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15 Minute Drama: How to Survive the Roman Empire, by Pliny and Me

Kieran Hodgson

Nigel Barrett

Joanna Scanlan

Mia Soteriou

Matthew Gravelle

Kate McAll

Hattie Naylor

15 Minute Drama: How to Survive the Roman Empire, by Pliny and Me: Episode 1

How to Survive the Roman Empire, by Pliny and Me

Episode 1

BBC Radio 4 - 15 Minute Drama, How to Survive the Roman Empire, by Pliny and Me, Episode 1

A day at the baths in Rome has a surprising ending for Pliny.

Pliny, his mother Marcella and his slave Venta spend the day indulging in the pleasures of Rome - shopping and bathing. By Hattie Naylor.

Captured in Wales during the Roman conquest of Britain, Venta is now a slave in the household of Pliny the Younger, a wealthy lawyer who lives in a magnificent villa just outside Rome. As servitude goes, things could be worse. Pliny is a kind, if tetchy, master and uses Venta mainly as a scribe. His mistress, Pliny's mother, thinks of him as her 'bedroom attendant'. Recently Venta had a lucky escape when he was forced to fight in the Colosseum and survived to tell the tale. Unfortunately, he was given no choice but to kill Calvin, lover of Doris the cook, who now won't speak to him. 

Depressed by the decline in the standard of Doris's cooking following Calvin's death, the family spend the day in Rome, shopping for bargains in the market, followed by sheer indulgence at the Baths. But the outing ends with a surprising turn of events for Pliny. By Hattie Naylor, based on real events in first century Rome.

Pliny the Younger . . . Kieran Hodgson
Venta . . . Nigel Barrett
Marcella . . . Joanna Scanlan
Doris . . . Mia Soteriou
Hawker . . . Matthew Gravelle

Music composed and performed by Pete Flood (percussion) with Laura Cannell (recorder, crumhorn), Rhodri Davies (Harp) and Paul Sartin (Oboe, Cor Anglais)

A BBC/Cymru Wales production, directed by Kate McAll.

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Third series of Hattie Naylor's drama, based on real events in Rome in the 1st century AD.

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How to Survive the Roman Empire, by Pliny and Me

Episode 1

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