Roman Britain

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Romans in Britain. About 2000 years ago, Tacitus noted that “the climate is wretched”, Herodian said, “the atmosphere in the country is always gloomy”, Dio said “they live in tents unclothed and unshod, and share their women” and the historian Strabo said on no account should the Romans make it part of the Empire because it will never pay its way. But invade they did, and Britain became part of the Roman Empire for almost four hundred years.But what brought Romans to Britain and what made them stay? Did they prove the commentators wrong and make Britain amount to something in the Empire? Did the Romans come and go without much trace, or do those four centuries still colour our national life and character today?With Greg Woolf, Professor of Ancient History at St Andrews University; Mary Beard, Reader in Classics at Cambridge University; Catharine Edwards, Lecturer in Classics and Ancient History at Birkbeck College, London University.

→ Play on BBC Sounds website

Guests

• Greg Woolf 8 episodes
  Professor of Ancient History at St Andrews University
• Mary Beard 11 episodes
  Reader in Classics at Cambridge University
• Catharine Edwards 9 episodes
  Lecturer in Classics and Ancient History at Birkbeck College, London University

Related episodes

• The Celts
  
  21 Feb, 2002 930 History of the Ancient World
• The Roman Empire’s Collapse in the 5th century
  
  18 Mar, 2004 930 History of the Ancient World
• Rome and European Civilization
  
  20 Dec, 2001 930 History of the Ancient World
• Roman Slavery
  
  5 Apr, 2018 930 History of the Ancient World
• Byzantium
  
  19 Jul, 2001 940 History of Europe
• Tacitus and the Decadence of Rome
  
  10 Jul, 2008 930 History of the Ancient World
• The Roman Republic
  
  30 Dec, 2004 930 History of the Ancient World
• Slavery and Empire
  
  17 Oct, 2002 900 History
• The Geological Formation of Britain
  
  22 Oct, 2009 550 Earth sciences and geology
• The Etruscan Civilisation
  
  29 Sep, 2011 930 History of the Ancient World
• The Picts
  
  9 Nov, 2017 930 History of the Ancient World
• Arianism
  
  15 Apr, 2021 270 History of Christianity
• The Druids
  
  20 Sep, 2012 290 Other religions
• Battle of the Teutoburg Forest
  
  13 Feb, 2020 930 History of the Ancient World
• The Lindisfarne Gospels
  
  20 Feb, 2003 270 History of Christianity
• Hadrian’s Wall
  
  12 Jul, 2012 930 History of the Ancient World
• Edward Gibbon
  
  17 Jun, 2021 900 History
• Romulus and Remus
  
  24 Jan, 2013 930 History of the Ancient World
• Is Shakespeare History? The Romans
  
  18 Oct, 2018 820 English and Old English literatures
• The Aeneid
  
  21 Apr, 2005 870 Latin and Italic literatures

---

Programme ID: p00548xn

Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00548xn

Auto-category: 937 (Ancient Rome)