Being Roman with Mary Beard7 Maj 2024

7. The Whistleblower

Beneath starched Shakespearean togas and the pungent fug of gladiator sweat there are real Romans waiting to be discovered. To know what it was to be Roman you need to gather the scattered clues until they form a living, breathing human, witness to the highs and horrors of Europe’s greatest empire.

Mary Beard, Britain’s best-selling historian of the ancient world, rebuilds the lives of six citizens of the Roman Empire, from a poet to a squaddie. Her investigations reveal death and deceit on the Nile and the art of running a Roman pub, but it’s the thoughts and feelings of individual Romans she’s really interested in.

It's 61CE. The rebellion of Boudicca has finally been quashed, but London and other Roman cities lie in ruins. A new finance officer for the province, Gaius Julius Classicianus arrives, to face an enormous recovery job. Standing in his way is the Governor, busy exacting terrible reprisals from the local population. Classicianus does what brave subordinates have done ever since. He whistle-blows – writing to the emperor to remove the Governor from British shores. The stage is set for an imperial face-off. For the people of Britain, the stakes could not be higher.

Producer: Alasdair Cross

Expert Contributors: Matthew Nicholls, University of Oxford and Michael Marshall, Museum of London Archaeology

Cast: Tacitus played by Robert Wilfort

Translations by Mary Beard

Special thanks to the British Museum

Det här avsnittet är hämtat från ett öppet RSS-flöde och publiceras inte av Podme. Det kan innehålla reklam.

Avsnitt(13)

12. The Wolf of Via Vesuvio

Lucius Caecilius Iucundus kept the economic wheels of Pompeii well greased. He was a middle man doing very nicely- part money-lender, part auctioneer, part banker, all hustler. Thanks to the eruption...

11 Juni 202428min

11. Three Lovers and a Funeral

Allia Potestas is a woman remembered in one of the most intriguing and affecting funeral orations of the ancient world. Her lover remembers her diligent application to housework before praising to th...

4 Juni 202427min

10. A Bag of Snails and a Glass of Wine

An obscure carved stone dug up from a vineyard in southern Italy tells the story of a pair of publicans- the delightfully named Calidius Eroticus and Fannia Voluptas- and their bawdy adventures in the...

28 Maj 202428min

9. Soldiering for Softies

The image of the battle-hardened, well regimented Roman soldier has been set in stone by movies, novels and video games. The letters of Claudius Terentianus reveal something very different. A terrib...

21 Maj 202428min

8. Death on the Nile

Julia Balbilla is an accomplished poet and close friend of the wife of one of Rome’s mightiest emperors. Hadrian loves to travel and takes Julia and an entourage of thousands on the ultimate elite tou...

7 Maj 202428min

6. Love in the Borderlands

At the very edge of Empire, inscribed on a beautifully carved tombstone, there’s a story of love across the tracks. On Hadrian’s Wall a slave girl from Hertfordshire and a lonely traveller from Syria...

8 Nov 202328min

5. Battling Bureaucrats

What does it take to run an Empire? Armies and slaves, of course, but also bureaucrats. At its height the Roman Empire employed thousands of men charged with keeping Rome and its provinces fed, wate...

8 Nov 202327min