What did it really mean to live in Ancient Rome? Not as an emperor, but as an ordinary person navigating daily life? Classicist Mary Beard says that the truth would surprise us, challenging our myths about the empire.

Ancient Rome emerges as a complex, uneven, often uncomfortable prototype of globalization. Roads were designed for conquest more than convenience. Sex, trade, and culture operated under systems of inequality. And yet, across the Ancient Roman empire, ideas and identities moved faster than we might think.

00:12 How did ancient Rome connect continents?

03:06 What kind of ideas traveled along Roman roads?

06:10 Anchovy-stuffed mice or stone-stuffed bread?

11:05 What was sex like in ancient Rome? Is it as wild as the movies?

15:11 What were the Romans doing in terms of money and trade?

20:23 What about war and the military?

26:37 What can we learn from ancient Rome?

31:13 What drew you to study this particular period in history?

34:37 In the age of information, how should we record history?

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About Mary Beard:

Winifred Mary Beard, OBE, FBA, FSA is an English Classical scholar. She is Professor of Classics at the University of Cambridge, a fellow of Newnham College, and Royal Academy of Arts professor of ancient literature. She is also the classics editor of The Times Literary Supplement, and author of the blog, "A Don's Life," which appears in The Times as a regular column. Her frequent media appearances and sometimes controversial public statements have led to her being described as "Britain's best-known classicist.