Tacitus

Natalie Haynes Stands Up for the Classics

Tacitus is the great historian of imperial Rome. His writing is beautiful, unsettling, extraordinarily persuasive. We know many of his likes and dislikes about people and politics, but facts about his personal life? Not so much.

His memoir of Agricola tells us much fascinating detail about Roman Britain: that it's an island (the Roman fleet sailed all the way round, just to check), that it's very close to Spain (with only Ireland in between); that invading Anglesey was a great victory for the Romans. He notes that it rains a lot, but omits to mention the Druids. He is also, he says, dedicated to writing impartially. Natalie may disagree. Who needs evidence when you have Tacitus' persuasive prose? It's not as if we can cross-check, because so little of the written record of the time survives to us. Natalie's guest, (modern) historian Dan Snow, finds this hard to fathom. Her other guest, Professor Llewelyn Morgan, knows it's unwise to lament the lost work. We should value what remains and hope that some new bits of Tacitus may appear in the future.

And it turns out that by boat, Britain IS actually close to Spain. Travelling overland was hard going in Tacitus' day, so compared to that, the sea journey to Spain was easy.

'Rock star mythologist’ and reformed stand-up Natalie Haynes is obsessed with the ancient world. Here she explores key stories from ancient Rome and Greece that still have resonance today. They might be biographical, topographical, mythological or epic, but they are always hilarious, magical and tragic, mystifying and revelatory. And they tell us more about ourselves now than seems possible of stories from a couple of thousand years ago.

Producer...Mary Ward-Lowery