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Beneath starched Shakespearean togas and the pungent fug of gladiator sweat there are real Romans waiting to be discovered. To know what it was to be Roman you need to gather the scattered clues until they form a living, breathing human, witness to the highs and horrors of Europe鈥檚 greatest empire.

Mary Beard, Britain鈥檚 best-selling historian of the ancient world, rebuilds the lives of six citizens of the Roman Empire, from a slave to an emperor. Her investigations reveal the stressful reality of Roman childhood, the rights of women and rules of migration, but it鈥檚 the thoughts and feelings of individual Romans she鈥檚 really interested in.

In the second episode we meet a woman caught up in a brutal civil war. Turia鈥檚 story starts with the murder of her parents. She tracks down their killers and fights off scavenging relatives desperate for a piece of her inheritance. Before she has a moment to settle her new husband is forced on the run, fleeing the murderous junta that鈥檚 taken over the empire after the murder of Julius Caesar. She鈥檚 badly beaten by the leadership's thugs as she pleads her husband鈥檚 case, but will her sacrifices ensure his safety?

Producer: Alasdair Cross

Expert Contributors: Greg Woolf, UCLA; Matthew Nicholls, Oxford University; Helen King, Open University

Cast: Voice of Laudatio Turiae read by Don Gilet

Special thanks to the National Museum of Rome, Baths of Diocletian