105. Classics

“Dante Alighieri's The Divine Comedy, one of the absolute foundational texts of European and world literature, features the ghost of Virgil guiding Dante through the underworld.”

“Mary Beard mentioned that since the moment Virgil had laid down his pen to die, there wasn't a day when someone hadn't read the Aeneid.”

“Mary Beard has just published a fantastic new book, The Twelve Caesars, which is about how they've been understood rather than the Twelve Caesars themselves.”

“The speaker reflects on how reading Tacitus's biography of Agricola opened their eyes to critiques of empire, particularly through the quote about making a desert and calling it peace.”

“The speaker discusses how modern students view Ovid's Metamorphoses as a work that depicts numerous instances of rape, contrasting with how it was previously discussed.”