Name: 你能在古羅馬生存一週嗎？| 瑪麗-比爾德：訪談全文 (Would you survive a week in Ancient Rome? | Mary Beard: Full Interview)
Uploaded: 2025-08-08T18:40:35.000Z
Duration: 39 min 31 s

Sex, food, money, trade and more, with Mary Beard.

與瑪麗-比爾德（Mary Beard）一起探討性、食物、金錢、貿易等問題。

I think that we rely really heavily on ancient Rome when it comes to communication.

我認為，在溝通方面，我們在很大程度上依賴於古羅馬。

I think you have to, you know, we've got to put out of our minds, you know, airplanes and fast cars.

我認為你必須，你知道，我們必須把飛機和快車拋在腦後。

But I come from a country where the road system is still essentially the Roman road system that was established 2,000 years ago.

但我來自一個國家，那裡的道路系統基本上還是 2000 年前建立的羅馬道路系統。

They say, oh, what did the Romans do for us?

他們說，哦，羅馬人為我們做了什麼？

But you might say that was one of the most important things that they ever could do for us.

但你可以說，這是他們能為我們做的最重要的事情之一。

Before the Roman world, Europe was not joined up.

在羅馬世界之前，歐洲並沒有連成一片。

The Roman Empire joined up Europe and the Middle East and North Africa into a system that was linked.

羅馬帝國將歐洲、中東和北非連接成一個相互聯繫的體系。

Big roads went across continents, linking one place with another in a way that was inconceivable before.

大路橫貫大陸，將一個地方與另一個地方連接起來，這在以前是不可想象的。

Now, in some ways, that was a horrible mark of Roman power.

從某種程度上說，這是羅馬權力的可怕標誌。

You know, if you were a little peasant and you suddenly woke up one morning and you saw the Roman road builders coming in, just carving away through your territory to build a road from A to B, I think you'd think, you know, blimey, this is, you know, this is the tough face of Roman power.

你知道，如果你是一個小農民，某天早上突然醒來，看到羅馬築路工人正在你的領地上鑿開一條從A地到B地的路，我想你會想，天哪，這就是，你知道，這就是羅馬強權的強硬麵孔。

But it meant that people were joined up more than they'd ever been before.

但這意味著人們比以往任何時候都更加團結。

And that, in the terms of the Roman Empire, facilitated all kinds of movements of people and trade and goods.

就羅馬帝國而言，這促進了人員、貿易和貨物的各種流動。

Now, these roads probably were not built in order to facilitate the movements of ordinary people like me.

現在看來，修建這些道路可能並不是為了方便像我這樣的普通人出行。

They were built to move armies and, in a sense, to mark Roman power on the landscape.

建造這些建築的目的是為了調動軍隊，從某種意義上說，也是為了在地形上標示羅馬的力量。

But the effect was you could kind of get places for the first time.

但這樣做的效果是，你第一次可以去一些地方。

What we're just beginning to realise is how mobile a community the Roman Empire was.

我們剛剛開始意識到，羅馬帝國是一個多麼流動的社會。

Recent work on Roman skeletons and really analysing all the traces you can find in a skeleton of where people have come from, suggests that as many as 20 percent of people in Roman towns in Britain, and Britain was a backwater in the Roman Empire, 20 percent of people came probably from overseas or at least far away.

最近對羅馬人骨骼的研究，以及對骨骼中可以找到的人們來自哪裡的所有痕跡的分析表明，在不列顛的羅馬城鎮中，有多達 20% 的人來自海外，而不列顛在羅馬帝國中是一個落後地區，20% 的人可能來自海外或至少很遠的地方。

And that is all underpinned by a transport network.

而這一切都離不開交通網絡的支撐。

I think the Romans would have been hugely delighted if they ever thought that they could fly or travel at supersonic speeds or zoom across the Mediterranean in motor powered boats.

我認為，如果羅馬人想到他們可以飛行或以超音速旅行，或乘坐馬達驅動的船隻橫跨地中海，他們一定會非常高興。

But leaving that aside, communication is absolutely central to what the Romans did.

但拋開這一點不談，交流絕對是羅馬人工作的核心。

What kinds of ideas travelled along Roman roads?

One of the ways you can see the Roman Empire is it's the world wide web of its day.

羅馬帝國就是當時的網際網路。

And it's linked and it enjoys communications, would bring cultures together that have never been brought together before.

它相互聯繫，樂於交流，會把從未有過交集的文化帶到一起。

You find people fetching up from really distant places, thousands of miles away.

你會發現有人從千里之外的遙遠地方趕來。

And one of my favourite guys is a man called Barartes.

我最喜歡的人之一是一個叫巴拉特斯的人。

And he, we don't exactly know what he did, but he came from Palmyra in Syria and he fetched up on Hadrian's Wall.

我們不清楚他到底做了什麼，但他來自敘利亞的巴爾米拉，在哈德良長城上出現過。

Now you start to think, what on earth must a Syrian from Palmyra have thought about the culture he discovered in the cold north of Britain?

現在，你會開始思考，一個來自巴爾米拉的敘利亞人對他在寒冷的英國北部發現的文化究竟會作何感想？

You can only start to imagine, but it does give you a hint of the kind of communication openings that the change of horizons and perspectives, the ability to meet new people and new ideas that the Roman Empire offered.

你只能開始想象，但它確實給了你一個暗示，即羅馬帝國所提供的視野和視角的改變、結識新朋友和新思想的能力所帶來的交流機會。

Now, I think we shouldn't be hugely liberal about the Roman Empire.

現在，我認為我們不應該對羅馬帝國過於放任。

They weren't setting out somehow to connect the world for holy, good and nice purposes.

他們並沒有為了神聖、善良和美好的目的，以某種方式將世界連接起來。

But one of the things that followed from that was a change in the way the world looked and the way people thought.

但隨之而來的是世界觀和人們思維方式的改變。

I always find it rather touching that you see on the walls painted, on the walls of houses in Pompeii, which was also a bit of a backwater in the Roman Empire.

我總覺得，在龐貝古城的房屋牆壁上看到的彩繪令人感動，而龐貝古城在羅馬帝國時期也是一個偏僻的地方。

It's very famous today, but it wasn't famous then, only famous because it got destroyed.

它今天非常有名，但當時並不有名，只是因為它被摧毀了才有名。

You find these quite ordinary houses and what have they got on their walls?

你會發現這些非常普通的房子，它們的牆上掛著什麼呢？

They have got scenes, exotic scenes of the Nile and of Egyptian life.

它們有尼羅河和埃及生活的場景，充滿異國情調。

Now, in some ways, these are kind of slightly xenophobic scenes, because according to the artists of Pompeii, very weird things happen on the Nile.

現在，從某種程度上來說，這些場景有點排外，因為根據龐貝藝術家的說法，尼羅河上發生了非常奇怪的事情。

It's a kind of topsy-turvy world where crocodiles might eat you at any turn and little pygmies attempted to play with the animals in rather disgusting ways.

這是一個顛倒的世界，鱷魚隨時可能吃掉你，小侏儒試圖用相當噁心的方式與動物玩耍。

But if you were to think about an ordinary town of 12,000 people anywhere in Europe in, let's say, the 13th or 14th century, they wouldn't have had a vision at all.

但是，如果你想想歐洲任何地方的一個擁有 12000 人的普通小鎮，比方說，在 13 或 14 世紀，他們根本就不會有願景。

Even if it's a fantastic vision, they wouldn't have had a vision at all of what Egypt was like.

即使這是一個夢幻般的願景，他們也根本不知道埃及是什麼樣子。

So it's a world in which horizons have been opened.

是以，這是一個視野開闊的世界。

They might have been opened for bad, brutal, militaristic purposes, but they still opened.

它們可能是為了惡劣、野蠻、軍國主義的目的而打開的，但它們仍然打開了。

Did they really eat anchovy-stuffed mice?

他們真的吃了鳳尾魚餡的老鼠嗎？

One of the images that we have about Roman food comes from Roman imaginative literature, and it presents something extremely exotic.

我們對羅馬食物的印象之一來自羅馬的想象文學，它展現了一種極富異國情調的食物。

People are eating dormice stuffed with anchovies and honey, and they are, like we all see in the movies, reclining on couches and eating these rather strange concoctions, haute cuisine, and saying things like, This would be lovely.

人們吃著塞滿鳳尾魚和蜂蜜的蟄蟲，他們就像我們在電影裡看到的那樣，躺在沙發上吃著這些相當奇怪的高級美食，還說著："這一定很可愛。

And it is certainly the case that some bits of Roman dining were like that.

當然，羅馬餐飲業的某些部分也是如此。

There is an extraordinary Roman cookery book that survives, which I think was probably as little used in the ancient world as most posh modern cookery books are used in our world.

有一本非同尋常的古羅馬烹飪書流傳下來，我認為它在古代世界的使用率可能與我們這個世界上大多數高級，上等現代烹飪書的使用率一樣低。

But it was a kind of sense of what you might cook, and all sorts of weird and wonderful mixtures with local but also exotic ingredients.

但這是一種你可能會做什麼菜的感覺，以及各種奇形怪狀的在地和外來食材的混合物。

There were herbs that are coming from the East, spices, pepper, all mixed up together in extraordinary lavish concoctions.

有來自東方的草藥、香料、胡椒，所有這些都混合在一起，調製出非同尋常的美味佳餚。

And one of the things that has really transformed what we know about ordinary people's Roman eating, the kind of things that I would have eaten in the ancient world, is a whole range now of scientific analysis, particularly on the contents of Roman lavatories.

其中一件事改變了我們對羅馬普通人飲食的認識，也就是我在古代世界會吃的那種東西，那就是現在的一系列科學分析，特別是對羅馬盥洗室內容的分析。

And in Herculaneum, the town which is very close to Pompeii and was also destroyed in the eruption of 79, one of the most extraordinary recent discoveries has been a cesspit, which was underneath a pretty modest, ordinary block of flats.

在赫庫蘭尼姆，這個離龐貝非常近的小鎮也在 79 年的火山爆發中被毀，最近最特別的發現之一是一個糞坑，它位於一棟非常普通的公寓樓下。

And it was the cesspit that took, completely unmediated, the contents of every lavatory in the building and just let it rot there.

就是這個糞坑，把大樓裡每個廁所裡的東西，完全不經任何調解，就讓它們爛在那裡。

Archaeologists have recently found this cesspit, and they've bagged it all up and actually taken it from Italy to Oxford to be analysed.

考古學家最近發現了這個糞坑，他們把糞坑全部裝袋，從意大利運到牛津進行分析。

It isn't quite as disgusting as you would imagine.

A human excrement after 2,000 years looks a bit like rather nice, fine soil, actually.

經過 2000 年的人類排洩物，看起來其實有點像相當不錯的細土。

But what they're being able to do is to go microscopically through what was the content of the lavatories, what had gone through the digestive tracts of the people in this ordinary apartment block.

但他們所能做的，是在顯微鏡下觀察盥洗室裡的東西，以及這棟普通公寓樓裡的人消化道里的東西。

And they're coming out with a wonderful picture from that of what real people really ate.

他們從中看到了真實的人們的飲食情況。

That isn't actually dormice stuffed with anchovy and honey.

那其實不是用鳳尾魚和蜂蜜做餡的睡鼠。

It is fruit and figs and pomegranates, a few kinds of imported things like pepper, eggs, chicken, pork.

有水果、無花果和石榴，還有一些進口的東西，比如胡椒、雞蛋、雞肉和豬肉。

And the people of Herculaneum, partly because they lived near the sea, were very good at exploiting sea life too.

赫庫蘭尼姆人也非常善於利用海洋生物，部分原因是他們住在海邊。

And it's absolutely clear that one of their favourite foods was sea urchins because there are very clear traces in this decomposed excrement of sea urchin spikes.

很明顯，它們最喜歡的食物之一就是海膽，因為在這些腐爛的排洩物中，有非常明顯的海膽尖刺的痕跡。

It makes you think it might have been a bit uncomfortable.

But it's certainly a good sign that these people are eating a standard, local, pretty healthy diet actually, although with a little bit of imported stuff mixed in.

但這無疑是一個好兆頭，說明這些人吃的是標準的、在地的、相當健康的飲食，儘管其中還夾雜著一點進口的東西。

What you don't see so much of because of the way the analysis goes is the other staple, obviously for people of the ancient world, which is bread.

由於分析方式的原因，你很少看到的是另一種主食，顯然對於古代世界的人們來說，這就是麵包。

And so people are eating bread, rather rough bread because if you look at their teeth, a lot of people in the ancient world had kind of better teeth than us because they're not drinking fizzy drinks.

所以人們吃麵包，而不是粗麵包，因為如果你看看他們的牙齒，古代世界很多人的牙齒都比我們好，因為他們不喝汽水。

But they're not as good as people make out and they do tend to get terribly worn down because all their life they're eating this bread which basically got stones in it.

但它們並不像人們說的那麼好，而且它們往往會被嚴重磨損，因為它們一生都在吃這種麵包，麵包裡基本上都是石頭。

And so they get very, very abraded teeth.

是以，他們的牙齒磨損得非常非常嚴重。

But I think we can be fairly optimistic about a sort of decent kind of diet for people at the ordinary level of Roman society.

但我認為，我們可以對羅馬社會普通人的體面飲食持相當樂觀的態度。

That's not the very poor, but people with a job and living at a reasonable level of comfort were eating simply but nicely.

這不是非常貧窮的人，而是有工作、生活在合理舒適水準上的人，他們吃得簡單但很好。

Was sex culture in ancient Rome as wild as everyone says?

古羅馬的性文化是否像大家說的那樣狂野？

Sex is one of the things that's always absolutely enticed us about the Roman Empire.

性一直是羅馬帝國吸引我們的絕對因素之一。

And the Roman Empire has always represented the place where people did frightful things and where in a sense there were no sexual rules.

羅馬帝國一直代表著人們做出可怕事情的地方，從某種意義上說，那裡沒有性規則。

Anything went, everybody had a good time.

一切順利，大家都玩得很開心。

And there are indeed wonderful stories about the excesses of Roman emperors and their wives.

關於羅馬皇帝及其妻子的過激行為，確實有很多精彩的故事。

There's a very famous Roman Empress Messalina who was the wife of the slightly doddery old Emperor Claudius.

羅馬有一位非常有名的皇后梅薩利納，她是略顯老態龍鍾的克勞狄烏斯皇帝的妻子。

And she is supposed to have challenged the prostitutes of Rome to a competition to see how many men they could sleep with in a single night.

據說她還曾向羅馬的妓女們發起挑戰，看她們一晚能睡多少個男人。

And of course Messalina beat all the prostitutes.

當然，梅薩利納也擊敗了所有的妓女。

Now some of this might be going on, some of this, but I suspect that just as those kind of exploits of Roman emperors are our fantasies, can we think of the most amazing things that people can get up to?

現在，有些事情可能正在發生，有些事情可能正在發生，但我猜想，就像羅馬皇帝的那些功績是我們的幻想一樣，我們能想到人們能做的最令人驚奇的事情嗎？

So also they were the fantasies of Roman writers too when they kind of invented these stories about people in power.

是以，當羅馬作家編造這些關於掌權者的故事時，這些故事也是他們的幻想。

And I think there are very, very important differences between ancient sexual behaviour and our own, but they're not quite so clearly in the level of absolute excess.

我認為，古代性行為與我們的性行為之間存在著非常、非常重要的差異，但這些差異在絕對過度的程度上並不那麼明顯。

And I think for a woman the biggest thing, the biggest difference you'd see is a complete double standard.

我認為，對於女性來說，最大的不同就是完全的雙重標準。

In an ordinary Roman household, the woman was expected to be absolutely faithful to her husband, no sex with anyone else.

在一個普通的羅馬家庭中，婦女必須對丈夫絕對忠誠，不得與其他人發生性關係。

The husband, it was quite all right for him to sleep with the slaves, male and female, anybody he fancied.

丈夫可以和奴隸們睡覺，不管是男是女，只要他想，誰都可以。

And of course that relates in a way back to the basic anxieties and worries of a very patriarchal community such as Rome, that the man's anxiety was always that his wife's child was really his.

當然，這在某種程度上也與羅馬這樣一個父權制社會的基本焦慮和擔憂有關，男人總是擔心妻子的孩子真的是他的。

So you make sure that your wife sleeps with nobody else.

所以你要確保你的妻子不和別人上床。

But as for you, it really doesn't matter.

And I think one of the bleakest places actually that you can go to in the whole of the Roman world now is the one surviving purpose built brothel in Pompeii.

我認為，在整個羅馬世界中，你能去的最淒涼的地方之一，就是龐貝現存的一個專門建造的妓院。

And it's certainly a brothel, there's absolutely no mistaking it.

這肯定是一家妓院，絕對錯不了。

You walk into the front door and there's five little cubicles, narrow, dark, just a single bed in them, sort of wide single bed, and one lavatory at the back.

你走進前門，裡面有五個小隔間，又窄又暗，只有一張單人床，有點像寬大的單人床，後面還有一個廁所。

And very crude but erotic paintings all over the walls.

牆上掛滿了非常粗糙但充滿情色意味的畫作。

And it's the biggest tourist attraction actually now in Pompeii.

實際上，它是龐貝現在最大的旅遊景點。

People go in and they tend to think of the clients coming here and visiting, choosing which girl to have.

人們走進去，往往會想到客戶來這裡參觀，選擇哪位姑娘。