In Greek and Roman antiquity, women’s voices were proof of their wickedness. The pitch and prattle was considered harmful, even unsanitary. In literature, powerful women were emblems of usurpation and mortal danger. Women speaking in public could not only jeopardize the men close to them, but bring about the fall of a nation. And yet this antiquated way of thinking isn’t quite as antiquated as it seems. Mute women, brutal men, shame as a means of control, androgyny as a means of avoidance: we haven’t progressed as much as we might think we have. And if Mary Beard’s new book, ‘Women & Power’, is about female silence in Ancient Greece and Rome, it is also a rousing call to recognize a heritage of female muteness and, in doing so, to subvert it. In this fascinating Spotlight interview with Dan Snow, Mary Beard explores the many ways that women have inherited a legacy of silence, and what we can do about it.
In 1960, a man was laying a waterpipe underneath the quaint village of Fishbourne near Chichester, West Sussex, when he uncovered what looked like Roman remains. After he duly reported the discover, the archaeologists were called in and they quickly unearthed more and more prestigious finds. They...
Historian and archaeologist Simon Elliott has written extensively on the Roman world. He answers the key questions surrounding one of history's most compelling figures - Julius Caesar. Who was Julius Caesar and what was his family history? How did military and political changes aid the rise of Ju...
2,500 years ago groups of formidable warriors roamed the vast open plains of Siberia. Ferocious nomads, they roamed from Southern Russia down into Iran – a whole region that makes up the middle portion of the Silk Roads. Feared, loathed, admired – but over time forgotten… until now. A new major e...
