The Skeleton of an Empire

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0:00:03 > 0:00:07In the beginning there was a patch of hill and valley beside the sea.

0:00:07 > 0:00:11That patch grew through confidence, through ambition,

0:00:11 > 0:00:14through a sense of adventure. But chiefly as the trees grow

0:00:14 > 0:00:19while the sun shines, through a sort of obscure inevitability.

0:00:19 > 0:00:23Ultimately it stretched from the Atlantic to the Tigris.

0:00:23 > 0:00:28It reached the Emperor of China. It was the world. Then it crumbled.

0:00:28 > 0:00:31Colony after colony fell away from it.

0:00:31 > 0:00:36It continued to win wars, but more and more often lost the peace.

0:00:36 > 0:00:39Its citizens worked less and depended more and more

0:00:39 > 0:00:42upon welfare and having a good time.

0:00:42 > 0:00:46Its civil service grew larger and larger

0:00:46 > 0:00:50and interfered increasingly with everyday life.

0:00:50 > 0:00:53Taxation eat out its heart, even death was taxed.

0:00:55 > 0:00:57It vanished into history almost imperceptibly.

0:00:59 > 0:01:02I've been talking of an empire, but I wonder whether you and I

0:01:02 > 0:01:05have the same empire in mind, perhaps we have.

0:01:05 > 0:01:09HORN AND DRUMS PLAY

0:01:22 > 0:01:25I've been speaking, of course, of Ancient Rome.

0:01:26 > 0:01:29The Rome which gave us London and York,

0:01:29 > 0:01:32codes of law and highways and drains,

0:01:32 > 0:01:35and an alphabet and a few snatches of Virgil.

0:01:36 > 0:01:39The Rome which gave us factories and post offices

0:01:39 > 0:01:42and the changing of the guard and soap.

0:01:42 > 0:01:45The Rome which first gave us civilization

0:01:45 > 0:01:48and then taught us how to misuse it.

0:01:48 > 0:01:51The Rome which survives in nostalgic romance

0:01:51 > 0:01:55and in enduring concrete, and as a compulsory subject in schools

0:01:55 > 0:01:59and universities, which is perhaps a part of that concrete.

0:02:02 > 0:02:06Roman Britain. Hadrian's Wall in Northumberland 18 centuries ago -

0:02:06 > 0:02:09the furthest northern frontier of the Roman Empire.

0:02:09 > 0:02:12See how the hand of Rome reaches out

0:02:12 > 0:02:16and plunges its long finger nails into the English landscape.

0:02:16 > 0:02:19Beyond this wall, tribal barbarians.

0:02:19 > 0:02:22Behind it, you could be a citizen whatever your race.

0:02:22 > 0:02:27You had law, towns, central heating, the bricks of civilization.

0:02:27 > 0:02:31Between the savages and the soap, stood this wall.

0:02:31 > 0:02:33And along it, the frontiersman of civilization -

0:02:33 > 0:02:37Italians, Frenchmen, Germans, Hungarians, Spaniards,

0:02:37 > 0:02:41even Shropshire lads and men of Devon. All in Roman uniform.

0:02:41 > 0:02:44Think of them peering northwards into the moorland mists,

0:02:44 > 0:02:46where at any moment the shapes of barbarian enemies

0:02:46 > 0:02:49might loom up like ghosts.

0:02:49 > 0:02:53Hadrian, the builder of this wall, wrote poetry on his deathbed.

0:02:53 > 0:02:57For 300 years the wall made peace and poetry possible.

0:02:57 > 0:02:59Then the barbarians won.

0:02:59 > 0:03:03The wall alone remained, rib of the imperial skeleton.

0:03:03 > 0:03:05Its busy fortresses faded into memory

0:03:05 > 0:03:07and then into forgetfulness.

0:03:12 > 0:03:15Imperious Caesar, dead and turned to clay,

0:03:15 > 0:03:19might stop a hole to keep the wind away.

0:03:19 > 0:03:22MILITARY HORN SOUNDS

0:03:22 > 0:03:27Behind the wall, the garrison town, York.

0:03:27 > 0:03:30Headquarters of the Roman army in Britain.

0:03:31 > 0:03:35Here came the Emperor Hadrian to plan the great frontier wall

0:03:35 > 0:03:37which we have seen.

0:03:37 > 0:03:40Here too, a century later, came another roman emperor,

0:03:40 > 0:03:45Septimius Severus, to have one more whack at the unbeaten Scots.

0:03:45 > 0:03:49He probably built the tower against which I'm standing.

0:03:49 > 0:03:53The old man Severus is rather a favourite of mine,

0:03:53 > 0:03:56although I happen myself to come from Scotland.

0:03:56 > 0:04:01When he came to York, the stars had already foretold his doom.

0:04:02 > 0:04:05He suffered from gout and an outrageous family.

0:04:06 > 0:04:09But he was carried defiantly on a stretcher,

0:04:09 > 0:04:12northwards at the head of his army, levelling mountains

0:04:12 > 0:04:16and filling up swamps as the historian tells us.

0:04:16 > 0:04:18He came back to York to die.

0:04:20 > 0:04:24And we're told how his body was placed here on a funeral pyre which

0:04:24 > 0:04:30was lighted by his sons, I suspect, with a cynical indifference.

0:04:31 > 0:04:34His soldiers threw gifts into the flames

0:04:34 > 0:04:39and his ashes were taken back to Rome in an urn of porphyry.

0:04:41 > 0:04:43His death marked an epoch in the Roman Empire.

0:04:45 > 0:04:51From that moment, Rome and civilization were on the defensive,

0:04:51 > 0:04:54their backs to the wall.

0:04:54 > 0:04:56Here at York, new towers were built at last

0:04:56 > 0:05:00to keep resurgent barbarism at bay.

0:05:03 > 0:05:07From the extreme north and the dead Emperor Severus to the extreme

0:05:07 > 0:05:10south of the empire and the same man's birthplace, to North Africa.

0:05:10 > 0:05:12Here in Libya,

0:05:12 > 0:05:17at this magnificent town of Lepcis Magna, Septimius Severus was born.

0:05:17 > 0:05:19From Libya to Yorkshire,

0:05:19 > 0:05:25the span of this man's lifeline was almost the span of the Roman Empire.

0:06:18 > 0:06:21Yet even Lepcis Magna did not quite complete the span of Rome.

0:06:21 > 0:06:26400 miles south from Lepcis and the coast, in the desert of the Fezzan,

0:06:26 > 0:06:31stands a lonely tomb. Furthest monument of Rome's greatness.

0:06:31 > 0:06:35Here in Africa was once the granary of Rome,

0:06:35 > 0:06:38Roman dams stored up the rain,

0:06:38 > 0:06:44African corn and olives filled the markets of Rome. Then Rome fell.

0:06:44 > 0:06:47The sand sea engulfed the scene.

0:06:47 > 0:06:52In our time other Empires have come this way.

0:06:52 > 0:06:57ENGINES RUMBLE

0:07:00 > 0:07:04New desert armies sweep across the landscape.

0:07:04 > 0:07:07Behind their smoke and dust, rise again the stones of some of the

0:07:07 > 0:07:14grandest cities of the Roman Empire, above all Lepcis Magna itself.

0:07:15 > 0:07:19Nothing shows the universality of Rome more vividly than this.

0:07:19 > 0:07:22Severus, local boy made good,

0:07:22 > 0:07:26proudly proclaimed Britannicus, in the African city of his birth.

0:07:26 > 0:07:28Here at Lepcis, you can

0:07:28 > 0:07:32see the structure of a Roman town almost to perfection.

0:07:32 > 0:07:37Its town hall is unsurpassed in the Roman world.

0:07:55 > 0:08:00Indeed imperial ambition sometimes o'erleapt itself.

0:08:00 > 0:08:03The harbour is a triumph of grandeur over actual need.

0:08:03 > 0:08:07It silted up almost at once and the mooring blocks remain unused,

0:08:07 > 0:08:09a Roman folly.

0:08:15 > 0:08:19ALARMING HORNS SOUND

0:08:19 > 0:08:23The marketplace was wrecked by vandals once Rome had collapsed.

0:08:23 > 0:08:28Yet it still speaks grandly with a thousand voices.

0:08:49 > 0:08:52And now the market is more homely in its eloquence.

0:08:52 > 0:08:56Here are the grooves where Roman knives were sharpened.

0:08:58 > 0:09:00There, the standard measures of length,

0:09:00 > 0:09:04like those which another empire has placed in London's Trafalgar Square.

0:09:04 > 0:09:08For volume, the shopkeeper filled up one of these containers

0:09:08 > 0:09:10and you held your bag underneath.

0:09:10 > 0:09:13Bread in the marketplace, music hall or drama next door.

0:09:18 > 0:09:22ECHO OF VOICES SPEAKING LATIN

0:09:40 > 0:09:42Behind the theatre,

0:09:42 > 0:09:45a pedestal that once carried the statue of an honoured actor.

0:09:45 > 0:09:49Pantomimus he's called, an actor in pantomime.

0:09:49 > 0:09:52"The best turn of his day," the inscription reads.

0:09:56 > 0:10:00What a lot of life this city still has in it, though all in stone.

0:10:06 > 0:10:10OMINOUS HORNS SOUND

0:10:10 > 0:10:13And now for the western and eastern boundaries of this vast empire.

0:10:23 > 0:10:26Timgad, to the west of Libya, in Algeria.

0:10:31 > 0:10:33Merida, to the far west in Spain.

0:10:38 > 0:10:41And to the near east, in Jordan, Jerash.

0:10:46 > 0:10:48In the Lebanon, the famed magnificence of Baalbek.

0:10:50 > 0:10:55Everywhere, Romans ruled and traded, legions marched,

0:10:55 > 0:10:58arches and pillars framed the imperial pattern.

0:10:58 > 0:11:01But the real business, that which gave these provinces life

0:11:01 > 0:11:06and law, was the eternal city herself, haughty Rome.

0:11:06 > 0:11:07Rome above the nations.

0:11:22 > 0:11:25Look down on her shell and conjure up the imperial city

0:11:25 > 0:11:27when emperors reigned.

0:11:27 > 0:11:30A million people and more thriving on excess of every kind,

0:11:30 > 0:11:32including that of martyrdom.

0:11:41 > 0:11:48And yet, a city decisive for the souls of men as no other place.

0:12:16 > 0:12:19Perversely, it is a mild philosopher,

0:12:19 > 0:12:24Marcus Aurelius who surveys the city from one of its seven hills.

0:12:24 > 0:12:27With an unconvincing gesture of command,

0:12:27 > 0:12:32an emperor no longer sure of empire. A puzzled university don.

0:12:32 > 0:12:35But there's an accidental rightness about his posture.

0:12:35 > 0:12:38His back is turned to the forum.

0:12:38 > 0:12:41Say what you will, the Roman forum is a mess.

0:12:41 > 0:12:44Once the hub of the civilized world,

0:12:44 > 0:12:48the forum today bears the likeness of an excoriated cemetery.

0:12:48 > 0:12:51Grandeur is a hard word to fit to it.

0:12:51 > 0:12:56Yet strangely, grandeur is there. Clothe these stones with history,

0:12:56 > 0:12:59the murder of Caesar, the fire of Rome, the spread of Christianity

0:12:59 > 0:13:03and you hand any man the fabric of his own past.

0:13:03 > 0:13:05This is indeed the graveyard of an empire.

0:13:05 > 0:13:08The temple of fame stands upon the grave.

0:13:08 > 0:13:10The flame that burns upon its altars is kindled

0:13:10 > 0:13:12from the ashes of great men.

0:13:23 > 0:13:28Rome invested heavily in the pre existing civilization of Greece

0:13:28 > 0:13:32and in so doing, enlarged and infused the products

0:13:32 > 0:13:35and skills of that very great civilization.

0:13:37 > 0:13:39It put the ideas of the Greek world on a moving belt

0:13:39 > 0:13:44and mass produced them with added tricks and novelties of its own.

0:13:45 > 0:13:49As a cultivated commercial power,

0:13:49 > 0:13:53it governed millions for its own exclusive benefit and dignity.

0:13:54 > 0:13:58After all, it's given to some to rule and others to obey.

0:13:58 > 0:14:01And in the make-up of the Roman people

0:14:01 > 0:14:05was an inherited power to command.

0:14:05 > 0:14:09But at the same time, it set a grandiose

0:14:09 > 0:14:14pattern of civilization before the barbarian world.

0:14:14 > 0:14:18And a provincial city, in a moment of exultation,

0:14:18 > 0:14:23could think of no higher claim than to boast it was a "little Rome".

0:14:25 > 0:14:32Yes, I suppose that the Romans were the greatest tycoons of history.

0:14:34 > 0:14:37Their empire was a vast, flamboyant department store,

0:14:37 > 0:14:41out to make money at all costs and graft was no doubt its second name.

0:14:41 > 0:14:44But it also meant peace.

0:14:44 > 0:14:50The Roman equivalent of peace with honour was peace with profit.

0:14:50 > 0:14:55And in order to make profit, it had to give value.

0:14:55 > 0:14:59Trade then, was the lifeblood of this tremendous organism.

0:14:59 > 0:15:01Imperial tradesmen travelled from the Atlantic to

0:15:01 > 0:15:05the Pacific, the Emperor of China himself traded with Rome

0:15:05 > 0:15:08and found the Romans honest in their dealings.

0:15:10 > 0:15:13China at the eastern end of the world and at the western end,

0:15:13 > 0:15:17Rome's own port, Ostia by the Tiber.

0:15:17 > 0:15:20Ostia, gradually uncovered by the Italian state,

0:15:20 > 0:15:23is one of the most spectacular Roman merchant cities.

0:15:23 > 0:15:28It's a place whose citizens had nothing of the Oxford accent

0:15:28 > 0:15:31or the Horatian sniff, where business was business.

0:16:04 > 0:16:08In the heart of the town were the shipping companies.

0:16:08 > 0:16:10The mosaic floors tell us their names

0:16:10 > 0:16:13and the commodities of the ports with which they traded.

0:16:20 > 0:16:25This way for trade with Africa, to Sabratha, with its African elephant.

0:16:25 > 0:16:28If the port of London were destroyed tomorrow and had gone

0:16:28 > 0:16:33in for mosaics, you would find there precisely what you find in Ostia.

0:16:33 > 0:16:35A microcosm of the world beyond the seas.

0:16:35 > 0:16:39Ships to Carthage, to Bizerte, to the other end of the Mediterranean.

0:16:51 > 0:16:55Even Ostia's own river delta was recorded in mosaic

0:16:55 > 0:16:57and reminds us how the port died.

0:16:57 > 0:16:59It silted up and was left high and dry.

0:17:05 > 0:17:11Ostia has none of Rome's grandeur, it is commercial and ordinary.

0:17:11 > 0:17:14Yet, on that account, extraordinarily real.

0:17:14 > 0:17:18Its architecture anticipated suburbia by 1,700 years.

0:17:18 > 0:17:21Those years have mellowed and perhaps improved it.

0:17:22 > 0:17:23It had its moments.

0:17:23 > 0:17:27Well to do merchants instead of mock-Tudor and Monkey puzzle trees,

0:17:27 > 0:17:32on occasion displayed a mass produced art of a certain elegance.

0:17:39 > 0:17:41More anatomy of empire.

0:17:41 > 0:17:46Pompeii below Vesuvius, second rate and famous for the wrong reason.

0:17:46 > 0:17:51In the year 79, lava and ash buried the whole place.

0:17:51 > 0:17:54Nothing in Pompeii's life became it like the leaving of it.

0:17:54 > 0:17:58Nevertheless, its poor familiar bones show that

0:17:58 > 0:18:01something of Roman grandeur reached down to very ordinary citizens.

0:18:05 > 0:18:08Straight streets planned and paved a pattern.

0:18:08 > 0:18:11Equipped even, with a Roman version of our zebra crossings.

0:18:16 > 0:18:19Public fountains for the hot, south wind of summer.

0:18:23 > 0:18:26And a standard of living so widespread,

0:18:26 > 0:18:29that no doubt on the very eve of destruction Pompeians were

0:18:29 > 0:18:32saying to one another, "we've never had it so good."

0:18:35 > 0:18:38A few miles away along the Naples coast, Herculaneum.

0:18:38 > 0:18:42Most of it still buried below the modern town of Resina.

0:18:42 > 0:18:45If Pompeians soiled their hands with work and trade,

0:18:45 > 0:18:49Herculaneum had more of Regency Brighton about it.

0:18:52 > 0:18:55To this day the volcanic mud, petrified by age,

0:18:55 > 0:18:58engulfs more than three quarters of the town.

0:19:09 > 0:19:14Here again, the characteristic Roman discipline of straight streets.

0:19:21 > 0:19:25Here too the leisured colonnades of the well to do.

0:19:25 > 0:19:28Hidden amongst them, as some scholars believe,

0:19:28 > 0:19:32is the first Christian cross, long years before it appeared elsewhere.

0:19:38 > 0:19:42But the provincial grandeur of Rome spread through a great

0:19:42 > 0:19:47part of Europe. Of it all, give me the great cities of Provence.

0:19:47 > 0:19:49Provence, the province par excellence.

0:19:49 > 0:19:52Shaped and colonized by the Romans.

0:20:38 > 0:20:41As judges of a comfortable human landscape,

0:20:41 > 0:20:44the Romans had few equals.

0:20:44 > 0:20:46Even the wild eye of van Gogh can not enflame

0:20:46 > 0:20:48the rich tranquillity of Provence.

0:20:59 > 0:21:04The Romans were less fierce than he in their Provencal affections.

0:21:04 > 0:21:09To them, the province supplied quiet, intelligent leisure.

0:21:09 > 0:21:10Time to think between meals,

0:21:10 > 0:21:14which is after all is a pretty good definition of civilization.

0:21:17 > 0:21:21These vineyards of Provence call to mind the ancient wines

0:21:21 > 0:21:25that are still fished up from time to time. From Greek

0:21:25 > 0:21:29and Roman wrecks along the Provencal coast.

0:21:29 > 0:21:35But above all they remind one of the fact that France, in origin,

0:21:35 > 0:21:38owes her vineyards to the Romans.

0:21:38 > 0:21:42In fact, the oldest vintage wine known to me

0:21:42 > 0:21:47in history is recorded from a Roman town in the south of France where

0:21:47 > 0:21:50the jar that contained it is labelled in Latin,

0:21:50 > 0:21:54"I am five years old."

0:21:54 > 0:21:56But that's not all.

0:21:56 > 0:22:01The whole Provencal landscape seems to me to have about it,

0:22:01 > 0:22:04something of a living Roman quality.

0:22:04 > 0:22:08It may be that the Provencal speech retains a Latin ring

0:22:08 > 0:22:10as indeed it does.

0:22:10 > 0:22:14It may be that the old Roman amphitheatres

0:22:14 > 0:22:18hereabouts are still used for blood sports of a Roman kind.

0:22:18 > 0:22:21And that the Provencal crowd reacts to them

0:22:21 > 0:22:25in an unreflective Roman way.

0:22:25 > 0:22:27But again, that's not the whole story.

0:22:27 > 0:22:31The tall black Cypresses and the tall white columns

0:22:31 > 0:22:36and buildings belong together as by traditional right.

0:22:36 > 0:22:42And close beneath the picturesque casualness of the modern

0:22:42 > 0:22:44Provencal town, lies the discipline of Rome

0:22:44 > 0:22:47and somehow one is conscious of it.

0:22:51 > 0:22:54Yes, I'm afraid that one is conscious too of a lingering

0:22:54 > 0:22:57savagery that is also Roman.

0:22:57 > 0:23:00There was a cruel edge to the grandeur that was Rome.

0:23:00 > 0:23:03Are we ourselves entirely guiltless?

0:23:03 > 0:23:06We know only too well from a famous mosaic in Tripoli what the

0:23:06 > 0:23:08Roman crowds loved.

0:23:40 > 0:23:42A whole paraphernalia of ancient barbarism.

0:23:42 > 0:23:45Wild beasts, the feeding of prisoners to Lions,

0:23:45 > 0:23:49gladiators fighting to the finish, the ominous funeral bier for the

0:23:49 > 0:23:53loser and an orchestra with trumpets and pipe organ for background music.

0:23:57 > 0:24:00Translate this to the same Roman amphitheatre

0:24:00 > 0:24:02in our own time at Arles or Nimes.

0:24:09 > 0:24:12CROWD CHANTS

0:24:53 > 0:24:591960, AD 160, different animals, different people, but the same

0:24:59 > 0:25:04emotions, the same satisfactions, the same masochistic barbarism.

0:25:51 > 0:25:52Mass emotion.

0:25:52 > 0:25:56We too have our frenzied cup-ties, our boxing championships,

0:25:56 > 0:25:59our bloodsports. We follow where Rome led.

0:25:59 > 0:26:02The Roman empire was there before us.

0:26:05 > 0:26:08But what, after all, did all this really amount to?

0:26:08 > 0:26:12Oh, what did that Roman Empire mean?

0:26:12 > 0:26:17Apart from wide areas of Europe, Asia and Africa

0:26:17 > 0:26:21and uncounted millions of assorted human beings.

0:26:22 > 0:26:26Was it all really rather like one of those

0:26:26 > 0:26:29mountainous primeval monsters?

0:26:29 > 0:26:33Those dinosaurs whose little brains were too small

0:26:33 > 0:26:39to steer their huge carcases through time and change.

0:26:39 > 0:26:41Or was there more to it than that?

0:26:41 > 0:26:47Even in its failures, some intelligent

0:26:47 > 0:26:50power of fulfilment that can mean something for us today.

0:26:53 > 0:27:01You know, it'd be easy to recite a stirring story of battles won.

0:27:01 > 0:27:04Of Horatius defending his bridge,

0:27:04 > 0:27:08Julius Caesar fighting with shaggy Gauls and Britons on the one hand

0:27:08 > 0:27:13and with contentious politicians at home on the other.

0:27:13 > 0:27:17But that sort of two-way battle has been the job of successful

0:27:17 > 0:27:19generals through the ages.

0:27:19 > 0:27:23Or it would be easy to add up miles of Roman road

0:27:23 > 0:27:25and acres of Roman town planning

0:27:25 > 0:27:32and to leave those Romans as successful engineers and plumbers.

0:27:32 > 0:27:35But after all there were good engineers and excellent plumbers

0:27:35 > 0:27:40long before the Romans and there have been a few since. No.

0:27:40 > 0:27:45Those Romans had something very much more than all that.

0:27:45 > 0:27:48Something more than military prowess.

0:27:48 > 0:27:53Something more than civic discipline and codes of law.

0:27:53 > 0:27:58In religion, they gave us the empire of the early Christian church.

0:27:58 > 0:28:03In art, they gave us the first romantic movement. Pulling mankind

0:28:03 > 0:28:08out of the studios and setting him squarely on the landscape.

0:28:08 > 0:28:11Surely that was their grandest achievement.

0:28:11 > 0:28:14First they brought men and women down to earth

0:28:14 > 0:28:18and then gave them the prospect of a new heaven.

0:29:01 > 0:29:04Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd