Bettany Hughes

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

“Europe's leaders need to sit down with Socrates for a night; a life unexamined is not worth living. We have to remember that, as he says, the pursuit of wealth should never be at the expense of wisdom.”

“Slipping down into the bedrock 100m inside the partially excavated tomb of Pharaoh Senwosret at Abydos, I really thought I was going to die. Oxygen levels are dangerously low and, with over 90 per cent humidity, it was hard to breathe - we were all drenched with sweat.”

“For some reason I have always lived my life trying to make things slightly harder for myself rather than slightly easier. I think that's why I like the Spartans. I like the idea that you get much more satisfaction if you strive for it.”

“The word 'America' probably didn't appear in the Persian language until the end of the 18th century - but then with a documented past stretching back at least 5,000 years, the east had riches of its own.”

“Plants are so important to the ancients for medicine and in a religious aspect - and in hemlock!”

“Both my parents were professional actors, so I grew up in a household that had no real financial stability.”

“I wrote my first history book when I was four. I still have it so I can prove it.”

“Nefertiti is lovely, but we should use our wit and will to look beyond that beautiful face to discover and to enjoy a more satisfying narrative - the story of mankind, not just of man.”

“I love the Bronze Age - the age of the Trojan Wars and Helen of Troy. Contrary to what people think, Troy was a very sophisticated society and they used ostrich eggs - which have surprisingly tough shells - to store perfumed oils.”

“It was this epic adventure and I had this mad idea that it would be interesting to follow the Greek hero Odysseus on his trail from what is modern day Turkey to the west of Greece. He took 10 years to do that and I took six months. I was on 27 different boats for 1,700 miles and I went to 13 different islands.”

“Once universities, rather than religious orders, were established as the key repositories of learning, women would find it ever harder to prove the pen as mighty as the sword.”

“It was drilled into me from an early age that nothing is certain and that you have to be incredibly careful and sensible with money. However, if you are lucky enough to have a little bit spare, you should also try to enjoy it.”

“Territorial expansion demands warriors and, once population levels are stable, demotes the female role. Once religious empires have not just an idea but a territory to call their own, the soldiers of god are of more value than his handmaidens.”

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

“My guilty pleasure at the end of the day is an old thesaurus. I know that can lead to overwriting, but if words such as lambent, pyretic and boscy exist, how sad they should stay recondite.”

“Hapy, the ancient god of the Nile, depicted at Dendera with Cleopatra, is typically shown with breasts - symbolism that demonstrated how the life-giving gifts of Egypt's river artery come only when the power of both female and male was combined.”

“If the Halcyon days of a Mediterranean winter, god-blessed, were good enough for sublime kingfishers they should certainly have something to offer us all.”

“After I graduated, I carried on with my academic work, via grants but I often had a market stall on Camden Market selling hand-painted silk to make some cash.”

“I cannot write about the past unless I go where history happened. Some make very good armchair historians, I'm not one of them. If you're going to inhabit someone else's world, the very least you can do is to spend a little time in it.”