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Director Kevin Macdonald, as thousands know, has been soliciting home movies for his Life in a Day project. The day for recording was 24 July. This was a Saturday and I was in Rome, covering for Richard Owen. I asked passers by to video me. I was planning a quiet day because we have no paper on a Sunday, when we had a tip about an Italian soldier in Afghanistan suffering possible harm. When the call came through I was photographing flowers, a new hobby, in Rome's botanic gardens.  I dashed up by taxi to the defence ministry but all was quiet, and in the end the story was not what we thought. So I went for a walk down the Via Sistina, went briefly to Church just before Mass, had an ice cream, walked back to the hotel and then did some work before calling my sister and son on Skype. A fairly typical Saturday in the life of a daily newspaper journalist abroad! I don't suppose any of it will get used in the final cut but it was fun making it. I think the main thing I learned from making this was to try in future to walk in a more elegant fashion, more like the Italians and not so much like a soldier!

'There are now only the armies of the politicians, the small farmer has disappeared and while the life of the city continues, Rome itself has been transformed. There are slaves, immense riches and the political arena closed to only a few. As he closes the window and the screen grows dark, the ex-consul wonders what direction will his city now take?'

Blood In The Forum: The Struggle For The Roman Republic by Pamela Marin