0:00:02 > 0:00:03BIRDSONG
0:00:06 > 0:00:11The story of the Roman Empire opens with a fairy tale.
0:00:11 > 0:00:15Once upon a time, not far from here,
0:00:15 > 0:00:19a princess gave birth to twin sons.
0:00:19 > 0:00:21The King, her wicked uncle,
0:00:21 > 0:00:24fearing that the boys would one day become his rivals,
0:00:24 > 0:00:29ordered his faithful servants to throw them into the river.
0:00:29 > 0:00:32But as it was in flood, they just left them
0:00:32 > 0:00:36in a basket at the water's edge from where they floated downstream.
0:00:37 > 0:00:41Rescued on the bank by a mother wolf who suckled them,
0:00:41 > 0:00:46they were later found by a local shepherd who reared them as his own.
0:00:48 > 0:00:51Their names were Romulus and Remus
0:00:51 > 0:00:54and they went on to found Rome.
0:01:04 > 0:01:07This small ordinary town in the middle of Italy
0:01:07 > 0:01:09became the centre of an empire...
0:01:11 > 0:01:14..stretching from the fringes of the Sahara...
0:01:15 > 0:01:19..to the damp moorlands of northern Britain.
0:01:20 > 0:01:22From Spain to Israel,
0:01:22 > 0:01:25the Nile to the Rhine...
0:01:26 > 0:01:28..it has framed the geography of modern Europe
0:01:28 > 0:01:32and defined the way we think of empire now,
0:01:32 > 0:01:36'transforming the Western world through revolutions in trade...'
0:01:36 > 0:01:40This is one of the first examples of globalisation.
0:01:40 > 0:01:42'..agriculture...'
0:01:42 > 0:01:45Just olives, olives and more damn olives.
0:01:45 > 0:01:49'..art, law and architecture.'
0:01:49 > 0:01:53This is where even I get a bit gobsmacked by Roman engineering.
0:01:53 > 0:01:56'There are plenty of conquests and defeats, too,
0:01:56 > 0:02:00'battles and butchery. But there are also bigger questions.
0:02:01 > 0:02:05'How did it work? And what difference did it make?
0:02:06 > 0:02:08'Why did the Empire eventually fall?
0:02:09 > 0:02:12'And how did it all come about in the first place?'
0:02:12 > 0:02:15Was it ambition? Was it just luck?
0:02:15 > 0:02:17If we really want answer that question,
0:02:17 > 0:02:21we have to go back to what the Romans themselves said about it,
0:02:21 > 0:02:25to their doubts, their debates and their conversations,
0:02:25 > 0:02:31cos they wondered just as much as we do about what set them apart.
0:02:54 > 0:02:56'It's on the Appian Way,
0:02:56 > 0:03:01'one of the main roads out of Rome going south deep into Italy,
0:03:01 > 0:03:03'that we first get a clear glimpse
0:03:03 > 0:03:06'into the lives of the early Romans.'
0:03:06 > 0:03:08Buonasera. Buonasera. Grazie.
0:03:08 > 0:03:12'A period long before the marble columns and the Coliseum,
0:03:12 > 0:03:16'and one that's often overlooked.'
0:03:16 > 0:03:20This tomb was built 500 years after the city was founded.
0:03:20 > 0:03:24It's a very long way from Romulus,
0:03:24 > 0:03:28but what's written here tells us for the first time
0:03:28 > 0:03:33what some Romans felt and thought, what their mind-set was.
0:03:33 > 0:03:39In a way, what we really know about the Romans starts here.
0:03:50 > 0:03:54This isn't Rome as we now imagine it,
0:03:54 > 0:03:57but it is the grandest thing they could do at the time,
0:03:57 > 0:04:00and back then it was new.
0:04:03 > 0:04:07This is the tombstone of the first man to be buried here.
0:04:07 > 0:04:10Scipio Barbatus, that means Beardy Scipio.
0:04:10 > 0:04:16And it tells us a bit about his excellent qualities.
0:04:16 > 0:04:21He is "fortis, vir" and "sapiens,"
0:04:21 > 0:04:23he's a strong, brave man,
0:04:23 > 0:04:26but he's clever, he's wise.
0:04:26 > 0:04:28This is...quite strange.
0:04:28 > 0:04:33It says his appearance was equal to his "virtus",
0:04:33 > 0:04:35so his appearance was as good as his virtue.
0:04:35 > 0:04:38He really looked the part, he cut a dash.
0:04:38 > 0:04:42And it ends with his conquests.
0:04:42 > 0:04:45He "Svbigit omne lovcana,"
0:04:45 > 0:04:49he suppressed the whole of Lucania,
0:04:49 > 0:04:52which is a region in South Italy,
0:04:52 > 0:04:57"opsidesqve abdovcit," and he took hostages.
0:04:57 > 0:05:02So it's very easy to see what these people's priorities were.
0:05:03 > 0:05:05But it's kind of more than that.
0:05:05 > 0:05:08Because in some ways, this is just a few lines of an epitaph,
0:05:08 > 0:05:14but in another way, this is the first short surviving
0:05:14 > 0:05:19historical narrative from any Roman that we have.
0:05:19 > 0:05:22I mean, this is the beginning of Roman history writing.
0:05:23 > 0:05:28It might be 500 years after the age of the founders,
0:05:28 > 0:05:33but this is actually the first place where we can really see the Romans.
0:05:33 > 0:05:38We get a very vivid picture of a people committed to conquest
0:05:38 > 0:05:42and to the glory that came with military victory.
0:05:42 > 0:05:46But that's actually like everyone else around them.
0:05:48 > 0:05:51So what set the Romans apart?
0:05:51 > 0:05:54With so little direct evidence
0:05:54 > 0:05:56the best place to look for the answer
0:05:56 > 0:05:58is in the stories that they told
0:05:58 > 0:06:03and their own elaborate speculations on the city's origins.
0:06:05 > 0:06:10And in particular in the mythical story of Romulus and Remus,
0:06:10 > 0:06:12the brothers suckled by a wolf.
0:06:12 > 0:06:15It was continually told and retold
0:06:15 > 0:06:21and it contained a message about Rome's conquests and internal wars.
0:06:21 > 0:06:27There's actually a little more Roman history in the myth.
0:06:27 > 0:06:31It'd be easy to dismiss the story of Romulus and Remus
0:06:31 > 0:06:34as if it was just a fairy tale, just a myth,
0:06:34 > 0:06:38and it certainly isn't history, in our terms,
0:06:38 > 0:06:42but that doesn't mean that it doesn't have a lot to tell us
0:06:42 > 0:06:45about how the Romans thought about themselves,
0:06:45 > 0:06:49what their cultural priorities and anxieties were.
0:06:49 > 0:06:52Why a wolf?
0:06:52 > 0:06:54The story wouldn't have been the same
0:06:54 > 0:06:56if it had been a cow or a sheep.
0:06:56 > 0:06:59It was the fact that they were rescued by a ferocious predator
0:06:59 > 0:07:02that revealed the destiny of the twins.
0:07:02 > 0:07:05Some Romans questioned the detail,
0:07:05 > 0:07:09the Latin for wolf, "lupa", also means prostitute,
0:07:09 > 0:07:13so was it actually a prostitute who came to the rescue?
0:07:13 > 0:07:17But, in broad terms, they believed that the tale was true.
0:07:17 > 0:07:23In fact, when later they came to inscribe in the Forum
0:07:23 > 0:07:28a list of the names of all those generals
0:07:28 > 0:07:34who had scored the biggest or bloodiest victories for Rome,
0:07:34 > 0:07:39people like the Scipios,
0:07:39 > 0:07:41who did they start the list with?
0:07:41 > 0:07:43Romulus.
0:07:50 > 0:07:55One person who's not on the list is Romulus' twin brother Remus,
0:07:55 > 0:07:58because it's said they had a massive row
0:07:58 > 0:08:01over where exactly to establish the new town.
0:08:04 > 0:08:08It ended up with Romulus murdering his twin,
0:08:08 > 0:08:11an act which reflected the bloody civil wars
0:08:11 > 0:08:14that would later blight the politics of Rome.
0:08:21 > 0:08:24It must be one of the oddest foundation stories
0:08:24 > 0:08:26in the whole history of the world.
0:08:26 > 0:08:31Not only does it involve a pair of twins, not a single founder,
0:08:31 > 0:08:35but then one of the twins goes and kills the other.
0:08:35 > 0:08:41That's to say fratricide lay at the very beginning of the Roman story.
0:08:41 > 0:08:46Brother killing brother was hard-wired into Rome.
0:08:52 > 0:08:56Establishing his new settlement on the Palatine Hill,
0:08:56 > 0:08:59Romulus became its sole ruler.
0:09:01 > 0:09:02Romulus' first problem
0:09:02 > 0:09:06was that he had hardly any citizens for his new city.
0:09:06 > 0:09:10So he declared it an asylum, and he welcomed criminals,
0:09:10 > 0:09:14runaway slaves, the dispossessed and the down-and-out
0:09:14 > 0:09:16from the whole of Italy.
0:09:16 > 0:09:19It's another strange aspect of the tale.
0:09:19 > 0:09:21Whereas the average ancient city
0:09:21 > 0:09:24liked to imagine that its original inhabitants
0:09:24 > 0:09:28had sprung miraculously from the soil of the homeland,
0:09:28 > 0:09:31the Romans imagined that their city
0:09:31 > 0:09:35had originally been a city of asylum seekers.
0:09:35 > 0:09:39It was an attempt to give a mythic dimension
0:09:39 > 0:09:43to one of Rome's later most distinctive characteristics,
0:09:43 > 0:09:46that it not only welcomed outsiders,
0:09:46 > 0:09:51but that eventually it spread Roman citizenship throughout the Empire.
0:09:55 > 0:09:58Romulus' next problem was that he had no women
0:09:58 > 0:10:02and, therefore, his city had no future.
0:10:02 > 0:10:04But none of the people in the neighbouring towns
0:10:04 > 0:10:07were prepared to give their daughters to be Roman wives.
0:10:07 > 0:10:12They were actually nastily insulting and made no secret of the fact
0:10:12 > 0:10:17that they didn't think a band of runaways was great husband material,
0:10:17 > 0:10:20so Romulus had to resort to a trick.
0:10:24 > 0:10:26So the story goes,
0:10:26 > 0:10:31Romulus invited his neighbours, the Sabines, to a religious festival.
0:10:34 > 0:10:38In the middle of the proceedings, he gave a signal for his men
0:10:38 > 0:10:42to abduct all the young women among the visitors
0:10:42 > 0:10:45and to carry them off as their wives.
0:10:45 > 0:10:47This is the famous Rape Of The Sabine Women
0:10:47 > 0:10:51and it's an almost uncomfortably frank image.
0:10:51 > 0:10:55This woman here has been captured and she's trying to get away,
0:10:55 > 0:10:57but she's not going to make it.
0:10:57 > 0:11:00This one has already collapsed.
0:11:00 > 0:11:04And another is trying to flee but it's hopeless.
0:11:04 > 0:11:09The rape might have been a response to a terrible Roman humiliation,
0:11:09 > 0:11:12but it was still a violent assault.
0:11:12 > 0:11:16These women are not willing, they're victims.
0:11:19 > 0:11:23It's an instant that the Romans discussed and debated
0:11:23 > 0:11:25and displayed ever after.
0:11:25 > 0:11:27Some of Rome's enemies
0:11:27 > 0:11:32said that this was absolutely typical Roman behaviour.
0:11:32 > 0:11:37If they wanted something, they just went out and grabbed it.
0:11:39 > 0:11:43In the story, the families of the Sabine women, as you'd expect,
0:11:43 > 0:11:45hit back at the Romans
0:11:45 > 0:11:50in what would be Romans first war and first victory,
0:11:50 > 0:11:55which was commemorated in a rather strange monument
0:11:55 > 0:11:57at the heart of the city.
0:11:57 > 0:12:00Most people walk straight past here,
0:12:00 > 0:12:02but it's where the Romans were convinced
0:12:02 > 0:12:05that the heart of that battle took place,
0:12:05 > 0:12:11in what became the Forum but what was then not much more than a swamp.
0:12:11 > 0:12:13And they marked the spot
0:12:13 > 0:12:17where one of Rome's first enemies fell to his death.
0:12:20 > 0:12:23This was just one of a series of monuments
0:12:23 > 0:12:28that imprinted the origins of Rome onto the face of the later city.
0:12:28 > 0:12:32If you wanted, you could go up onto the Palatine Hill
0:12:32 > 0:12:36and see what was supposed to be the hut of Romulus himself.
0:12:36 > 0:12:40It was still a tourist attraction in the fourth century AD.
0:12:40 > 0:12:44The myths of Rome were there for all to see
0:12:44 > 0:12:48and with them the problems of being Roman -
0:12:48 > 0:12:53fratricide, rape, violence and constant conflict.
0:13:00 > 0:13:04Rome at the beginning was ruled by kings,
0:13:04 > 0:13:07Romulus and six others to follow.
0:13:09 > 0:13:13But the citizens eventually rejected what they'd come to see as a tyranny
0:13:13 > 0:13:16and established a kind of democracy
0:13:16 > 0:13:19in which every year the people elected officials
0:13:19 > 0:13:22to govern the city and fight its wars.
0:13:23 > 0:13:29And soon after that there were signs that Rome was beginning to grow.
0:13:29 > 0:13:33Why is it that an ordinary little town by the Tiber
0:13:33 > 0:13:36became something much, much bigger than that?
0:13:37 > 0:13:41The honest truth is, we don't know WHY it happened,
0:13:41 > 0:13:43but we do know WHEN.
0:13:43 > 0:13:46We can almost touch it. Almost.
0:13:46 > 0:13:48SHE LAUGHS
0:13:48 > 0:13:52Because in the early 4th century BC
0:13:52 > 0:13:58the Romans built this massive city wall around their town.
0:13:58 > 0:14:01Now, there's more to this than just defence,
0:14:01 > 0:14:06this is a big statement that Rome has arrived.
0:14:07 > 0:14:08And even more interesting,
0:14:08 > 0:14:11a lot of the stone they used to build it
0:14:11 > 0:14:15came from the territory of a little town a few miles up the road
0:14:15 > 0:14:18that they'd just taken over.
0:14:18 > 0:14:22This is one of the first hints of Roman expansion.
0:14:31 > 0:14:35Rome's growth didn't stop at its walls,
0:14:35 > 0:14:39it expanded beyond them deep into the Italian peninsula.
0:14:39 > 0:14:43But we shouldn't imagine Romans crowding around maps,
0:14:43 > 0:14:46plotting world domination.
0:14:46 > 0:14:49For a start, they didn't have maps.
0:14:49 > 0:14:50And, in any case,
0:14:50 > 0:14:53there weren't any more militaristic than their neighbours.
0:14:53 > 0:14:56Early Italy was a violent place.
0:14:56 > 0:14:59So the question isn't why they went to war,
0:14:59 > 0:15:02but why they went on winning?
0:15:04 > 0:15:08On the traditional pattern of warfare, to put it a bit crudely,
0:15:08 > 0:15:11every year the lads of one place would go out
0:15:11 > 0:15:14and do over a neighbouring town.
0:15:14 > 0:15:18And if they hit lucky, they'd come back with slaves and cattle.
0:15:18 > 0:15:23It wasn't really organised warfare, it was glorified raiding.
0:15:23 > 0:15:28What the Romans did was establish permanent relationships
0:15:28 > 0:15:30with the people they beat.
0:15:30 > 0:15:33Of course, they came back with slaves and cattle,
0:15:33 > 0:15:35but they demanded for the future
0:15:35 > 0:15:41that the defeated towns should provide troops for the Roman army.
0:15:41 > 0:15:45And that cumulatively gave them a huge advantage,
0:15:45 > 0:15:47cos in the ancient world
0:15:47 > 0:15:51it wasn't hi-tech military hardware that counted,
0:15:51 > 0:15:55it was how many boots you could get on the ground.
0:15:55 > 0:15:56THUNDER
0:15:57 > 0:15:59As a city on its own,
0:15:59 > 0:16:03Rome could never have dominated the whole of Italy.
0:16:05 > 0:16:09What's crucial is the relationship they formed with other people.
0:16:09 > 0:16:14Rome not only conquered, but it incorporated its enemies.
0:16:14 > 0:16:16And that's what's unique.
0:16:16 > 0:16:18By the 3rd century BC,
0:16:18 > 0:16:23Rome could call upon more than 700,000 soldiers.
0:16:23 > 0:16:26And how they secured that manpower
0:16:26 > 0:16:30can be seen on the city's first gold coins.
0:16:30 > 0:16:34Jonathan Williams is the Deputy Director of the British Museum.
0:16:34 > 0:16:36What is going on here?
0:16:36 > 0:16:39I can read "Roma," Rome, underneath.
0:16:39 > 0:16:41but there's a very complicated scene above
0:16:41 > 0:16:44- that I can't quite work out.- OK.
0:16:44 > 0:16:47So what we've got here is we've got a couple of men here
0:16:47 > 0:16:49standing either side of another man
0:16:49 > 0:16:53who seems to be kneeling down holding something in his arms.
0:16:53 > 0:16:57And what he's holding is a pig, an upturned pig.
0:16:57 > 0:17:00Now, this is a pretty strange scene to us,
0:17:00 > 0:17:03but any Roman would have known what this was meant to represent.
0:17:03 > 0:17:05It's a scene of oath taking,
0:17:05 > 0:17:08promises being given and accepted between two sides.
0:17:08 > 0:17:10And this is how the Romans did it.
0:17:10 > 0:17:12Strange to us, but it's clearly
0:17:12 > 0:17:15a kind of meaningful ceremony for your Romans.
0:17:15 > 0:17:18Some people think that this might be a mythological scene,
0:17:18 > 0:17:21the oath being taken by Romulus, the first king of the Romans,
0:17:21 > 0:17:24together with the Sabines, one of the earliest alliances
0:17:24 > 0:17:27the Romans made with one of their allies.
0:17:27 > 0:17:29But it could more generally just be a reference
0:17:29 > 0:17:31to that whole system of alliances
0:17:31 > 0:17:34between the Romans and all the other peoples of Italy
0:17:34 > 0:17:37that were so important in the foundation
0:17:37 > 0:17:40of the ways in which the Romans came to dominate and rule
0:17:40 > 0:17:42the whole of the Italian peninsula.
0:17:42 > 0:17:45And so what this coin is doing, in a sense,
0:17:45 > 0:17:47is kind of...it's broadcasting,
0:17:47 > 0:17:50or sort of creating an image of Rome
0:17:50 > 0:17:55as the...the centre of these alliances with other peoples.
0:17:55 > 0:17:58Absolutely. Yes. It's broadcasting messages to the allies,
0:17:58 > 0:18:01but also to the Romans themselves about... "How faithful we are.
0:18:01 > 0:18:05"We're good solid, loyal allies, but you'd better stick with us,
0:18:05 > 0:18:07"cos you don't want to know what happens if you split on us."
0:18:09 > 0:18:13Rome's expansion was more improvised than planned.
0:18:13 > 0:18:15From the small walled town
0:18:15 > 0:18:19to a patchwork of alliances with friends and conquered foes,
0:18:19 > 0:18:22Rome controlled most of Italy.
0:18:22 > 0:18:26And from that, the Romans soon came into conflict
0:18:26 > 0:18:30with the other great superpower of the day - the city of Carthage.
0:18:38 > 0:18:42Because there was actually another empire out there to rival Rome.
0:18:42 > 0:18:45The Romans' network of alliances
0:18:45 > 0:18:48put pressure on them to intervene in support of friends and allies
0:18:48 > 0:18:50further and further afield.
0:18:50 > 0:18:54It's a bit like what happens to modern superpowers.
0:18:54 > 0:18:58One particular request for help had defining consequences.
0:18:58 > 0:19:01During a dispute between two Sicilian towns
0:19:01 > 0:19:06different groups appealed to Rome and to Carthage.
0:19:06 > 0:19:09After intense debate in Rome
0:19:09 > 0:19:11between those spoiling for a fight
0:19:11 > 0:19:15and those who thought Rome was far better off out of it,
0:19:15 > 0:19:17the Romans decided to go in.
0:19:17 > 0:19:20And that was how Rome and Carthage
0:19:20 > 0:19:23first came face-to-face in conflict.
0:19:28 > 0:19:32Across a narrow strip of water, the island of Sicily,
0:19:32 > 0:19:34more Greek that Italian,
0:19:34 > 0:19:38became the setting of Rome's first overseas war,
0:19:38 > 0:19:42a naval war against the Western Mediterranean's
0:19:42 > 0:19:44most powerful seafaring state.
0:19:44 > 0:19:49The Romans hadn't had or needed fighting ships before.
0:19:49 > 0:19:51The story goes that what they did
0:19:51 > 0:19:55is find a Carthaginian ship and copy it over and over again.
0:19:58 > 0:20:00It was a big turning point.
0:20:00 > 0:20:05And in 241 BC these waters were crowded
0:20:05 > 0:20:07with the dreadnoughts of the ancient world
0:20:07 > 0:20:11fighting it out in a final messy battle.
0:20:11 > 0:20:14- Hey, George, we actually found it. - All right!
0:20:14 > 0:20:17- LAUGHTER - It's another amphora.
0:20:17 > 0:20:19It's the wreckage from this battle
0:20:19 > 0:20:22that marine archaeologist Jeff Royal and his team
0:20:22 > 0:20:25have been discovering and raising from the seabed.
0:20:26 > 0:20:29It's really quite difficult to make sense of this.
0:20:29 > 0:20:31I've been looking at it ever so hard
0:20:31 > 0:20:35and I keep thinking that every little rock on the bed of the sea
0:20:35 > 0:20:40is some bit of Roman or Carthaginian military equipment.
0:20:40 > 0:20:43But when you actually come across one of these amphora
0:20:43 > 0:20:46just lying there, you know, the detritus of the battle,
0:20:46 > 0:20:48it really hits you in the face.
0:20:48 > 0:20:52You're seeing it literally as it fell, as it were, with your own eyes.
0:20:52 > 0:20:54It's quite extraordinary.
0:20:56 > 0:20:59What's the most memorable thing you've come across like this?
0:20:59 > 0:21:02The rams are always memorable, because it's...
0:21:02 > 0:21:04it's a really big deal to have found them.
0:21:04 > 0:21:07And it was one of the objectives of the survey.
0:21:07 > 0:21:11And, of course, yeah, when we see 'em it's...it's always exciting.
0:21:11 > 0:21:16Built into the ships' bows, these rams did exactly that -
0:21:16 > 0:21:18rammed the enemy vessels.
0:21:18 > 0:21:20But what we've seen from the evidence
0:21:20 > 0:21:23is obviously there was a lot of destruction at sea level
0:21:23 > 0:21:26- or sea-surface level.- Yeah.- So all of that is spread out,
0:21:26 > 0:21:29the helmets, the rams. The rams themselves all have frontal damage.
0:21:29 > 0:21:31Now, you get 11 rams...
0:21:31 > 0:21:35- So they're actually going head-to-head?- Or hitting something.
0:21:35 > 0:21:38- Basically, you just run into each other? It's just...- Yeah.
0:21:38 > 0:21:42- It's like kind of the dodgems without the dodge?- Yeah.
0:21:42 > 0:21:44Your sightlines at sea
0:21:44 > 0:21:47and the speeds that they would have been going,
0:21:47 > 0:21:51you had an hour and a half, an hour and 45, nearly two hours,
0:21:51 > 0:21:54to see that this is going to happen.
0:21:54 > 0:21:56- You've got time to change your mind? - Yeah.
0:21:56 > 0:21:59And if you don't change your mind and you lose,
0:21:59 > 0:22:01- everyone on the ship's dead?- Yeah.
0:22:05 > 0:22:07It's thanks to Jeff's work
0:22:07 > 0:22:12that I can get my hands on some of the actual remains of this battle.
0:22:12 > 0:22:16This extraordinary object is one of the bronze rams
0:22:16 > 0:22:20that would have been fitted to the front of the ships
0:22:20 > 0:22:22underneath the water line.
0:22:22 > 0:22:25This one clearly did pierce an enemy ship,
0:22:25 > 0:22:31because part of a Carthaginian plank is still fixed to it.
0:22:31 > 0:22:33It's quite nicely decorated,
0:22:33 > 0:22:39there's a helmet here, a kind of helmet logo with feather plumes.
0:22:39 > 0:22:44And all down here is a wonderful trace of Roman officialdom.
0:22:44 > 0:22:47It says "lucius quintius".
0:22:47 > 0:22:53The quistal, that's the quality control agent, approved this ram.
0:22:53 > 0:22:57Sort of marvellous Roman administrative efficiency.
0:22:57 > 0:23:01Actually, a wonderful contrast with the one Carthaginian ram
0:23:01 > 0:23:05that's been discovered, which has on it instead,
0:23:05 > 0:23:08"Oh, may the god Baal," you know,
0:23:08 > 0:23:11"strike your ships and make a hole in them."
0:23:13 > 0:23:16In some ways the most interesting and most moving object
0:23:16 > 0:23:19to have been discovered is this helmet,
0:23:19 > 0:23:20a Roman helmet,
0:23:20 > 0:23:23and it came complete with its cheekpieces,
0:23:23 > 0:23:27which would have protected the fighter's face.
0:23:27 > 0:23:30And it brings you about as close as you can ever get
0:23:30 > 0:23:34to the individuals who fought
0:23:34 > 0:23:38and, in this case I imagine, died in that great battle.
0:23:42 > 0:23:45I suspect I might be the first person
0:23:45 > 0:23:50to put this helmet on since 241 BC.
0:23:51 > 0:23:56Whoever...wore it must have had a bigger head than me,
0:23:56 > 0:23:59or else there was a lot of padding in it.
0:24:17 > 0:24:19The end result of all this
0:24:19 > 0:24:23was that the Carthaginians were pushed out of Sicily altogether
0:24:23 > 0:24:27and the island became the first overseas territory
0:24:27 > 0:24:29under Roman control.
0:24:29 > 0:24:35In a way, you might say that the Roman Empire began here.
0:24:36 > 0:24:39Rome defeated Carthage twice more.
0:24:39 > 0:24:42First was the famous occasion when Hannibal
0:24:42 > 0:24:45pulled off the stunt of crossing the Alps with his elephants
0:24:45 > 0:24:48only to lose out eventually on all fronts.
0:24:48 > 0:24:54The Romans finished the job years later in 146 BC.
0:24:54 > 0:24:58Whether they were really anxious about Carthaginian recovery
0:24:58 > 0:25:00or simply wanted to show their muscle,
0:25:00 > 0:25:02they launched an expedition to North Africa
0:25:02 > 0:25:07under one of the Scipios and they razed the city to the ground.
0:25:07 > 0:25:11As one hardline senator had repeatedly insisted,
0:25:11 > 0:25:17"Carthago delenda est" - Carthage must be destroyed.
0:25:21 > 0:25:24We don't know what actually drove Rome
0:25:24 > 0:25:26to annihilate the city of Carthage.
0:25:26 > 0:25:29They'd taken over most of the Carthaginian Empire
0:25:29 > 0:25:31when they defeated Hannibal,
0:25:31 > 0:25:36so maybe it was a devastating display of imperial self-confidence.
0:25:36 > 0:25:41But 146 would also be remembered for another city's destruction.
0:25:41 > 0:25:44This was the year that Rome sacked Corinth,
0:25:44 > 0:25:47the wealthiest city in Greece.
0:25:57 > 0:26:01146 would become ingrained in the minds of every Roman,
0:26:01 > 0:26:04the year when Rome became so powerful
0:26:04 > 0:26:09that it no longer had any serious challengers left.
0:26:18 > 0:26:22The destruction of two of the most famous cities in the Mediterranean
0:26:22 > 0:26:24changed the rules of the game for ever.
0:26:24 > 0:26:27There was still no sign of a Roman master plan,
0:26:27 > 0:26:30or that they really wanted actually to governed anywhere,
0:26:30 > 0:26:34but they now had more power than anyone else,
0:26:34 > 0:26:37even if they didn't really know how to use it.
0:26:37 > 0:26:42Basically, the Roman priority was to get their own way.
0:26:42 > 0:26:45But 146 was also an ambivalent year.
0:26:45 > 0:26:48Some people certainly celebrated,
0:26:48 > 0:26:53but others already saw it as the beginning of the end.
0:26:53 > 0:26:56There's a logic in the history of empires -
0:26:56 > 0:26:59when you get to the top, you can only come down.
0:27:03 > 0:27:06Carthage was wiped from the Earth,
0:27:06 > 0:27:09but Greece was very different,
0:27:09 > 0:27:14and it gave Rome something more precious than economic profit -
0:27:14 > 0:27:16its culture.
0:27:18 > 0:27:22Conquest didn't just change the people that Rome conquered,
0:27:22 > 0:27:25it changed Rome, too.
0:27:25 > 0:27:26And it was thanks to Greece
0:27:26 > 0:27:30that Rome started to become full of marble columns,
0:27:30 > 0:27:33elegant statues and objets d'art.
0:27:33 > 0:27:36This was the very beginning of the Rome we know
0:27:36 > 0:27:41and also the beginning of a flourishing art market.
0:27:41 > 0:27:44This was once a great piece of art,
0:27:44 > 0:27:46it's a statue of Hercules.
0:27:46 > 0:27:49He was part of the cargo of a shipwreck
0:27:49 > 0:27:51that's been recovered from the seabed.
0:27:51 > 0:27:55Not just him - there were more than 30 other marble statues,
0:27:55 > 0:27:58some bronze ones, some exquisite jewellery,
0:27:58 > 0:28:01glassware, scientific instruments.
0:28:01 > 0:28:04And they say they found the pips of the very last olives
0:28:04 > 0:28:07the crew ate before the disaster.
0:28:07 > 0:28:11But from our point of view what's important
0:28:11 > 0:28:14is that this was a cargo of stuff,
0:28:14 > 0:28:20one out of many thousands that was making its way from the Greek world
0:28:20 > 0:28:22on a one-way ticket to Rome.
0:28:22 > 0:28:24ACTORS CONVERSE IN GREEK
0:28:30 > 0:28:34The Greek world that Rome conquered had a long history of art,
0:28:34 > 0:28:36theatre and literature.
0:28:36 > 0:28:39ACTORS CONVERSE IN GREEK
0:28:39 > 0:28:42And many Romans felt the cultural traditions of Greece
0:28:42 > 0:28:44outclassed their own.
0:28:46 > 0:28:51But Rome not only bought, plundered and emulated Greek culture,
0:28:51 > 0:28:55Romans wrote themselves into the Greek story,
0:28:55 > 0:28:57tracing their own origins
0:28:57 > 0:29:00back to the mythical war between Greeks and Trojans
0:29:00 > 0:29:06and to the most famous work of Greek literature of all - The Iliad.
0:29:06 > 0:29:10One crucial character for the Romans was Aeneas,
0:29:10 > 0:29:11who played a rather minor part
0:29:11 > 0:29:15on the losing Trojan side in Homer's Iliad.
0:29:15 > 0:29:18The Romans took the story of Aeneas and ran with it,
0:29:18 > 0:29:23making him flee from Troy and come to Italy to found the Roman race
0:29:23 > 0:29:27as a kind of ancestor of Romulus and Remus.
0:29:27 > 0:29:29It's almost as if they're saying
0:29:29 > 0:29:32that they didn't just belong in the Greek world,
0:29:32 > 0:29:35but they actually came from here.
0:29:35 > 0:29:36BIRDSONG
0:29:43 > 0:29:48The story of Aeneas gave the Romans a stake in the traditions of Greece.
0:29:48 > 0:29:53But exactly how Greek to be was the topic of the day,
0:29:53 > 0:29:58with some conservative hardliners arguing that soft Greek culture
0:29:58 > 0:30:01was destroying old Roman values.
0:30:01 > 0:30:05There's more to conquest than conquest by sword,
0:30:05 > 0:30:11there's conquest by book, by word and by culture.
0:30:11 > 0:30:13One Roman poet later claimed
0:30:13 > 0:30:17that it wasn't actually the Romans who conquered Greece,
0:30:17 > 0:30:20but the Greeks who conquered Rome.
0:30:20 > 0:30:24What he meant by that was the Greeks were really the winners,
0:30:24 > 0:30:28because Rome owed them such a vast cultural debt
0:30:28 > 0:30:33that went back centuries before the conquest of Corinth.
0:30:33 > 0:30:39But at the same time, it was Rome's interest in Greek culture,
0:30:39 > 0:30:43their study, their preservation and their replication of it
0:30:43 > 0:30:48that's played a big part in keeping that culture alive for us.
0:30:48 > 0:30:53In a way, I like to think Rome has kind of given us Greece.
0:30:54 > 0:30:57The Romans had now gained effective control
0:30:57 > 0:30:59over the entire Mediterranean,
0:30:59 > 0:31:02the only people ever to have done that,
0:31:02 > 0:31:04not always by annexing territory,
0:31:04 > 0:31:07but simply by being able to get their own way.
0:31:07 > 0:31:12We think of this empire as the land around the sea,
0:31:12 > 0:31:16but, actually, at the heart of it there's the Mediterranean itself.
0:31:16 > 0:31:19It's crucial to understand
0:31:19 > 0:31:24what's going on across this huge liquid territory.
0:31:24 > 0:31:25We aren't talking just about
0:31:25 > 0:31:29some nice little boats transporting sculptures,
0:31:29 > 0:31:31the problems of controlling this sea
0:31:31 > 0:31:36were as important as the ones of controlling Carthage or Corinth.
0:31:38 > 0:31:43The Mediterranean was the Empire's internal sea and main highway.
0:31:45 > 0:31:48"Mare nostrum" they called it - "our sea."
0:31:48 > 0:31:53It was far cheaper and quicker to travel on the water than by land,
0:31:53 > 0:31:55but it was dangerous, too.
0:31:55 > 0:31:58That's not just because all you'd need was one storm
0:31:58 > 0:32:01and you'd have lost everything,
0:32:01 > 0:32:04there were also bandits and hijackers
0:32:04 > 0:32:08wanting to get their hands on anything that was sailing,
0:32:08 > 0:32:11not just goods, but people too.
0:32:11 > 0:32:15It was a bit like a motorway swarming with human traffickers.
0:32:19 > 0:32:21Rome's overseas conquests
0:32:21 > 0:32:26had turned thousands and thousands of prisoners into slaves.
0:32:27 > 0:32:30And that created a demand for more.
0:32:31 > 0:32:35There were big profits to be made out of the slave trade.
0:32:40 > 0:32:43Delos was a huge mercantile community
0:32:43 > 0:32:45and people made loads of money here.
0:32:45 > 0:32:50One Roman writer called it the biggest market in the whole planet.
0:32:50 > 0:32:53All sorts of goods must have passed through,
0:32:53 > 0:32:57perfumes and spices, sculpture and furniture,
0:32:57 > 0:32:59but Delos was most famous
0:32:59 > 0:33:02for being the world capital of the slave trade.
0:33:02 > 0:33:05And one of the main suppliers of that trade
0:33:05 > 0:33:10were those bandits and hijackers that the Romans called "pirates".
0:33:10 > 0:33:15For the Romans, a pirate was anyone you didn't like in a ship,
0:33:15 > 0:33:21from small-time chancers to big-time criminals more like the Mafia.
0:33:21 > 0:33:23It was not an easy relationship
0:33:23 > 0:33:28and those tough guys in ships proved pretty difficult to control.
0:33:28 > 0:33:30One day they were stocking your market,
0:33:30 > 0:33:33the next day they turned on you.
0:33:38 > 0:33:41And that's exactly what we see here.
0:33:43 > 0:33:47This is a wonderful pair of very distinctively Roman faces,
0:33:47 > 0:33:51sunken cheeks and wrinkly, both of them looking a bit sinister.
0:33:51 > 0:33:53It's kind of tempting to imagine
0:33:53 > 0:33:57that they were involved in a rather nasty form of business.
0:33:57 > 0:34:00They're also in a pretty ropey state,
0:34:00 > 0:34:03they've been smashed and they look a bit burnt.
0:34:03 > 0:34:05And the reason for that
0:34:05 > 0:34:11actually stems from a key moment in the history of this place.
0:34:11 > 0:34:14In 69 BC, the pirates came here,
0:34:14 > 0:34:16they torched the place,
0:34:16 > 0:34:20there was a vast fire and Delos was destroyed.
0:34:26 > 0:34:29Pirates had their impact at Rome itself, too.
0:34:29 > 0:34:34Fear of pirates provided a reason or excuse
0:34:34 > 0:34:36for the Romans to take a decision
0:34:36 > 0:34:40that would set the scene for big political changes
0:34:40 > 0:34:45that would undermine their democracy and herald one-man rule.
0:34:45 > 0:34:50Pirates were certainly a nuisance and sometimes dangerous,
0:34:50 > 0:34:53but the threat could always be manipulated
0:34:53 > 0:34:56to justify military action.
0:34:56 > 0:34:59The war on pirates was a bit like the war on terror.
0:35:00 > 0:35:03And in 67 BC, the Roman people
0:35:03 > 0:35:10voted almost unlimited powers to one man to clear the sea of pirates.
0:35:10 > 0:35:12And that man was Pompey.
0:35:18 > 0:35:20Pompey the Great, as he was known,
0:35:20 > 0:35:23got rid of the pirates in just three months,
0:35:23 > 0:35:26and then turned his firepower
0:35:26 > 0:35:30onto some fabulously wealthy eastern kings,
0:35:30 > 0:35:32returning to Rome with a bang -
0:35:32 > 0:35:37a spectacular two-day parade and a massive carnival.
0:35:43 > 0:35:46The victory parade was one of the biggest street parties
0:35:46 > 0:35:48the Romans ever celebrated.
0:35:48 > 0:35:52There was the general processing through the streets in his chariot,
0:35:52 > 0:35:55there was all the beauty and spoils and riches
0:35:55 > 0:35:57he brought back home out in front of him,
0:35:57 > 0:35:59and his prisoners walking there, too.
0:36:01 > 0:36:04The idea was that the people in the city
0:36:04 > 0:36:07should be able to see what the generals and armies
0:36:07 > 0:36:11had been getting up to abroad and what they'd brought back.
0:36:12 > 0:36:16Some people thought the display was terribly vulgar,
0:36:16 > 0:36:19and on occasions people cried in the audience
0:36:19 > 0:36:22as they watched the poor prisoners go past.
0:36:25 > 0:36:29'But for most Romans this was a chance to let their hair down...
0:36:29 > 0:36:31MARY SPEAKS ITALIAN
0:36:33 > 0:36:35Not bad. MARY LAUGHS
0:36:35 > 0:36:39'..and to indulge in the riches that had been won for them.'
0:36:39 > 0:36:41With the party long gone,
0:36:41 > 0:36:45not much trace of Pompey's triumphant is left behind,
0:36:45 > 0:36:48but tucked away in a corner of a museum
0:36:48 > 0:36:53we can see one member of that spectacle's supporting cast.
0:36:54 > 0:36:58It's not often that you can actually track down an individual object
0:36:58 > 0:37:01that was trundled through the streets of Rome
0:37:01 > 0:37:03in a triumphal procession.
0:37:03 > 0:37:07In fact, this is probably the only one.
0:37:07 > 0:37:09Its great bronze urn
0:37:09 > 0:37:13was probably used for mixing up wine and water and honey.
0:37:13 > 0:37:19And it's actually got the name of one of the kings
0:37:19 > 0:37:22who Pompey defeated scratched into its rim.
0:37:23 > 0:37:29This makes me pretty certain that this was one of the treasures,
0:37:29 > 0:37:31one of thousands upon thousands,
0:37:31 > 0:37:36that the people of Rome watched go by in Pompey's parade in 61.
0:37:43 > 0:37:47The Empire had been traditionally funded, formed and governed
0:37:47 > 0:37:52by democratic officials serving for one year, sharing power.
0:37:52 > 0:37:57The idea had always been to stop anyone becoming a king again.
0:37:57 > 0:37:59But with Pompey, the Romans
0:37:59 > 0:38:03began to shelve their rejection of individual power.
0:38:03 > 0:38:06If you needed to defend or extend the Empire,
0:38:06 > 0:38:11perhaps you had to hand over control to just one man.
0:38:11 > 0:38:14Yet for a man who revolutionised Rome,
0:38:14 > 0:38:18he's left very few visible traces.
0:38:19 > 0:38:23This is a wonderful bit of Roman street archaeology.
0:38:24 > 0:38:26You might miss it to start with,
0:38:26 > 0:38:29but the layout of these buildings,
0:38:29 > 0:38:33this sweeping curved facade
0:38:33 > 0:38:38actually matches ancient Roman foundations underneath.
0:38:38 > 0:38:40And those foundations belonged to
0:38:40 > 0:38:44a huge semi-circular auditorium of a theatre.
0:38:44 > 0:38:49These are the traces of the theatre that Pompey put up
0:38:49 > 0:38:53with the profits of his eastern campaigns.
0:38:53 > 0:38:56And they're the first time ever
0:38:56 > 0:39:03that Roman buildings begin to match the Rome of our imaginations.
0:39:03 > 0:39:07Huge, monumental, magnificent,
0:39:07 > 0:39:10designed to impress.
0:39:17 > 0:39:19Pompey set the benchmark
0:39:19 > 0:39:22for what an imperial building should look like,
0:39:22 > 0:39:25and one that later emperors would follow.
0:39:30 > 0:39:33But he's never become a household name,
0:39:33 > 0:39:37he's always been overshadowed in the quest for glory
0:39:37 > 0:39:39and the competition for personal power.
0:39:40 > 0:39:45The one person that forever after stole the limelight
0:39:45 > 0:39:48was his great rival, Julius Caesar.
0:39:52 > 0:39:54MARY: Blimey! SHE LAUGHS
0:39:54 > 0:39:57Off we go. Never done this before.
0:39:57 > 0:39:59SHE LAUGHS
0:39:59 > 0:40:03Going in the opposite direction to Pompey, Caesar headed west.
0:40:05 > 0:40:10Where Pompey had been so stunningly and bloodily successful out east,
0:40:10 > 0:40:15and had come back with such a load of cash and spoils,
0:40:15 > 0:40:18Caesar, if he wanted to rival him, had only one option,
0:40:18 > 0:40:22which was to have a great conquest himself.
0:40:22 > 0:40:27But in one important way Caesar really outdoes Pompey.
0:40:27 > 0:40:30Pompey has big victories,
0:40:30 > 0:40:34Caesar has big victories AND writes about them.
0:40:34 > 0:40:37And the reason why we can go to Alesia,
0:40:37 > 0:40:41the site of one of Caesar's last victories there,
0:40:41 > 0:40:45is because we actually have Caesar's own account of it.
0:40:48 > 0:40:52At Alesia, the army of Gauls had set up camp on a hill.
0:40:52 > 0:40:57In Caesar's own description, he seems in complete control.
0:40:57 > 0:41:02"Camps were constructed at strategic points," he writes.
0:41:02 > 0:41:05"Pickets were stationed day and night.
0:41:05 > 0:41:08"There was hard fighting on both sides.
0:41:08 > 0:41:11"I had two trenches dug.
0:41:11 > 0:41:14"I erected a rampart and a palisade."
0:41:14 > 0:41:16When you see the scale of it all...
0:41:16 > 0:41:20Is that despite what he claims when he writes the story up,
0:41:20 > 0:41:23Caesar couldn't possibly have had his eye
0:41:23 > 0:41:26on all the areas of this battlefield.
0:41:26 > 0:41:29In the end, winning an ancient battle
0:41:29 > 0:41:34comes down to strength of numbers, starving the enemy out,
0:41:34 > 0:41:36surprising them from behind
0:41:36 > 0:41:39and perhaps most of all, the truth is, it comes down to luck.
0:41:47 > 0:41:51Luck or not, I'm sure that Caesar himself would be delighted to know
0:41:51 > 0:41:55we still read his own version of these campaigns.
0:41:56 > 0:41:58However he won the battle,
0:41:58 > 0:42:03the real point is that HIS story has lasted for centuries.
0:42:03 > 0:42:05And in terms of Imperial propaganda,
0:42:05 > 0:42:09it's a nice proof that the pen really can be mightier,
0:42:09 > 0:42:13or at least more enduring, than the sword.
0:42:13 > 0:42:19The leader of the Gauls in their doomed last stand was Vercingetorix.
0:42:19 > 0:42:22Since then, he's become a hero of modern France,
0:42:22 > 0:42:26a freedom fighter standing up for the French nation.
0:42:27 > 0:42:31The irony is that everything we know about Vercingetorix
0:42:31 > 0:42:35goes back to what Caesar wrote about him.
0:42:35 > 0:42:40In a way, our Vercingetorix is a Roman creation.
0:42:40 > 0:42:42Whatever he was really like,
0:42:42 > 0:42:45the point was that Caesar needed to show
0:42:45 > 0:42:48that he had defeated a dangerous, brave
0:42:48 > 0:42:51and ultimately worthy opponent.
0:42:51 > 0:42:52The Romans would never have thought
0:42:52 > 0:42:56that there was any kudos to be gained in beating a sissy.
0:42:57 > 0:43:01Caesar also boasted about the number of Gauls
0:43:01 > 0:43:04that his army had killed during his campaign.
0:43:04 > 0:43:08Modern estimates come to around a million.
0:43:08 > 0:43:11His figures may have been sexed up to impress back home,
0:43:11 > 0:43:14but there's little doubt that Caesar's ambition
0:43:14 > 0:43:16to surpass Pompey's glories
0:43:16 > 0:43:20had been achieved through nothing short of genocide.
0:43:20 > 0:43:25Excavations of the battlefield have unearthed some of the weapons
0:43:25 > 0:43:27that won Caesar his victory,
0:43:27 > 0:43:31including the ancient version of land mines.
0:43:32 > 0:43:36These things aren't exactly hi-tech, but they're very, very nasty.
0:43:37 > 0:43:39This one in particular.
0:43:39 > 0:43:43You have to imagine standing on it in your leather sandal.
0:43:43 > 0:43:47The point goes right through and into your foot
0:43:47 > 0:43:50and you can't pull it out because of that little barb there.
0:43:50 > 0:43:52Your foot's bleeding, you can't get your sandal off,
0:43:52 > 0:43:55you're in agony, you can't move.
0:43:55 > 0:43:58It makes my toes curl just to think about it.
0:44:00 > 0:44:01There were people in Rome
0:44:01 > 0:44:04who got anxious about what was going on in Gaul
0:44:04 > 0:44:06and at the level of the killing.
0:44:06 > 0:44:09And some of Caesar's enemies even went so far
0:44:09 > 0:44:14as to suggest that he should be put on trial for war crimes,
0:44:14 > 0:44:17and that the judge and jury should be all Gauls.
0:44:17 > 0:44:20The Roman Empire was a pretty brutal thing,
0:44:20 > 0:44:22but there were some levels of brutality
0:44:22 > 0:44:24that even the Romans couldn't stand.
0:44:29 > 0:44:31Julius Caesar would never have made it
0:44:31 > 0:44:34without the loyal support of his troops.
0:44:35 > 0:44:38They were far from the cattle raiders of the early city,
0:44:38 > 0:44:40the soldiers were now professionals
0:44:40 > 0:44:46bound to their general as he was to them, even more than to the state.
0:44:47 > 0:44:48And unlike Pompey,
0:44:48 > 0:44:54Caesar was prepared to use that army to seize control of Rome.
0:44:57 > 0:45:00For his part, Caesar was well aware that his enemies in Rome
0:45:00 > 0:45:02were conspiring against him,
0:45:02 > 0:45:05that they were trying to back him into a corner
0:45:05 > 0:45:08and as he put it - to undermine his dignitas,
0:45:08 > 0:45:13that distinctive Roman combination of prestige and clout.
0:45:13 > 0:45:15So he took a chance,
0:45:15 > 0:45:19and with one of his legions he set out to march on Rome.
0:45:19 > 0:45:22When he got to the River Rubicon,
0:45:22 > 0:45:25which marked the border between Gaul and Italy,
0:45:25 > 0:45:28he said, "Let's throw the dice in the air, then."
0:45:28 > 0:45:33In other words, "God only knows what'll happen next."
0:45:37 > 0:45:42Some Romans saw this as the legacy of Romulus and Remus,
0:45:42 > 0:45:47the twins whose quarrels resulted in the death of one.
0:45:47 > 0:45:51Now a Roman fought Roman for ultimate power.
0:45:53 > 0:45:57Caesar's return to Rome triggered a chaotic civil war
0:45:57 > 0:46:01that engulfed not just Italy but most of the Empire.
0:46:03 > 0:46:05MARY SPEAKS ITALIAN
0:46:05 > 0:46:10Pompey himself ended up dead on the coast of Egypt,
0:46:10 > 0:46:14his decapitated head presented to Caesar
0:46:14 > 0:46:18who, so we're told, burst into tears at the sight of it.
0:46:20 > 0:46:24Caesar won the war and was made officially - dictator,
0:46:24 > 0:46:27sole ruler of Rome.
0:46:27 > 0:46:28But he didn't last much longer.
0:46:30 > 0:46:35If there's just one Roman that everyone knows it's Julius Caesar,
0:46:35 > 0:46:39not because of what he did but because he died.
0:46:39 > 0:46:44His assassination has been blown up into an heroic scene
0:46:44 > 0:46:50that we all know or think we know from films, paintings and plays,
0:46:50 > 0:46:55and from those famous last words, "Et tu, Brute?"
0:46:55 > 0:46:58which he definitely didn't say.
0:46:58 > 0:47:01What we know for sure is that he was ambushed
0:47:01 > 0:47:05by a group of his friends in a meeting in a Senate house
0:47:05 > 0:47:09that ironically had been built by his great rival, Pompey.
0:47:09 > 0:47:13It all happened just over there, where that tree now is.
0:47:16 > 0:47:19It was another echo back to Rome's foundation story,
0:47:19 > 0:47:24now it was Caesar who took the part of the murdered Remus.
0:47:32 > 0:47:36It's the most famous political assassination ever,
0:47:36 > 0:47:38carried out in the name of liberty,
0:47:38 > 0:47:44just a few weeks after Caesar had been made dictator for life.
0:47:44 > 0:47:48Too soon to know whether he'd succeeded or failed.
0:47:49 > 0:47:53But the fact was that the assassins may have got rid of a man
0:47:53 > 0:47:57they thought of as a tyrant, but they didn't get rid of tyranny.
0:47:57 > 0:48:00It was all too little, too late.
0:48:00 > 0:48:06By now, it was inevitable that the Empire would be ruled by one man.
0:48:06 > 0:48:11The question was, what shape would that one-man rule take?
0:48:11 > 0:48:15That was defined by the man who established autocratic power
0:48:15 > 0:48:19long-term and who we call First Emperor Of Rome -
0:48:19 > 0:48:21Gaius Julius Octavius,
0:48:21 > 0:48:24or, as he later called himself, Augustus.
0:48:26 > 0:48:29That name actually doesn't mean very much.
0:48:29 > 0:48:32The closest you can get is "Revered One".
0:48:32 > 0:48:37But he worked out the do's and don'ts of being a one-man ruler.
0:48:37 > 0:48:43In the early third century BC, Scipio Barbatus, on his tomb,
0:48:43 > 0:48:46could have his career summed up in just a few lines.
0:48:46 > 0:48:51300 years later, the Emperor Augustus wrote his own epitaph
0:48:51 > 0:48:57to be displayed outside his tomb... in hundreds of lines.
0:49:11 > 0:49:18It's...an extraordinary overblown accounts of "what I did".
0:49:18 > 0:49:24But it also offers a blueprint of how to be an emperor in the future.
0:49:24 > 0:49:28And there are three things he stresses.
0:49:28 > 0:49:31First of all, you have to be massively generous
0:49:31 > 0:49:33to the Roman people.
0:49:33 > 0:49:38You have to give them hand-outs and entertainments and services.
0:49:38 > 0:49:41And that's what he lists here, all the cash he spent on that.
0:49:41 > 0:49:45But then, you've got to build, build, build.
0:49:45 > 0:49:49And that's really the model of Pompey.
0:49:49 > 0:49:54And Augustus tells us about the temples that he constructed
0:49:54 > 0:49:56and the theatres.
0:49:56 > 0:50:01But most important of all - and this is what the biggest
0:50:01 > 0:50:07part of the document is about - you have to invest in conquest.
0:50:07 > 0:50:11And Augustus explains how he extended
0:50:11 > 0:50:14the boundaries of the Roman Empire,
0:50:14 > 0:50:19how he pacified the provinces of Gaul and Spain,
0:50:19 > 0:50:21how he pacified the Alps.
0:50:23 > 0:50:26The message he's hammering home is clear -
0:50:26 > 0:50:30if you want to be a Roman emperor, you have to look like a conqueror.
0:50:38 > 0:50:41However much the Romans tried to avoid the Pompeys
0:50:41 > 0:50:45and the Caesars of this world, the problems of governing
0:50:45 > 0:50:49and policing an ever-expanding Empire proved that decisions
0:50:49 > 0:50:52taken by committee didn't work.
0:50:54 > 0:50:59It wasn't the emperor that created the Roman Empire,
0:50:59 > 0:51:04it was the Empire that created Roman emperors.
0:51:04 > 0:51:09Augustus's account of what he did is a practical toolkit for how
0:51:09 > 0:51:11to be a Roman emperor.
0:51:11 > 0:51:16But the ideology behind it all is best represented on another
0:51:16 > 0:51:21monument he put up celebrating pax - peace.
0:51:22 > 0:51:25So this is an altar of peace.
0:51:25 > 0:51:28It's celebrating the security
0:51:28 > 0:51:32and the prosperity that the Roman Empire can bring.
0:51:32 > 0:51:36But it isn't really peace in our sense of the word.
0:51:36 > 0:51:39This isn't about the absence of fighting,
0:51:39 > 0:51:43it's about peace that is the RESULT of fighting.
0:51:45 > 0:51:49This is peace that has been won by victory.
0:51:51 > 0:51:55Really, this is an altar of pacification.
0:51:59 > 0:52:01It's also more than that.
0:52:01 > 0:52:05Built out of marble by the best artists in town,
0:52:05 > 0:52:07you couldn't miss the messages here.
0:52:07 > 0:52:12The walls around it are covered with friezes, some depicting
0:52:12 > 0:52:18Augustus with his family, carving the Imperial dynasty into stone.
0:52:18 > 0:52:24And some of the images spread the idea of his divine birthright,
0:52:24 > 0:52:28projecting his lineage all the way back
0:52:28 > 0:52:30to the mythical founders of Rome.
0:52:34 > 0:52:36On either side of the main steps,
0:52:36 > 0:52:40there are two different versions of Rome's ancestry.
0:52:40 > 0:52:43On one side, the wolf with Romulus and Remus,
0:52:43 > 0:52:49and on the other side, Aeneas, who's just arrived in Italy from Troy.
0:52:49 > 0:52:51There's a special resonance for the Emperor here
0:52:51 > 0:52:56because Augustus claimed to be directly descended from Aeneas.
0:52:58 > 0:53:03But there's an even bigger point if you take these two scenes together.
0:53:03 > 0:53:07On the one side there's Romulus, who welcomed into his new city
0:53:07 > 0:53:11outcasts and runaways.
0:53:11 > 0:53:13On the other side, Aeneas,
0:53:13 > 0:53:16who really did come from abroad.
0:53:16 > 0:53:20The message about Rome's origins is clear -
0:53:20 > 0:53:22Rome was always foreign.
0:53:25 > 0:53:28This made perfect Roman sense.
0:53:28 > 0:53:31The stories they told of their own origins
0:53:31 > 0:53:34reflected the growing diversity,
0:53:34 > 0:53:38expansion and openness of their world.
0:53:38 > 0:53:40And there was one corner of the Empire
0:53:40 > 0:53:42that had a particular resonance.
0:53:42 > 0:53:46I'm in the place that many Romans thought the whole story
0:53:46 > 0:53:51of their city began. It's more than 1,000 miles away from Rome.
0:53:51 > 0:53:54It's the city of Troy, the city of the Trojan War,
0:53:54 > 0:54:00that most famous, most defining war in the whole history
0:54:00 > 0:54:02and myth of the classical world.
0:54:02 > 0:54:07It's the war of Helen, Achilles, Hector and the Trojan horse.
0:54:08 > 0:54:12It was also the birthplace of Aeneas.
0:54:14 > 0:54:16And for the new Augustan age,
0:54:16 > 0:54:23the Roman poet Virgil elaborately reimagined and rewrote Aeneas's
0:54:23 > 0:54:28journey from Troy to Italy in his epic poem, the Aeneid.
0:54:30 > 0:54:35He was using myth to explore the complexities of the rise of Rome
0:54:35 > 0:54:37and of its Empire.
0:54:44 > 0:54:48There are all kinds of things in this poem -
0:54:48 > 0:54:53love, honour, heroism and Empire.
0:54:53 > 0:54:58Virgil also points to some of the much more disconcerting
0:54:58 > 0:55:00sides of Imperial power.
0:55:00 > 0:55:02At the end of the story -
0:55:02 > 0:55:08and it's really the last thing we see Aeneas doing - our hero cruelly
0:55:08 > 0:55:15and gratuitously slaughters an enemy soldier who has surrendered to him.
0:55:15 > 0:55:17It's as if in Virgil's hands,
0:55:17 > 0:55:23the story of Aeneas both celebrates Rome's Empire
0:55:23 > 0:55:27and exposes its potential brutality.
0:55:31 > 0:55:35And yet Virgil could also present the Roman Empire as a gift
0:55:35 > 0:55:38from the gods themselves.
0:55:42 > 0:55:45At the very beginning, Jupiter, the king of the gods,
0:55:45 > 0:55:48prophesies Rome's future power.
0:55:48 > 0:55:54"I have given," he says, "I have given the Romans imperium sine fine."
0:55:54 > 0:55:58"I have given them empire without limit."
0:56:00 > 0:56:03It hadn't really started that way.
0:56:03 > 0:56:08A completely unremarkable city had expanded far beyond its walls,
0:56:08 > 0:56:12becoming the power centre of a vast Empire.
0:56:16 > 0:56:18And from the twins to the emperors.
0:56:18 > 0:56:22From cattle raiders to organised armies.
0:56:22 > 0:56:28From the early victories of Scipio Barbatus to the crushing destruction
0:56:28 > 0:56:33of Corinth in the east or the bloody killing fields of Gaul in the west.
0:56:33 > 0:56:37Through a combination of improvisation, good luck,
0:56:37 > 0:56:39greed and ambition,
0:56:39 > 0:56:46Rome has imprinted on our minds what it means to be an empire.
0:56:51 > 0:56:56The idea of empire without limit is something that Scipio Barbatus
0:56:56 > 0:56:58could never have understood.
0:56:58 > 0:57:01He knew all about conquest and military glory
0:57:01 > 0:57:03and the profits that came with them.
0:57:03 > 0:57:08But Rome having territorial control over swathes of the outside world,
0:57:08 > 0:57:13thought of as limitless, would have been
0:57:13 > 0:57:15absolutely incomprehensible to him.
0:57:15 > 0:57:19Two and a half centuries later, Virgil's Aeneid
0:57:19 > 0:57:23claims that Jupiter himself had planned it that way.
0:57:23 > 0:57:28It's as if Virgil, looking back, is reinterpreting the messy,
0:57:28 > 0:57:33the improvised history of Roman conquest into some grand design
0:57:33 > 0:57:35of manifest destiny.
0:57:42 > 0:57:46Now that Rome had acquired an empire, what to do with it?
0:57:46 > 0:57:50It was a terribly exploitative system of resources,
0:57:50 > 0:57:53of landscape and of people.
0:57:53 > 0:57:56What would feed it and what would connect it?
0:57:56 > 0:58:00We tend to joke when we say, "All roads lead to Rome".
0:58:00 > 0:58:02But actually they did.
0:58:02 > 0:58:05Who would lose out and who would succeed?
0:58:05 > 0:58:11One of the biggest things he did was put up this huge amphitheatre.