Mary Beard

But it's impossible now for us not to see the barbarian invasions as if they were somehow a destruction of noble Roman culture.

And it's easy to forget that the good old Vandals in Vandal Africa were a great bastion of Roman-ness under their own terms.

Surprise, surprise.

Thank you.

Did Nero really fiddle while Rome burned?

Did Oedipus actually have a complex?

And how did a quarter of a million spectators at the Circus Maximus get by with only one loo?

Welcome to Instant Classics.

I'm Mary Beard, historian and contrarian.

And I'm Charlotte Higgins, Guardian journalist and classicist on the side.

Instant Classics is a podcast with one foot in the ancient world and one foot in the present.

Each week we dive into the myths, the dramas and the characters of classical Greece and Rome to discover what they still mean to us now, from Greek myth to gladiators and from togas to tragedy.

And...

If you're as excited about Christopher Nolan's forthcoming Odyssey movie as we are, you may want to join the Instant Classics Book Club.

We're making our own Odyssey through Homer's masterpiece, one book at a time.

Instant Classics, ancient stories, modern twists, and no degree in classics required.

And we're not just... Two blokes.

Suck on that patriarchy.

I don't know.

I mean, it puts you on the spot, doesn't it?