We are thrilled to announce that our 2025/26 Donors’ Celebration will be a lecture delivered by Jonathan Stamp, former consultant for the HBO series ROME and tutor at Magdalen College, Oxford.
The lecture will take place on November 18th from 5PM to 6:30PM in the Old Council Chamber in the Wills Memorial Building. The event is free, open to all, and will be followed by a drinks reception.
You can book your tickets here.
“When I signed up to be the historical consultant on what was then one of the most lavish and big budget TV historical dramas ever made – HBO’s epic ROME – I had no idea what awaited me. Nothing less than the challenge of trying to re-imagine, down to the smallest detail, what it would actually have been like to have lived in that city – from its grandest villas to its poorest tenements – and to have walked its streets. I found that a lifetime of studying the Classics had left me unprepared to answer even the most basic day-to-day questions, and set about trying to put that right. Twenty years later I am still trying. In this talk, “It Is As It Was”, I share some of my conclusions, using clips from the original show. Do come and step into the Time Machine with me”.