Bettany Hughes begins by examining the day in 202BC when Rome defeated the might of Carthage at the Battle of Zama. This decisive moment set Rome on the path to greatness.

Bettany Hughes relates the events of 73BC when a Thracian gladiator started a slave revolt that so panicked the Roman elite that they offered power to a single man, foreshadowing Rome's slide into dictatorship.

Bettany Hughes explores the day in 49BC when, defying the Senate, Julius Caesar and his army crossed the river Rubicon, plunging the Republic into civil war.

Bettany Hughes explores the rise to power of Octavian, who as Augustus became Rome's first emperor, beginning with the day in 32BC when he stole Mark Antony's secret will.

In 60 AD, Boudicca, queen of the Iceni, a ferocious warrior tribe from Britannia, leads a rebellion against the Romans to free her people from the empire's control.

Nero takes his own life as troops come to arrest him for crimes against the state; Bettany Hughes reveals how Nero's early reign was dominated by his mother, Agrippina, while exploring a new theory that his mood was undermined by a serious illness.

Bettany Hughes relives opening day at Rome's Colosseum in 80 AD; the lavish arena is a giant new landmark for the world's greatest city where people can revel in bloodthirsty entertainments.

Bettany Hughes looks at the day which marked Rome's symbolic break with its thousand-year pagan past - the day in 337 AD that Emperor Constantine the Great was baptised a Christian.