Being Roman with Mary Beard

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From a slave to an emperor, Mary Beard reveals the real people of the Roman Empire.

Beneath the starched togas and the pungent fug of gladiator sweat there are real Romans waiting to be discovered. Mary Beard uncovers fascinating untold stories from the Empire.

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Being Roman with Mary Beard: 2. The Vengeance of Turia

6: Love in the Borderlands

2. The Vengeance of Turia

BBC Radio 4 - Being Roman with Mary Beard, 2. The Vengeance of Turia

Meet Turia, a young woman fighting for her family in the chaos of a brutal civil war.

Beneath starched togas and the fug of gladiator sweat there are real Romans waiting to be discovered. Mary Beard meets a woman fighting for her family in a vicious civil war.

Beneath starched Shakespearean togas and the pungent fug of gladiator sweat there are real Romans waiting to be discovered. To know what it was to be Roman you need to gather the scattered clues until they form a living, breathing human, witness to the highs and horrors of Europe’s greatest empire.  

Mary Beard, Britain’s best-selling historian of the ancient world, rebuilds the lives of six citizens of the Roman Empire, from a slave to an emperor.  Her investigations reveal the stressful reality of Roman childhood, the rights of women and rules of migration, but it’s the thoughts and feelings of individual Romans she’s really interested in.

In the second episode we meet a woman caught up in a brutal civil war. Turia’s story starts with the murder of her parents.  She tracks down their killers and fights off scavenging relatives desperate for a piece of her inheritance.  Before she has a moment to settle her new husband is forced on the run, fleeing the murderous junta that’s taken over the empire after the murder of Julius Caesar.  She’s badly beaten by the leadership's thugs as she pleads her husband’s case, but will her sacrifices ensure his safety?  

Producer: Alasdair Cross

Expert Contributors: Greg Woolf, UCLA; Matthew Nicholls, Oxford University; Helen King, Open University

Cast: Voice of Laudatio Turiae read by Don Gilet

Special thanks to the National Museum of Rome, Baths of Diocletian

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

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Being Roman with Mary Beard

2. The Vengeance of Turia

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