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.

→ Listen 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
• Hadrian’s Wall
  
  12 Jul, 2012 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
• Rome and European Civilization
  
  20 Dec, 2001 930 History of the Ancient World
• The Augustan Age
  
  11 Jun, 2009 930 History of the Ancient World
• The Roman Empire’s Collapse in the 5th century
  
  5 Apr, 2001 930 History of the Ancient World
• Tiberius
  
  14 Dec, 2023 930 History of the Ancient World
• Boudica
  
  11 Mar, 2010 900 History
• Battle of the Teutoburg Forest
  
  13 Feb, 2020 930 History of the Ancient World

Experimental. For more related episodes, visit the visual explorer.

---

Programme ID: p00548xn

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

Auto-category: 937 (Ancient Rome)

Hello (First sentence from this episode)

Hello. About 2,000 years ago Tacitus noted that the climate is wretched.