In our latest episode on the history of English towns, Jeremy Black joins Graham Stewart to discuss their birth, development and decline in the Roman and Dark Ages.
Roman London during the reign of Hadrian, c125 AD. Museum of London/Heritage Images/Getty Images
What have the Romans ever done for us?
Apart from the aqueducts, sanitation, roads, irrigation, medicine, education, wine, public baths and town planning
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Force for progress, loyalist fortress, or den of iniquity — the English town has been all of these, and more