director and producer, who was pageant master for the Diamond and Platinum Jubilees; the couple have two daughters Sorrel and May. Hughes is a vegetarian. In 2016, she delivered the British Humanist Association's annual Voltaire Lecture. Recognition She was recognized as one of the BBC's 100 women of 2013. Books Hughes has written four books: Helen of Troy: Goddess, Princess, Whore (2005) The Hemlock Cup: Socrates, Athens and the Search for the Good Life (2010) Istanbul: A Tale of Three Cities (2017) Venus and Aphrodite (2019) The Hemlock Cup was included in The New York Times Bestseller List. It was chosen as Book of the Year by The Daily Telegraph, and it was featured as a Book of the Week on BBC Radio 4. It was shortlisted for a Writer's Guild Award. Istanbul was reviewed by The New York Review of Books and was shortlisted for the Runciman Award in 2018. Venus and Aphrodite was shortlisted in 2021 for the Runciman Award. Other writings "Helen of Troy: Goddess, Princess, Whore" – European Cultural Centre of Delphi, XIII International Meeting On Ancient Drama 2007, The Women in Ancient Drama, Symposium Proceedings "'Terrible, Excruciating, Wrong-Headed And Ineffectual': The Perils and Pleasures of Presenting Antiquity to a Television Audience" – Dunstan Lowe, Kim Shahabudin (ed.), Classics for All: Reworking Antiquity in Mass Culture. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009, Credits Television programmes References External links Bettany Hughes Official Web site 21st-century English historians Historians of antiquity English classical scholars Women classical scholars English documentary filmmakers English television presenters Alumni of St Hilda's College, Oxford 1967 births Living people People from Ealing People educated at Notting Hill & Ealing High School BBC 100 Women British women historians Women documentary filmmakers Officers of the Order of the British Empire Fellows of the Society of Antiquaries of London