This is John Batchelor. Conversation tonight with two scholars, Daisy Dunn, a classicist. She lives in London.

Her new book is the story of the women of Rome, the missing thread, the women of Rome, and inheriting from the women of Greece.

These are the wives, the daughters, the lovers, the mothers, of the heroes, or the villains

we've heard about all our lives.

I remind you that Caesar's mistress was also Brutus' mother.

These women saw everything.

Daisy tells us, though, the legends and the successes and the doubts.

The story I like best is that of Sappho, who was a genius and a politically astute young person

who managed her family's affairs and her brother's affairs

and also founded a school for women. However, Sappho, despite her gifts, was a jealous God.

And the story of Sappho and her rival, one of her students, is very modern in understanding. Also, how did Sappho die?

Daisy and I both agree that the legend that she died because of love, throwing herself off a cliff,

is unacceptable. Neither of us believe it. I also speak to the scholar James Shapiro of Columbia University,

teaches comparative literature. The professor's new book is the story of the Federal Theater

in 1935 to 1939. The title is The Playbook. It tells the story of the out-of-work, stage hands, and actors and directors

and musicians because of the Great Depression. And the idea, by the New Deal, to launch these

theater pieces and pay people what the government could in generosity.

And it was something that attracted young people and risk takers.

Off Broadway, of course.

And the most spectacular opening was in April of 1936 at the Lafayette Theater in Harlem,

where an all-African American cast, directed by Orson

Wells and produced by John Hausman, two young actors at the time, was a smash hit. It was based on

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