How did the Romans ambush a massive Carthaginian fleet from behind a Sicilian island to win one of history's fiercest sea battles? For over 20 years, Rome and Carthage fought a brutal war for supremacy over Sicily. Tristan Hughes is joined by Carthage expert Dr. Eve MacDonald to ...Show more
Iron Age Ireland
How much of Iron Age Ireland is myth, and how much is archaeological reality? At the monumental Hill of Tara, sacred kings ruled over a landscape steeped in ancient ritual and ancestral memory.Tristan Hughes is joined by Dr. John Waddell, author of The Celtic World, to explore th ...Show more
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the Greek poet Sappho. Born in the late seventh century BC, Sappho spent much of her life on the island of Lesbos. In antiquity she was famed as one of the greatest lyric poets, but owing to a series of accidents the bulk of her work was lost t ...Show more
Sappho is described as the greatest female poet of ancient Greece. Or, the greatest Greek lyric poet, period. Her reputation as one of the world’s finest poets has persisted for more than 2500 years, but the overwhelming majority of her work has not. Learn more about your ad-choi ...Show more
In Ancient Greece, the Iliad was the poem above all other poems - an epic full of war and bloodshed that tells of the great heroes who fought and died for Troy. But not so long after the supposed composition of the Iliad, a woman on the Mediterranean island of Lesbos, close to th ...Show more
Ancient Greece viewed her as Homer’s poetic equal; Plato referred to her as the “tenth muse.” As a fearless and lyrical chronicler of female desire, she had a profound impact on literature and society. Author Jacke Wilson takes a look at the genius of Sappho, the first great fema ...Show more