logo
episode-header-image
Oct 2014
46m 30s

Julius Caesar

Bbc Radio 4
About this episode

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the life, work and reputation of Julius Caesar. Famously assassinated as he entered the Roman senate on the Ides of March, 44 BC, Caesar was an inspirational general who conquered much of Europe. He was a ruthless and canny politician who became dictator of Rome, and wrote The Gallic Wars, one of the most admired and studied works of Latin literature. Shakespeare is one of many later writers to have been fascinated by the figure of Julius Caesar.

With:

Christopher Pelling Regius Professor of Greek at the University of Oxford

Catherine Steel Professor of Classics at the University of Glasgow

Maria Wyke Professor of Latin at University College London

Producer: Thomas Morris.

Up next
Apr 23
Silicon
Misha Glenny and guests discuss the physics, biology and chemistry of the element silicon which is at the heart of some of the most useful and beautiful objects on the planet. While it is still being created throughout the universe, the silicon we have here was made billions of y ... Show More
52m 50s
Apr 16
Dadaism
Misha Glenny and guests discuss the provocative artistic phenomenon that first startled audiences in 1916 in Zurich. There, at the Cabaret Voltaire at the Holländische Meierei on the Spiegelgasse, Emmy Hennings and Hugo Ball and others gathered on a small stage, sometimes dressed ... Show More
50m 58s
Apr 9
Archaea
Misha Glenny and guests discuss one of the most remarkable scientific discoveries of the 20th century: the archaea microorganisms. In the 1970s the American microbiologist Carl Woese (1928-2012) realised that the tiny bacteria-sized organisms he was studying were not actually bac ... Show More
53m 7s
Recommended Episodes
Oct 2014
Julius Caesar
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the life, work and reputation of Julius Caesar. Famously assassinated as he entered the Roman senate on the Ides of March, 44 BC, Caesar was an inspirational general who conquered much of Europe. He was a ruthless and canny politician who becam ... Show More
46m 30s
Oct 2018
Is Shakespeare History? The Romans
In the second of two programmes marking In Our Time's 20th anniversary on 15th October, Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Shakespeare's versions of history, continuing with the Roman plays. Rome was the setting for Titus Andronicus, Julius Caesar, Coriolanus and parts of Antony and ... Show More
48m 17s
Mar 2014
Spartacus
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the life of Spartacus, the gladiator who led a major slave rebellion against the Roman Republic in the 1st century BC. He was an accomplished military leader, and the campaign he led contributed significantly to the instability of the Roman sta ... Show More
41m 59s
Dec 2010
Cleopatra
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Cleopatra. The last pharaoh to rule Egypt, Cleopatra was a woman of intelligence and charisma, later celebrated as a great beauty. During an eventful life she was ousted from her throne and later restored to it with the help of her lover Julius ... Show More
42m 6s
Nov 2018
Horace
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Horace (65-8BC), who flourished under the Emperor Augustus. He was one of the greatest poets of his age and is one of the most quoted of any age. Carpe diem, nil desperandum, nunc est bibendum – that’s Horace. He was the son of a freedman from sout ... Show More
48m 57s
Jan 2018
Cicero
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the ideas developed by Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43BC) to support and reinvigorate the Roman Republic when, as it transpired, it was in its final years, threatened by civil wars, the rule of Julius Caesar and the triumvirates that followed. As Con ... Show More
49m 16s
Mar 2022
The Legacy of Julius Caesar's Assassination
<p>The legacies of the Ides of March stretch from that very afternoon on March 14th 44BC to the modern day. From Roman times to the Medieval period, from Dante to Shakespeare, and from Brutus to the other infamous assassin he inspired in John Wilkes Booth, the echoes of Julius Ca ... Show More
55m 26s
Feb 2017
Seneca the Younger
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Seneca the Younger, who was one of the first great writers to live his entire life in the world of the new Roman empire, after the fall of the Republic. He was a Stoic philosopher, he wrote blood-soaked tragedies, he was an orator, and he navigated ... Show More
51m 25s