In this talk, Professor Kathleen Coleman FBA highlights certain paradoxes at the root of Roman civilisation, specifically those related to the staging of violent displays in the arena. Virtually everything that fueled Roman society can be implicated: ideology, religion, class structure, environment, economy. The Romans, evidently, tolerated these paradoxes. Can we learn anything from them?

Speaker: Professor Kathleen Coleman FBA, James Loeb Professor of Classics and the Departmental Chair, Harvard University 

Image: The Colosseum in Rome. Credit Anna Kurzaeva via Getty Images