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Websites

These websites are not under the control of and are not maintained by Channel 4 Television. Channel 4 is not responsible for the content of these sites and does not necessarily endorse the material on them.

Antiqua Medicina: Etruscan and Roman medicine
www.healthsystem.virginia.edu/internet/library/
historical/artifacts/antiqua/etruscan.cfm
An overview of medical practice including home remedies, doctors in society, ancient gynaecology, sanitation engineering, Galen (the most famous doctor of antiquity) and military medicos.

Dio Cassius: Nero and the Great Fire 64 CE
www.fordham.edu/halsall/ancient/
diocassius-nero1.html
Extract from the Roman History by Dio Cassius (AD c 155-235) about the fire that ravaged Rome and was blamed on Nero.

Lycia: The pirates' heaven
www.sailturkey.com/routes/
sites/lycia.htm
Short article on the region of what is now modern-day Turkey that was once notorious for its pirates.

Lead poisoning and Rome
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia
_romana/wine/leadpoisoning.html
Ingesting defrutum (concentrated grape juice made in lead and copper vessels and used to sweeten and preserve wine and in sauces) or drinking water from lead pipes may have been a major factor in the decline of the Roman empire.

Slaves and freemen
www.pbs.org/empires/romans/empire
/slaves_freemen.html
Tells how circumstances could make any person a slave, regardless of colour or creed, and of the regular abuse that was dealt them.

Jews and Christians in Rome's golden age
www.fsmitha.com/h1/ch19.htm
Details of the persecution of Christians and the defeat of the Jews at Massada.

Books

Greek and Roman Medicine by Helen King (Bristol Classical Press, 2001) £8.99
This short book asks how the experience of illness and the role of medicine were understood in the Greek and Roman worlds. Focuses on the place of medicine within changing types of society.

Romans and Barbarians: Four views from the empire's edge by Derek Williams (St Martin's Press, 1999) £25
Chronicles the experiences of Roman soldiers encountering the shadowy 'barbarians' and Celtic peoples of the empire's frontier in the 1st century AD.

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