0:00:05 > 0:00:09He is perhaps the most famous ancient Roman of them all.
0:00:10 > 0:00:15When his name is mentioned, we think of power, victory, and betrayal.
0:00:17 > 0:00:21Julius Caesar changed his own world in unimaginable ways,
0:00:21 > 0:00:24and he's left a pretty big mark on ours.
0:00:25 > 0:00:30Julius Caesar, as the story goes, was born by C-section.
0:00:30 > 0:00:35The C in C-section is actually short for Caesarean.
0:00:37 > 0:00:40The whole story's almost certainly a myth,
0:00:40 > 0:00:44but out of the millions of mums who give birth this way,
0:00:44 > 0:00:48very few realise that the whole procedure
0:00:48 > 0:00:53is named after Julius Caesar, the most famous,
0:00:53 > 0:00:56probably most notorious ancient Roman of the lot of them.
0:00:58 > 0:01:01BABY BAWLS
0:01:02 > 0:01:04There you are! Gosh!
0:01:07 > 0:01:0810 lbs.
0:01:11 > 0:01:14The name "Caesarean section"
0:01:14 > 0:01:19is just one of the many ways Julius Caesar is still with us.
0:01:19 > 0:01:21I'm going to find out how and why.
0:01:22 > 0:01:26I'm about to come face-to-face with Julius Caesar.
0:01:27 > 0:01:30Caesar was never called Emperor of Rome
0:01:30 > 0:01:33but, in a way, he was the first one,
0:01:33 > 0:01:36and he took all the powers that the emperors had
0:01:36 > 0:01:38over the next hundreds of years.
0:01:38 > 0:01:42And his impact has lasted a lot longer than that.
0:01:42 > 0:01:46This old Roman is still part of our everyday language.
0:01:46 > 0:01:49For the first time, we went across the Rubicon.
0:01:49 > 0:01:53He has given us some wonderfully grabby Latin phrases.
0:01:53 > 0:01:56Veni, vidi, vici.
0:01:56 > 0:02:00I came, I saw, I conquered!
0:02:00 > 0:02:02Getting that punch and simplicity
0:02:02 > 0:02:05that still marks the modern political sound bite.
0:02:05 > 0:02:07Yes, we can!
0:02:07 > 0:02:09Take back control!
0:02:09 > 0:02:12Make America great again!
0:02:12 > 0:02:14I will track down the evidence
0:02:14 > 0:02:17to show how Julius Caesar rose to the top...
0:02:17 > 0:02:21We call it conquest but it was really genocide.
0:02:21 > 0:02:24..uncover his tricks of the trade...
0:02:24 > 0:02:28Like countless men over the last 2,000 years,
0:02:28 > 0:02:30he became a master of the comb-over.
0:02:32 > 0:02:34..and reveal how our modern leaders,
0:02:34 > 0:02:37from dictators to elected politicians,
0:02:37 > 0:02:42have used tactics and methods he first perfected 2,000 years ago.
0:02:42 > 0:02:47- Hail, Caesar! Come on! ALL:- Hail, Caesar!
0:02:47 > 0:02:48Yes!
0:02:57 > 0:02:58Modern Rome.
0:02:58 > 0:03:01A city where loads of people still come
0:03:01 > 0:03:04to catch a glimpse of a lost world.
0:03:06 > 0:03:11And one Roman stars in more selfies than any other.
0:03:13 > 0:03:14Julius Caesar.
0:03:14 > 0:03:20A conqueror, a populist leader, the biggest power-grabber of the lot.
0:03:20 > 0:03:25The man who turned Rome from a democracy into a dictatorship.
0:03:27 > 0:03:33And he would no doubt be thrilled to know that we still recognise him,
0:03:33 > 0:03:342,000 years later.
0:03:35 > 0:03:37Can you tell me who this guy is?
0:03:37 > 0:03:38Yeah, that's Julius Caesar.
0:03:38 > 0:03:41- Julius Caesar. - That is Julius Caesar.
0:03:41 > 0:03:42LAUGHING: It is.
0:03:42 > 0:03:46But how much do we really know about him?
0:03:46 > 0:03:48Can you tell me anything that happened to him?
0:03:48 > 0:03:51It's been a long time since I was at school.
0:03:51 > 0:03:52Do you know?
0:03:52 > 0:03:53- LAUGHING:- Oh, no!
0:03:53 > 0:03:55Emperor of Rome?
0:03:55 > 0:03:58He was the boyfriend of Cleopatra?
0:03:58 > 0:03:59He was indeed.
0:03:59 > 0:04:02I know that he came over here for a certain reason.
0:04:02 > 0:04:04He wasn't meant to cross the river!
0:04:04 > 0:04:07- Did he come to a good end? - No, he came to a bad end.
0:04:07 > 0:04:08And I can't remember why.
0:04:08 > 0:04:10THEY LAUGH
0:04:10 > 0:04:12Ooh, um...
0:04:12 > 0:04:14..stabbed...
0:04:14 > 0:04:15Was he stabbed? Was he assassinated?
0:04:15 > 0:04:20Didn't his...brother... kill him, or something?
0:04:20 > 0:04:22- Murder?- Murder?
0:04:22 > 0:04:23He was murdered.
0:04:23 > 0:04:24He took it in the neck.
0:04:24 > 0:04:25MARY LAUGHS
0:04:25 > 0:04:27As they say.
0:04:27 > 0:04:30I guess we have to start with a spoiler,
0:04:30 > 0:04:33because if there's one thing most of us half-remember
0:04:33 > 0:04:36about Julius Caesar, it's the ending.
0:04:36 > 0:04:40So, if you don't want to know the result, look away now.
0:04:47 > 0:04:50It was the 15th of March, 44 BC.
0:04:50 > 0:04:52And, according to contemporary accounts,
0:04:52 > 0:04:54Julius Caesar was going to work.
0:04:57 > 0:05:01Very little of Caesar's Rome still exists,
0:05:01 > 0:05:05but we can get a glimpse of the ruins of the Senate house,
0:05:05 > 0:05:07the building where he died.
0:05:07 > 0:05:11When he gets to where the Senate is meeting, somewhere around here,
0:05:11 > 0:05:16everybody's chatting and gossiping until Caesar takes his seat.
0:05:17 > 0:05:21At that point, one of his friends,
0:05:21 > 0:05:23apparently wanting to ask him a favour,
0:05:23 > 0:05:27goes over to his chair and pulls on his toga.
0:05:27 > 0:05:29That's the signal.
0:05:29 > 0:05:32Suddenly, 20 or more of them -
0:05:32 > 0:05:36friends, colleagues, politicians - surround him.
0:05:36 > 0:05:40Out come their daggers, and everyone has a go!
0:05:42 > 0:05:46Into Caesar's face, his thighs, his chest.
0:05:48 > 0:05:51Caesar fights back with the only weapon he's got.
0:05:51 > 0:05:55It was his pen, and it's hopeless.
0:05:55 > 0:06:00There's mess and panic everywhere, and everybody scarpers.
0:06:00 > 0:06:04That's what everybody knows about Julius Caesar -
0:06:04 > 0:06:05he gets killed.
0:06:07 > 0:06:10He wasn't the only famous Roman to meet a bloody end,
0:06:10 > 0:06:15but no other has captured our imagination in quite the same way.
0:06:17 > 0:06:20The scene of Caesar's murder has been immortalised
0:06:20 > 0:06:22in hundreds of paintings
0:06:22 > 0:06:25and in William Shakespeare's tragedy, Julius Caesar.
0:06:27 > 0:06:29It was in fact Shakespeare
0:06:29 > 0:06:33who coined the famous phrase, "Et tu, Brute?" -
0:06:33 > 0:06:34"You too, Brutus?" -
0:06:34 > 0:06:37that Caesar is supposed to have cried out
0:06:37 > 0:06:40when he saw one of his dearest friends wielding a dagger.
0:06:41 > 0:06:43Words we still use today
0:06:43 > 0:06:47as a shorthand for disloyalty and backstabbing.
0:06:47 > 0:06:52Maybe something we hear a bit too often in modern politics?
0:06:53 > 0:06:57But how and why did Julius Caesar end up,
0:06:57 > 0:07:00literally and metaphorically, stabbed in the back?
0:07:03 > 0:07:06How could a rich, but frankly not A-list aristocrat,
0:07:06 > 0:07:11gain such power that the only way to get rid of him was to kill him?
0:07:14 > 0:07:18The Rome that Caesar was born into in 100 BC
0:07:18 > 0:07:21wasn't a bit like the ancient Rome we see in the movies.
0:07:21 > 0:07:26It was super-powerful all right, but there was no Coliseum,
0:07:26 > 0:07:30no gleaming white marble - all that came later.
0:07:30 > 0:07:34Caesar's Rome was home to about a million people.
0:07:34 > 0:07:40Most of them living in pretty squalid, low-rise brick buildings.
0:07:40 > 0:07:42It was a sort of democracy.
0:07:42 > 0:07:45That's to say, everybody had a vote -
0:07:45 > 0:07:48apart from the women and the slaves -
0:07:48 > 0:07:54but real power was in the hands of a few rich, aristocratic families
0:07:54 > 0:07:57like Caesar's.
0:07:57 > 0:07:58How very different from now, eh?
0:08:00 > 0:08:04So this was not yet the Rome ruled by emperors.
0:08:04 > 0:08:05It was a democracy,
0:08:05 > 0:08:10where power was never in the hands of one person for too long.
0:08:12 > 0:08:14But Caesar would change all that.
0:08:15 > 0:08:19Looking back on it, you can almost see his rise to power
0:08:19 > 0:08:22as a brilliantly-executed strategy game.
0:08:22 > 0:08:25A masterclass in how to be top,
0:08:25 > 0:08:28and engineer the ultimate power grab.
0:08:28 > 0:08:33One that would become a manual for leaders, right up to now.
0:08:33 > 0:08:35And step one was simple -
0:08:35 > 0:08:38rewrite your own history.
0:08:38 > 0:08:42Caesar wasn't always marked out for success.
0:08:42 > 0:08:45But, like all so-called great men,
0:08:45 > 0:08:48almost every aspect of his early life
0:08:48 > 0:08:52was eventually spun to suggest that he was.
0:08:52 > 0:08:55In Caesar's case, right back to his birth,
0:08:55 > 0:08:57C-section or not.
0:08:57 > 0:09:00It's a kind of creation myth.
0:09:01 > 0:09:09The truth is that his early career was actually pretty ordinary.
0:09:09 > 0:09:11Playing by the rules.
0:09:13 > 0:09:19Like all Roman posh boys, he does a bit of military service,
0:09:19 > 0:09:22he stands for a few political offices,
0:09:22 > 0:09:26and we really don't know much about the details.
0:09:26 > 0:09:28What we do know for sure
0:09:28 > 0:09:33is he pretty soon becomes rather good at the gambits
0:09:33 > 0:09:35and the strategy,
0:09:35 > 0:09:40and he makes some really clever moves.
0:09:40 > 0:09:47And, eventually, he starts to change the rules themselves.
0:09:47 > 0:09:51And if he starts out as a little chap like this...
0:09:53 > 0:09:58..he turns out to be pretty much like a king.
0:10:00 > 0:10:02And according to a later legend,
0:10:02 > 0:10:06there was a dramatic, life-changing turning point.
0:10:10 > 0:10:14In 69 BC, Caesar was sent to Spain
0:10:14 > 0:10:18as an elected official of the Republic of Rome.
0:10:18 > 0:10:22Like dozens of other young administrators,
0:10:22 > 0:10:26he was taking his first big step on the Roman political ladder.
0:10:31 > 0:10:35By this time, through a combination of conquest and alliance,
0:10:35 > 0:10:39the power of Rome extended through the whole of Italy,
0:10:39 > 0:10:41into North Africa, the Middle East,
0:10:41 > 0:10:44southern France, and most of Spain.
0:10:45 > 0:10:49And it was on a tiny island off the coast of Spain, near Cadiz,
0:10:49 > 0:10:52that Caesar was later said to have had the encounter
0:10:52 > 0:10:55that changed the course of his life.
0:10:55 > 0:11:00It was with the most glamorized - or to me the most murderous -
0:11:00 > 0:11:04ancient Greek General of them all, King Alexander the Great,
0:11:04 > 0:11:09who by the age of 33, had conquered half the known world.
0:11:11 > 0:11:14The story goes that, somewhere around here,
0:11:14 > 0:11:17Caesar actually came face-to-face
0:11:17 > 0:11:20with a statue of Alexander the Great.
0:11:20 > 0:11:22And he started to cry.
0:11:23 > 0:11:28"Isn't it terrible," he said to his friends, "that at my age,
0:11:28 > 0:11:33"Alexander was already king of so much of the world."
0:11:34 > 0:11:36"But look at me.
0:11:36 > 0:11:39"I've done nothing at all remarkable!"
0:11:39 > 0:11:41Yet.
0:11:43 > 0:11:47Nothing survives of the temple that once housed the statue.
0:11:47 > 0:11:50We don't even know if the whole story's true,
0:11:50 > 0:11:55but it became a key chapter in Caesar's legend.
0:11:55 > 0:11:59This is a much later attempt to capture the scene.
0:11:59 > 0:12:04There's the statue of Alexander here, and Caesar's admiring it,
0:12:04 > 0:12:06in his rather splendid red outfit
0:12:06 > 0:12:09and some particularly natty shoes.
0:12:09 > 0:12:11In fact, ever after,
0:12:11 > 0:12:15artists and writers have reimagined this encounter
0:12:15 > 0:12:19as a turning point in Caesar's life.
0:12:19 > 0:12:21We all do it!
0:12:21 > 0:12:24If you wanted, I guess I could give you the turning point
0:12:24 > 0:12:27when I decided to become a classicist.
0:12:27 > 0:12:31In reality, of course, it's all much more complex.
0:12:31 > 0:12:34For me, and certainly for Caesar.
0:12:34 > 0:12:39All the same, people have often fixed on this occasion
0:12:39 > 0:12:44as the moment when Caesar became Caesar.
0:12:44 > 0:12:48True or not, this is the symbolic moment
0:12:48 > 0:12:51when Caesar the ordinary administrator
0:12:51 > 0:12:55turned into Caesar the wannabe top dog.
0:13:04 > 0:13:06If step one in Caesar's rise to power
0:13:06 > 0:13:09was mythologizing his early life,
0:13:09 > 0:13:14step two was winning the loyalty and devotion of the military.
0:13:14 > 0:13:18It's something that he and later leaders would come to rely on.
0:13:19 > 0:13:24And ten years after that defining encounter with Alexander the Great,
0:13:24 > 0:13:25he got his chance.
0:13:31 > 0:13:36After a series of political trade-offs and backstage deals,
0:13:36 > 0:13:38Caesar was elected Consul,
0:13:38 > 0:13:41the highest political office there was at the time.
0:13:41 > 0:13:44Only two were appointed each year,
0:13:44 > 0:13:48and that made him one of the principal power brokers in Rome.
0:13:49 > 0:13:54And with that kind of political power came a big military command.
0:13:54 > 0:13:58Caesar left Italy to lead the conquest of Gaul,
0:13:58 > 0:14:00a vast territory that included
0:14:00 > 0:14:03modern-day France, Belgium, and Luxembourg.
0:14:04 > 0:14:08It was in Gaul that Caesar got to lay the foundations
0:14:08 > 0:14:13on what all his later successes in some way would be built.
0:14:13 > 0:14:14A loyal army.
0:14:16 > 0:14:20One man who can help us see how he managed this is Admiral Lord West,
0:14:20 > 0:14:22who understands Caesar's campaigns
0:14:22 > 0:14:25from a rather different point of view to mine.
0:14:27 > 0:14:29I met him - fittingly, I guess -
0:14:29 > 0:14:32in the shadow of a Roman military memorial in Gaul.
0:14:32 > 0:14:36Julius Caesar, I think, was a brilliant strategist.
0:14:36 > 0:14:39He understood how he should divide and split up his enemies,
0:14:39 > 0:14:41not fight too many of them at once, he understood
0:14:41 > 0:14:44the political background that he was working against,
0:14:44 > 0:14:48he had a very clear concept of what his aim was.
0:14:48 > 0:14:52But what he manages to do, he manages to get those guys,
0:14:52 > 0:14:57I mean, first of all, to slaughter the enemy, nastily.
0:14:57 > 0:14:59How do you get people to do that?
0:14:59 > 0:15:01Because that must be part of the secret.
0:15:01 > 0:15:04Basically, they felt he was part of them.
0:15:04 > 0:15:08He... He took the same risks, he led from the front,
0:15:08 > 0:15:09he understood about the fighting.
0:15:09 > 0:15:12And you're right, it was visceral and unpleasant and nasty.
0:15:12 > 0:15:14Killing 10,000 people in those days meant
0:15:14 > 0:15:16you had to kill with a sword or a stabbing.
0:15:16 > 0:15:19You right out killed 10,000 people.
0:15:19 > 0:15:22But he made each one of them feel that they were individuals.
0:15:22 > 0:15:23He won, he won!
0:15:23 > 0:15:26There's nothing like having a man who wins to be your commander.
0:15:26 > 0:15:29If you have a man who is your commander who keeps winning,
0:15:29 > 0:15:32you jolly well like that. And when you look at that totality,
0:15:32 > 0:15:33then it's a cohesive unit.
0:15:33 > 0:15:35And they felt part of something bigger!
0:15:35 > 0:15:37Is that what generals do now?
0:15:37 > 0:15:38Is it always the same?
0:15:38 > 0:15:42Well, the morale and the focus on the individual
0:15:42 > 0:15:44is as important today as it was then.
0:15:44 > 0:15:45I mean, that actually is crucial.
0:15:45 > 0:15:47If you don't do that, you will not win.
0:15:47 > 0:15:49I want you to be absolutely frank on this one.
0:15:49 > 0:15:52You've got scruffy prof here.
0:15:52 > 0:15:54Do you think you could turn her into a good soldier? And how?
0:15:56 > 0:16:01I think, because you have a belief in certain things and a focus,
0:16:01 > 0:16:02I think I could make you
0:16:02 > 0:16:05be quite unpleasant on the battlefield to somebody else.
0:16:05 > 0:16:09There goes my pacifist credentials at a stroke!
0:16:12 > 0:16:14But what was it like
0:16:14 > 0:16:17for the ordinary squaddie to fight for Caesar?
0:16:18 > 0:16:24There's one curious museum treasure that offers us an unexpected glimpse
0:16:24 > 0:16:27of the world of the Roman battlefield from the bottom up.
0:16:31 > 0:16:35I've waited for ages to get my hands on these strange little things.
0:16:35 > 0:16:39Because they give us one of the few glimpses we can get
0:16:39 > 0:16:42of what life was like for the ordinary soldier
0:16:42 > 0:16:46in an army camp in Caesar's day.
0:16:46 > 0:16:48Because what these are
0:16:48 > 0:16:50are the ancient equivalent of bullets.
0:16:50 > 0:16:52They're called sling-bolts,
0:16:52 > 0:16:56and you put them at the end of a cord, you whirl the cord,
0:16:56 > 0:17:00let the bullet go, and it does its deadly work.
0:17:00 > 0:17:04But what's really interesting about them is that they've got,
0:17:04 > 0:17:07either scratched on them or more often
0:17:07 > 0:17:10moulded actually into the lead,
0:17:10 > 0:17:14they've got messages to take to your enemy.
0:17:14 > 0:17:17We're in a way familiar with that.
0:17:17 > 0:17:21Bombs in World War II often had rather rude messages
0:17:21 > 0:17:25scrawled on the side, you know, "Run, Adolf, run."
0:17:25 > 0:17:26That kind of thing.
0:17:26 > 0:17:30These Roman ones are actually rather ruder.
0:17:30 > 0:17:33This one says "pathice".
0:17:33 > 0:17:36The only way you could translate that I suppose is...
0:17:36 > 0:17:38"You're buggered."
0:17:38 > 0:17:40From a very academic point of view,
0:17:40 > 0:17:42this one's the most interesting.
0:17:42 > 0:17:45It's aimed at one of the women,
0:17:45 > 0:17:48one of the prominent women on the other side, called Fulvia.
0:17:48 > 0:17:50You can see her name there very clearly.
0:17:50 > 0:17:57And it says, "Peto" - I'm going for - the "landicam" of Fulvia.
0:17:57 > 0:18:01That is the first example in Latin
0:18:01 > 0:18:04of the use of the word clitoris.
0:18:04 > 0:18:07"I'm going for Fulvia's clitoris."
0:18:07 > 0:18:10Now, it's blokeish, it's rude.
0:18:10 > 0:18:12I think we also have to remember
0:18:12 > 0:18:15that these were really deadly weapons.
0:18:19 > 0:18:21Deadly is right.
0:18:21 > 0:18:23In less than five years,
0:18:23 > 0:18:27Caesar and his men had marched and fought their way
0:18:27 > 0:18:32some 1,500 km to grey Northern Gaul.
0:18:33 > 0:18:37We know about this campaign in minute detail,
0:18:37 > 0:18:40because in one of the most amazing survivals from the ancient world,
0:18:40 > 0:18:44we still have Caesar's own step-by-step account.
0:18:45 > 0:18:47And one description above all
0:18:47 > 0:18:51underlines the brutality and the obedience of his men
0:18:51 > 0:18:54as they fought a battle against native tribes.
0:18:56 > 0:18:59Caesar describes this battle in detail.
0:18:59 > 0:19:02He talks about his own lightning speed,
0:19:02 > 0:19:07and how he met the enemy "ad confluentem" -
0:19:07 > 0:19:10at the confluence of two rivers.
0:19:10 > 0:19:12He hemmed them in
0:19:12 > 0:19:15so that they despaired of being able to flee away.
0:19:15 > 0:19:18"Fuga desperata!"
0:19:18 > 0:19:24And a large number of them - "magno numero" - were killed.
0:19:25 > 0:19:30The rest threw themselves "in flumen" -
0:19:30 > 0:19:32into the river.
0:19:33 > 0:19:35Goes on to say that this tribe
0:19:35 > 0:19:38had once numbered over 400,000 people,
0:19:38 > 0:19:42and he implies that there were not very many left.
0:19:44 > 0:19:46Archaeologist Nico Roymans
0:19:46 > 0:19:51has identified the location of the battle, and its grisly legacy.
0:19:51 > 0:19:55Caesar describes the dramatic massacre here
0:19:55 > 0:19:58taking place in 55 BC,
0:19:58 > 0:20:02and we indeed have this kind of archaeological material
0:20:02 > 0:20:03in huge quantities.
0:20:03 > 0:20:08You can really see just how deadly Caesar's campaigns were
0:20:08 > 0:20:11when you look at the finds that you've got here.
0:20:11 > 0:20:15It's a human skull of an adult male, about 60.
0:20:15 > 0:20:20- This man has actually had his face cut off with a sword.- Yeah, indeed.
0:20:20 > 0:20:22With a single sword blow.
0:20:22 > 0:20:25This is part of a female skull,
0:20:25 > 0:20:28and there's a hole here above one of the eyes
0:20:28 > 0:20:31caused by a spearhead or a sword point.
0:20:31 > 0:20:36So the casualties include, then, women and children?
0:20:36 > 0:20:39We have also bones of children.
0:20:40 > 0:20:42It was described as a battle by Caesar,
0:20:42 > 0:20:45but in fact it was one large massacre.
0:20:45 > 0:20:50It was an attempt to massacre the complete population here.
0:20:50 > 0:20:53It tends to make real some of the claims
0:20:53 > 0:20:58that people now make, that what Caesar was doing in Gaul was...
0:20:58 > 0:21:02We call it conquest, but it was really genocide.
0:21:02 > 0:21:05Yeah, I think we can use that term.
0:21:05 > 0:21:08This was a landscape of terror, more or less.
0:21:08 > 0:21:10- Killing fields. - Yeah, yeah, killing fields.
0:21:10 > 0:21:13In that mid-first century BC.
0:21:18 > 0:21:20Julius Caesar has always had
0:21:20 > 0:21:23the number-one reputation as great conqueror.
0:21:23 > 0:21:28He's a towering hero among generals ancient and modern.
0:21:28 > 0:21:33But my problem is, it's such a sanitized view of ancient warfare.
0:21:33 > 0:21:37It's easy enough to glorify a conquering general like Caesar
0:21:37 > 0:21:422,000 years ago, when you don't see the collateral damage.
0:21:42 > 0:21:44When you don't see the innocent victims,
0:21:44 > 0:21:48you don't hear their voices, you don't even know their names.
0:21:48 > 0:21:54Now, we watch the maimed children in hospital on our televisions.
0:21:54 > 0:21:59And that makes it a lot harder to glorify conquest.
0:22:00 > 0:22:03But leadership isn't only about conquest -
0:22:03 > 0:22:07it's about commanding the unquestioning loyalty of your men.
0:22:07 > 0:22:12And Caesar's men would follow him to the ends of the earth.
0:22:12 > 0:22:17In 55 BC, Caesar decided to cross the Channel and check out
0:22:17 > 0:22:21what the land he could see on the other side was all about.
0:22:23 > 0:22:28Almost 100 years before Roman armies actually conquered Britain,
0:22:28 > 0:22:32Caesar became the first Roman we know
0:22:32 > 0:22:35to have set foot on British soil.
0:22:35 > 0:22:37He landed here, in Kent.
0:22:38 > 0:22:43This wasn't conquest, it was exploration.
0:22:43 > 0:22:45More like a moon landing, really.
0:22:45 > 0:22:47Because for the Romans,
0:22:47 > 0:22:51Britain really was beyond the final frontier.
0:22:51 > 0:22:53And when they got here,
0:22:53 > 0:22:58they did actually find themselves face-to-face with little blue men.
0:22:58 > 0:23:04Now, it was in fact Julius Caesar who has given us
0:23:04 > 0:23:09the first surviving eyewitness account of us.
0:23:09 > 0:23:13And there's good news in it for the people of Kent.
0:23:13 > 0:23:15This is some of what he's got to say.
0:23:15 > 0:23:17SHE TRANSLATES: Out of all the people there,
0:23:17 > 0:23:21by far the most sophisticated - humanissimmi -
0:23:21 > 0:23:24are those who inhabit Kent,
0:23:24 > 0:23:28which is a seaside region, not very different from Gaul.
0:23:28 > 0:23:32But all the Britons dye themselves with woad,
0:23:32 > 0:23:35which gives them a blue colour
0:23:35 > 0:23:37that makes them really awful to look at -
0:23:37 > 0:23:40horridiores - in battle.
0:23:40 > 0:23:45They let their hair grow long, and every part of their body is shaved
0:23:45 > 0:23:48except their head and their upper lip.
0:23:48 > 0:23:49They're moustachioed.
0:23:49 > 0:23:54Now, I don't really recognise myself in that description,
0:23:54 > 0:23:58but that really is the first time
0:23:58 > 0:24:01that the British enter real history.
0:24:07 > 0:24:11Caesar's writings didn't just record events.
0:24:11 > 0:24:14His accounts cast him as a Roman hero,
0:24:14 > 0:24:17a kind of soldier-adventurer,
0:24:17 > 0:24:20and that's where their true purpose comes in.
0:24:20 > 0:24:24They are propaganda for a contemporary Roman audience.
0:24:25 > 0:24:28It was, if you like, step three
0:24:28 > 0:24:31in Caesar's handbook for would-be leaders -
0:24:31 > 0:24:32set the news agenda.
0:24:34 > 0:24:37Caesar had the problem all politicians have.
0:24:37 > 0:24:40How do you keep yourself in the public eye?
0:24:40 > 0:24:42How do you get your message across?
0:24:42 > 0:24:47Today, that's done by Twitter, 24-hour news, and the internet.
0:24:47 > 0:24:50Caesar had none of that.
0:24:50 > 0:24:56But that's where those step-by-step accounts of his conquests come in.
0:24:56 > 0:24:59Because I don't think that they were written
0:24:59 > 0:25:03just to help out historians 2,000 years later.
0:25:05 > 0:25:09Those accounts actually make pretty odd reading now
0:25:09 > 0:25:11because he didn't write, "I did this, and then I did that,
0:25:11 > 0:25:13"and then I did the other."
0:25:13 > 0:25:17What he wrote was, "Caesar did this! And then Caesar did that!"
0:25:17 > 0:25:21That could be because he was frightfully pompous,
0:25:21 > 0:25:27but much more likely is he wrote this stuff to be read out in Rome,
0:25:27 > 0:25:31directly to the Roman people, by one of his staff,
0:25:31 > 0:25:34when he was hundreds of miles away.
0:25:34 > 0:25:36Let's give it a try.
0:25:37 > 0:25:39Friends!
0:25:39 > 0:25:41Romans!
0:25:41 > 0:25:42Countrymen!
0:25:42 > 0:25:49I am bringing you dispatches from Gaul!
0:25:49 > 0:25:53TRANSLATING: Caesar as always, hurries ahead
0:25:53 > 0:25:56to be in the very midst of the battle!
0:25:56 > 0:26:02You can spot him from the distinctive colour of his uniform.
0:26:02 > 0:26:06But Caesar, again, as always,
0:26:06 > 0:26:09goes ahead to harass the enemy!
0:26:09 > 0:26:12He sends them packing!
0:26:12 > 0:26:14Impressed?
0:26:14 > 0:26:16THEY CHEER Yes!
0:26:16 > 0:26:19Triumphant stuff!
0:26:19 > 0:26:23And I'll bring you more news soon.
0:26:23 > 0:26:25Hail Caesar!
0:26:25 > 0:26:28- Come on! ALL:- Hail Caesar!
0:26:28 > 0:26:29Hail Caesar!
0:26:29 > 0:26:31APPLAUSE
0:26:35 > 0:26:37In his written accounts,
0:26:37 > 0:26:39Caesar gave the Romans in the streets
0:26:39 > 0:26:43something and somebody to celebrate.
0:26:43 > 0:26:47You might say he whipped up national pride.
0:26:47 > 0:26:49And never more successfully
0:26:49 > 0:26:52than in one particular report of a later victory.
0:26:52 > 0:26:56Writing the story down and reading it out isn't enough.
0:26:56 > 0:27:01Caesar absolutely grasped the value of a good sound bite.
0:27:01 > 0:27:05Veni, vidi, vici.
0:27:05 > 0:27:09I came, I saw, I conquered.
0:27:09 > 0:27:13These must be the most famous words that Caesar ever wrote.
0:27:13 > 0:27:16They're probably the most famous words
0:27:16 > 0:27:19in the whole of the Latin language.
0:27:19 > 0:27:22They've got tremendous zing, rhythm,
0:27:22 > 0:27:25and they're really to the point.
0:27:25 > 0:27:26I won!
0:27:28 > 0:27:29I kind of think of them
0:27:29 > 0:27:34as the forerunners of some of our best slogans.
0:27:34 > 0:27:36Yes, we can!
0:27:36 > 0:27:40Education, education, education!
0:27:40 > 0:27:43Even Caesar's contemporaries
0:27:43 > 0:27:47were impressed with the punch and the genius brevity.
0:27:47 > 0:27:51It's all a lot less than the average tweet!
0:27:51 > 0:27:55Come to think of it, I might actually send it
0:27:55 > 0:27:58to the world's most famous tweeter.
0:28:01 > 0:28:05@Potus... SHE LAUGHS
0:28:05 > 0:28:08There you are, Donald. Mr President.
0:28:08 > 0:28:10Please enjoy.
0:28:17 > 0:28:20Caesar knew exactly how important it was
0:28:20 > 0:28:24to get your message across directly to the people.
0:28:24 > 0:28:26It's something that Robert Harris,
0:28:26 > 0:28:31who has written about ancient and modern politics, gets very well.
0:28:31 > 0:28:32Caesar - he didn't write
0:28:32 > 0:28:36quite as much as you, but he wrote a huge amount,
0:28:36 > 0:28:40which is very unusual in the ancient world in surviving.
0:28:40 > 0:28:42And what do you make of them?
0:28:42 > 0:28:45Well, I think they show that he was a master of propaganda.
0:28:45 > 0:28:48So if one imagines what it must've been like when the herald or whoever
0:28:48 > 0:28:50appeared in the forum, the crowd gathering,
0:28:50 > 0:28:53people going, "Come and look! Let's see what he's done now!"
0:28:53 > 0:28:56And the things that he was doing, of course, were, as someone said,
0:28:56 > 0:28:59landing in Britain was like the trip to the moon.
0:28:59 > 0:29:03It was astonishing that one of their citizens was doing this!
0:29:03 > 0:29:06So a lot of ordinary people, they really liked to hear that.
0:29:06 > 0:29:10They really like to see their leaders are cutting it out there
0:29:10 > 0:29:13and anyone who gets in their way gets it.
0:29:13 > 0:29:15You know, "Make Rome great again"
0:29:15 > 0:29:17seems to be the kind of message
0:29:17 > 0:29:19that's coming through these commentaries.
0:29:19 > 0:29:22Of course, you know, it's quite a common phenomenon
0:29:22 > 0:29:25for politicians to refer to themselves in the third person.
0:29:25 > 0:29:28Look at President Trump. He often refers in tweets to
0:29:28 > 0:29:31"President Trump has done this, that, or the other."
0:29:31 > 0:29:34And Caesar's appealing to the socially excluded,
0:29:34 > 0:29:38- just like some modern populist politicians.- Exactly,
0:29:38 > 0:29:42and that the more outrageous he was, the more people he killed,
0:29:42 > 0:29:45the more he flaunted his own misdemeanours,
0:29:45 > 0:29:47the better they liked him.
0:29:47 > 0:29:49So one of the things you ought to do
0:29:49 > 0:29:51if you're in either Caesar or Trump's position
0:29:51 > 0:29:55is kind of bypass the rest of the political structure
0:29:55 > 0:29:59and speak to the citizens directly.
0:29:59 > 0:30:02Yes, what he did, which I think is very modern,
0:30:02 > 0:30:05is that although he was himself immensely wealthy,
0:30:05 > 0:30:08he nevertheless managed to appeal over the head of what he called
0:30:08 > 0:30:11"a rotten and corrupt elite".
0:30:11 > 0:30:13All great dictators, in a way,
0:30:13 > 0:30:16or charismatic leaders,
0:30:16 > 0:30:18I think addressed their followers directly,
0:30:18 > 0:30:23and they stage-manage very carefully the form in which they do it.
0:30:23 > 0:30:27Obviously, Hitler with his rallies, Caesar the same.
0:30:27 > 0:30:31And would our world be different without him?
0:30:31 > 0:30:37Yes, I think that Caesar is one of the architects of the modern world.
0:30:37 > 0:30:40I have no doubt that the world would've been a different place
0:30:40 > 0:30:43if Julius Caesar hadn't been born,
0:30:43 > 0:30:46and there aren't many figures in history of whom that can be said.
0:30:52 > 0:30:57By 50 BC, Caesar could say that the job in Gaul was more or less done.
0:31:00 > 0:31:04He had the love of the people at home and the loyalty of his army,
0:31:04 > 0:31:06a dangerous combination.
0:31:07 > 0:31:11It made his fellow politicians back in Rome increasingly nervous.
0:31:15 > 0:31:19Victory in Gaul brought new problems for Caesar.
0:31:19 > 0:31:21The metropolitan elite in Rome,
0:31:21 > 0:31:24who were a pretty conservative bunch,
0:31:24 > 0:31:27decided that his military job was over.
0:31:27 > 0:31:31They thought that he'd gone altogether too far too fast,
0:31:31 > 0:31:36and that his appeals to the Roman people were dangerous.
0:31:36 > 0:31:40They had in mind to get him back and to impeach him
0:31:40 > 0:31:44for legal irregularities, real or imagined,
0:31:44 > 0:31:46committed years before.
0:31:46 > 0:31:49Caesar had been backed into a corner.
0:31:49 > 0:31:52Either he went home to face prosecution,
0:31:52 > 0:31:56or he stayed in Gaul against orders, a rogue general.
0:31:56 > 0:31:59It was catch-22.
0:31:59 > 0:32:00Faced with that dilemma
0:32:00 > 0:32:05and to protect what he was always calling his dignitas, his dignity,
0:32:05 > 0:32:11he decided to lead his loyal troops across the border between Gaul and
0:32:11 > 0:32:15Italy, and to march on Rome.
0:32:15 > 0:32:17It was effectively the start of civil war.
0:32:21 > 0:32:25The border lay on the line of a river, the River Rubicon.
0:32:25 > 0:32:29For a Roman general to cross this border and march his troops
0:32:29 > 0:32:32on Rome was almost unthinkable,
0:32:32 > 0:32:36like some Commander-in-chief rolling his tanks onto Parliament Square
0:32:36 > 0:32:38or Capitol Hill.
0:32:38 > 0:32:41That was Caesar's make-or-break moment.
0:32:41 > 0:32:46He chose to gamble everything and take on the political establishment.
0:32:46 > 0:32:49It's really step four in getting to the top -
0:32:49 > 0:32:54spot your opportunity for the power grab and take it.
0:32:54 > 0:32:58Oddly enough, Caesar doesn't say a word about this moment in his own
0:32:58 > 0:33:02writings. There's a rather guilty silence, I suspect.
0:33:02 > 0:33:05But there were loads of Roman stories
0:33:05 > 0:33:07about what was going on in his head
0:33:07 > 0:33:13at the time. The anxieties, the dreams, the godly apparitions.
0:33:13 > 0:33:16Should he? Shouldn't he?
0:33:16 > 0:33:17But ultimately,
0:33:17 > 0:33:23Caesar gave us the phrase "crossing the Rubicon" to mean taking a daring
0:33:23 > 0:33:29gamble and going past the point of no return.
0:33:30 > 0:33:33"Alea iacta est," he's said to have declared.
0:33:33 > 0:33:34"The die is cast."
0:33:34 > 0:33:38Or, "I rolled the dice, and it's all up in the air now."
0:33:38 > 0:33:43The funny thing is that no-one knows exactly where the river was.
0:33:43 > 0:33:45It was Benito Mussolini,
0:33:45 > 0:33:49the Italian dictator who came to power in the 1920s,
0:33:49 > 0:33:53who decided that this slightly underwhelming stream
0:33:53 > 0:33:55was THE Rubicon.
0:33:56 > 0:33:58In his march on Rome,
0:33:58 > 0:34:03he was trying to reconstruct exactly the route taken by Julius Caesar,
0:34:03 > 0:34:08in a way to cast himself as the new Caesar.
0:34:08 > 0:34:11But in reality, Mussolini took the train.
0:34:15 > 0:34:18Caesar's crossing of the Rubicon has long been seen as a symbol of
0:34:18 > 0:34:22single-minded determination and risk-taking.
0:34:23 > 0:34:25And not just by Mussolini.
0:34:26 > 0:34:28For Caesar's fellow politicians,
0:34:28 > 0:34:31it was, of course, an act of aggression,
0:34:31 > 0:34:32a coup d'etat.
0:34:33 > 0:34:36And it plunged Rome into civil war.
0:34:38 > 0:34:41The fighting dragged on across the Roman world for years.
0:34:42 > 0:34:44But to all intents and purposes,
0:34:44 > 0:34:49Caesar had control of the city itself within a matter of months.
0:34:49 > 0:34:51He was elected dictator,
0:34:51 > 0:34:55a perfectly traditional office in ancient Rome reserved for times of
0:34:55 > 0:34:59crisis, which placed power in the hands of a single individual
0:34:59 > 0:35:02for a short time.
0:35:02 > 0:35:08Caesar took that power for a year, and now effectively ruled Rome.
0:35:08 > 0:35:12It's easy to imagine that Caesar crosses the Rubicon one minute
0:35:12 > 0:35:14and gets assassinated the next.
0:35:14 > 0:35:15But actually,
0:35:15 > 0:35:20it's what happens in the five years in between that's so crucial.
0:35:20 > 0:35:22And he's facing all the problems
0:35:22 > 0:35:24that victors in civil wars always face.
0:35:26 > 0:35:28What do you do with those you've defeated?
0:35:28 > 0:35:30What do you do with your supporters?
0:35:30 > 0:35:32Because you've no doubt promised them loads,
0:35:32 > 0:35:34and you've now got to deliver.
0:35:34 > 0:35:36And how do you make sure you stay in power?
0:35:38 > 0:35:42Some of the strategies he uses are easily recognisable to us.
0:35:42 > 0:35:47He invests in infrastructure, or at least he promises to.
0:35:47 > 0:35:53So there's walls, bridges, he drains the swamps.
0:35:53 > 0:35:59And he has a programme of slum clearance and new towns.
0:35:59 > 0:36:03And he looks out for the ordinary Roman with food rations.
0:36:03 > 0:36:05And he takes some measures
0:36:05 > 0:36:07to deal with what we'd call the credit crunch.
0:36:07 > 0:36:12The bottom line of all this is strength and stability.
0:36:12 > 0:36:17But he's also flooding the city with his own image.
0:36:17 > 0:36:20The idea is that there should be a statue of him
0:36:20 > 0:36:22in every single temple.
0:36:22 > 0:36:27And what he's doing is making Rome his showcase.
0:36:29 > 0:36:34Caesar was turning into a dictator in the modern sense.
0:36:34 > 0:36:38And by that, I don't just mean winning power by killing people
0:36:38 > 0:36:40and commanding fear,
0:36:40 > 0:36:43I mean he was changing the world in which he lived,
0:36:43 > 0:36:46putting himself at the centre of it.
0:36:46 > 0:36:51And he understood the importance of getting his image out there.
0:36:51 > 0:36:53It's a technique we recognise well -
0:36:53 > 0:36:57the face of the beloved leader pasted across every available
0:36:57 > 0:37:01surface from newspapers to flags and billboards.
0:37:01 > 0:37:06It was pioneered by Caesar, who had his bust sent everywhere.
0:37:08 > 0:37:12And it's true that we do still see his face everywhere.
0:37:12 > 0:37:18But actual portraits done from life are almost impossible to find.
0:37:19 > 0:37:23Perhaps the orders had not been completed by the time of his death.
0:37:23 > 0:37:26Perhaps they were thought to be hot property and destroyed
0:37:26 > 0:37:27after his assassination.
0:37:30 > 0:37:31But then, in 2007,
0:37:31 > 0:37:35archaeologists in France found something intriguing.
0:37:38 > 0:37:41It was one of those discoveries that made the headlines.
0:37:41 > 0:37:43It was only a few years ago,
0:37:43 > 0:37:47an archaeologist was diving right here,
0:37:47 > 0:37:49searching for remains on the riverbed.
0:37:49 > 0:37:54He's down there, and he spots a bit of marble.
0:37:54 > 0:37:58He brings it up to the surface, still dripping,
0:37:58 > 0:38:03takes a closer look and then shouts out,
0:38:03 > 0:38:06"Putain, mais c'est Cesar!"
0:38:06 > 0:38:11- Which could only be translated as, - "BLEEP- me, it's Caesar."
0:38:27 > 0:38:31I'm about to come face-to-face with Julius Caesar.
0:38:34 > 0:38:36Today, the bust is on display
0:38:36 > 0:38:38in the archaeological museum in Arles.
0:38:38 > 0:38:42Hello. Or bonjour.
0:38:42 > 0:38:44SHE GIGGLES
0:38:45 > 0:38:48This is about as up close and personal to Julius Caesar
0:38:48 > 0:38:50as you can get.
0:38:50 > 0:38:55The question is, what kind of image in this portrait is Caesar trying to
0:38:55 > 0:38:56project of himself?
0:38:56 > 0:39:00I think one thing's for sure, is it's not glam.
0:39:00 > 0:39:04He's got a really wrinkled, furrowed brow, kind of saying,
0:39:04 > 0:39:08"I'm working terribly hard on behalf of the state,
0:39:08 > 0:39:11"on behalf of Rome, thinking through politics!"
0:39:11 > 0:39:16And his neck is really craggy and wrinkly,
0:39:16 > 0:39:18with a big Adam's apple.
0:39:18 > 0:39:22This is not the kind of youthful idealism.
0:39:22 > 0:39:26This is sort of middle-aged, elderly bloke style.
0:39:27 > 0:39:29But, yes, as a sculpture,
0:39:29 > 0:39:33the Holy Grail of classical archaeology.
0:39:33 > 0:39:35For centuries and centuries,
0:39:35 > 0:39:39archaeologists have tried to track down
0:39:39 > 0:39:44a portrait of Caesar done in his lifetime.
0:39:44 > 0:39:46And here you are.
0:39:49 > 0:39:51Or are you?
0:39:51 > 0:39:55The problem is it's very hard to tell whether this really
0:39:55 > 0:39:56is Caesar.
0:39:56 > 0:40:00After all, there's no name on him.
0:40:00 > 0:40:02If we want to pin down his portraits,
0:40:02 > 0:40:06all we can do is what the archaeologists at Arles did -
0:40:06 > 0:40:11match them up with portraits of him that are very clearly labelled.
0:40:11 > 0:40:13And guess what?
0:40:13 > 0:40:14We have hundreds of those.
0:40:15 > 0:40:18- Bonjour, Madame.- Bonjour, Madame.
0:40:18 > 0:40:21- Verre de vin blanc, s'il vous plait. - Oui.
0:40:21 > 0:40:25- Voila.- Merci.
0:40:25 > 0:40:29There's actually only one way of knowing what Julius Caesar looked like,
0:40:29 > 0:40:35and that's by looking at the tiny little images on his coins,
0:40:35 > 0:40:37which are named.
0:40:37 > 0:40:42But these coins were much more revolutionary than they seem.
0:40:42 > 0:40:46We take it absolutely for granted that we'll find the Queen's head
0:40:46 > 0:40:48on all the currency,
0:40:48 > 0:40:52and we assume that one obvious type of political propaganda
0:40:52 > 0:40:57is seeing the mugshot of the dear leader plastered everywhere.
0:40:58 > 0:41:03But Julius Caesar was the first person to get into that.
0:41:03 > 0:41:08He was the very first person in the West systematically
0:41:08 > 0:41:12to put his head on the coinage.
0:41:12 > 0:41:15It must have been actually quite shocking.
0:41:15 > 0:41:19Every time you went to pay for a glass of wine,
0:41:19 > 0:41:21or for a takeaway,
0:41:21 > 0:41:24or for the ancient equivalent of a cup of coffee,
0:41:24 > 0:41:26you were paying with him.
0:41:26 > 0:41:34That's to say, Romans went around with Julius Caesar in their pockets.
0:41:34 > 0:41:35Madame, l'addition, s'il vous plait.
0:41:35 > 0:41:38- Deux euros quatre-vingts.- Voila.
0:41:38 > 0:41:42Je regrette, je ne prends pas le Cesar.
0:41:42 > 0:41:44I did try!
0:41:44 > 0:41:48- Voila. En l'euro.- Merci, merci.
0:41:48 > 0:41:50Merci.
0:41:51 > 0:41:55Some people may have found the idea of carrying Caesar's face around in
0:41:55 > 0:41:59their pockets a bit big-headed, but ordinary Romans loved him.
0:42:02 > 0:42:06He was seen as the anti-establishment candidate,
0:42:06 > 0:42:10not part of the Roman metropolitan elite.
0:42:10 > 0:42:13And he knew the value of keeping the people happy,
0:42:13 > 0:42:18what a later Roman satirist would describe as "bread and circuses".
0:42:18 > 0:42:24Caesar was generous to the Roman people on a spectacular scale.
0:42:24 > 0:42:27It was 100 years before the Colosseum was built,
0:42:27 > 0:42:32so he gave his gladiator shows here, in the Forum.
0:42:32 > 0:42:35But the point was that Caesar's shows
0:42:35 > 0:42:37were on a bigger and better scale
0:42:37 > 0:42:40than anyone had ever given before.
0:42:40 > 0:42:45And so, too, were his public banquets.
0:42:45 > 0:42:50Once, he gave a free feast to the Roman people,
0:42:50 > 0:42:54with some frightfully posh fish on the menu,
0:42:54 > 0:42:59all laid out on 22,000 tables.
0:42:59 > 0:43:01It must've made the Forum
0:43:01 > 0:43:06feel like it was a vast, free outdoor restaurant.
0:43:06 > 0:43:09All courtesy of Julius Caesar.
0:43:13 > 0:43:17But in the Forum, you could find more than fights and feasts.
0:43:17 > 0:43:21This was the seedy city centre of Caesar's Rome,
0:43:21 > 0:43:24what you came to grab a take away, pick up a prostitute,
0:43:24 > 0:43:27or simply hang out and watch the world go by.
0:43:29 > 0:43:34The Forum was also the place where Rome put itself on display.
0:43:34 > 0:43:38It was here that big Roman funerals happened.
0:43:38 > 0:43:42In fact, Caesar was cremated just over there.
0:43:42 > 0:43:47And it was through here that the soldiers marched with their generals
0:43:47 > 0:43:52after some particularly big or bloody victory.
0:43:52 > 0:43:56My guess is that Caesar's squaddies
0:43:56 > 0:44:00must really have enjoyed taking the mickey out of him
0:44:00 > 0:44:02when they passed this way.
0:44:02 > 0:44:06"Romans, lock up your wives," they sang,
0:44:06 > 0:44:10"the bald adulterer is back in town!"
0:44:26 > 0:44:28I'm sorry to say, gentlemen,
0:44:28 > 0:44:32but most Romans thought that baldness was rather silly
0:44:32 > 0:44:34and a little bit embarrassing.
0:44:34 > 0:44:37So when Caesar began to thin on top,
0:44:37 > 0:44:40he was awfully keen to cover it up.
0:44:40 > 0:44:44Like countless men over the last 2,000 years,
0:44:44 > 0:44:47he became a master of the comb-over.
0:44:47 > 0:44:50But he had other tricks up his sleeve.
0:44:50 > 0:44:54When he was granted the right to wear a laurel wreath
0:44:54 > 0:44:56on any occasion he fancied,
0:44:56 > 0:44:59Caesar was absolutely delighted,
0:44:59 > 0:45:03not so much because it was a very special honour,
0:45:03 > 0:45:07but because it allowed him to cover up that bald patch.
0:45:09 > 0:45:10Grazie.
0:45:11 > 0:45:12Perfetto.
0:45:12 > 0:45:14- You look Cesare.- Grazie.
0:45:17 > 0:45:21Caesar may have been embarrassed by his baldness,
0:45:21 > 0:45:27but my guess is he'd be quite flattered to be called an adulterer.
0:45:27 > 0:45:29Rome was certainly a macho culture.
0:45:29 > 0:45:32It was full of willy-waving,
0:45:32 > 0:45:37and the locker-room chat must've been decidedly unsavoury.
0:45:37 > 0:45:42But even in Rome, Caesar was a bit of an extreme case.
0:45:42 > 0:45:46Was there anyone in the city he hadn't slept with?
0:45:46 > 0:45:48Women, men.
0:45:48 > 0:45:50And not just in Rome.
0:45:50 > 0:45:53He had an affair with Cleopatra
0:45:53 > 0:45:57long before her dalliance with Mark Antony.
0:45:57 > 0:46:01Makes me think of big men ever since.
0:46:01 > 0:46:05They can't keep their hands off women or off power.
0:46:07 > 0:46:10It wasn't long before Caesar decided that a year
0:46:10 > 0:46:13perhaps wasn't a long enough term as dictator.
0:46:13 > 0:46:16Perhaps ten years would be better.
0:46:16 > 0:46:19And with that kind of time span, he began to think bigger.
0:46:20 > 0:46:27What strikes me is how Caesar's virtues came to reinforce his power.
0:46:27 > 0:46:30One of the qualities he always boasted about was his mercy,
0:46:30 > 0:46:31or clemency.
0:46:31 > 0:46:36He had a history of surprising acts of kindness.
0:46:36 > 0:46:39But there's more to that than meets the eye.
0:46:40 > 0:46:43As for his defeated enemies in the civil war,
0:46:43 > 0:46:47they must've expected that they'd be strung up in the Forum.
0:46:47 > 0:46:51Instead, they found themselves publicly pardoned
0:46:51 > 0:46:54in what was almost a general amnesty.
0:46:56 > 0:47:01But of course, that kind of mercy is always authoritarian.
0:47:01 > 0:47:05And it's only the powerful who could issue pardons.
0:47:05 > 0:47:09But more to the point, it tells us something about Caesar himself.
0:47:10 > 0:47:13Not that he was kind,
0:47:13 > 0:47:15but that he was colossally self-confident.
0:47:21 > 0:47:24And it was this colossal self-confidence
0:47:24 > 0:47:28that was to leave a permanent mark on our world.
0:47:28 > 0:47:33You see, we think of dictators as people who rule by fear -
0:47:33 > 0:47:34state terror,
0:47:34 > 0:47:37secret police, mass killings.
0:47:37 > 0:47:41In fact, dictators have much cleverer strategies.
0:47:41 > 0:47:45The most successful of them change the natural order,
0:47:45 > 0:47:50so that what wasn't natural before now seems it.
0:47:50 > 0:47:52And Caesar was the master.
0:47:52 > 0:47:57I bet that not many people know that our month of July
0:47:57 > 0:48:01takes its name from Julius Caesar.
0:48:01 > 0:48:05The Romans decided to rename the month that had been called rather
0:48:05 > 0:48:10unsexily Quintilis as Julius, or July,
0:48:10 > 0:48:12and so it's been ever since.
0:48:13 > 0:48:17But that is as nothing to Caesar's real legacy -
0:48:17 > 0:48:19the modern Western calendar.
0:48:22 > 0:48:24Before Julius Caesar,
0:48:24 > 0:48:30the Roman calendar year had weirdly been only 355 days.
0:48:30 > 0:48:34That wasn't actually long enough, so every few years,
0:48:34 > 0:48:36they had to add another month in.
0:48:36 > 0:48:40The problem was they were pretty hopeless at doing the calculations,
0:48:40 > 0:48:45so the months of the calendar got increasingly out of sync with the
0:48:45 > 0:48:47natural seasons.
0:48:47 > 0:48:51What I mean is that it would be what you thought was September,
0:48:51 > 0:48:53and you'd want to celebrate your harvest festival,
0:48:53 > 0:48:56but the vines would only be just coming in to leaf.
0:48:56 > 0:49:01Or it would be in the middle of apparently wintry December,
0:49:01 > 0:49:04and there'd be bunches of grapes all over the vineyard.
0:49:04 > 0:49:07Caesar solved this.
0:49:07 > 0:49:09With the help of a few tame scientists,
0:49:09 > 0:49:12he pulled the plug on the old system
0:49:12 > 0:49:18and he launched the 365-day year that we now have.
0:49:18 > 0:49:23In all kinds of ways, it was a really useful and practical reform.
0:49:23 > 0:49:29But it also reveals something that only dictators can do -
0:49:29 > 0:49:31change time.
0:49:31 > 0:49:34As one of his friends wryly observed,
0:49:34 > 0:49:38"He'll be bossing the stars in the sky around next."
0:49:40 > 0:49:44Caesar was becoming a dictator in our sense of the word -
0:49:44 > 0:49:47a man who puts himself above the political process,
0:49:47 > 0:49:53a man who reorders the world around him, a man who can change time.
0:49:54 > 0:49:58And he used public celebrations to reflect his status,
0:49:58 > 0:50:01though we can dictate certain anxieties.
0:50:02 > 0:50:08This is a version of a 15th-century painting which shows just how
0:50:08 > 0:50:10preoccupied later ages were, too,
0:50:10 > 0:50:13with the image of the triumphant Caesar.
0:50:13 > 0:50:18What you've got here is Julius Caesar thinning a bit on top,
0:50:18 > 0:50:23sitting on his elaborate, triumphal chariot.
0:50:23 > 0:50:26And there's placards and spoils and loot being processed
0:50:26 > 0:50:29through the streets in front of him.
0:50:29 > 0:50:32But there's a moral here, too,
0:50:32 > 0:50:35in these figures, Caesar on the chariot,
0:50:35 > 0:50:39and this slave standing behind him,
0:50:39 > 0:50:43who's about to crown him with a laurel wreath.
0:50:43 > 0:50:48And we know from Roman writers that what this slave did throughout the
0:50:48 > 0:50:54procession for every victory parade was he whispered into the ear of the
0:50:54 > 0:50:59general all the time, "Remember you're a man, remember you're a man,
0:50:59 > 0:51:01"remember you're a man."
0:51:01 > 0:51:05The idea was that anybody who had this kind
0:51:05 > 0:51:10of lavish ceremonial would be very likely to forget
0:51:10 > 0:51:13that they were just an ordinary human being.
0:51:13 > 0:51:15So this, in a way,
0:51:15 > 0:51:20is a reminder to Julius Caesar not to get above himself.
0:51:20 > 0:51:26All the same, Caesar was aware of the popular power of a good military
0:51:26 > 0:51:30parade, something later leaders have been quick to adopt.
0:51:33 > 0:51:35Even in the democratic West,
0:51:35 > 0:51:39displays of military might have long been part of our national tradition,
0:51:39 > 0:51:42from Trooping the Colour to Bastille Day.
0:51:44 > 0:51:49Caesar's power over Rome by now seemed almost absolute.
0:51:49 > 0:51:53His military image only strengthened his popular appeal.
0:51:53 > 0:51:56He was central to almost every aspect of Roman life.
0:51:57 > 0:52:02Statues put up later would emphasise this power and authority.
0:52:02 > 0:52:06Like this one, still standing in Rome's City Hall,
0:52:06 > 0:52:10overhearing traffic regulation and planning disputes.
0:52:10 > 0:52:14But it's what's written underneath in this modern inscription
0:52:14 > 0:52:16that's even more to the point,
0:52:16 > 0:52:21because it gives Caesar his official title -
0:52:21 > 0:52:24dictator perpetuus.
0:52:24 > 0:52:27He's dictator forever.
0:52:27 > 0:52:32Now, the Romans wouldn't have found the word dictator remotely shocking.
0:52:32 > 0:52:39It was a title given to an entirely traditional short-term office
0:52:39 > 0:52:43that was used for coping with particular emergencies.
0:52:43 > 0:52:48What they would have found shocking is the idea that Caesar took that
0:52:48 > 0:52:50power forever.
0:52:50 > 0:52:54It's a bit like how we would feel about someone being elected
0:52:54 > 0:52:58Prime Minister for life.
0:52:58 > 0:53:04And it's in that way that Caesar has given us the modern sense
0:53:04 > 0:53:06of the word dictator.
0:53:09 > 0:53:14What happened is that Caesar made sure that his term as dictator was
0:53:14 > 0:53:19extended, not just from one year to ten years, but to forever.
0:53:21 > 0:53:23The dictatorship was only one way
0:53:23 > 0:53:27in which Caesar disrupted Roman politics.
0:53:27 > 0:53:31Roman democracy was based on free elections,
0:53:31 > 0:53:37but Caesar managed to make sure that you knew the outcome in advance.
0:53:37 > 0:53:41And he found all kinds of ways of putting himself above the rest
0:53:41 > 0:53:44of the political class.
0:53:44 > 0:53:47It wouldn't have made a blind bit of difference to the women and men in
0:53:47 > 0:53:49the Roman street,
0:53:49 > 0:53:53but his fellow politicians got very worked up
0:53:53 > 0:53:56when he couldn't be bothered to rise from his chair
0:53:56 > 0:53:58when they came into the room.
0:53:58 > 0:54:03And anyway, that chair was beginning to look suspiciously like
0:54:03 > 0:54:05a golden throne.
0:54:07 > 0:54:09For Caesar's enemies,
0:54:09 > 0:54:13his appointment as dictator perpetuus effectively,
0:54:13 > 0:54:14well, crossed the Rubicon.
0:54:17 > 0:54:20It was a watershed -
0:54:20 > 0:54:23the point at which leader became tyrant,
0:54:23 > 0:54:26a subversion of the ideals of freedom and democracy.
0:54:28 > 0:54:31He may have been popular with the people
0:54:31 > 0:54:35and he may have commanded the loyalty of the army,
0:54:35 > 0:54:36but for Caesar,
0:54:36 > 0:54:40the price of tyranny was paid in blood here, in the Senate House.
0:54:42 > 0:54:45Perhaps this should be the real lesson for modern leaders.
0:54:45 > 0:54:48Be careful what you wish for -
0:54:48 > 0:54:52too much power comes at a cost.
0:54:52 > 0:54:55And there's always somebody waiting in the wings.
0:55:00 > 0:55:05The version that we have of Caesar's assassination makes it a heroic and
0:55:05 > 0:55:08successful fight for freedom against tyranny.
0:55:10 > 0:55:12In reality, it was nothing of the sort.
0:55:13 > 0:55:16For a start, if it was freedom for anyone,
0:55:16 > 0:55:19it was for a few privileged politicians.
0:55:19 > 0:55:23Ordinary Romans wept at Caesar's death.
0:55:23 > 0:55:26But you also can't really call it successful.
0:55:27 > 0:55:33The problem of assassinations always is that it's easy enough to take the
0:55:33 > 0:55:38guy out, it's a lot harder to know what to do next.
0:55:38 > 0:55:42Assassins always risk bringing about the very thing they thought
0:55:42 > 0:55:44they were fighting against.
0:55:45 > 0:55:48In this case, once the deed was done,
0:55:48 > 0:55:52the conspirators turned out to have no forward plan.
0:55:52 > 0:55:56What they got was civil war,
0:55:56 > 0:55:59which ended up producing one-man rule,
0:55:59 > 0:56:05emperors, or, if you like, dictators forever after.
0:56:07 > 0:56:11So Caesar's assassination only served to strengthen
0:56:11 > 0:56:15the very thing it meant to destroy.
0:56:15 > 0:56:20The upshot was that Rome fell under the absolute rule of one man -
0:56:20 > 0:56:24Caesar's heir and great-nephew Octavian.
0:56:24 > 0:56:28The Republic of Rome was now ruled by an emperor.
0:56:28 > 0:56:32What I'm interested in is that people come
0:56:32 > 0:56:34and they still leave these offerings on...
0:56:34 > 0:56:36This is where Julius Caesar was cremated.
0:56:36 > 0:56:38And so what they do is...round here is...
0:56:38 > 0:56:42The temple of Julius Caesar, they put up after his death.
0:56:42 > 0:56:45And so you've got flowers and occasional c...
0:56:45 > 0:56:47Look, there's coins.
0:56:47 > 0:56:50Caesar would forever after be celebrated
0:56:50 > 0:56:54as the originator of the imperial dynasty.
0:56:58 > 0:57:00All later emperors took his name.
0:57:00 > 0:57:04From that moment on, Caesar wasn't just a surname any more,
0:57:04 > 0:57:06it became synonymous with leader.
0:57:09 > 0:57:11And not only in Roman times.
0:57:11 > 0:57:16The term tsar and Kaiser go back to, you've guessed it, Caesar.
0:57:17 > 0:57:21And leaders ever since have done more than just take his name.
0:57:21 > 0:57:23For good or bad,
0:57:23 > 0:57:27they have used the template he created to ground their own rule.
0:57:27 > 0:57:29Even now.
0:57:29 > 0:57:34And more than 2,000 years after his bloody assassination,
0:57:34 > 0:57:40Julius Caesar is still with us in all kinds of surprising ways.
0:57:40 > 0:57:44So every time you put your hand in your pocket for some loose change,
0:57:44 > 0:57:46or have a party in July,
0:57:46 > 0:57:51each time you consult the calendar, or hear a snappy political slogan,
0:57:51 > 0:57:55when you next think about a caesarean section,
0:57:55 > 0:57:59or here a political betrayal described as backstabbing,
0:57:59 > 0:58:04spare a thought for the man who inspired all this and more.
0:58:04 > 0:58:08I've always been a bit allergic to the idea of Julius Caesar,
0:58:08 > 0:58:10the great conqueror.
0:58:10 > 0:58:13But if you have to choose just one Roman
0:58:13 > 0:58:18who's still absolutely embedded in the way we think,
0:58:18 > 0:58:21talk, act and judge,
0:58:21 > 0:58:25then it's got to be Gaius Julius Caesar,
0:58:25 > 0:58:28dictator perpetuus.
0:58:28 > 0:58:32You can kill him, but you can't get rid of him.