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Hello everyone, it's Tom Holland here, and I have teamed up with the great Mary Beard to bring you four episodes on what we together have decided are the four most iconic themes

in ancient history. And today, we're looking at gladiators. Here's a short

extract of that episode. Hello, everybody, and welcome to the last of our sensational,

classically themed bonuses for you, our beloved members, the great Mary Beard is still here.

Obviously, her main focus at the moment is instant classics, her sensational podcast with

Charlotte Higgins.

But back in the mists of time, she co-authored a book on the Coliseum, probably the most iconic building in the whole of Rome,

the kind of great emblem of the Roman Empire. And so for our final episode, what else could we do but

gladiators? We've done an episode on the Colosseum and the rest of history. We've done one on

gladiators. But what we haven't done is an episode on the most famous of all gladiators, namely

Spartacus.

So I thought that that's what we would structure today's episode around.

But, Mary, before we come to Spartacus, can I just ask you,

suppose you had the opportunity to go back in a time machine and to watch a gladatorial show, do you think you would avail yourself of that opportunity?

I don't know. I mean, it puts you on the spot, isn't it? You know, I've written about gladiators. I've researched them, and then am I going to say,

no, I wouldn't go and have a look. I think that when it comes to kind of morals, I'd have to say

to myself, look, you went to see Gladiator 1 in the movies, and you went to see Gladiator 2,

now, okay, those weren't real. The kind of violence that you saw was

staged, CGI and all the rest, but it sure looked real. So I wonder what the difference is

...