Professor Catharine Edwards explores the dramatic lives of two women at the heart of power in 1st-century imperial Rome. One is Messalina, whose scandalous reputation lives on 2,000 years after her bloody and dramatic death. The other is Agrippina - sister of Caligula, wife of Claudius and mother of Nero - an extraordinary woman who was not only a skilled and ambitious politician but also a murderer and ultimately a murder victim.

Professor Catharine Edwards follows the stories of four very different women across centuries which saw the Roman Empire utterly transformed. Among them are the slave turned imperial consort Caenis, the empress Julia Domna - a Syrian who was commemorated in fascinating ways as far away as York - and Helena, mother of the emperor Constantine and a force in converting the empire to Christianity.

Series in which Professor Catharine Edwards explores the dramatic story of the women who tasted power in the Roman Empire. In the first programme she looks at the remarkable Livia, wife of the emperor Augustus, mother of the emperor Tiberius and a woman whose influence was felt across the Roman world for over 60 years. But as Catharine explains, imperial women who lacked perfect political judgement would end up not as leaders but as victims. Both Augustus's daughter Julia and his granddaughter Agrippina would die miserably in exile.