1 | Marcus Vergilius Eurysaces

A self-confident joker and wealthy self-made man, who must have made a small fortune out of a chain of bakeries in first-century BC Rome. All we know about him is from his large, expensive and wonderfully idiosyncratic tomb, still standing near the Porta Maggiore in Rome, constructed in the shape of baking equipment (the large circles imitate commercial kneading bowls). Around the top there is a detailed frieze with scenes of work in the bakery. And in case passersby still don’t get the point, there is the Latin inscription: “This is the tomb of Marcus Vergilius Eurysaces, the baker and contractor – apparet [geddit?]”

A bust of Lucius Caecilius Jucundus on display at the Sioux City art centre, Iowa.

2 | Lucius Caecilius Jucundus

Caecilius Jucundus was a banker in Pompeii, whose revealing account books were preserved in the eruption of Vesuvius in AD79. A canny wheeler and dealer – moneylender, auctioneer and payday loan man – he made his profit by simultaneously taking commission from sellers at his auctions and by lending cash to the buyers, on interest. Recently he has become the unlikely hero of young Latin learners as the lead character in the most popular Latin course in the country – the Cambridge Latin Course. The phrase “Caecilius est in horto” (“Caecilius is in the garden”) will bring smiles or tears to the most hard-bitten classroom veterans.

A statue of the Emperor Augustus’s wife Livia Drusilla in Berlin. Photograph: Adam Eastland/Alamy

3 | Livia Drusilla

Livia, the wife of the first Roman emperor, Augustus, has had a bad press. The combination of misogynistic Roman historians and Robert Graves has given us the image of a nasty power behind the throne, happy to poison anyone standing in the way of her own plans. It’s a classic “blame the woman” tactic. Livia was not a shrinking violet, but she wasn’t as bad as she was painted, and much more long-suffering. One of her husband’s tricks, for the ancient equivalent of a photo opportunity, was to have her pose at a loom in the front hall of the palace – making her look like the perfect Roman wife.

A bust of Gaius Caligula. Photograph: Ruggero Vanni/Vanni Archive/Corbis

4 | Gaius Caesar

We know him as the emperor Caligula, who briefly ruled the Roman world between AD37 and AD41. His real name was Gaius and he hated the nickname Caligula (it means “Bootikins”), given to him by the soldiers in the army camps where his publicity-conscious parents paraded him in full military kit, including boots (caligae). He’s the emperor who is supposed to have slept with his sisters and wanted to make his horse a senator. But most of this was invented or embroidered after a palace conspiracy that ended with Gaius’s assassination. Whether he was such a mad monster, we’ll never know.

Romulus slays his twin brother Remus during the mythical founding of Rome. Photograph: Mary Evans Picture Library/Alamy

5 | Remus

Remus is the forgotten half of the twins Romulus and Remus, who according to famous myth were left out to die, were discovered by a wolf and went on to found Rome. The story goes that they immediately quarrelled about where exactly the new settlement should be sited. Romulus got his way, and began to build defences. Remus trampled across the new city ramparts and Romulus had him killed. It was a story that defined Rome. The city was founded on brother killing brother, and on civil war. Ever after, Remus would be the symbol of radical opposition to traditional power.

The tombstone text revealing the life of Allia Potestas.

6 | Allia Potestas

An extraordinary woman known only through her long epitaph, offering a glimpse of the messy reality of ancient Roman life. The text explains that during her lifetime in third-century AD Rome, Allia Potestas had been the centre of a ménage à trois, living with two young men. She was not posh, and probably an ex-slave, and the epitaph describes her body in uncomfortable detail (right down to her lovely nipples), but it also insists that she was a perfect housewife. She was always up before her lovers and always in bed later (getting the housework done); unsurprisingly, she had rough hands. It’s a wonderful mixture of erotic fantasy and domestic drudgery.

One of the many statues of Antinous found in Rome. Photograph: Adam Eastland/Alamy

7 | Antinous

A young boy from the provinces, who became the companion – some say the lover – of the emperor Hadrian, and travelled around the empire with him, often leaving the empress Sabina at home. But he had a mysterious end. In a Robert Maxwell-like incident, he drowned in the river Nile in AD130. Did he fall? Did he jump? Or was he pushed? Whatever the truth, Hadrian was overcome with grief, made Antinous a god, named a city after him and flooded the world with his portrait. There are more surviving statues of Antinous than of almost any other Roman.

A fresco portrait of Ovid by Luca Signorelli in the Orvieto Cathedral, Italy. Photograph: Sandro Vannini/Corbis

8 | Publius Ovidius Naso

Ovid, as he is normally known, was a learned and subversive poet under the first emperor Augustus – who paid the price for his subversion. No fan of the emperor’s campaign for moral improvement in Rome, one of his most famous poems was a hilarious spoof on how to find a lover (the Ars Amatoria, or Love Lessons). It was this, it is often thought, that finally made the emperor snap – and in AD8 Ovid ended up in a miserable exile on the Black Sea. Possibly his inappropriately close relations with the emperor’s daughter were an aggravating factor.

The gravestone of Regina, on display at the Arbeia Roman Fort and museum, South Shields.

9 | Regina (“Queenie”)

Regina has one of the most touching life stories from multicultural Roman Britain and is commemorated in a tombstone found near Hadrian’s Wall. It explains that she came from the south of the province, had somehow (kidnapping?) been enslaved – and had ended up in the north married to a man from Palmyra, by the name of Barates, who was perhaps trading here. She died aged 30 and Barates commissioned a memorial that shows her almost in the guise of a Palmyran matron, and the text is partly in Latin and partly Aramaic. We can only wonder what language they spoke at home.

A statue of Cicero outside the Palace of Justice in Rome. Photograph: Alamy

10 | Marcus Tullius Cicero

It’s impossible to leave out Cicero, politician, polymath, star of modern novels and in many respects a frightful old reactionary. His lowest moment was executing a group of terrorists in 63BC, without trial, under the terms of a dubious prevention of terrorism act; and he briefly ended up in exile for it. But there was a lot more to Cicero. He was important in introducing philosophy to Rome and a renowned joker. “Who has tied my son-in-law to his sword” was one of his better quips, on catching sight of his daughter’s very short husband.

Mary Beard’s SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome is published by Profile (£25). Click here to order it for £17.50