Mary Beard in conversation with Harry Mount

Mary Beard chats to Harry Mount about her new book, Talking Classics - the Shock of the Old.

She reveals how she first fell in love with the ancient world when she was five – and a British Museum room steward opened a display case, holding a 4,000-year-old bread roll from Thebes, Egypt, for her. 

She discusses Mussolini's reconstructions of ancient Roman buildings – and  translates the delightfully rude graffiti in the Bar of Salvius in Pompeii.