Mary Beard is a British classicist, historian and broadcaster whose work has brought the history and culture of ancient Rome to a wide general readership. Born in Much Wenlock, Shropshire, in 1955, she studied classics at Newnham College, Cambridge, where she later taught for several decades. She is Professor Emerita of Classics at the University of Cambridge, a Fellow Emerita of Newnham College and the classics editor of the Times Literary Supplement. Her research examines Roman politics, religion, art and everyday life, while frequently questioning modern assumptions about the ancient world.
Beard’s books include Pompeii: The Life of a Roman Town, The Roman Triumph, SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome, Twelve Caesars and Emperor of Rome. Rather than concentrating solely on emperors and military conquest, she also explores citizenship, slavery, gender, humour, public spectacle and the experiences of ordinary people across the Roman world. Her accessible writing and television documentaries combine scholarship with a willingness to examine incomplete or contradictory evidence, making her work particularly useful to readers seeking historical context for fiction set in the Roman Republic and Empire.
