Tom Holland

And within a century, the whole of the Mediterranean will become a Roman lake.

But the story of how Rome rises to that position of preponderance, what it means for people in the Mediterranean and what it means for the Romans themselves, I mean, that is a story for another day.

But I just thought to end this series, we've done three series.

in all.

And we began the very first series with a passage that derives from Polybius' recollections.

Polybius had accompanied Scipio Aemilianus to the siege and had witnessed it for himself.

So I'll just finish by reading this passage.

It is said that Scipio Aemilianus, as Carthage was going up in flames, its annihilation almost complete, gazed at the city in its death throes and openly wept for his enemies.

he stood wrapped in thought for a long time, pondering how every city, every people, every empire must, as men do, meet with their doom in the end.

For such had been the fate of Troy, once a proud and flourishing city, and of the empires of Assyria, Media and Persia, each in their own day the greatest in the world, and of Macedon, which only recently had blazed with such a brilliance.

And then, either deliberately or because he could not help quoting them, Scipio spoke two lines of Homer.

A day will come when sacred Troy shall perish and Priam and his people all be slain.

And when Polybius, speaking to him with the freedom he was granted as Scipio's tutor in Greek literature, asked him what he meant by these words, it is said that without any attempt to veil his meaning, Scipio made reference to his own country.

For when he pondered how all things that are mortal must fall, he dreaded how Rome too would fall.

Hello everyone, Tom Holland here, and I am joined by the great Laura Cumming, and we are looking at painting in history, four paintings that reflect a particular period in history.

We'll be looking at the history of the painting itself, the life of the artist, and teasing out the mysteries that shadow all four paintings.

And today we are looking at Las Meninas by Diego de la Velázquez, the painting that Laura Cumming, who is joining me, she sees it as the greatest painting of all time.

And we will be exploring why.

Hello everybody and welcome to the second in our series on great paintings and how they relate to the historical context and all of that.

And my guest today, as it was in our first episode, the previous episode, the great Laura Cumming.