Mary Beard "Fear and Loathing" Lecture 3 of 3

The 2023 Berlin Family Lectures with Acclaimed Classicist Mary Beard
"What Can We Learn from the Classics?"
Lecture three: "Fear and Loathing"
April 26, 2023
The Berlin Family Lectures 2023 will challenge some assumptions we may have about Classics. What do we mean by Classics, and what do we hope to get out of it? These lectures puncture some of the myths of the subject, both ancient and modern. In exploring the fun, the dangers, and the heady uncertainties that Classics bring, Mary Beard argues that it can help us to think differently, to look at the world with new eyes, and to understand better where our own assumptions come from.
Lecture 3: Fear and Loathing
The third lecture takes a more ethical turn. Starting from the days in 1938 when Hitler toured the monuments of Rome, it asks first about the conscription of Classics to the causes of fascism, dictatorship, and far-right politics. But it goes on to ask how we judge the ancient world itself, and how far the crimes of antiquity implicate the modern world too. Are we as far from those who sat in the arena watching human slaughter as we like to imagine?