Ancient Bettany

The historian and classicist explore Greece from the time of the Ancients up to the present day.

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Historian Bettany Hughes gives her personal take on the diverse cultures of the ancient world in this 2010 documentary series on More 4. The series begins with an examination of Alexandria, the city founded by Alexander the Great in 332 BC to become the world’s first global centre of culture. The programme explores Alexandria’s role as a powerhouse of science and learning, and focuses on the female mathematician, astronomer and philosopher Hypatia, the subject of the feature film Agora, starring Rachel Weisz.

The historian explores the land that inspired her passion for the past by embarking upon a 900-mile journey along the river Nile and examining how it shaped ancient Egypt.

The historian explores the land that inspired her passion for the past by embarking upon a 900-mile journey along the river Nile and examining how it shaped ancient Egypt.

Bettany Hughes takes viewers on armchair travels to explore household-name treasures and new finds from across the world.

Bettany Hughes explores Venus - goddess of love - discovering her surprising roots and modern relevance. Beginning in Cyprus, the goddess's mythical birthplace, Bettany decodes Venus's relationship to the Greek goddess Aphrodite. She meets experts who reveal the mysterious and obscure ways this ancient goddess was imagined and worshipped, and visits the sites where the real women and men of the Bronze Age adored her as 'greater than a god'. Bettany looks into the goddess's own love life to see that - even for her - tangling with another was often bittersweet.

Bettany Hughes takes viewers on armchair travels to explore household-name treasures and new finds from across the world.

Bettany Hughes investigates the enduring relationship between warfare and worship, by following the trail through time of the ancient god of war, Mars. She begins in Carthage, site of one of the most significant and bloodiest victories in the history of the Roman Empire and explores the vital role of Mars in Rome's imperial expansion. Visiting the British Museum, Bettany sees, at first hand, the earliest known evidence of human warfare - a 13,000-year-old graveyard in which many of the bodies showed signs of violent deaths. With bodies so carefully buried, Bettany asks if ritualising and celebrating war is a way of bringing societies together – of creating 'them' and 'us'.