Meet the Romans with Mary Beard

Mary Beard’s three-part series looks at the ordinary people of ancient Rome, using tombstones, graffiti and everyday objects to recover the lives of shopkeepers, slaves and freed slaves rather than emperors and generals.

It is included here because Beard’s approach is a model for anyone exploring the ancient world: curious, sceptical of easy stories and always asking how we know what we think we know. Her enthusiasm is infectious, and her later book on Rome, SPQR, is just as rewarding.

Our verdict

Essential viewing for learning how historians think.