ASK anyone from Land’s End to John O’Groats where they would go if they suddenly had access to a time machine, and the answer will always be the same: THE WILD WEST! But for the sake of this article, we’re going to say the answer is ANCIENT ROME.
This dangerous – yet glamorous – period of history quite simply has it all: war, death, glory, political turmoil, snazzy clothes, glitzy palaces, mass orgies, and best of all, big fuck-off chariots with all swords coming out the wheels. “It’s an utterly compelling turning point in modern civilisation,” agrees amateur historian PEVERSLEY CAPS-LOCK.
Clinically obese Peversley has devoted his entire life to studying the Roman Empire. From producing an acclaimed glitter-and-glue-based collage of a centurion at primary school, to regularly googling pictures of Lucy Worsley in a toga, the Redcar-based bachelor is the country’s self-dubbed ‘leading expert’ on Italian classical antiquity.
“Mary Beard can kiss my arse,” boasts the 64-year-old jobless scholar. “If you want to know owt about Ancient Rome, I’m your man.”
The period between 753 BC and 476 AD saw seismic advances in law, architecture, education and medicine on the Italic peninsula and throughout the Roman Empire. But Capslock considers his area of expertise to of the ordinary Roman citizenry. “Just imagine watching them big gladiator blokes knocking fuck out of each other in the Colosseum before nipping out to a sex orgy with a load of randy farm girls. Phwoarrrr!” says the distinguished academic, pumping his fist into the crook of his elbow and doing a Les Dawson face.
