Descubre los orígenes y la grandeza del Imperio Romano, así como las causas de su declive, a través de los ojos de Mary Beard, experta en Ciencias Sociales y galardonada con el Premio Princesa de Asturias. Acompáñanos en un recorrido por España, Irán, Egipto, Escocia, Italia, Grecia y Alemania para explorar los éxitos, fracasos y legado perdurable de la Antigua Roma. Desde sus construcciones monumentales hasta sus batallas épicas, pasando por su rica cultura, deliciosa comida y costumbres fascinantes, sumérgete en la vida del pueblo romano y en las innovaciones que marcaron un hito en la historia. Con un enfoque global, este documental educativo te invita a descubrir la esencia del Imperio Romano y su impacto duradero en el mundo actual.
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Imperio Romano, historia, cultura, herencia, Mary Beard, Premio Princesa de Asturias, Antigua Roma, construcciones, batallas, innovaciones
### Hashtags:
#ImperioRomano, #HistoriaAntigua, #CulturaClásica
Imperio Romano, historia, cultura, herencia, Mary Beard, Premio Princesa de Asturias, Antigua Roma, construcciones, batallas, innovaciones
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00:00Once upon a time, not far from here, a princess gave birth to two twins.
00:09Her evil uncle, the king, fearing that one day these children would become his rivals,
00:15ordered his faithful servants to throw them into the river.
00:19But as it was all denied, they were left in a basket on the bank,
00:23and the current carried them downstream,
00:26until they were rescued by the wolf that would feed them.
00:30Later, they would be found by a shepherd who would raise them as if they were his own children.
00:37Their names were Romulo and Remo, and they would end up founding Rome.
00:53This small city in the centre of Italy would become the nucleus of an empire,
01:01which would extend from the Sahara's borders,
01:05to the humid params of the north of Great Britain,
01:10from Spain to Israel, from the Nile to the Rhine.
01:15It has marked the geography of modern Europe,
01:18and it has defined our conception of empires,
01:21transforming the western world, revolutionising commerce.
01:26This is one of the first examples of globalisation.
01:31Agriculture, olives, olives, and more olives.
01:36Art, law, and architecture.
01:39This is what makes me amazed by Roman engineering.
01:43It presents us with lots of conquests and defeats, battles and massacres,
01:48but it also raises great questions.
01:51How did it work?
01:53What made the difference?
01:55Why did it fall?
01:57And how was it created in the first place?
02:01Was it ambition or just luck?
02:04To answer this question, we will go back to the opinions of the Romans themselves,
02:10to their doubts, their debates, and their conversations.
02:15Because, like us, they also wondered what made them different.
02:40In the Via Appia, one of the main footpaths linking Rome to the south of Italy,
02:45we began to get a clear idea of how the first Romans lived.
02:50A long period prior to the marble columns and the Colosseum,
02:55which is usually overlooked.
02:59This tomb was built 500 years after the foundation of Rome.
03:06This tomb was built 500 years after the foundation of Rome.
03:11It's a very long time after Romulus.
03:14But what's been written here tells us for the first time
03:18what the feelings and thoughts of the Romans were.
03:23In a way, what we really know about the Romans starts here.
03:35This is not the Rome we imagine,
03:40but it was the greatest thing they could do at the time,
03:45something that was innovative at the time.
03:50This is the tomb of the first man buried here,
03:55Scipio Barbato, which means beardy Scipio,
04:00and it tells us a bit about his excellent qualities.
04:05Fortis vir sapiens.
04:10He was a strong and brave man, but he was wise.
04:15This is quite strange.
04:18It says his appearance was as good as his virtues.
04:23So, if his appearance was as good as his virtues,
04:28would that end his conquests?
04:32Subegit omne Lucanat.
04:35He suppressed all of Lucania, a region of southern Italy.
04:41Obsides quae abducit, and he took hostages.
04:47So, it's very clear what the priorities of these people were,
04:52but it doesn't reduce to that.
04:55In some ways, this is just a preview of an epitaph,
05:00but in another way, this is the first short form of historical narrative
05:06that anyone that we have has survived.
05:09This is the beginning of the Roman history writing.
05:13Maybe 500 years had passed since the foundation of the city,
05:18but it's the first place where we can really see the Romans.
05:23We get the vivid idea of a people committed to conquest
05:28and to the glory that military victories brought.
05:32A commitment that all the surrounding towns also shared.
05:37So, what differentiated the Romans?
05:41Without direct evidence, the best place to find the answer
05:46are the stories they told and their elaborate speculations
05:51about the origins of the city.
05:54In particular, the mythical story of Romulus and Remus,
05:59the brothers breastfed by a wolf,
06:02that was told over and over again
06:05and that contained a message about the internal conquests and wars of Rome.
06:11So, we find a bit of Roman history in the myth.
06:16It would be easy to dismiss the story of Romulus and Remus
06:21as if it was just a fairytale, just a myth.
06:24This really isn't history in our mind.
06:28We don't really mean that it doesn't have a lot to tell
06:31about how the Romans saw themselves,
06:34what their cultural priorities were,
06:37and their anxieties as well.
06:40Why a wolf?
06:42History wouldn't have been the same with a cow or a sheep.
06:46The fact that they were rescued by a ferocious predator
06:49revealed the fate of the twins.
06:52Some Romans questioned that detail.
06:55Wolf, in Latin, lupa, also means prostitute.
06:59Would it really be a prostitute who rescued them?
07:03But, in general terms, did they consider the story true?
07:08When, later, they came to describe in the forum
07:13a list of the names of all the generals
07:18who had led the bloodiest,
07:22bloodiest chases for Rome,
07:25with people like Stygian,
07:28who did they start the list with?
07:31With Romulus.
07:34The person who doesn't appear in the list is Remus,
07:37Romulus' twin brother.
07:40They both got into a big argument
07:43about where to establish the new city.
07:47This ended with Romulus murdering his brother,
07:51an act that would reflect the bloody civil wars
07:54that would later destroy Roman politics.
07:59This must be one of the strangest stories in the world
08:03about the founding of a city.
08:07It doesn't just talk about a pair of twins and two founders,
08:11but it also says that one of them killed the other.
08:15Thus, the fratricide of a city
08:18is the only way to establish the new city.
08:23It also says that one of them killed the other.
08:26Thus, the fratricide settled at the beginning of Roman history.
08:31The murder of twin brothers was linked to Rome.
08:42After establishing the city in the Palatine Mountains,
08:45Romulus was their only ruler.
08:50Romulus' first problem was that his city
08:53barely had any inhabitants.
08:56So he declared it an asylum
08:59and gave refuge to criminals,
09:02enslaved, dispossessed and homeless people from all over Italy.
09:07It's not a strange aspect to add.
09:10While many ancient cities
09:13wanted to think that their original inhabitants
09:16had miraculously sprung from the soil of their native land,
09:19the Romans thought that theirs had been an asylum city.
09:23It was an attempt to give it a mythical dimension,
09:27which would later become one of its main characteristics.
09:32Rome not only welcomed foreigners,
09:36but also extended Roman citizenship throughout the empire.
09:44Romulus' next problem was that he had no women,
09:48and therefore his city had no future.
09:51But none of the inhabitants of the neighboring towns
09:54were prepared to let their daughters marry Romans.
09:58In fact, they were quite offensive
10:01and made it clear that they didn't think that a gang of fugitives
10:04were good husbands for their daughters,
10:07so Romulus resorted to cheating.
10:14According to legend,
10:16Romulus invited his neighbors, the Sabines,
10:19to a religious celebration.
10:24In the middle of it, he gave a signal to his men
10:27to kidnap the young visitors
10:30and turn them into his wives.
10:35This is the famous Rapture of the Sabines,
10:38and it offers us some almost uncomfortably explicit images.
10:42This woman here has been captured and tries to escape,
10:45but she can't.
10:47This one has already vanished,
10:50and another is trying to escape, but it's useless.
10:54The rape may have been the answer
10:57to the terrible humiliation of the Romans,
11:00but it was still a violent assault.
11:03These women were not forced, they were victims.
11:09It's an instance that the Romans discussed,
11:12debated, and would expose forever.
11:15Some of Rome's enemies said
11:18that it reflected their typical behavior.
11:21If they wanted something, they just went out and grabbed it.
11:29The story goes that the families of the Sabines,
11:32as is logical, counterattacked,
11:35which would become the first war and victory of Rome,
11:39commemorated in a strange monument
11:42in the heart of the city.
11:46A lot of people pass by here.
11:49The place where the Romans were convinced
11:52that the core of the battle had taken place
11:55would become the Forum.
11:57But before that, it was just a swamp,
12:00and they marked the place where one of Rome's first enemies fell.
12:10This is just one of a series of monuments
12:13in which the origins of Rome would later be recorded in the city.
12:19Anyone who wanted could go up to the Palatine Mountain
12:23to see what was supposed to be the refuge of Romulus,
12:27a tourist attraction even in the 4th century AD.
12:31The myths of Rome were there for all to see,
12:34and with them the problems of being Roman.
12:37Fratricide, kidnapping, violence, and constant conflict.
12:50At first, Rome would be ruled by kings,
12:53Romulus and the six who followed him.
12:58But the citizens would end up rejecting
13:01what they considered a tyranny,
13:04and they established a form of democracy
13:07through which every year people would choose
13:10who would rule the city and fight in their wars.
13:14Soon there would be signs that Rome was beginning to grow.
13:20And why did it end up becoming a small town next to Tiber
13:24and much more than that?
13:28The truth is that we don't know.
13:31But we do know when, and we can almost feel it.
13:38Because at the beginning of the 4th century BC,
13:42the Romans built this huge wall around the city.
13:48But its purpose was not just defensive,
13:51but to proclaim that Rome was already here.
13:56And the most interesting thing is that many of the stones
14:00that they had used to build it came from a small town
14:04that they had taken just a few kilometers away.
14:08This is one of the first signs of Roman expansion.
14:22But the growth of Rome was not limited to its walls.
14:26It expanded beyond them,
14:29to the interior of the Italian peninsula.
14:32But don't imagine the Romans surrounding a map,
14:35conspiring to dominate the world.
14:38To begin with, they had no maps,
14:41and in any case, they were not much more militaristic than their neighbors.
14:45Italy, in its origins, was a violent place.
14:48So the question is not why they went out to fight,
14:51but why they did not stop winning.
14:54The traditional pattern of the contests,
14:57if you want to call it that,
15:00consisted in the fact that every year,
15:03the men of a place would attack a neighboring city,
15:06and if they were lucky, they would return with slaves and cattle.
15:10It was not an organized conflict, but an insurgent attack.
15:14What the Romans did was establish permanent relations
15:17with the defeated peoples.
15:20Of course they came back with slaves and cattle,
15:23but they demanded that in the future
15:26the defeated peoples provide troops for the Roman army.
15:31Progressively, this gave them a great advantage,
15:34because in ancient times,
15:37it was not a high-tech military team that counted,
15:40but the number of men that could meet.
15:47In Solitario, the city of Rome,
15:50it would never have been able to dominate all of Italy.
15:54It was crucial the relationship it established with other peoples.
15:58Rome not only conquered,
16:01but also integrated its enemies,
16:04and that differentiated it.
16:07In the 3rd century BC,
16:10Rome already had more than 700,000 soldiers.
16:13And as those numbers were assured,
16:16we can see it in the first gold coins of the city.
16:20Jonathan Williams is the sub-director of the British Museum.
16:23What do we have here?
16:26I can read Rome at the bottom,
16:29but the scene we see above is quite complicated,
16:32and I do not understand it well.
16:35Well, here we have a couple of men standing,
16:38and in the center, another one who seems to be kneeling
16:41and holding something with his hands.
16:44What he holds is a pig, a pig upside down.
16:47It may seem quite strange to us,
16:50any Roman would have known what it represented.
16:53It is a scene of oath,
16:56of promises made and accepted between two parties.
16:59And this is how the Romans did it.
17:02It is strange to us,
17:05but it was a significant ceremony for the Romans.
17:08Some think it could be a mythological scene
17:11of the oath of Romulus,
17:14one of the first allies of Rome.
17:17But it could be a more general reference
17:20to the system of alliances between the Romans
17:23and other peoples of Italy,
17:26which was so important,
17:29and the basis of the way in which the Romans
17:32came to conquer and dominate the entire Italian peninsula.
17:35So, this coin, in a way,
17:38projects or creates an image of Rome
17:41as the center of these alliances with other peoples.
17:44Exactly. It sends a message to the allies,
17:47but also to the Romans themselves.
17:50We are good allies, loyal and firm,
17:53but it is better for you to remain united with us
17:56because you would not want to see what would happen
17:59if you turned your back on us.
18:02The expansion of Rome was more improvised than planned.
18:05Thanks to a conglomerate of alliances
18:08the walled city came to control almost all of Italy.
18:11Then, the Romans would not take long
18:14to enter into conflict with the other great superpower
18:17of the time, the city of Carthage.
18:28And there was another empire that rivaled Rome.
18:33The network of alliances of the Romans
18:36began to intervene to support their friends and allies
18:39further and further away,
18:42as it happens today with modern superpowers.
18:45A particular request for help brought great consequences.
18:48During a dispute between two Sicilian cities,
18:51different groups turned to Rome and Carthage.
18:57After an intense debate in Rome between those who wanted to fight
19:00and those who thought it was better to stay out of it,
19:03the Romans decided to fight.
19:06And that was how the first direct conflict
19:09between Rome and Carthage took place.
19:17Along a narrow waterfront,
19:20the island of Sicily, more Greek than Italian,
19:23became the scene of the First War of Rome in Ultramar.
19:28A naval conflict against the most powerful maritime state
19:31of the Western Mediterranean.
19:34The Romans had never had or needed combat ships until then.
19:39The story goes that what they did was capture a Carthaginian ship
19:42and copy it to create their own.
19:46That was a great turning point.
19:49And in 241 BC,
19:52these waters ended up swamped by Quinqueremes,
19:55the military ships of the time,
19:58fighting in a fierce final battle.
20:07The underwater archaeologist Jevon Royal and his team
20:10have been in charge of discovering and rescuing
20:13the remains of the bottom of the sea.
20:16It is very difficult to assimilate this.
20:19I keep looking and thinking that every rock
20:22we find on the seabed
20:25belongs to the military team of the Romans or Carthaginians.
20:28But when you find remains of the battle,
20:31like these amphorae on the ground,
20:34it impacts you.
20:37You're looking at it right where it fell with your own eyes.
20:40It's extraordinary.
20:45What's the most memorable thing you've found?
20:48The spolans are always very memorable
20:51because it's very important to find them.
20:54And they are one of the objectives of the study.
20:57So, of course, when we see them, we are always excited.
21:01The spolan was placed on the bow
21:04in order to cover other boats.
21:07What the tests show us is that,
21:10obviously, there was a lot of destruction
21:13at sea level, on the surface of the sea.
21:16And everything is wasted, the helmets, the spolans.
21:19The spolans are damaged in the front. We have 11 spolans.
21:22Did they try to collide with each other?
21:25Yes.
21:28They tried to collide with each other.
21:31Yes.
21:34As they were at sea and at the speed at which they were going,
21:37you could see from an hour and a half,
21:40an hour and 45, or two hours earlier,
21:43what was going to happen.
21:46Did you have time to change your mind?
21:49Yes.
21:55Thanks to Jed's work,
21:58I can touch some of the remains of the battle with my own hands.
22:01This extraordinary object
22:04is one of the bronze spolans
22:07that would have been attached to the bow of the ships
22:10under the flotation line.
22:13This one clearly pierced an enemy ship
22:16that is part of a Carthaginian board,
22:19is still fixed to it.
22:22The decoration is beautiful.
22:25We see a helmet here, the logo of a helmet with feathers.
22:28And going down here,
22:31we find a wonderful fingerprint of the Roman official.
22:34It says,
22:37Lucius Quinctius,
22:40that is, the quality control agent approved this spolan.
22:43Proof of the wonderful Roman administrative efficiency.
22:49In fact, it contrasts a lot with the Carthaginian spolan,
22:52whose inscription says something like,
22:55may God hit your ships
22:58and make holes in them.
23:02In a way,
23:05the most interesting and moving object we have discovered
23:08is this helmet,
23:11which would have protected the face of the fighter
23:14and bring you about as close as you can ever get
23:17to the people who once fought
23:20and maybe died in this great battle.
23:32I suspect that I could be the first person
23:35to wear this helmet since 241 B.C.
23:41Whoever wore it,
23:44had to have the biggest head
23:47or quite a lot of some kind of padding.
24:06Finally, the Carthaginians
24:09were expelled from Sicily
24:12and that island became the first
24:15territory in the overseas under Roman rule.
24:18In a way, it could be said
24:21that the Roman Empire began here.
24:26Rome defeated Carthage twice.
24:29The first was the famous occasion
24:32when Hannibal carried out the feat of crossing the Alps
24:35with his elephants
24:38and the Romans finished the job.
24:41A few years later, in 146 B.C.,
24:44the Romans would finish the job
24:47whether it was because they were worried
24:50about the Carthaginians recovering
24:53or to show their strength.
24:56They embarked on an expedition to the north of Africa
24:59with Scipio Emiliano in command
25:02and completely destroyed the city.
25:05We don't know what led Rome
25:08to destroy the city of Carthage
25:11because they had done with almost the entire Carthaginian Empire
25:14when they defeated Hannibal
25:17so maybe it was a devastating
25:20demonstration of the Empire's self-confidence.
25:23But the year 146 B.C.
25:26would also be remembered for the destruction
25:29of another city.
25:32It was the year when Rome looted Corinth,
25:35the richest city in Greece.
25:46The year 146 B.C.
25:49would be engraved in the minds of the Romans.
25:52Rome had become so powerful
25:55that it was barely left with important challenges to face.
26:03The destruction of two of the most famous cities
26:06in the Mediterranean
26:09changed the rules of the game forever.
26:12There was still no sign of a Roman master plan
26:15or that they wanted to govern somewhere
26:18but they had more power than anyone
26:21even though they didn't really know how to use it.
26:24Basically, the priority of the Romans
26:27was to get away with it
26:31but the year 146 B.C.
26:34was an ambivalent year.
26:37Some celebrated it
26:40but others saw it as the beginning of the end
26:43and there is a logic in the history of empires
26:46when you reach the top, you can only fall.
26:53Carthage had disappeared from the face of the earth
26:56but Greece was very different
26:59and it gave Rome something more precious
27:02than the economic benefit, its culture.
27:08Its conquest not only changed the people that Rome conquered
27:11but also Rome.
27:14And thanks to Greece, Rome began to be filled
27:17with marble columns,
27:20elegant statues and works of art.
27:23This was the beginning of the Rome we know
27:26and also the beginning of a prosperous artistic market.
27:31This was once a great work of art.
27:34It's a statue of Hercules.
27:37He was part of the cargo of a ship that sank
27:40but he didn't go alone.
27:43He was accompanied by 30 other marble statues,
27:46bronze statues and also exquisite jewels,
27:49crystal, scientific instruments
27:52and they even say that they found the bones
27:55before the disaster.
27:58But from our point of view,
28:01what matters to us is that this was one of the thousands
28:04of goods that were transported
28:07from the Greek world on a trip
28:10just to go to Rome.
28:19The Greece that conquered Rome
28:22had a long history of art, theater and literature.
28:28And many Romans thought that the cultural traditions
28:31of Greece were superior to theirs.
28:34But Rome not only bought, looted
28:37and emulated the Greek culture
28:40but the Romans were included in the Greek legends
28:43going back to their own origins,
28:46to the mythical war between Greeks and Trojans
28:49and to the most famous literary work
28:52of the Greek literature of all time,
28:55the Iliad.
28:58One crucial character for the Romans was Aeneas
29:01who played a rather discreet role
29:04during the Trojan War in Homer's Iliad.
29:07The Romans took the story of Aeneas
29:10who would flee from Troy to reach Italy
29:13and found the Roman race
29:17It's almost as if they were saying
29:20that they also belonged to the Greek world,
29:23not just to the Roman.
29:32The story of Aeneas involved the Romans
29:35in the Greek traditions
29:38but to what extent to adopt them
29:41was a matter of debate
29:44and many conservatives argued
29:47that the Greek culture was destroying the Roman values.
29:52Not only was it conquered with swords
29:55it was conquered with books,
29:58with words and with culture.
30:01A Roman poet would later say
30:04that in reality, Rome had not conquered Greece
30:07but Greece had conquered Rome.
30:10What he meant was that the Greeks
30:13had been the real winners
30:16because Rome was indebted to them
30:19for having paid off its great cultural debt
30:22prior to the conquest of Corinth.
30:25But at the same time, Rome's interest
30:28in Greek culture and its study,
30:31conservation and reproduction of it
30:34is what kept it alive for us.
30:37In a way, I like to think that Rome
30:40had given itself to Greece.
30:43The Romans had taken control
30:46of the entire Mediterranean.
30:49They were the only ones who had succeeded
30:52but not only for annexing territories
30:55but also for their ability to get away with it.
30:58When we think of this empire,
31:01we think of the land that surrounds the sea
31:04but the heart of it was in the Mediterranean.
31:07It is crucial to understand what was happening
31:10throughout this huge liquid territory.
31:13But we are not only talking about ships
31:16transporting sculptures.
31:19Controlling the sea posed problems
31:22as serious as controlling Carthage and Corinth.
31:28The Mediterranean was the interior sea of the empire
31:31and its main road.
31:34They called it Mare Nostrum, our sea.
31:37Travelling by sea was much cheaper
31:40and faster than by land
31:43but it was dangerous.
31:46And not because a storm was enough
31:49to lose everything but because of the pirates
31:52and kidnappers who wanted to do
31:55with everything that was sailing.
31:58Not only goods but also people.
32:01A highway full of traffickers.
32:09The conquests of Rome had turned
32:12thousands and thousands of prisoners into slaves.
32:17And that led to a great demand.
32:20It was a lot of the benefits
32:23that the slave trade brought.
32:26Delos was a huge merchant community
32:29and people made a lot of money here.
32:32One Roman writer considered
32:35that it was the largest market on the planet.
32:38All kinds of goods were marketed
32:41perfumes, spices, sculptures, furniture.
32:44But Delos was famous for being
32:47the world capital of the slave trade
32:50and one of its main suppliers
32:54were the bandits and kidnappers
32:57whom the Romans called pirates.
33:00For the Roman pirates it was all
33:03that they did not want to see in a ship.
33:06From small opportunists to big criminals
33:09more like a mafia.
33:12Their relationship was not easy
33:15and the men of these ships were difficult to control.
33:18One day they supplied your market
33:21and the next day they attacked you.
33:27And that's just what we see here.
33:32Here we have a wonderful pair
33:35of clearly Roman faces, wrinkled
33:38and with their cheeks sunken,
33:41both with a sinister look.
33:44It is tempting to imagine that they were involved
33:47in some form of business ruin
33:50but they are quite human.
33:53They have been hit and seem a little burnt.
33:56And the reason we find it at a key moment
33:59in the history of this place.
34:02In 69 BC the pirates came here
34:05set fire to the place,
34:08there was a great fire and Delos was destroyed.
34:15But the pirates also had an impact
34:18on Rome.
34:21The fear they generated in the Romans
34:24gave them a reason or excuse
34:27to make a decision that would set the foundations
34:30for great political changes
34:33that would undermine democracy and
34:36would enhance autocracy.
34:39Pirates were a nuisance and sometimes a danger
34:42but the threat could always be manipulated
34:45The war against the pirates
34:48was a kind of war against terror.
34:51In 67 BC the Roman people
34:54endowed with powers almost unlimited
34:57to a single man to finish off the pirates.
35:00That man was Pompey.
35:07Pompey the Great, as he was known
35:10got rid of the pirates in just three months.
35:13Then he concentrated his forces
35:16against some powerful eastern kings
35:19to return to Rome by all means
35:22with a spectacular two-day parade
35:25and a multitudinous carnival.
35:32The parade of his victory
35:35was one of the biggest parties ever held
35:38in the streets of Rome.
35:41It was accompanied by the booties
35:44and the wealth he had brought
35:47as well as the captured prisoners.
35:50The idea was for the people to see
35:53what the generals and the troops
35:56had achieved abroad and what they had brought.
35:59Some people thought it was a terribly vulgar
36:02display and sometimes
36:05people would cry
36:08to see the poor prisoners go past.
36:14But for most Romans
36:17it was an occasion to have fun.
36:20To see how it was.
36:23Not bad.
36:26And to enjoy the wealth they had won.
36:29Centuries after the party
36:32there is not much trace of Pompey's triumph
36:35but in the corner of a museum
36:38we can see one of the pieces
36:41he was proud of in that show.
36:44Not every day we find an object
36:47displayed in the streets of Rome
36:50in a triumphal procession.
36:53In fact, this may be the only one.
36:56It is a large bronze jug
36:59possibly used to mix
37:02wine, water and honey.
37:05And it contains the name of one of the kings
37:08whom Pompey defeated
37:11engraved on the edge.
37:14This makes me quite clear
37:17that this was one of the thousands and thousands
37:20of treasures that the Roman people
37:23saw pass in the parade of Pompey
37:26in 61 BC.
37:33The empire had traditionally been founded
37:36formed and governed by democrats
37:39who shared power for a year.
37:42The idea had always been to prevent
37:45someone from becoming king again.
37:48But with Pompey, the rejection of the Romans
37:51to individual power began to decrease.
37:54To defend or extend the empire
37:57perhaps it was necessary to put control
38:00over a single man.
38:03However, to have revolutionized Rome
38:06it left very few visible traces.
38:09This is a wonderful example of archaeology
38:12in the Roman streets.
38:15You might miss it, but the layout of these buildings
38:18this extensive curved facade
38:21matches the ancient Roman foundations
38:24underneath.
38:27Foundations that belonged
38:30to a large semicircular amphitheater.
38:33This is what remains of a theater
38:36that Pompey built with the benefits
38:39of his oriental campaigns.
38:42And this is the first time
38:45that a Roman building
38:48began to resemble the Rome
38:51that we imagine.
38:54Monumental, magnificent
38:57and designed to impress.
39:07Pompey established how the appearance
39:10of an imperial building should be
39:13and later entrepreneurs would follow his pattern.
39:20But his name would never be well known.
39:23It would always be eclipsed
39:26in the search for glory
39:29and in the competition for personal power.
39:32The man who would be remembered
39:35for all eternity would be his great rival,
39:38Julius Caesar.
39:42Blimey, off we go.
39:45Never done this before.
39:48Unlike Pompey,
39:51Caesar headed west.
39:54After Pompey's impressive
39:57and bloody victory
40:00that allowed him to return with lots of wealth,
40:03Caesar wanted to overcome it
40:06and his only option was to carry out
40:09a great conquest.
40:12But Caesar overcame Pompey
40:15in a very important way.
40:18Pompey achieved great victories
40:21but Caesar also achieved them
40:24and wrote about them.
40:27The reason why we can go to Alesia
40:30where one of Caesar's last victories took place
40:33is because it was he himself
40:37In Alesia, the army of the Gauls
40:40had camped on a hill.
40:43According to Caesar,
40:46everything seemed to be under control.
40:49Their camps were in strategic points
40:52and they stationed pickets day and night.
40:55Both fronts fought hard.
40:58Caesar ordered to dig two trenches
41:01and erect a wall and a fence.
41:04When you look at the scale of it,
41:07despite what it says in his writings,
41:10it was impossible for Caesar to see
41:13all the areas of this battlefield.
41:16In the end, winning a battle in antiquity
41:19depended on the number of troops,
41:22on making the enemy hungry,
41:25on surprising them from behind
41:28or perhaps, in good part,
41:31on the number of soldiers.
41:37Whether he was lucky or not,
41:40Caesar would be delighted to know
41:43that we continue to read his version of these campaigns.
41:46Whether he won or not,
41:49the reality is that his story has lasted for centuries.
41:52And in terms of imperial propaganda,
41:55it shows that a pen could be more powerful
41:58or at least more durable than a sword.
42:01The leader of the Gauls in their last
42:04and disastrous resistance was Vercingetorix.
42:07Since then, he has become a hero of modern France,
42:10a fighter for freedom
42:13that he faced for his nation.
42:16The ironic thing is that everything we know
42:19about Vercingetorix goes back
42:22to what Caesar wrote about him.
42:25In a way, our Vercingetorix
42:28is a Roman creation.
42:31Whatever he was really,
42:34Caesar had to show that he had defeated
42:37a dangerous, brave, and above all, worthy opponent.
42:40The Romans would never have considered
42:43the merit of defeating a coward.
42:48Caesar also boasted about the number of Gauls
42:51that his army killed during his campaign.
42:54At present, it is estimated that around a million.
42:57Their numbers could have been inflated
43:00to impress on their return.
43:03But there is little doubt that Caesar materialized
43:06his desire to overcome the glories of Pompey
43:09through a whole genocide.
43:12The excavations of the battlefield have unearthed
43:15some of the weapons with which Caesar achieved victory,
43:18such as the ancestral version of the terrestrial mines.
43:21These things aren't exactly high-tech,
43:24but they are very unpleasant.
43:27Look at this one in particular.
43:30Imagine stepping on it with a leather sandal.
43:33The point goes right through your foot
43:36and you can't get your sandal off.
43:39You can't get your sandal off.
43:42You're in agony.
43:45You can't get your sandal off.
43:48I'm choking just thinking about it.
43:51There were people in Rome who were concerned
43:54about what was happening in Gaul and the magnitude of the massacre.
43:57Some of Caesar's enemies even suggested
44:00that he be judged for war crimes
44:03and that the jury be made up of Gauls only.
44:06The Roman Empire was quite cruel,
44:09but there were levels of cruelty
44:12that even the Romans couldn't stand.
44:18Julius Caesar would never have won
44:21without the loyal support of his troops.
44:24They were no longer the cattle thieves of the beginning,
44:27but professional soldiers
44:30as closely linked to their general as he was to them,
44:33even more so than to the state.
44:36And unlike Pompey,
44:39Caesar was prepared to use this army
44:42to control Rome.
44:46For his part, Caesar was aware
44:49that his enemies in Rome were conspiring against him,
44:52that they were trying to put him into a corner
44:55and, as he said,
44:58to undermine his dignity,
45:01the Roman concept that combined prestige and honour.
45:04So he took a chance
45:07and with one of his legions he marched towards Rome.
45:10When he reached the river Rubicon,
45:13the border between Gaul and Italy,
45:16he proclaimed,
45:19In other words, luck is on our side.
45:27Some Romans considered it
45:30the legacy of Romulus and Remus,
45:33the twins whose disputes ended
45:36with the death of one of them.
45:39Now a Roman would face another for power.
45:43Caesar's return unleashed a chaotic civil war
45:46that would not only engulf the Italian peninsula
45:49but the entire empire.
45:55Pompey was assassinated on the coast of Egypt
45:58and his beheaded head
46:01was presented to Caesar,
46:04who, according to legend,
46:07broke into tears when he saw it.
46:10Caesar won the battle
46:13and officially became the only ruler of Rome,
46:16but not for long.
46:21If there is one Roman known by all,
46:24that is Julius Caesar.
46:27Not because of what he did, but because of his death.
46:30His assassination became
46:33that epic scene that we all know
46:36or think we know
46:39that goes along with his famous last words
46:42et tu brute?
46:45Which he never pronounced.
46:48What we do know for sure
46:51is that a group of friends
46:54ambushed him at a meeting in the Senate House,
46:57ironically built by his great rival, Pompey.
47:00It all happened right where that tree is now.
47:04Once again,
47:07the story reminded us of that of the foundation of Rome.
47:10Now it was Caesar who had been assassinated as Remus.
47:22It is the most famous political assassination in history
47:25carried out in the name of liberty
47:28just a few weeks after Caesar
47:32was proclaimed dictator for life.
47:35Too soon to know if he had succeeded or failed.
47:38But the fact that the murderers
47:41got rid of the man they considered a tyrant
47:44did not get rid of them.
47:47It was too late.
47:50At that point, it was inevitable
47:53that the empire would be ruled by one man.
47:56The question was, who would that man be?
48:01The first long-term autocrat
48:04and whom we would call the first Roman emperor
48:07would be Caio Julio Cesar Octaviano
48:10or as he would be called later, Augusto.
48:15This title had no concrete meaning
48:18but it could be assigned to him as venerable.
48:22He stood up to the pros and cons
48:25of being the sole ruler.
48:28At the beginning of the 3rd century BC
48:31Scipio Barbado had summarized his career
48:34in just a few lines.
48:37300 years later, Emperor Caesar Augustus
48:40would write the epitaph for his own tomb
48:43in hundreds of lines.
48:59It's an extraordinary and pretentious report
49:02of what he did
49:05but it also gives some guidelines
49:08on how to be an emperor in the future.
49:11Three things stand out.
49:14First, you have to be enormously generous
49:17to the Roman people.
49:20You have to offer them help,
49:23entertainment and services.
49:27And that's what's listed here.
49:30All the money he invested in that.
49:33But you also have to build, build and build.
49:36And even if that was Pompey's motto
49:39Augustus tells us about all the temples
49:42and theatres he built.
49:46But most importantly of all
49:49and this is what occupies most of this document
49:52you have to invest in conquests.
49:56And Augustus explains how he extended
49:59the borders of the Roman Empire
50:02how he brought peace to the borders
50:05of Gaul and Spain
50:08and how he brought peace to the Alps.
50:12The message he insists on is clear
50:15to be a Roman emperor
50:18you have to be a conqueror.
50:27No matter how much the Romans wanted to avoid
50:30rulers like Pompey or Julius Caesar
50:33the problems of governing and watching
50:36an increasingly large empire
50:39showed that the decisions made by a committee
50:42did not work.
50:45It was not the emperor who had created
50:48the Roman Empire
50:51but the empire had created the emperors.
50:54Augustus' epitaph was a practical kit
50:57of tools to be an emperor
51:00but the hidden ideology behind all this
51:03is better represented in another monument
51:06he erected to celebrate the Pax
51:09Peace.
51:12This is the altar of peace
51:15it celebrates the security and prosperity
51:18that the Roman Empire is capable of bringing
51:21but it isn't peace as we understand it
51:24this isn't about the absence of wars
51:27it's about the peace
51:30that is the result of wars
51:33this is peace
51:36that has been won with victory
51:39really
51:42this is an altar of pacification
51:46But it's much more than that
51:49built in marble by the best artists
51:52of the city
51:55we can't overlook their messages
51:58their walls are full of friezes
52:01some of them representing Augustus and his family
52:04with the imperial dynasty carved in stone
52:07some of the images reveal the idea
52:10that his is a divine right of birth
52:13and that his lineage goes back
52:16to the mythical founders of Rome
52:24On either side of the main steps
52:27we find two different representations
52:30of the past of Rome
52:33on one side, the wolf with Romulus and Remus
52:36and on the other, Aeneas, just arrived in Italy from Troy
52:39and this had a particular resonance for the emperor
52:42because Augustus claimed that he was a direct descendant of Aeneas
52:45but there is an idea
52:48that is even more obvious
52:51when combining both scenes
52:54on one side we have Romulus
52:57who received in his new city, marginalized and fugitives
53:00and on the other, Aeneas
53:03who came from abroad
53:06the message about the origins of Rome is clear
53:09Rome was always foreign
53:15this made a lot of sense for the Romans
53:18the stories they told about their origins
53:21reflected the growing diversity
53:24expansion and breadth of their world
53:27and there was always a corner of the empire
53:30that had a particular relevance
53:33many Romans consider that the history of their city
53:36began here
53:39more than 3000 km from Rome
53:42is the city of Troy
53:45the city of the Trojan war
53:48the most famous and decisive in all the history
53:51and mythology of the classical world
53:54it is the war of Helena, Achilles, Hector and the Trojan horse
54:00it was also the birthplace of Aeneas
54:04and in the Augustan era
54:07the Roman poet Virgilio
54:10reimagined and rewrote the journey of Aeneas
54:13from Troy to Italy
54:16in his epic, Aeneid
54:19he used mythology
54:22to analyze the complexity
54:25of the growth of Rome and its empire
54:34in this epic we find everything
54:37love, honor, heroism
54:40and imperialism
54:43Virgilio also highlights
54:46some of the most disconcerting facets
54:49of imperial power
54:52at the end of the story
54:55the last thing we see our hero Aeneas do
54:58is to murder a enemy soldier
55:01who had just surrendered to him
55:04it's as if in Virgilio's hands
55:07the story of Aeneas
55:10celebrated the Roman Empire
55:13and displayed its potential brutality
55:20however Virgilio also presented the Roman Empire
55:23as a gift from the gods themselves
55:31at the beginning, Jupiter, king of the gods
55:34prophesied the future power of Rome
55:37I have given the Romans
55:40an infinite empire
55:43I have given them an empire without limits
55:50but it hadn't really started like that
55:53any city had expanded
55:56beyond its walls to become
55:59the core of a vast empire
56:06and had gone from twins to emperors
56:09from cattle thieves
56:12to organized soldiers
56:15from the first victories of Scipio Barbato
56:18to the destruction of Corinth in the East
56:21and the bloody murders in Gaul in the West
56:25through a combination of improvisation
56:28good luck, greed and ambition
56:31Rome has become in our minds
56:34the definition of empire
56:39the idea of an empire without limits
56:42is something that Scipio Barbato
56:45would never have understood
56:48he knew all the conquests and military glory
56:51and the benefits they got from them
56:54but for Rome to take control of territories
56:57all over the world
57:00and for it to be considered unlimited
57:03would have been absolutely incomprehensible
57:06two and a half centuries later
57:09Virgilio's Aeneid would affirm that Jupiter
57:12had planned it like that
57:15it's as if Virgilio, looking back
57:18on the chaotic and improvised history
57:21of the Roman conquests
57:24in a magnificent plan of manifest destiny
57:32now that Rome has acquired an empire
57:35what will it do with it?
57:38it was a terrible system that exploited
57:41resources, landscape and people
57:44what would feed it and what would connect it?
57:47Virgilio said that all roads lead to Rome
57:50but that's how it was
57:53who would lose and who would win?
57:56one of the biggest things he did
57:59was raise this great amphitheater
58:17to be continued