Innehållsförteckning för Romans från History Extra

Matt Elton Your book Emperor of Rome covers a swathe of the history of ancient Rome, from Julius Caesar to Septimius Severus and beyond, but starts by introducing a less familiar figure. Who is he, and why did you lead with him? Mary Beard The book kicks off with the story of a teenager from Syria who came to the Roman throne in AD 218 and who was assassinated in 222. Known as Elagabalus [officially Marcus Aurelius Antoninus], he certainly wasn't one of Rome's greatest hits, but he is an emperor around whom the most extravagant stories have collected. If you think Nero or Caligula were over the top, you ain't seen nothing until you've looked at Elagabalus! We're told that when he invited people to dinner, he showered them…

PLINY ON… THE LAW COURTS The silver-tongued lawyer who talked his way to the top Pliny the Younger's career took off shortly after the tragedy of Vesuvius. Pliny, his mother and celebrated uncle Pliny the Elder were in the Bay of Naples when the volcano erupted. His uncle tragically died after trying to save civilians, whereas Pliny stayed behind with his mother. Within months of his brush with death he was in Rome, embarking upon a legal career in the ‘Centumviral Court (of 100 men)’. This was a system arranged over four tribunals, where the 100 (or, more often, 180) men would gather in a basilica in the Roman Forum to deliberate over civil cases. Pliny spoke before them for the prosecution or defence, and settled disputes over wills. Pliny…

THE PRIM POWER BROKER Livia 58 BC-AD 29 Livia (58 BC-AD 29) somehow pulled off the trick of being enormously powerful while posing as the model of Roman female propriety. Augustus's empress once chanced upon some innocent naked men, who were instantly condemned to death as a result. According to historian Cassius Dio, she saved them by primly announcing that “to a chaste woman of restraint naked men are of no more significance than statues”. Tacitus believed Livia was determined to see her son Tiberius succeed Augustus, whatever the price, and blamed her for murdering any rivals. THE DYNASTIC TOOL Octavia 69–11 BC Poor tragic Octavia (69–11 BC). Used by her brother Augustus as a dynastic tool, she was expected to produce heirs and live up to the exacting moralising…

Mary Beard is honorary fellow at Newnham College, University of Cambridge, and an author and broadcaster. Her TV series include BBC Two's Meet the Romans, and her books include Emperor of Rome (Profile, 2023) and SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome (Profile, 2015). Guy de la Bédoyère is a historian and broadcaster specialising in ancient Rome. His books include Domina: The Women who Made Imperial Rome (Yale University Press, 2018) and Populus: Living and Dying in Ancient Rome (University of Chicago Press, 2024). Ken Dark is an archaeologist, historian and professor at King's College London. His books include Britain and the End of the Roman Empire (The History Press, 2002). Daisy Dunn is a writer and classicist. Her books include The Missing Thread: A New History of the Ancient World…

23 September 63 BC Augustus is born with the name Caius Octavius. His father is a member of the country gentry and the first in the family to enter the Senate at Rome. His mother is Julius Caesar's niece. Despite this, there is no reason to expect him to have an exceptional career. 15 March 44 BC On the day Julius Caesar is murdered, Augustus is in Greece, receiving military training ahead of the dictator's planned invasion of Parthia. A few days later, it emerges that Caesar has nominated Augustus as his principal heir. 43 BC Having raised a private army and helped the Senate defeat his great rival Antony, Augustus leads his army back to Rome and demands to be elected consul. Soon afterwards, he joins Antony and Lepidus…

In late August 54 BC, Cicero, the celebrated Roman lawyer, was on the edge of his seat. His brother Quintus, commander of the XIV Legion, was with Julius Caesar on his second invasion of Britain. As Quintus's letters arrived, taking about four weeks to reach Cicero in Rome, tales unfolded of the ocean, the tribes and settlements of the Britons, the battles, and the brilliance of Caesar's leadership. Cicero gushed at the romance and glamour. “Oh, what a delightful letter was yours to me about Britain! I dreaded the ocean, I dreaded the coast of that island… what battles you have to write about!” Nothing could better illustrate one of Caesar's main reasons for being in Britain at all. Invading this little known and remote island was a brilliant publicity…

Ancient Rome after dark was a dangerous place. Most of us can easily imagine the bright shining marble spaces of the imperial city on a sunny day – that's usually what movies and novels show us, not to mention the history books. But what happened when night fell? More to the point, what happened for the vast majority of the population of Rome, who lived in the over-crowded high-rise garrets, not in the spacious mansions of the rich? Remember that, by the first century BC, the time of Julius Caesar, ancient Rome was a city of a million inhabitants – rich and poor, slaves and ex-slaves, free and foreign. It was the world's first multicultural metropolis, complete with slums, multiple-occupancy tenements and sink estates – all of which we tend…

THE ICONIC GENERAL Tiberius 42 BC–AD 37, emperor from AD 14 His mother's marriage to Augustus won Tiberius a place at the heart of the new imperial dynasty. Though an accomplished general, he was unpopular with the masses, and his respect for republican traditions ensured he was never entirely comfortable as emperor. His retirement to Capri in AD 27 fuelled salacious rumours, but by maintaining peace he won respect in the provinces. THE ABLE RULER Claudius 10 BC–AD 54, emperor from AD 41 The nephew of Tiberius was prone to twitching and stammering, which hindered his political progress. He became Caesar when his nephew Caligula was murdered. Though widely despised as being under the thumb of women and freedmen, he proved an effective emperor, invading Britain and commissioning a new…

THE ICONIC GENERAL Caius Julius Caesar 100–44 BC Caesar was Augustus's great-uncle and joined in an informal alliance with Pompey and Crassus, the two most important men in the state. In 49 BC Pompey and Caesar became rivals when the latter crossed the Rubicon and began a new civil war. Caesar won, and copied Sulla by using the dictatorship as the basis of his power. When this was made permanent he was murdered by conspirators, including Brutus and Cassius. THE BON VIVANT Nero AD 37–68, emperor from AD 54 Nero was the last of the four members of Augustus's extended family to rule. A teenager when he came to power, he was fonder of luxury and performance than government. Yet his ability to remain in power for 14 years testified…

On a spring morning in AD 235, a column of dust on the horizon signalled the approach of Maximinus Thrax's mutinous troops. On the parade ground in what is now Mainz in Germany, the young emperor Alexander Severus begged his soldiers to fight for him against these rebels. In spite of their promises, renewed the day before, the troops refused to take up arms. They shouted various complaints: against the cowardice of the emperor's commanders and household, against the rapacity and miserliness of his mother. When the rebels came into sight, they called out, urging their comrades in arms to abandon the “timid little boy tied to his mother's apron strings”. Terrified out of his wits, Alexander fled for his imperial tent. There, waiting for his executioners, the 26-year-old emperor…

Matt Elton What do the founding myths of Rome tell us about the Romans? Mary Beard As myths – and they are myths – they are important in the ways in which they were invented, massaged, retold and debated in Roman history. They tell us huge amounts about how the Romans thought about themselves and where they came from. The Romulus and Remus story tells of two babies, royal twins ousted by their great-uncle, found and suckled by a wolf then brought up by an honest shepherd. As men, they returned to found the city of Rome – and then Romulus murdered his brother. How Romans saw this story tells us a great deal about the way they perceived themselves. Civil war and fratricide were embedded in their history; they…

“What business has a woman with a public meeting?” asked writer Valerius Maximus in the early first century AD. He answered his own question: “None – if ancestral customs are observed.” Yet this was a time when Roman women were taking more power than ever before – by the back door. Of all the Roman imperial dynasties, the Julio-Claudian was the first and the longest, lasting from 27 BC to AD 68. It was ruled over by five male emperors, but a little known fact is that the bloodline was passed down the female line. And that female line contained some of the most dominant of all Romans – women without whom the dynasty could scarcely have existed. The emperors Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius and Nero may have wielded absolute…