Menage à Trois

Professor Mary Beard looks beyond the stories of emperors, armies, guts and gore to meet the everyday people at the heart of Ancient Rome's vast empire We still live in the shadow of ancient Rome - a city at the heart of a vast empire that stretched from Scotland to Afghanistan, dominating the West for over 700 years. Professor Mary Beard puts aside the stories of emperors and armies, guts and gore, to meet the real Romans living at the heart of it all.

The British Isles have a long, rich and celebrated seafaring history stretching from the earliest times through the victories of Drake and Nelson, the voyages of discovery and the defence of the realm by vessels of all types in the present century. Much of this history is recorded in literature and in museums but reaches its most tangible form in the large number of historical ships that have been preserved and are continually restored as monuments to a proud past.