The Roman Empire - Episode 1: The Rise of the Roman Empire (History Documentary)

The Roman Empire - Episode 1: The Rise of the Roman Empire (History Documentary)

Two thousand years ago, one civilisation held the entire Western world in its grasp. From Northern Europe to Africa, it imposed laws, ideas and a single language. Rome was the super power and a colossal empire.

Travel back in time and experience the exporting of the Roman world through the glory years of conquest to the longest period of stability the world has ever known.

EPISODE 1: RISE OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE
Two thousand years ago, one civilisation held the entire Western world in its grasp. From Northern Europe to Africa and the Middle East. It imposed laws, ideas and a single language. Rome was the super power of the ancient world. Indeed later super powers never stopped learning the lessons of her spectacular rise and fall. Rome truly was a colossal empire. During the rise of the Roman Empire, it was not always easy to separate virtue from vice, or hero from villain. Indeed, all too often, they were one and the same. Rome was still an adolescent discovering who it wanted to be, and its dream of greatness was a prlude to a nightmare. It was not for another 100 years that the state would mature and commit to one enduring view of itself. It would be the army, more than any other force that was destined to shape Rome's lasting identity.

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Closed Caption:

yeah
over a thousand years after owns fall
the armies of the french emperor
napoleon send unsee
Napoleon's forces have already battled
their way through Europe take Rome seems
by this time it's a backwater but from
Napoleon
it has an almost religious significance
he claims he's the spiritual descendants
of the Roman emperors
he has himself painted wearing the Roman
crown of laurels as if Rome still rules
the world
his troops marched unopposed into the
city
it's like walking into a ghost town
they find the frightened Romans huddling
among the ruins of the ancient city
crumbling palaces and arches still
seemed to echo the Magnificent triumph
they were built to celebrate
goats and cattle graze where thousands
once throng the streets
in 70 AD
when the Emperor Vespasian started
building the massive policy
Rome was ten times larger than the city
the polling found the space and wanted a
great theater for the gory spectacle
Roman so loved
the scale of the Roman games like the
scale of Rome itself was staggering
the Coliseum had seating for 45,000 and
standing room for 20,000 more
in one series of games five thousand
people and eleven thousand animals were
slaughtered
yeah
nothing in
with this gruesome splatter fest
love you
ality all too real and the Romans were
addicted to
when he saw the blood
rather than turn away he fixed his eyes
on the scene and took in all its frenzy
he reveled in the wickedness of the
fighting and grew intoxicated with the
bloodshed and he left the arena
he took with him a sick mind which left
him no peace until he came back again
simple gustan they did get excited
watching glenn just one another and that
denying
but you know what so the wii
I think for example of the brouhaha over
Mike Tyson right
what Mike Tyson did when he bit
was that your band Holyfield's ear that
would have been applauded in the Roman
arena that's great that's what you're
supposed to do and thank you supposed to
rip the year off and and march around
the arena with in your mouth
that's what you're supposed to do
Rome savagery was matched by its size
when the Colosseum was built Rome was a
city of a million people and growing
not until London the 19th century with a
city approach this size again
what I think could notice of a time
traveler went back will be the smell
the noise the dirt the crowdedness need
to be lots of beggar's lots of signs of
sickness disease
lots of small children rather like
Calcutta or Rio crowded modern time the
poor with these monumental buildings in
the center expressing the wealth and
power of the Empire
traffic was terrible Julius Caesar
forbade wheel traffic during the day so
people could move around which meant
that at night all these carts started
going on these stone streets and it was
so noisy that you couldn't sleep
- manage the problems of organizing such
a huge concentration of people
the Romans invented the science of urban
planet they invented cement built
gigantic public storehouses and
installed citywide sewage systems but
their greatest achievement was the water
supply the aqueducts of Rome reach 60
and 70 miles into the hills to guarantee
a continual flow of freshwater into the
city that flow of freshwater are
provided enough a water gallons per
person per day that was not equal by the
city of Rome until the nineteen fifties
along with millions of gallons of water
Romans consumed a staggering 8,000 tons
of grain weekly supertankers each
carrying a thousand tons of brain
criss cross the Mediterranean they were
the largest ships built until the
Atlantic steamers of the 19th century
the city of Rome was the heart of an
empire that stretched from Scotland to
Syria
and
never has the Western world's been
better organized or more United
in the year 100 AD you could travel from
Egypt to France on paved roads with only
one currency and one passport in your
pocket
yeah
and this vast well-organized Empire
would muster the largest army the world
has ever seen
over half a million soldiers
yeah
Rome was the super power of the ancient
world
ok
later superpowers never stop learning
the lessons of its spectacular rise and
fall
Napoleon was not alone in his obsession
20 years before Napoleon marched into
Rome on the other side of the Atlantic a
group of men were designing a political
system for their new country
in designing the constitution of these
United States of America we have various
time sought president in the history of
that ancient republic and endeavour to
draw lessons both from its leading ideas
and from the tumult and factions which
finally brought it low
Thomas Jefferson
the American Founding Fathers spent most
of their childhood and much of their
adulthood reading the lab classes to the
founders the past was not something that
was dead it was something that was alive
especially the roman passed it was alive
with personal and social meaning this
was a crucial i think the american
revolution because they were doing
something really unprecedented in this
revolution and it and yet they were able
to feel that they were not the first the
basis of our political system I think
lies in roam the Western world grew up
in Rome shadow
yeah
it's legends its laws its institutions
and its language
Napoleon said the story of Rome is the
story of the world
it's a story of great commanders and
politicians
men like Caesar Augustus Hadrian and
Constantine but it's also a story of the
poor
who bore the brunt of their leaders
ambitions
it's a story of vast idealism and an
equally vast greed for power and finally
it's the story of long spectacular fall
k Ostin
but behind all that are the stories of
Rome's beginnings almost 3,000 years ago
in the lush hills of central
when the Mediterranean sailors of
ancient Greece and Egypt looked West
totally they stared into a great unknown
it was eight hundred years before the
birth of Christ and wrong still didn't
exist but stories were told of
mysterious people's with strange exotic
customs and untold riches the tales with
your resistible setting off from the
great civilized cities of the east
like Athens and tire adventurous Greek
traders sailed west into uncharted seems
yeah
navigating by the stars without
instruments they began to explore a
remote and little-known peninsula of the
western Mediterranean area
they called it esperia the land of the
evening sun on the 8th century BC time
of westward expansion Phoenicians going
west Greeks going west founding colonies
when the Greeks sailed into Italy they
found something they didn't expect an
advanced civilization already there
here in the hills of Tuscany there were
already walled cities there were kings
and high priests
there were skillful craftsman who
created a tender and sensuous art like
no other in the Mediterranean and there
were traders ready to barter the finest
gold and iron work the ancient world had
ever seen
before Rome there were the Etruscans
they taught the Romans everything but
left no written records
incredible
the truss concerns were some of the most
amazing artisans that the West has ever
seen
they worked in metal for sculpture
they worked in terracotta and life-size
statues these amazing inviting
expressions very warm
they're not cold and distant but they
are there they're people that you want
to meet the Etruscans lived in the
Fertile hills of Tuscany
but they're real wealth lay underground
the richest deposits of iron or copper
and 10 in the central Mediterranean
mm-hmm
as early as 700 BC they created shaft
tunnels subterranean galleries smelters
and slag heaps so vast that two and a
half thousand years later
Mussolini reprocess them to produce
weapons for World War two
etruscans traded their metal work as far
afield as Syria portugal and even
sweeten
but above all the Etruscans were famous
for their open displays of affection
between men and women
it shocked the ancient world
the Greeks who knew the Etruscans from
very early on before Rome was anything
before Rome was saw that the Etruscan
people gave a position to women that the
Greeks certainly wouldn't
not only were women part of the entire
house
women reclined at banquets with men
which for a Greek was absolutely
unthinkable
it is no shame for the Etruscans to be
seen having sexual experiences for this
too is normal there
it seems to be the local custom
posidonia yes
and they show no shame in sensuous acts
while the torches are still lit servants
bring in courtesans sometimes even their
own wives and they all engage in
lovemaking publicly the pompous the
Greeks and later the Romans loved to
embroider scandalous stories about the
decadence of the Etruscans they were
almost certainly untrue
but it is true that the Etruscans
created memorable portraits of sensual
pleasure
after the Etruscans the idea of
portraying such intimacy between men and
women disappeared from Western art for
almost 2,000 years
the change began with the Romans who
grew up in their shadow
the first Romans were primitive tough
backwoodsman
they resented the Etruscans but had
everything to learn from them including
the darker sides of civilization
like all ancient people the Etruscans
were rigidly / class brutal rituals
enforce the power and prestige of the
nobility Etruscan staged games at the
funerals of important men
the losers were killed
their blood celebrated the prestige of
the dead man was an offering to his
spirit
the wrestlers were slaves captured in
warfare
their lives were worth nothing
only their deaths were significant the
practice of human sacrifice was common
in the ancient world the Etruscans were
no exception
the blood of slaves and captives Water
the ground at state rituals throughout
the Mediterranean
Romans inherited the Etruscan taste for
sacrificial blood gladiatorial combat
was the Roman equivalent of these gory
celebrations of power
Rome took everything from the Etruscans
Etruscan engineers showed them how to
drain the marshes where Rome now stands
and channel the water and underground
sewers Etruscan architects and builders
laid out the Roman Forum is a public
square in the 7th century BC the Romans
owed everything to the Etruscans they
would one day turn on crush their
beautiful cities and defame their memory
it would be the first step on Rome's
path to empire
yeah
yeah
most of what we know about the birth of
Rome comes from the work of one man one
of Rome's greatest historians Livvy
he lived in the reign of the Emperor
Augustus over 700 years after the city
was founded the glory of Rome was at its
height but Romans were already haunted
by the specter of decline
yeah
yeah
the Empire was emerging from decades of
civil war bitterness and political
intrigue were rampant
decadence read and profiteering with the
order of the
yeah
two men like living raised on the Romans
stoic virtues of Valor loyalty and
self-sacrifice
it seemed the spirit of Rome was rotting
I feel that indulgence has brought us
through every form of sensual access to
be morbidly attracted to death in all
its forms
Rome is that the dark dawning of an
agent which we can either endure our
vices North Face the remedies needed to
cure them living
the cure was what Emperor Augustus was
looking for
he cracked down on dissent and passed
laws to punish him around
he was determined to reform the Empire
and forced to return to Roman family
values
body poets like Javed wrote the art of
love were banished to the asian steps
when his own daughter Julia was rumored
to have slept with half the Senate
Augustus banished her as well
Livvy saw in Augustus or in Octavian a
chance for the world to finally settle
down and get back to business
what made Rome great to begin with
you got to go back and look who were the
heroes of the past that made roam the
city she was I hope that history may be
the best cure for a sick mind at least
it can remind us of what we once were
and show us the depths to which we are
now sinking live he set out to write a
brief history of early Rome celebrating
its glories and virtues propaganda for
the reforms of Augustus
what he had to go on where stories
handed down over the centuries they were
a mixture of fact and legend
I for one am looking forward to
absorbing myself in antiquity because
I'm so deeply tired of the modern world
and all the troubles which tormented
living
yeah
yeah
he believed romans mythological
beginnings would reveal the stories of
heroism and nobility Romans needed to
hear
but the stories of Rome's origins were
short on stoic virtues and long on
murder rape mayhem in fratricide
to his dismay living discovered they
echoed the cruel realities of the Roman
world of his own day
legends told that Rome was founded by
Romulus and Remus twins who were cast
into the wilderness to die but the boys
were said to be saved by a she-wolf who
suckled they grew up like savages in the
woods
when they return to found the city of
Rome they were filled with the simple
ferocious spirit of their wolfmother
according to legend
romulus and remus then let their people
to the bend in the river Tiber where she
found their Rome was born the year was
753 BC
but hardly had they founded the city
than the two brothers quarreled over who
should be king
it was left to the augurs to decide
yeah
augurs were the priests of early Rome
who defined the will of the gods
they studied the movements of birds the
weather
the entrance of sheep before making
their pronouncements known as the
auguries
yeah
yeah
the augers placed each brother on the
hilltop then waited
when birds flocked over Romulus they
knew he would be the first king of Rome
yeah
but Remus refused the augury and the
brothers fault
yeah
yeah
Romulus killed him
the first king of Rome suckled by a wolf
bathed in his brother's blood walked
away
furious and triumphant it was a fitting
augury for the bloodshed and strife that
lay ahead
the story about ramen is killing his
twin brother
the man
the city is a very old story it's very
very remarkable that in the late
republic
the Romans were fighting civil wars and
of course
it didn't escape their notice that they
seem to be prefigured in the
here in the myth with Romulus killing
his brother actually thought this was a
sort of curse on them that they were
fated to to destroy each other
well the whole p Roman psyche was was
based on violence if you look at the
foundation legends of Romulus and Remus
that based on that fracture site right
one brother kills another to found the
city arm and from that point it just
escalates the violence of the early
Romans in fact and fiction was born of
desperation in real life
shunned by neighboring tribes Rome was
forced to welcome outcasts vagrants and
fugitives and they lowered their
neighbors the say binds to a ritual of
peacemaking and they're all pretty
desperate a lot and roam the the
earliest community that
that is organized in that way of course
there's a place where no one wants to go
so they haven't got any women that's the
first problem
and so the Romans Romulus in particular
got an idea
new religious festival let's invite the
neighbors
bring your wife and kids especially the
daughters
the same vines were wary but accept
as the festivities went on into the
night to save vines relax their guard is
what the Romans were waiting for Romulus
gave the sign and they attack they
grabbed the women and drove off
say vine
once they didn't
when painters of a later age portrayed
the rape of the say bye and women they
imagined a classical city
they were wrong the early Romans were
primitive people struggling desperately
to survive the grim stories of the first
Romans were a surprising to Livi as they
are to us
they certainly didn't provide the role
models he was looking for
his little book turned into one of the
most monumental histories ever written
by the time he died in 17 ad it had
grown to a hundred and forty two volumes
all written laborious Lee in wax it had
absorbed his entire life
Livvy's Chronicle was the best seller of
its day it was more successful than he
could ever have hoped but had no effect
whatsoever on the moral chaos of empire
even a hundred and forty two books were
no match for the influence of so much
power by now ron was a juggernaut lose
momentum was unstoppable its course set
by its mythic beginnings
whether fact or fiction sure
as it approached the 5th century bc rome
was emerging from its legendary passed
into the real world of recorded history
it was now a thriving province of the
Etruscan world ruled by at ruskin Kings
primitive mud and thatch huts of Rome's
early days had given way to a city of
brick
yeah
Rome was absorbing people from
surrounding lands and growing fast
Trustin Greek traders met in its busy
streets
Phoenician boats from Sicily in North
Africa sale the type
why olives and gold flooded into Italy
but Rome was still no different from any
other prosperous cities of the
Mediterranean what first set it apart
was not its capacity for trade or
engineering or even warfare but its
ability to organize itself
the man who reshaped Roman society was
in a trust in king called service
Tullius
there are no statues of him we have no
idea what he looked like he never became
as famous as later rulers of Rome but
his mark on history
maybe even greater
and yet all serviced Elias did was carry
out history's first census
now the census the Roman sense is a very
important institution they would count
the Roman citizens all right and list
them and then distribute them in their
appropriate classes and political units
and so on the census was a kind of way
of grading Roman citizens according to
their status and prestige in the sixth
century BC the census detailed every
Romans obligations to the city to obey
its laws a taxes and do military service
but much more important
it also gave them rights this was the
great innovation of service in
proportion to their contribution Romans
were given a say in how their city was
run service sowed the seeds of
representational government organized
and assembly to govern the city and gave
it a name
the Senate
finally senses decreed that each of the
cities social classes should contribute
a group of soldiers for Rome's defense
they were called the legions the
fighting force that was going to put
Rome's destiny back in its own hands and
one day give it the world
the census didn't create equality or
democracy Rome remained a society
governed by kings and Nobles women had
few rights but it created a level of
organization unheard of in the ancient
world
no man did more for Rome than the
Etruscan King service his reforms laid
the foundations for Rome's greatest
achievement the creation of the Republic
but like so many Roman rulers
he was brought down by treachery and
intrigue
the King's Own daughter wanted her
husband Tarquin on the throne her
henchmen knew how to get in there and
after they murdered the Great King power
and paranoia went hand in hand in Rome
for almost two centuries Rome had been
ruled by at ruskin kings and at ruskin
nobility
yeah
under service things had gone well under
Tarquin his successor brutality and
decadence flourished
while he and his relatives devoted
themselves to pleasure their henchmen
carried out campaigns of political
murder to remove any and all opposition
Romans were beginning to hate everything
the Etruscan stood for resentment
smouldered
a woman called Lucretia was the spark
that would set it on fire
she was well-loved and highly regarded
for her kindness beauty and loyalty she
represented everything Romans felt they
had in the Etruscans didn't honor virtue
bravery
yeah
yeah
one day the king's son and some of his
Etruscan nobles were on a journey away
from Rome drunk they decided to creep
back into the city and spy on the most
beautiful women to see what they were up
to
they found their own wives as expected
party
yeah
they found Lucretia hard at work
yeah
because this was an indication of
good
virtuous matronly behavior right
this is how Roman women should behave
they should not be sleeping with 300
members of the Senate like a distance
daughter allegedly did
they're not supposed to be poisoning
members of their family as Livia
allegedly did
they're supposed to be producing cloth
the next night when he knew Lucretia's
husband was away King Tarquin son crept
back to her house alone
the night that her throat
raped her
small that if she breathed the word of
it he killed
that would be unnecessary
the next day too proud to live with her
dishonor
Lucretia killed himself
Romans went white mobs tore through the
streets and attack the trust comes
wherever they found
the Sturm nobleman named brutus
organized a furious attack on the
Etruscan king in his courtiers
they were overwhelmed and fled for their
lives
Romans were finally free of their
Etruscan overlords Lucretia's legacy to
Rome was its freedom
Romans vowed they would never again live
under a king
so how exactly were they going to live
how would they govern themselves their
solution was momentous they declared
that the affairs of Rome would belong to
the people that citizens would vote and
that Rome would be a res publica a
public affair a republic government
would no longer be the business of Kings
Rome would be ruled by laws and elected
officials the first two elected leaders
called consoles
Brutus and Lucretia's widowed husband
and so King was replaced with first two
praetor's eventually to consoles with to
both of them an agreement on everything
elected annually so that no one person
ever had very much power for very long
at all this paranoia about Kings
continues all the way through Roman
history in ways he never could have
imagined services census has borne fruit
the new republic would be organized
according to the voting categories and
classes
he put in place 40 years earlier the
birth of the Republic staked Rome's
claim to a place in history
spqr was the Republic spanner
senatus populace k Romanus Senate and
people of Rome
yeah
it was the ancient world's first
representation government it paved the
way for Rome's glories and all
democracies to come
Roman set themselves free from the
Etruscans in five can be see next
they needed to be sure they stayed three
so they set about building the fiercest
fighting machine the world had ever seen
and now it had its old masters to
practice against
for over a hundred years after own
declared its independence
it was at war with the Etruscans who
fought desperately to regain their old
possession they fail
they were no match for the highly
disciplined Roman legions food fight to
the death to defend Rome's liberty as
Roman soldiers fought for the Republic
a man named Publius codified its leading
ideas
this legal system set a remarkable
precedent for republics of the future
two thousand years later when the
founding fathers of the United States
needed to defend their constitution they
to wrote under the name of publius
I think the American Revolution was an
exciting period for the founding fathers
they were excited by the opportunity to
match their ancient heroes struggles
against tyranny in a sense arrival the
noble deeds they had spent their youth
reading about and they were thrilled by
this idea by this thought that they were
beginning a new the work of the ancient
Republicans only this time with an
unprecedented chance of success
throughout the fifth century BC the
struggle for the Republic went on Rome
and the nearest a trust considering they
faced each other across the Tiber in an
endless stalemate of attack and
counter-attack
ok
finally after decades of bitter
skirmishing a Roman army battlements way
toward the Etruscan city a year was 392
bc
their goal was to take they by storm and
once and for all
bring to an end etruscan threat to Rome
survival
the trust and soldiers fought furiously
at the city walls priests pray to their
gods to save them from destruction
No
yeah
yeah
Roman smashed through the Etruscan
defenses and laid waste to the city
they slaughtered the men and made slaves
of the women
it was Rome's first great victory there
would be many more
each celebrated by the building of a
triumphal arch a monument to the glory
of victory and the humiliation of the
defeated Rome now piled victory upon
victory all across Italy as one by one
her neighbors fell to the legions
Rome's rise was gathering momentum and
by now seemed unstoppable but she
suffered one setback which haunted the
Empire forever
yeah
the year was 386 bc from beyond the Alps
horsemen appeared and thunder told you
Romans called them barbarians
they were celts from gold present-day
friends
the goals were a warlike people
but this time they weren't looking for
battle
wars with their neighbors had pushed
them out of their own territory now
they needed a new home
Rome dominated central Italy so the
Gauls ask them for territory
Roman envoys refused point blank
who did these barbarians think they were
to presume upon Rome in this way they've
insulted two goals which was an estate
the Gauls descended on Rome in a fury
but they weren't given they would take
Romans were fierce warriors but had no
idea how to fight these people who
charged into battle in a suicidal
friends their savagery even by Roman
standards was terrible
taken by surprise the Romans barricaded
themselves inside their City and hope
these terrifying wild men would go away
they didn't the balls smashed their way
into the city and ransack
Romans only escaped being slaughtered by
pinning the goals everything they had to
move on and leave them in peace
Rome's humiliation was complete
the words of the galaxy chieftain is he
exactly at his crushing payment would
ring in Roman years for centuries to
come
woe to the vanquished
rose from this devastation stronger
better organized more determined than
ever
it forged the Iron spirit and a
civilized code of
the stoic virgins of valid
listen and self-sacrifice
that code produced soldiers
Anders with an unflinching dedication to
do
one of the most famous with Cincinnatus
Cincinnatus was a Roman who came to
embody the classic virtues like no other
although a nobleman he liked to work his
fields with his own hands
one day as he worked a messenger arrived
with news that Rome was being attacked
and in such an emergency situation is
this the Roman Constitution called for
the appointment of a dictator
somebody would be elected by the people
but then once elected would have
absolute power life and death power over
all citizens but only for a maximum of
six months
he dropped his plow hurry to the city
took up command of the army and was
named dictator
he quickly won a great victory return to
the city and triumph
now he had a state on any and he could
have used his power is in wished but the
very day that he returned to the city
were told he immediately resign the
office of dictator walked back to his
farm outside the city and continue to
plow his farm and the Romans loved to
tell that story because he was a man who
was totally selfless who cared nothing
for his own for his own livelihood for
his own life but nearly to serve wish to
serve and so it's no accident that one
of the most famous sculptures in
American history is that of George
Washington as a Cincinnatus
George Washington knew that many people
compare them with Cincinnatus and he
like that and he consciously worked to
encourage that image and so for instance
during the darkest periods of the war
when some thought maybe he should resign
he held off that resignation because he
wanted to do like Cincinnatus t wait
until the enemy was defeated and then in
a in a big show
lay down his power which he did and he
retired to his own plow at Mount Vernon
Cincinnatus became the role model the
Roman politician commanders the polling
so admired he embodied the code of
conduct the power drones rise and
extended Rome's dominion over the entire
western world
yeah
Rome's battles abroad would highlight
the conflict within its own so
the struggle to resist corrupting
influence so much power
upon the Empire for centuries to come
but first Rome's era of power and glory
is about to begin