0:00:08 > 0:00:09This is the Appian Way,
0:00:09 > 0:00:12one of the roads that took thousands of Romans
0:00:12 > 0:00:14in and out of their capital city every day.
0:00:16 > 0:00:19Young and old, rich and poor, clean and dirty.
0:00:22 > 0:00:24And it's where I want to start,
0:00:24 > 0:00:28asking a question that really interests me.
0:00:28 > 0:00:30Who were the ancient Romans?
0:00:31 > 0:00:37Outside the city, it was lined with thousands and thousands of tombs,
0:00:37 > 0:00:41so before you got into the city of Rome, you'd already met the Romans.
0:00:41 > 0:00:43Dead ones, that is.
0:00:46 > 0:00:51And the lives of many of them began or ended a long way from Rome.
0:00:51 > 0:00:56This is just a tiny fragment of someone's tomb.
0:00:56 > 0:00:59Someone called Eschinus.
0:00:59 > 0:01:03"Occisus est in Lusitania".
0:01:03 > 0:01:06He was murdered in Spain.
0:01:08 > 0:01:11This lady's Usia Prima,
0:01:11 > 0:01:14a priestess of the Egyptian goddess Isis,
0:01:14 > 0:01:17and there's her little sacred rattle.
0:01:17 > 0:01:19She's almost looking at you.
0:01:19 > 0:01:23I feel like saying, "Pleased to meet you, Prima."
0:01:26 > 0:01:31They come from every walk of life and every part of the Empire,
0:01:31 > 0:01:33and a lot of them had once been slaves.
0:01:33 > 0:01:36These aren't the kind of guys we usually think of
0:01:36 > 0:01:38when we think of Romans.
0:01:44 > 0:01:47These Romans all lived at the centre of a vast Empire
0:01:47 > 0:01:50that stretched from Spain to Syria,
0:01:50 > 0:01:54and which dominated the Western world for over 700 years.
0:01:57 > 0:02:01Like it or not, ancient Rome is still all around us,
0:02:01 > 0:02:05in our roads, laws and architecture.
0:02:05 > 0:02:08We keep on recreating it in film and fiction,
0:02:08 > 0:02:10and every year, thousands of us trek here
0:02:10 > 0:02:13to see its monuments up close,
0:02:13 > 0:02:15and to imagine the emperors and the armies,
0:02:15 > 0:02:18the gladiators, and let's be honest, the gore.
0:02:18 > 0:02:20But hidden all over the modern city,
0:02:20 > 0:02:23in its walls, behind the facades,
0:02:23 > 0:02:25even under its streets,
0:02:25 > 0:02:29is something much harder to find but just as captivating -
0:02:29 > 0:02:32the forgotten voices of the ordinary people.
0:02:32 > 0:02:34They're still there, if you know where to look.
0:02:36 > 0:02:40Calidius Eroticus means "Mr Hot Sex".
0:02:40 > 0:02:43This is a Roman menage a trois.
0:02:43 > 0:02:46This wasn't just a mugging.
0:02:46 > 0:02:48This was mass murder.
0:02:48 > 0:02:52The Romans didn't just carve their names and dates on their tombstones.
0:02:52 > 0:02:54Keen never to be forgotten,
0:02:54 > 0:02:56they left their thoughts,
0:02:56 > 0:03:01their achievements, even entire life stories chiselled into stone.
0:03:01 > 0:03:04It's a unique record of real Roman lives.
0:03:05 > 0:03:08I've spent most of my life with the ancient Romans,
0:03:08 > 0:03:12and not just the big guys - the emperors, the politicians,
0:03:12 > 0:03:15the generals, the posh ones.
0:03:15 > 0:03:18The people I've most enjoyed getting to know are the ordinary ones,
0:03:18 > 0:03:21who had their own part to play in the story
0:03:21 > 0:03:23of this extraordinary city.
0:03:23 > 0:03:26And what gets to me every time
0:03:26 > 0:03:29is that we can still have a conversation with them -
0:03:29 > 0:03:31even 2,000 years later.
0:03:31 > 0:03:35In this series, I'm going to get their voices speaking again,
0:03:35 > 0:03:39to piece together a very different story of life in ancient Rome.
0:03:39 > 0:03:42I'll step behind the doors of their homes to meet
0:03:42 > 0:03:45flesh and blood Roman families whose lives and possessions
0:03:45 > 0:03:49can reflect our own in surprising ways.
0:03:49 > 0:03:51This is something a bit special.
0:03:51 > 0:03:55She's not just Barbie, she's Empress Barbie.
0:03:56 > 0:03:59I'll go down into the streets, where the dirt, crime,
0:03:59 > 0:04:04sex and humour in everyday Roman life shows us
0:04:04 > 0:04:08what it was like to live in an ancient city of a million people.
0:04:08 > 0:04:13"Baths, wine and sex," he said, "ruin your body."
0:04:13 > 0:04:18True. But they're what makes life really worth living.
0:04:21 > 0:04:24But I'll start by telling the real story of Imperial Rome,
0:04:24 > 0:04:27looking beyond the violence and spectacle
0:04:27 > 0:04:30to find a global city which reached for talent and treasure
0:04:30 > 0:04:33from the far ends of the earth -
0:04:33 > 0:04:37a place where everything and everyone was from somewhere else.
0:04:37 > 0:04:39These are the Romans I'm interested in.
0:04:39 > 0:04:41Welcome to my Rome.
0:05:06 > 0:05:10When you arrived in Rome at its imperial height 2,000 years ago,
0:05:10 > 0:05:14you found yourself in a new kind of city.
0:05:14 > 0:05:17Rome had once been a small city-state,
0:05:17 > 0:05:19but in conquest after conquest,
0:05:19 > 0:05:22it became capital of a vast Empire,
0:05:22 > 0:05:25a place in which, for the first time in history,
0:05:25 > 0:05:29a million people from three continents managed to live together.
0:05:29 > 0:05:32One thing we know about Rome is it wasn't just a city,
0:05:32 > 0:05:34it was an Empire,
0:05:34 > 0:05:37and for us, that means marauding armies,
0:05:37 > 0:05:40conquering generals and bloodthirsty emperors.
0:05:40 > 0:05:44We tend not to think about the ordinary people
0:05:44 > 0:05:47who lived here at the very heart of it all.
0:05:47 > 0:05:53For them, the Empire brought them into contact with a whole world,
0:05:53 > 0:05:57from Scotland to Afghanistan,
0:05:57 > 0:06:01and it made this city a more cosmopolitan place
0:06:01 > 0:06:03than anywhere had ever been before or would be again
0:06:03 > 0:06:06for hundreds of years.
0:06:06 > 0:06:10And we're always asking, "What did the Romans do for us?"
0:06:10 > 0:06:12I think we should be asking,
0:06:12 > 0:06:15"What did the Empire do to the Romans?
0:06:15 > 0:06:18"And who were those Romans, anyway?"
0:06:18 > 0:06:23Around the city, there's more evidence than you'd think
0:06:23 > 0:06:25for the impact that Roman conquest had
0:06:25 > 0:06:27on the lives of ordinary people here.
0:06:27 > 0:06:32All it requires is that we look from a slightly different angle.
0:06:37 > 0:06:40One of the most famous monuments in the forum
0:06:40 > 0:06:44celebrates the moment when one conquering army came home.
0:06:47 > 0:06:50In 71 AD, the city got a day off
0:06:50 > 0:06:55for the triumphal return of the emperor Vespasian and his son Titus,
0:06:55 > 0:06:59who had crushed a rebellion in Judea.
0:07:00 > 0:07:03We've got here the victorious general, Titus,
0:07:03 > 0:07:06driving through the streets of Rome in his chariot
0:07:06 > 0:07:09to celebrate his victory...
0:07:11 > 0:07:12..and on the other side,
0:07:12 > 0:07:16we've got the booty that he's brought home with him.
0:07:16 > 0:07:20Titus had devastatingly conquered the Jews,
0:07:20 > 0:07:24and here we can see the loot that he has got from the Jewish temple.
0:07:24 > 0:07:26It's a grand display,
0:07:26 > 0:07:28but what I want to do is
0:07:28 > 0:07:31to try and undercut the pomposity of it a bit,
0:07:31 > 0:07:35and to ask what was it like for the people,
0:07:35 > 0:07:38the ordinary Romans who showed up to watch this,
0:07:38 > 0:07:42left their apartments and came to see the spectacle?
0:07:44 > 0:07:47A triumph like this would have been the first sight the Roman people had
0:07:47 > 0:07:53of all the things the armies brought back from their distant victories.
0:07:53 > 0:07:57The rich spoils, the maps of the conquered territory,
0:07:57 > 0:08:00the models of the fighting,
0:08:00 > 0:08:05even the trees that they'd uprooted and brought back to Rome.
0:08:05 > 0:08:08How did people react?
0:08:08 > 0:08:11Some must have gasped, others would have jeered the captives.
0:08:11 > 0:08:15Or maybe their minds were on other things.
0:08:15 > 0:08:18One Roman poet recommends the triumphal procession
0:08:18 > 0:08:21as a place to pick up a girl.
0:08:21 > 0:08:22How would you do it?
0:08:22 > 0:08:26Well, he says, watch the stuff go past, nudge up to her and say,
0:08:26 > 0:08:29"Ooh. I think that's the Euphrates there,
0:08:29 > 0:08:31"and that's the Tigris over there."
0:08:31 > 0:08:34You don't have to know, he says, you just have to sound confident.
0:08:34 > 0:08:38And then you'll make your own conquest!
0:08:39 > 0:08:41It's a good joke.
0:08:41 > 0:08:44But it also hints at the way Roman lives could be changed
0:08:44 > 0:08:47by the spoils coming back from the Empire.
0:08:47 > 0:08:50This girl can't have been the only person who found all this
0:08:50 > 0:08:54pretty strange, but also exciting.
0:08:57 > 0:09:00So what did the Roman armies bring back from the Empire?
0:09:02 > 0:09:04The import that made the biggest impact
0:09:04 > 0:09:08is one we don't think about often enough - human beings.
0:09:11 > 0:09:15These are forgotten people, but if we take the time to listen,
0:09:15 > 0:09:19we can still hear the voices of some of the millions
0:09:19 > 0:09:21who followed the Roman armies into the city
0:09:21 > 0:09:23for all sorts of different reasons.
0:09:27 > 0:09:31"This is for my brother, Habibi Annu from Palmyra.
0:09:31 > 0:09:34"I'm Germanus, Regulus' mule driver."
0:09:36 > 0:09:41"This is for Diocles, champion chariot racer from Spain."
0:09:41 > 0:09:43Here we've got a young slave girl, age 17,
0:09:43 > 0:09:46Phryne, the slave of Tertulla.
0:09:46 > 0:09:50"Africana". She came from Africa.
0:09:50 > 0:09:54This one is put up by a soldier for his wife Carnuntilla,
0:09:54 > 0:09:57born near Vienna in ancient Pannonia.
0:09:57 > 0:10:03What's weird is that Carnuntilla isn't really a real name.
0:10:03 > 0:10:08It comes from the name of a town in Pannonia, Carnuntum.
0:10:08 > 0:10:11It means, sort of, "my babe from Carnuntum".
0:10:11 > 0:10:14So my guess is,
0:10:14 > 0:10:18he perhaps bought this girl as a slave,
0:10:18 > 0:10:23he freed her, he brought her back to Rome, he married her.
0:10:24 > 0:10:30But sadly, his babe from Carnuntum died when she was just 19.
0:10:32 > 0:10:35Poignant stories like this are everywhere in the city.
0:10:35 > 0:10:38They're reminders of the different ways
0:10:38 > 0:10:41real lives could begin abroad and end in Rome.
0:10:42 > 0:10:44But there's more to it than that.
0:10:44 > 0:10:48These people weren't just brought in to serve the Romans.
0:10:48 > 0:10:50They were becoming Romans.
0:10:51 > 0:10:54One of the tombs on the Appian Way
0:10:54 > 0:10:57gives us the other side of the story of the Arch of Titus.
0:10:59 > 0:11:03It's a tombstone of three guys,
0:11:03 > 0:11:07one called Baricha, one called Zabda,
0:11:07 > 0:11:11and one called Achiba - typical Jewish names.
0:11:13 > 0:11:19So the question is, what's the story of Baricha, Zabda and Achiba?
0:11:19 > 0:11:20How did they get here?
0:11:20 > 0:11:22If they did start out life in Judea,
0:11:22 > 0:11:27how come they end up as Roman citizens in Rome?
0:11:27 > 0:11:30It's more surprising than you think.
0:11:30 > 0:11:33To judge from the letters and how they're written on this stone,
0:11:33 > 0:11:36this was carved in the first century AD,
0:11:36 > 0:11:40and at that point, we can put two and two together.
0:11:42 > 0:11:47I'm almost certain that these three men
0:11:47 > 0:11:51must have been part of the Jewish rebellion against the Romans
0:11:51 > 0:11:53in the late 60s AD.
0:11:53 > 0:11:56These men surely came into Rome with Titus' army,
0:11:56 > 0:11:59as prisoners of war.
0:12:00 > 0:12:04It must have seemed like the worst moment of their lives -
0:12:04 > 0:12:08jeered at, catcalls, people throwing things at them.
0:12:08 > 0:12:11But perhaps worse was to come.
0:12:11 > 0:12:14They were auctioned off as slaves
0:12:14 > 0:12:16and bought by a man called Lucius Valerius.
0:12:18 > 0:12:22What their life in slavery was like, we don't know, but he freed them,
0:12:22 > 0:12:26and they become new Roman citizens,
0:12:26 > 0:12:30with his name, Lucius Valerius,
0:12:30 > 0:12:32but their Jewish names
0:12:32 > 0:12:37still asserting their Jewish sense of identity.
0:12:37 > 0:12:40This is one of the ways that Roman conquest works.
0:12:40 > 0:12:43It does bring slaves, but it also brings,
0:12:43 > 0:12:46eventually, new Roman citizens.
0:12:51 > 0:12:53It's a fairy-tale happy ending,
0:12:53 > 0:12:55and a classic Roman story.
0:12:56 > 0:12:58When guys like this were freed,
0:12:58 > 0:13:01they didn't just go back to their old lives in Judea.
0:13:01 > 0:13:04They stayed in their new home, and what's more,
0:13:04 > 0:13:09they became Romans, with all the rights and privileges
0:13:09 > 0:13:13which came with full Roman citizenship.
0:13:13 > 0:13:16But what kept them in Rome? How many of them were there?
0:13:16 > 0:13:20And where did all these new Romans live?
0:13:20 > 0:13:22To try and make sense of it all,
0:13:22 > 0:13:26I went to meet a colleague in Trastevere, which literally means
0:13:26 > 0:13:29"across the Tiber from the ancient city centre".
0:13:29 > 0:13:34It's got a reputation as a bit of an immigrant area in Rome even now.
0:13:35 > 0:13:38This area, Trastevere, across the Tiber,
0:13:38 > 0:13:40was the fringe of the ancient city of Rome,
0:13:40 > 0:13:43and this is where we have the biggest evidence
0:13:43 > 0:13:47for immigrant communities - Jews, the Syrians.
0:13:47 > 0:13:50I guess if you said to an ancient Roman,
0:13:50 > 0:13:53"Where's the biggest immigrant area of the ancient city of Rome?"
0:13:53 > 0:13:56- They'd have said...- Over the river. - Over.- On the other side, yeah.
0:13:58 > 0:13:59Part of the answer to the question
0:13:59 > 0:14:03of why an area like this could be so cosmopolitan
0:14:03 > 0:14:08lies in the story of slaves like Baricha, Zabda and Achiba.
0:14:08 > 0:14:11Greeks thought Romans were really weird
0:14:11 > 0:14:13for freeing as many slaves as they did.
0:14:13 > 0:14:14- And making them citizens?- Yes.
0:14:14 > 0:14:16Although it's very brutal,
0:14:16 > 0:14:19being a slave can be a kind of stage in a life, like an apprenticeship.
0:14:19 > 0:14:22You come in as a German, you get a Roman name, you learn Latin,
0:14:22 > 0:14:23or you learn to manage in Latin,
0:14:23 > 0:14:26you learn some kind of job that's useful to your master,
0:14:26 > 0:14:28your master sets you free, and there you are -
0:14:28 > 0:14:31you're a Roman citizen with a trade and a Roman name
0:14:31 > 0:14:33and a bunch of powerful people you know.
0:14:33 > 0:14:35- Yeah.- This is your entry into Roman society.
0:14:35 > 0:14:42Now, multiply that by hundreds and thousands of slaves being freed,
0:14:42 > 0:14:46and you can see that the whole ethnic nature
0:14:46 > 0:14:49of the people who call themselves Roman citizens
0:14:49 > 0:14:52is really changing very quickly.
0:14:52 > 0:14:54Roman is a kind of vocation.
0:14:54 > 0:14:57It's a movement into which other people are drawn.
0:14:57 > 0:14:59This was a completely new idea.
0:14:59 > 0:15:02And, in many ways, the secret of the Empire's success.
0:15:02 > 0:15:08"Roman" was no longer a word which described the city you came from,
0:15:08 > 0:15:11it was something you could become.
0:15:11 > 0:15:14Almost everyone in Rome was descended from someone
0:15:14 > 0:15:17who arrived from outside.
0:15:17 > 0:15:20Not just ex-slaves.
0:15:20 > 0:15:23People coming in to work on the docks. Builders. Prostitutes.
0:15:23 > 0:15:25Peasants, who'd come into Rome
0:15:25 > 0:15:28because they think they can eat there cos they can't eat at home.
0:15:28 > 0:15:33So, this huge, chaotic mix of people who arrive not knowing anybody.
0:15:33 > 0:15:36These were journeys into the unknown,
0:15:36 > 0:15:39and into a place where there was no guarantee you would survive.
0:15:39 > 0:15:44And, oddly, that was one reason that Rome welcomed people in.
0:15:44 > 0:15:47Any city the size of Rome has to have immigration
0:15:47 > 0:15:49because the number of people who die in it
0:15:49 > 0:15:51greatly exceeds the number who are born.
0:15:51 > 0:15:54Rome's a malarial city, in antiquity.
0:15:54 > 0:15:58So people come here who don't have any immunity.
0:15:58 > 0:16:00They catch the disease. They're dead within years.
0:16:00 > 0:16:02So, just to keep Rome the size it is,
0:16:02 > 0:16:05it needs to constantly top up the population.
0:16:05 > 0:16:08Rome is swallowing people.
0:16:08 > 0:16:12It's a city which consumes people.
0:16:12 > 0:16:13It spews them out, dead.
0:16:15 > 0:16:19Perhaps we should stop thinking of Romans as a nation,
0:16:19 > 0:16:23a master race who conquered the world,
0:16:23 > 0:16:26and think instead of a Babel of rootless people,
0:16:26 > 0:16:28piled up together, a long way from home.
0:16:28 > 0:16:32And, no doubt, hoping for a brighter future.
0:16:32 > 0:16:37Because, for foreigners, Rome wasn't all doom and gloom.
0:16:37 > 0:16:40Sometimes, I guess, people would have come to Rome
0:16:40 > 0:16:44just to seek their fortunes.
0:16:44 > 0:16:47This is an epitaph, written in Greek,
0:16:47 > 0:16:52of a man who's said to have been always laughing,
0:16:52 > 0:16:55always having a joke and really good at music.
0:16:55 > 0:16:58He might have come as part of a band, I guess.
0:16:59 > 0:17:02And, actually,
0:17:02 > 0:17:05the stone tells us that he came,
0:17:05 > 0:17:09"To the land of Italy, ex-Asiaes".
0:17:09 > 0:17:12"From Asia".
0:17:12 > 0:17:14That's modern Turkey.
0:17:14 > 0:17:17It says he died here when he was young
0:17:17 > 0:17:20and it ends up saying,
0:17:20 > 0:17:23"toy noma Menopholos", in Greek.
0:17:23 > 0:17:27"Menopholos" is the name.
0:17:27 > 0:17:31Now, Rome might have consumed people.
0:17:31 > 0:17:33It might have been a dangerous place.
0:17:33 > 0:17:37It might have been disease-ridden and dirty,
0:17:37 > 0:17:40but I guess, to a man like Menopholos,
0:17:40 > 0:17:44the streets must have seemed paved with gold.
0:17:48 > 0:17:51And not all immigrants in Rome were at the bottom of the heap.
0:17:51 > 0:17:54The Senate and the Imperial Palace
0:17:54 > 0:17:56were full of people from outside,
0:17:56 > 0:17:59just like the streets of Trastevere.
0:17:59 > 0:18:04Rome was international, from the bottom to the very top.
0:18:08 > 0:18:11ACCORDION PLAYS
0:18:14 > 0:18:19Increasingly, this city belonged to the likes of Menopholos.
0:18:23 > 0:18:26As new people arrived,
0:18:26 > 0:18:29Rome's population doubled, then doubled again,
0:18:29 > 0:18:31till it reached over a million.
0:18:31 > 0:18:34There was nowhere in Europe bigger, until Victorian London.
0:18:36 > 0:18:40We think of Rome as a very old city.
0:18:41 > 0:18:44But, 2,000 years ago,
0:18:44 > 0:18:46this place was brand new.
0:18:48 > 0:18:51It must have been full of building sites,
0:18:51 > 0:18:54new high-rise, of temporary accommodation.
0:18:54 > 0:18:57It must have felt a bit like Dubai.
0:18:57 > 0:18:59But there's a big question.
0:19:00 > 0:19:04If you've got a mass of a million people, from everywhere,
0:19:04 > 0:19:07how do you keep them alive? How do you feed them?
0:19:07 > 0:19:11How do you keep the vast Roman multi-cultural show
0:19:11 > 0:19:14on the road?
0:19:14 > 0:19:19Feeding a million people was a completely unprecedented challenge.
0:19:22 > 0:19:24Bang in the centre of the modern city
0:19:24 > 0:19:27is a site which gives you an idea
0:19:27 > 0:19:31of the colossal scale of consumption in Ancient Rome.
0:19:34 > 0:19:37Locals call it Monte Testaccio.
0:19:37 > 0:19:40That's "broken pot mountain".
0:19:40 > 0:19:43I think it's one of the most extraordinary archaeological sites
0:19:43 > 0:19:46anywhere in the world.
0:19:46 > 0:19:49Phew! Made it.
0:19:51 > 0:19:53This is absolutely extraordinary.
0:19:55 > 0:19:58'Each of these fragments
0:19:58 > 0:20:01'was once part of an Ancient Roman storage jar.'
0:20:01 > 0:20:04What is amazing about this,
0:20:04 > 0:20:06is that you really see here
0:20:06 > 0:20:08that it is a broken pot mountain.
0:20:08 > 0:20:12There's no earth mixed in with the other stuff.
0:20:12 > 0:20:17So, you see how, actually quite neatly,
0:20:17 > 0:20:20these shards of pottery have been stacked.
0:20:20 > 0:20:24It's a mountain, not a heap.
0:20:24 > 0:20:26It's a real hill.
0:20:26 > 0:20:29But there's nothing natural about it.
0:20:29 > 0:20:31This is a huge, ancient rubbish dump,
0:20:31 > 0:20:35composed entirely of discarded containers -
0:20:35 > 0:20:40amphorae - that held just one of the products consumed by Rome.
0:20:41 > 0:20:44It was olive oil, which seeped into the jars,
0:20:44 > 0:20:47and made them go really rancid,
0:20:47 > 0:20:50so they were the only containers that couldn't be recycled.
0:20:50 > 0:20:54Poor old amphorae had taken off to be pick-axed up
0:20:54 > 0:20:56and made into the mountain.
0:20:56 > 0:20:59And the olive oil that was in them gets everywhere.
0:20:59 > 0:21:02It's the stuff of Roman life.
0:21:02 > 0:21:04You'd find it being used in cooking.
0:21:04 > 0:21:07It's what's going to help you make perfume.
0:21:07 > 0:21:09It's what the guys in the baths who are exercising,
0:21:09 > 0:21:14rubbing themselves, scraping themselves down, would have used.
0:21:14 > 0:21:17And in the end, it's what the poor little old lady in the garret,
0:21:17 > 0:21:21who has just got one pottery lamp...
0:21:21 > 0:21:26What came in this amphora would have been her only source of light,
0:21:26 > 0:21:28at night.
0:21:29 > 0:21:33It's no exaggeration to say that Rome ran on olive oil.
0:21:33 > 0:21:37This place gives archaeologists a great opportunity
0:21:37 > 0:21:40to work out how it got here.
0:21:40 > 0:21:43It came in massive quantities.
0:21:43 > 0:21:46This must have been what, originally...?
0:21:46 > 0:21:47Even larger.
0:21:47 > 0:21:49Even larger than that?
0:21:49 > 0:21:52- These are 30 kilos when they're empty.- Empty, yes.
0:21:52 > 0:21:55My suitcase, when it's full,
0:21:55 > 0:21:58is this amphora when it's empty.
0:21:58 > 0:22:00'And what's amazing is that you can often find out
0:22:00 > 0:22:03'exactly where the oil came from.'
0:22:03 > 0:22:07We know that it is "A-R-V-A".
0:22:07 > 0:22:10Arva is a town called this way
0:22:10 > 0:22:13in the shores of the Guadalquivir.
0:22:13 > 0:22:15So, that's linking that precise chart
0:22:15 > 0:22:18to a site in southern Spain.
0:22:18 > 0:22:21So, Roman town, southern Spain.
0:22:21 > 0:22:23The guy who is making this amphora
0:22:23 > 0:22:26is stamping it with his town's name,
0:22:26 > 0:22:28- saying, "This is a product of Arva"? - Yeah.
0:22:30 > 0:22:32According to these trademarks,
0:22:32 > 0:22:35almost all the oil in this mountain was coming from Spain,
0:22:35 > 0:22:37and a bit from North Africa.
0:22:37 > 0:22:40Today, Italy is famous for its olive oil,
0:22:40 > 0:22:42but in ancient times,
0:22:42 > 0:22:45they were importing most of it from somewhere else.
0:22:45 > 0:22:48The fascinating thing about this mountain
0:22:48 > 0:22:54is the way you can start to piece together little life stories
0:22:54 > 0:22:56of these pots and their contents.
0:22:56 > 0:23:00It gets down to the coast in Spain,
0:23:00 > 0:23:02gets loaded onto boats.
0:23:02 > 0:23:03If it's lucky, it makes it,
0:23:03 > 0:23:06but there's lots of shipwrecks in the ancient Mediterranean.
0:23:06 > 0:23:09It arrives at the coast. It's humped off the boat.
0:23:09 > 0:23:10It's put into barges.
0:23:10 > 0:23:13It's brought up the Tiber to the city of Rome itself.
0:23:13 > 0:23:15Humped off the boat again,
0:23:15 > 0:23:17put into warehouses,
0:23:17 > 0:23:19decanted into small containers.
0:23:19 > 0:23:22The amphorae end up here.
0:23:22 > 0:23:24It might not look it at first sight,
0:23:24 > 0:23:27but, in fact, it's one of the most impressive monuments
0:23:27 > 0:23:31to the idea of Rome as an imperialist, consumer city,
0:23:31 > 0:23:35bringing in the foodstuffs she needs from all around the Mediterranean.
0:23:38 > 0:23:40It wasn't just olive oil.
0:23:42 > 0:23:44A short trip down the river Tiber
0:23:44 > 0:23:46is the seaport, Ostia.
0:23:52 > 0:23:57'Today, Ostia is one of Rome's best-kept secrets.
0:23:57 > 0:24:01'And it helps us discover what Rome was importing, from where.'
0:24:06 > 0:24:09'Martin Millett has been excavating near here,
0:24:09 > 0:24:12'and together, we went to explore an intriguing piazza
0:24:12 > 0:24:17'next to the theatre, which we call, "The Square of the Corporation".'
0:24:17 > 0:24:22OK, Martin. This is where I get to do the housework.
0:24:22 > 0:24:25Never live this down!
0:24:25 > 0:24:26'If you sweep away the pine needles,
0:24:26 > 0:24:29'there are mosaics all around here,
0:24:29 > 0:24:33'advertising companies importing goods from abroad.'
0:24:33 > 0:24:35"Stuppatoresres".
0:24:35 > 0:24:37BOTH: Rope-makers!
0:24:38 > 0:24:42This is the organisation of fur traders.
0:24:43 > 0:24:46The Naviculariorum Lignariorum,
0:24:46 > 0:24:48That's the wood-traders.
0:24:48 > 0:24:50So, what we've got so far is...
0:24:50 > 0:24:52Rope,
0:24:52 > 0:24:53pelts,
0:24:53 > 0:24:54and wood.
0:24:54 > 0:24:57'There are at least 50 of these mosaics.
0:24:57 > 0:25:01'Most of them give us a place as well as a product.
0:25:01 > 0:25:03'They add up to one conclusion.
0:25:03 > 0:25:07'Rome was being supplied from all corners of the Mediterranean.'
0:25:07 > 0:25:11Italy's not big enough to support the city of Rome.
0:25:11 > 0:25:15It is a city that's drawing in resources from everywhere.
0:25:15 > 0:25:18This was a new moment in western history.
0:25:18 > 0:25:22Rome had become what we now call "a consumer city",
0:25:22 > 0:25:25on a vast scale. These aren't luxury products,
0:25:25 > 0:25:27they're basic commodities.
0:25:27 > 0:25:29Wood, leather, oil,
0:25:29 > 0:25:33wine and, most important by far, grain.
0:25:33 > 0:25:36People talk about Rome being a consumer city,
0:25:36 > 0:25:38with a population of about a million.
0:25:38 > 0:25:43That implies 150,000 metric tonnes of grain a year.
0:25:43 > 0:25:45I don't know how big those ships are,
0:25:45 > 0:25:47but you need a lot of ships like that
0:25:47 > 0:25:51to bring in 150,000 metric tonnes of grain.
0:25:51 > 0:25:53'As the city grew,
0:25:53 > 0:25:57'farms in Sicily, Libya, and then Egypt,
0:25:57 > 0:26:01'were given over to producing wheat for the people of Rome.
0:26:01 > 0:26:03When the grain ships arrived in Italy,
0:26:03 > 0:26:06the word would pass round Rome.
0:26:06 > 0:26:07The food had arrived.
0:26:07 > 0:26:10This was one thing the Empire did for Rome.
0:26:10 > 0:26:12It kept them alive.
0:26:15 > 0:26:17But it did more than that.
0:26:19 > 0:26:22I want to think about life in that consumer city.
0:26:22 > 0:26:25Who were the winners, and who were the losers?
0:26:25 > 0:26:29One really interesting thing is how they used this imported grain.
0:26:29 > 0:26:34That means thinking about bread. Not just eating it, but making it.
0:26:34 > 0:26:38I'm very much second-in-command here.
0:26:38 > 0:26:40THEY LAUGH
0:26:43 > 0:26:48OK, so, I'm now being trusted with the action.
0:26:49 > 0:26:54200,000 Roman citizens, living in the city of Rome,
0:26:54 > 0:26:58got, each month, what was called a corn dole,
0:26:58 > 0:27:00a free ration of corn,
0:27:00 > 0:27:05that means about 35 to 40 kilos of corn.
0:27:06 > 0:27:12Which was enough to make bread for a month for about two people.
0:27:12 > 0:27:17'This was an extraordinary privilege for citizens in Rome.
0:27:17 > 0:27:21'200,000 of them received free rations from the state.
0:27:21 > 0:27:23'But how did it work?
0:27:23 > 0:27:27'Many of them lived in one-room apartments with no kitchens.
0:27:27 > 0:27:30'So they relied on the baker to turn their 40 kilos
0:27:30 > 0:27:33'into something they could eat.'
0:27:33 > 0:27:34Ha ha!
0:27:34 > 0:27:35Are you going to try it?
0:27:35 > 0:27:37- Yeah.- Proviamo.
0:27:40 > 0:27:43- Good.- Not bad for a first attempt.
0:27:45 > 0:27:47It's not bad.
0:27:47 > 0:27:51And also, it's wonderful people's food,
0:27:51 > 0:27:56this is... this is tearing and sharing bread.
0:27:56 > 0:28:00You don't even have to own a bread knife to be able to tuck into this.
0:28:00 > 0:28:02Good.
0:28:02 > 0:28:05'For poor Romans, this was the staple food that kept them alive.
0:28:05 > 0:28:10'But they didn't distribute it in the way we would expect.'
0:28:10 > 0:28:13You've got to put out of your mind, I think,
0:28:13 > 0:28:16this was some kind of proto-welfare state.
0:28:16 > 0:28:21Sure, some of the poor would have benefited from the grain,
0:28:21 > 0:28:25but charity wasn't what was uppermost in the Emperor's mind
0:28:25 > 0:28:29when he put all that time and money into distributing this grain.
0:28:29 > 0:28:36What he was concerned about was the idea that a hungry populace was a dissatisfied populace,
0:28:36 > 0:28:40and a dissatisfied populace was a dangerous one.
0:28:40 > 0:28:47Also, the fact that distributions didn't go to the poorest in Rome,
0:28:47 > 0:28:50they went only to Roman citizens themselves -
0:28:50 > 0:28:53you had to be a citizen in order to get this grain.
0:28:53 > 0:28:59And that made it a really important perk of being a full Roman.
0:28:59 > 0:29:04In a way, what this tells us is that being a full citizen of Rome
0:29:04 > 0:29:08was a privileged status to which outsiders could aspire.
0:29:08 > 0:29:11And perks like the grain handout help you understand why
0:29:11 > 0:29:14people wanted to be Roman.
0:29:14 > 0:29:17But it also shows us that all these things, the Empire,
0:29:17 > 0:29:21the imports, new citizens, were all part of the cycle.
0:29:21 > 0:29:24The bigger Rome got, the more it consumed,
0:29:24 > 0:29:26the bigger the Empire had to be to support it.
0:29:29 > 0:29:33So, how did Rome's massive consumption change life in the city?
0:29:33 > 0:29:38Well, for one thing, this was one of the best times in history to be a baker.
0:29:38 > 0:29:44And it's a baker who left one of the strangest monuments in Rome.
0:29:44 > 0:29:46Now hidden beneath one of the main city gates.
0:29:46 > 0:29:52It's the tomb monument of a man called Marcus Vergilius Eurysaces.
0:29:54 > 0:29:57He is almost certainly an ex-slave,
0:29:57 > 0:30:01and he was a baker and a contractor.
0:30:03 > 0:30:06He must have made a whole pile of money in that job,
0:30:06 > 0:30:09otherwise he wouldn't be able to afford a tomb like this.
0:30:14 > 0:30:18What Eurysaces has done is given himself a theme tomb.
0:30:18 > 0:30:23At the very top, all around the monument,
0:30:23 > 0:30:26there were scenes from the life of the bakery.
0:30:26 > 0:30:31It's the kneading, putting the bread in the oven, weighing the stuff out.
0:30:31 > 0:30:35And even these rather strange circles and columns underneath
0:30:35 > 0:30:40will be instantly recognisable to a Roman as bakery equipment.
0:30:40 > 0:30:44The circles are almost certainly the kneading machines,
0:30:44 > 0:30:49and the columns are the bins in which the dough is kneaded.
0:30:49 > 0:30:53What this says in Latin is, "This is the tomb of Eurysaces,
0:30:53 > 0:30:58"the baker and contractor, 'apparet'." It's obvious.
0:30:58 > 0:31:03Or what I think we'd say, "This is the monument of the baker, get it?"
0:31:03 > 0:31:06And I really like the way that, "get it",
0:31:06 > 0:31:09still speaks to us 2,000 years later.
0:31:09 > 0:31:12Have we got that this is the tomb of the baker? Yeah.
0:31:12 > 0:31:16Eurysaces could joke because things had gone pretty well for him.
0:31:16 > 0:31:21His name sounds Greek, so, most likely he came from abroad,
0:31:21 > 0:31:23but he ended up as one of a new class of people
0:31:23 > 0:31:26getting rich on the proceeds of Empire.
0:31:26 > 0:31:29I've got a tremendous soft spot for Eurysaces,
0:31:29 > 0:31:33but I doubt that all Romans would have felt that way.
0:31:33 > 0:31:37My guess is that if some old money, old-fashioned Roman
0:31:37 > 0:31:43walked past this tomb, he would've thought it was all a bit tacky.
0:31:43 > 0:31:46A bit like I might feel if some Premier league football player
0:31:46 > 0:31:51designed his own tomb in the shape of a giant football boot.
0:31:52 > 0:31:57What Eurysaces' joke reminds us is that the Empire had a direct effect
0:31:57 > 0:32:00on how people in Rome made their living.
0:32:00 > 0:32:05It was becoming a city of urban professionals.
0:32:05 > 0:32:09One of the reasons that ancient Rome still seems quite familiar to us
0:32:09 > 0:32:15is that people could do a whole variety of different jobs, just like us.
0:32:15 > 0:32:18But it's important not to forget
0:32:18 > 0:32:21that, obvious as that seems,
0:32:21 > 0:32:27it was actually one of the ways in which the city of Rome was radically new and different.
0:32:28 > 0:32:32In the traditional, small, ancient city,
0:32:32 > 0:32:37the idea was that the inhabitants were, well, all-rounders,
0:32:37 > 0:32:42that the same men fought the city's wars,
0:32:42 > 0:32:46ploughed the city's fields and produced the city's food.
0:32:46 > 0:32:50But in Imperial Rome, because of the huge size of the city,
0:32:50 > 0:32:52those duties were outsourced.
0:32:54 > 0:32:57The food now came from overseas.
0:32:57 > 0:33:00It wasn't made by local farmers.
0:33:00 > 0:33:05And the armed forces that were stationed around the Roman Empire,
0:33:05 > 0:33:08they weren't just citizens doing their military duty,
0:33:08 > 0:33:10they were making a career out of the military.
0:33:10 > 0:33:14The Empire freed, or you might say forced,
0:33:14 > 0:33:18Romans to make a living by specialising.
0:33:18 > 0:33:23Whether that was being a pearl trader, a warehouse manager,
0:33:23 > 0:33:27or even a hairstylist to the rich and famous.
0:33:27 > 0:33:31What this did was create a completely new way
0:33:31 > 0:33:34of differentiating between people.
0:33:35 > 0:33:38If you'd asked an Egyptian or a Greek who they were,
0:33:38 > 0:33:43they'd have given their father's name, or their home town.
0:33:43 > 0:33:45If you'd ask the average Roman,
0:33:45 > 0:33:48I bet he would have told you what he did for a living.
0:33:48 > 0:33:50They do on their tombstones at any rate.
0:33:53 > 0:33:59These guys are working in the "piperataria".
0:33:59 > 0:34:01That's the pepper market.
0:34:04 > 0:34:07These are just warehouse men, "horreoreorum".
0:34:07 > 0:34:11And here's a bloke, he's a "sagarius" -
0:34:11 > 0:34:13a big overcoat maker.
0:34:13 > 0:34:17A "saga" is an ancient equivalent of a duffle coat.
0:34:17 > 0:34:19An accounts manager?!
0:34:21 > 0:34:26She's great, she's a "piscatrix". She's a female fishmonger.
0:34:27 > 0:34:30And he was a gold worker.
0:34:32 > 0:34:37And here is an urn, an ash urn,
0:34:37 > 0:34:40for a lady called Sellia Epyre
0:34:40 > 0:34:45and she was an "aurivestrix".
0:34:45 > 0:34:49She was a very, very, very upmarket clothes maker.
0:34:49 > 0:34:54It's very striking how each one of these people
0:34:54 > 0:34:58does tell you on their tombstone what they did.
0:34:58 > 0:35:01Now, I think we have to relate that
0:35:01 > 0:35:05to the sheer size and potential anonymity
0:35:05 > 0:35:09of a great, imperial metropolis.
0:35:09 > 0:35:12In a world without ID cards, without passports,
0:35:12 > 0:35:14without birth certificates,
0:35:14 > 0:35:18how do you know what you are, who you are?
0:35:19 > 0:35:22You know that because of your job.
0:35:22 > 0:35:25I am Sellia Epyre,
0:35:25 > 0:35:28a luxury clothes maker.
0:35:28 > 0:35:34How do you make your identity clear? You say, "This is what I do."
0:35:35 > 0:35:39This is where Imperial Rome gets really fascinating for me.
0:35:39 > 0:35:43This is not simply a story of one city getting rich
0:35:43 > 0:35:45off the back of everywhere else.
0:35:46 > 0:35:51It's a story of a place where people were trying a new way of living.
0:35:51 > 0:35:53They arrived from across the world,
0:35:53 > 0:35:56and became a small cog in this big machine.
0:35:56 > 0:35:58You maybe didn't know your neighbours,
0:35:58 > 0:36:00and they didn't know you.
0:36:00 > 0:36:05Everyone was looking for new ways to make their mark and stand out.
0:36:05 > 0:36:08The Empire didn't only help people to move up in the world,
0:36:08 > 0:36:12it helped those who did to show that they had made it.
0:36:14 > 0:36:19It created new opportunities for conspicuous consumption.
0:36:26 > 0:36:29The Empire gave most people in western Europe
0:36:29 > 0:36:33their first experience of pepper, lemons, and cherries.
0:36:33 > 0:36:36One po-faced Roman complained
0:36:36 > 0:36:40that cooking had gone from a mere function to a high art.
0:36:44 > 0:36:47The Empire transformed the sensory experience of the city.
0:36:47 > 0:36:52There were new smells, new tastes, new colours.
0:36:54 > 0:36:59And nowhere is this clearer than in the elaborate paintings
0:36:59 > 0:37:02many better-off Romans put on their walls.
0:37:02 > 0:37:06In Pompeii is perhaps the most famous Roman painting of all.
0:37:06 > 0:37:09Pretty strange scene, phallus appearing,
0:37:09 > 0:37:11and some female suckling a goat.
0:37:11 > 0:37:16But it was probably the colours that would have dazzled an ancient visitor,
0:37:16 > 0:37:18as much as the racy subject matter.
0:37:18 > 0:37:22Now, you mustn't make the mistake of thinking that poor old Romans lived in black-and-white
0:37:22 > 0:37:25until they started conquering the Mediterranean.
0:37:25 > 0:37:29Of course, there were all kinds of local minerals and plants
0:37:29 > 0:37:31that would give them pigments for paint.
0:37:31 > 0:37:33But as time went on,
0:37:33 > 0:37:37they got more and more interested in the special, bright colours
0:37:37 > 0:37:40that you could get from their far-flung territories.
0:37:42 > 0:37:47Now, this here is one of the best candidates there is
0:37:47 > 0:37:51for real red, Spanish vermillion.
0:37:51 > 0:37:53Lovely, lustrous red.
0:37:53 > 0:37:57I think we have to imagine that if you came to dinner here
0:37:57 > 0:38:00and the generous host started showing you round,
0:38:00 > 0:38:02he might have come and said,
0:38:02 > 0:38:06"Now this lady here is whipping this one because etcetera, etcetera."
0:38:06 > 0:38:12But he might have said, "It's a really lovely red, isn't it?
0:38:12 > 0:38:17"Actually, it's Spanish vermillion, specially imported,
0:38:17 > 0:38:22"all the way from Spain. I paid for it as an extra myself."
0:38:24 > 0:38:28We live in a world of cheap, bright, synthetic colours.
0:38:28 > 0:38:30But the Romans didn't.
0:38:30 > 0:38:33In Rome, bright colours smacked of a kind of luxury that only came from abroad.
0:38:33 > 0:38:38And the desire for them created an even more niche range of jobs
0:38:38 > 0:38:41for ordinary Romans on the make.
0:38:41 > 0:38:45This is a guy who was really keen on what he did.
0:38:45 > 0:38:51He put up this tombstone when he was alive, "vivos fecit",
0:38:51 > 0:38:53for himself and for his family.
0:38:53 > 0:38:57He put on it symbols of the tools of his trade.
0:38:57 > 0:39:01Now, he worked as a dyer, in the dying industry.
0:39:01 > 0:39:05And you've got here little flasks in which his dye went,
0:39:05 > 0:39:10scales in which he measured out his ingredients,
0:39:10 > 0:39:13and the skeins of material that he dyed.
0:39:15 > 0:39:17But he wasn't any old dyer.
0:39:17 > 0:39:20At the top, he tells us his name.
0:39:20 > 0:39:23Caius Pupius Amicus.
0:39:24 > 0:39:27Pupurarius - he was a dyer of purple.
0:39:29 > 0:39:32In Rome, purple was special.
0:39:32 > 0:39:35It came from the eastern Mediterranean
0:39:35 > 0:39:38and it was extracted from tiny shellfish.
0:39:38 > 0:39:41It looked spectacular and it didn't fade.
0:39:41 > 0:39:44It was not only expensive,
0:39:44 > 0:39:46it's use came to be regulated by law.
0:39:47 > 0:39:51If you saw a man in the street wearing a toga
0:39:51 > 0:39:53with a broad, purple stripe,
0:39:53 > 0:39:56you'd know that he must be a senator,
0:39:56 > 0:39:58one of the political elite.
0:39:58 > 0:40:02The only person later on in the Roman Empire
0:40:02 > 0:40:05who was allowed to wear clothes completely of purple,
0:40:05 > 0:40:09was the Roman Emperor himself.
0:40:09 > 0:40:11It's kind of colour policing.
0:40:11 > 0:40:14It's a bit like as if Queen Elizabeth II
0:40:14 > 0:40:19was the only person in the country who was allowed to wear pink.
0:40:19 > 0:40:26But it tells you quite a lot about Rome and the Roman Empire,
0:40:26 > 0:40:31that this one very visible marker of political and social status
0:40:31 > 0:40:35should have been the product of something that came from
0:40:35 > 0:40:39the far-eastern side of the Mediterranean.
0:40:39 > 0:40:47No wonder Caius Pupius Amicus was proud of being a pupurarius.
0:40:49 > 0:40:53The story of colour isn't just a story of luxury,
0:40:53 > 0:40:55it's a story of identity.
0:40:55 > 0:40:57The power that conspicuous consumption had
0:40:57 > 0:41:01to mark you out as someone special,
0:41:01 > 0:41:04whether you were supplying them or consuming them.
0:41:05 > 0:41:08All these imports helped you distinguish yourself.
0:41:08 > 0:41:11Like products and people,
0:41:11 > 0:41:16even new gods arrive from far-flung parts of the empire.
0:41:16 > 0:41:20You could have your own style, your own taste, your own beliefs.
0:41:22 > 0:41:26But let's not get too carried away by all this exotic stuff
0:41:26 > 0:41:28that the empire offered up.
0:41:28 > 0:41:31What the foreign purple on the senator's toga tells us
0:41:31 > 0:41:35is that you could be completely foreign and absolutely Roman
0:41:35 > 0:41:37at the same time.
0:41:37 > 0:41:41The Romans had a way of thinking about other cultures
0:41:41 > 0:41:43that is quite unlike our own.
0:41:44 > 0:41:48We mustn't make the mistake of imagining
0:41:48 > 0:41:55that Rome is a sort of touchy-feely cultural melting pot.
0:41:55 > 0:41:58Yes. If you wear the wrong clothes, they make fun of you,
0:41:58 > 0:42:00if you speak strangely, they make fun of you.
0:42:00 > 0:42:03They're big conformists. There's too many Greeks here,
0:42:03 > 0:42:06the Jews don't eat food properly on the Sabbath,
0:42:06 > 0:42:07all that sort of stuff.
0:42:07 > 0:42:10Why don't they eat pork? How silly!
0:42:10 > 0:42:15The poet Martial, who is going on about the puella Romana
0:42:15 > 0:42:19who hasn't experienced a mentula Romana.
0:42:19 > 0:42:22The Roman chick who's never had a Roman dick.
0:42:22 > 0:42:26You know, it's crude stuff, but nasty in its way.
0:42:26 > 0:42:30'The irony is, the man who wrote this came from Spain.
0:42:30 > 0:42:32'They're not laughing at other races,
0:42:32 > 0:42:36'they're laughing about people who don't do things the Roman way.'
0:42:36 > 0:42:39Although people come to this city from all over the world,
0:42:39 > 0:42:43you don't end up with a Chinatown or a Little Italy
0:42:43 > 0:42:46in the way that we have in the great metropolitan cities today.
0:42:46 > 0:42:51These people are ruling the world, the senators govern Portugal,
0:42:51 > 0:42:53govern in Egypt, they govern along the Danube,
0:42:53 > 0:42:54and they never come back and say,
0:42:54 > 0:42:56"I had this great meal the other day."
0:42:56 > 0:42:59They'll talk about ingredients from all over the world,
0:42:59 > 0:43:02but you do with it, the actual cuisine, the cooking,
0:43:02 > 0:43:05it's got to end up proper Roman cookery.
0:43:05 > 0:43:08They've got this city that is unlike anything
0:43:08 > 0:43:10that has been created before.
0:43:10 > 0:43:12It has a much greater diversity
0:43:12 > 0:43:16of people, of customs, of languages,
0:43:16 > 0:43:20thousands of languages probably, hundreds of languages at least,
0:43:20 > 0:43:22spoken in the city of Rome.
0:43:22 > 0:43:25But they only write in Greek and Latin more or less all the time,
0:43:25 > 0:43:26a tiny bit of Hebrew.
0:43:26 > 0:43:28What we are seeing here
0:43:28 > 0:43:32is the most culturally,
0:43:32 > 0:43:36ethnically, religiously diverse city
0:43:36 > 0:43:38that there had ever been in the world,
0:43:38 > 0:43:41but the way they are doing multiculturalism
0:43:41 > 0:43:45is quite different from the way we do multiculturalism.
0:43:45 > 0:43:47Yes. There is cultural diversity,
0:43:47 > 0:43:49but what there isn't
0:43:49 > 0:43:50is a diversity of cultures.
0:43:52 > 0:43:55There's an ironic logic here.
0:43:55 > 0:43:57Because Roman culture was in itself such an amalgam,
0:43:57 > 0:43:59they simply saw no need
0:43:59 > 0:44:02for alternative cultures to exist in parallel,
0:44:02 > 0:44:05still less to respect them.
0:44:05 > 0:44:09In Rome, diversity wasn't about separateness.
0:44:09 > 0:44:13There wasn't a Chinatown or even a Jewish quarter.
0:44:13 > 0:44:16In fact, your average Roman would have been amazed
0:44:16 > 0:44:22at the way we try to respect and preserve different cultures.
0:44:22 > 0:44:25Here, the people were from everywhere,
0:44:25 > 0:44:27the food came from everywhere,
0:44:27 > 0:44:29the gods were from everywhere,
0:44:29 > 0:44:31but it all went into the blender
0:44:31 > 0:44:34and it came out Roman.
0:44:37 > 0:44:40The empire was doing two things to Rome.
0:44:41 > 0:44:45They were parading all the exotic and luxurious strangeness
0:44:45 > 0:44:46of the outside world.
0:44:46 > 0:44:50But at the same time, the distinction between Romans
0:44:50 > 0:44:52and the subject peoples
0:44:52 > 0:44:54was dissolving all the time.
0:44:54 > 0:44:59Eventually, every free adult male in the empire
0:44:59 > 0:45:03could call himself a Roman citizen.
0:45:03 > 0:45:05For me, there's one place
0:45:05 > 0:45:10which captures the contradictions of Imperial Rome...
0:45:18 > 0:45:23There was a people's palace here - it was the Colosseum.
0:45:23 > 0:45:27It was built and paid for out of the spoils of the Jewish War
0:45:27 > 0:45:29as a gift to the Roman people.
0:45:31 > 0:45:36But one thing's for sure, some of them had to climb a lot of stairs!
0:45:41 > 0:45:44I'm in the only part of the Colosseum
0:45:44 > 0:45:47that I'd be allowed to go to.
0:45:48 > 0:45:53Women, slaves and other undesirables in the Roman world
0:45:53 > 0:45:55had to be up on the gods.
0:46:01 > 0:46:06So what does it look like from the undesirables' point of view?
0:46:06 > 0:46:08Let's not think for a moment about the blood and guts -
0:46:08 > 0:46:10there was certainly plenty of that.
0:46:10 > 0:46:13Let's think of it in terms of Empire.
0:46:13 > 0:46:18What you had on display in front of you
0:46:18 > 0:46:24was all the biggest and best the Empire could offer.
0:46:28 > 0:46:31People often compare this to a football match,
0:46:31 > 0:46:36but if so, this is not just Premier League, this is the World Cup.
0:46:36 > 0:46:38Fantastic combat,
0:46:38 > 0:46:41weird, exotic creatures,
0:46:41 > 0:46:45animals you could only have dreamt of.
0:46:47 > 0:46:49When this place opened,
0:46:49 > 0:46:54they even had a rhinoceros running wild down there.
0:46:56 > 0:47:00This is one place we can see the Roman Empire
0:47:00 > 0:47:04from the ordinary person's-eye view.
0:47:04 > 0:47:07This guy is looking at the show and then...
0:47:07 > 0:47:09During a pause, or while he wasn't looking at it,
0:47:09 > 0:47:15he's scratching the scene that he was seeing in the arena.
0:47:15 > 0:47:16And what have we got?
0:47:16 > 0:47:20We can see wild animals, like a panther...
0:47:20 > 0:47:22- There's two bears! - ..and a couple of bears.
0:47:22 > 0:47:24Right. And Bestiarius.
0:47:24 > 0:47:29And Bestiarius. Look at those muscles in his arm,
0:47:29 > 0:47:30biceps or whatever they are,
0:47:30 > 0:47:33a really muscly bloke.
0:47:33 > 0:47:34I think this is great,
0:47:34 > 0:47:38because it not only gives us a spectator's viewpoint
0:47:38 > 0:47:43but it also captures that moment of what it was like to be here.
0:47:43 > 0:47:45'This guy wasn't alone.
0:47:45 > 0:47:49'The Romans just couldn't get enough of drawing the beasts
0:47:49 > 0:47:51'they ogled in the Colosseum.'
0:47:53 > 0:47:55'When you saw them for the first time,
0:47:55 > 0:47:59'these exotic animals must have been breathtaking.
0:47:59 > 0:48:04'The same goes for the other stars of the show -
0:48:04 > 0:48:07'the human performers.'
0:48:07 > 0:48:10This is a fantastic treat for me
0:48:10 > 0:48:13because it's a real-live gladiator's helmet -
0:48:13 > 0:48:18or a real-dead gladiators helmet - from Pompeii.
0:48:18 > 0:48:21It's very weird and heavy.
0:48:21 > 0:48:23If you pick it up,
0:48:23 > 0:48:26it's got a great crest on it
0:48:26 > 0:48:32and a bust of Hercules just facing out at you,
0:48:32 > 0:48:34just to scare the opponent.
0:48:34 > 0:48:35I can't quite put it on
0:48:35 > 0:48:38but I can get the feeling of what it's like having it on.
0:48:38 > 0:48:44What it makes you see is it's jolly heavy
0:48:44 > 0:48:49and you get a very, very difficult view from inside
0:48:49 > 0:48:54because everything's kind of shaded off
0:48:54 > 0:48:57both by the peak and by the protective grill.
0:48:57 > 0:49:01I mean, I don't quite see
0:49:01 > 0:49:04how you would know where the blasted enemy was, honestly.
0:49:04 > 0:49:10The other thing about it is it looks to us fantastically weird
0:49:10 > 0:49:12and I think it would look like that to the Romans too.
0:49:12 > 0:49:14The point about these gladiators
0:49:14 > 0:49:18is that they're not dressed in standard Roman army issue.
0:49:18 > 0:49:20They're not the kind of fighters you'd see
0:49:20 > 0:49:22if you went to fight the Barbarians.
0:49:22 > 0:49:29These are mad, weird, exotic foreign costumes,
0:49:29 > 0:49:32meant to exude the mysterious outside world
0:49:32 > 0:49:35and all the violence that there might be in it.
0:49:35 > 0:49:42In a way I think, what we're seeing here is sort of a fancy dress.
0:49:42 > 0:49:45I think what you'd get the sense was...
0:49:45 > 0:49:47that people would come to see the costume
0:49:47 > 0:49:50as much as they'd come to see you.
0:49:50 > 0:49:52Margh!
0:49:54 > 0:49:56Where do I go now? Hard to see!
0:49:59 > 0:50:03So, when I think about gladiatorial combat,
0:50:03 > 0:50:06I know that some of it was to the death. People did get killed.
0:50:06 > 0:50:11But more, and more often,
0:50:11 > 0:50:16it was a show, it was a spectacle, it was theatre.
0:50:16 > 0:50:22In my mind, it's kind of more like the sort of charade of wrestling
0:50:22 > 0:50:24than the real-life combat of boxing.
0:50:24 > 0:50:29And part of the reason for that was simply economics.
0:50:29 > 0:50:34You've got hundreds of gladiators, they're extremely expensive,
0:50:34 > 0:50:36you don't want them killed off too often.
0:50:40 > 0:50:43Bit of a disparity of size here but I'm afraid Thraex is out.
0:50:45 > 0:50:47Whoops!
0:50:47 > 0:50:49We have a victorious Murmillo.
0:50:52 > 0:50:54Congratulations!
0:50:54 > 0:50:58To the Romans, gladiators represented a violent fantasy
0:50:58 > 0:51:03of the outside world fighting in their midst.
0:51:03 > 0:51:06But there's a fascinating irony
0:51:06 > 0:51:11in the real origins of the men behind the masks.
0:51:11 > 0:51:14I've got a wonderful drawing, an old drawing here,
0:51:14 > 0:51:18the original stone has long ago been lost,
0:51:18 > 0:51:23but it's a tombstone of a man called Marcus Antonius Exochus,
0:51:23 > 0:51:27who tells us he came from Alexandria
0:51:27 > 0:51:34to fight in some gladiatorial games put on by the Emperor Trajan.
0:51:34 > 0:51:37And here's another text of a tombstone,
0:51:37 > 0:51:41put up by a man called Phouskinos,
0:51:41 > 0:51:46who was a provocateur, another sort of gladiator.
0:51:46 > 0:51:52His tombstone's in Greek and he tells us that he was an Egyptian.
0:51:54 > 0:51:57These gladiators came from the same wildly different backgrounds
0:51:57 > 0:51:59as everyone else in Rome.
0:51:59 > 0:52:02But their real stories were much more mundane
0:52:02 > 0:52:06than the exotic roles they were forced to play in the arena.
0:52:07 > 0:52:11It reveals the kind of smoke and mirrors aspect of all this
0:52:11 > 0:52:14because underneath all that,
0:52:14 > 0:52:16some gladiators were pretty domestic,
0:52:16 > 0:52:18or they certainly ended up so.
0:52:18 > 0:52:22They finished up, perhaps long retired,
0:52:22 > 0:52:25longish life, wife and kids.
0:52:25 > 0:52:29One of the nicest ones is a man here
0:52:29 > 0:52:33who lived to the age of 45.
0:52:33 > 0:52:36He'd come from Tungria, he was a Belgian.
0:52:36 > 0:52:41But the tombstone is put up to him by his wife
0:52:41 > 0:52:43and little Justus, his son.
0:52:45 > 0:52:50Even Exochus , exotic as he looks,
0:52:50 > 0:52:54seems to have ended up life, to judge from his name,
0:52:54 > 0:52:56as a Roman citizen.
0:52:56 > 0:52:59He presumably retired
0:52:59 > 0:53:03and lived out his life somewhere in suburban Italy.
0:53:03 > 0:53:09A bit like Marcus Antonius Exochus of Tunbridge Wells.
0:53:09 > 0:53:13An Egyptian playing the part of a Thracian warrior,
0:53:13 > 0:53:16then settling down as a Roman family man?
0:53:16 > 0:53:20To me, that's Imperial Rome in a nutshell.
0:53:22 > 0:53:25The Colosseum dramatised this frightening,
0:53:25 > 0:53:29thrilling idea of Rome and the outside world.
0:53:29 > 0:53:33It's all violence, confrontation and strangeness.
0:53:34 > 0:53:40The truth is that the real Empire was not just fighting in the arena,
0:53:40 > 0:53:42it was sitting in the seats.
0:53:43 > 0:53:47There are places in the Colosseum reserved for the Gaditani,
0:53:47 > 0:53:49the people of Cadiz in Spain,
0:53:49 > 0:53:52for an African senator and a Gothic chieftain.
0:53:52 > 0:53:58In reality, the fearsome barbarians had become Romans
0:53:58 > 0:54:01and were watching the action like everyone else.
0:54:06 > 0:54:10So, what's the Colosseum doing then?
0:54:10 > 0:54:12At one level, it's showing the people of the city
0:54:12 > 0:54:15what they get from Empire.
0:54:15 > 0:54:19But in a deeper sense, it's showing them that they fit in.
0:54:21 > 0:54:24If the people who were killing each other in the arena
0:54:24 > 0:54:26were stereotypical foreigners,
0:54:26 > 0:54:31then by implication, if you were watching them, you were a Roman.
0:54:33 > 0:54:38It's trying to put everything in an order that makes sense.
0:54:41 > 0:54:43The point about the Colosseum
0:54:43 > 0:54:48is that it was both a microcosm of the city of Rome
0:54:48 > 0:54:51and a microcosm of the Roman Empire
0:54:51 > 0:54:56and it helps to show how the boundaries between what was Roman
0:54:56 > 0:55:00and what was foreign increasingly broke down.
0:55:02 > 0:55:04In Rome, for the first time in history,
0:55:04 > 0:55:07people from Asia, Africa and Europe
0:55:07 > 0:55:11could sit together as citizens of the same state.
0:55:16 > 0:55:20Rome was the first global city and it contained in it
0:55:20 > 0:55:24all the contradictions that global cities have had ever since.
0:55:24 > 0:55:28It was diverse but it wasn't tolerant.
0:55:28 > 0:55:30Foreign enemies were crucified,
0:55:30 > 0:55:32enslaved and forced to fight in the arena
0:55:32 > 0:55:35but equally, foreigners could rise to be emperor.
0:55:35 > 0:55:39Point is, the distinction the Empire made
0:55:39 > 0:55:41was not between Romans and foreigners
0:55:41 > 0:55:46but between those who resisted and those who joined in.
0:55:46 > 0:55:49The key question in our story is
0:55:49 > 0:55:53what was it like to live in the world's first city
0:55:53 > 0:55:58where almost everyone came from somewhere else?
0:55:58 > 0:56:00There must have been plenty of people
0:56:00 > 0:56:03who felt very far from home and rootless.
0:56:03 > 0:56:07For some, there were profits to be made and success to be had
0:56:07 > 0:56:10and an exciting, even if bewildering,
0:56:10 > 0:56:15mixture of new ideas, different cultures and different religions.
0:56:15 > 0:56:20Whatever you'd been back home, in Rome, you could reinvent yourself.
0:56:20 > 0:56:25It's not hard to imagine the fears and anxieties
0:56:25 > 0:56:28of those ordinary Romans, wherever they were from.
0:56:28 > 0:56:31"How do I fit into all this?
0:56:31 > 0:56:33"Who knows who I am?
0:56:33 > 0:56:37"Who's going to remember me when I'm dead?"
0:56:37 > 0:56:39Perhaps that's why they were so keen
0:56:39 > 0:56:42to write their stories onto their tombstones.
0:56:44 > 0:56:49They're deliberately speaking to you and me.
0:56:51 > 0:56:53This guy's really having a conversation.
0:56:55 > 0:56:56"Stranger," he says,
0:56:56 > 0:56:59"hospes", hang on a minute!
0:56:59 > 0:57:02"Resiste", stop here!
0:57:02 > 0:57:05"Take a look down to your left.
0:57:05 > 0:57:08"That's where my bones are buried,"
0:57:08 > 0:57:11my ossa.
0:57:11 > 0:57:17"I was a good man, I was a kind man," misericordis,
0:57:17 > 0:57:23"and I was a lover of the poor," amantis pauperis.
0:57:23 > 0:57:26"Please, traveller," please, viator,
0:57:26 > 0:57:31"I beg you, don't mess with my tomb."
0:57:31 > 0:57:37And the name of the guy is Gaius Attilius Euhodus,
0:57:37 > 0:57:40the ex-slave of a man called Serranis.
0:57:40 > 0:57:45Euhodus sounds Greek to me and he tells us what he did.
0:57:45 > 0:57:49He was a margaritarius, he was a pearl seller.
0:57:49 > 0:57:53That's who's buried in this tomb.
0:57:53 > 0:57:57"Traveller", he says, viator, "on your way now."
0:57:57 > 0:58:01"Goodbye," vale.
0:58:01 > 0:58:03Vale.
0:58:06 > 0:58:09Next time...
0:58:09 > 0:58:11I'll descend into the city streets
0:58:11 > 0:58:16to explore their high-rise tenements, crime-ridden slums
0:58:16 > 0:58:19and life in the bars and the bathhouses.
0:58:19 > 0:58:22And we'll find some very distinctive Roman voices,
0:58:22 > 0:58:27born from the earthiness of communal city life.
0:58:27 > 0:58:31This is how we have to imagine the ancient city,
0:58:31 > 0:58:34everyone shitting together.
0:58:34 > 0:58:40Tunics up, togas up, trousers down, chatting as they went.
0:58:59 > 0:59:02Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd