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Mary Beard

An interview with Mary Beard

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March 2022, no. 440
Open Page with Mary Beard

Mary Beard is one of the world’s leading classicists and cultural commentators. She is professor of classics at the University of Cambridge. Her most recent book is Twelve Caesars (2021).

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Twelve Caesars: Images of power from the ancient world to the modern by Mary Beard

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January–February 2022, no. 439
Alastair J.L. Blanshard reviews 'Twelve Caesars: Images of power from the ancient world to the modern' by Mary Beard

We know exactly when the first image of a Roman emperor arrived in Australia. It came as part of the goods on board the ill-fated Batavia, which ran aground off the west coast of Australia on 4 June 1629. This shipwreck went down in infamy following the mutiny of a group of the survivors and the subsequent murder of, at least, 110 men, women, and children. Eventually, the survivors were rescued and the horror of the actions of the mutineers was revealed.

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SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome by Mary Beard

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March 2016, no. 379
Christopher Allen reviews 'SPQR' by Mary Beard

At the very bottom of Hell, Dante represents Satan with three mouths, each of which endlessly devours a figure personifying treachery and rebellion against God. One of these, predictably enough, is Judas. What may be surprising to the modern reader is that the other two are Brutus and Cassius, the assassins of Julius Caesar. In the medieval vision of the universe an ...

Confronting the Classics: Traditions, Adventures and Innovations by Mary Beard

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June 2013, no. 352
Christopher Allen reviews 'Confronting the Classics' by Mary Beard

When Confucius was asked by his disciples how they should become wise, he would enjoin them to study the classics; over two millennia later and much closer to home, Winckelmann declared that it was only by imitating the supreme masterpieces of the Greeks that we too might one day become inimitable – putting his finger on the paradox that the greatest originality always has deep roots in the past.

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