Free Republic

It does not matter if Pompeii is damaged by visiting tourists, Professor Mary Beard has said, as she argues it would be "ghastly" to keep the public away from ancient ruins. Prof Beard, a Cambridge classicist and leading authority on Roman history, said she was "culpably laid back" about the crumbling of houses and walls, insisting they must not be restricted to academics. Arguing it is more important the ancient world engages the imagination of tourists, keeping them interested in history, she said: "The world isn’t going to stop if Pompeii loses a house." "It's had a good innings," she...

Failure in Iraq, debates about freedom, expenses scandals, sex advice … the Romans seem versions of ourselves. But then there’s the slavery and the babies on rubbish heaps. We need to understand ancient Rome, but should we take lessons from it? By the late fourth century CE the river Danube had become Rome’s Calais. What we often call the “invasions” into the Roman empire of barbarian hordes (or “swarms”, perhaps) could equally well be described as mass movements of economic migrants or political refugees from northern Europe. The Roman authorities had no better idea of how to deal with this...