FAMED historian Tom Holland will be in Dorset next month to give a talk on the fighting past of Rome.

The award-winning podcast host and TV history pundit will speak on exploring Rome’s Colosseum and gladiatorial combat during an event at Dorset Museum & Art Gallery, in Dorchester, on Friday, January 31, from 6pm to 7pm.

“When the Colosseum was inaugurated in AD 80, it was not only the largest permanent arena in Rome, but the only one,” a spokesperson said.

“Why had it taken the Romans so long to erect such a monument in the heart of their capital? What were the origins of gladiatorial combat, and why had they inhibited the construction of a stone arena in Rome for centuries? How did the inaugural games staged in the Colosseum offer to spectators a vision of the heavens? And why, as viscera spilled out into the sands of the great amphitheatre, did the watching emperor pray that the dead of Pompeii and Herculaneum would be content with the offering of blood?”

The event is part of a public programme supporting the British Museum Partnership Exhibition with Colchester + Ipswich Museums: Gladiators of Britain.

For more details, and to book tickets, visit dorsetmuseum.org/whats-on/the-colosseum-romes-arena-of-death.