In the fourth season Professor Alice Roberts explores the most prolific civilisation of them all, The Roman Empire. Starting in Naples in the shadow of Vesuvius Alice visits the two key cities frozen in time by the volcano’s deathly eruption in 79CE: Pompeii and Herculaneum.

On the super-efficient Italian network, she heads north to Rome, Florence, Parma and finally Turin before entering the land of the Gauls in southern France. At Nimes she is spellbound by the city they call the Rome of France.

Crossing another national border by train Alice ventures into Roman Spain, where she heads south along the golden coast eventually completing her exploration in Cartagena.

Alice investigates how the democratic Roman Republic became an empire, run by just one man.