187 Quotes by Mary Beard

The woman who can whisper in her husband's ear wields more power de facto, or rather is often alleged to, than the colleagues who can only send official requests and memos.

Denn bei historischer Forschung geht es doch gerade darum, Fremdartigkeit zu erhalten.

Whether people liked or loathed him, he [Octavian] was in many ways a puzzling and contradictory revolutionary. He was once of the most radical innovators Rome ever saw.

All too often, even the most glamorous rebels are just as unappealing, under the surface, as the imperialist tyrants themselves.

I do wonder if, in some places, the presence of large numbers of women in parliament means that parliament is where the power is not.

Hunting, bathing, gaming, laughing: that's living (venari lavare ludere ridere occest vivere).

But in every way, the shared metaphors we use of female access to power - 'knocking on the door', 'storming the citadel', 'smashing the glass ceiling', or just giving them a 'leg up' - underline female exteriority. Women in power are seen as breaking down barriers, or alternatively as taking something to which they are not quite entitled.

This time the senators met in the temple of the goddess Concord, or Harmony, a sure sign that affairs of state were anything but harmonious.

It was then that he gained the nickname adulescentulus carnifex: 'kid butcher' rather than enfant terrible.