Women who shaped the Roman empire

She led “a life that really, in many ways, shouldn't have been possible”. So says historian Paul Gillingham of Juana Inés de la Cruz. This 17th-century polymath and nun challenged a host of social conventions – earning, through her extraordinary books and poems, a place in the pa ...  عرض المزيد

While the crusades raged across the Holy Land in the southern Levant, the kingdoms of central and northern Europe were engaged in their own battle to extend Christendom. Speaking to James Osborne, Aleks Pluskowski details how and when the Baltic crusades – or Northern crusades – ...  عرض المزيد

The crisis of the Roman Republic is a period littered with iconic male power players. Julius Caesar, Mark Antony, Pompey, Brutus and the Gracchi brothers. But less famous, and often overlooked are the women that shaped these famous Roman statesmen.

In today' ...

16 January 27 BC is a date sometimes associated with the beginning of the Roman Empire. It was on that day that Octavian received the name Augustus, effectively becoming the first emperor of Rome. Augustus ordered the gates of Janus to be closed, marking an end to the period o ...

Rome has attracted aspiring conquerors and leaders for millennia, not just as a great metropolis, but as an idea. It has long been a symbol of military might and universal power, defined by political and religious authority as well as great feats of engineering that would leav ...

How sexually depraved were the Romans?

Whilst they were a civlised, stoic and innovative bunch, they were also a promiscuous bunch with very questionable morals.

Joining us today is friend of the show Emma Southon, author of <a href="https://www.emmasouthon ...