Mary Beard

Beard is a Fellow of Newnham College, Cambridge and was a Professor of Classics at Cambridge, where she taught for more than 30 years. 

She has written numerous books on the Ancient World, including the 2008 Wolfson Prize-winner, Pompeii: The Life of a Roman Town, SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome and the recent Emperor of Rome. These books – along with the bestselling Women & Power – have been published to critical and popular acclaim and translated all over the world. 

Beard is a broadcaster and commentator, appearing regularly on radio and television, including on programmes such as BBC Radio 4’s In Our Time. She has written and presented radio and television documentaries for the BBC on Ancient Rome – from Pompeii to Caligula to ‘forbidden art’. She was a presenter for the BBC Civilisations series, and has recently entered the podcast arena, co-hosting a weekly podcast, Instant Classics, with Guardian journalist Charlotte Higgins. 

She is Classics editor of the Times Literary Supplement and writes a blog, A Don’s Life, selections from which have been published in book form. In 2013 she published Confronting the Classics, a collection of essays and reviews written over the last 20 years for the Times Literary Supplement, the London Review of Books and the New York Review of Books.  

Beard, who is currently a Trustee of the British Museum, was made a Dame in 2018. Her new book, Talking Classics, will be published in April 2026. 

Judge photo © Robin Cormack