Mary Beard

If women are not perceived to be fully within the structures of power, surely it is power that we need to redefine rather than women?

The reason why the British theatrical tradition is world-leading in Greek drama is because there is a flourishing tradition of people rethinking Greek tragedy.

There's a basic rule of thumb that the more a culture oppresses women, or oppresses anyone, the more culturally preoccupied they are with that.

Whatever you say about popular culture, people like people who know things, who are experts, and it doesn't particularly matter what they look like.

There's plenty of firm evidence for ethnic diversity in Roman Britain.

When it comes to silencing women, Western culture has had thousands of years of practice.

One of its most powerful weapons has always been 'barbarity': 'we' know that 'we' are civilised by contrasting ourselves with those we deem to be un-civilised, with those who do not - or cannot be trusted to - share our values.

Fate has it in for me to be an exhibit: that funny old lady from the telly.

Thinking through how you look to your enemies is helpful. That doesn't mean that your ideology is wrong and theirs is right, but maybe you have to recognise that they have one - and that it may be logically coherent. Which may be uncomfortable.

Wherever possible, I try to see things from the other side of the dividing line and to read civilisation 'against the grain.'

At 16, I got into local-education archaeology classes - you got to go to summer digs. It allowed me to be both intellectual and a bad girl with a wicked social life every evening!

What I find very interesting is, we're not enthralled by the ancient world, and we've escaped all kinds of ancient preconceptions and assumptions and prejudices. But, nevertheless, we still make that connection between authoritative speech and male speech.