Being Roman with Mary Beard
by BBC Radio 4
Beneath the starched togas and the pungent fug of gladiator sweat there are real Romans waiting to be discovered. Mary Beard uncovers fascinating untold stories from the Empire.
Copyright: (C) BBC 2024
Episodes
7. The Whistleblower
28m · PublishedBeneath 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
8. Death on the Nile
28m · PublishedJulia 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 tourist trip- a leisurely Nile cruise to the Great Pyramid of Giza and the Colossus of Memnon, a statue that will sing for anyone blessed by the gods. Julia inscribes her poems on the giant foot of the statue, praising the power of Hadrian and the beauty of his wife, Sabina.
It’s a charming scene, darkened only by the fact that Hadrian’s male lover, Antinous has only just drowned in the Nile. Was he murdered by jealous rivals, killed in a lover’s tiff or did he drunkenly slip from the deck? Hadrian is publicly bereft, founding a new city in the name of Antinous, but seems happy to continue his luxury cruise. Mary Beard hops aboard Ancient Rome's most intriguing cruise with historian T. Corey Brennan and archaeologist Elizabeth Fentress.
Producer: Alasdair Cross
Expert Contributors: Corey Brennan, Rutgers University and Lisa Fentress
Cast: Julia Balbilla played by Juliana Lisk
Special thanks to Andrea Bruciati, Villa Adriana
6: Love in the Borderlands
28m · Published5: Battling Bureaucrats
27m · Published4: What We Lost in the Fire
27m · Published3: Rome's Got Talent
28m · Published2: The Vengeance of Turia
27m · Published1: Loving An Emperor
28m · PublishedWelcome to Being Roman with Mary Beard
2m · PublishedBeing Roman with Mary Beard has 9 episodes in total of non- explicit content. Total playtime is 3:46:42. The language of the podcast is English. This podcast has been added on November 12th 2023. It might contain more episodes than the ones shown here. It was last updated on May 17th, 2024 18:40.