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Inspired by original research and filled with colour and drama, The Roads to Rome is an exploration of two thousand years of history as seen through one the greatest imperial networks ever built.
"All roads lead to Rome” is a medieval proverb, but it's also true: today's European roads still follow the networks of the ancient empire—and these ancient roads continue to grip our modern imaginations as a physical manifestation of Rome’s extraordinary greatness. In this lecture, Catherine Fletcher explores that legacy, and asks why it is that we're still fascinated by Roman roads. Why do their routes appear on the Ordnance Survey maps when they're no longer in use? And if the Romans prided themselves on their road connections, what of the people through whose lands the imperial armies laid these stones? Did they value the new links, or resent their imposition?
Over the two thousand years since they were first built, the roads to Rome have been walked by crusaders and pilgrims, liberators and dictators, but also by tourists and writers, refugees and artists. As channels of trade and travel—and routes for conquest and creativity—Catherine Fletcher reveals how these roads forever transformed the cultures, and intertwined the fates, of a vast panoply of people across Europe and beyond.
The Roads to Rome is a magnificent journey into a past that remains intimately connected to our present. In this talk, as in the book, Catherine Fletcher shares the stories of her own travels from Scotland to Cádiz to Istanbul and back to Rome, guiding us through histories of nations and empires that have risen and fallen. Along the way, we encounter spies, bandits, scheming innkeepers, a Byzantine noblewoman on the run, young aristocrats on their Grand Tour, a conquering Napoleon, John Keats, the Shelleys, the abolitionist Frederick Douglass, and even Mussolini on his motorbike.
Reflecting on his own walk on the Appian Way, Charles Dickens observed that here is "a history in every stone that strews the ground.” Based on vibrant original research, this historical road-trip brings to effervescent life the ancient and modern routes that lead to Rome.
Speaker biography
Catherine Fletcher is Professor of History at Manchester Metropolitan University and the author of several books including The Roads to Rome: A History and The Beauty and the Terror: An Alternative History of the Italian Renaissance. She is on the editorial advisory board of History Today magazine and is a regular contributor to radio and podcasts including BBC Radio 4's In Our Time, the BBC History Extra podcasts and History Hit. Catherine studied at the University of Liverpool and Royal Holloway, University of London, and worked at the universities of Durham, Sheffield and Swansea before taking up her current post in 2020.
Festival of Libraries
Manchester City of Literature’s Festival of Libraries returns for 2025. This county-wide celebration of Greater Manchester’s 133 libraries takes place annually across the city. The festival, which is supported by Arts Council England, features a vibrant programme that highlights the library network’s full offer, across wellbeing, culture and creativity, digital and information, and, of course, reading.