0:00:34 > 0:00:37I've often tried to like those old Romans,
0:00:37 > 0:00:41but to tell the truth, I've found it very difficult.
0:00:41 > 0:00:43You see, they were so terribly practical,
0:00:43 > 0:00:47so liable to be right in a rather bullet-headed way.
0:00:48 > 0:00:52And yet, those same men managed to build an empire
0:00:52 > 0:00:55which was itself a mighty creation of imaginative thinking.
0:00:57 > 0:01:01The whole idea of Roman citizenship was a grand conception.
0:01:02 > 0:01:05It was the proud boast of one of the greatest Romans
0:01:05 > 0:01:08that he was a citizen of Rome,
0:01:08 > 0:01:12and that boast might have been echoed by any veteran soldier
0:01:12 > 0:01:16from the Scottish mists or the southern deserts.
0:01:16 > 0:01:19If you were an accepted citizen of the Roman Empire,
0:01:19 > 0:01:22you liked to think of yourself as a citizen of Rome,
0:01:22 > 0:01:25for Rome was the heart and centre of half the civilised world.
0:01:25 > 0:01:27WAS the civilised world.
0:01:29 > 0:01:31Just look at that empire.
0:01:31 > 0:01:34The first great experiment in unretarded circulation.
0:01:35 > 0:01:37Today we invent more and more forms
0:01:37 > 0:01:40for the wretched traveller to fill up.
0:01:40 > 0:01:44Vast civil services are created in order to prevent free interchange.
0:01:46 > 0:01:47It's something of a triumph
0:01:47 > 0:01:50to spend a whole day at Dieppe without a passport,
0:01:50 > 0:01:54but in the Roman world, you just packed up and went where you willed.
0:01:54 > 0:01:58You might be robbed from time to time in the course of your journey,
0:01:58 > 0:02:01but at least you didn't have to fill a form up first.
0:02:02 > 0:02:05Only if you became a public nuisance,
0:02:05 > 0:02:09as those newfangled Christians were rather liable to become,
0:02:09 > 0:02:11did you cut across that freedom.
0:02:11 > 0:02:13Otherwise you would go where you liked,
0:02:13 > 0:02:17you could think what you liked and your colour didn't matter.
0:02:17 > 0:02:20I haven't forgotten that the Roman Empire,
0:02:20 > 0:02:24like other ancient civilisations, was based upon slavery.
0:02:25 > 0:02:28Nor have I forgotten that in later Roman times,
0:02:28 > 0:02:31when things are rapidly going downhill,
0:02:31 > 0:02:33all sorts of shackles were contrived
0:02:33 > 0:02:36in an attempt to stay the headlong rush.
0:02:36 > 0:02:41In those latter days Rome was frightened,
0:02:41 > 0:02:44and frightened nations, like frightened dogs and men,
0:02:44 > 0:02:46lose sense and sensibility.
0:02:47 > 0:02:51I'm speaking now of those earlier years of proud confidence
0:02:51 > 0:02:54when Cicero, the great Roman advocate, could proclaim...
0:02:54 > 0:02:59The good of the people is the chief law.
0:02:59 > 0:03:04Yes, that august empire, in its large, hard heart,
0:03:04 > 0:03:08was tolerant enough in a passive sort of way.
0:03:08 > 0:03:11If, as a Roman citizen, you minded your own business,
0:03:11 > 0:03:14it didn't much matter what that business was.
0:03:14 > 0:03:17You were assumed to be a member of the conservative party
0:03:17 > 0:03:21and Cicero's "comfort with honour" was a good enough motto
0:03:21 > 0:03:24for the haves in an age when haves were numerous.
0:03:26 > 0:03:29The defect of all this conservative contentment
0:03:29 > 0:03:32was, of course, complacency.
0:03:32 > 0:03:36Conservatism, amidst the perpetual flow of things,
0:03:36 > 0:03:40bares always in itself a germ of death.
0:03:41 > 0:03:44That was Cicero, not Mr Gaitskell, speaking.
0:03:44 > 0:03:47And in his context, Cicero was right enough.
0:03:47 > 0:03:49Complacency.
0:03:49 > 0:03:52Yes, that pretty well explains, for example,
0:03:52 > 0:03:56the Roman's attitude towards his official gods.
0:03:56 > 0:04:01A complacency which eventually amounted to a cynical indifference.
0:04:01 > 0:04:03No-one has put that better than Edward Gibbon
0:04:03 > 0:04:06in his Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire.
0:04:06 > 0:04:08Let's see, what did Gibbon say?
0:04:10 > 0:04:12Gibbon said, "The various modes of worship
0:04:12 > 0:04:14"which prevailed in the Roman world
0:04:14 > 0:04:17"were all considered by the people as equally true,
0:04:17 > 0:04:20"by the philosopher as equally false,
0:04:20 > 0:04:23"and by the magistrate as equally useful."
0:04:23 > 0:04:25Good old Gibbon.
0:04:25 > 0:04:27Now, let us look at some of those gods.
0:04:36 > 0:04:37How remote and unsympathetic
0:04:37 > 0:04:41most of these Roman gods were to the man in the street.
0:04:41 > 0:04:45Jupiter, chief god, vaguely ruled the skies,
0:04:45 > 0:04:49a sort of impersonal permanent undersecretary.
0:04:49 > 0:04:52Mars was the country bumpkin who became the gorgeous god of war
0:04:52 > 0:04:53but remained a bumpkin.
0:05:04 > 0:05:07Hercules, department of physical culture.
0:05:07 > 0:05:08A little more personal.
0:05:08 > 0:05:10All biceps, no brains,
0:05:10 > 0:05:13and hence a universal object of hero worship.
0:05:20 > 0:05:23Mercury slyly combined the duties of king's messenger
0:05:23 > 0:05:25with an eye over the stock market.
0:05:27 > 0:05:30Neptune, god of the sea, was perhaps a little more real.
0:05:30 > 0:05:32Salt water frightened the Romans.
0:05:32 > 0:05:36The whole divine gang was in effect a branch of the Roman civil service.
0:05:36 > 0:05:40Its spiritual content was just about that of an office in Whitehall.
0:05:40 > 0:05:45You know, "Your obedient servant Jupiter, signed in his absence."
0:05:45 > 0:05:48Animal sacrifice supplied news forecasts.
0:05:48 > 0:05:51Of intimate faith, there was none.
0:05:51 > 0:05:53But this isn't the whole story.
0:05:53 > 0:05:55In distant nooks and corners of the empire
0:05:55 > 0:05:58were local gods of a more knowledgeable kind.
0:05:58 > 0:06:00Your real friends in need.
0:06:00 > 0:06:03If the River Po burst its banks...
0:06:04 > 0:06:07..or if a sandstorm blew up in Libya,
0:06:07 > 0:06:10or if you lost your sweetheart out on the Northumberland moors,
0:06:10 > 0:06:12Jupiter's crowd weren't much use.
0:06:12 > 0:06:14You would turn to the gods who were familiar
0:06:14 > 0:06:16with your own part of the world.
0:06:17 > 0:06:20In the Forest of Dean, if you wanted a good day's hunting
0:06:20 > 0:06:22or if you had a pain in your little inside,
0:06:22 > 0:06:25you went to your local holy man for quick and understanding service.
0:06:29 > 0:06:31His name was Nodens.
0:06:31 > 0:06:33He was real and handy.
0:06:33 > 0:06:35He even had a good and faithful hunting dog.
0:06:39 > 0:06:43The country round Hadrian's Wall was full of these rustic gods.
0:06:52 > 0:06:56Their altars survive with their strange names upon them.
0:07:00 > 0:07:03Even foreign gods and ideas could be acclimatised.
0:07:03 > 0:07:06The famous Corbridge Lion, whatever its real meaning,
0:07:06 > 0:07:10might serve as a symbol for a stout heart in a bad climate.
0:07:13 > 0:07:16Hercules could acquire a Harry Lauder club.
0:07:16 > 0:07:20Serapis could travel from Egypt with all manner of exotic remedies.
0:07:20 > 0:07:22But there's an outer darkness of the human mind
0:07:22 > 0:07:26where pills and quackery do not suffice.
0:07:26 > 0:07:28Men were becoming aware of strange points of light,
0:07:28 > 0:07:31gleaming, penetrating and vanishing like the eyes of wild beasts.
0:07:33 > 0:07:35Out there was a mysterious something
0:07:35 > 0:07:38you couldn't satisfy by knocking a sacrificial sheep on the head.
0:07:38 > 0:07:40What was that something?
0:07:40 > 0:07:42There were many answers to that question,
0:07:42 > 0:07:44and most of them pointed to Asia.
0:07:44 > 0:07:46Rome was busy in Asia,
0:07:46 > 0:07:49and from Asia, in turn, came new and powerful ideas.
0:07:53 > 0:07:56The Arch of Titus in Rome is a surviving witness to this.
0:07:56 > 0:07:59The imperial hand grasping the East.
0:07:59 > 0:08:02It grasped the seven-branched candlestick of Jerusalem
0:08:02 > 0:08:04and sacked its temple.
0:08:04 > 0:08:06It also grasped the ideas behind the candlestick
0:08:06 > 0:08:08and brought them to Rome.
0:08:08 > 0:08:12The reflective mind of western Asia began to conquer the conqueror.
0:08:12 > 0:08:15Judaism and Christianity
0:08:15 > 0:08:18whispered their beliefs into the spiritual emptiness of Rome.
0:08:26 > 0:08:30At first, early Jews and Christians were lost in the crowd.
0:08:30 > 0:08:34They talked of one god, of his wrath and his love.
0:08:34 > 0:08:36They offered resurrection after death
0:08:36 > 0:08:40in place of the gloomy underworld of the official religion.
0:08:40 > 0:08:42Of this, the satirist Juvenal wrote,
0:08:42 > 0:08:44"That there are souls and a subterranean kingdom
0:08:44 > 0:08:47"and a ferry man armed with a pole?
0:08:47 > 0:08:50"That's no longer believed, even by children."
0:08:50 > 0:08:55Instead, the new priests from the East offered a new immortality.
0:08:55 > 0:08:59Senator or slave, your soul was unique in the sight of God.
0:08:59 > 0:09:02But with Judaism and Christianity came a third creed,
0:09:02 > 0:09:04the cult of Mithras.
0:09:04 > 0:09:05A few years ago,
0:09:05 > 0:09:09a temple of Mithras was unearthed in the midst of London.
0:09:09 > 0:09:11Mithras, a Persian god,
0:09:11 > 0:09:13was at one-time the rival of Christ himself.
0:09:13 > 0:09:16Wherever the Roman legions and traders went,
0:09:16 > 0:09:18they carried their Persian god with them.
0:09:20 > 0:09:24The flickering light of this creed burned only a few paces away
0:09:24 > 0:09:28from the wall of Hadrian in Northumberland.
0:09:28 > 0:09:30It has been said that if Christianity had been stopped
0:09:30 > 0:09:33in its youth by some mortal malady,
0:09:33 > 0:09:36the world would have adopted the worship of Mithras.
0:09:36 > 0:09:39Mithras was a god of manliness, of light and enlightenment,
0:09:39 > 0:09:43yet he was worshipped in semi-darkness.
0:09:43 > 0:09:44To share his enlightenment,
0:09:44 > 0:09:47you passed through ordeals by fire and sword
0:09:47 > 0:09:49amidst vague shapes of roaring lions
0:09:49 > 0:09:52and human ravens with flapping wings.
0:09:52 > 0:09:57Strange mixture of personal trial and cosmic fairy tale,
0:09:57 > 0:09:59but it was personal and intimate,
0:09:59 > 0:10:03spiritually far removed from the banality of the older gods.
0:10:03 > 0:10:07At San Clemente in Rome, one of the best temples of Mithras
0:10:07 > 0:10:10is buried deep beneath the Christian church.
0:10:10 > 0:10:15Impressive, this Mithraism, but too muddle-headed to make the grade.
0:10:15 > 0:10:18Its spiritual ideas were tangled up with ancient ritual,
0:10:18 > 0:10:21and its crowning silliness was the exclusion of women.
0:10:24 > 0:10:26No, Mithras was too much of a medicine man.
0:10:26 > 0:10:29He presided in the act of slaying a bull
0:10:29 > 0:10:32from whose blood sprang the life of the earth.
0:10:33 > 0:10:36Against the intelligence of Christianity,
0:10:36 > 0:10:38he stood no real chance.
0:10:38 > 0:10:41When the first Christian emperor decreed the peace of the Church,
0:10:41 > 0:10:43Mithras was doomed.
0:10:49 > 0:10:52The claim of Christianity was absolute.
0:10:52 > 0:10:54It required undivided allegiance.
0:10:54 > 0:10:58The early Christians were persecuted not for their doctrines or practices
0:10:58 > 0:11:01but because they refused to pay lip service to the state religion,
0:11:01 > 0:11:03which was a symbol of the state itself.
0:12:00 > 0:12:02The early Christians went to earth.
0:12:02 > 0:12:05They had their secret assemblies, their underground chapels
0:12:05 > 0:12:07and burial places, their catacombs.
0:12:07 > 0:12:10Half-lit picture galleries of faith,
0:12:10 > 0:12:12memorials to the innocent and the martyred,
0:12:12 > 0:12:15whose uncomplicated loyalty appeals across the ages
0:12:15 > 0:12:17with a directness that is lacking
0:12:17 > 0:12:20in the mysteries of Mithras and his kin.
0:12:20 > 0:12:22Yes, the catacombs, with their simple message,
0:12:22 > 0:12:26are no mean part of the grandeur that was Rome.
0:12:48 > 0:12:52These hidden Christians were obstinate defenders of the faith,
0:12:52 > 0:12:56their sustaining hope, even in the agony of a public death,
0:12:56 > 0:13:00was everlasting life in peace "in pace".
0:13:04 > 0:13:09The paganism of Rome collapsed under the weight of its emptiness.
0:13:09 > 0:13:12The new Christian creed was confirmed by persecution.
0:13:12 > 0:13:16The plain cross in the Colosseum is its fitting monument.
0:13:16 > 0:13:18The year 306.
0:13:18 > 0:13:21Constantine the Great proclaimed emperor by the army of Britain.
0:13:21 > 0:13:25He marched on Rome with a symbol of Christ as his standard.
0:13:33 > 0:13:37From the Milvian Bridge, he hurled his pagan rivals into the Tiber.
0:13:45 > 0:13:48Christianity had triumphed.
0:13:48 > 0:13:51The classical world was dead.
0:13:52 > 0:13:56And Constantine the Great was one of its grave-diggers.
0:13:56 > 0:13:58I wish we knew more about this Constantine.
0:13:58 > 0:14:02The foremost witness of the birth of our modern world remains obscure.
0:14:02 > 0:14:05The Middle Ages never put him among the Nine Worthies,
0:14:05 > 0:14:08their Nobel prize-winners from antiquity.
0:14:08 > 0:14:11Julius Caesar, the old cynic, they took him all right.
0:14:11 > 0:14:14His personality shines through every portrait of him,
0:14:14 > 0:14:16genuine or otherwise.
0:14:16 > 0:14:19Even the Elizabethans took Caesar to their hearts.
0:14:19 > 0:14:21Isn't he a poppet?
0:14:21 > 0:14:23But Constantine the Great,
0:14:23 > 0:14:25well, here he is on his own capital of Rome.
0:14:25 > 0:14:28Is this a hand that lay on destiny?
0:14:28 > 0:14:32Is this an emperor or just big business?
0:14:32 > 0:14:34Yet he ushered in the modern world.
0:14:34 > 0:14:38He understood the East and moved to Constantinople.
0:14:38 > 0:14:40Before him rose the shape of modern man.
0:14:40 > 0:14:44Below and behind him lay the dust of a dying world.
0:14:48 > 0:14:51The hand of Constantine lay firmly on everything,
0:14:51 > 0:14:54from Christian orthodoxy to income tax.
0:14:56 > 0:14:58He steered a devious course
0:14:58 > 0:15:03through tiresome and perilous Church heresies.
0:15:03 > 0:15:05He ground the faces of the rich until they were poor,
0:15:05 > 0:15:10and he ground the faces of the poor until they were destitute.
0:15:12 > 0:15:13For all his Christianity,
0:15:13 > 0:15:15his statue towered over Constantinople
0:15:15 > 0:15:17in the guise of the sun god.
0:15:19 > 0:15:22The tall column on which that statue stood
0:15:22 > 0:15:25still stands in the midst of Istanbul,
0:15:25 > 0:15:30blackened memorial to an age of old doubts and new certainties.
0:15:31 > 0:15:35There, for a moment, Constantine almost becomes a living mind.
0:15:35 > 0:15:39I like to think that a smile flickered across his solemn features
0:15:39 > 0:15:43when, with his own hands, he sealed up in the base of his new column
0:15:43 > 0:15:46a wooden juju of Athena
0:15:46 > 0:15:49which Aeneas had carried from Troy to Rome.
0:15:49 > 0:15:52Carrying, for good measure, the axe of Noah,
0:15:52 > 0:15:56and the rock from which Moses had made the waters gush forth,
0:15:56 > 0:16:00and a basket containing the remains of the seven loaves
0:16:00 > 0:16:03with which Christ had fed the multitude.
0:16:05 > 0:16:07Athena, Moses, Christ.
0:16:08 > 0:16:13Could catholicity or... or hesitation go further?
0:16:14 > 0:16:17The foundations of the modern world were well and truly laid.
0:16:19 > 0:16:23But in an age of muddled, urgent thought,
0:16:23 > 0:16:27there were often uncommonly clear outlines to Constantine's thinking,
0:16:27 > 0:16:31just as there are strangely clear, hard outlines to the sculptures
0:16:31 > 0:16:35which commemorate him on his monumental arch in Rome.
0:16:50 > 0:16:53One quality of those Romans is common to their paganism,
0:16:53 > 0:16:56their Christianity, their daily life.
0:16:56 > 0:16:59Discipline. They worshipped discipline.
0:16:59 > 0:17:02The stony discipline of the parade ground.
0:17:19 > 0:17:23But above all, we owe to the Romans the discipline that became codified,
0:17:23 > 0:17:25that became law.
0:17:25 > 0:17:27Seven centuries before Constantine,
0:17:27 > 0:17:30the laws of Rome had been cut on plates of brass
0:17:30 > 0:17:33for all to read in the marketplace.
0:17:33 > 0:17:37They were called the 12 tables, and every schoolboy learned them.
0:17:43 > 0:17:47In those seven centuries, the law of a small peasant state
0:17:47 > 0:17:51was transformed into the law of an international empire.
0:17:51 > 0:17:55And it was public law, not police law.
0:17:55 > 0:17:57"Formal contracts shall be binding.
0:17:57 > 0:18:01"If you kill a man accidentally, you shall compensate his relations
0:18:01 > 0:18:04"but only half as much for a slave.
0:18:04 > 0:18:07"Don't spend too much on funerals.
0:18:07 > 0:18:10"Keep your women under control.
0:18:10 > 0:18:14"You may kill a thief by night, or by day if he is armed."
0:18:14 > 0:18:18Law, "lex", was the recurrent theme of Roman life.
0:18:18 > 0:18:21It became a part of the grammar of civilisation.
0:18:21 > 0:18:23Roman law is everywhere.
0:18:30 > 0:18:31Scrape away the verdigris,
0:18:31 > 0:18:36and you have the legal system of the free world before you.
0:18:36 > 0:18:39In the sixth century, Roman law entered the modern world
0:18:39 > 0:18:41as codified by the Emperor Justinian.
0:18:41 > 0:18:43His code has remained perhaps
0:18:43 > 0:18:46the most powerful symbol of our civilisation,
0:18:46 > 0:18:48its most potent unifying force.
0:19:00 > 0:19:02Seneca, that wordy lawyer,
0:19:02 > 0:19:05would be amazed, however green his law was.
0:19:05 > 0:19:09And yet if I'm to be honest, I have to admit to an uncomfortable feeling
0:19:09 > 0:19:12in the presence of so much stoical probity,
0:19:12 > 0:19:14so much hook-nosed justice.
0:19:16 > 0:19:18And what about you and me in the Roman world?
0:19:18 > 0:19:22How did the ordinary man share in the grandeur that was Rome?
0:19:22 > 0:19:24The wine shipper on the Moselle, for example,
0:19:24 > 0:19:28bringing his wine casks laboriously into market.
0:19:30 > 0:19:34Scattered over three continents lie remnants of Roman daily life.
0:19:34 > 0:19:37Look at them brought together, perhaps for the first time.
0:19:37 > 0:19:40A kind of Roman Diary Of A Nobody.
0:19:40 > 0:19:44The tradesman down the street, how modern his shop.
0:20:01 > 0:20:05The blacksmith who never changed his ways a nail's length
0:20:05 > 0:20:08until the Industrial Revolution put him out of business
0:20:08 > 0:20:0916 centuries later.
0:20:09 > 0:20:12The banker in his counting house.
0:20:12 > 0:20:16And, of course, your wife wants a dress length for the new fashion
0:20:16 > 0:20:18and must have her hair permed.
0:20:18 > 0:20:21Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who's the fairest of us all?
0:20:23 > 0:20:25Whilst the children are off school,
0:20:25 > 0:20:28and woe betide the young hopeful if he's late.
0:20:31 > 0:20:34Then home to dinner. Ah, a goose this evening.
0:20:34 > 0:20:37And a party and good drinks afterwards.
0:20:37 > 0:20:38All this belongs
0:20:38 > 0:20:41to the life of the great middle class of the Roman cities,
0:20:41 > 0:20:43and it's altered surprisingly little.
0:20:45 > 0:20:48The higher up you moved in the social scale,
0:20:48 > 0:20:50the more you went in for country life.
0:20:50 > 0:20:54You knew how to pick your country and to live the good life.
0:20:55 > 0:20:57How is that for a country house,
0:20:57 > 0:21:00thrusting into the azure lake of Garda?
0:21:00 > 0:21:05No doubt a shipping millionaire or a successful company promoter
0:21:05 > 0:21:08or, much the same thing, the ex-governor of a fat province
0:21:08 > 0:21:10lived there in cautious retirement
0:21:10 > 0:21:14if he escaped prosecution for extortion and corruption.
0:21:24 > 0:21:27Here again, beneath the hills of Tivoli near Rome,
0:21:27 > 0:21:32where the Emperor Hadrian, who planned our austere frontier wall,
0:21:32 > 0:21:35built a huge, splendacious villa for himself
0:21:35 > 0:21:37across a mile of countryside.
0:21:43 > 0:21:47But cultivated country life was by no means a Mediterranean monopoly.
0:21:47 > 0:21:50I have in mind a little Roman house,
0:21:50 > 0:21:54tucked away in one of the lovely valleys of Kent at Lullingstone.
0:21:54 > 0:21:56There knowledgeable country squires
0:21:56 > 0:21:59lived for three of the centuries of Roman Britain.
0:22:00 > 0:22:02Memories of the poet Virgil
0:22:02 > 0:22:05went to the making of their mosaic floors.
0:22:08 > 0:22:11Their tables were furnished with elegant simplicity.
0:22:16 > 0:22:19They drank new wine in new bottles
0:22:19 > 0:22:23and, bless them, were fond of dogs and therefore gentlemen.
0:22:23 > 0:22:26They had their hunting and their table games.
0:22:26 > 0:22:28A game of chequers went into a squire's grave,
0:22:28 > 0:22:32close to where he'd lived and grumbled and gambled.
0:22:32 > 0:22:35"'Tis all a Chequer-board of Nights and Days:
0:22:35 > 0:22:37"Where Destiny with Men for Pieces plays."
0:22:37 > 0:22:41Towards the end of the empire, the proprietor was a Christian
0:22:41 > 0:22:44who turned one of his rooms into a chapel.
0:22:44 > 0:22:46Praying figures were painted on its walls.
0:22:47 > 0:22:50And beside them was a sacred monogram of Christ.
0:22:54 > 0:22:57The Roman Empire was full of these gracious establishments
0:22:57 > 0:23:00of which Jane Austen would have approved fully.
0:23:03 > 0:23:08Inside them, family life proceeded on a well-ordered pattern.
0:23:08 > 0:23:10It would scarcely be an exaggeration to say
0:23:10 > 0:23:14that the Romans invented home life in our sense of the term.
0:23:17 > 0:23:22When we look at their serious faces, full of individual character,
0:23:22 > 0:23:24full of that gravity and responsibility
0:23:24 > 0:23:26of which they were inclined to boast a little,
0:23:26 > 0:23:29we can think of these Roman family men
0:23:29 > 0:23:30sitting on the next seat of a bus
0:23:30 > 0:23:33or at a shareholders' meeting in the City.
0:23:36 > 0:23:39And then there were those splendid Roman women.
0:23:39 > 0:23:43Pursued by cynical historians, they've had a bad press
0:23:43 > 0:23:47but, in truth, in a predominantly masculine society,
0:23:47 > 0:23:49they show up remarkably well,
0:23:49 > 0:23:52and much of the stability of ancient Roman life is owed to them.
0:24:01 > 0:24:03It's perhaps something of a surprise to us
0:24:03 > 0:24:04that these admirable women
0:24:04 > 0:24:07were often engaged to their future husbands
0:24:07 > 0:24:09as children by family contract.
0:24:09 > 0:24:11But after all, the same custom prevails
0:24:11 > 0:24:13in many parts of the world today.
0:24:13 > 0:24:17I remember once asking a distinguished Indian friend of mine
0:24:17 > 0:24:21how these contract marriages worked out in his country.
0:24:21 > 0:24:23"Ah," he replied, "The answer's easy.
0:24:23 > 0:24:26"The difference between us and you is this.
0:24:26 > 0:24:29"With us, love begins with marriage.
0:24:29 > 0:24:32"With you, love ends with marriage."
0:24:32 > 0:24:36And a Roman satirist might have said very much the same thing.
0:24:36 > 0:24:37Anyway, there's ample evidence
0:24:37 > 0:24:42that these contract marriages turned out quite well very often.
0:24:43 > 0:24:47There are many tombstones to faithful Roman wives,
0:24:47 > 0:24:50baring the letters SVQ,
0:24:50 > 0:24:54which stand for three Latin words meaning "no complaints".
0:24:54 > 0:24:57And some of them run through a catalogue of domestic virtues
0:24:57 > 0:25:00worthy of an espoused saint.
0:25:03 > 0:25:07A butcher on the Viminal Hill in Rome carved this message
0:25:07 > 0:25:12upon his wife's grave after 33 years of marriage.
0:25:12 > 0:25:16"She whose chaste body went before me was my loving wife.
0:25:17 > 0:25:20"She was one with me in mind and spirit.
0:25:20 > 0:25:23"In life she was loyal to her husband, as I to her,
0:25:23 > 0:25:27"and she never failed of her duty through any sort of selfishness.
0:25:27 > 0:25:31"She was chaste, modest, retiring, faithful to her man."
0:25:33 > 0:25:37Animosities are mortal, but the humanities live forever,
0:25:37 > 0:25:40and humanity was a Roman virtue.
0:25:40 > 0:25:44In Latin speech, it comprehended the finer things of life.
0:25:45 > 0:25:47With it went piety,
0:25:47 > 0:25:51by which the Romans meant loyalty to god, country and family.
0:25:51 > 0:25:54Amidst the pomp and circumstance of empire,
0:25:54 > 0:25:58the simple humanity and piety of Aurelius the butcher
0:25:58 > 0:26:00have their honoured place.
0:26:36 > 0:26:39Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd