Chronicle | Roman Goose March

How far can a goose walk in a day? Glyn Daniel recruits Olympic gold medal winner Ann Packer to find out how long it would have taken to walk geese from northern Gaul to Rome. This march, which was described by the Roman writer Pliny in his 'Natural History' in the 1st Century AD, also serves as a practical demonstration of how keen the Romans were on their version of foie gras.

'The Roman Goose March' is a good example of 'Chronicle' putting experimental archaeology into practice. In another edition, sixth-form schoolboys punted replicas of the bluestones of Stonehenge up the River Avon and then dragged them on sledges across Salisbury Plain. These experiments brought history alive on television and allowed serious calculations to be made for the benefit of archaeologists.