Emily Hauser
Mythica

Sunday 28 June 2026, 2.00pm
Layer Marney Tower, Layer Marney, Near Colchester, Essex, CO5 9US

Award-winning classicist and historian, Emily Hauser, will take us on an epic journey to uncover the true story of the real women behind ancient Greece’s greatest legends – and the real heroes of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey.

In Mythica, Dr Emily Hauser tells, for the first time, the extraordinary stories of the real women behind some of the western world’s greatest legends. Following in their footsteps, digging into the history behind Homer’s epic poems, piecing together evidence from the original texts, recent astonishing archaeological finds and the latest DNA studies, she reveals who these women – queens, mothers, warriors, slaves – were, how they lived, and how history has (or has not – until now) remembered them.

‘Bold and intellectually thrilling . . . rigorous scholarship and dazzling feats of imagination.’

– Tom Holland, historian and co-host of The Rest is History podcast

Tickets: £14 (includes entrance to Layer Marney Tower and gardens)
Or all 3 events for £36
Box Office: essexbookfestival.org.uk or Mercury Theatre 01206 573948

The History Books Ticket Deal

Make an afternoon of it with our History Books ticket deal – £14 per event or all 3 events for £36
Discount automatically applied at checkout when tickets for all 3 events are booked:

12.00pm – Tony McMahon, Downfall of the Templars
2.00pm – Emily Hauser, Mythica
4.00pm – Jonathan Freedland, The Traitor’s Circle

The History Books at Layer Marney Tower, Sunday 28 June.

Event Information

💬 The event will include an audience Q&A session.
📚 Copies of the book will be available to purchase on the day.
🖊️ After the event there will be an opportunity to get the book signed by the author.
🪑 Seats are unallocated.
📸 We will be filming and taking photos at this event.
☕  Layer Marney Tower Tea Room will be open and serving drinks and light snacks.
🚗 There is free parking at the venue.
♿ The venue is wheelchair accessible. There are disabled facilities on site.

Emily Hauser

Photo of Emily Hauser © Faye Thomas

Dr Emily Hauser is an award-winning classicist and historian. She read Classics at Cambridge with Mary Beard, where she received a double first with distinction and won the prestigious Chancellor’s Medal for Classical Proficiency.

She has a PhD in Classics from Yale University, and was a Junior Fellow at the Society of Fellows at Harvard University. She is now Senior Lecturer in Classics and Ancient History at the University of Exeter, and teaches and researches on women’s writing, ancient and modern.

Mythica

Award-winning classicist and historian, Emily Hauser, takes readers on an epic journey to uncover the true story of the real women behind ancient Greece’s greatest legends – and the real heroes of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey.

Contrary to perceptions built up over three millennia, ancient history is not all about men – and it’s not only men’s stories that deserve to be told.

In Mythica, Dr Emily Hauser tells, for the first time, the extraordinary stories of the real women behind some of the western world’s greatest legends. Following in their footsteps, digging into the history behind Homer’s epic poems, piecing together evidence from the original texts, recent astonishing archaeological finds and the latest DNA studies, she reveals who these women – queens, mothers, warriors, slaves – were, how they lived, and how history has (or has not – until now) remembered them.

A riveting new history of the Bronze Age Aegean and a journey through Homer’s epics charted entirely by women – from Helen of Troy, Briseis, Cassandra and Aphrodite to Circe, Athena, Hera, Calypso and Penelope – Mythica is a ground-breaking reassessment of the reality behind the often-mythologized women of Greece’s greatest epics, and of the ancient world itself as we learn ever more about it.

Order a copy of the book from bookshop.org.

Photo of Layer Marney Tower © Red Carpet Video