Bettany Hughes

It was this epic adventure and I had this mad idea that it would be interesting to follow the Greek hero Odysseus…

— Bettany Hughes

The 'Middle Ages/Dark Ages' were of course no such thing. Achievement in the Arabian crescent was sensational then.

— Bettany Hughes

As soon as men began to write, they made Helen of Troy their subject; for close on three thousand years she has…

— Bettany Hughes

At the birth of society and civilisation I find a religious landscape littered with feisty female deities who make wisdom their business.

— Bettany Hughes

Europe's leaders need to sit down with Socrates for a night; a life unexamined is not worth living. We have to remember…

— Bettany Hughes

The technological revolution is itself a direct descendant of the Ancient Greeks' historia, and the web is populated by young people who…

— Bettany Hughes

The presence of industrial quantities of Byzantine pottery dating from the sixth century AD on the headland at Tintagel, Chinese silk in…

— Bettany Hughes

Rumour, gossip, slander - single drops of poison can pollute an entire system.

— Bettany Hughes

Aphrodite-Venus had become not a subject of adoration, but an agent of exploitation. From the moment Christian society perceived sex not as…

— Bettany Hughes

Istanbul in the snow is a wonder. The extravagant pleasures on show in the Topkapi Palace Museum - the sultan's robes thickly…

— Bettany Hughes

We've lived in our Victorian house for 20 years and the kitchen is the centre of family life - we don't just…

— Bettany Hughes

Buttressed by an acceptance of female wisdom in the sacred sphere from the beginnings of organised religion 12,000 years ago to late…

— Bettany Hughes

Well Socrates is 70 when he dies. He's been allowed to philosophise freely in the city for almost 50 years. He clearly…

— Bettany Hughes

Up until 1400BC, citadel settlements are stable. Goddesses - notably in charge of fertility and learning - have a crucial role to…

— Bettany Hughes

Time and time again in history, it's the emotional argument that wins. Probably since 70,000 BC we've been making decisions in a…

— Bettany Hughes

“…often women aren’t allowed to be characters in history, they have to be stereotypes. Cleopatra was a poet and a philosopher, she…

— Bettany Hughes

The occasional motivational speech gig tends to pay better than the books and television.

— Bettany Hughes

Cricket's in the blood - my dad loves it and my brother Simon played for Middlesex before becoming a radio and TV…

— Bettany Hughes

“Their fathers had been slaughtered over the stretch of a half-century by the Persians, their mothers raped. And still they had not…

— Bettany Hughes

I am irrationally irritated by those who cast the Mediterranean in a balmy, Augustan perma-glow.

— Bettany Hughes

People seek change not only when threats and opportunities appear, but when we get tired of the ways things are.

— Bettany Hughes

My father, who is now 94, was an actor. The prime thing he taught us as children was to walk through the…

— Bettany Hughes

If I had my way there would be a philosopher sitting round the table on every committee and in every boardroom.

— Bettany Hughes

A number of politicians have failed to recognise the consistent truth of history: that we're both an emotional and a rational species,…

— Bettany Hughes

Children hop around Phylakopi on sea-polished pebbles the size of bean bags and bask themselves, alongside the lizards, astride the sturdily built…

— Bettany Hughes