Mary Beard Quotes
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We make two mistakes about the ancient world. One is to assume they were better than us - that, for instance, the ancient Olympics didn't involve money-making. The opposite mistake, and just as common, is to think our Olympics are much more civilised than ancient sporting competitions. Neither is true.
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There is no argument that I won't take seriously.
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At 16, I got into local-education archaeology classes - you got to go to summer digs. It allowed me to be both intellectual and a bad girl with a wicked social life every evening!
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I remember plastering the kitchen with Black Power pictures of Angela Davis.
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There's plenty of firm evidence for ethnic diversity in Roman Britain.
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People who exploit others come to spend an enormous amount of energy wondering about and justifying that exploitation.
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I'm not in the slightest wanting to attack the women's movement here. But I think that in popular, broadly left-wing, broadly feminist discourse, there is a tendency to just label discrimination against women - and embedded assumptions about them - as misogyny and think 'job done.'
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All religions throughout history have been concerned about - and have sometimes fought over - what it means to represent God, and they have found elegant, intriguing, and awkward ways to confront that dilemma.
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Playing around with other people's husbands when you were 17 was bad news. Yes, I was a very naughty girl.
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My mom was born before women had the vote in general elections in England.
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What I find very interesting is, we're not enthralled by the ancient world, and we've escaped all kinds of ancient preconceptions and assumptions and prejudices. But, nevertheless, we still make that connection between authoritative speech and male speech.
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You have to do what you feel comfortable with.
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We lived in the schoolhouse of the village school in Church Preen, in deepest Shropshire, and my mum was the schoolmistress. She taught the juniors, and one other teacher taught the infants. I went there from the age of three, no doubt as a form of childcare.
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The thing about being a university teacher is that you're fairly tolerant about young people saying things they shouldn't have said.
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I have always hated fancy dress parties.
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One of the great things about history is that it sort of isn't a done deal - ever. The historical texts and the historical evidence that you use is always somehow giving you different answers because you're asking it different questions.
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One of its most powerful weapons has always been 'barbarity': 'we' know that 'we' are civilised by contrasting ourselves with those we deem to be un-civilised, with those who do not - or cannot be trusted to - share our values.
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The reason why the British theatrical tradition is world-leading in Greek drama is because there is a flourishing tradition of people rethinking Greek tragedy.
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Wherever possible, I try to see things from the other side of the dividing line and to read civilisation 'against the grain.'
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I'm very interested in how people in the 19th century travelled to Greece.
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There is nothing inherently conservative in the ancient world.
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I was not much good as a waitress.
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Beard's secret is always to be slightly on the edge but to pull back from disaster at the last minute.
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I loved 'Gladiator,' and I thought its depiction of gladiatorial combat, although it was an aggrandizing picture, was cleverly and expertly done.