Bettany Hughes

“I am irrationally irritated by those who cast the Mediterranean in a balmy, Augustan perma-glow.”

“We've become embarrassed about asking ourselves the straightforward, simple questions that are actually the most relevent: what is it to be human? How can we steer a course between self-indulgence and self-denial and be the very best version of ourselves that we can?”

“Buttressed by an acceptance of female wisdom in the sacred sphere from the beginnings of organised religion 12,000 years ago to late antiquity and beyond, key women used wit and the power of the word to change the world around them.”

“We think the way we do partly because Socrates thought the way he did. His basic idea - that the unexamined life is not worth living - is what it means to live in the modern world, to develop ideas and ask questions.”

“To me that is what the Odyssey is all about, it's about being in the world and unexpected challenges and dangers are thrown at you.”

“People tend to have a knee-jerk response to the word 'philosophy'. You imagine it's abstract and inaccessible.”

“It's become this sort of strange competition about who's in the coolest place, who's in the coolest street. Suddenly we're having to engage with all those social pressures. It's helpful, I find, as a mother and a teacher, to say you've always got a choice.”

“Venus's life story across 5,000 years reminds us not to trivialise the power of desire: the ancients were right to never underestimate its influence.”

“My best writing day starts with coffee from our local Cypriot cafe and a newspaper from the Tamil corner shop - they always ask what I'm up to, and why I haven't brushed my hair - then a short, sharp walk. I think as I go.”

“The technological revolution is itself a direct descendant of the Ancient Greeks' historia, and the web is populated by young people who want to dive into the past.”

“A lot of the clothes I wear on telly are second-hand.”

“Sophia - a mystical female presence whose appearance is only fleeting in the Hebrew Bible and New Testament - was clearly once a household name and a fixture in everyday lives.”

“My father, who is now 94, was an actor. The prime thing he taught us as children was to walk through the world with our eyes open.”

“I think it's ironic when Plato makes the learned woman Aspasia Socrates' teacher, but I think women crop up more in the Platonic dialogues than they do normally in texts of the period, and in an un-hysterical way.”

“I think Socrates was fascinated by Alcibiades. It's almost the opposite of hypocrisy. I think it's like when you can see the potential in someone.”

“Religion is an easy target for accusations of repression and misogyny, but achievement in the sacred and therefore socio-political sphere was often an option for women, thanks not to brawn, but to brain.”

“Forgiveness gives you a chance to be fulfilled rather than be eaten up with anger.”

“Time and time again in history, it's the emotional argument that wins. Probably since 70,000 BC we've been making decisions in a similar way.”

“One of the flashpoints of the grand war between Athens and Sparta, a millennium after Helen first caused trouble for the Mediterranean world, was nearby Thassos. Thassos - Greece's northernmost island, is pine-rich, honey-sweet, gold-bearing and picture-postcard perfect.”

“Even the picturesque prehistoric settlements at Akrotiri on the Greek island of Santorini were an exercise in problem-solving; white-washed homes and town halls built with an anti-earthquake technology still employed today, 3,500 years on.”