HistoryExtra
type: channel
link: https://www.historyextra.com
description: The official website for BBC History Magazine
date: 2025-12-01T14:38:05.000Z
update period: hourly
update frequency: 1
update base: 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00
items: Think you know everything about ancient Rome? These 25 facts will prove otherwise
items: Blood, guts and spectacle: 6 shocking events from the history of ancient Roman gladiators
items: “Roman roads turn up so often” | Catherine Fletcher on what the Romans did for European transport networks
items: The Roman army: everything you wanted to know
items: Life of the week: Spartacus
items: Seven Wonders of the Ancient World: everything you wanted to know
items: What were the lives of gladiators like in ancient Rome?
items: “The Roman empire cannot have been governed by a series of psychopaths. It would not have survived”: Mary Beard on Roman Emperors
items: What were houses like in ancient Rome?
items: Countdown to disaster: a timeline of the last hours of Pompeii

Think you know everything about ancient Rome? These 25 facts will prove otherwise
type: item
date: 2025-11-28T13:02:32.000Z
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Roman
subject: Death
subject: Gladiators
subject: Life in ancient Rome
subject: Roman rulers
description: Edward J Watts, author of The Romans: A 2,000-Year History, shares 25 things you need to know about one of the greatest civilisations of the ancient world – from their incredible feats of engineering to their sporting spectacles
encoded: 1. The Romans lived in an independent state for more than 2,200 years According to tradition, Rome was founded in 753 BC, shortly after the beginning of the Italian Iron Age. Its inhabitants were Latin-speaking pagans who lived along the river Tiber in what is now central Italy. The empire of Trebizond, the last independent Roman kingdom descended from that state, was captured in 1461 by an Ottoman army equipped with gunpowder weapons. The people living in Trebizond also called themselves ‘Roman’, but they were Christians who lived in a city on the Black Sea coast of modern Turkey and spoke a language they called Romeika (which translates as 'Roman', but which we now call Greek). 2. The Roman empire once included all, or part of, nearly 50 countries At the empire’s greatest extent in AD 117, Roman territory stretched from what is now the Atlantic coast of Portugal to the Persian Gulf beaches in Kuwait, from southern Egypt near the current Sudanese border to northern England, and from just south of Casablanca in Morocco to the Caspian Sea shores of Azerbaijan. The land area of the Roman empire was smaller than Australia, but if one included the territorial waters controlled by Rome (as is customary with modern states) the empire would rank as the fifth-largest country on earth if it existed today. 3. As much as one-third of the world’s population lived under Roman control Late during the reign of the emperor Trajan (ruled AD 98–117), it is thought that the Roman empire reached a population of 80 million, out of a total world population of around 230 million. In modern terms, Rome’s share of the world population at that moment would be nearly equivalent to a country with the combined populations of India and China. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/11/2GettyImages-1369193411-fa1bfb0-e1764241964618.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A yellow, blue and red map showing the Roman empire" title="The Roman empire reached its maximum…

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Blood, guts and spectacle: 6 shocking events from the history of ancient Roman gladiators
type: item
date: 2024-11-14T17:12:59.000Z
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Roman
subject: Gladiators
subject: Life in ancient Rome
description: How did gladiators supercharge the rise of Julius Caesar? And why were they seen as sex symbols? As Gladiator II arrives in cinemas, Guy de la Bédoyère tells the story of this brutal form of mass entertainment through six of its most significant (and surprising) moments
encoded: Julius Caesar turns death into mass entertainment Of all Roman pastimes, gladiators excite the most fascination and horror to this day – not least because of the sneaking suspicion that, if revived, they would rapidly pick up a fervent following. Yet, ironically, this most Roman of entertainments wasn’t the brainchild of the Romans. That dubious honour goes to the Etruscans, an ancient Italian people that emerged near the beginning of the first millennium BC. Gladiators used to fight in bouts to the death at Etruscan funerals – in short, they served as a form of human sacrifice. The Romans derived many of their customs from the Etruscans. And so it was perhaps inevitable that, as they grew into the dominant force on the Italian peninsula, they would adopt gladiatorial combat with gusto. Decimus Junius Brutus, later a consul, was said to have been the first to lay on a gladiatorial show – in honour of his deceased father, in c264–262 BC. Yet, as was the case with so many aspects of ancient Roman history, the concept of fighting to the death as mass entertainment was profoundly shaped by one Julius Caesar. In 65 BC, Caesar used his position as aedile (junior magistrate) to initiate a programme of public shows to secure, in the words of the historian Suetonius, “the good will of the masses”. He laid on 320 gladiatorial bouts and animal fights – and did so both in his name and in association with the other aedile, Marcus Bibulus, but in a way that ensured it was widely assumed the occasions were all his work. That, of course, was precisely his intention. Curiously, the 320 gladiatorial bouts represented a reduction of Caesar’s intentions. He had organised such a large number that his political opponents in the senate were terrified by the thought of so many armed men in Rome on Caesar’s payroll. And so they passed a law putting a cap on the numbers. The fears were well-grounded. Gladiators supplied muscle for thug politicians in the late Republic. By the 50s BC, when Ro…

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“Roman roads turn up so often” | Catherine Fletcher on what the Romans did for European transport networks
type: item
date: 2024-08-15T16:25:40.000Z
creator: Matt Elton
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Roman
subject: Life in ancient Rome
description: Matt Elton talks to Catherine Fletcher about ancient Rome’s continent-spanning road network, how it allowed the empire to flourish – and how it shaped Europe across later centuries
encoded: Matt Elton: At the start of your book, you note that Roman roads are fascinating but also mundane. How should we make sense of this apparent contradiction? Catherine Fletcher: Right from the very beginning, Roman roads did two different things. First, of course, they were designed to get people from point A to point B – and, quite importantly, to get the Roman army from A to B. In doing so, they made everyday life a lot easier for a lot of people. If you lived on a road, you’d be able to get to market more effectively, for instance, or to go to vote – if you were the kind of person who was allowed to vote in Roman society, at least. But, from the start, Roman roads also had a cultural role. They were a way of saying: “Hello, the Roman empire’s here.” All the way along every road, at mile intervals, were milestones that would tell you how far you had travelled – but also who the current emperor was. So, as well as making everyday life possible in various ways, roads also connected the Roman empire and made a cultural statement. It’s very easy for us now to be fascinated by those roads, because they’re everywhere. On the other hand, they’re just not as glamorous as monumental sites such as Pompeii, for instance, so we don’t think about them in quite the same way. You write that the staggering scale of the roads conveys Roman power on a level no individual building can match. Should we see the Roman road network as a kind of monument in itself? Yes, I think so. When you stop and consider the fact that the routes went right the way across Europe, up into Scotland, around the Mediterranean, along the top of north Africa and through to Turkey, it’s really spectacular. But, perhaps because parts of the network are hidden now, we don’t realise how remarkable it is. It only became clear to me when I actually started travelling around Europe to see the roads while I was researching this book. When did construction of the roads start? The most famous of the roads, the Via Appi…

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The Roman army: everything you wanted to know
type: item
date: 2024-02-18T07:06:21.000Z
creator: Emily Briffett
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Roman
subject: Life in ancient Rome
description: Adrian Goldsworthy answers listener questions on what life was like in the armies of ancient Rome – from revolting rations and brutal discipline, to promotion prospects and the chances of settling down
encoded: What did the average Roman soldier eat and drink while on campaign? Were the legions seen as a oppressive force in the regions they conquered? And why was one Roman centurion nicknamed 'bring me another'? Speaking with Emily Briffett, ancient historian Adrian Goldsworthy answers listener questions on life in the Roman army – from training and punishment to whether legionaries really hated being sent to Britain.

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Life of the week: Spartacus
type: item
date: 2024-01-30T07:08:27.000Z
creator: Emily Briffett
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Roman
subject: Life in ancient Rome
subject: Life of the week (podcast series)
description: Alison Futrell shares the story of the Roman rebel – from his early enslavement and brutal gladiatorial career to his extraordinary uprising
encoded: "I am Spartacus" is one of the most iconic lines in cinema history: from the 1960 film starring Kirk Douglas in the titular role, it has come to define how we see the Roman rebel. However, according to Roman historian Alison Futrell, the real man behind the legend has an equally fascinating story to tell. Speaking to Emily Briffett, Alison explains how Spartacus's life has been told through a variety of skewed lenses, explores the context surrounding his extraordinary uprising – and reveals how he has come to be seen as a revolutionary hero.

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Seven Wonders of the Ancient World: everything you wanted to know
type: item
date: 2024-01-28T07:49:31.000Z
creator: Rachel Dinning
subject: Ancient Egypt
subject: Ancient Greece
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Everything you wanted to know about history (podcast series)
subject: Life in ancient Rome
description: From the hanging gardens of Babylon to the lighthouse of Alexandria, Bettany Hughes answers listener questions on the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World
encoded: Did the hanging gardens of Babylon really exist? How was Egypt's Great Pyramid built? And could any one person have seen all seven ancient wonders? In our latest Everything you wanted to know episode Rachel Dinning puts listener questions on the seven wonders of the ancient world to public historian Bettany Hughes, who gives us the lowdown on these spectacular monuments and explores why humanity has had such an enduring fascination with them. Bettany Hughes is the author of The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2024) Buy now on Bookshop.org Buy now on Amazon <a href="https://www.awin1.com/cread.php?id=489797&clickref=historyextra-257666&awinmid=3787&p=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.waterstones.com%2Fbook%2Fthe-seven-wonders-of-the-ancient-world%2Fbettany-hughes%2F9781474610322%23%3A%7E%3Atext%3DThe%2520Seven%2520Wonders%2520of%2520the%2520Ancient%2520World%2520%28Hardback%29%26text%3DFrom%2520the%2520Great%2520Pyramid%2520at%2CWorld%2520in%2520page%252Dturning%2520prose.#:~:text=The%20Seven%20Wonders%20of%20the%20Ancient%20World%20(Hardback)&text=From%20the%20Great%20Pyramid%20at,World%20in%20page%2Dturning%20prose." rel="sponsored" target="_blank">Buy on Waterstones

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What were the lives of gladiators like in ancient Rome?
type: item
date: 2024-01-15T12:10:28.000Z
creator: Tony Wilmott
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Roman
subject: Gladiators
subject: Life in ancient Rome
description: Hollywood likes to cast them as heroic freedom fighters, but what was life really like for Rome's arena-warriors? Tony Wilmott brings you the facts…
encoded: In 1993 Austrian archaeologists working at the Roman city of Ephesus in Turkey made a spectacular discovery – a cemetery marked by the tombstones of gladiators. The stones gave the names of the men and showed their equipment – helmets, shields, the palm fronds of victory. With the tombstones were the skeletal remains of the fighters themselves, many of which bore the marks of healed wounds as well as the injuries that caused their deaths. Perhaps the most spectacular find was a skull pierced with three neat, evenly spaced holes. This man had been slain with the barbed trident wielded by a type of gladiator called a retiarius, who also fought with a weighted net. The gladiator has long been an iconic symbol of ancient Rome, and a popular element in any Roman epic movie, but what do we really know about the lives and deaths of these men? How much is known about the lives of gladiators? Until the discovery of the cities of Vesuvius in the 18th century, virtually everything we knew about gladiators came from references in ancient texts, from random finds of stone sculptures and inscriptions, and the impressive structures of the amphitheatres dotted about all over the Roman empire. It is difficult now to quite comprehend the impact that the discovery of Pompeii and Herculaneum (both in the 18th century) had on the classically educated of Europe, who suddenly saw the reality of Roman lives in a bewildering array of objects, graffiti and paintings. Read more about the discoveries of Pompeii and Herculaneum The reality could be spectacular, and in some cases seemed to confirm the more lurid stories in the sources. In 1764 the temple of Isis at Pompeii confirmed the practise of mysterious and esoteric eastern religions. Two years later, in rooms around the courtyard of the theatre, a number of skeletons were found together with a large quantity of gladiatorial armour, identifying the rooms as a gladiator barracks. Among the dead was a woman adorned with bracelets, rings and …

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“The Roman empire cannot have been governed by a series of psychopaths. It would not have survived”: Mary Beard on Roman Emperors
type: item
date: 2023-09-26T07:20:13.000Z
creator: Professor Mary Beard
subject: Period
subject: Roman
subject: Life in ancient Rome
subject: Roman rulers
description: Mary Beard tells Matt Elton what life would have been like for Rome’s emperors – from the path to the top to the almost inevitable sticky end
encoded: Your new book covers a swathe of the history of ancient Rome, from Julius Caesar to Septimius Severus and beyond, but starts by introducing a less familiar figure. Who is he, and why did you lead with him? The book kicks off with the story of a teenager from Syria who came to the Roman throne in AD 218 and who was assassinated in 222. Known as Elagabalus [officially Marcus Aurelius Antoninus], he certainly wasn’t one of Rome’s greatest hits, but he is an emperor around whom the most extravagant stories have collected. If you think Nero or Caligula were over the top, you ain’t seen nothing until you’ve looked at Elagabalus! We’re told that when he invited people to dinner, he showered them with rose petals – with so many petals that his guests were smothered and died. He is said to have been the earliest known user of the whoopee cushion in western history: he would have his slaves go around and let the air out of dinner guests’ cushions so that they ended up on the floor. He’s also reputed to have married a Vestal Virgin [a priestess sworn to chastity] and made a human sacrifice. In short, Nero was a pussycat in comparison. I start the book with Elagabalus because the point about such stories isn’t whether or not they’re true. (My guess is that they’re not, but were invented after Elagabalus’s time to besmirch his memory.) My pitch is that, in a way, it doesn’t matter if they are literally true, because they’re true in another sense: they represent Roman fears about what the worst kind of emperor would be like. They’re saying that you never know where you are with a bad emperor – that emperors are never what they seem, and that some of what lies at the heart of Roman imperial power is deceit, deception and fakery. In the orbit of the emperor, you can never believe your eyes. Even nature might be corrupted. Elagabalus’s alleged tricks included only eating fish when he was inland, and having snow brought to his summer gardens. Again, these stories paint a picture of a…

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What were houses like in ancient Rome?
type: item
date: 2023-09-20T07:46:54.000Z
creator: Lauren Good
subject: Period
subject: Roman
subject: Life in ancient Rome
description: The city of Rome was home to roughly 450,000 people. But where did they all live? From cramped insulae to the most decadent domus, Lauren Good explores the spaces Romans lived in…
encoded: The Roman Empire controlled two million square miles of land, and one in four people across the world lived beneath its rule. At the heart of this power network was Rome, a landscape adorned with temples and palaces, and home to roughly 450,000 people. But where did they all live? This answer varies according to social status. The wealthy owned multiple residences both within and beyond the city walls, while those with a lower financial status were crammed into flats often containing just two rooms. By studying these spaces, we can gain an intimate insight into Romans’ everyday lives. Where did the lower and middle classes live in ancient Rome? Most of the city lived in insulae, a term that translates to “islands” in Latin. These were tenement blocks of five or more stories, even nine in some cases, despite Emperor Augustus making the legal height limit 68 feet, and then Trajan lowering it further to 58. A fourth-century census reveals that there were over 40,000 of these buildings in ancient Rome, compared to fewer than 2,000 private residences. This high-rise building boom was not seen again until the Industrial Revolution. Each living space within these buildings would usually contain just one to two rooms. The landlords of these buildings would rent out space at the very bottom to shopkeepers, which would spill out onto the street below. Just above this ground floor, there would be the most expensive flats, while the poorest tenants lived at the very top in tiny spaces called cellae. As water could only be pumped to the lower levels, tenants on higher floors had to use public latrines and source water from public facilities. The lifestyle in these buildings was precarious. Due to their cheap construction and limited water supply, insulae often caught fire or collapsed, resulting in the plot being sold for a lower price, and then another insula would be reconstructed on the same site. Many wealthy Romans profited from this process. What was a domus in Ancient Rom…

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Countdown to disaster: a timeline of the last hours of Pompeii
type: item
date: 2023-08-23T22:51:56.000Z
creator: Nige Tassell
subject: Period
subject: Roman
subject: Death
subject: Life in ancient Rome
description: Pompeii was a bustling Roman city, home to thousands of people living in the shadow of Mount Vesuvius. Nige Tassell charts the terrifying events of AD 79 that saw Pompeii, and nearby Herculaneum, transformed into an ash-covered hellscape of destruction and death
encoded: Four days before the eruption 11:00 Minor earth tremors gently shake Pompeii, but not enough for any of its citizens to stop going about their day-to day business in this bustling, prosperous city. Minor earthquakes are common here in the region of Campania; the residents barely notice. The collective opinion is that there’s nothing untoward about this morning’s seismic activity. This is despite the enormous and devastating earthquake that hit Pompeii in living memory. In AD 62 (sometimes recorded as AD 63), the city was severely damaged and a tenth of its 20,000-strong population killed. Almost all of its adult population will have lost at least one loved one or friend in that giant quake, but an air of possible complacency pervades its rebuilt streets. The markets are busy, the trade is brisk. Everything appears to be normal. View oEmbed on the source website First day of the eruption 10:00 Those minor tremors are still being felt across Pompeii, and have been for the last four days. Yet its citizens still appear to be unconcerned. No one is heeding what will later be interpreted as warning signs. The markets are still busy, the trade is still brisk. It’s another typical morning without note. But then comes lunchtime... 13:00 Shortly after noon, as residents are stopping to refuel, Mount Vesuvius roars into life. Inside the mountain, the pressure caused by molten rock – the origin of the tremors felt over the past few days – has grown to such a point that there’s no way back. It has to escape, and so Vesuvius erupts for the first time in several centuries. A huge column of volcanic rock and ash is sent soaring as high as 10 miles into the air. What had been a typically cloudless summer’s day is very quickly extinguished by a cloud of volcanic debris, spreading swiftly to block out the early afternoon sun. It is the darkest of clouds for what will be the darkest of days for Pompeii and its residents. The explosion is unfathomably violent, unfathomably large. Each a…

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