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Instant Classics

Vespucci

Join world-renowned classicist Mary Beard and Guardian chief culture writer Charlotte Higgins for Instant Classics — the weekly podcast that proves ancient history is still relevant. Ancient stories, modern twists… and no degree in Classics required. Become a Member of the Instant Classics Book Club here: https://instantclassics.supportingcast.fm/

  1. The Great Plague of Athens

    14 HR AGO

    The Great Plague of Athens

    In 430 BCE, Athens was hit by a terrible plague that ultimately claimed around a third of the population. All the social niceties we associate with Ancient Athens collapsed. Citizens turned on one another. The dead were left unburied. Mary and Charlotte both recount and question the ‘facts’ of the epidemic as told by historian, eyewitness and plague survivor Thucydides.  Thucydides’ account is remarkable in that it aligns with the emerging science of medicine in ancient Athens by focusing on the symptoms and natural causes rather than framing it as  divine retribution from the gods. Yet, for all this, the truth is hard to pin down. We still don’t know what exactly the plague was. And Thucydides’ claims to be an objective historian are undermined by the way he presents the plague as a possible response to Athenian arrogance and hubris.  Yet for all the gaps, we see many of the social characteristics of epidemics that have recurred throughout history. Social collapse, finger pointing, moralising, and arguments about which ‘truth’ to believe.  Mary and Charlotte recommend some further reading: Thucydides describes the plague in his History 2, 47 - 55  Plutarch describes Pericles’ death from the plague in his Life of Pericles 38. There are plenty of translations of Thucydides available online. But NB one of the most often used (a nineteenth-century version by Richard Crawley) is also one of the least reliable.  Thucydides, Apollo, the Plague and the War, Lisa Kallet, The American Journal of Philology, Fall 2013, Vol. 134, No. 3, pp. 355-382 (an interesting article in which Kallet casts doubt on the purely objective, scientific account Thucydides purports to give of the plague) A Plague Like no Other: Beyond the Buboes in Thucydides' account of the Plague of Athens, by Pere Domingo, Paula Prieto, Lluis Pons, Clinical Microbiology and Infection, May 2025 (a useful round-up of the latest medical thinking on the Athenian plague) J Longrigg, ‘Death and Epidemic Disease in Classical Athens’ in V Hope and E Marshall, Death and Disease in the ancient city (Routledge, 2000) Emily Greenwood: https://yalereview.org/article/thucydides-times-trouble (a classicist reflects on the Athenian plague and Covid) @instaclassicpod for Insta, TikTok and YouTube @insta_classics for X email: instantclassicspod@gmail.com Instant Classics handmade by Vespucci Producer: Jonty Claypole  Video Editor: Jak Ford Theme music: Casey Gibson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

    53 min
  2. The Odyssey#15: The Island of the Cyclops

    3 DAYS AGO • SUBSCRIBERS ONLY

    The Odyssey#15: The Island of the Cyclops

    We left Odysseus on a cliffhanger as he made the appalling decision to - entirely unnecessarily - investigate smoke coming from a nearby island. Dude, just focus on getting home! Mary and Charlotte pick up the story as Odysseus (still narrating the story himself to the Phaeacians) stumbles into the cave of Polyphemus the Cyclops. This is one of the most famous of all stories in the Odyssey. Polyphemus imprisons the men in his cave and starts eating them one-by-one. Now we see Odysseus at his most cunning. He tells Polyphemus that his name is ‘Nobody’. He gets Polyphemus drunk on wine, gouges out his eye, and when Polyphemus rushes outside in pain, screaming ‘Nobody is hurting me’, the other Cyclops on the island quite rightly ignore him. This gives Odysseus his chance. He and his surviving men escape back to the other island to resume their journey. Further reading: The complexity of the myth of the Cyclops (within and beyond the Odyssey) is the focus of M.Aguirre and R Buxton, Cyclops: the myth and its cultural history (Oxford UP, 2020) The encounter between Odysseus and the Cyclops forms a major theme in Edith Hall’s The Return of Ulysses (Tauris, 2009) Please have your say in the Book Club channel on our discourse site Or send your thoughts to instantclassicspod@gmail.com Instant Classics handmade by Vespucci Producer: Jonty Claypole DOP - Ben Warburton Video Editor: Tom Green Theme music: Casey Gibson

    42 min
  3. What Did the Romans Eat? Part 2: Plebs’ Food

    12 MAR

    What Did the Romans Eat? Part 2: Plebs’ Food

    Think Roman food and we imagine extravagant banquets involving rare delicacies. There’s some truth in this, but only for the few. In this episode, Mary and Charlotte ask: what did your average Roman eat?  Cooking at home was only for the very rich - you had to have not only a kitchen, but the staff to manage it. For this reason, most Romans ate on the hoof or at fast food outlets. In Pompeii, for instance, there is surviving evidence of many such establishments: places where citizens could access a pre-cooked meal straight away.  While we know that most Romans ate out, and the sorts of places where they ate, until recently there was very little evidence showing what such establishments served. Modern archaeological techniques are starting to provide answers through the analysis of excrement in Roman lavatories. Comparing the evidence from lavatories in Herculaneum and modern day Scotland, a faeces - sorry, thesis - emerges of people surviving on whatever the local countryside could provide - varying dramatically from region to region - with a few luxury imports for special occasions.    Forget dormice and think cabbage. Lots of it. In myriad ways.  Mary and Charlotte recommend some further reading: There is a good overview of the Herculaneum cesspit here: https://www.cambridgeamarantus.com/topics/topic-vi/63/63-evidence And detailed scientific analysis here: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11457-018-9218-y  For a brief account of the menu at an ordinary Pompeian bar, see: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/fast-food-joint-pompeii-served-snails-fish-and-wine-new-finds-suggest-180976651/  Cato’s On Agriculture – complete with its praise of cabbage – can be found in English translation here. And some information on the Bearsden latrine analysis @instaclassicpod for Insta, TikTok and YouTube@insta_classics for Xemail: instantclassicspod@gmail.com Instant Classics handmade by Vespucci Producer: Jonty Claypole  Video Editor: Jak Ford Theme music: Casey Gibson   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

    44 min
  4. What Did the Romans Eat? Part 1: Posh Food

    5 MAR

    What Did the Romans Eat? Part 1: Posh Food

    When we think about Roman food, most of us imagine wealthy citizens stuffing their faces with rare delicacies while reclining on their sides and taking occasional breaks to use the vomitorium (urban myth alert). In this two-part special, Mary and Charlotte cut through the fermented fish sauce to look at what the Romans really ate. And no, the vomitorium was not a place where they made themselves vomit.  In this first episode, Mary and Charlotte look at posh food, beginning right at the top - in the imperial palace. Happily, there are some stories of jaw-dropping extravagance, including Elagabalus (a fave of the show) hiding pearls in the rice as a surprise for his guests. And the favourite dish of the Emperor Vitellius involved pike liver, peacock brain, flamingo tongue and lamprey sperm - all mixed together. But just as many emperors favoured a martial diet and household economy. Augustus - a snack guy - boasted about his ascetic preference for with cheese, figs and bread. Tiberius was criticised by the elite for serving leftovers.  You can never trust anecdotes about the emperors, but most of the stories have a plausibility when you read them alongside a surviving cookbook - Apicius’ De re culinaria. Here we find out about garum - or fermented fish sauce (which Mary thinks is less disgusting than it sounds), animal wombs, dormice as well as a lot of vegetarian dishes (more to Charlotte’s taste).  Mary and Charlotte recommend some further reading: Emperors’ reported eating habits are discussed in Mary’s Emperor of Rome (Profile pb, 2024)  You can find a complete (rather lumpy) translation of Apicius online here: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/29728/29728-h/29728-h.htm Several modern writers collect some of Apicius’ recipes and adapt them for “the modern kitchen”: eg John Edwards (Rider pb, 2009),  Sally Grainger (Prospect pb, 2015) and Andrew Dalby (British Museum pb, 2012) @instaclassicpod for Insta, TikTok and YouTube @insta_classics for X email: instantclassicspod@gmail.com Instant Classics handmade by Vespucci Producer: Jonty Claypole  Video Editor: Jak Ford Theme music: Casey Gibson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

    55 min
  5. The Odyssey#14: Land of the Lotus-Eaters

    2 MAR • SUBSCRIBERS ONLY

    The Odyssey#14: Land of the Lotus-Eaters

    Those Phaeacians do like to feast! It’s banquet number four and Odysseus is - finally - ready to tell his story. We’ve waited until Book 9 to hear some of the more famous stories we associate with The Odyssey and now they tumble out very quickly. So much so that Mary and Charlotte are slowing this book down to two episodes. First, Odysseus describes how after he and his men left Troy they sacked the city of Ismarus in Thrace. This is in fact the last place in his travels, before arriving home at Ithaca, which bears any resemblance to a real place. After this point, he is in a purely mythical landscape. Next, Odysseus stops at the Land of the Lotus Eaters and loses many of his men to the effects of the drug. From there, he stops at a small island full of goats so his men can recover and eat. He spots smoke on the neighbouring island. If only he decided to ignore it, he might have got home quicker. But he doesn’t. He decides it will be a good idea to investigate. What he finds there is the subject of the next episode! Please have your say in the Book Club channel on our discourse site Or send your thoughts to instantclassicspod@gmail.com Instant Classics handmade by Vespucci Producer: Jonty Claypole DOP - Ben Warburton Video Editor: Tom Green Theme music: Casey Gibson

    34 min
  6. Classic Chats: Tom Holland

    26 FEB

    Classic Chats: Tom Holland

    Mary and Charlotte talk to Tom Holland, co-host of the Rest is History. As well as being a podcasting megastar, Tom is a brilliant historian of Ancient Rome. His books include Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman Republic,  Pax: War and Peace in Rome’s Golden Age and his recent translation of Suetonius’ The Lives of the Caesars.  In the first half of this episode, Tom talks about why Suetonius, with his interest in court gossip and trivia, is the historian for the current age. In the second half, he talks about his lifelong fascination with the Romans - from discovering the Asterix books as a boy, the poetry of Catullus as a teenager, and how writing a series of novels about vampires led him to write Rubicon.  @instaclassicpod for Insta, TikTok and YouTube @insta_classics for X email: instantclassicspod@gmail.com Instant Classics handmade by Vespucci Producer: Jonty Claypole  Video Editor: Jak Ford Theme music: Casey Gibson   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

    56 min
  7. Who's Afraid of Lupercalia?

    19 FEB

    Who's Afraid of Lupercalia?

    If you were to go back in time to 15 February in Ancient Rome, you might see marauding packs of naked men surging through the streets. If you were particularly unlucky one of them might whip you with a piece of goat skin. This was the Roman festival of Lupercalia. In this episode, Mary and Charlotte ask: what on earth was all this about? What did Lupercalia mean to the Romans? And what was the real purpose of any festival to the Romans?  Despite its mind-boggling oddness, Lupercalia is better documented than many other Roman festivals. This is partly because the Romans themselves didn’t know really what it was about. Lupercalia was something that seemed to have always been celebrated, but opinions varied - then as now - as to what it meant. The wolfiness of lupercalia, and the suggestion the ritual began in the cave where Romulus and Remus were believed to have been suckled, implies it may have been a way for the Romans to connect with their murky origins - an example of the city performing its own past. But even this is contested.  One thing is clear: despite the date, Lupercalia had nothing to do with modern Valentine’s Day - unless, of course, your idea of romance is running naked through the streets flailing a piece of animal skin… @instaclassicpod for Insta, TikTok and YouTube @insta_classics for X email: instantclassicspod@gmail.com Mary and Charlotte recommend some further reading: The Lupercalia is one of Roman religious festivals discussed in Mary’s book, with John North and Simon Price, Religions of Rome (Cambridge UP pb, 1998) volume 2 (with translation of the main ancient texts, including a section of Pope Gelasius’ pamphlet). Mary also discusses how to understand Roman festivals more widely in her chapter in C. Ando (ed.), Roman Religion, Edinburgh Readings in the Ancient World  (Edinburgh UP, pb, 2003). Shakespeare’s Lupercalia is in his Julius Caesar Act 1, scene 2 Instant Classics handmade by Vespucci Producer: Jonty Claypole  Video Editor: Jak Ford Theme music: Casey Gibson   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

    47 min
  8. The Odyssey#13: The Phaeacian feast continues!

    16 FEB • SUBSCRIBERS ONLY

    The Odyssey#13: The Phaeacian feast continues!

    Mary and Charlotte continue Book 8. We’re still with the Phaeacians and the bard Demodocus is back on stage, this time with a song about the affair between the gods Ares and Aphrodite. This is followed by yet more feasting and more songs. When Demodocus sings about the wooden horse, Odysseus breaks down crying. This display of emotion prompts King Alcinous to ask his guest for his real identity. Book 8 ends with Odysseus poised to reveal his name and his story. Recommended reading... The idea of Demodocus, as a blind bard, is a theme of chapter 4 of Barbara Graziosi, Homer: a very short introduction (Oxford UP, pb, 2019) Maureen Alden gives a very detailed analysis of all three songs of Demodocus in her Para-Narratives in the Odyssey (Oxford UP, pb, 2020) There is a tender image of Ares and Aphrodite (Demodocus’ theme) in Marc Chagall’s series of lithographs from the Odyssey (from 1975 on). Illustrated here: https://art.paris/en/products/marc-chagall-ulysse-et-aphrodite-lithographie?srsltid=AfmBOopRWcuuHkkkQan-yjO31LZHzgosFvvhy3jsuLmNCSN75EEMS1WV Please have your say in the Book Club channel on our discourse site Or send your thoughts to instantclassicspod@gmail.com Instant Classics handmade by Vespucci Producer: Jonty Claypole DOP - Ben Warburton Video Editor: Tom Green Theme music: Casey Gibson

    42 min
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About

Join world-renowned classicist Mary Beard and Guardian chief culture writer Charlotte Higgins for Instant Classics — the weekly podcast that proves ancient history is still relevant. Ancient stories, modern twists… and no degree in Classics required. Become a Member of the Instant Classics Book Club here: https://instantclassics.supportingcast.fm/

Information

  • Creator
    Vespucci
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    49
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Provider
    Vespucci

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