During the mid-second century BC, Rome was enjoying the spoils after defeating Carthage in the Third Punic War, with slaves, treasure and art pouring into the republic. Larry Lamb examines how not everyone was reaping the benefit and reveals that resentment was mounting as the gap widened between the poor and the privileged. The actor traces the journey of Tiberius Gracchus, a man from the elite ruling classes who eventually came to champion the cause of the common citizen farmer, and learns about the development of the hypocaust, Rome's famous central-heating system.

• Larry Lamb