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Alison Morton:
“Going back to the good end of the scale, if you like. They brought in ideas like rule of law. They brought in a formal political structure, voting, taxation of course, which nobody likes. But hey, they brought in the idea of justice. They brought in the idea of standing for your peers to be judged. They were fantastic engineers. They supported the decorative arts, again to a standard you wouldn’t find for hundreds and hundreds of years. They were multicultural. They had emperors from Africa, from Greece, from Spain, one from Britain, everywhere. Now their attitude towards women wasn’t particularly fantastic. But towards the later period, especially women did own property. They had businesses. They were still had to be attached to a member of their family, their father, brother, husband. But they were gaining a great deal, more influence. And this is partly my Roman Nova Stories are predicated on women gaining more autonomy, power, more ability to do, to be independent. So it was a society that was maturing. It just never stood still and I think that’s another fascination.”
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