Accompanies the BBC Radio 4 series Being Roman with Mary Beard
Romon emperors and aristocrats were great tourists. They were as keen as we are on visiting the famous sights of the Mediterranean world, and they brought home souvenirs by the bucket-load. The best guide we have to the appearance of the lost statue of the goddess Athena inside the Parthenon at Athens, an extraordinary creation in gold and ivory, comes in the stone copies made for travellers and tourists. These range from pricey, high-quality replicas to the ancient equivalent of fridge magnets.
The most sought-after destination was Egypt, and the most alluring method of transport there was, as now, a Nile cruise. Julius Caesar holidayed on the river with Cleopatra. Half a century or so later, in AD 19, we know that Prince Germanicus, nephew of the emperor Tiberius, visited the country and took a boat up the Nile south from Alexandria.
No tourist, however, visited Egypt in greater style – or, I suspect, with a larger retinue of support staff, than the emperor Hadrian in AD 130. And no imperial party left quite such a lasting mark of their visit. In fact, you can still see the poems
