Renowned classical scholar Mary Beard delves deep into the heart of ancient Rome, bringing to life the true essence of what it meant to hold the most prestigious and perilous position of power: Emperor of Rome.
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Mary Beard’s Forbidden Art episode 2: Mary unpacks the complex subject of art and ideology, considering a range of very different works that have challenged the political and social status quo, expressing opinions and attitudes that many have wanted to silence – and even erase. She examines artwork ranging from the etchings of Otto Dix, banned by the Nazis, to the paintings of artist and gay activist Derek Jarman and the now famous (or infamous) statue of Edmund Colston. She considers the challenges of the representation of religious images from England to West Africa, examines how art has
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Mary Beard’s Forbidden Art episode 1: Classicist and broadcaster Professor Mary Beard explores a broad range of thought-provoking and sometimes controversial works of art that tackle unsettling subjects – works that have been fought over, removed from view or simply ‘forbidden’. She delves into the questions of what, why and how art gets forbidden, who gets to decide and how that has changed over time. In the first programme, Mary explores some of the challenging ways that artists have shown the human body. She begins with the Romans, heading to the British Museum to discuss a statue of
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Mary Beard’s Shock of the Nude episode 2: Mary Beard takes on one of the foundation stones of western art – the nude. Mary gives a deeply personal take on how artists have depicted the naked body, from the ancient Greeks to the taboo-busting painters and sculptors of today. Just why are artists so interested in nudity? And what can art reveal about our own attitudes to the body? Art critics over the centuries have often made lofty claims about the nude – playing down or refusing to acknowledge the erotic and even pornographic nature of some of
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Mary Beard’s Shock of the Nude episode 1: With distinctive wit and flair, Mary Beard takes a personal view of the nude in western art and its troubling power to provoke ideas about gender, sex and moral transgression. In the first programme her provocative two-part essay, classicist and broadcaster Mary Beard takes on the nude. As she says ‘There are an awful lot of naked bodies in western art, and they are often causing trouble even now.’ From the ancient Greeks to the taboo-busting painters and sculptors of today, Mary gives a deeply personal take on naked bodies
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Meet the Romans with Mary Beard episode 3 – Behind Closed Doors: We still live in the shadow of ancient Rome – a city at the heart of a vast empire that stretched from Scotland to Afghanistan, dominating the West for over 700 years. Professor Mary Beard puts aside the stories of emperors and armies, guts and gore, to meet the real Romans living at the heart of it all. In this final episode, Mary delves even deeper into ordinary Roman life by going behind the closed doors of their homes. She meets an extraordinary cast of characters
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Meet the Romans with Mary Beard episode 2 – Streetlife: Professor Mary Beard discovers the crime and slum conditions in the world’s first high-rise city. In this programme, Mary descends into the city streets to discover the dirt, crime, sex and slum conditions in the world’s first high-rise city. This Rome is not the marble Rome we know, but a vast, messy metropolis with little urban planning, where most Romans lived in high-rise apartment blocks with little space, light, or even sanitation. Forced outdoors into the city streets, she reveals where they went to hang out, get drunk,
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Meet the Romans with Mary Beard episode 1 – All Roads Lead to Rome: Historical series looking at the Roman empire from the bottom up. Professor Mary Beard traces the story of several ordinary yet remarkable Roman citizens. We still live in the shadow of ancient Rome – a city at the heart of a vast empire that stretched from Scotland to Afghanistan, dominating the West for over 700 years. Professor Mary Beard puts aside the stories of emperors and armies, guts and gore, to meet the real Romans living at the heart of it all. In this
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Mary Beard’s Ultimate Rome: Empire Without Limit episode 4: In the fourth and final episode, Mary tackles the biggest puzzle of all: why, and how, did the Roman Empire fall? Surveying the massive walls and fortifications of Britain and Germany, she discovers an empire under pressure, struggling to control its borders. Mary seeks to redefine our understanding of the so-called ‘Barbarian Invasions’, but also shows that the Roman Empire was facing even greater challenges from within. Maverick emperors upset all the assumptions of right-thinking Romans, while the traditional religion and beliefs of the Roman state came head to
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Mary Beard’s Ultimate Rome: Empire Without Limit episode 3: In the third episode Mary takes an in-depth look at the question of identity and citizenship within the Roman Empire. What did it mean to be, or to become, Roman, and how did the very different parts of the empire react to Roman rule? In the beautifully preserved cities of Algeria, incomers and locals mixed to create flourishing communities with a distinct ‘more Roman than Rome’ frontier identity. Mary follows the trail of one such African Roman from his native land all the way to Britain, where he served
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Mary Beard’s Ultimate Rome: Empire Without Limit episode 2: In the second episode, Mary Beard explores the physical world of the Roman Empire, and finds surprising parallels with our own world. Setting out in the footsteps of the emperor Hadrian, she discovers a vast empire bound together by a common material culture, and a globalised economy of such scale that evidence of its side-effects can still be seen today, thousands of miles away from Rome. Mary unpicks the threads of a huge commercial and cultural network, taking in the vital supply of olive oil to Rome and her
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Mary Beard’s Ultimate Rome: Empire Without Limit episode 1: How could a mediocre city in central Italy come to dominate such a huge area? What held the empire together and tore it apart? Mary Beard takes in the history and archaeology of the ancient world. In this first episode, Mary Beard reaches back to the myths and legends of the origins of Rome to gain an insight into the deep-rooted psyche of the people of Rome – a city born through fratricide and rape. But from the very beginning, Rome was also an asylum for outcasts and exiles
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