Text on screen - 'Entertainment.' The presenter sits in a Roman ruin.
PRESENTER:
So what did Roman kids do after school or on holidays? There were no PlayStations, no TVs or computers, no movies, or no mobile phones to talk to your friends! Sound boring to you? Well, they wouldn't have thought so. Kids would play all sorts of games, some of which we still play today. There were ball games, spinning tops, hoops, even knucklebones - but played with real bones. War games were popular with the boys, but they also had go-karts, board games, kites, and dolls made of rags or wax.
The presenter walks into a grand arched entranceway. He sits on a tier of a stone stadium. Using special effects, more versions of himself dressed in blue hoodies join him.
PRESENTER:
But for a real thrill, if you were really lucky you might get to go to the races. Chariot racing was big business in Rome, and the chariot drivers, they were the celebrities of the day. And the supporters, they were just as passionate about their teams as people are about their favourite football teams today. Now, back then, there were four teams - there were the Reds, the Blues, the Whites and the Greens.
The presenter puts on a green hoodie.
PRESENTER:
Carn the Greens!
Two of the special effect versions of himself laugh.
PRESENTER 2:
What? PRESENTER 3: No way!
PRESENTER 2:
Nah.
PRESENTER 3:
Go, the Blues!
The camera pulls back and a computer-animated stadium packed with Romans stretches for hundreds and hundreds of metres in a huge loop.
PRESENTER:
The race track known as the Circus Maximus was so big that it could hold maybe 200,000 fans! Race tactics were pretty brutal, so there were smashes and collisions galore. Away from the race track, each main town had a sports arena that looked just like our modern sports arenas do today. But Rome had the grand-daddy of them all - the Colosseum.
The computer animation wanders through ancient Rome, ending at the circular Colosseum with its central stage.
PRESENTER:
Events here and at the Circus were free - all subsidised by a rich person wanting to be popular with the people.
The presenter walks along a veranda at the real Colosseum in Rome.
PRESENTER:
The Colosseum could hold 50,000 spectators at once. Gladiators would fight here as an entertainment, like we go to see sporting contests today. Back then, people were much more used to seeing blood and death then we are in present times. So, to them, it was kind of an entertainment to watch people fight to the death against wild beasts or even each other. On special occasions, they could flood the whole ground level with water, sail small boats around, and even hold sea battles.
The presenter wanders within the well-preserved ruins of a stone amphitheatre.
PRESENTER:
Another entertainment event was put on here. You can find ruins of theatres like this in virtually every city in the Roman Empire. People would come here to watch plays. The actors were usually all male and would often play several different characters. And they would all wear these large face masks with really obvious, exaggerated expressions. The reason they were big and obvious was so that people sitting up the back could follow all the plot of the action and characters. These plays were usually free, and the theatre had no roof, so big shade cloths could be strung up to keep out the sun or rain.
Text on screen - 'Food.' The presenter sits in a mock-up of a Roman room at a table with modern-day breakfast foods upon it.
PRESENTER:
Roman kids had very different meals to what we're used to today.
The modern-day foods vanish and the presenter is left with bread.
PRESENTER:
Uh... breakfast pretty much meant bread, maybe with some olives or cheese for a bit of flavour. And if you're lucky, you could have had some leftovers from last night's dinner. Unless, of course, your family was super rich. Then there'd be a whole lot more variety.
The table fills with a wide array of modern-day groceries. As the presenter speaks, the items begin vanishing.
PRESENTER:
Although, not as much as you might think. For instance, there were no potatoes. Tomatoes and sweet corn hadn't been discovered yet. Sugar was unheard of, so the only kind of sweetener you had was honey. And get this - there wasn't even any pasta, the classic Italian dish. And there definitely wasn't any chocolate. Without fridges, you couldn't store food for very long. So all you could eat was things that could be grown or caught nearby. That meant only any fruit and vegetables that were in season. And meat was a luxury that very few people could afford. Dinner was the main meal of the day and was sometimes eaten as early as 4 o'clock in the afternoon. It was a kind of porridge with vegetables, and if you could afford it, with some bread and fish too.
A woman dressed as a servant passes a meal to the presenter.
PRESENTER:
In rich families, slaves prepared all the meals, and even cut up the food into small pieces so that it could be eaten with your fingers or a spoon. Knives and forks hadn't even been invented yet.
The presenter starts eating, using his hands.
PRESENTER:
Mmm!
He opens a newspaper. In a picture above an article titled 'Poor People Not Actually Evil' a photograph of the presenter addresses the camera.
PRESENTER:
Although most of the people of Rome were very poor, in many ways, society itself was quite advanced. There was even a daily newspaper! Although, actually, it wasn't really made of paper. There was also a welfare program for the poor. The government issued tokens, which could then be cashed in for bread or flour. There was even a school lunch program for kids!