Bettany Hughes is the President of JACT ( The Joint Association of Classical Teachers) having taken over from Boris Johnson last year and has spent much of the last 20 years promoting the ideas, lessons and stories of the past to a wide general audience. She was awarded a Scholarship to Oxford University and is now a Research Fellow of King’s College, London.

Her television films on the ancient world include Athens: the truth of democracy, The Spartans and Helen of Troy and have now been seen by over 100 million people worldwide. She was recently awarded the Naomi Sargent Prize for Broadcast Excellence for 2010.  Her first book, Helen of Troy: goddess, princess, whore was published to great critical acclaim and has now been translated into ten languages and her latest book The Hemlock Cup: Socrates, Athens and the search for the good life is out in October.

Bettany campaigns to get Latin, Greek - and even Ancient Babylonian - back into state schools.