Mothers, Murderers and Mistresses: Empresses of Ancient Rome

Professor Catharine Edwards explores the dramatic lives of two women at the heart of power in 1st-century imperial Rome. One is Messalina, whose scandalous reputation lives on 2,000 years after her bloody and dramatic death. The other is Agrippina - sister of Caligula, wife of Claudius and mother of Nero - an extraordinary woman who was not only a skilled and ambitious politician but also a murderer and ultimately a murder victim.

Series in which Professor Catharine Edwards explores the dramatic story of the women who tasted power in the Roman Empire. In the first programme she looks at the remarkable Livia, wife of the emperor Augustus, mother of the emperor Tiberius and a woman whose influence was felt across the Roman world for over 60 years. But as Catharine explains, imperial women who lacked perfect political judgement would end up not as leaders but as victims. Both Augustus's daughter Julia and his granddaughter Agrippina would die miserably in exile.