Reviews of Mary Beard  (the television presenter and classicist)


Author: Doctor Terence Rajivan Edward (or 0161__Rajivan, if that helps).
Draft version: version 1 (6th June 2026 - EARLY VERSION, in case useful, please say so in any citation).
Software used (freeware): Google docs (add your own Frazer criticisms)


Nicholas Purcell. 1987. Review of the first edition of Mary Beard and Michael Crawford's Rome in the late Republic: Problems and Interpretations. Purcell registers that Beard and Crawford are trying to do something new, but says that they do not do enough to convince readers that the old style of political history is but one way: "that the old-style political history of idealism and opportunism, skulduggery, military brilliance, turning-point events and so on is only one way of looking at things, and that cultural horizons, social structures, systems of explanation and decision-making reflected in religious forms, questions of group self-definition and changing habits of allegiance are a serious alternative." Purcell also says that despite their rhetoric of being adventurous, scratch the surface "and orthodoxy gleams." He writes: "they take for granted the most basic description of the period. 'The Republican form of government collapsed.' 'A political system fundamentally  opposed to monarchy was replaced by a system monarchical in all but name.' " Purcell poses these questions: what exactly collapsed in 1st century BC, was it a form of government, and what was republican about it? The core chapters on religion and politics are lucid and interesting.  But Purcell says the economics is underplayed, as it always has been. Praises the book for its excellent treatment of the cohesiveness of Roman society: "euergetism, patronage, cultural homogeneity, the operation of religion, even, in many ways, the overt practice of politics." Identifies a surprising omission: "the extraordinary process by which Rome and Roman politicians were constantly redefining themselves and their activities against the whole Mediterranean background, receives the most cursory treatment". The review strangely ends by declaring there is no book like this, after previously saying that it overhypes its unorthodoxy.


Article reference. Purcell, Nicholas. 1987. Rome in the Late Republic: Problems and Interpretations by Mary Beard and Michael Crawford. The Journal of Roman Studies 77: 191-192.


William J Dominik. 1997. Review of Classics: A Very Short Introduction by Mary Beard and John Henderson. Says, "Ingeniously using the frieze that adorned the Temple of Apollo at Bassae as a basis for discussion, the authors consider the ways that this sculpture and other artefacts (archaeological and literary) reveal the classical world as a treasure trove of images and ideas open to continual enquiry and analysis by the modern mind." Says they describe classics as "The Greatest Show on Earth." [A description used by Richard Dawkins to describe evolution.] Dominik approves of the text.


Article reference. Dominik, William J. 1997. Review of Classics: A Very Short Introduction by Mary Beard and John Hederson. The Classical Outlook Winter 1997: 84. Available at:
https://www.academia.edu/9341687/William_J_Dominik_Review_of_M_Beard_and_J_Henderson_Classics_A_Very_Short_Introduction_Oxford_Oxford_University_Press_1995_The_Classical_Outlook_74_2_1997_84


Tom Stevenson. 2001. Department of Classics, University of Auckland. Review of Classical Art: From Greece to Rome by Mary Beard and John Henderson. Book is unsuitable as an introduction, but meets the Oxford series aim of combining beautiful illustrations and fascinating new perspectives. "It is not a traditional, chronological treatment of Roman art in which examples are compared according to their formal properties and assessed as to their style. It is more about a cultural process: the reception of works of Greek art at Rome and beyond, with a concentration upon the middle-late Republic and early Empire." Tone is energetic iconoclasm, like earlier books by the authors. Stevenson gives a chapter-by-chapter summary. Introduction presents approach and explains why a chronological treatment is not undertaken: "the main one [reason] is that this fails to appreciate the full implications of the process of imitation whereby Greek art was mediated through Rome." Some remarks on why search for originals is misguided, e.g. culture of imitation permitted a wide variety of practices, e.g. seizure, copying, imitation, faithful replication, innovative 'variations on a theme', modulations, even parodies and subversions (cf. 22). [Empirical argument for postmodern/Derridean scholarly wisdom: avoid search for origins. A me-type back then did something new and such a culture was introduced?] "As I read their book, it is often about the pernicious effects of modern assumptions and restorative treatments on our capacity to understand the function and meaning of art in an age of imitation." Chapter 1 is "Painting Antiquity: Rediscovering Art." Mosaics and wall paintings of Pompeii: regarding the Alexander Mosaic no scholarly agreement on degree to which it replicates a lost Hellenistic painting. The fame of a work like the 'Aldobrandini Wedding' has a lot to do with the fact that it was one of the first Roman 'masterpieces' to be rediscovered, 'and with a distinctive title to keep it on the map (58). Chapter 2 is "Moving Statues: Art in Age of Imitation." Many of the works under discussion have been lifted from their original contexts and transported, for a variety of purposes, to a variety of locations, where they have been 'installed', 'restored', 'cleaned', or otherwise acted upon in ways that add to the stock of meaning of each piece. The Laocoon is 'the single most important stimulus behind the invention of the whole discipline of art history (65), but there is no certainty about whether it is original or copy. Imitation is a creative, expressive process, rather than a mechanical one. [More empirically-grounded Derridean sensibility.]  Chapter 3 is 'Sensuality, Sexuality, and the Love of Art'. he endless debates about how the arms of the Venus de Milo should be restored have prompted different understandings of the statue's function, which in turn have fed or denied particular erotic fantasies (122-3). The 'Callipygian Venus' hardly seems 'religious' in a modern sense, for Venus is admiring her shapely backside… We are told that Pliny has been misinterpreted: he did not say that Aphrodite of Cnidus was the first female nude statue. Chapter 4 "Sizing Up Power: Masters of Art." Questions of style and date pushed into the background. Interpretations of Trajan's Column, on the other hand, ought to suspend concentration on minute details of the spiral frieze. Instead, the point was really the 'sheer spectacle of all this precision stonework soaring beyond the reach of any human eye (181).' [I wonder: Are some lengthy novels of recent centuries spectacles of literary stamina? Otherwise you will be judged weak! ]  Chapter 5, "Facing up to Antiquity: Art to the Life" In contrast to studies which emphasize stylistic change, B & H note the stability of Augustan portraits which in turn stands for the stability of the new political order. This political message was more important than securing a 'likeness' between the ruler and his portraits (224). [Note: this does not sound in line with a postmodern sensibility. A bit Bernard Williams!]  We are soon told that images of philosophers are also about power! Ancient sculptors present the Socrates that patrons read about from Plato. After the summary, some criticism: it is not clear to me that the many attempts to restore the arms of the Venus de Milo should be linked so easily to modern erotic fantasies. "B & H do not contrast their hypotheses against those of earlier, named scholars, giving a misleading impression of textbook unassailability." Formal analysis is visually verifiable we are told. [Increasing divorce between classics and technical knowledge, similar to increasing abandonment of technical aspects in social anthropology?]


Article reference. Stevenson, Tom. 2001. Review of Classical Art: From Greece to Rome. ElAnt 6(1). Available at:
https://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/ElAnt/V6N1/stevenson.html




Christer Bruun.  2002. Review of a second edition of Rome in the Late Republic by Mary Beard and Michael Crawford. The authors aim to subvert exceptions, so Bruun implies that it might not be a reliable guide to the state of the field when written. Quotes Nicholas Purnell's first edition review claim: there has not been a book like this before. First chapter on influx of Hellenistic culture seems natural to us today; may have been provocative when first published. The choice to follow with Roman religion - a notoriously difficult subject - may have been equally innovative. Asks: should this have been reworked, given Beard's contributions to the field? Bruun criticizes omission of private religious beliefs: prevents grasp of diverse religious attitudes.  Criticizes Beard's treatment of Cicero. What does it prove that Cicero in his writings frequently invokes the gods on public occasions, as in di immortales!, but in his mourning over the death of Tullia never even once in his private letters appeals to the gods? Beard says the gods were associated with public rather than private life. Bruun speculates: Cicero does not introduce his religious beliefs because they are so private.


Article reference. Bruun, Christer. 2002. Review of Rome in the Late Republic: Problems and Interpretations by Mary Beard and Michael Crawford, and Political Life in the City of Rome by John R. Patterson. Phoenix vol. 56, no. 1/2 Spring-Summer, pp. 194-196.


Thomas Habinek. 2008. Review of The Roman Triumph by Mary Beard. Opens mockingly, saying that Beard's parallels between the classical and more recent world don't deal with the contemporary. [Fill in LATER.]


Penelope Allison. 2009. Review of The Fires of Vesuvius: Pompeii Lost and Found. Allison tells us there has been an escalation of interest in Pompeii in English scholarship in the last 2 decades. Allison says Beard shows informed understanding of this town is not the preserve of specialists. Allison says Beard frequently takes a controversial stance but provides a helpful reading list. Pompeii was a city without zoning apparently; Beard downplays the significance of festive dining. [Building up to her later arguments against Bakhtin?] Allison says, for Beard, only one Pompeiian brothel passes a function-follows-form test used by scholars to label public spaces. And Allison draws attention to debate over how many brothels there were. Some of Beard's speculations about decoration have already been addressed. [Beard seemingly does not have summarizers or ideal summarizers at her service.] Allison says Beard is insufficiently critical: there were several earthquakes, though only one was on the written record, and this led to the dating of a relief found in the house of Caecilius lucundus to A.D. 62. Allison says that the book is a must read for its target audience: "general, but educated, audience, particularly those about to visit Pompeii and who want more than the popular mythology about this Roman town."


Article reference. Allison, Penelope. 2009. Review of Fires of Vesuvius: Pompeii Lost and Found by Mary Beard. American Historical Review 114(5): 1511-1512.


Michael Anderson. 2010. Review of Pompeii: Life of a Roman town, by Mary Beard. Her first foray into Pompeiian studies. Says the book is not unusual but is current and well-researched. Builds soundly on archaeological research for the most part (later we are told "some small inaccuracies of archaeological fact… particularly concerning is the mention of lava' at the Villa of Diomedes in the Introduction"), but is not chiefly archaeological. There are descriptions of the chapters, with chapter 4 being praised as a thorough discussion of wall painting and decoration. Chapter 5 is praised as a smart summary of the main problems of reconstructing the Roman economy from surviving evidence and is further described as an unusual and welcome chapter in an introductory text. Chapter 7, identification of brothels.


Article reference. Anderson, Michael. 2010. Review of The Life of a Roman Town by M. Beard. The Classical Review vol. 60, no. 1, April: 247-249.


Paul Allen Miller. 2013. Review of Laughter in Ancient Rome: On Joking, Tickling, and Cracking Up. A revised version of the Sather lecturers. Miller represents the structure of the book as part one is theoretical, dealing with the great theoreticians of humour: he lost second book of Aristotle's Poetics, to Freud's Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious, and Bakhtin's Rabelais and His World. [Later we are told of engagement with Bergson and Mary Douglas too.] Part two is empirical: case studies. [Useful division, but also some theoreticians of humour based their theories on cases.] The review is largely a chapter-by-chapter report. Beard book opens with some anecdotes, including one concerning Cassius Dio, who stars in a show where he kills the animals in the colosseum and threatens the senators next. The second anecdote is from the ancient playwright Terence, his play The Eunuch, in which there is an attempt to represent the sound of laughter: as hahahae.  Beard criticizes Freud and Bergson as partial and "Bakhtinian carnival's emphasis on the Saturnalian roots of laughter as a socio-historic phenomenon, we are told, is based on a fundamental misreading of the ancient holiday." [Hey Mickey!] Laughter is universal but people don't laugh at the same things, says the reviewer, and jokes are difficult to translate, with this piece of what I call egg-boiling: "Our editions of Aristophanes, Plautus, and the Roman satirists are chock full of notes intended to help us get the jokes." [Does Beard say this or is it the reviewer's illustrative detail? My own effort: some Western flatulence humour does not work in the far East, given their better-out-than-in philosophy.] Laughter, says reviewer, is like the incest taboo: all cultures, suggesting it is natural, but there is so much cultural variation in the specific prohibitions. Miller identifies another memorable anecdote in which Emperor Elagabalus invites 8 bald men, 8 fat men, and 8 other laughable men to dinner, where they sit on cushions which slowly deflate: a prototype of the whoopee cushion. He would also give lower class diners inedible representations of food, rather than actual food. Laughter is here a weapon of power. [Has much changed? Here is a team for you, new lecturer? "They don't do proper work."]  We are told, "A standard topic in Roman humour, it turns out, is donkeys consuming human food. One of the finest moments in Beard's analysis is her extended reading of this conceit in Apuleius." We are told the final chapter focuses on an ancient joke book. The Greeks did not compile jokes; it started with the Romans, it seems.


Article reference. Miller, Paul Allen. 2013. Laughter in Ancient Rome: on joking, tickling, and cracking up by Mary Beard. Hermathena 194: 218-222.


David Christenson. 2015. Review of Laughter in Ancient Rome: On Joking, Tickling, and Cracking Up. A revised version of the Sather lectures. Chapter by chapter summary. Chapter 2 I presume: she introduces modern thinking on laughter in a neat scheme: superiority theory, incongruity theory, and Freudian relief.  This is a foundation for what follows. [ABCs: this sounds good. Kathleen Stock has no moral theory framework for her book on euthanasia, from what I have read so far. I flagged the lack of such a framework when  dealing with trans-rights.] Chapter 3 declares classicists have uncritically accepted Bakhtin's notions of agelastic church culture opposed to carnivalesque culture. She says we lack sufficient evidence of the nature of Roman saturnalia and so cannot with justification say what humour was involved. [Rejects inductive inference here?] Chapter 4: examines efforts to distinguish Greek and Roman laughter. We are told, "Chapter 7 "Between Human and Animal—Especially Monkeys and Asses," oddly begins with general discussion of women's laughter." Praises the notes and referencing. [It seems from the chapter summaries that Beard has improved in appealing to wider audiences: theories of laughter and how they apply to the classical world and Bakhtin's theory and how it applies.] 


Article reference. David Christenson. 2014. Review of Laughter in Ancient Rome: On Joking, Tickling, and Cracking Up. By Mary Beard. Sather Classical Lectures 71. Classical Philology 110 (4): 388-FILL IN LATER!


Milo and the Calf. 2015. Review of Classics: A Very Short Introduction by Mary Beard and John Henderson. A short clever book; Mary Beard said to be a favourite writer. Says "it is an overview of the way we think about the ancient world and how that understanding has changed with time. She cleverly uses the temple at Bassae to investigate how we use the ancient world to understand our world, and the world of our forefathers for the Temple of Basse is one thing in ancient Greece, another in the Victorian era, and something else in the world today." But then suggests or says unsuitable for those looking for overview (suggests) or history (says); says it is really for the enthusiast.
N.a. (Sean). 2015. Review of Classics: A Very Short Introduction by Mary Beard and John Henderson. 19th December 2015. Available at:
https://miloandthecalf.com/2015/12/19/review-beard-and-hendersons-classics/


Michael Fontaine. 2016. Review of A History of Ancient Rome by Mary Beard. Useful opening for one who has never heard of the Roman empire! Fontaine interestingly tells us, "Romans enjoyed a standard of living not seen in the West until the mid-19th century… flush toilets, granite countertops, indoor heating, and even cosmetic dentistry." Fontaine reads Beard as offering political lessons to do with American politics without explicitly saying so. We are told: " "As is often the case in regime change," she writes, "the new guard is  more or less forced to rely on a carefully reformed version of the old guard, or  or - as we have seen in recent history - anarchy can result." Beard does not need to explicitly mention Iraq or Libya to make her point." [I think she does.] Fontaine further writes: "Nor does she need to reference today's U.S. Congress to make readers appreciate the subservience of a Roman senator… " The anecdote can't help but make one think of the servility of some members of the U.S.  Congress to powerful special interests such as the National Rifle Association." [What???! If we are supposed to think this, it needs spelling out for me.]  The reviewer reads Beard as commenting on Barack Obama through reference to Cicero, and making further comments on 9/11, on Condoleezza Rice, on George W Bush and John McCain. [Beard writes for the newspapers and it is not implausible she would write a classical book that is also a commentary on American politics, without this being explicitly said - a knowledgeable reader would make the connections. Also she was criticized in 2007 for not having up-to-date parallels, with British war politics, as sidekick to America, used as an example of the up-to-date. See Habinek or summary above.]


Article reference. Fontaine, Michael. SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome. Foreign Affairs December 9 2016. Available at:
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/reviews/spqr-history-ancient-rome


Buzz magazine review. 2026. A brief anonymous review of Mary Beard's book Talking Classics: The Shock of the Old. The reviewer confesses that she is no historicist or classicist for that matter. "Readers are invited to reflect on their own meditations – classical pun intended – of classics as a whole, noting on how the fixated appreciation of the Greeks and Romans can lead to an overall misinterpretation of what that time was really like." In the photograph, Beard looks somewhat like Helen Beebee to me. (Article reference. N.a. 2026. Mary Beard's latest book blends contemporary life with historical classics. Review of Mary Beard, Talking Classics: The Shock of the Old. April 16th 2026. Website address: https://www.buzzmag.co.uk/talking-classics-mary-beard-book-review/)


Christopher Hart. 2026. A review of Mary Beard's book Talking Classics: The Shock of the Old for the right-wing newspaper The Daily Mail. Beard asks, why should we study the classics? 100 years ago a Cambridge classics professor would have no problem giving an answer: the classics, along with the Bible, are the foundation of Western civilization. Today the West has lost confidence in itself and Beard exemplifies this. Rabindranath Tagore found the Parthenon ugly, we are told on page 3. (Page 3 for many readers recalls where tabloids put photographs of topless women, a taboo-violating practice.) The reviewer finds Beard's attempts at fashionable behaviour embarrassing: her comparison of Virgil with a rap artist, Marcus Aurelius deemed as useless self-help after 2000 years. (Rap - a popular music style, of somewhat singing rhyme.) Beard reminds us that the study of classics encompasses more than prestigious figures, also a joke book of Emperor Augustus. Reviewer says: "Talking Classics suggests dazzling and enticing stuff, artistic power and intellectual daring, not to mention the epic history of 1,000 years – yet Mary Beard's arguments in favour of studying this fascinating alien world are garbled and dismal. Woolly political preferences keep interrupting."


Article reference. Hart, Christopher. 2026. Mary Beard gets weird about the classics. The Daily Mail 19th April 2026.
Available at:
https://www.dailymail.com/home/books/article-15742981/Mary-Beard-gets-weird-classics.html
See my response:  https://www.instagram.com/p/DXphUy_l6FF/


Peter Jones. 2026.  A review of  Talking Classics: The Shock of the Old. "The underlying message is that you get much more out of classics if you revere it less. Amazement, surprise, pleasure, puzzlement, even revulsion, yes. Reverence and gratitude, no." There is a chapter by chapter account of the book, with responses. Chapter one makes it clear that Beard is interested in "Athenian citizens, Roman pub landlords, exploited slaves, and self-serving senators." Reviewer says, "I found it odd that there is no discussion of farming, the life of 90% of Rome's population, always poised on the edge of famine, always looking for any way to make money and survive. After all, land, sea and humanity were the only resources that anyone had available to them to live off and fight over: why nothing about the plebs?" Weakness in economic matters registered by Purcell in 1987. Beard asks the question of why Praxiteles made the first nude female statue of Aphrodite. She rejects Jones's favoured answer: "Because he's the great Praxiteles, Greeks loved novelty, and producing a first was catnip to a man like him." But the reviewer suspects there is inadequate evidence to overturn it. [He owes a debt to a woman, and the debt is repaid by statue?] Chapter two asks: how to be modern? She refers (?!) to the "greatest hits" of classical literature and seeks to go beyond oversimple readings. The reviewer says her heart is not here: " She is unnecessarily unkind to the famous meditations of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, though it is not clear why, and says nothing about Epicureanism and Stoicism, hugely influential in the modern world." (Harshness here also registered by Hart.) A lot of towering intellects are absent or fleetingly treated: Herodotus, the atomists (and Lucretius), Aristophanes, Aristotle. Plato is the exception. Chapter three deals with rights and wrongs. Beard claims classics belongs to no side, classical imagery being evoked across the political spectrum. Beard is vexed about who has access to classics: girls were not taught it (or an aspect of it - Greek accents?); the lower classes are not. Chapter four - case for the classics - refers to the play Browning Version, about a classics scholar forced to retire, and refers to the reasons: classics teaches you to argue responsibly on the basis of inadequate evidence and discuss constructively questions to which there are no right answers. Book could have been shorter we are told. (Article reference.


Peter Jones. 2026. Review of TALKING CLASSICS: The Shock Of The Old Mary Beard. 14th April 2026. Available at: https://classicsforall.org.uk/reading-room/book-reviews/talking-classics-shock-old-mary-beard)


Books on the Hill. A brief review of Talking Classics: The Shock of the Old. Beard argues that classics is not only for wealthy white men. We try to make sense of people long ago, from angry landlords to giggling senators, and to think harder about our own world. Beard out surprising connections: "From revolutionaries to dictators, Bob Dylan to Beyoncé, she joins forces with the varied modern characters who have been transfixed by the ancient world." Classics is not compulsory, but it is a shame not to be interested in it.


Article reference. N.a. 2026. Review of Talking Classics: The Shock of the Old by Professor Mary Beard.
Website: https://www.books-on-the-hill.co.uk/history/p/talking-classics-the-shock-of-the-old-by-professor-mary-beard-160426