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Acclaimed classicist Mary Beard explores what it was really like to be emperor of Rome, taking us behind palace walls to reveal the hidden world of the Roman imperial court and lifestyle.

Deciphering rare surviving inscriptions and imperial-era artefacts, and exploring epic locations, including the imperial palace on Rome’s Palatine Hill, Hadrian’s vast villa at Tivoli and even the underwater ruins of Claudius’s pleasure palace on the Bay of Naples, Mary gives us her unique insights into the emperors’ lives behind the scenes: their homes, entourages, sex lives and health.

And she reveals why, ultimately, these most powerful men in the ancient world could be vulnerable to assassination in their own palaces and how with absolute power came absolute paranoia.