Contrary to more popular thought, the Pompeiians knew that something nasty was coming up. The eruption of the Vesuvius on the 25th of August in 79 CE had been preceded by a nasty earthquake in 62 and a series of serious tremors. Out of the possibly 12k population, about 2k perished during the explosion and of these only about half have been found. Many had left then. Pompeiians however could not have been aware of how dangerous that mountain was. Even if there had felt an uneasy foreboding, they did not know they lived by a volcano. The previous explosion had taken place about 1500 years before. Turner, Lark (15 February 2013). "In Britain, an Authority on the Past Stares Down a Nasty Modern Storm". The New York Times . Retrieved 16 February 2013. I've chosen to be this way because that's how I feel comfortable with myself," Beard said. "That's how I am. It's about joining up the dots between how you look and how you feel inside, and I think that's what I've done, and I think people do it differently. Beard, Mary (22 December 2018). "My feminist icon: Mary Beard reveals who inspires her". Stylist.co.uk . Retrieved 7 December 2021. Pompeii may still confuse and challenge, but Beard’s informative reappraisal vividly evokes the way it was. And travelers will welcome her practical advice on making a visit. ” —Judith Chettle, Richmond Times-Dispatch

Pompeii skeletons reveal secrets of Roman family life - BBC Pompeii skeletons reveal secrets of Roman family life - BBC

Beard is not afraid to own that there are many things we do not know. She discusses different viewpoints from different historians and then gives her own opinion as well. She often even ends up playing the devil's advocate. This book forces you to think and analyse along with Beard, and it's fun. Corresponding Members - Archaeological Institute of America". Archaeological.org . Retrieved 10 November 2018. Announcing the National Book Critics Awards Finalists for Publishing Year 2013". National Book Critics Circle. 14 January 2014. Archived from the original on 15 January 2014 . Retrieved 29 January 2017. Beard is also aware that her time in the limelight may one day come to an end. No one knows better than she that empires rise and fall. One day late last year, in her office in the classics faculty, she said: “When all this has gone I’ll be in the university library, writing, and I’ll be quite happy. And I’ll think, as I ride home on my bicycle: ‘Didn’t life used to be busy?’”

Books by Mary Beard

Roman lavatories were besides the kitchen to easily dispose waste, seriously impacting my perspective of hygiene in ancient times. Chhibber, Ashley (3 May 2013). "Interview: Mary Beard". The Cambridge Student . Retrieved 29 January 2017. Inside Culture Season 1". Radio Times. 8 September 2020. Archived from the original on 1 August 2021 . Retrieved 1 August 2021. Where does Emperor of Rome stand in relation to your previous books – I’m thinking of SPQR and Twelve Caesars ? I think you have to be a bit careful about imagining female power in Rome. Take the example of someone like the Empress Livia, Augustus’s wife. The I, Claudius version is that she poisoned everybody until she got her own son on the throne. I always wonder – I say this as a feminist – wasn’t she a very easy target to blame? One of the similarities you see between ancient and modern politics is the idea that if you want to understand what goes on behind the palace doors, sniff away and there’ll be a woman behind the throne. We do that about Carrie Johnson, maybe completely unfairly.

Up Pompeii with the roguish don | Mary Beard | The Guardian

a b c d McCrum, Robert (24 August 2008). "Up Pompeii with the roguish don". The Guardian . Retrieved 29 July 2015. A mark of her leap into the celebrity stratosphere is the avalanche of daily requests she receives. These have included, aside from several politely declined offers of a makeover from the Daily Mail, invitations (also politely declined) to appear on the diving show Splash!, on the celebrity version of The Great British Bake Off and on Celebrity Mastermind. Of the last she said: “God, just imagine it. Either you’d look like a complete nerd or everyone would be saying, ‘She doesn’t know a thing.’” The scepticism that defines Beard’s intellectual approach – so clearly on display in Pompeii – was drummed into her early, when she was a student. Her tutor was Joyce Reynolds, who is now 99 years old. “She is probably working in the library right now,” said Beard. Reynolds would say to her: “Do you really know that, Miss Beard? Is that the only way you can interpret the evidence?” This approach was neatly displayed in her bestselling history of Rome, SPQR (2015). The early history of Rome, the era of its fabled seven kings, is notoriously difficult to untangle. There are few, if any, contemporary sources. The whole story slides frustratingly away into legend, with the later Romans just as confused as we are about how an unremarkable town on a malarial swamp came to rule a vast empire. One way of handling this material might have been simply to have started later, when the historian’s footing among the sources becomes more secure. Instead Beard asked not how much truth could be excavated from the Romans’ stories about their deep past, but what it might mean that they told them. If the Romans believed their city had started with Romulus and Remus, with the rape of the Sabine women – in a welter, in other words, of fratricide and sexual violence – what can we learn about the tellers’ concerns, their preoccupations, their beliefs? According to Greg Woolf, “One of the things Mary has taught is to look at the window, not through it, because there isn’t really anything behind it.” People have been obsessed with the lives of the emperors almost since the end of the Roman empire – what is it that appeals so much?It is sad that Beard does not devote text to Herculaneum. In the documentary she did - one visits its sewers with her. Beard's standalone documentary Julius Caesar Revealed was shown on BBC One in February 2018. [50] In March, she wrote and presented "How Do We Look?" and "The Eye of Faith", two of the nine episodes in Civilisations, a reboot of the 1969 series by Kenneth Clark. [51]

Pompeii | The Folio Society Pompeii | The Folio Society

A Don's Life". The Times Literary Supplement. Archived from the original on 20 November 2012 . Retrieved 19 November 2012. Career 1984 Appointed fellow of Newnham College; 1985 Rome in the Late Republic; 1992 Appointed classics editor of the Times Literary Supplement; 2000 The Invention of Jane Harrison; 2004 Appointed professor of classics at Cambridge; 2007 The Roman Triumph; 2008 Sather Professor at the University of California, Berkeley.This eclecticism has given her the means to range widely through the ancient world in her public work. So has the fact that her scholarship has been relatively mainstream, rather than at the bleeding edge of academic fashion. “She often represents herself as quite traditional though she also likes also to think of herself as transgressive,” said Greg Woolf. “The traditional bit is dominant: she does think you need to know Latin and Greek to be a classicist. She’s not about demolishing classics as a subject. She likes to do interesting things from the canon.” saw Beard present Pompeii: New Secrets Revealed with Mary Beard on BBC One in March. [48] While May 2016, brought about a four-part series shown on BBC Two, titled Mary Beard's Ultimate Rome: Empire Without Limit. [49] Thorpe, Vanessa (28 April 2012). "Mary Beard: the classicist with the common touch | Observer profile". The Guardian . Retrieved 3 December 2017.