Mary Beard and Josephine Quinn – Live on Stage in London

Ancient Rome and the Story of Western Civilisation

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Forget what you think you know about the Roman Empire and the story of the West. Two renowned classicists join us to debunk myths and reveal new and thrilling histories.

We think we know what it was like to rule – and be ruled – in the Ancient Roman world.

We think we know that Roman values and ideas formed the cornerstone of Western civilisation.

We are wrong.

Join Cambridge’s Mary Beard and Oxford’s Josephine Quinn for a night of iconoclasm and insight as they transport us back to the ancient world and reveal a new story of the origins of the West.

Mary Beard will ask: What did power really look like in the Roman Empire? What did it really mean to be in the shoes of Caligula, Nero, and Marcus Aurelius? Were there places really so bloodstained? How much of Roman power was fact, and how much was fantasy?

Her fellow classicist, Oxford Professor Josephine Quinn, will ask: Did the values of Western civilisation really emerge from the world of Ancient Greece and Rome and disappear in the Dark Ages, only to be rediscovered in the Renaissance? Or is the true story of how western civilisation was made bigger, richer, and more complex than the old paradigm has led us to believe?

Don’t miss this exclusive chance to join two of the most renowned historians of our age as they reveal a luminous and thrilling new history of our world.

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Mary Beard

Classicist

Mary Beard is Emerita Professor and Fellow of Newnham College, Cambridge and the classics editor of the TLS. She has worldwide academic acclaim. Her previous books include the bestselling, Wolfson Prize-winning Pompeii, SPQR, and Women & Power. She has made numerous TV series and her books have been published in over thirty languages. She is a judge for the 2023 Wolfson History Prize.

Josephine Quinn

Professor of Ancient History, Oxford

Josephine Quinn is Professor of Ancient History at Oxford University, and Martin Frederiksen Fellow and Tutor of Ancient History at Worcester College, Oxford. She has degrees from Oxford and UC Berkeley, has taught in America, Italy and the UK, and co-directed the Tunisian-British archaeological excavations at Utica. She is a regular contributor to the London Review of Books, as well as to radio and television programmes. She lives in Oxford.

Hannah MacInnes

Presenter, Podcaster and Host of How To Academy’s live programmes.

Hannah MacInnes is a broadcaster and journalist. Alongside hosting How To Academy’s live programmes and podcast, she presents a cultural show on Times Radio and interviews on-stage at a number of other major literary events. She is the host of The Klosters Forum Podcast series and has written for the Radio Times, the Evening Standard and TLS. Before going freelance she worked for 8 years at BBC Newsnight, as Planning Editor and as a Producer / Filmmaker.