Instant Classics

Sex goddess. Whore. Temptress. Adulteress. Victim. Helen of Troy has been called many things. In the run-up to Christopher Nolan’s adaptation of The Odyssey later this year, amidst swirling rumours about who is playing Helen, Mary and Charlotte look beyond the labels and ask: who was Helen really and what role does she play in myth? 

This isn’t an easy question to answer. Accounts of Helen’s character and life come from myriad sources - many of which contradict one another. In the first episode of our four-part series, Mary and Charlotte look at Helen’s early years. She was born of a rape, when Zeus, disguised as a swan, forced himself upon Leda, Queen of Sparta. The young Helen was married to Menelaus, brother of Agamemnon, and became queen of Sparta. The trouble began hundreds of miles away and the so-called Judgement of Paris. 

Paris was the son of King Priam of Troy. In a high-stakes wedding game (think opening scene of The Godfather), he was asked to choose which of the goddesses Hera, Athena and Aphrodite was most beautiful. Aphrodite bribed him by promising he could have the most beautiful mortal woman in the world, conveniently forgetting that Helen was already married. Paris went to Sparta to collect his prize. He waited for Menelaus to depart the scene, then took Helen to Troy. Whether she eloped or was abducted has been debated ever since. And so… the Trojan War.

@instaclassicpod for Insta, TikTok and YouTube

@insta_classics for X

email: [email protected]

Mary and Charlotte recommend some further reading:

There are many ancient accounts of the Judgement of Paris and the events leading up to it. You can find the parody of Lucian here (it’s the last of his Dialogues of the Gods): https://www.theoi.com/Text/LucianDialoguesGods1.html

A more standard ancient account of Helen’s back story, her marriage and the judgement of Paris is given by Apollodorus (or Pseudo-Apollodorus!), writing during the Roman empire, see esp. 3. 10. 7 ff and Epitome 3: https://www.theoi.com/Text/Apollodorus3.html#10 and https://www.theoi.com/Text/ApollodorusE.html#3 

For modern discussions of Helen (relevant to this and our later episodes):

Ruby Blondell, Helen of Troy: Beauty, Myth, Devastation (Oxford UP, pb, 2015)

Bettany Hughes, Helen of Troy: Goddess, Princess, Whore (Pimlico, pb, 2013)

Instant Classics handmade by Vespucci

Producer: Jonty Claypole 

Video Editor: Jak Ford

Theme music: Casey Gibson

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We may think of Ancient Greek warfare as scantily dressed musclemen thrashing it out on the desert plain (and there may have been an element of that), but there was a whole other side of spy work too. Much of this was the result of its fraught relationship with the vast Persian empire to the east - a centuries long rivalry which makes the Cold War look like a hot skirmish.

Mary and Charlotte share some of the surviving stories of Ancient Greek espionage, including secret messages concealed in women’s earrings and even tattooed onto an enslaved person’s head. Most of these stories focus on writing and it’s a reminder that in the Ancient World, writing was as innovative and inherently suspicious as drones are to us today. Societies with advanced written culture had the technological upperhand on their rivals, so it’s little surprise that the surviving stories about spies reveal an anxiety about this new form of communication. 

@instaclassicpod for Insta, TikTok and YouTube

@insta_classics for X

email: [email protected]

Mary and Charlotte recommend some further reading:

The story of Bellerophon is told in Book 6 of the Iliad (the “dangerous signs” line 165)

The stories of Gorgo can be found in Herodotus, Histories Book 5, 49 and Book 7, 239 (she is described as one of the first cryptanalysts by David Kahn in The Codebreakers (Scribners, 1996)). She is one of the women who features in Sarah B Pomeroy, Spartan Women (OUP, pb, 2002).

Herodotus Histories Book 5 (chaps 35 ff) describes the message tattooed into the slaves head.

Aeneas Tacticus: the relevant passage is at section 31.20

The revolutionary effects in general of early literacy (and different technologies of writing) are discussed by Walter Ong, Orality and Literacy (Routledge pb, new ed. 2012). For Greece, in particular, Oswyn Murray’s Early Greece (Fontana pb, 2nd ed, 2010) stresses the importance of the beginnings of writing. 

Instant Classics handmade by Vespucci

Producer: Jonty Claypole 

Executive Producer: Natalia Rodriguez Ford

Video Editor: Jak Ford

Theme music: Casey Gibson

 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Naomi Alderman is an author and games designer. Her books include Disobedience (adapted into a film starring Rachel Weisz), The Power (also an Amazon Prime series) and most recently The Future. She’s also an emerging classicist and reached out to Instant Classics after our episode on the toga came happily close to her MA thesis on the same subject. 

In this episode, Naomi sets the record straight about when and why women in Ancient Rome may have worn the toga, talks about her interest in the classical world and why studying it gives her solace. Finally, she asks the big question - which Mary and Charlotte answer too - if you could rescue one lost work of literature from the past, what would it be? 

This episode was recorded in a moment of immense jeopardy as Naomi waited to discover if she had passed her Classics MA or not. The next day we had our answer. Yes - and with distinction. Which is not surprising based on the evidence of her conversation in this episode. 

Content warning: this episode contains mildly explicit comments about sex in the ancient world.

@instaclassicpod for Insta, TikTok and YouTube

@insta_classics for X

email: [email protected]

Mary and Charlotte recommend some further reading: all Naomi’s books, games, broadcasts and myriad other activities can be found on her website, naomialderman.com

The question of Roman women (and which Roman women) wearing the toga has been discussed in intricate detail for decades. Naomi’s dissertation clearly disposes of the idea that adulteresses were forced to wear it. But if you want a flavour of the arguments, one of the clearest discussions, yes clearest (!), try Thomas A J McGinn,  Prostitution, Sexuality and the Law in Ancient Rome (OUP pb, 1998), esp chap 5.

Mary chose the autobiography of Nero’s mother, Agrippina, as her favourite “lost work” of the ancient world. There is more on this in A. A. Barrett’s Agrippina, Mother of Nero (Routledge pb, 1999).

Charlotte made a reference to a 19th century science fiction novel whose name she couldn’t remember – it was After London by Richard Jefferies

Instant Classics handmade by Vespucci

Producer: Jonty Claypole 

Executive Producer: Natalia Rodriguez Ford

Video Editor: Jak Ford

Theme music: Casey Gibson

 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Since Instant Classics launched, we’ve loved getting your questions and ideas for topics. So for our New Year’s Day episode, Mary and Charlotte respond to some of those which have tickled their curiosity too. 

Where did the Romans stash their cash? What was a trip to the doctor like for women? Why do some people still try to speak (rather than just read) Latin? Was there a Jewish community in Roman Britain? And are there any feminist role models in the pantheon of ancient gods? 

While it is easier to answer some of these questions than others, each gives an insight to an area of the classical world we haven’t yet examined - and reminds us that however close we think we are to the ancient Romans or Greeks, huge parts of their lives and the way they thought about the world are lost to us. Just when we think we have a handle on them, they elude our grasp once again. 

Charlotte and Mary’s reading suggestions

Jean Andreau, Banking and Business in the Roman World (Cambridge UP, 1999) is a short guide to what Roman “bankers” got up to.

For valuables stored in the Temple of Castor, see Juvenal, Satires 14, 260ff 

The Mildenhall Treasure, now in the British Museum: 

For a translation of Soranus’ On Gynecology (the qualities of a midwife are discussed near the start of Book1)

Hippocrates’ words of wisdom on midwives

Hippocrates on the medical dangers of being a virgin

For a good online article of Roman midwives, with images of their tombstones: 

An article on learning to speak Latin via the Oxford Latinitas Project

For teaching Latin in the 1920s by the so-call “Direct Method”

Article on a possible Jewish tombstone in Roman Scotland (Warren, M., 2023, Invisibility, erasure, and a Jewish tombstone in Roman Britain. Journal for Ancient Judaism, 14 (1). pp. 1-20.) Plus – the tombstone in question with its decoration of palm fronds (or menorahs?)

Mary discusses kosher garum in her book Pompeii: The Life of a Roman Town (Profile, 2009)

@instaclassicpod for Insta, TikTok and YouTube@insta_classics for Xemail: [email protected]

Instant Classics handmade by Vespucci

Producer: Jonty Claypole 

Executive Producer: Natalia Rodriguez Ford

Video Editor: Jak Ford

Theme music: Casey Gibson

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Every December, the Ancient Romans took part in a festival of feasting, drinking, gift-giving and awkward office parties. So far, so Christmas. But, in this episode, Mary and Charlotte ask what really went on during the Roman festival of Saturnalia and whether the comparisons to Christmas really hold? 

As is so often the case, we discover a people and culture similar to us in some ways, yet also completely alien. The records show that socks were sometimes Saturnalia presents – but, disturbingly, so too were enslaved people. Jokes about the boss were acceptable at Christmas parties, unless - as we discover in one macabre story - the boss happens to be the emperor Nero. 

The brutal side of Saturnalia becomes really apparent when you consider the differences between Santa and Saturn. One likes to spoil children, the other has a horrid habit of eating them. So if you do decide to celebrate Saturnalia, no laughing at the boss, and keep those chimneys blocked! 

Charlotte and Mary’s reading suggestions

The best guides to the Saturnalia are the ancient sources themselves.

Martial’s “gift tags” are Books 13 and 14 of his Epigrams (rather stilted translations here: https://www.ccel.org/ccel/pearse/morefathers/files/martial_epigrams_book13.htm and https://www.tertullian.org/fathers/martial_epigrams_book14.htm

The Saturnalia of Nero and Britannicus is described at Tacitus Annals 13, 15.

Macrobius’ Saturnalia  (c 400 CE) is a long, multi-book, learned discussion (set at a Saturnalian festival), which speculates on the origins of the festival among much else.

Mary discusses the chilling Roman practice of giving enslaved people as presents in her Emperor of Rome (Profile, pb, 2024)

@instaclassicpod for Insta, TikTok and YouTube

@insta_classics for X

email: [email protected]

Instant Classics handmade by Vespucci

Producer: Jonty Claypole 

Executive Producer: Natalia Rodriguez Ford

Video Editor: Jak Ford

Theme music: Casey Gibson

 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices