The Romans Triple DVD Box Set Presented by Mary Beard - Caligula, Pompeii Life & Death in a Roman Town & Meet the Romans BBC2

CALIGULA Two thousand years ago one of history s most notorious individuals was born. Historian Mary Beard embarks on an investigative journey to explore the life and times of Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus better known to us as Caligula. Known as Romes most capricious tyrant, he was said to have made his horse a consul, procled himself a living God, and indulged in scandalous orgies and thats before building vast bridges across land and sea, prostituting senators wives and killing half the Roman elite on a whim. All that in just four short years in power, before a violent and speedy assassination at just 28 years old. Mary explores the real Caligula in an array of unexpected places. From Germany to Capri, from Rome to Lake Nemi, she exposes and analyses historical accounts and assembles tantalising fragments of evidence. Mary reveals an astonishing story of murder, intrigue and dynastic family power. Above all, shell explain why Caligula has ended up with such a reputation and, in the process, reveal a more intriguing portrait of not just the monster, but the man.POMPEII LIFE & DEATH IN A ROMAN TOWN Pompeii: one of the most famous volcanic eruptions in history. We know how its victims died, but this film sets out to answer another question - how did they live? Gleaning evidence from an extraordinary find, Cambridge professor and Pompeii expert Mary Beard provides new in into the lives of the people who lived in the shadow of Vesuvius before its cataclysmic eruption. In a dark cellar in Oplontis, just three miles from the centre of Pompeii, 54 skeletons who didn't succumb to the torrent of volcanic ash are about to be put under the micro. The remains will be submitted to a barrage of tests that will unlock one of the most comprehensive scientific snaps of Pompeian life ever produced - and there are some big surprises in store. Using the latest forensic techniques it is now possible to determine what those who perished in the disaster ate and drank, where they came from, what diseases they suffered, how rich they were, and perhaps, even more astonishingly, the details of their sex lives. The way the remains were found in the cellar already provides an invaluable clue about the lives of the people they belonged to. On one side of the room were individuals buried with one of the most stunning hauls of gold, jewellery and coins ever found in Pompeii. On the other, were people buried with nothing. It looked the stark dividing line of a polarised ancient society: a room partitioned between super rich and abject poor. But on closer examination the skeletons reveal some surprises about life in Pompeii.MEET THE ROMANS We still live in the shadow of ancient Rome - a city at the heart of a vast empire that stretched from the North of England to Afghanistan, dominating the West for over 700 years. This fascinating history series, as seen on the BBC and presented by 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. Episode 1 Mary asks not what the Romans did for us, but what the empire did for Rome. She rides the Via Appia, climbs up to the top seats of the Colosseum, takes a boat to Rome's port Ostia and takes us into the bowels of Monte Testaccio. She also meets some extraordinary Romans: Baricha, Zabda and Achiba, three prisoners of war who became Roman citizens. In episode 2, Mary descends into the city streets to discover the dirt, crime, sex and slum conditions in the world's first high-rise city. This Rome is not the marble Rome we know, but a vast, messy metropolis with little urban planning, where most Romans lived in high-rise apartment blocks with little space, light, or even sanitation. In the final episode, Mary delves even deeper into ordinary Roman life by going behind the closed doors of their homes.

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