Welcome back to the home of the oxymoron. Evil genius. He asked the newspaper to print his obituary early so he'd enjoy it. That's like hiding at your own funeral. Yeah, a big, great gig. I'm Russell Kane. Join me to weigh in on whether the biggest players in history are more evil or genius. Becoming that rich, I'd say that is some level of genius. It also helps that it's a long time ago, right?

It's like the podcast version of telling your kids the ice cream van plays music when it's out of ice cream.

Listen to Evil Genius on BBC Sounds.

Hello and welcome to the Chalk Valley History Festival.

We're in a tent in a field in Wiltshire, a bit less

than 30 miles south of Eddington, where, back in 878 AD, Alfred the Great and his Saxon

army pulled off a resounding victory against the Vikings, or the Great Heathen Army, as the

Anglo-Saxons called them in a bit of negative branding. The fact that Alfred had the suffix the great appended to his name is a sign that he attained

the status of a hero. But how are heroes created and who decides? What view does history take

of heroic triumph or its obverse failure? And can the one teach us more about the other? Well, Cato, we might remember,

was celebrated as a great Roman figure who was interested in that which is vanquished,

though a lot more ink has been spilt on great victories. To discuss these ideas,

I'm joined by three esteemed historians, Saul David, Amanda Foreman and David Starkey.

Well, I'd like to ask you all about the heroes that we grew up with, learning history

at school in that tradition of the great men and occasionally great women

and big dates manner which figures loomed large for you as inspiring historical heroes amanda

i'm going to start with you well finally enough when i was at school the hero that loomed largest for me

was talked to me by my latin, and that was Cicero.

He lived during the time of Julius Caesar, so we're talking 106 to 43 BC.

And the reason why he was great to me was, first of all, he was a flawed individual and yet a great man. And so that's always fascinating.

The second reason is because he was prepared to die for his beliefs for the Republic.

And just to be introduced as a child to this idea that an idea is so great that you are willing to

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