With Dr Eireann Marshall
Book the full series to receive 10% off all five lectures.
All too often our view of ancient Rome centres around great men and great events. Just as in antiquity, our narrative of Rome revolves around recounting the deeds and misdemeanours of the various colourful emperors who ruled Rome. Increasingly, however, it is accepted that the lives of Romans, both ordinary and rich, are even more captivating and shed light on what living in the city of Rome and its empire was really like. This series looks at the lives of people from different echelons to explore the challenges they faced, the entertainment they sought, as well as their daily routines. We will see that the wealth distribution in ancient Rome was such that the gulf separating ordinary people from elites was far more pronounced than it is today, as were the differences between the free and the enslaved, as well as the differences between the genders. It was a world experienced in entirely different ways according to one’s station and identity, one which was much more complex and cosmopolitan than is ordinarily understood. It is in grasping their lives that we can grasp what ancient Rome was really like.
