Mary Beard on SPQR: The History of Ancient Rome

This is how I wish my history teacher should have been...

Brilliant. Thank you.

Wow! A man from Palmyra in Syria traveled almost 4000 km to Hadrian's wall he bought a local slave - a woman called Regina he fell in love with her, he freed her, and married her 1800 years ago.
What a story! The Roman Empire was like none the other.

Disappointing; this seems to be about micro-history of the most micro sort, digging around here and there, not really a history of Rome in any meaningful sense.
It gets a bit better about a third in.

What a woman - love her passion and intellect

After reading her book, SPQR, I spent a couple of weeks traveling around the back roads of Rome looking at the “living history” that still exists all over that town. Thanks Mary!

I'm instantly Transported back to Roman days when she explains the way it was xxx

my personal favorite person on British Television, Mary is so interesting Great at Explaining Everything Rome, I think I've watched every Documentary she's done learnt so much xxx

why don't they show the ring ???

Free tip: Set speed to 1.25x. Flows very well.

I really like her documentaries but unfortunately her book isn’t to my taste.

Was the camera operator on break, so that we didn't get to see the ring? Inconceivable.

Show us the ring! 🤣

I'm so proud of her and everything she has accomplished. I would absolutely love to travel with her. Mary, thank you for giving the common people of history a voice.

Mary's the best!

This women got in interested into Ancient Rome at age of 18 and now I’m 22 years of age glad to say I’ve studied well over many great eras from the Romans, Greece, Aztec to modern Hitler henrich Himmler ! Such history should not be forgotten

I was thinking of who ud choose to sit with from ancient Rome and my choices were the same. Esp. When it co es to aggripina. She's fascinating

I'm a simple man . I see Mary Beard I hit like ...
If you're just now finding this in 2022 like I did you may or may not know she just released a documentary. Very up to date and she does show us the ice cores . It's very cool no pun intended .
*Imagine living a full life and basically being remembered for your sex life . I don't know who decided to put that on that woman's tombstone but I hope she had that kind of sense of humor .

I always find it interesting that many lower-class foods in the ancient and medieval epochs are now considered to be the diet of the upper class. Also, I find it odd that Roman cuisine is closer to modern Asian food than modern Italian food. An example would be the use of fish sauce which is usually an Asian thing(especially in the South-East) but occasionally is used in European cuisine; such as Garum/Colatura di alici, Anchovy essence, and Worchester sauce. I could be wrong I am a bit simple.

Dude the amount of freaking ads

Her love and passion for Rome makes her documentaries so beautiful.

Fascinating....fabulous lecture...sea urchin spikes....ouch!

Mary is absolutely brilliant as ever and the sound recording is good quality. A little miffed that at 41 minutes in she discusses at length the discovery of an emperor's ring and when she says 'and here it is', we do not get to see it. I resisted making any crude jokes here.

Theres another roman historians who is very good n entertaining if I recall her name i think its Brittany Beasley.

SHOW ME THE FRICKING RING!

I met someone once with a HUGE SPQR tattoo once. He had no idea what it meant...Babbled about roman soldiers and rank...

She's just the best, but to be fair she should work on her pronounciation of Latin because it's barely distinguishable from English

❤️‍🔥salm caly kom

This woman is just fantastic despite I do not agree with some of her commnets.

I like Mary beard and the way she presents things... but I really wish she would learn to pronounce Latin properly, especially names like Cicero or Lucius, for gods sake Cicero isn't pronounced sisero, its pronounced kikero (the c in classical latin is hard), and that goes for Lucius which is pronounced l-oo-ki-oos.

Mary rocks

Total babe!

Not showing the ring.. ??

I love Mary Beard but I don't agree with everything she says, particularly regarding Livia. If Livia did not kill all the potential heirs to Augustus, then the fates really were on her side that her son Tiberius should be the next emperor and Tiberius paid her by letting her corpse rot and did not even attend her funeral.

Mary Beard's imagination is boundless, clever, and superb!

I can’t believe they don’t show the ring!?

Oh no, they forgot to show the ring from Scipio Barbatus' tomb at Alnwick! How frustrating!!!

Foreigners tend to find historical habits a surprising survival of the old past. It happens more often than one might think. About the general disappointment for a not shown ring, obviouly it was allowed to be shown only to the public, and not over the media.
I was looking for an academic lecture, this was a book presentation. Fair enough. I do not agree of what it was said about armies and battles... It might be not a very nice way to reduce into a joke the complexity other specialists spent their life to study, coming out with very interesting interdisciplinary connections. Well, one might say that, in the end of the day, all people end up to practice sex more or less in the same few positions... yet, it seems that this topic gives to not few of history specialists quite a lot to say...

I was looking for an overview of Roman history. Bad choice. Brilliant professor but no thanks.

Alongside Dennis Skinner and Owen Jones the one person I would give anything to meet and talk to. Or should I say listen to !!!

Quite amazing that their Roman burial 2500 years ago is exactly how we ourselves bury our dead. Even the design of the casket quite similar something you could see today, inscriptions memorializing is a tradition we do today.

Thanks for posting this video. Prof. Mary Beard is an excellent scholar, writer, and lecturer.

A Dutch parlementarian, who was newly elected in 2017, also opened his maiden speech with a quotation from Cicero's 'In Catalinam.'

Just ordered her book thanks to this lecture.

Rejaina????? Regeeenah... damn....

I absolutely love this woman

One must remember history is just an opinion of the writer, this writer maintains that black legionaries were common place in Roman Britain, no evidence for this. This then makes her other observations and research doubtful.

What seems to come to mind when considering many different conquests (Genghis Khan, etc.), is just what does it accomplish when looking back many centuries later aside from ego gratification, cultural assimilation, establishing economic trade routes and an exchange of new ideas with some genetic intermixing? These individuals are long gone and usually forgotten, depending upon the time lapsed. (Of course one can also ask, why do we exist anyway). Our current US administration seems to have not learned anything from history.

Mary Beard has style..just saying