It can be argued that Roman culture was, indeed, Graeco-Roman rather than Roman. It was the Greek language that served as the lingua franca in the Eastern Empire and much of the west including Italy. Many Greek intellectuals, including Galen, were based in Rome and the Roman aristocracy more and more came to embrace Greek literature and philosophy. Homer’s epics inspired Virgil’s Aeneid and Seneca wrote in Greek. Earlier, Scipio Africanus (236 – 183 B.C.), the epitome of the Roman martial hero, studied Greek philosophy and regarded Greek culture as the benchmark against which all others had to be judged. The Roman poet and philosopher Horace studied in Athens during the Principate and, in common with many of his class, saw that city as the intellectual centre of the world.

In the minds of most people today, Gaul equates to modern France. However, the vast geographical area that Caesar named Gaul, in fact, was made up of a number of very distinct regions and covered, in addition to modern-day France, Belgium, Luxembourg, parts of the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland and Northern Italy. The Romans called the northern area of the Italian peninsula, which is now part of modern Italy, Cisalpine Gaul, or Gaul on this side of the Alps. Early Romans did not even consider this region as part of Italy and repeated incursions southwards, and the sacking of Rome itself in 390 B.C., resulted in Rome taking full control of the area in 221 B.C. and thoroughly Romanizing it to the extent that even the Celtic language totally disappeared and was replaced by Latin. The region was initially a province but by the beginning of the 1st century B.C., it had become fully integrated into the Roman heartland and became an administrative region of Italy rather than a province.

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Release date

Audiobook: 9 November 2023