Show Notes
00:00 | Polybius's Question: How Did Rome Conquer the World?Uploaded 03-07-2600:39 | Polybius: Hostage, Historian and Tutor to Scipio02:05 | The Fall of Corinth and the Greek Cause02:52 | Why Constitutional Stability Matters: Avoiding Stasis03:31 | Plato's Circle: The Image of Stability04:48 | Adding Growth: Rome's Second Question06:23 | Stability vs Growth: Sparta and Rome Compared09:30 | Lecture Roadmap: From Greece to Rome10:01 | Polybius on Why Constitutions Matter11:31 | Herodotus's Three Simple Constitutions12:56 | Aristotle's Six-Fold Scheme: Good and Bad Rule14:11 | Mixing Constitutions to Avoid Decline15:10 | Three Modes of Mixing: Blending, Co-Presence, Counterbalancing19:39 | Sparta's Mixed Constitution: Kings, Elders and Assembly21:17 | Plato and Aristotle on Sparta's Flaws27:42 | Polybius's Active Counterbalancing and the Rust Metaphor32:11 | Polybius on Rome's Mixed Constitution35:30 | Rome's Elements: Consuls, Senate and Assembly40:02 | Polybius's Cycle of Constitutions44:45 | Legacy: Adams, Hobbes and the Case for Mixed GovernmentWatch the Q and A session here: https://youtu.be/-18jnBqpQxQPlato in the fourth century BCE penned an indelible sequence of constitutional decline ending in tyranny, as well as a more complex set of possibilities for mixing different constitutional kinds. Two centuries later, Polybius portrayed constitutional change as cyclical, with an eventual collapse of democracy into ‘ochlocracy’ (mob rule) and then reversion to monarchy. These and other ancient authors proposed that a mixed constitution might prevent unwanted political change – an idea that would influence many later generations of political thinkers.This lecture was recorded by Melissa Lane on the 28th of May 2026 at Barnard's Inn Hall, LondonMelissa Lane is the Class of 1943 Professor of Politics, Princeton University and is also Associated Faculty in the Department of Classics and Department of Philosophy. Previously she was Senior University Lecturer at Cambridge University in the Faculty of History and Fellow of King’s College, Cambridge.She studied for her first degree in Social Studies (awarded summa cum laude) at Harvard University, and then took an MPhil and PhD in Philosophy at the University of Cambridge, where she was a student at King’s College, supported by appointments as a Marshall Scholar, Truman Scholar, and Mary Isabel Sibley Fellow of Phi Beta Kappa.Professor Lane is an author, lecturer and broadcaster who has received major awards including being named a Guggenheim Fellow, and the Lucy Shoe Meritt Resident in Classical Studies at the American Academy in Rome. She has published widely in journals and authored or introduced nine major books including Greek and Roman Political Ideas; Eco-Republic; and most recently, Of Rule and Office: Plato’s Ideas of the Political, which was awarded the 2024 Book Prize of the Journal of the History of Philosophy.Professor Lane is the only person ever to have delivered both the Carlyle Lectures and the Isaiah Berlin Lectures at the University of Oxford.The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/plato-polybiusGresham College has offered free public lectures for over 400 years, thanks to the generosity of our supporters. There are currently over 2,500 lectures free to access. We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to learn from some of the greatest minds. To support Gresham's mission, please consider making a donation: https://gresham.ac.uk/support/Website: https://gresham.ac.ukTwitter: https://twitter.com/greshamcollegeFacebook: https://facebook.com/greshamcollegeInstagram: https://instagram.com/greshamcollege Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
More from Gresham College
Bach's Art of Fugue, Mozart's Requiem, Schubert's Symphony No. 8, Alban Berg's opera Lulu, and Elgar's 3rd Symphony are all pieces that are famously incomplete. Uploaded 10-06-26This lecture examines the fascination surrounding works that are left unfinished at their composers' deaths. It also looks at the urge that certain of us have to complete these uncompleted works, however unwisely and however unbidden. 'Don't let anyone tinker with it', said Elgar; but several have anyway, and with thought-provoking results.A lecture by Jeremy Summerly 6 FebruaryThe transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/unfinished-musicGresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 2,000 lectures free to access or download from the website.Website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk Twitter: http://twitter.com/GreshamCollege Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/greshamcollege Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/greshamcollege Support the show (https://www.gresham.ac.uk/get-involved/support-us/make-donation/one-donation) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The Efficient Market Hypothesis argues that stock markets are rational - they take into account all relevant information, and incorporate it in an unbiased way. Uploaded 11-06-26This talk will present evidence that stock prices are instead driven by human psychology. The market overreacts to some types of information yet underreacts to others; it is driven by emotions rather than purely economic fundamentals. The lecture gives profitable trading strategies that investors can use to exploit these biases.A lecture by Alex Edmans 22 SeptemberThe transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/market-psychologyGresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 2,000 lectures free to access or download from the website.Website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk Twitter: http://twitter.com/GreshamCollege Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/greshamcollege Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/greshamcollege Support the show (https://www.gresham.ac.uk/get-involved/support-us/make-donation/one-donation) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
00:00 // Introduction: Why Pluto Isn't a PlanetUploaded 10-07-2603:28 // Discovery of Uranus and a Mysterious Orbit05:49 // How Neptune Was Found Through Math08:16 // Percival Lowell's Hunt for "Planet X"09:49 // Clyde Tombaugh Discovers Pluto (1930)14:09 // A Brief History of Counting the Planets18:02 // Pluto's Odd Orbit Raises Early Doubts22:21 // The Kuiper Belt Theory Takes Shape26:09 // Discovering Pluto's Moon, Charon30:12 // Eris and the Rise of the Trans-Neptunian Objects34:27 // The IAU's Chaotic 2006 Vote42:43 // New Horizons: Pluto Up Close at Last47:38 // The Verdict — Why Pluto Isn't a PlanetWatch the Q and A session here: https://youtu.be/k73e3lnz3pgIn 2006, the International Astronomical Union adopted a definition of a planet that demoted Pluto to just one of what is likely hundreds of dwarf planets in our Solar System. Exploring the remote Kuiper Belt, this lecture challenges us to think about what kinds of scientific questions are worth our attention, what it means to name something – and why Pluto is worth caring about anyway.This lecture was recorded by Chris Lintott on the 3rd of June 2026Professor Chris Lintott is a Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Oxford, and a Research Fellow at New College.Having been educated at Magdalene College, Cambridge and University College London, his research now ranges from understanding how galaxies form and evolve, to using machine learning to find the most unusual things in the Universe, to predicting the properties of visiting interstellar asteroids. He was the founder of the Zooniverse citizen science platform, which provides opportunities for more than two million online volunteers to contribute to scientific research, and which was the topic of his first book, 'The Crowd and the Cosmos’. His latest book is ‘Our Accidental Universe’. Professor Lintott is best known for presenting the BBC's long-running Sky at Night program, and as an accomplished lecturer. Away from work, he cooks, suffers through being a fan of Torquay United and Somerset cricket, and spends time with a rescued lurcher, Mr Max. He can often be found at the helm of Oxford’s science comedy night, ‘Huh, That’s Funny’.The transcript of the lecture is available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/pluto-planetGresham College has offered free public lectures for over 400 years, thanks to the generosity of our supporters. There are currently over 2,500 lectures free to access. We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to learn from some of the greatest minds. To support Gresham College's mission, please consider making a donation: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/get-involved/support-us/make-donation/donate-today Website: https://gresham.ac.ukX: https://x.com/GreshamCollegeFacebook: https://facebook.com/greshamcollegeInstagram: https://instagram.com/greshamcollegeBluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/greshamcollege.bsky.social TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@greshamcollegeSupport Us: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/get-involved/support-us/make-donation/donate-today Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
This final lecture will celebrate some of the great mathematical equations, and related algorithms, which have both changed the world as we know it and which are likely to change it in the future. Uploaded 11-06-26The lecture will focus on a number of equations and algorithms including Laplace's Equation, the Navier-Stokes Equations, Schrödinger's equation, the Kalman Filter, the FFT, the Page Rank Algorithm, the Simplex method and the Conjugate Gradient Method, all of which are making a profound difference to the way that we live. Truly, mathematical equations can change the world!A lecture by Chris Budd 28 AprilThe transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/world-changing-equationsGresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 2,000 lectures free to access or download from the website.Website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk Twitter: http://twitter.com/GreshamCollege Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/greshamcollege Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/greshamcollege Support the show (https://www.gresham.ac.uk/get-involved/support-us/make-donation/one-donation) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
When the English nation rose out of the ruins of the Roman Province of Britannia, people remained obsessed with their Roman past. Seismic social and political change in 1066 barely upset the vision of patrons and architects and Rome remained England's cultural capital driving the imagination of its architects.Uploaded 12-08-11This is a part if the series of lectures, 'God, Caesar and Robin Hood: How the Middle Ages were Built':The English Middle Ages saw the construction of some of the world's greatest buildings, structures that still shape our towns, cities and countryside and mould our national identity. These four lectures give a controversial new view of how medieval England was built starting with the departure of the Romans and ending with the Reformation.The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website:http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/making-england-the-shadow-of-rome-410-1130Gresham College has offered free public lectures for over 400 years, thanks to the generosity of our supporters. There are currently over 2,500 lectures free to access. We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to learn from some of the greatest minds. To support Gresham's mission, please consider making a donation: https://gresham.ac.uk/support/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices