Bettany Hughes

Byzantium, Constantinople, Istanbul-- one city, where stories and histories collide. The gateway between East and West, North and South, it has been the capital city of the Roman, Byzantine, and Ottoman Empires. Hughes takes us on an historical journey from the Neolithic to the present, exploring the ways that Istanbul's influence has spun out to shape the wider world. This is the story not just of emperors, viziers, caliphs, and sultans, but of the...

For close to three thousand years, Helen of Troy has been both the embodiment of absolute female beauty and a reminder of the terrible power that beauty can wield. Because of her double marriage to the Greek king Menelaus and the Trojan prince Paris, Helen was held responsible for an enduring enmity between East and West. But who was she? Helen exists in many guises: a matriarch from the Age of Heroes; the focus of a cult that conflated Helen the...

"Aphrodite was said to have been born out of the sea, rising out of a froth of white foam. But long before the Ancient Greeks conceived of this voluptuous blonde, she existed as an early spirit of fertility on the shores of Cyprus-and thousands of years before that, as a ferocious warrior-goddess in the Middle East. She's been a carnal symbol to Sappho, a Humanist muse to Renaissance artists, and a raunchy but subversive Shakespeare heroine. Proving...

A look at the rise and fall of Islamic culture in what is now Spain and Portugal, the ingenious mathematics behind Granada's Alhambra Palace, and a trace of El Cid's lineage to his Moorish roots though interviews with noted scholars.

Chronicles the rise and fall of the civilization of ancient Sparta, considering socio-economic, political and military aspects and influence on later Western culture. Key battles (Thermopylae, Sphakteria, Syracuse) and individuals (Leonidas, Lysander, Lycurgus, Agesilaos) are examined. Includes location footage and battle re-enactments.

Join historian Bettany Hughes as she explores the different beliefs and practices that form the core of the Buddhist philosophy and investigates how Buddhism started and where it travelled to, through visits to seven of the most spectacular monuments built by Buddhists across the globe.