Mary Beard is a TV presenter, author and professor of classics at Cambridge, whose own work has explored the societies and culture of Roman and Greek civilisations.
Mary will be discussing her new book Emperor of Rome, where she shines the spotlight on the emperors who ruled the Roman empire, from the well-known Julius Caesar to the almost unknown Alexander Severus.
Taking the audience beyond the hype of politics, power, and succession and into the heart of the palace corridors. Mary will uncover the facts and fiction of these rulers, asking what they did and why, and how we have got such a lurid view of them.