Rome wasn’t built in a day – and it certainly can’t be explored in one evening… or can it?
Join Paul Roberts, Research Keeper of Antiquities at the Ashmolean Museum, for a vivid journey through the city’s most extraordinary monuments. Drawing on his acclaimed book Ancient Rome in Fifty Monuments, Paul Roberts will bring to life the arenas, temples, theatres, and mausoleums that shaped the Eternal City – not just as stone and marble, but as powerful statements of imperial ambition.
Through lavish imagery and gripping stories, you’ll encounter the soaring architecture of emperors, the ingenious engineering of Roman builders, and the shifting fates of these structures over two millennia – from their glorious construction to surprising reinventions as bullrings, theatres, and even grain measures. Paul Roberts’s eye for detail and flair for storytelling will reveal not only how Rome’s landmarks looked in their prime, but also the people, politics, and artistry behind them.
Expect a talk rich with dazzling reconstructions, from the golden splendour of the lost Temple of Jupiter to the dramatic rise and decline of Augustus’s monumental mausoleum. This is history as spectacle – where the ruins you think you know are restored in imagination to their full, breath taking scale.
Whether you are a lifelong lover of Roman history or simply curious about the city’s past, Paul Roberts will guide you on an unforgettable tour through the power, beauty, and enduring legacy of Ancient Rome.
10th September 2025, 6:30pm
At ICI London
Book HERE