Start the Week

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BBC Radio 4 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced BBC Home Service.

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Weekly discussion programme, setting the cultural agenda every Monday

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Start the Week: The Iliad and the right to rule

The Iliad and the right to rule

BBC Radio 4 - Start the Week, The Iliad and the right to rule

Adam Rutherford with Emily Wilson, Mary Beard and Ben Riley-Smith

Emily Wilson, Mary Beard and Ben Riley-Smith explore the battle for power and the right to rule, with Adam Rutherford

After her translation of Homer’s The Odyssey the classicist Emily Wilson tackles his epic, The Iliad. She brings to life the battle cries between the Greeks and the Trojans, the bellicose leaders, the political manoeuvres and the deals with the gods. 

Mary Beard looks at the expression of power in the ancient Roman world in her new study of Emperor of Rome. From Julius Caesar to Alexander Severus nearly two hundred years later, she explores just how much control and authority these rulers had, and the lengths they had to go to in order to cling on to power. 

The Westminster journalist Ben Riley-Smith looks at how the Conservative Party has clung on to power over the past dozen years in his story, The Right to Rule. With five Prime Ministers in the last decade, this tale of political control involves betrayal, rebellion and the merciless ousting of leaders, in the bid to remain in government. 

Producer: Katy Hickman

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

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