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Meet the Romans with Mary Beard

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Meet the Romans with Mary Beard: Episode 3: Behind Closed Doors

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Behind Closed Doors

Episode 3

Episode 3: Behind Closed Doors

BBC Two - Meet the Romans with Mary Beard, Behind Closed Doors

Mary Beard goes behind the closed doors of Roman homes to explore their family life.

Historical series looking at the Roman empire from the bottom up. Mary Beard goes behind the closed doors of Roman homes to explore their family life.

We still live in the shadow of ancient Rome - a city at the heart of a vast empire that stretched from Scotland to Afghanistan, dominating the West for over 700 years. Professor Mary Beard puts aside the stories of emperors and armies, guts and gore, to meet the real Romans living at the heart of it all. 

In this final episode, Mary 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. 

Mary uncovers their preserved beds, furniture and cradles, tries on Roman wedding rings and meets some eccentric wives like Glyconis, praised by her husband for liking a drink or two, and Allia Potestas, who lived in a Roman ménage a trois. 

Mary explores Roman parenting, childbirth and children, including Sulpicius Maximus, an 11-year-old schoolboy who was worked to death by his pushy parents, and Geminia Mater, a five-year-old tomboy. 

Finally, Mary paints a more nuanced picture of Roman slavery and asks why if it was such a brutal institution did many Romans choose to be buried with their servants - living cheek by jowl in death, as in life.

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Factual: History

Professor Mary Beard reveals the everyday people at the heart of the Roman Empire.

Professor Mary Beard looks beyond the stories of emperors, armies, guts and gore to meet the everyday people at the heart of ancient Rome's vast empire

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