Welcome to Current Affairs.

My name is Nathan Robinson.

I am the editor-in-chief of Current Affairs Magazine.

And it is our great privilege to be joined today by Honor Cargill Martin.

She is a historian of the ancient world.

She is currently studying for a doctorate at Oxford, focusing on political sex scandals in ancient Rome.

She's written about ancient history for the New York Times, for the Telegraph.

She also runs the substack, It's All Ancient History. Her books include Messalina, Empress,

Adulterous Liberty, and the story of the most notorious woman of the Roman world available from Pegasus Books,

about which the New York Times calls it lively and sardonic,

and the Sunday Telegraph says that your writing achieves a rare, old-fashioned, waspish elegance,

which I like.

Onoccago Martin is also the author of the book for children.

She speaks the women of Greek myths in their own words.

And she recently starred in a YouTube video that is how I discovered her work in which

she reviews for half an hour the historical accuracy and

inaccuracies in Monty Python's classic 1979 comedy The Life of Brian.

And my kind of conclusion from your video was that it was more accurate than you might expect

The Life of Brian Day.

Oh my God, it was, it was so accurate.

I had always loved that film and

I knew they were all like very clever and well educated so I knew it would be kind of have

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