Meet the Romans with Mary Beard is 2012 documentary written and presented by Mary Beard about the ordinary citizen of ancient Rome the world's first metropolis.
Episode one: All Roads Lead to Rome
Beard takes the Via Appia to cosmopolitan Rome to show the lives of the ordinary citizens in Imperial times who would be in the top seats of the Colosseum, take a boat to Rome's port Ostia importing goods from all over the Mediteranian and takes us into the bowels of Monte Testaccio. She features some extraordinary Romans such as Eurysaces, an eccentric baker, who made a fortune out of the grain trade and built his tomb in the shape of a giant bread oven, Pupius Amicus, the purple dye seller making imperial dye from shellfish imported from Tunisia, and Baricha, Zabda and Achiba, three prisoners of war who became Roman citizens.
Episode two: Streetlife
She descends into the city streets to discover the dirt, crime, sex and slum conditions in the world's first high-rise city where the poorer you were the higher you lived with little space, light, or sanitation. Rooms that were only slept in forced the poor to go outdoors into the city streets to eat, wash, get water and go to the lavatory. She looks at the Forum as a place of gamblers, dentists, thieves, prostitutes and rent boys. A huge wall separated the rich from the poor and their wooden tenaments that often caught fire with no proper fire service to put them out. At night the streets were a muggers paradise with no police force. Politicians who tried to provide social services were murdered lest they become too popular.
Episode three: Behind Closed Doors
Beard goes behind the cliched Roman marriage by looking at the thousands of tombstones of ordinary Romans, their children and slaves. The practice of child exposure when unwanted babies were left outside to die. Children that were wanted, half died by the age of ten. As soon as they were old enough they worked doing manual labour often from the age of five. Schooling for the few would be, boys only, learning to read and write, public speaking, and poetry. Many girls were married at the age of twelve. One tombstone was to a girl aged sixteen murdered by her husband. Childbirth was equally dangerous with the tools available at the time. Slaves were regarded as part of the family and used as sex slaves. Masters and Mistresses often married their freed slaves and other slaves were buried in the same tomb as their masters.
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