Weekend Reading: In Good Company

On Tuesday this week I spent the evening with Mary Beard.

I’m absolutely intending to name-drop for as long as I can get away with it – but in the interest of honesty, I do have to admit that I was sharing the evening not just with Prof Beard, but also with a jam-packed theatre full of other people, all there – like me – to hear her talk about her new book.

I haven’t read the book yet – I wanted to wait until after the event before I started it. But people have been saying very nice things about it…

Anyway, back to Tuesday evening. I was lucky enough to get a front row seat, which was nice because I could ignore the very full auditorium behind me. Mary Beard came on stage, accompanied by Prof Edith Hall of Durham University, who was going to be leading the conversation. They settled down in comfy chairs with a glass of wine, which set the tone for a pretty relaxed chat that had the audience laughing and even cheering at various points.

Prof Hall was looking glamorous as usual, in a sparkly dress. Prof Beard was going for the casual look, with some very snazzy trainers. I’m still trying to decide which of them I’d like to be when I grow up…!

I’d been looking forward to the evening, and I wasn’t disappointed. It was not at all boring – and that’s quite a compliment coming from me, since I’ve been listening to people talk about Roman Emperors for over twenty years and have developed a very low boredom threshold!

The reason why it wasn’t boring, I think, relates to something Mary Beard said. She talked about how most classicists are miserable curmudgeons (broadly true!) who spend all their time complaining about how much evidence we lack or have lost. She pointed out that we actually have a huge wealth of evidence from the ancient world, with a great deal still to be researched – and her excitement at that came through in everything she talked about. It’s a rare gift to be able to maintain that level of enthusiasm after spending a whole career in the same area.

A lot of the conversation focused on bureaucracy, specifically on inscriptions and letters which give us an insight into the ways in which an emperor might interact with his subjects. Mary Beard pointed out that the details tell us a lot about how these interactions worked in reality: like the small town that managed to get a judgement from the emperor on a minor matter because one of the Praetorian Guard came from that town; or the family that commemorated the emperor telling them to go away and ask the local magistrate, because that letter from the emperor would actually force the magistrate to do something. A lot of the evidence she mentioned was familiar to me – but quite a few things surprised me too, so I’m looking forward to reading the book!

I enjoyed her assessment of Tacitus as opposed to absolutely everything: one man rule, unchecked power, dissidents (they’re a rabble), revolution… She’s spot on, of course! Tacitus was fully complicit in the system he was criticising, and that was what gave him such a sharp insight. She also inspired me to go back and read some Cassius Dio again, since I’ve never really given him the attention he deserves.

The questions she received from the audience weren’t easy ones. She wound up talking about racism, politics and the craziness of Twitter – as well as covering other burning issues like what a thumbs-up meant in the arena, and what really went on in the Roman baths. She fielded all the questions with complete ease and a wry sense of humour.

Edith Hall was excellent too. She managed to find an opportunity to bang the drum for increased Classics provision in the North East, and talked about our many local classical connections, from Ridley Scott to Pat Barker. She received enthusiastic applause from the audience, and was immediately surrounded by a crowd of excited schoolteachers and students when she left the auditorium.

I managed to get my copy of Prof Beard’s new book signed by her, and have a brief chat – and I was pretty impressed that she recognised me, despite the fact that we’ve never actually met in person before!