Meet the Romans

Professor Mary Beard asks not what the Romans did for us, but what the Empire did for Rome? Mary rides the Via Appia, climbs up to the top seats of the Colosseum, takes a boat to Rome's port Ostia and takes us into the bowels of Monte Testaccio. She also meets some extraordinary Romans.

Professor Mary Beard descends into the city streets to discover the dirt, crime, sex and slum conditions in the world's first high-rise city. This Rome is not the marble Rome we know, but a vast, messy metropolis with little urban planning, where most Romans lived in high-rise apartment blocks with little space, light, or even sanitation.

Mary Beard delves even deeper into ordinary Roman life by going behind the closed doors of their homes. She meets an extraordinary cast of characters, drunken housewives, teenage brides, bullied children and runaway slaves, and paints a more dynamic, lusty picture of Roman family life.