 |
|
|
|
|
PROGRAMME INFO |
|
|
|
|
|
The big ideas which form the intellectual agenda of our age are illuminated by some of the best minds. Melvyn Bragg and three guests investigate the history of ideas and debate their application in modern life. |
|
|
|
|
LISTEN AGAIN |
|
|
|
|
PRESENTER |
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
BIOGRAPHY
|
|
|
|
| "I'm fascinated by the fact that we live in a time when so many people are doing fantastic work, and thinking in areas which it's not remotely possible for me to keep up with & and these people are prepared to talk about it. They're prepared to come on In Our Time and other programmes on Radio 4 and try and talk to the rest of us ..." |
|
|
|
|
|
|
PROGRAMME DETAILS |
|
|
|
 |
|
THE ROMAN REPUBLIC
Find out more about this subject by using our special research page
Around 550BC, Lucretia, the daughter of an aristocrat, was raped by the son of Tarquin, the king of Rome. Lucretia told her family what had happened to her and then, in front of them, killed herself from shame. The Roman historian Livy describes what was believed to have happened next:
"Brutus, while the others were absorbed in grief; drew out the knife from Lucretia's wound, and holding it up, dripping with gore, exclaimed, "By this blood, most chaste until a prince wronged it, I swear, and I take you, gods, to witness, that I will pursue Lucius Tarquinius Superbus and his wicked wife and all his children, with sword, with fire, aye with whatsoever violence I may; and that I will suffer neither them nor any other to be king in Rome!". The King was duly expelled from the city and the Roman Republic was founded and lasted for 500 years.
But in what form did this republic evolve, what were its values and ideals and what ultimately caused the end of the world’s first true experiment in constitutional government?
Contributors
Greg Woolf, Professor of Ancient History at St Andrews University.
Catherine Steel, Lecturer in Classics at the University of Glasgow.
Tom Holland, historian and author of Rubicon: the Triumph and Tragedy of the Roman Republic.
|
|
|
RELATED LINKS
|
|
|
|
|
