civil war, a young bride witnesses the savage murder of her parents, fights for her inheritance and funds her husband’s flight from the brutal gangsters carving up the empire. On Hadrian’s Wall a Hertfordshire slave girl marries a Syrian trader. Is it a cross-cultural love story or a brutal tale of trafficking and sexual abuse?

An eleven year old boy steps on stage to perform his poetry to a baying crowd of 7000 and the Emperor himself. The political and financial future of his entire family will be decided in the next few stanzas.

Replica statue of Emperor Augustus, Rome, 2007

Across six episodes Mary Beard travels the Empire and gathers first-hand testimony and expert comment, creating an extraordinarily vivid sense of Being Roman.

In the first episode we meet Marcus Aurelius, the very model of the ideal Roman Emperor. Strong and masculine, but a deep thinker with wise words for every occasion. Richard Harris played him in the film Gladiator as a great leader of men, determined that loyal Russell Crowe inherit the Empire rather than his treacherous son, Joaquin Phoenix.

Artemidorus, Hawara, Egypt, second century

As Mary discovers, Marcus proves much more complicated- and interesting- than his image in popular culture. Letters to his beloved tutor reveal a naïve, sweet and dangerously flirtatious nature, while his record of campaigning and persecution under his rule shows an Emperor as comfortable with brutal violence as stoic philosophy.

Producer: Alasdair Cross

Expert Contributors: Amy Richlin, UCLA and Elizabeth Fentress

Cast: Marcus played by Josh Bryant-Jones and Fronto played by Tyler Cameron*

Pictures, Woman with wax tablets and stylus, Naples National Archaeological Museum, Accession number 9084 Naples National Archaeological Museum,  Replica statue of Emperor Augustus, Rome, 2007, portrait of Artemidorus, Hawara, Egypt, second century, British Museum, taken from cover image  of the Poems of Catullus, Penguin Classics, 1968

*Being Roman...Loving an Emperor, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001s5ck