0:00:04 > 0:00:07This is the main gate of a great Roman city,
0:00:07 > 0:00:11on the empire's northern frontier in Germany.
0:00:13 > 0:00:17It advertises the presence and the impact of Rome.
0:00:18 > 0:00:22And it's still here, 2,000 years later.
0:00:24 > 0:00:26Rome was built to last.
0:00:29 > 0:00:30But it didn't.
0:00:35 > 0:00:39One of the biggest puzzles about the Roman Empire has always been
0:00:39 > 0:00:43what caused its decline and fall?
0:00:43 > 0:00:48Historians have been debating that one since the fifth century AD
0:00:48 > 0:00:50and we still haven't agreed an answer.
0:00:50 > 0:00:55There are all kinds of theories, from the sensible to the silly.
0:00:55 > 0:00:58Was it the invasion of barbarian hordes?
0:00:58 > 0:01:01Or was it galloping inflation?
0:01:01 > 0:01:04Was it corruption, public and private?
0:01:04 > 0:01:06Too much sex?
0:01:06 > 0:01:08Or maybe too little sex?
0:01:08 > 0:01:11Or was it the lead in the water pipes,
0:01:11 > 0:01:14gradually sending them all mad?
0:01:14 > 0:01:18Happily, this isn't a multiple-choice test,
0:01:18 > 0:01:23and one thing's for sure, it's all intriguingly complicated,
0:01:23 > 0:01:24so bear with me.
0:01:33 > 0:01:35From its mythical origins...
0:01:36 > 0:01:38..to the reality of empire...
0:01:40 > 0:01:44..stretching from Britain in the north,
0:01:44 > 0:01:46to the fringes of the Sahara in the south...
0:01:48 > 0:01:51..Spain to Israel, the Nile to the Rhine.
0:01:54 > 0:01:57The Roman world was more culturally diverse,
0:01:57 > 0:02:01productive and connected than anything that had gone before.
0:02:01 > 0:02:04We tend to joke when we say, "All roads lead to Rome."
0:02:04 > 0:02:06But actually, they did.
0:02:07 > 0:02:11It seemed like Rome had discovered the art of imperial longevity,
0:02:11 > 0:02:16thriving not only by exploitation, but by creating citizens
0:02:16 > 0:02:20and at the very top of the pile, the Emperor.
0:02:20 > 0:02:22You probably have to kiss his feet.
0:02:23 > 0:02:27But the Roman Empire was more vulnerable than it looked.
0:02:27 > 0:02:30There was conflict and there was resistance,
0:02:30 > 0:02:32both from the outside and within.
0:02:33 > 0:02:37This was Romans attacking Romans.
0:02:38 > 0:02:41So why DID the Roman Empire come to an end?
0:02:42 > 0:02:43Or did it?
0:02:59 > 0:03:03No-one's ever going to know for sure what caused Rome's decline.
0:03:03 > 0:03:08It's not the kind of question that you can ever answer once and for all.
0:03:08 > 0:03:12But I'm going unpick a story that makes sense to me.
0:03:12 > 0:03:15And I'm starting at one of the most recognisable
0:03:15 > 0:03:18and puzzling monuments in the Roman world.
0:03:19 > 0:03:25The 115km-long Hadrian's Wall, that spans northern Britain.
0:03:25 > 0:03:30Built in the second century AD when the empire was at its widest,
0:03:30 > 0:03:35what its construction hints to me, is a shift in the way the Romans
0:03:35 > 0:03:39saw the empire and what happened at its boundaries.
0:03:44 > 0:03:47In some ways, Britain was Rome's Afghanistan.
0:03:48 > 0:03:52The Romans always found it terribly hard to get
0:03:52 > 0:03:55the upper hand, particularly in the north of the country.
0:03:55 > 0:03:58It wasn't that there were loads of pitched battles
0:03:58 > 0:04:00between Romans and barbarians,
0:04:00 > 0:04:05but there were decades of terrorism and guerrilla warfare.
0:04:06 > 0:04:10The wall must have been something to do with controlling that.
0:04:12 > 0:04:16But it was never a straightforward defence against the enemy,
0:04:16 > 0:04:19it was more a Roman statement.
0:04:20 > 0:04:22This really is an aggressive structure,
0:04:22 > 0:04:26ploughing through the country, from one side of it to the other.
0:04:27 > 0:04:30It seems to me there's two things going on here.
0:04:30 > 0:04:36First of all, it is a major symbol of Roman power
0:04:36 > 0:04:39and it's speaking to both people out there to the north
0:04:39 > 0:04:42and at those down there to the south.
0:04:43 > 0:04:48But there's also a new idea of what an empire is that's at stake here.
0:04:52 > 0:04:57They're starting to say, the empire has an edge, it has a boundary.
0:04:59 > 0:05:03And they're doing that here and in other places in the empire.
0:05:03 > 0:05:07This is the start of the empire being mapped.
0:05:09 > 0:05:11And that made a big difference.
0:05:11 > 0:05:15As we know now, the moment there's a physical barrier,
0:05:15 > 0:05:17whether it's a wall, a fence or a river,
0:05:17 > 0:05:21it doesn't just keep people out, it also entices them in.
0:05:21 > 0:05:26And there was an extra urgency to that. When almost everyone inside
0:05:26 > 0:05:31the empire was a full Roman citizen, almost everyone outside not.
0:05:32 > 0:05:37It wasn't a simple stand-off between insiders and outsiders,
0:05:37 > 0:05:40Romans and barbarians.
0:05:40 > 0:05:43The frontiers of the empire were always pretty porous,
0:05:43 > 0:05:48in our terms, and you even find so-called barbarians
0:05:48 > 0:05:49serving in the Roman army.
0:05:51 > 0:05:55All the same, it was a whole series of flashpoints that put
0:05:55 > 0:06:01the empire on the defensive against invaders, against waves of refugees
0:06:01 > 0:06:04and against economic migrants, and to be honest,
0:06:04 > 0:06:08it was quite difficult to tell the difference between those three.
0:06:08 > 0:06:13The effect of all that was somehow to turn the empire inside out.
0:06:13 > 0:06:16The centre of things was now on the margins.
0:06:16 > 0:06:20That's where more and more Roman cash was spent, it's where more
0:06:20 > 0:06:23and more Roman resources were eaten up
0:06:23 > 0:06:27and it's where the decisions that really mattered were taken.
0:06:27 > 0:06:31In a way, the Romans on the frontiers, the soldiers
0:06:31 > 0:06:35and the generals, became the key power brokers.
0:06:40 > 0:06:41The change was dramatic.
0:06:41 > 0:06:43In the third century AD,
0:06:43 > 0:06:47emperors were usually raised to power by the legions,
0:06:47 > 0:06:50with little or no reference to the authorities in Rome itself,
0:06:50 > 0:06:52and they didn't last long, either.
0:06:52 > 0:06:55Most of them barely had time to issue some coins
0:06:55 > 0:06:58and put up some statues before they were gone,
0:06:58 > 0:07:01often assassinated by the supporters of the next guy on the throne.
0:07:03 > 0:07:05One of this lot was Elagabalus,
0:07:05 > 0:07:08parachuted onto the throne by his granny
0:07:08 > 0:07:10and an army legion.
0:07:10 > 0:07:14If you believe the stories, he was a nasty piece of work,
0:07:14 > 0:07:17making Nero or Caligula look like pussycats.
0:07:19 > 0:07:20Bellissima!
0:07:24 > 0:07:28He was particularly well-known for his flamboyant banquets.
0:07:28 > 0:07:32A meal with him was an experience to die for.
0:07:32 > 0:07:35And sometimes, literally.
0:07:35 > 0:07:38The food was about as far-out as you could get.
0:07:38 > 0:07:44Nightingales' tongues and ostrich brains, particular favourites.
0:07:45 > 0:07:48But he was artful, too.
0:07:48 > 0:07:51He was particularly keen on colour-coded banquets.
0:07:51 > 0:07:55All the food in blue or in green.
0:07:58 > 0:08:00But there were risks.
0:08:00 > 0:08:03If you were at the bottom of the pecking order,
0:08:03 > 0:08:06you didn't get real food at all.
0:08:06 > 0:08:10You just got model food, in wood or plaster.
0:08:10 > 0:08:12All you could do was look at it.
0:08:13 > 0:08:20And on one occasion, he showered so many rose petals on his lucky
0:08:20 > 0:08:23guests that they smothered and didn't get out alive.
0:08:40 > 0:08:43The Emperor was a complete fashion freak.
0:08:43 > 0:08:46He never wore the same pair of shoes twice.
0:08:46 > 0:08:48He had his mum in the Senate
0:08:48 > 0:08:52and he loved being pulled along in a wheelbarrow by naked ladies.
0:08:52 > 0:08:55He even went so far as to change sex
0:08:55 > 0:08:58and he had a vagina surgically constructed.
0:09:03 > 0:09:05Now, this isn't all literally true.
0:09:05 > 0:09:11For a start, Elagabalus was only 14 when he came to the throne.
0:09:11 > 0:09:15At best, it's a fantasy about what it might be like having
0:09:15 > 0:09:19a very difficult teenager as Emperor.
0:09:19 > 0:09:25At worst, it's black propaganda, invented after he'd been deposed.
0:09:25 > 0:09:29But there's a logic to it. It's a fantasy about a system under threat.
0:09:33 > 0:09:37The idea that the man on the throne was completely bonkers
0:09:37 > 0:09:40was saying more about the way the system was imploding
0:09:40 > 0:09:43than about the man or boy himself.
0:09:43 > 0:09:47But the Romans didn't just sit and watch it all happen.
0:09:55 > 0:10:00'And the best way to explain how they tried to restore order...'
0:10:00 > 0:10:03- Prego, senora. - Ah, grazie mille!- Buon appetito!
0:10:03 > 0:10:05'..is with another meal.'
0:10:05 > 0:10:07This is called a Pizza Romana.
0:10:08 > 0:10:13And one thing's for sure, no Roman ate it, because for a start,
0:10:13 > 0:10:14they didn't have tomatoes.
0:10:14 > 0:10:18But if you suspend disbelief for a bit, it's quite a good
0:10:18 > 0:10:24way of visualising the problems the Roman Empire's facing.
0:10:24 > 0:10:26The pizza is the empire.
0:10:28 > 0:10:32Rome is the tomato in the middle.
0:10:32 > 0:10:33Problem number one?
0:10:33 > 0:10:35The empire's very big.
0:10:35 > 0:10:38Communications across it, very slow.
0:10:38 > 0:10:40Rome's here.
0:10:40 > 0:10:42It's really...
0:10:42 > 0:10:47weeks away from getting its commands out to the frontiers.
0:10:47 > 0:10:50So what do they do about it?
0:10:50 > 0:10:54Well, as usual, the Romans improvised.
0:10:54 > 0:10:57They decided to cut the empire in two.
0:11:00 > 0:11:03It's quite difficult, cutting an empire in two.
0:11:04 > 0:11:06And you can even go further.
0:11:07 > 0:11:08You can say...
0:11:08 > 0:11:13divide the empire into three, with three joint emperors.
0:11:13 > 0:11:16You can even divide it...
0:11:16 > 0:11:18If you can cut it!
0:11:18 > 0:11:24You can even divide it into four, with four joint emperors.
0:11:24 > 0:11:26The advantages of this are obvious.
0:11:26 > 0:11:29You get manageable chunks to administer.
0:11:29 > 0:11:33One emperor for that, one for that, one for that, one for that.
0:11:33 > 0:11:35The disadvantages are obvious, too.
0:11:35 > 0:11:40This guy decides he wants to have this person's share
0:11:40 > 0:11:41and so you get conflict.
0:11:41 > 0:11:44And what looked as if it was kind of devolution
0:11:44 > 0:11:46turns out to be a disintegration.
0:11:48 > 0:11:51The other problem they deal with is what to do about Rome
0:11:51 > 0:11:54and here we get another kind of devolution.
0:11:54 > 0:11:57You get a series of mini capitals... These are the olives.
0:11:58 > 0:12:01..for different parts of the empire.
0:12:01 > 0:12:05That one, let's say, is in the east, that's Nicaea.
0:12:05 > 0:12:07This is Trier, in Germany.
0:12:07 > 0:12:10Ravenna or Milan, in Italy.
0:12:11 > 0:12:15And those cities can be administrative centres
0:12:15 > 0:12:19for the different bits, and that makes all of the kind
0:12:19 > 0:12:22of problems of communication and so forth much easier.
0:12:22 > 0:12:24What to do about Rome in the middle?
0:12:25 > 0:12:30When all the decisions, really, are being made in these other capitals.
0:12:30 > 0:12:34Well, the answer is that Rome stays looking lovely,
0:12:34 > 0:12:37it stays being a grand symbolic centre,
0:12:37 > 0:12:40but it's not really doing anything.
0:12:40 > 0:12:45In a way, this poor tomato has become a bit of a white elephant.
0:12:49 > 0:12:53The city of Romulus no longer controls the Roman world.
0:12:55 > 0:12:59Of course, it remained hugely symbolic, but some emperors
0:12:59 > 0:13:03ruled their slice of territory without ever even going to Rome.
0:13:07 > 0:13:11One-man rule, established by the first Emperor Augustus, was,
0:13:11 > 0:13:16for a time, devolved to multiple emperors in a divided empire.
0:13:20 > 0:13:25And this is the grand imperial throne room
0:13:25 > 0:13:29of the mini-capital at Trier in Germany.
0:13:31 > 0:13:35It's a building with some powerful messages.
0:13:36 > 0:13:39It's telling us, for one thing, that Rome was no longer
0:13:39 > 0:13:41the centre of Roman power.
0:13:41 > 0:13:46But in its modern reincarnation, there's a clue to an even
0:13:46 > 0:13:49bigger revolution that was taking place within the empire.
0:13:51 > 0:13:54It was later converted into a church,
0:13:54 > 0:13:57and as we'll see, that was no accident.
0:14:02 > 0:14:05Because there was something bigger happening than any of those
0:14:05 > 0:14:11problems on the frontiers, mad emperors and rivalrous legions.
0:14:11 > 0:14:15The entire Roman belief system was being challenged.
0:14:15 > 0:14:20And to understand that, we have to go further back into Roman history,
0:14:20 > 0:14:23to see how the relationship between the gods
0:14:23 > 0:14:26and the Roman state had traditionally worked.
0:14:31 > 0:14:33This is a Roman temple.
0:14:33 > 0:14:36You wouldn't come here for services or to be preached at,
0:14:36 > 0:14:40you wouldn't come to get married or to be part of the congregation.
0:14:40 > 0:14:43The chances are, it'd be locked up most of the year anyway,
0:14:43 > 0:14:47guarded by some grumpy custodian.
0:14:47 > 0:14:49But if you did get inside,
0:14:49 > 0:14:53one thing you certainly would have seen is a statue of the god.
0:14:53 > 0:14:56That's the basic function of a Roman temple,
0:14:56 > 0:14:59to house the divine image, and that's what temples
0:14:59 > 0:15:02were often called in Latin - "aedes".
0:15:02 > 0:15:03Houses.
0:15:06 > 0:15:08And temples were everywhere.
0:15:17 > 0:15:20So, why did they need so many?
0:15:20 > 0:15:23Well, this one was put up to the god Hercules in the middle
0:15:23 > 0:15:25of the second century BC,
0:15:25 > 0:15:29almost certainly with the profits of Roman conquest in the east.
0:15:30 > 0:15:32And that was a common pattern.
0:15:32 > 0:15:36A general in the middle of battle would vow a temple to the god,
0:15:36 > 0:15:41if that god would grant him victory, and when the general returns
0:15:41 > 0:15:47to Rome successful, he uses part of the spoils to finance the building.
0:15:47 > 0:15:51In a way, temples are public reminders of the gods'
0:15:51 > 0:15:55support for the Roman state and they underline the axiom that Rome
0:15:55 > 0:15:59can only be successful if it keeps the gods on its side.
0:16:03 > 0:16:07And gods is, of course, plural.
0:16:07 > 0:16:10It might seem obvious, but there were loads of them.
0:16:10 > 0:16:13And to us, the interaction between them
0:16:13 > 0:16:17and the Romans can look a bit contractual, even mechanistic.
0:16:17 > 0:16:21The Romans didn't believe in their gods,
0:16:21 > 0:16:25they didn't have internal faith in our sense.
0:16:25 > 0:16:29They simply took it for granted that the gods existed
0:16:29 > 0:16:31and would help them out,
0:16:31 > 0:16:34so long as they fulfilled their side of the bargain,
0:16:34 > 0:16:39by erecting temples or, above all, by sacrificing to them,
0:16:39 > 0:16:43usually animals, whether bulls, pigs or sheep.
0:16:43 > 0:16:48And we can glimpse how important that was in this once splendid
0:16:48 > 0:16:52sculpture, now a bit stranded in a Roman backstreet.
0:17:04 > 0:17:07Here, we've got a scene of sacrifice to the gods.
0:17:07 > 0:17:12On the lower panel, there's a bull actually being slaughtered, and
0:17:12 > 0:17:16above, the emperor is pouring some
0:17:16 > 0:17:19kind of libation onto an altar.
0:17:19 > 0:17:23You can find hundreds of scenes like this across the Roman Empire
0:17:23 > 0:17:26and the point they're making is that one of the functions
0:17:26 > 0:17:31of the emperor was to manage the relationship between humans
0:17:31 > 0:17:35and the gods. Religion and politics were bound up together.
0:17:46 > 0:17:50There's a decidedly public, a decidedly matter-of-fact side to all
0:17:50 > 0:17:55this, but that doesn't mean the gods didn't also have a personal impact.
0:17:55 > 0:17:59On the contrary, they permeated the lives of the Romans.
0:17:59 > 0:18:02It was a world full of gods.
0:18:02 > 0:18:06This collection of miniature gods and goddesses takes us
0:18:06 > 0:18:11right into the world of personal religion. These are private objects.
0:18:11 > 0:18:15There were thousands of them across the Roman Empire, in people's
0:18:15 > 0:18:21pockets, on their mantelpieces at home, in temples and in shrines.
0:18:21 > 0:18:25They're kind of like everything from fridge magnets to
0:18:25 > 0:18:29objects of devotion, all rolled into one.
0:18:29 > 0:18:33This was an incredibly complicated religious world.
0:18:33 > 0:18:36We're not dealing here with 12 gods and goddesses,
0:18:36 > 0:18:40sitting up on Mount Olympus, each with their own job to do.
0:18:40 > 0:18:45Venus, the Goddess of Love, Mars, the God of War.
0:18:45 > 0:18:49That's what I learnt at school, but it's very misleading.
0:18:49 > 0:18:54This is much more a question of a whole range of different
0:18:54 > 0:18:58divine powers which control the world in different ways
0:18:58 > 0:19:01and help us make sense of it.
0:19:01 > 0:19:05That might be questions of - where did human life begin?
0:19:05 > 0:19:09Or much more practical things like - will I get across the sea safely?
0:19:10 > 0:19:15In that case, you might have decided to turn to the god Neptune,
0:19:15 > 0:19:20the God of the Sea, but equally, you might have approached Minerva,
0:19:20 > 0:19:26who had to do with the craft of seafaring, or Hercules,
0:19:26 > 0:19:30who protected humanity in their struggles against adversity.
0:19:30 > 0:19:33Or you might equally have turned to Mercury,
0:19:33 > 0:19:38the god who helped you get places and helped you make a profit.
0:19:40 > 0:19:45This was an extraordinarily flexible religious system,
0:19:45 > 0:19:48in which people made their own religious choices
0:19:48 > 0:19:50and they created their own religious world.
0:20:05 > 0:20:09Religion was fundamental for the success of the empire
0:20:09 > 0:20:14and the Romans made sure their gratitude was on full display.
0:20:14 > 0:20:17But the growth of the empire brought new
0:20:17 > 0:20:21and different gods into Rome. Just as the Romans incorporated
0:20:21 > 0:20:24new citizens from new conquered territories,
0:20:24 > 0:20:28they incorporated divine citizens too.
0:20:28 > 0:20:32One of these new religions, thought to originate in what is now
0:20:32 > 0:20:37Iran, didn't have grand temples, at least not above ground.
0:20:56 > 0:20:59This is a wonderfully preserved temple of the god Mithras,
0:20:59 > 0:21:02on an absolutely standard pattern.
0:21:02 > 0:21:05All across the Roman Empire, they look a bit like this.
0:21:08 > 0:21:10It's dark, enclosed,
0:21:10 > 0:21:13and it was almost as hidden away then as it is now.
0:21:15 > 0:21:18It's actually all been done a bit on the cheap.
0:21:18 > 0:21:23This marble floor looks impressive enough,
0:21:23 > 0:21:26but it's obviously come off a Roman skip.
0:21:29 > 0:21:35And up here, they've even made their little steps by cannibalising
0:21:35 > 0:21:38some old inscription.
0:21:38 > 0:21:41Using whatever they could lay their hands on,
0:21:41 > 0:21:46they created an underground religious world, a cave,
0:21:46 > 0:21:50which was thought to be an image for the cosmos itself.
0:21:50 > 0:21:54This was a place where people came together to worship.
0:21:56 > 0:22:02The worshippers would have reclined here, just as if they were dining.
0:22:02 > 0:22:07Presumably, whatever ritual went on, went on in the middle.
0:22:07 > 0:22:10To judge from the image of Mithras himself,
0:22:10 > 0:22:15usually shown killing a bull, animal sacrifice was central, even if
0:22:15 > 0:22:18other details are pretty mysterious.
0:22:20 > 0:22:25What we do know is that it was entirely men, this was about the
0:22:25 > 0:22:30most blokeish religion in the Roman Empire, which is saying something.
0:22:30 > 0:22:32It was also a religion of initiation.
0:22:32 > 0:22:37You went through a series of stages or grades of initiation,
0:22:37 > 0:22:42getting closer all the time to a vision of the divine truth.
0:22:44 > 0:22:47The best clues to the strange world of Mithras
0:22:47 > 0:22:52comes from the imagery salvaged from several of his temples.
0:22:52 > 0:22:55You've got Mithras himself,
0:22:55 > 0:23:00plunging his dagger into the side of the sacrificial bull,
0:23:00 > 0:23:04and he's wearing a very distinctively shaped Persian
0:23:04 > 0:23:07hat, signalling that he comes from the margins or
0:23:07 > 0:23:10outside of the Roman world and there's something, I think, about
0:23:10 > 0:23:15the exoticism of all this which must have been part of its attraction.
0:23:15 > 0:23:16But exotic or not,
0:23:16 > 0:23:21it still fitted comfortably enough in the Roman world of polytheism.
0:23:23 > 0:23:24Real problems began
0:23:24 > 0:23:29when monotheistic religion came into contact with Rome.
0:23:29 > 0:23:34The worship of just one god and the exclusion of all others was
0:23:34 > 0:23:38something that went against basic Roman assumptions.
0:23:50 > 0:23:55Judea was made a province of the empire in 6 AD.
0:23:55 > 0:23:58People here had their own way of life
0:23:58 > 0:24:02and a distinctive relationship to one god.
0:24:02 > 0:24:06So when the Romans took over, with a very different
0:24:06 > 0:24:09set of assumptions, a clash was almost inevitable.
0:24:12 > 0:24:15A mixture of politics, local infighting
0:24:15 > 0:24:18and religious conflict ended
0:24:18 > 0:24:22when the Romans destroyed the temple in Jerusalem
0:24:22 > 0:24:27and that triggered a six-year long full-scale Jewish revolt.
0:24:43 > 0:24:48The end of that war came at a desert outpost called Masada.
0:25:04 > 0:25:05In this remote spot, King Herod,
0:25:05 > 0:25:10one of Rome's earlier allies or collaborators in Judea, had built an
0:25:10 > 0:25:15extravagant palace, where he could dine and bathe in true Roman style.
0:25:18 > 0:25:21He would be disappointed to know that the place is now
0:25:21 > 0:25:24famous for much bloodier reasons.
0:25:26 > 0:25:29The final showdown between the Jews and the Romans happened hours
0:25:29 > 0:25:33away from Jerusalem, here in the middle of the desert.
0:25:33 > 0:25:38There was a breakaway group of about 1,000 Jewish extremists,
0:25:38 > 0:25:42that were terrorists in the eyes of some Jews as well as the Romans,
0:25:42 > 0:25:46and they'd seized Masada and they were holding out there,
0:25:46 > 0:25:49years after the temple in Jerusalem had fallen.
0:25:59 > 0:26:02The Jewish rebels made this rock their base and eventually
0:26:02 > 0:26:06met their deaths when the Romans caught up with them.
0:26:06 > 0:26:08To understand what happened next,
0:26:08 > 0:26:13I'm meeting historian Greg Woolf in the ruins of the old palace.
0:26:13 > 0:26:17These forts look very impressive, laid out as they are below,
0:26:17 > 0:26:20but at the time they were built, Jerusalem had fallen,
0:26:20 > 0:26:24the temple was destroyed, there's no opposition anywhere else.
0:26:24 > 0:26:27There was still a small group of people holding out up
0:26:27 > 0:26:28here for years.
0:26:28 > 0:26:31They're almost forgotten until a Roman governor decides
0:26:31 > 0:26:35he really ought to sort it out and he sends the legions here and
0:26:35 > 0:26:39so this is what we see here, it's a trace of a cleaning-up operation.
0:26:40 > 0:26:44You can still make out where the forts and the siege wall are.
0:26:45 > 0:26:50And at a weak point in the cliffs, a ramp was built for a battering
0:26:50 > 0:26:53ram and the Romans broke through the rebels' defences.
0:26:56 > 0:27:00One Jewish rebel, turned traitor, then Roman historian,
0:27:00 > 0:27:03recorded what happened next.
0:27:03 > 0:27:07Although his version of events has long been disputed.
0:27:07 > 0:27:10We have this extraordinary story told by a very,
0:27:10 > 0:27:14very unreliable source, who says that when the Romans got up here,
0:27:14 > 0:27:16when they built their ramp,
0:27:16 > 0:27:20when they came in, what they found was no living person.
0:27:20 > 0:27:24Nearly 1,000 people who had been up here had, in some
0:27:24 > 0:27:28kind of mixture of suicide pact and self-slaughter, had just gone.
0:27:28 > 0:27:31There was nobody left here. There were piles of bodies
0:27:31 > 0:27:33and enough food to show they could have held out for ever.
0:27:33 > 0:27:39But if this is true, who knows? It's become a powerful modern myth.
0:27:39 > 0:27:43So it's a story of heroic self-sacrifice for the cause?
0:27:43 > 0:27:47Self-sacrifice and no surrender and that's what Masada means now,
0:27:47 > 0:27:49no surrender.
0:27:52 > 0:27:55Only a handful of bodies have ever been found here
0:27:55 > 0:27:58and who they were is unclear,
0:27:58 > 0:28:03but the story of rebels who preferred suicide to enslavement
0:28:03 > 0:28:08lives on and Masada remains a symbol of Jewish resistance.
0:28:12 > 0:28:15The conflict behind all this is often framed in religious
0:28:15 > 0:28:19terms, but the truth is more complex.
0:28:19 > 0:28:23You'd expect some kind of clash, wouldn't you?
0:28:23 > 0:28:26Because you've got a culture in Judaism which insists that
0:28:26 > 0:28:28there's only one god,
0:28:28 > 0:28:32dealing with a Roman imperial power that insists there's lots of gods.
0:28:32 > 0:28:36- I mean, that appears irreconcilable.- Yes.
0:28:36 > 0:28:39Although there are things about what the Jews do that looks very
0:28:39 > 0:28:40familiar to a Roman eye.
0:28:40 > 0:28:44They perform animal sacrifice. They have a huge temple at the centre.
0:28:44 > 0:28:46And perhaps most of all, it's a
0:28:46 > 0:28:50religion grounded in one ritual landscape, one sense of place.
0:28:50 > 0:28:51It's a religion of somewhere.
0:28:51 > 0:28:54Which they can always manage that, can't they?
0:28:54 > 0:28:58You can have a religion pretty much that is as weird to them
0:28:58 > 0:29:02as you can imagine, so long as it sort of belongs to somebody.
0:29:02 > 0:29:05So they're sort of happy with the goddess Isis
0:29:05 > 0:29:09because she's the Egyptians' goddess.
0:29:10 > 0:29:15The Romans didn't expect those they conquered to abandon their own gods.
0:29:15 > 0:29:19Part of the point of polytheism is that it can accept
0:29:19 > 0:29:22and incorporate new and different divine powers,
0:29:22 > 0:29:26but they did expect them to recognise
0:29:26 > 0:29:30the relationship between the Roman state and religion.
0:29:30 > 0:29:32For the Jews, it's much more difficult to accommodate
0:29:32 > 0:29:36the Romans because their own history by now is a history of being
0:29:36 > 0:29:39subjected to one empire after another
0:29:39 > 0:29:42and being subjected to persecutions of different kinds and so,
0:29:42 > 0:29:45it's much more difficult for the Jews to fit the Romans into the
0:29:45 > 0:29:48system, rather than the Romans to fit the Jews into their system.
0:29:50 > 0:29:52And that's where things broke down.
0:30:08 > 0:30:09Over the next 200 years,
0:30:09 > 0:30:14there were more bloody chapters in the history of Jews and Romans,
0:30:14 > 0:30:17but to see it from the Roman point of view,
0:30:17 > 0:30:21what's just as remarkable is how far they managed to accommodate
0:30:21 > 0:30:23Judaism within the empire.
0:30:23 > 0:30:26They used taxation as a means of control,
0:30:26 > 0:30:29Roman emperors received delegations
0:30:29 > 0:30:32and complaints from Jewish communities,
0:30:32 > 0:30:36individual Jews progressed high up in the Roman administration,
0:30:36 > 0:30:40and in many ways Judea was a prosperous little Roman province.
0:30:40 > 0:30:46But for one offshoot of Judaism, and that's Christianity,
0:30:46 > 0:30:48it was to be a very different story.
0:30:52 > 0:30:55In the turmoil of conflict between Rome and Judea,
0:30:55 > 0:30:58one Jewish Rabbi had developed new ideas.
0:30:58 > 0:31:00His name was Jesus.
0:31:03 > 0:31:06The "sayings of Jesus," as they were called,
0:31:06 > 0:31:09were only written down later,
0:31:09 > 0:31:13but it's clear enough that for the Jews, he was preaching blasphemy.
0:31:13 > 0:31:16And at the beginning at least, for the Romans,
0:31:16 > 0:31:18he was just another troublemaker.
0:31:20 > 0:31:24However exactly the story went, he was arrested, put to trial
0:31:24 > 0:31:28and sentenced to death, Roman style, by crucifixion.
0:31:31 > 0:31:35The Romans must have thought - problem solved.
0:31:35 > 0:31:37But it was only the start.
0:31:41 > 0:31:44It was near here that Jesus came to be crucified,
0:31:44 > 0:31:48probably on some charge of civil disobedience.
0:31:48 > 0:31:51It's very hard to know exactly what was going on because the story
0:31:51 > 0:31:55has been rewritten and reinterpreted and embroidered ever since.
0:31:55 > 0:31:58But we can be fairly certain that the real Jesus was
0:31:58 > 0:32:02the leader of some small Jewish splinter group
0:32:02 > 0:32:07and in the decades after his crucifixion, he became...
0:32:07 > 0:32:10He was almost reinvented as the founding symbol of a new
0:32:10 > 0:32:14religion which attracted followers more widely across the empire.
0:32:14 > 0:32:17There weren't, to start with, all that many of them
0:32:17 > 0:32:20and they believed a variety of different things that we wouldn't
0:32:20 > 0:32:22recognise now as Christian.
0:32:22 > 0:32:25But at the core of it all, there was
0:32:25 > 0:32:30a new ideology that was challenging, from within the empire itself,
0:32:30 > 0:32:34old Roman certainties about how the world worked.
0:32:40 > 0:32:44Today, Christian pilgrims from all over the world flock to
0:32:44 > 0:32:48Jerusalem to visit the spot where Jesus was buried,
0:32:48 > 0:32:52in the appropriately named Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
0:33:24 > 0:33:28Although, to call it a church is an understatement.
0:33:28 > 0:33:29Under one roof,
0:33:29 > 0:33:33a bewildering array of Christian sects fight to be heard.
0:33:53 > 0:33:55And the biggest queue of pilgrims
0:33:55 > 0:34:01and curious tourists is by the shrine that surrounds Jesus' tomb.
0:34:01 > 0:34:04This is the holiest site in Christendom.
0:34:08 > 0:34:11The idea that Jesus rose from the dead would have been
0:34:11 > 0:34:15the least puzzling part of Christian teaching for most Romans.
0:34:17 > 0:34:20There was a combination of far more radical ideas than that.
0:34:22 > 0:34:24It wasn't just that there was only one god,
0:34:24 > 0:34:29those who followed Jesus could take no part in sacrifice,
0:34:29 > 0:34:33and they were to prepare themselves for the Kingdom of God, which
0:34:33 > 0:34:38transcended the earthly power of Rome and which might be coming soon.
0:34:40 > 0:34:46Add to that the very strange notion that poverty was a virtue,
0:34:46 > 0:34:51not a misfortune, and some pretty hardline views about sex,
0:34:51 > 0:34:56and it's not difficult to see how some Romans might have been
0:34:56 > 0:35:01curious, even attracted to Christian teaching.
0:35:01 > 0:35:06Many others would have been baffled or affronted by what must
0:35:06 > 0:35:09have seemed like an assault on their world order.
0:35:13 > 0:35:17Christianity flew in the face of what Romans had traditionally
0:35:17 > 0:35:20thought religion was all about.
0:35:20 > 0:35:24And that contradiction may be one reason why Christianity was
0:35:24 > 0:35:26initially slow to take off.
0:35:29 > 0:35:33But when it did, it exploited the very network of communications
0:35:33 > 0:35:36that linked the Roman Empire.
0:35:36 > 0:35:39One of the key figures in spreading the word was a small-time
0:35:39 > 0:35:44Roman salesman from Turkey, better known as St Paul.
0:35:44 > 0:35:48Jesus himself wasn't a big traveller, but Paul not only
0:35:48 > 0:35:51got everywhere across the eastern Mediterranean,
0:35:51 > 0:35:56he also used the long-distance mail as a way of broadcasting to
0:35:56 > 0:35:58far-flung Christian communities
0:35:58 > 0:36:03and the letters he wrote are still part of the Bible.
0:36:03 > 0:36:07Corinthians, that's the letter he wrote to the Christian church
0:36:07 > 0:36:11at Corinth and he's writing to the people of Thessaloniki, to the
0:36:11 > 0:36:16people of Ephesus, the Ephesians, and to the Christian church in Rome.
0:36:16 > 0:36:19They're part pep talk, part instruction,
0:36:19 > 0:36:22and not all of it is entirely to my taste.
0:36:22 > 0:36:27"Man is the head of woman," he says. That's never going to be my motto.
0:36:27 > 0:36:29But what does strike me
0:36:29 > 0:36:34are the geographical horizons that these letters display.
0:36:34 > 0:36:37He talks about being in Macedonia
0:36:37 > 0:36:41and going to travel to Ephesus and then move on to Corinth.
0:36:41 > 0:36:45It's the connectivity of the Roman Empire that these
0:36:45 > 0:36:46Christians are exploiting.
0:36:49 > 0:36:51Christianity was born within the Roman Empire
0:36:51 > 0:36:56and the people who became its followers rode on its connectivity.
0:36:56 > 0:37:00In port towns like Corinth, and Thessaloniki,
0:37:00 > 0:37:05you could find goods, work and a new spiritual guide.
0:37:05 > 0:37:09The empire's trade routes became Christianity's broadcasting service.
0:37:16 > 0:37:20200 years after Jesus' crucifixion, there were small groups
0:37:20 > 0:37:24calling themselves Christian across the empire and in Rome itself.
0:37:26 > 0:37:30Though there were not many in total, perhaps 200,000 out of an empire
0:37:30 > 0:37:35of 50 million, and there were very different shades of Christian too.
0:37:36 > 0:37:39This is a tombstone that really parades its Christianity.
0:37:39 > 0:37:43And the keyword is this, written in Greek, it's "Icthus,"
0:37:43 > 0:37:48which means fish, but it's not just a fish
0:37:48 > 0:37:56because the letters of that word are also the first letters of a famous
0:37:56 > 0:37:58Christian slogan, reading,
0:37:58 > 0:38:03"Jesus Christ, the Son of God, our Saviour."
0:38:03 > 0:38:07Now, why they used that slogan is not absolutely clear.
0:38:07 > 0:38:10They might have been wanting a bit of secrecy,
0:38:10 > 0:38:14but if so, Icthus isn't a terribly clever disguise.
0:38:14 > 0:38:18It's much more likely that this is an attempt to represent God
0:38:18 > 0:38:21and to wonder how God should be represented.
0:38:21 > 0:38:26They're thinking about encoding God in language and in visual symbol.
0:38:26 > 0:38:32But there's more to this and there's more gods in this tombstone.
0:38:32 > 0:38:37Up here, these two letters, DM, stand for Dis Manibus, to the
0:38:37 > 0:38:40gods of the departed spirits,
0:38:40 > 0:38:44the absolutely classic traditional pagan gods of the dead.
0:38:44 > 0:38:50So, here we've got both Christianity and paganism on the same stone
0:38:50 > 0:38:56and it's a wonderful encapsulation of just that blurry boundary
0:38:56 > 0:39:00between Christianity and paganism in the first Christian centuries.
0:39:14 > 0:39:18Most Christians in the Roman Empire probably inhabited that
0:39:18 > 0:39:20blurry boundary.
0:39:24 > 0:39:28But a few were much more hardline, overachievers,
0:39:28 > 0:39:31extremists you might almost call them,
0:39:31 > 0:39:34who came into conflict with Roman authorities and went
0:39:34 > 0:39:39to their deaths for refusing to sacrifice to the traditional gods.
0:39:44 > 0:39:48One spring day in 203 AD, a young Roman woman,
0:39:48 > 0:39:50the mother of a small baby,
0:39:50 > 0:39:55was thrown to the wild beasts in an amphitheatre not unlike this one.
0:39:55 > 0:40:00She was taunted, she was whipped, and maimed by the animals,
0:40:00 > 0:40:05but not killed. A gladiator came to finish her off.
0:40:05 > 0:40:07After one painful mishit,
0:40:07 > 0:40:12she calmly took his blade in her hands and guided it to her throat.
0:40:13 > 0:40:19Her name was Vibia Perpetua and her only crime was to be a Christian.
0:40:22 > 0:40:25This was Romans attacking Romans.
0:40:31 > 0:40:36We tend to assume that Romans loved the spectacle of Christians
0:40:36 > 0:40:39thrown to the lions in the amphitheatre.
0:40:39 > 0:40:43But it really wasn't quite that simple.
0:40:46 > 0:40:52An amphitheatre was a highly ordered microcosm of Roman society.
0:40:52 > 0:40:55The spectators sat in a rigid hierarchy,
0:40:55 > 0:40:57according to their social place.
0:40:57 > 0:41:00You couldn't just choose to shell out for a good
0:41:00 > 0:41:03seat on the front row like you can now.
0:41:03 > 0:41:06And the victims in the centre, the slaves
0:41:06 > 0:41:10and the condemned criminals, were, by definition, outsiders.
0:41:10 > 0:41:14They were never intended to be young Roman mothers like Perpetua,
0:41:14 > 0:41:16one of their own.
0:41:22 > 0:41:26It's hardly surprising that her prosecutor tried to get her
0:41:26 > 0:41:29to think of her young baby and to recant her faith.
0:41:29 > 0:41:31And it's hardly surprising that the crowd,
0:41:31 > 0:41:36as they watched Perpetua die, both jeered and shuddered.
0:41:40 > 0:41:42Perpetua's story of pious resistance
0:41:42 > 0:41:46and brutal execution has become part of the Christian
0:41:46 > 0:41:49narrative of good against evil.
0:41:49 > 0:41:52Where many non-Christians must have seen stubborn,
0:41:52 > 0:41:55self-willed self-destruction, Christians saw in martyrdom
0:41:55 > 0:41:59a powerful advertisement for their faith.
0:42:05 > 0:42:10Long after their moment in the arena, stories of the killing,
0:42:10 > 0:42:13the torture and the excruciating suffering were told
0:42:13 > 0:42:18and retold in meticulous and sometimes lurid detail.
0:42:18 > 0:42:22The bravery of the martyrs in the face of sadistic cruelty
0:42:22 > 0:42:26seemed to validate the faith for which they had died, and to offer
0:42:26 > 0:42:33other Christians an example they might glorify, though not follow.
0:42:33 > 0:42:35Quite why the Roman authorities chose to send them
0:42:35 > 0:42:39to their death remains something of a puzzle.
0:42:39 > 0:42:42That's largely because almost all the evidence
0:42:42 > 0:42:46we have comes from the Christian Romans themselves.
0:42:46 > 0:42:50It's an extreme example of history being written by the winners.
0:42:52 > 0:42:56If we try to see it from the side of the Roman authorities,
0:42:56 > 0:43:00the fact that the Christians refused to sacrifice threatened to
0:43:00 > 0:43:03disrupt the good relationship between the state
0:43:03 > 0:43:08and the divine powers, which ensured the success of the empire.
0:43:08 > 0:43:11It was pure treachery.
0:43:20 > 0:43:25In the middle of the third century, less than 50 years after Perpetua's
0:43:25 > 0:43:30death, one emperor decided to bring things back into line
0:43:30 > 0:43:34and to restore order with a piece of paper.
0:43:34 > 0:43:39These are scraps of papyrus from a Roman waste paper
0:43:39 > 0:43:41basket in the province of Egypt
0:43:41 > 0:43:44and they're some of the most important things ever to have
0:43:44 > 0:43:46been found in a waste paper basket
0:43:46 > 0:43:51and it's also a wonderful example of Roman bureaucratese.
0:43:51 > 0:43:57They are personal certificates proving that their owner has
0:43:57 > 0:43:59sacrificed to the traditional gods.
0:43:59 > 0:44:05The gist of the message is up here, saying so and so has sacrificed,
0:44:05 > 0:44:10it's been witnessed here, and one of the witnesses has signed.
0:44:10 > 0:44:12His name was Hermas.
0:44:12 > 0:44:16And this guy's actually signed several of these certificates.
0:44:18 > 0:44:20The reason why he's done that is
0:44:20 > 0:44:22because the Emperor Decius had ordered that
0:44:22 > 0:44:27everybody in the empire should prove they'd sacrificed to the gods.
0:44:29 > 0:44:31This is often treated as a centralised
0:44:31 > 0:44:35persecution of the Christians because, of course, true
0:44:35 > 0:44:41Christians couldn't sacrifice to the traditional gods.
0:44:41 > 0:44:44And we know, in fact, that some of them didn't
0:44:44 > 0:44:47and supposedly went to their deaths.
0:44:47 > 0:44:51But even Christian writers tell us that many of them,
0:44:51 > 0:44:53and this is I think where I would have been,
0:44:53 > 0:44:57either sacrificed anyway or just kept their heads down.
0:44:59 > 0:45:02What's going on in the emperor's mind is also rather different,
0:45:02 > 0:45:04I think.
0:45:04 > 0:45:06I'm sure he's not planning more bloody
0:45:06 > 0:45:09spectacles of Christians versus lions.
0:45:09 > 0:45:13What he's wanting to do is to ensure that every single
0:45:13 > 0:45:16one of his subjects signs up publicly to the
0:45:16 > 0:45:19institution of sacrifice, which is
0:45:19 > 0:45:23the ritual that ensures that proper relationship between the Roman
0:45:23 > 0:45:27state and its gods, and ensures Roman success.
0:45:27 > 0:45:32In a way, this is a clumsy and rather heavy-handed attempt to
0:45:32 > 0:45:37restore political and religious order to the Roman world.
0:45:41 > 0:45:44His project didn't last long and neither did he.
0:45:44 > 0:45:48Decius wasn't dealing only with the Christians,
0:45:48 > 0:45:52but between the invasion of the barbarians and internal rivals, his
0:45:52 > 0:45:56reign only lasted two years and he ended up killed on the battlefield.
0:46:00 > 0:46:04It would have been beyond the wildest dreams of Perpetua
0:46:04 > 0:46:09and those who died like her that in less than 100 years,
0:46:09 > 0:46:12Rome would turn in exactly the opposite direction.
0:46:21 > 0:46:25After a century of chaos, one emperor made a pact with
0:46:25 > 0:46:31the very religion that looked as if it was undermining the empire.
0:46:31 > 0:46:34His name was Constantine and, eventually,
0:46:34 > 0:46:36he became once more the sole emperor
0:46:36 > 0:46:42and aligned his power with that of the sole god, the Christian God,
0:46:42 > 0:46:44that is.
0:46:44 > 0:46:47These fragments are what's left of a colossal
0:46:47 > 0:46:49statue of the Emperor Constantine.
0:46:49 > 0:46:54It can't all have been in marble, it could never have stood up if it was.
0:46:54 > 0:46:57We have to imagine a brick and a bronze core
0:46:57 > 0:47:00and these bits sort of stuck on the end.
0:47:01 > 0:47:04It's an entirely new vision of imperial power.
0:47:04 > 0:47:08Of course, there had been colossal statues of emperors before.
0:47:08 > 0:47:12But just look at that face...
0:47:14 > 0:47:18..superhuman, staring, almost abstract.
0:47:19 > 0:47:23This isn't an emperor who could conceivably be one of us.
0:47:23 > 0:47:26This is an emperor we have to worship.
0:47:26 > 0:47:28We probably have to kiss his feet.
0:47:30 > 0:47:35Constantine is a striking mixture of the old and the new.
0:47:35 > 0:47:39He comes to power in civil war, he celebrates a triumph,
0:47:39 > 0:47:42he acknowledges divine assistance
0:47:42 > 0:47:45and he has a big building programme in the city of Rome.
0:47:45 > 0:47:47All that's very traditional.
0:47:47 > 0:47:51What's new is that the God whose help
0:47:51 > 0:47:54he acknowledges is the Christian God.
0:47:54 > 0:47:59And what he builds in the city is not temples but it's churches.
0:48:00 > 0:48:04We really don't have a clue why Constantine became a Christian.
0:48:04 > 0:48:08It might have been a sincere spiritual conversion.
0:48:08 > 0:48:11It might have been a calculated decision to back what
0:48:11 > 0:48:14looked like the winning side.
0:48:14 > 0:48:16The political logic of this, whatever is going on
0:48:16 > 0:48:21inside Constantine's head, is that circle has been squared.
0:48:21 > 0:48:25The universal empire, instead of fighting the universal church,
0:48:25 > 0:48:27has done a deal with it.
0:48:27 > 0:48:32From now on, empire and church are going to walk side by side.
0:48:34 > 0:48:37One way of seeing this is as a revolution.
0:48:37 > 0:48:41Fundamental aspects of being a Roman have changed.
0:48:41 > 0:48:46Hierarchy, faith, morality, sex... But in another way,
0:48:46 > 0:48:51Constantine has reinvented the original model of Roman power
0:48:51 > 0:48:53around a new God.
0:49:01 > 0:49:04And he sealed the deal by building a new capital,
0:49:04 > 0:49:07which eventually became the new Rome.
0:49:07 > 0:49:11Constantine's city was Constantinople.
0:49:11 > 0:49:14We now know it as Istanbul.
0:49:18 > 0:49:22It was here that he ordered his own versions of some of the major
0:49:22 > 0:49:24buildings of Rome.
0:49:24 > 0:49:26The site of Constantine's Hippodrome,
0:49:26 > 0:49:31his Circus Maximus, has been preserved, complete with
0:49:31 > 0:49:36a few of the monuments that he and later emperors placed along its centre.
0:49:36 > 0:49:40Robin Cormack, my tour guide and husband,
0:49:40 > 0:49:45knows more than me about the art and culture of the Eastern Empire.
0:49:47 > 0:49:49I think this is a really impressive monument.
0:49:49 > 0:49:51They're really proud of it.
0:49:51 > 0:49:55The amazing achievement is to get that obelisk from Luxor
0:49:55 > 0:49:57onto this stand.
0:49:57 > 0:50:00And they were so proud of what they'd done
0:50:00 > 0:50:03that they have two inscriptions saying how difficult it was.
0:50:03 > 0:50:07And they have the pictures of the putting up of it.
0:50:07 > 0:50:10We can see the ropes here to winch it up.
0:50:10 > 0:50:14- This is Roman technology as it ever was.- At its best.
0:50:15 > 0:50:19'But why did Constantine choose to build his city here?'
0:50:20 > 0:50:23It only happened because he had won his last
0:50:23 > 0:50:27battle against his rival Roman emperors and it is a victory city.
0:50:27 > 0:50:31He looked around, he chose a city near to where the battle was.
0:50:31 > 0:50:33The city of Byzantium.
0:50:33 > 0:50:36And he turned it into a massive, powerful new city,
0:50:36 > 0:50:39named after him, Constantinople.
0:50:39 > 0:50:43So, it shows he is now the single Roman Emperor.
0:50:43 > 0:50:47So, did it feel like a specifically Christian city?
0:50:47 > 0:50:48Did it feel different?
0:50:48 > 0:50:52No, it looked like a Roman city with all the trappings.
0:50:52 > 0:50:56And what he did do was bring lots of pagan statues here,
0:50:56 > 0:50:59so that you've got those in the Hippodrome and elsewhere.
0:50:59 > 0:51:04So much so that there is the famous saying that this city was
0:51:04 > 0:51:07built up by denuding all the other cities of the Roman Empire.
0:51:09 > 0:51:14It must have been a bit odd to see an emperor
0:51:14 > 0:51:21who is sponsoring Christianity, decorating his city with pagan gods,
0:51:21 > 0:51:22great works of art, that he
0:51:22 > 0:51:26has sucked in to decorate it from all the other bits of the empire.
0:51:26 > 0:51:29Yeah, well, he's a powerful emperor, isn't he?
0:51:29 > 0:51:31This is a display of power.
0:51:31 > 0:51:34He made this a traditional Roman city with all
0:51:34 > 0:51:38the features that the biggest city he knew, Rome, had.
0:51:38 > 0:51:40They didn't call themselves Byzantines,
0:51:40 > 0:51:42they called themselves Romans
0:51:42 > 0:51:46and they were absolutely convinced that they were the Roman Empire.
0:51:48 > 0:51:52In fact, here in the East, the Christian Roman Empire lasted
0:51:52 > 0:51:58right up to 1453, when the Ottomans conquered Byzantium.
0:51:58 > 0:52:01In the West, it was a different story.
0:52:04 > 0:52:08Rome was still Rome but it was more a showcase of architecture
0:52:08 > 0:52:12and culture than the capital of power.
0:52:12 > 0:52:15But the northern frontiers were more porous than ever.
0:52:15 > 0:52:17Outsiders pushed in.
0:52:17 > 0:52:20And even if it was now a hollow symbol,
0:52:20 > 0:52:23the city of Rome was still a prize.
0:52:25 > 0:52:29Driven by the Huns, various tribes, like the Visigoths,
0:52:29 > 0:52:33the Ostrogoths and the Vandals, moved towards the Western Empire.
0:52:36 > 0:52:41The legendary "sack of Rome" didn't happen once, but three times.
0:52:41 > 0:52:44Roman armies were defeated, citizens were killed
0:52:44 > 0:52:47and the city itself was looted and pillaged.
0:52:52 > 0:52:56The very words "barbarian" and "Vandal" now conjure up
0:52:56 > 0:53:00a picture of wanton destruction of all that is civilised.
0:53:01 > 0:53:05But that popular image, powerful as it is, is quite unfair.
0:53:06 > 0:53:10This is a wonderfully vivid 19th-century attempt to
0:53:10 > 0:53:15picture the barbarian hordes in action, destroying the city of Rome.
0:53:17 > 0:53:21Long hair, funny topknots, plaits and moustaches.
0:53:21 > 0:53:24And a couple of them are trying to topple
0:53:24 > 0:53:27one of the symbols of imperial power.
0:53:27 > 0:53:30Their mates are getting their torches ready
0:53:30 > 0:53:31to set the place ablaze.
0:53:35 > 0:53:40Actually, the world of the new West was nothing like this.
0:53:40 > 0:53:44It's true that political unity had collapsed
0:53:44 > 0:53:48and there was plenty of destructive military conflict.
0:53:48 > 0:53:52But what emerged was a series of rival powers,
0:53:52 > 0:53:55who were, in effect, mini Romes,
0:53:55 > 0:53:58who were trying to buy into the prestige of Rome
0:53:58 > 0:54:03and Romanness, rather than trying to buy out of it.
0:54:03 > 0:54:05They sponsored Latin poetry,
0:54:05 > 0:54:10they developed the traditions of Roman law, and they were more likely
0:54:10 > 0:54:13to be restoring the monuments of the Roman past,
0:54:13 > 0:54:15not trying to pull them down.
0:54:16 > 0:54:20The empire, in a political sense, had gone.
0:54:20 > 0:54:25But the cultural hegemony of Rome remained, even in the West.
0:54:26 > 0:54:32These people were not Romans. But they were imitating Rome,
0:54:32 > 0:54:36much like many modern empires have done ever since.
0:54:39 > 0:54:43With these barbarians imitating the Romans so closely,
0:54:43 > 0:54:46can we really call it the fall of the Roman Empire?
0:54:46 > 0:54:53How do you decide how or when an empire starts or ends?
0:54:53 > 0:54:57What counts? Is it territorial control?
0:54:57 > 0:55:02Is it law or culture? Is it the Roman brand?
0:55:02 > 0:55:07There has been an enormous transformation and, in many ways,
0:55:07 > 0:55:11this is no longer the empire that looked back to Romulus,
0:55:11 > 0:55:16with his definition of what it meant to be a Roman.
0:55:16 > 0:55:19It's a transformation, a revolution, almost,
0:55:19 > 0:55:22that I see clearly here,
0:55:22 > 0:55:26in what was once Rome's mini capital of Trier, in Germany,
0:55:26 > 0:55:31in the grand Imperial Throne Room, that later became a church.
0:55:40 > 0:55:45The conclusion I come to is that the real heir of the Roman Empire
0:55:45 > 0:55:47was Christendom.
0:55:47 > 0:55:52Not an empire of political domination, or not only that,
0:55:52 > 0:55:56but an empire of the mind.
0:55:56 > 0:56:01And, in its own ambitions, at least,
0:56:01 > 0:56:05still an empire without limit.
0:56:18 > 0:56:21From the mythical beginnings of Romulus and Remus
0:56:21 > 0:56:24to the political and military systems that enabled expansion,
0:56:24 > 0:56:28it's the image of Rome that, for better or worse,
0:56:28 > 0:56:32has acted as a benchmark for so many later empires.
0:56:32 > 0:56:36Britain, Russia, America, even Nazi Germany,
0:56:36 > 0:56:41have all tried to recreate what they saw as the glory of ancient Rome.
0:56:43 > 0:56:47And they haven't avoided some of the same problems, dilemmas
0:56:47 > 0:56:50and conflicts of imperial rule.
0:56:51 > 0:56:55Today in the West, we still wonder where our boundaries lie
0:56:55 > 0:56:58and what limits should be placed on inclusion.
0:57:03 > 0:57:05We've inherited the Romans' ambivalence too -
0:57:05 > 0:57:09questioning whether the ends ever justify the means -
0:57:09 > 0:57:13the tears alongside the victory parades.
0:57:22 > 0:57:262,000 years ago, the Roman historian, Tacitus,
0:57:26 > 0:57:30offered one image of the fallout of Roman conquest.
0:57:30 > 0:57:34"They make a desert," he wrote, "and they call it peace."
0:57:34 > 0:57:37I first read that when I was a bit of an awkward teenager,
0:57:37 > 0:57:39and I still remember the moment.
0:57:39 > 0:57:42Because it was the first time that the Romans
0:57:42 > 0:57:45actually seemed to speak to ME.
0:57:48 > 0:57:52It was the brutal clarity of it that was so striking.
0:57:54 > 0:57:59And I guess that ever since, however much I've admired the Romans,
0:57:59 > 0:58:01however much I've been repelled by them,
0:58:01 > 0:58:05they have always held my attention.
0:58:05 > 0:58:11For me, it's the conversation that we can still have with the Romans that's so important.
0:58:11 > 0:58:16The conversation that makes us think harder about ourselves
0:58:16 > 0:58:20and about the ideas and problems that we have in common with them.
0:58:20 > 0:58:25There's a little bit of the Romans in the head of every one of us.
0:58:25 > 0:58:30And that's why Rome still matters.