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Instant Classics Podcast Transcripts

Vespucci · 95 episodes with transcripts

Join world-renowned classicist Mary Beard and Guardian chief culture writer Charlotte Higgins for Instant Classics — the weekly podcast that proves ancient history is still relevant. Ancient stories, modern twists… and no degree in Classics required.

Spoken has transcripts of 95 Instant Classics episodes, with the speakers named. The newest listed here is from October 8, 2026.

History

Every Instant Classics transcript in one script

95 episodes of Instant Classics have transcripts. Fetch them all as speaker-labeled Markdown in one script — 1 credit each, and re-fetching one you already have is free:

archive.sh
curl -s -H "x-api-key: YOUR_KEY" \
  https://spoken.md/podcasts/1831429397/episodes \
  | jq -r '.episodes[] | "\(.id) \(.title)"' \
  | while IFS=' ' read -r id title; do
      slug=$(echo "$title" | tr '[:upper:]' '[:lower:]' | tr -cs 'a-z0-9' '-' | sed 's/-*$//')
      [ -f "${id}-${slug}.md" ] && continue
      curl -sf -H "x-api-key: YOUR_KEY" \
        -o "${id}-${slug}.md" \
        https://spoken.md/transcripts/$id || rm -f "${id}-${slug}.md"
      sleep 0.34
    done

Already-saved files are skipped — safe to re-run after a top-up.

100 credits — the smallest pack, and more than the 95 you need. Credits never expire. Excludes VAT, added at checkout for EU customers.

Latest Instant Classics transcripts

What did Roman emperors really look like?

October 8, 2026

Mary Beard (0:01)

I'm Mary Beard.

Charlotte Higgins (0:02)

And I'm Charlotte Higgins.

Mary Beard (0:04)

Welcome to Exploring the Odyssey.

Keep reading this transcript

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Any Instant Classics episode comes back as Markdown with the speakers named, one credit each.

request
curl -H "x-api-key: YOUR_KEY" \
  https://spoken.md/transcripts/1000793803584

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