Seneca the Younger
In Our Time: History
02/23/17
•51m
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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 his way through the reigns of Caligula, Claudius and Nero, sometimes exercising power at the highest level and at others spending years in exile. Agrippina the Younger was the one who called for him to tutor Nero, and it is thought Seneca helped curb some of Nero's excesses. He was later revered within the Christian church, partly for what he did and partly for what he was said to have done in forged letters to St Paul. His tragedies, with their ghosts and high body count, influenced Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus and Hamlet, and Kyd's Spanish Tragedy. The image above is the so-called bust of Seneca, a detail from Four Philosophers by Peter Paul Rubens.
With
Mary Beard
Professor of Classics at the University of Cambridge
Catharine Edwards
Professor of Classics and Ancient History at Birkbeck, University of London
and
Alessandro Schiesaro
Professor of Classics at the University of Manchester
Producer: Simon Tillotson.
Previous Episode
Mary, Queen of Scots
January 19, 2017
•52m
In a programme first broadcast in 2017, Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the history of Mary, Queen of Scots, who had potential to be one of the most powerful rulers in Europe, yet she was also one of the most vulnerable. In France, when she was the teenage bride to their future king, she was seen as rightful heir to the thrones of England and Ireland, as well as Queen of Scotland and one day of France, which would have been an extraordinary union. She was widowed too young, though and, a Catholic returning to Protestant Scotland, she struggled to overcome rivalries in her own country. She fled to Protestant England, where she was implicated in plots to overthrow Elizabeth, and it was Elizabeth herself who signed Mary's death warrant.
With
David Forsyth
Principal Curator, Scottish Medieval-Early Modern Collections at National Museums Scotland
Anna Groundwater
Teaching Fellow in Historical Skills and Methods at the University of Edinburgh
And
John Guy
Fellow of Clare College, University of Cambridge
Producer: Simon Tillotson.
Next Episode
The Battle of Salamis
March 23, 2017
•50m
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss what is often called one of the most significant battles in history. In 480BC in the Saronic Gulf near Athens, between the mainland and the island of Salamis, a fleet of Greek allies decisively defeated a larger Persian-led fleet. This halted the further Persian conquest of Greece and, at Plataea and Mycale the next year, further Greek victories brought Persian withdrawal and the immediate threat of conquest to an end. To the Greeks, this enabled a flourishing of a culture that went on to influence the development of civilisation in Rome and, later, Europe and beyond. To the Persians, it was a reverse at the fringes of their vast empire but not a threat to their existence, as it was for the Greek states, and attention turned to quelling unrest elsewhere.
With
Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones
Professor in Ancient History at Cardiff University
Lindsay Allen
Lecturer in Greek and Near Eastern History, King's College London
and
Paul Cartledge
Emeritus Professor of Greek Culture and AG Leventis Senior Research Fellow at Clare College, University of Cambridge
Producer: Simon Tillotson.
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