Sarah Ferguson presents Australia's premier daily current affairs program, delivering agenda-setting public affairs journalism and interviews that hold the powerful to account. Plus political analysis from Laura Tingle.
MARY BEARD, HISTORIAN AND AUTHOR: Thank you. It's great to be here.MARY BEARD: I think it's because they provide a perfect template for us for power. Sometimes power is well-used, but more often, power-abused and they've been that for 2,000 years, and we're still using them.
On the other hand, the way we talk about them, how we imagine them living, what kind of motivations we put into their heads - that really tells a lot about celebrity culture, and it tells us about us. And so, the one story that has always captured people's attention when they hear about it is smothering his guests with rose petals. He invites his mates to dinner, lovely evening. At the end, he plays a trick that we know other emperors have played before, which is the ceiling opens and rose petals fall on top of the guests.MARY BEARD: It is, absolutely and the only trouble is that Elagabalus doesn't know where to stop, so, so many rose petals come down that the guests smother and die.
MARY BEARD: There's two answers to that. One is women, within a court culture, within a secret court culture, behind palace walls, with a one-man ruler, then often do acquire more power than women had ever had before, certainly in Rome. I'm capable of doing that. Elagabalus, perhaps a bit ruled by his mum, but we do it now. Boris Johnson, the British press repeatedly say, "Why did he do that? That's because his wife Carrie told him to."
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