Guy de la Bedoyere

They turned being Roman into an idea, a way of life, that anyone could have – under certain conditions of course, like being prepared to accept the emperor’s authority without question.

R ome started out as nothing more than a village, but the Romans and their Empire became one of the most important – possibly the most important – of the ancient civilisations

Of course, the original Romans did, but over time their Empire became made of conquered peoples who were awarded Roman status and privileges and who often fought to get them. People in the Roman Empire saw themselves as Roman, while they proudly maintained their own national and ethnic heritages.

This Empire, they believed, was their reward from the gods for being such a worthy people

This corruption of the Roman ideal flew right in the face of everything the Roman world was supposed to be: honest, law-abiding, self-disciplined.

That’s what the Romans believed in – their Golden Age as farmers.

Egypt to an end and the longest-established of all civilisations ever became just another Roman province.

The Phoenicians were brilliant seafarers, which incidentally the Romans never were, and one story is that they might even have sailed right round the coast of Africa.

Today, the Greeks are still heralded as the fathers of modern democracy and civilisation.

The Etruscans built Rome’s first walls, its temple to Jupiter, and also the great sewer called the Cloaca Maxima.