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BBC Sounds.

1:20

Music, radio, podcasts. To

1:25

know what it means to be Roman, you

1:28

need to look beyond the sweating gladiators and

1:31

the stark Shakespearean togas. There

1:34

are fresh stories to be told, and other

1:37

lives we can piece together from

1:39

scattered clues and new discoveries.

1:43

I'm Mary Beard, and I study and

1:45

write about the ancient world. In

1:48

Being Roman, a new podcast

1:50

from BBC Radio 4, I'm

1:53

telling the stories of six intriguing

1:55

people who lived

1:57

at the height of Rome's imperial

1:59

power. From a slave

2:02

to an emperor, their stories

2:04

reveal different sides of Roman life.

2:07

Their attitudes to slavery, migration

2:10

and childhood, to fertility

2:12

and the rights of women. But

2:15

it's their thoughts and feelings of individual

2:17

people that I'm really interested

2:20

in. Farewell,

2:20

my Fronto, wherever

2:22

you are, most sweet,

2:24

my loved, my de right, how

2:26

do I fare with you? I love you.

2:28

Though you're not here. You know, in a sense it's turning

2:31

the image of the emperor upside down

2:33

for us. We'll meet a boy poet

2:36

performing for the emperor, a doctor

2:38

learning his trade in the gladiatorial arena,

2:41

a Syrian migrant on Hadrian's Wall,

2:44

and a young bride caught up

2:47

in the bloody chaos of civil war.

2:49

Outside

2:51

the law they are put to death in their

2:53

homes, in alleyways, in temples,

2:56

by soldiers, by slaves,

2:58

by personal enemies, dragged

3:01

out of their hiding places and hunted

3:03

down everywhere.

3:06

Historians of Rome can tell us the gory

3:09

details of the battles. They

3:11

can guide us through the complex political

3:13

manoeuvring of this vicious civil

3:15

war. But what did it actually

3:18

feel like to live through it? To

3:20

experience the danger and the

3:22

anarchy? On that we've

3:24

actually got a woman's story. The

3:27

name we know her by is Turia.

3:31

I'm standing right in front here

3:34

of a fragment of

3:36

a very long inscription,

3:39

two hundred lines or so originally,

3:42

which once decorated the tomb

3:45

of a woman who lived through that period,

3:48

and it seems to record, sort

3:50

of as a tomb decoration, the

3:53

words that her husband spoke about

3:55

her at her funeral, telling

3:58

her story, not just

3:59

of her suffering, there's plenty of that, but

4:02

also the way she took the initiative,

4:05

the kind of adventures that she had

4:06

during the period of civil war.

4:09

You became an orphan suddenly before

4:11

the day of our wedding, when both your

4:13

parents were murdered together in the solitude

4:15

of the countryside. It was mainly

4:17

due to your efforts that the death of your parents

4:20

was not left unavenged.

4:23

Turia is a tough cookie, and

4:25

she's going to need all her powers of resilience

4:28

in the months to come, because with

4:30

her parents dead, a swarm of

4:33

greedy relatives arrives to take

4:35

a bite out of her inheritance.

4:37

You were put under pressure to agree that the will

4:39

which made us the heirs should be declared

4:42

invalid because of the particular marriage

4:44

agreement your father had made with your mother.

4:46

She managed to bat away the legal claims

4:49

of her relatives and secure her cash, but

4:51

if Turia was then looking forward to a comfortable

4:54

future with her politically connected

4:56

new husband,

4:57

she was wrong.

4:59

As the civil war flared up around

5:01

them, he chose the wrong side and

5:04

was forced to flee from Rome.

5:07

You provided the most generous resources

5:09

for my exile. You made your jewellery

5:11

over to me when you stripped your body of

5:13

all its gold and pearls and gave them to me.

5:16

Then you enriched me while I was away

5:19

with slaves, cash and supplies,

5:21

cleverly getting around the guards posted by

5:24

our enemies.

5:25

Turia's husband was on the run in fear

5:28

of his life, while the three-man junta

5:30

ruling Rome jostled for supreme

5:32

power, that's Mark Antony,

5:35

Lepidus and Octavian, who's

5:38

confusingly also known as Augustus,

5:41

the name he took later when he became

5:43

emperor. Turia was

5:45

determined to save her husband, and

5:47

it looks as if Octavian had agreed

5:50

that he could return to Rome, but Lepidus

5:53

was resisting. So what she

5:55

did, according to the inscription, was

5:57

march up and challenge Lepidus.

6:00

directly to his face.

6:10

Turia's

6:35

brave? She is forthright?

6:38

She tracks down murderers and stands

6:40

up to thieves

6:41

and bullies.

6:43

But before we get too carried away and

6:46

raise her up as some sort of Roman

6:48

mashup of Joan of Arc and Nancy

6:51

Drew, we ought to take a step

6:53

back. The story is not

6:55

told in her words. This isn't

6:58

an unvarnished female perspective.

7:01

These are the words of her husband spoken

7:04

at her funeral. There

7:06

is something about the pride

7:09

of the husband who's written this eulogy

7:12

that comes out here. You know, she

7:14

would go to the ends of the earth for me

7:16

is what he's saying. She wanted to save

7:19

me. She gave me her goat

7:21

and her jewel. She sold her stuff for

7:23

me and then she biffed her life for

7:25

me. That's how loyal my

7:27

wife was. I'm always

7:30

tempted a little bit to

7:32

see an element of male

7:35

boasting glimpsed

7:37

through the praise that he gives

7:39

her.

7:40

You get the sense that

7:42

her virtues reflect well

7:45

on him. This is a monument

7:47

put up in public, an enormous

7:50

expense. This is not

7:52

just a large funeral monument. This

7:54

is the biggest private inscription

7:57

in

7:58

terms of length.

7:59

anywhere at home, and he's

8:02

partly calling

8:03

attention to his own devotion

8:06

and to his own proper behavior

8:09

as a husband. And I think

8:11

there's a sense in which the lengths

8:13

that Turia went to save

8:15

him actually reflect

8:17

well on him. Our marriage was so

8:20

strong. Our love was so strong.

8:22

I was such a worthy person that

8:25

she did all this for me.

8:28

To hear the rest of the story of Turia

8:31

and the rest of my series

8:32

on the people of the Empire, now

8:34

search for Being Roman in BBC

8:37

News.

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But what if you could be saving money by switching to Progressive?

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Drivers who save by switching save nearly $750 on

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average, and auto customers qualify

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savings of $744 by new customers surveyed

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