We need to talk about nero

Podcasts... from Caligula to the counter-culture Which ...

Carthage burned for six days. After three long years of siege, in the spring of 146 BC Roman soldiers finally broke through the city’s defences and began to slaughter the population. But still the Car

The cut-throat politics of Syracuse informed Plato’s thinking

As frequently, this column is inspired by Britain’s Queen of Classics, Mary Beard. This time, her ‘History of food tasters from Nero to now,’ appearing (25 May 2025) in the TLS weekly Newsletter. Does

An African perspective on Augustine of Hippo’s thought

The most intriguing aspect of this book is that it’s written as a sort of ‘life in the day’ of the Colosseum, that vast edifice begun in Rome by the emperor Vespasian (AD 69–79) to entertain the masse