0:00:06 > 0:00:10Today, when we think of ancient Rome, this is what we see.
0:00:10 > 0:00:15A city of marble ruins, colossal amphitheatres
0:00:15 > 0:00:16and imperial power.
0:00:16 > 0:00:21A world of emperors and armies and lavish spectacle.
0:00:21 > 0:00:24All those gladiators fighting to the death.
0:00:24 > 0:00:27But what happens if we turn that upside down?
0:00:27 > 0:00:31We take a look at Rome from the bottom up.
0:00:33 > 0:00:36Hidden away, all over the modern city,
0:00:36 > 0:00:40you can still find evidence for a very different ancient Rome.
0:00:40 > 0:00:43The forgotten voices of its bakers and butchers,
0:00:43 > 0:00:45its slaves and children.
0:00:45 > 0:00:48Gosh, this is a sad one. "He lived for just one year."
0:00:48 > 0:00:52"Vixet Annum Unum." The death of a baby.
0:00:52 > 0:00:54Here we've got a young slave girl, aged 17.
0:00:54 > 0:00:56"Africana."
0:00:56 > 0:00:58"She came from Africa."
0:00:58 > 0:01:00This wasn't just a mugging.
0:01:00 > 0:01:02This was mass murder.
0:01:02 > 0:01:05In this series, I've been exploring the lives of these ordinary Romans
0:01:05 > 0:01:10through the extraordinary stories they tell us on their tombstones.
0:01:13 > 0:01:16We've already seen how the Empire turned Rome
0:01:16 > 0:01:17into the world's first global city,
0:01:17 > 0:01:21a place where a million people from three continents lived together,
0:01:21 > 0:01:25where life was full of luxury and laughter,
0:01:25 > 0:01:28but also disease and danger.
0:01:28 > 0:01:32In this final film, I want to delve even deeper
0:01:32 > 0:01:34and go behind the closed doors of the Roman home
0:01:34 > 0:01:38to lift the lid on their personal lives and prized possessions.
0:01:38 > 0:01:43It's a really, really precious piece because it's the only cradle...
0:01:43 > 0:01:45- SHE LAUGHS - ..to survive from the Roman world.
0:01:45 > 0:01:50And take you to meet some extraordinary, ordinary Romans
0:01:50 > 0:01:53who'll reveal an intimate, at times dark,
0:01:53 > 0:01:56but very surprising picture of the Roman family.
0:01:56 > 0:01:58Step through the front door into a Roman home
0:01:58 > 0:02:01and you'll find a place brimming with stories,
0:02:01 > 0:02:04from the shocking to the sweet.
0:02:04 > 0:02:09Loving couples, that's for sure, but also teenage pregnancies,
0:02:09 > 0:02:14abandoned babies, drunken housewives, runaway slaves,
0:02:14 > 0:02:16menage-a-trois
0:02:16 > 0:02:19and a very nasty case of domestic violence.
0:02:19 > 0:02:21Welcome to my Rome.
0:02:51 > 0:02:53This house in Pompeii
0:02:53 > 0:02:57is the perfect example of a conventional Roman home.
0:02:57 > 0:03:00You come through the front door into a grand formal hall
0:03:00 > 0:03:02with several rooms off it.
0:03:02 > 0:03:06Pool for collecting water, and opposite the front door,
0:03:06 > 0:03:10a reception room-cum-study called, in Latin, the tablino.
0:03:10 > 0:03:13'The standard view is that this is where
0:03:13 > 0:03:14the master of the house presided,
0:03:14 > 0:03:19dressed in his toga, receiving his guests,
0:03:19 > 0:03:22while at the back of the house, in the private quarters,
0:03:22 > 0:03:24is where we find the wife and kids
0:03:24 > 0:03:27and the cook, slaving away over a hot oven.
0:03:27 > 0:03:29The problem with that is
0:03:29 > 0:03:34there's a touch of the Frankie Howerd Mr and Mrs Pompeii about it.
0:03:34 > 0:03:37Or, to put it another way,
0:03:37 > 0:03:42there's temptation for us to take a rather idealising image
0:03:42 > 0:03:44of our own families,
0:03:44 > 0:03:47dress them up in togas, add a couple of slaves,
0:03:47 > 0:03:51and say, "Hey presto! That's a Roman family."
0:03:51 > 0:03:55And it's not actually entirely wrong,
0:03:55 > 0:03:58and there's some quite strikingly familiar things about a Roman house,
0:03:58 > 0:04:03right down to some of them having a "Beware Of The Dog" sign
0:04:03 > 0:04:06at the front door.
0:04:06 > 0:04:10But if you look a bit harder, you find it isn't quite so simple.
0:04:13 > 0:04:16So, how do we start to bring back to life
0:04:16 > 0:04:19what really went on within the walls of a Roman home?
0:04:19 > 0:04:22And how do we get close to a real Roman family?
0:04:35 > 0:04:38Well, the best way is to look at what the Romans themselves
0:04:38 > 0:04:41tell us from beyond the grave.
0:04:41 > 0:04:43When you come into a place like this,
0:04:43 > 0:04:47what first hits you in the eye are the statues of the rich,
0:04:47 > 0:04:50stern emperors and ladies with expensive hairdos.
0:04:50 > 0:04:51But if you look behind them,
0:04:51 > 0:04:55you'll find thousands of ordinary Roman voices,
0:04:55 > 0:04:59compelling us to read their stories.
0:04:59 > 0:05:01Some have forked out on portraits,
0:05:01 > 0:05:03others on just a few lines of text.
0:05:03 > 0:05:05But they all give you clues
0:05:05 > 0:05:09about who they lived with and who they loved.
0:05:09 > 0:05:12Here's a cute little boy with his pet dog.
0:05:12 > 0:05:13Here's a dad.
0:05:13 > 0:05:15He's commemorating his daughter, Giulia.
0:05:15 > 0:05:18There she is. Really natty hairdo.
0:05:18 > 0:05:21She must've been quite fashion-conscious, I think.
0:05:21 > 0:05:25But one of the most striking things about all these tombstones
0:05:25 > 0:05:28is how Roman husbands and wives portray themselves in death.
0:05:28 > 0:05:32And if you want to know why we've inherited such a traditional view
0:05:32 > 0:05:34of the Roman family,
0:05:34 > 0:05:38then the best place to start is with Roman marriage.
0:05:38 > 0:05:43So, this is one end of a big Roman marble coffin.
0:05:43 > 0:05:47We don't know who was originally inside it,
0:05:47 > 0:05:50but this end, at least, talks to us about marriage.
0:05:50 > 0:05:54Got a husband, wife, and they're holding hands.
0:05:54 > 0:06:00That's the absolutely classic image of the Roman married couple.
0:06:00 > 0:06:06It's really such a cliched logo of Roman marriage
0:06:06 > 0:06:09that stone carvers would have churned these things out
0:06:09 > 0:06:11by the dozen.
0:06:11 > 0:06:13This will all be prepared,
0:06:13 > 0:06:17and the stonemason will just put your faces onto the heads.
0:06:19 > 0:06:21Whatever it looks like,
0:06:21 > 0:06:23it isn't an equal relationship, though.
0:06:23 > 0:06:27In the stereotype, the husband has all the control.
0:06:27 > 0:06:31The wife's job is to serve him every which way.
0:06:31 > 0:06:36You even get some Roman epitaphs that sum up a woman's life,
0:06:36 > 0:06:39just by listing her service.
0:06:39 > 0:06:42She talked nicely, she walked nicely,
0:06:42 > 0:06:47she had kids, she kept house, she made wool. Enough said.
0:06:47 > 0:06:51And it goes right to the top of Roman society, too.
0:06:51 > 0:06:55There's a lovely story about the Empress Livia,
0:06:55 > 0:06:57the scheming, poisoning wife of the Emperor Augustus.
0:06:57 > 0:07:01She's supposed to have taken great care that people saw her,
0:07:01 > 0:07:04in the Imperial Palace itself,
0:07:04 > 0:07:08spinning and weaving the wool for her husband's togas.
0:07:08 > 0:07:11That was what Roman women were supposed to do.
0:07:16 > 0:07:19On the surface, then, these tombstones show us
0:07:19 > 0:07:23a rather poised, cool, even cold view of Roman marriage.
0:07:23 > 0:07:26But tombstones tend to give that impression.
0:07:26 > 0:07:29Even today, they trade in cliches.
0:07:29 > 0:07:30But there's plenty of other evidence
0:07:30 > 0:07:34that helps us get behind these stereotyped impressions.
0:07:34 > 0:07:38At the British Museum in London is a wonderful collection
0:07:38 > 0:07:42of Roman rings covered in the same imagery.
0:07:48 > 0:07:51They look pretty familiar to us.
0:07:51 > 0:07:54We know, actually, that what we call the wedding finger
0:07:54 > 0:07:57was the favourite place to put a ring.
0:07:57 > 0:08:01Some Roman doctors thought it was a direct link
0:08:01 > 0:08:03between that finger and the heart.
0:08:03 > 0:08:07But it's hard to get through these sort of standardised images
0:08:07 > 0:08:09of the clasped hands.
0:08:09 > 0:08:12Just occasionally, you can.
0:08:12 > 0:08:15This ring here...
0:08:15 > 0:08:17..it's a pretty plain ring,
0:08:17 > 0:08:22but in the centre, it's got, written on it in Latin,
0:08:22 > 0:08:26"Te Amo Parem."
0:08:26 > 0:08:29Which means, literally, umm...
0:08:29 > 0:08:33"I love you not enough." "I don't love you enough."
0:08:33 > 0:08:35It's slightly odd at first sight.
0:08:35 > 0:08:37It's particularly odd to imagine that
0:08:37 > 0:08:41you would give a rather expensive gold ring to somebody to say,
0:08:41 > 0:08:43"Here you are. Have this lovely ring.
0:08:43 > 0:08:45"But I don't care for you that much!"
0:08:45 > 0:08:47Think it's probably a bit cleverer than that.
0:08:47 > 0:08:51And I think what the message must mean is,
0:08:51 > 0:08:56"I can't love you possibly as much as you deserve to be loved.
0:08:56 > 0:08:59"You are so fantastic and gorgeous and loveable
0:08:59 > 0:09:03"that nobody could love you as much as you ought to be loved."
0:09:03 > 0:09:07It's like a wonderfully rare, really rare, glimpse
0:09:07 > 0:09:10of somebody's kind of personal voice,
0:09:10 > 0:09:15sort of shouting through these rather cliched images of marriage.
0:09:22 > 0:09:26That ring hints some of the passion you can find in Roman relationships.
0:09:26 > 0:09:29But it's also there if you look beyond the man's voice
0:09:29 > 0:09:32and think about it from the woman's side.
0:09:32 > 0:09:36Scattered across Rome is an amazing trio of tombstones,
0:09:36 > 0:09:39which although still written by men,
0:09:39 > 0:09:41give us a much more intimate,
0:09:41 > 0:09:44a more honest portrait of their partners.
0:09:44 > 0:09:45You have to be a bit careful
0:09:45 > 0:09:50about what husbands and wives say about each other on their epitaphs.
0:09:50 > 0:09:54They do tell such terrible whoppers about their marriage.
0:09:55 > 0:09:59"We lived together for 30 years without a cross word."
0:09:59 > 0:10:03I don't imagine that that could've been any more true in ancient Rome
0:10:03 > 0:10:04than it is now.
0:10:04 > 0:10:06But just occasionally,
0:10:06 > 0:10:09you find someone who comes a bit off-centre,
0:10:09 > 0:10:11breaks through those cliches
0:10:11 > 0:10:14and really conjures up the character.
0:10:14 > 0:10:15This is a great example.
0:10:15 > 0:10:19It's a tombstone of a woman called Glyconis,
0:10:19 > 0:10:21put up by her husband.
0:10:21 > 0:10:25Now, Glyconis is a Greek name and it means "sweet".
0:10:25 > 0:10:28So, she's Sweetie. And he says that, in fact.
0:10:28 > 0:10:36He says she is, "sweet by name but even sweeter by nature.
0:10:36 > 0:10:40"She didn't like to be all proper and austere," he says.
0:10:40 > 0:10:44"She much preferred to be a bit wild."
0:10:44 > 0:10:46"Lascivos." "Rather sexy."
0:10:46 > 0:10:53"Suaves." She liked to "get a bit drenched in Bacchus."
0:10:53 > 0:10:57Now, Bacchus is the god of wine.
0:10:57 > 0:11:01So, what he's saying is she was a bit of a wild thing
0:11:01 > 0:11:03and she really liked a drink or two.
0:11:03 > 0:11:07"It's a pity," he says, "she didn't live for ever."
0:11:08 > 0:11:10After all that affection,
0:11:10 > 0:11:14the next one reveals a much darker side to Roman marriage.
0:11:14 > 0:11:18Here's another tombstone which doesn't look very special,
0:11:18 > 0:11:21but has got a horrible sting in the tail.
0:11:23 > 0:11:27It's put up by a husband and wife.
0:11:27 > 0:11:31He's called Restutus Piscinesis.
0:11:31 > 0:11:36And the wife is called Prima Restuta.
0:11:36 > 0:11:38And they've put it up, "Fecerunt,"
0:11:38 > 0:11:44to Primae Florentiae, their "dearest daughter,"
0:11:44 > 0:11:49"Filiae Carissimai," "Dearest Daughter."
0:11:49 > 0:11:52So far, so ordinary.
0:11:52 > 0:11:54But HOW did she die?
0:11:54 > 0:11:58"She was thrown," "Deceptaest,"
0:11:58 > 0:12:01"In Tiberi," "into the Tiber,"
0:12:01 > 0:12:04"by her husband, Orpheus."
0:12:04 > 0:12:09"She was just 16-and-a-half years old."
0:12:09 > 0:12:13If Mum and Dad are right, this was a case of domestic murder.
0:12:15 > 0:12:18I'm afraid some things never change.
0:12:19 > 0:12:21The woman in this last tombstone
0:12:21 > 0:12:24deserves to be a lot more famous than she is.
0:12:24 > 0:12:27Her story gives us a very different view
0:12:27 > 0:12:30on Roman virtue and fidelity
0:12:30 > 0:12:34and is put up to a woman called Alliae Potestatis.
0:12:34 > 0:12:36And she's an ex-slave.
0:12:36 > 0:12:42She's a "Liberta" of a man called Aulus, her partner.
0:12:42 > 0:12:47Starts off with some pretty standard praise for a Roman woman.
0:12:47 > 0:12:52She was "always the first to get out of bed in the morning
0:12:52 > 0:12:54and "the last to go to bed at night,"
0:12:54 > 0:12:57i.e. she was doing all the housework.
0:12:57 > 0:12:59But then,
0:12:59 > 0:13:01it starts to get a bit weirder...
0:13:03 > 0:13:05..because the writer becomes...
0:13:07 > 0:13:10..a bit strangely explicit about her body.
0:13:11 > 0:13:13He says here,
0:13:13 > 0:13:19"she's got lovely snow white breasts and small nipples"
0:13:19 > 0:13:24and that "her arms and legs were beautifully smooth."
0:13:24 > 0:13:26And then he explains why.
0:13:26 > 0:13:28It's because she was a very "active depilator."
0:13:28 > 0:13:32She "sought out every little hair and plucked it out."
0:13:32 > 0:13:35But it gets even weirder than that.
0:13:35 > 0:13:42This woman had actually "two lovers that she was living with."
0:13:43 > 0:13:48One household held them all. "Una domus" held them all,
0:13:48 > 0:13:52and they lived in a spirit of perfect harmony.
0:13:52 > 0:13:56This is, in other words, a Roman menage-a-trois.
0:13:58 > 0:14:03But after she died, the blokes went their separate ways,
0:14:03 > 0:14:07and they're now growing old apart.
0:14:07 > 0:14:11If you wanted just one example
0:14:11 > 0:14:16of how Roman relationships could be as messy, as murky
0:14:16 > 0:14:18and as mixed-up as our own,
0:14:18 > 0:14:23it would have to be the household of Allia Potestas.
0:14:23 > 0:14:27I can't help wondering, though, what Allia Potestas' version
0:14:27 > 0:14:31of the story about these guys would have been.
0:14:33 > 0:14:37So if these three voices tell us how we can fill the Roman home
0:14:37 > 0:14:40with a more unexpected set of occupants,
0:14:40 > 0:14:42what about the house itself?
0:14:42 > 0:14:46Well, if you look beyond those rather posh houses in Pompeii
0:14:46 > 0:14:50with their grand entrance halls and expensive paintings,
0:14:50 > 0:14:52you'll find that Roman homes
0:14:52 > 0:14:55came in just as many shapes and sizes as their relationships.
0:15:02 > 0:15:05This place was in multiple occupancy.
0:15:05 > 0:15:07It had three or four separate apartments,
0:15:07 > 0:15:11and actually the walls inside were partly made of wicker.
0:15:11 > 0:15:15A kind of ancient equivalent of prefab.
0:15:15 > 0:15:17But don't think dirt poor,
0:15:17 > 0:15:20there was a really pricey little collection of bronze statuettes
0:15:20 > 0:15:22found in there.
0:15:24 > 0:15:28This one is a pretty interesting one, actually,
0:15:28 > 0:15:31because it seems to be partly apartment block,
0:15:31 > 0:15:35but also partly lodging house,
0:15:35 > 0:15:36partly B&B.
0:15:38 > 0:15:42Just around the corner is one of my favourite Roman homes.
0:15:42 > 0:15:44The ground floor flat
0:15:44 > 0:15:48of what was once a quite comfortable Roman apartment block.
0:15:48 > 0:15:50Anyone at home?
0:15:50 > 0:15:53What's so surprising about this place is that its layout,
0:15:53 > 0:15:56basically a series of rooms off a central corridor,
0:15:56 > 0:15:59feels like any flat that you might find in any modern city.
0:15:59 > 0:16:02It's now called the Insula of the Painted Ceiling,
0:16:02 > 0:16:03for obvious reasons.
0:16:03 > 0:16:06I almost feel I could move right in today!
0:16:06 > 0:16:10Now, we don't know how many people would actually have lived here,
0:16:10 > 0:16:12and that does make a difference to how we picture it.
0:16:12 > 0:16:16And we certainly don't know exactly who they were,
0:16:16 > 0:16:23but I don't find it difficult to imagine Glyconis or Allia Potestas
0:16:23 > 0:16:25waking up early in a place like this.
0:16:25 > 0:16:32The point is that most Romans didn't live in those grand houses
0:16:32 > 0:16:35that you see in Pompeii.
0:16:35 > 0:16:38They had all kinds of variety of accommodation.
0:16:38 > 0:16:42Right at the bottom there were people who lived in slum tenements,
0:16:42 > 0:16:44in a room over the shop,
0:16:44 > 0:16:49or people who just bedded down under somebody else's staircase.
0:16:49 > 0:16:54And this is comfortably in the middle.
0:16:54 > 0:16:57This was someone's home, sweet home.
0:16:57 > 0:17:00All the same, part of the difficulty we have
0:17:00 > 0:17:02in trying to bring spaces like these alive
0:17:02 > 0:17:06is that hardly any of the stuff that went into them has survived.
0:17:06 > 0:17:09Imagine trying to work out what went on in a modern house
0:17:09 > 0:17:13if we didn't have any of the furniture!
0:17:14 > 0:17:18But the task is not entirely impossible.
0:17:22 > 0:17:25Hidden away in a store room in Herculaneum
0:17:25 > 0:17:29is a priceless treasure trove of domestic furniture
0:17:29 > 0:17:31found in houses around the town.
0:17:32 > 0:17:36Carbonised when Vesuvius erupted in AD 79,
0:17:36 > 0:17:39they have been painstakingly put back together.
0:17:39 > 0:17:41It's terribly evocative.
0:17:41 > 0:17:47Here we've got a table, the kind of thing that you'd have by your bed,
0:17:47 > 0:17:49it's what you eat and drink off,
0:17:49 > 0:17:52don't imagine that all Romans lie down to eat,
0:17:52 > 0:17:56they put their takeaways on here and sit down and have a nosh.
0:17:56 > 0:17:58And here...
0:18:00 > 0:18:03..two little wicker baskets.
0:18:03 > 0:18:07I'm going to actually take the lid off.
0:18:10 > 0:18:12Almost the kind of...
0:18:12 > 0:18:18It's the stuff, the bric-a-brac that you'd find just in any Roman house.
0:18:21 > 0:18:26It's as close as you can get to a Roman furniture shop.
0:18:26 > 0:18:30There are table legs with stunning ivory decoration,
0:18:30 > 0:18:33others with strange dogs carved all over them.
0:18:33 > 0:18:36There's what we call a sofa bed,
0:18:36 > 0:18:39which you can still see was beautifully inlaid.
0:18:39 > 0:18:40Even a perfectly preserved cupboard
0:18:40 > 0:18:44that I guess once held all sorts of trinkets.
0:18:44 > 0:18:48It's beautiful. You can see all the little hinges
0:18:48 > 0:18:51and the little handle.
0:18:51 > 0:18:54But one find is the rarest of all.
0:18:56 > 0:19:02And this is a baby's cradle.
0:19:02 > 0:19:05It's a really, really precious piece,
0:19:05 > 0:19:10because it's the absolutely the only cradle
0:19:10 > 0:19:13that has survived from the Roman world,
0:19:13 > 0:19:16and that makes you think that maybe we've just been unlucky
0:19:16 > 0:19:19in not getting the other kids' cradles,
0:19:19 > 0:19:22or maybe most babies didn't sleep in something like this,
0:19:22 > 0:19:26but they bedded down in the ancient equivalent of a drawer,
0:19:26 > 0:19:31or, actually, they slept in the bed with Mum or nurse.
0:19:31 > 0:19:37When it was found, it actually had a tiny little skeleton in it,
0:19:37 > 0:19:43and around the skeleton were bits of fabric textiles
0:19:43 > 0:19:45and a whole load of leaves,
0:19:45 > 0:19:49and it looks as if this baby was sleeping on a mattress
0:19:49 > 0:19:53stuffed full of leaves, covered by a blanket,
0:19:53 > 0:19:56when the eruption of Vesuvius came in 79
0:19:56 > 0:19:59and put an end to that little life.
0:19:59 > 0:20:02Still touching, though, isn't it?
0:20:04 > 0:20:09Rocking the cradle that's been rocked by Roman mums and nurses.
0:20:13 > 0:20:17For me, that collection of furniture is a symbol of all the things
0:20:17 > 0:20:21we can put back into the Roman home if we try.
0:20:21 > 0:20:22Not just the clutter,
0:20:22 > 0:20:26but husbands and wives and their messy relationships, too.
0:20:26 > 0:20:29Seeing a child's cradle up close reminds us
0:20:29 > 0:20:32not to forget the children in the Roman household.
0:20:32 > 0:20:36That baby, of course, didn't survive the eruption of Vesuvius,
0:20:36 > 0:20:40but if it had, how different would its childhood have been from ours?
0:20:40 > 0:20:45Nowadays, we separate childhood off from the adult world.
0:20:45 > 0:20:49We dress kids in clothes quite different from adults,
0:20:49 > 0:20:53we give them their own entertainment, their own books,
0:20:53 > 0:20:55we even feed them different food,
0:20:55 > 0:20:57and in the last 50 years,
0:20:57 > 0:21:02we even invented the category of the teenager.
0:21:02 > 0:21:05In ancient Rome, childhood was quite different.
0:21:08 > 0:21:12We hardly ever see or hear the kids in a Roman home.
0:21:12 > 0:21:17They're usually cast out at the back of the house, rarely mentioned.
0:21:17 > 0:21:20Today, the only way we can hear their voices
0:21:20 > 0:21:22is to look at the dead ones.
0:21:22 > 0:21:26These books hold a record of over 30,000 tombstones
0:21:26 > 0:21:27from the city of Rome.
0:21:27 > 0:21:29Every age, sex and walk of life,
0:21:29 > 0:21:34but what hits your first is the sheer number of child tombstones.
0:21:34 > 0:21:37There's just hundreds and hundreds of them.
0:21:37 > 0:21:40I mean, here's little Titius Eutychus.
0:21:40 > 0:21:42He lived to be just four.
0:21:42 > 0:21:45Here's Titius Posphorus.
0:21:45 > 0:21:47He made it to five.
0:21:48 > 0:21:50Over the page, Titiae Regillae.
0:21:50 > 0:21:54She was one years old and five months and 11 days.
0:21:54 > 0:21:57That's only a few of the Ts.
0:21:57 > 0:22:03And it fits absolutely with what we know about child mortality in Rome.
0:22:03 > 0:22:08At least half of the kids wouldn't have lived until they were ten,
0:22:08 > 0:22:11a third wouldn't have made it to their first birthday.
0:22:13 > 0:22:16And I think you have to have a heart of stone
0:22:16 > 0:22:19not to be moved by that statistic.
0:22:19 > 0:22:24All the same, it isn't quite all gloom and doom.
0:22:24 > 0:22:27My absolute, absolute favourite
0:22:27 > 0:22:31is a tremendous character.
0:22:31 > 0:22:35A little girl who died when she was just five,
0:22:35 > 0:22:37but we can really get a sense of her.
0:22:37 > 0:22:41She was called Geminiae Agathe Matri.
0:22:41 > 0:22:44It turns out she was a bit of a tomboy.
0:22:44 > 0:22:48"I had a 'pueri voltum' - the face of a boy.
0:22:48 > 0:22:52"But I was a gentle soul - 'ingenio docili'.
0:22:52 > 0:22:56"I was pretty and I got a bit spoilt.
0:22:56 > 0:23:01"'Veneranda'. I had red hair cut short on top,
0:23:01 > 0:23:04"but I let it grow long down the back."
0:23:04 > 0:23:10And then she says, "Don't grieve too much for me.
0:23:10 > 0:23:12"Have a drink,
0:23:12 > 0:23:17"and don't be too sad at the rest that my little body is having."
0:23:18 > 0:23:22It's, as it were, speaking to her relatives.
0:23:22 > 0:23:26There's also a message there, I think, for us.
0:23:26 > 0:23:32Because although these tombstones are kind of obviously about death,
0:23:32 > 0:23:39for me, they also reek of love, of warmth,
0:23:39 > 0:23:41actually of life.
0:23:43 > 0:23:47So what happened if kids like little Geminiae Matri did survive?
0:23:47 > 0:23:48Are we talking school,
0:23:48 > 0:23:51or did Roman parents have something else in store for them?
0:23:51 > 0:23:53Well, rather predictably,
0:23:53 > 0:23:57it depended on where you were in the pecking order.
0:23:57 > 0:24:00In their labs on the outskirts of Rome,
0:24:00 > 0:24:02a group of Italian anthropologists have analysed
0:24:02 > 0:24:05over 6,000 Roman skeletons,
0:24:05 > 0:24:09dug up in and around Rome over the past century.
0:24:09 > 0:24:13Alongside full adult skeletons are some rare child bones,
0:24:13 > 0:24:15found in poorer graves.
0:24:15 > 0:24:18For although Roman kids died in vast numbers,
0:24:18 > 0:24:21their fragile little skeletons rarely survive.
0:24:21 > 0:24:23SHE SPEAKS ITALIAN
0:24:25 > 0:24:27TRANSLATION:
0:24:43 > 0:24:45What's extraordinary is that these bones
0:24:45 > 0:24:48show some very telling signs of wear and tear.
0:25:23 > 0:25:28So this guy has been doing hard work with his legs
0:25:28 > 0:25:31for many years, and he is only 16.
0:25:54 > 0:25:57You couldn't get those kind of lesions just by
0:25:57 > 0:26:01playing football, or... skipping?
0:26:01 > 0:26:04This has to be hard manual work?
0:26:20 > 0:26:22And Fullonica...
0:26:22 > 0:26:26You're treating the cloth, you're dyeing the cloth,
0:26:26 > 0:26:28you're stamping on the cloth.
0:26:28 > 0:26:33So what we've got is a kid doing heavy manual labour
0:26:33 > 0:26:38at a time when we think they should be in infant school.
0:26:42 > 0:26:46Also found by Paola's team, in the grave of a one-year old girl,
0:26:46 > 0:26:50was a strange collection of trinkets that once formed
0:26:50 > 0:26:53a gorgeous little necklace. They look pretty innocuous.
0:26:53 > 0:26:57There's an amber rabbit, a figurine of an Egyptian god,
0:26:57 > 0:26:58a mini phallus and some beads.
0:26:58 > 0:27:02But hidden within them is a much darker story.
0:27:03 > 0:27:07These are what the Romans would have called crepundia.
0:27:07 > 0:27:11They'd have been strung together and worn around the neck of a child,
0:27:11 > 0:27:16so they are half-toy, half-amulet or lucky charm.
0:27:16 > 0:27:19But they also have a part to play
0:27:19 > 0:27:23in one aspect of Roman culture that we find rather shocking.
0:27:23 > 0:27:26And that is child exposure.
0:27:27 > 0:27:32What that means, if in Rome you have a child you don't want,
0:27:32 > 0:27:35you can just throw it away.
0:27:35 > 0:27:38In the street, on the rubbish dump.
0:27:38 > 0:27:41And that's where the crepundia come in.
0:27:41 > 0:27:45Because some parents were supposed to have left these babies out
0:27:45 > 0:27:48with their crepundia around their necks,
0:27:48 > 0:27:54as a kind of link to their birth family, to their original identity.
0:27:54 > 0:27:56It's a wonderful plotline, actually,
0:27:56 > 0:28:00in some Roman comedies, that the slave girl heroine
0:28:00 > 0:28:04is suddenly spotted and recognised by her mum and dad
0:28:04 > 0:28:08because they've seen the crepundia that they had left out with her.
0:28:10 > 0:28:12So in some Roman comedies,
0:28:12 > 0:28:15these things can bring about a very nice happy ending.
0:28:16 > 0:28:19In real life, I'm not so sure.
0:28:25 > 0:28:29The unavoidable fact then, for Roman kids in poorer families,
0:28:29 > 0:28:31is that if you weren't exposed, and let's be honest,
0:28:31 > 0:28:34we don't know how many babies really were,
0:28:34 > 0:28:38they were put to work as soon as they were fit and able,
0:28:38 > 0:28:40perhaps as early as five.
0:28:40 > 0:28:44But further up the social scale, things were predictably different.
0:28:44 > 0:28:48In the centre of Rome, in a covered arcade just behind the forum,
0:28:48 > 0:28:51we can still find evidence of a Roman school.
0:28:51 > 0:28:55All over its plaster walls you find writing, drawing,
0:28:55 > 0:28:57and even caricatures of the schoolmaster.
0:28:57 > 0:29:00Which reminds us just how little kids have changed.
0:29:00 > 0:29:05Here's a great picture of a bloke with a big beard, full on.
0:29:05 > 0:29:07Here we're in Rome, a willy.
0:29:07 > 0:29:13What you've got here is people's letter practice, A-B-C-D,
0:29:13 > 0:29:19you've also got little snatches of Latin poetry written.
0:29:19 > 0:29:24What it looks like to me is an old-fashioned school desk.
0:29:24 > 0:29:28And that, in a way, is exactly what it is.
0:29:28 > 0:29:31Schools in Rome weren't schools in our sense.
0:29:31 > 0:29:34Lessons took place in arcades like this, under shady trees,
0:29:34 > 0:29:38even in the streets. They were fee-paying, for the most part,
0:29:38 > 0:29:41so only for the well-off and only for boys.
0:29:41 > 0:29:43Some of those lessons would have been much like ours.
0:29:43 > 0:29:45They would have learned to read and write,
0:29:45 > 0:29:47they would have done a modern language,
0:29:47 > 0:29:50in their case, it would have been ancient Greek,
0:29:50 > 0:29:54no science and PSE, it would be public speaking and poetry.
0:29:56 > 0:30:01An image of a Roman school in action still survives.
0:30:01 > 0:30:04The original painting in Pompeii is pretty faded,
0:30:04 > 0:30:07but this 19th-century copy shows exactly what's going on.
0:30:07 > 0:30:11Here are the good boys at their lessons.
0:30:11 > 0:30:15But here is the unfortunate malefactor.
0:30:15 > 0:30:18He's the one who must have been caught
0:30:18 > 0:30:21doing a caricature of the master on the wall.
0:30:22 > 0:30:24He's being beaten.
0:30:24 > 0:30:28He's being held down by two of his fellow pupils,
0:30:28 > 0:30:30and he's been stripped down to his pants,
0:30:30 > 0:30:32well, they're sort of pants.
0:30:32 > 0:30:37And the master here is whacking him. And he is clearly screaming.
0:30:38 > 0:30:42This was such a well-known form of Roman corporal punishment
0:30:42 > 0:30:45that it even had its own name, catomus.
0:30:45 > 0:30:49Perhaps it's not surprising that one favourite nickname
0:30:49 > 0:30:55for a schoolmaster in Rome was Plagosus - "whacker".
0:30:57 > 0:30:59For wealthy Roman families, then,
0:30:59 > 0:31:03rote learning and discipline was the ideal boys' education.
0:31:03 > 0:31:05But it also served as an ideal
0:31:05 > 0:31:08to families trying to climb the social ladder.
0:31:08 > 0:31:12The best way to put a human face to this story is to pay a visit
0:31:12 > 0:31:15to one of my favourite characters, a real Roman schoolboy,
0:31:15 > 0:31:20the son of ex-slaves whose memorial can still be found
0:31:20 > 0:31:22overlooking a square in central Rome.
0:31:22 > 0:31:25I have come here to meet up with this little lad.
0:31:25 > 0:31:27Sulpicius Maximus was his name,
0:31:27 > 0:31:30and he was something of a Roman child prodigy.
0:31:30 > 0:31:35Aged just 11, he entered a grown-up poetry competition,
0:31:35 > 0:31:38a sort of Rome's Got Talent.
0:31:38 > 0:31:40But stardom was not to come.
0:31:40 > 0:31:45He died, and his mum and dad put up this great memorial to him.
0:31:45 > 0:31:49It says up there that he died of too much study.
0:31:49 > 0:31:52I can't help thinking he might have been
0:31:52 > 0:31:55a bit of a victim of pushy parents.
0:31:56 > 0:31:59Sulpicius's original memorial is now
0:31:59 > 0:32:01in an unloved corner of a Rome museum,
0:32:01 > 0:32:04but it's a chance to meet the boy face-to-face.
0:32:04 > 0:32:09His story makes me wonder what life was really like for kids like him
0:32:09 > 0:32:11in families desperately trying to get on.
0:32:11 > 0:32:15Were you never naughty? Did you ever refuse to do your homework?
0:32:15 > 0:32:18Did you never lose your school shoes?
0:32:19 > 0:32:24I can't help thinking that life in Sulpicius's household
0:32:24 > 0:32:28wasn't quite what his parents wrote it up to be.
0:32:28 > 0:32:32But all the same, there is a sense that childhood,
0:32:32 > 0:32:37as a category that we know, didn't really exist in the Roman world.
0:32:37 > 0:32:38I mean, look at him.
0:32:38 > 0:32:41If you came across this statue
0:32:41 > 0:32:44and you didn't know the story written round about him,
0:32:44 > 0:32:47you'd think this was some orator haranguing the masses
0:32:47 > 0:32:49in the Roman forum.
0:32:49 > 0:32:52In fact, it's a kid of 11-years-old,
0:32:52 > 0:32:54and you'd never know it.
0:32:54 > 0:32:59For aspiring Roman families, if you wanted to educate your boy,
0:32:59 > 0:33:03you concentrated on public life, and oratory, even poetry.
0:33:03 > 0:33:06Not on what we would call emotional development.
0:33:06 > 0:33:08But how different was it for rich Roman girls?
0:33:08 > 0:33:12In the store room of the same museum is one remarkable object
0:33:12 > 0:33:14that helps to tell their side of the story.
0:33:18 > 0:33:23This is the most exquisitely beautiful Roman doll.
0:33:25 > 0:33:29She's the most perfect specimen to survive from the Roman world,
0:33:29 > 0:33:32and she is so precious and fragile that,
0:33:32 > 0:33:35although I'm just itching to pick her up, I'm not allowed to.
0:33:37 > 0:33:41She looks as if she's made of wood, but in fact she's ivory.
0:33:41 > 0:33:46She's a woman with very cleverly jointed limbs,
0:33:46 > 0:33:50she's got a rather posh, fashionable hairdo,
0:33:50 > 0:33:54and on her hand she's got a little gold ring.
0:33:54 > 0:33:58Now, there's no such thing as a toy shop in the Roman world,
0:33:58 > 0:34:02and for most kids like Sulpicius if they went out to play,
0:34:02 > 0:34:04they would be improvising with nuts and stones
0:34:04 > 0:34:07and playing ducks and drakes on the river.
0:34:07 > 0:34:09This is something a bit special.
0:34:09 > 0:34:12She's not just Barbie, she's Empress Barbie.
0:34:14 > 0:34:18But there's another side to a toy like this.
0:34:18 > 0:34:22It's not just about play, like all toys,
0:34:22 > 0:34:25it's helping to teach whoever owns it
0:34:25 > 0:34:28what their role is going to be in life.
0:34:28 > 0:34:35Roman women were made for marriage and for breeding children.
0:34:35 > 0:34:37And in fact, some Roman writers tell us
0:34:37 > 0:34:39that just before they do get married,
0:34:39 > 0:34:42Roman girls would go along to a temple
0:34:42 > 0:34:45and they would leave their dolls in the temple.
0:34:45 > 0:34:48But that didn't happen to this doll.
0:34:48 > 0:34:51Because, actually,
0:34:51 > 0:34:54it was found in a big stone coffin
0:34:54 > 0:34:59of a woman called Creperia Tryphaena.
0:34:59 > 0:35:03To judge from the skeleton, Creperia was about 20.
0:35:03 > 0:35:06She presumably hadn't got married,
0:35:06 > 0:35:10so she took her doll with her to her tomb.
0:35:10 > 0:35:12That's quite extraordinary to us.
0:35:12 > 0:35:17We wouldn't ever imagine burying a 20-year-old with her Barbie.
0:35:21 > 0:35:23An awful lot of Roman girls
0:35:23 > 0:35:26must have gone to the grave with their dolls.
0:35:26 > 0:35:30In fact, one of the most famous writers of the Roman world, Pliny,
0:35:30 > 0:35:35tells the story of one girl who died young, Minicia Marcella,
0:35:35 > 0:35:38the daughter of a friend of his, Fundanus.
0:35:39 > 0:35:43Pliny says that she was going on 14,
0:35:43 > 0:35:46but she had an old head on young shoulders.
0:35:46 > 0:35:48She was wise beyond her years.
0:35:48 > 0:35:53She was sweet and charming, and she was the spitting image of her dad.
0:35:53 > 0:35:55The really sad thing, he says,
0:35:55 > 0:35:58is that she was just about to be married.
0:35:58 > 0:36:02By an absolutely extraordinary piece of good fortune,
0:36:02 > 0:36:07we actually have Minicia Marcella's tombstone.
0:36:07 > 0:36:11Here it is, this rather elegant, austere affair.
0:36:11 > 0:36:16"To the spirits of Minicia Marcella," it says,
0:36:16 > 0:36:19"the daughter of Fundanus."
0:36:19 > 0:36:22But there's a sting in the last line.
0:36:22 > 0:36:27Pliny said she was going on 14.
0:36:27 > 0:36:32This says she lived for 12 years,
0:36:32 > 0:36:3611 months, and seven days.
0:36:36 > 0:36:42So she was 12 years old, and just about to be married.
0:36:43 > 0:36:47Now, we don't know how many Roman girls got married this young,
0:36:47 > 0:36:51but a significant minority, I think.
0:36:52 > 0:36:55And it raises an obvious question.
0:36:55 > 0:37:00Were marriages like this consummated straight away?
0:37:00 > 0:37:02We like to think not.
0:37:02 > 0:37:06But the chances are that they were.
0:37:10 > 0:37:14When you put all these children together, our child workers,
0:37:14 > 0:37:16child poets and child brides,
0:37:16 > 0:37:20Roman childhood can appear a pretty brutal phase of life.
0:37:20 > 0:37:24But I don't think we should get too carried away.
0:37:24 > 0:37:26To help me put it into context, I met up with a colleague
0:37:26 > 0:37:29and father of two Greg Woolf.
0:37:29 > 0:37:33I still find it hard to get my head around Roman childhood.
0:37:33 > 0:37:36I mean, was it really that brutal?
0:37:36 > 0:37:40I'm not really sure that it is quite as unfamiliar as that.
0:37:40 > 0:37:43Some bits were brutal, and some bits were different,
0:37:43 > 0:37:46but a lot is just the same. They had a childhood, even if
0:37:46 > 0:37:50it's a bit shorter than the childhood that our kids have.
0:37:50 > 0:37:53But they're not the kind of protected species
0:37:53 > 0:37:56- that modern Western kids are? - That must be right.
0:37:56 > 0:37:58They haven't got a kids' room full of kids' stuff.
0:37:58 > 0:38:02They don't have kids' entertainment, they don't have kids' clothes.
0:38:02 > 0:38:05Maybe just a few children of the very rich,
0:38:05 > 0:38:07with their Greek pedagogue
0:38:07 > 0:38:10or slaves taking them to school and their wet nurses,
0:38:10 > 0:38:12but most children are just doing what adults did
0:38:12 > 0:38:14in the same places with them.
0:38:14 > 0:38:18We're undergoing a huge transition from a world where
0:38:18 > 0:38:20lots of children are born and lots of them die,
0:38:20 > 0:38:23where they are fully part of the world of the adults,
0:38:23 > 0:38:27to a world where not many children are born and most of them survive,
0:38:27 > 0:38:31and their childhoods are prolonged to a point
0:38:31 > 0:38:35which Romans would have thought was well into young adulthood.
0:38:35 > 0:38:37Yeah. If you reckon that half of them,
0:38:37 > 0:38:42at least half of them are going to be dead before the age of ten,
0:38:42 > 0:38:43what does that do
0:38:43 > 0:38:46to the relationship between parents and kids?
0:38:46 > 0:38:48I think they were tragedies when you lose a child,
0:38:48 > 0:38:50in any society, any period.
0:38:50 > 0:38:52And when Romans lost their children
0:38:52 > 0:38:55we know sometimes they were devastated.
0:38:55 > 0:38:57But it was a normal tragedy,
0:38:57 > 0:39:00it was the same tragedy that the other families on your street had.
0:39:00 > 0:39:03It's the same tragedy your parents had.
0:39:03 > 0:39:07The tombstones kind of show us, really,
0:39:07 > 0:39:11that even if it happens often, it still is terribly hurtful.
0:39:11 > 0:39:16It isn't in some ways half as unfamiliar as we like to make it,
0:39:16 > 0:39:22and I was struck by the tombstone on the wall of this bar up there
0:39:22 > 0:39:24what's obviously mum and dad, a little kid,
0:39:24 > 0:39:28and he's holding a dog, he's holding his pet.
0:39:28 > 0:39:32You can sort of recognise that as mum, dad and child,
0:39:32 > 0:39:34with all the things that we think go with it.
0:39:34 > 0:39:38The difference is the project of having that is much more risky.
0:39:38 > 0:39:42- It's a much more precarious existence.- Yeah.
0:39:42 > 0:39:48I mean, really, the bottom line is Roman childhood - a big risk.
0:39:50 > 0:39:54Of course, we mustn't forget that for a Roman women the risk
0:39:54 > 0:39:58was not just child-rearing, it was also child-bearing.
0:39:58 > 0:40:01In a world with little medical care as we know it,
0:40:01 > 0:40:04Roman pregnancy wasn't always straightforward.
0:40:05 > 0:40:09One of the most suggestive objects to open this world to us
0:40:09 > 0:40:12is an eerie-looking medical instrument found in Pompeii.
0:40:20 > 0:40:24Every woman will recognise exactly what this is.
0:40:24 > 0:40:29It's an ancient Roman gynaecological speculum.
0:40:29 > 0:40:30The principle's pretty clear,
0:40:30 > 0:40:35you have the prongs here and they're put into the vagina.
0:40:35 > 0:40:37You then turn the screw,
0:40:39 > 0:40:41which opens the prongs
0:40:41 > 0:40:45and so extends the vagina, so you can examine the woman.
0:40:45 > 0:40:48We all know how it works, I don't need to demonstrate it.
0:40:48 > 0:40:51So a rather nice one, decorated at the top.
0:40:51 > 0:40:54I think this was a rather pricy doctor who owned this,
0:40:54 > 0:40:57with rather expensive female clients,
0:40:57 > 0:40:59I don't think this got shoved up any poor woman.
0:40:59 > 0:41:03But I think we shouldn't get carried away with the familiarity.
0:41:03 > 0:41:07One of the nastiest bits of Roman literature I've ever read,
0:41:07 > 0:41:10and there's plenty of nasty bits to choose from,
0:41:10 > 0:41:15describes what you do when you can't get a baby out of a woman.
0:41:15 > 0:41:18When the baby's got stuck and you want to save the mother's life.
0:41:18 > 0:41:23You put a speculum up, you get a sight of what's going on.
0:41:23 > 0:41:27You then put a hook into the woman and try to pull the baby out.
0:41:27 > 0:41:29You'll kill it in the process,
0:41:29 > 0:41:31it's going through its eye and skull.
0:41:31 > 0:41:35I can't imagine, even if it was intended to save her life,
0:41:35 > 0:41:38that many women could have survived that process.
0:41:38 > 0:41:41Childbirth today has its dangers,
0:41:41 > 0:41:44but in the Roman world, it was a battlefield.
0:41:44 > 0:41:50I think if in the Roman world men died as soldiers,
0:41:50 > 0:41:52women died in childbirth.
0:41:57 > 0:42:00It's hard to get a feel for such experiences
0:42:00 > 0:42:02in the Roman home itself.
0:42:02 > 0:42:06The rooms they used for sex and childbirth have given us a few beds,
0:42:06 > 0:42:11but curiously no double ones and plenty of erotic pictures.
0:42:11 > 0:42:15But occasionally we get a glimpse of how women could transcend
0:42:15 > 0:42:18the traditional roles that were expected of them.
0:42:18 > 0:42:22In a house in Pompeii, now known as the House of Julius Polibius
0:42:22 > 0:42:24after the man who owned it,
0:42:24 > 0:42:28is one example of a woman who may have done just that.
0:42:28 > 0:42:32I have come to see her with my colleague, Andrew Wallace-Hadrill.
0:42:32 > 0:42:36What I'm interested in is this extraordinary painting.
0:42:36 > 0:42:40It's showing a religious sacrifice going on
0:42:40 > 0:42:43and it is full of weird religious symbolism,
0:42:43 > 0:42:46like this snake and the altar,
0:42:46 > 0:42:49but what I'm interested in is this couple here
0:42:49 > 0:42:52because this to me
0:42:52 > 0:42:58looks as if it's meant to be the head of a household and his wife.
0:42:58 > 0:43:02And it's very unusual, because the standard scene
0:43:02 > 0:43:04is just the man in his toga doing the sacrifice
0:43:04 > 0:43:06and everyone always says,
0:43:06 > 0:43:10"This must be the head of household" and here we have her too.
0:43:10 > 0:43:13She's cut in on the action.
0:43:13 > 0:43:15But the woman, because her property's completely separate
0:43:15 > 0:43:18from that of her husband,
0:43:18 > 0:43:20could be more wealthy and more powerful.
0:43:20 > 0:43:24What's this lady doing here right bang in the middle of picture,
0:43:24 > 0:43:27if she isn't richer and more important
0:43:27 > 0:43:29than the little man at her side?
0:43:34 > 0:43:37So in some cases it is possible to turn upside down
0:43:37 > 0:43:40the traditional roles in the Roman household.
0:43:40 > 0:43:43But there is still one part of the Roman home
0:43:43 > 0:43:45that feels completely alien to us.
0:43:45 > 0:43:47The part that actually made it function.
0:43:47 > 0:43:50And by that I mean the slaves.
0:43:50 > 0:43:53Archaeology has produced very little material
0:43:53 > 0:43:55that relates directly to slavery,
0:43:55 > 0:43:59but tucked away in a Roman museum is one rare object
0:43:59 > 0:44:02that speaks volumes about its dark side.
0:44:02 > 0:44:04You'd think this was a Roman dog collar,
0:44:04 > 0:44:07a band of iron and a little metal tag on it.
0:44:07 > 0:44:13And on the tag is written in Latin, "fugi - teneme".
0:44:13 > 0:44:19"I've escaped, catch me, if you take me back to my master, Zoninus,
0:44:19 > 0:44:22"you'll get a solidus, a gold coin."
0:44:22 > 0:44:24It's probably not a dog collar.
0:44:24 > 0:44:28It's probably the collar of a Roman slave.
0:44:28 > 0:44:31Admittedly it's quite small,
0:44:31 > 0:44:36but things like this have been found around the necks of human skeletons.
0:44:36 > 0:44:40And actually the fact that we can't really be sure
0:44:40 > 0:44:44whether it's a slave collar or a dog collar
0:44:44 > 0:44:48tells us quite a lot about Roman slavery
0:44:48 > 0:44:51and the inhumanity that it evoked.
0:44:51 > 0:44:56There is a horribly touching story about the Emperor Hadrian,
0:44:56 > 0:44:58who got cross with one of his slaves,
0:44:58 > 0:45:04so cross that he gouged his eye out with a stylus pen.
0:45:04 > 0:45:07Hadrian instantly felt apologetic,
0:45:07 > 0:45:10humbled by what he has done and he said to the slave,
0:45:10 > 0:45:14"Have any present from me, I'm so sorry, have anything you want."
0:45:14 > 0:45:16The slave remained quite dumb.
0:45:16 > 0:45:19Hadrian pressed him and said, "I'll give you anything."
0:45:19 > 0:45:22The slave said, "I just want my eye back."
0:45:22 > 0:45:26So it's not hard to see why Roman slaves might have wanted
0:45:26 > 0:45:30to escape and why Roman masters might have wanted
0:45:30 > 0:45:33to tag their slaves as their property.
0:45:33 > 0:45:37Either this way, or with branding or tattoos.
0:45:37 > 0:45:41My hunch, though, is that fewer actually escaped
0:45:41 > 0:45:45or even tried to escape than we like to think.
0:45:45 > 0:45:49My guess is that most slaves showed their resentment
0:45:49 > 0:45:54against their masters by much more kind of domestic sort of warfare.
0:45:54 > 0:45:58They'd have pilfered things, broken precious ornaments,
0:45:58 > 0:46:02they'd have pocketed the loose change,
0:46:02 > 0:46:05and I expect they'd have spat in the master's soup.
0:46:12 > 0:46:17Today, slavery is one of the nasty cliches of Roman culture.
0:46:17 > 0:46:18It's a word loaded, understandably,
0:46:18 > 0:46:21with all kinds of modern preconceptions,
0:46:21 > 0:46:24but the fact is, it was deeply embedded in Roman culture.
0:46:24 > 0:46:28In a population of a million, one-third might have been slaves.
0:46:28 > 0:46:32And they weren't just for the rich. Poorer households had them too.
0:46:32 > 0:46:34Even some slaves had slaves.
0:46:34 > 0:46:37Of course Roman slavery was brutal,
0:46:37 > 0:46:41but relations between masters and slaves weren't anything like
0:46:41 > 0:46:43as black and white as we tend to imagine.
0:46:43 > 0:46:47Sure, there must have been fear, suspicion,
0:46:47 > 0:46:49hatred, on both sides actually.
0:46:49 > 0:46:54There are some marvellous Roman urban myths about crafty slaves
0:46:54 > 0:46:58running rings around their poor long-suffering masters.
0:46:58 > 0:47:02But at the same time, there was plenty of respect,
0:47:02 > 0:47:05affection, even love.
0:47:07 > 0:47:09One of the best places to see evidence
0:47:09 > 0:47:13of these conflicting emotions at the heart of this relationship
0:47:13 > 0:47:16is actually in one of Pompeii's grandest houses.
0:47:16 > 0:47:19In a suite of rooms off the back garden is a private bath house
0:47:19 > 0:47:22with some pretty graphic mosaics.
0:47:22 > 0:47:24They hint rather heavily,
0:47:24 > 0:47:29at one part of every slave's job description we tend to forget - sex.
0:47:29 > 0:47:35- So this is the entrance-way to the hot room, the sauna room.- Yes.
0:47:35 > 0:47:38So what you've got here are some strigils,
0:47:38 > 0:47:42bronze things that you use for scraping the oil off.
0:47:42 > 0:47:44It's really rather gynaecological in the end.
0:47:44 > 0:47:46The thing is, we can't really read that
0:47:46 > 0:47:49without looking at this guy here.
0:47:49 > 0:47:52This strange sort of naked black figure.
0:47:52 > 0:47:54He's got little white panties on.
0:47:54 > 0:47:57A white loincloth, which is completely failing to do its job.
0:47:57 > 0:48:01The one thing it's not covering is his genitals,
0:48:01 > 0:48:03which are enormous, hanging down.
0:48:03 > 0:48:09The bronze tip matches those lamps or flasks,
0:48:09 > 0:48:12or whatever he's carrying in his hands.
0:48:12 > 0:48:14And they themselves look phallic.
0:48:14 > 0:48:18So we're being given a very strong sexual theme as we enter.
0:48:20 > 0:48:26- So this is the dinky little sauna. - You can hear it echoes around us.
0:48:26 > 0:48:31- It's lovely.- It's an amazing space. - And this mosaic, which is...
0:48:31 > 0:48:34well, it kind of says "sex in the swimming pool" to me.
0:48:34 > 0:48:36It appears to be another slave, doesn't it?
0:48:36 > 0:48:40What comes out of this is something about the sexuality of bathing,
0:48:40 > 0:48:42but also about the use of slaves.
0:48:42 > 0:48:45Their total availability,
0:48:45 > 0:48:49their bodily availability to their masters for sex.
0:48:49 > 0:48:55No-one living in a big house says, "I'll go down to the local brothel."
0:48:55 > 0:48:59They use a slave as they want, when they want,
0:48:59 > 0:49:01and that's the basic deal of slavery.
0:49:01 > 0:49:05Isn't it interesting that it's not just the master of the house
0:49:05 > 0:49:08exploiting female slaves and male slaves,
0:49:08 > 0:49:14it's also the female owners and dominant figures in the house
0:49:14 > 0:49:18exploit male and possibly female slaves.
0:49:18 > 0:49:20That's the really nasty bit of Roman slavery.
0:49:20 > 0:49:25To be pressurised into having sex with the master or mistress,
0:49:25 > 0:49:28it's an assault on your freedom, but that's the point,
0:49:28 > 0:49:31you've lost your freedom, the freedom to control your body.
0:49:31 > 0:49:35But you mustn't think that because sex happens
0:49:35 > 0:49:36between master and slave,
0:49:36 > 0:49:40it's necessarily a bad thing for the slaves all the time.
0:49:40 > 0:49:42What about the fact that we constantly find
0:49:42 > 0:49:44slaves marrying their masters?
0:49:44 > 0:49:50Sex is a way of earning money, but it's also a route to freedom.
0:49:52 > 0:49:55And that's the great paradox about Roman slavery.
0:49:55 > 0:49:59We might think it was brutal, at times even amounting to rape,
0:49:59 > 0:50:02but it was not always a life sentence.
0:50:02 > 0:50:06And if you look at the tombstones, what's striking is that the majority
0:50:06 > 0:50:10of those that survive from the city of Rome belong to ex-slaves.
0:50:10 > 0:50:13They were freed in their thousands.
0:50:13 > 0:50:15Here's a lady with a really great name.
0:50:15 > 0:50:19She is and ex-slave, she tells us, a "liberta".
0:50:19 > 0:50:24And her name is Vettia Erotice.
0:50:24 > 0:50:25I like that name.
0:50:28 > 0:50:30Here's a nicely complicated one.
0:50:30 > 0:50:34It's a tombstone put up by an ex-slave, a "libertus",
0:50:34 > 0:50:39to his own slave, and was "very dear to him", "carissimo".
0:50:41 > 0:50:43This is a woman with an interesting job.
0:50:43 > 0:50:48She's called Dorcas and she's the ex-slave of Julia Augusta,
0:50:48 > 0:50:51that's the Empress Livia.
0:50:51 > 0:50:54What was her job? She was an "ornatrix".
0:50:54 > 0:50:57She was the Empress's hairdresser.
0:50:57 > 0:51:00Nice work if you can get it.
0:51:00 > 0:51:02This one's a nice picture. It's from a tombstone,
0:51:02 > 0:51:05it shows a husband and wife, I guess, having a banquet.
0:51:05 > 0:51:08But it's the little chap on the left but I'm interested in.
0:51:08 > 0:51:12He's serving at table and he must be a young slave boy.
0:51:12 > 0:51:17There were thousands and thousands like him at Rome.
0:51:17 > 0:51:20I don't know exactly where they all came from, but,
0:51:20 > 0:51:24almost certainly not all of them from the slave market,
0:51:24 > 0:51:26as we like to think.
0:51:26 > 0:51:28Probably the majority of them
0:51:28 > 0:51:31would actually have been born in the household.
0:51:31 > 0:51:34And like this little guy, they'd have got
0:51:34 > 0:51:37pretty up close and personal with their owners,
0:51:37 > 0:51:40wait at table, wet nurses,
0:51:40 > 0:51:43tutors, nannies.
0:51:43 > 0:51:48And it starts to give us a different slant on Roman slavery,
0:51:48 > 0:51:49and it helps to explain
0:51:49 > 0:51:53why you could get quite strong bonds of affection
0:51:53 > 0:51:56between owners and their slaves.
0:51:56 > 0:52:00Actually, the Roman word for family, "familia",
0:52:00 > 0:52:03doesn't just include husband, wife and a couple of kids,
0:52:03 > 0:52:06it also includes the slaves.
0:52:06 > 0:52:11So, in Rome, slaves really were part of the family.
0:52:13 > 0:52:14And that's what I find
0:52:14 > 0:52:19so disappointing about the standard image of the Roman family.
0:52:19 > 0:52:22The slaves are not always segregated,
0:52:22 > 0:52:26they WERE the familia, as much as the master and mistress.
0:52:26 > 0:52:28In fact, the best way to see
0:52:28 > 0:52:32just how open it could be is to visit a Roman family tomb.
0:52:32 > 0:52:35I've come to see some in ancient Ostia, with Corey Brennan
0:52:35 > 0:52:37from the American Academy in Rome.
0:52:37 > 0:52:41This feels like the kind of back alley in the city of the dead.
0:52:41 > 0:52:43That's precisely what it is.
0:52:43 > 0:52:47And here is a home in the city of the dead, so to speak,
0:52:47 > 0:52:52and it's something that Marcus Saenius Aristo set up
0:52:52 > 0:52:56for himself and for his ex-slaves,
0:52:56 > 0:52:58the "libertis", the male ex-slaves,
0:52:58 > 0:53:01and the "libertabus", the female ex-slaves.
0:53:01 > 0:53:04It's interesting too that in the last line here,
0:53:04 > 0:53:08he makes clear how much land he owns for this tomb, doesn't he?
0:53:08 > 0:53:13It's not just marking off the legal perimeter of his space here,
0:53:13 > 0:53:16but it's a way of boasting how much real estate he has here
0:53:16 > 0:53:18in the city of the dead.
0:53:20 > 0:53:22What's important then
0:53:22 > 0:53:25is that masters and slaves chose to live together in death,
0:53:25 > 0:53:27not just in life.
0:53:27 > 0:53:31In a way, these tombs are like mirrors of their own homes,
0:53:31 > 0:53:33with separate rooms, upper storeys,
0:53:33 > 0:53:37and spaces for urns that outnumber the nuclear family.
0:53:37 > 0:53:41What strikes you when you come in, is the kind of communality,
0:53:41 > 0:53:45the sheer number of burials that must have been here.
0:53:45 > 0:53:48Well, there's about two dozen of these niches,
0:53:48 > 0:53:51and each niche is a double
0:53:51 > 0:53:54and so you're talking 48 people or so.
0:53:54 > 0:53:57It's interesting to see how they are all mixed in here.
0:53:57 > 0:53:59You don't walk in here and say, "There's the masters niche."
0:53:59 > 0:54:02In fact, it's hard to tell where it would have been.
0:54:02 > 0:54:08And it's so completely different from what we're familiar with in,
0:54:08 > 0:54:14say, Victorian England, where the idea that Mr and Mrs Posh
0:54:14 > 0:54:17and their Posh kids would be buried in the same tomb
0:54:17 > 0:54:23as the cook or the tweeny or the butler, is absolutely unthinkable.
0:54:23 > 0:54:27This is meant to be an ideal, this is the image which these folks,
0:54:27 > 0:54:30these aspirational folks, wanted to convey,
0:54:30 > 0:54:34which was that of inclusivity, of the large family.
0:54:34 > 0:54:38Harshness was not in anyone's interests.
0:54:38 > 0:54:42It shows us a softer side of this horrible institution of slavery.
0:54:42 > 0:54:48Yeah, it's great, you boast, "This is a tomb for me and my ex slaves."
0:54:52 > 0:54:56But it wasn't always happy families,
0:54:56 > 0:55:01as the unusual tombstone of a little girl called Junia Procula tells us.
0:55:01 > 0:55:04Its storyline reads like a Roman soap opera.
0:55:04 > 0:55:09The stone was put up by her father, a man called Euphrosinus.
0:55:09 > 0:55:12When he was putting it up, for the little girl,
0:55:12 > 0:55:16and eventually for himself and for somebody else,
0:55:16 > 0:55:19whose name has been hacked out.
0:55:19 > 0:55:22That's puzzling. Why has it been hacked out?
0:55:22 > 0:55:26On the back of the stone, the puzzle's solved.
0:55:26 > 0:55:30Because there's another text written there.
0:55:30 > 0:55:34And what we can see has happened is that Euphrosinus
0:55:34 > 0:55:36had had a slave called Acti.
0:55:36 > 0:55:42He'd freed her, he'd married her, they'd had the kid, the kid had died
0:55:42 > 0:55:46and then things had gone very badly off the rails.
0:55:46 > 0:55:48He's cursing her on the back.
0:55:48 > 0:55:51"These are the eternal marks of infamy," he says.
0:55:51 > 0:55:57"On that ex-slave of mine who was a poisoner, who was 'perfida',
0:55:57 > 0:56:02"who was faithless, who was 'dolosa', who was deceitful,"
0:56:02 > 0:56:04and then he really curses her, he says,
0:56:04 > 0:56:07"I'm bringing a nail and a piece of rope
0:56:07 > 0:56:12"so that she can hang herself, and I'm bringing 'picem candentem'
0:56:12 > 0:56:17"burning pitch, to consume her awful heart."
0:56:17 > 0:56:21What on earth had happened? Well, he then explains.
0:56:21 > 0:56:25"She had gone off with an adulteress, 'secuta adultorum'",
0:56:25 > 0:56:31and what is more, she'd pinched two of his slaves, a boy and a girl.
0:56:33 > 0:56:36She left behind poor old Euphrosinus
0:56:36 > 0:56:42"lying in bed, robbed, all alone, an old man."
0:56:42 > 0:56:46Now, we've got to remember that we don't know Acti's side of the story,
0:56:46 > 0:56:49and that might have been very different, but what is clear is that
0:56:49 > 0:56:55one man's domestic fluidity could be another man's domestic mess.
0:56:58 > 0:57:02In a way, that's the Roman home in a nutshell.
0:57:02 > 0:57:06For sure, it was a place inhabited by the traditional Roman cliches,
0:57:06 > 0:57:09the pompous husbands in their togas,
0:57:09 > 0:57:12the dutiful wives weaving their wool.
0:57:12 > 0:57:14But it was also far more intriguing.
0:57:14 > 0:57:18Especially if we put back all the clutter and the cradles
0:57:18 > 0:57:20and the topsy-turvy relationships.
0:57:20 > 0:57:25And above all, the extraordinary voices of the Romans themselves
0:57:25 > 0:57:28that still talk to us after 2,000 years.
0:57:28 > 0:57:31"I lived on Lucrine oysters."
0:57:32 > 0:57:35"..snatched away from him."
0:57:35 > 0:57:37"She had gone off with an adulteress."
0:57:37 > 0:57:38"Secuta adultorum."
0:57:38 > 0:57:40Menopholos.
0:57:40 > 0:57:41Menopholos.
0:57:41 > 0:57:44"And I don't any longer have those old, flaking feet."
0:57:44 > 0:57:47This is a monument of the baker, get it?
0:57:47 > 0:57:52"She much preferred to be a bit wild."
0:57:52 > 0:57:54"..a Roman menage-a-trois."
0:57:56 > 0:58:00And what they tell us is that ordinary life in ancient Rome
0:58:00 > 0:58:06was as wonderfully mixed up, as messy and as emotional as our own.
0:58:08 > 0:58:13It's almost as if they are holding up a mirror to us and our own lives
0:58:13 > 0:58:19and they're speaking to anyone with the time to stop and listen to them.
0:58:19 > 0:58:22It turns out, that's you and me.
0:58:48 > 0:58:51Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd