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00:00at the British Museum archaeologists are working on a 13,000 year old war cemetery
00:09from Sudan the earliest ever existing evidence of organized violence between
00:15humans and the burials of some individuals are remarkable these two
00:21fallen have been carefully buried with their heads pointing east as if this is
00:27some kind of sacred ritual so what this suggests is that before society itself
00:33exists we're choosing to turn war into something sacred
00:42in this program I'm investigating the enduring relationship between warfare
00:48and worship
00:51by following the trail of the ancient god of war
00:55Mars
00:58from phrases like martial law to the month of March and Mars the red planet
01:05the figure of Mars has traveled down the centuries with mankind
01:09for the Romans he was a vital force in their drive to win
01:15and exploit an empire I'll explore how they stole him from the Greeks and
01:22discover why the Greek god of war Ares was distrusted and reviled you do not
01:29welcome his presence because his presence means death I'll show how the notion of
01:35holy war has endured across the generations from the medieval crusades in
01:40the Middle East to 17th century bloodshed in Europe I'll pursue Mars as we were
01:47engulfed by two world wars everybody is familiar with the mustachioed figure of
01:53Kitchener pointing saying your country needs you like the face of Mars himself
01:58and I'll uncover the relationship between religion and conflict today
02:04I'm going to explore why we choose to make war sacred are we channeling an essential desire for
02:16bloodshed are we justifying the fact that civilization where we have to live together is always going to
02:22involve conflict is Mars immortal because war is always going to be an essential part of our lives
02:52I've come to Tunisia to investigate how war worship was central to Rome's success
03:05this is the site of a hugely significant Roman military victory
03:11in 146 BC Rome conquered its most formidable opponent the Carthaginians who ruled what the Romans called
03:20the Punic empire their once beautiful capital Carthage now lay in ruins
03:30the fall of Carthage marked the end of the punishing Punic wars which had stretched out for well over a
03:37century the historian Appian estimated that 300 000 Romans had lost their lives but it was a victory
03:46that was worth all of that pain because this was a pivotal moment for the city Rome was now set to
03:54become a superpower the dominant force in the Mediterranean
04:03these ruins are testament to the scale of the Roman destruction because this wasn't just about
04:09levelling a glittering city but about killing to claim new lands
04:18there are terrible distressing accounts of the massacre continuing for six days and six nights of
04:25women and children still breathing being dragged into pits and a whole neighbourhoods being burnt to the
04:32ground
04:41Rome's extraordinary domination came thanks to centuries worth of military aggression
04:47at its height Rome would be the largest empire the world had ever seen
04:52spanning nearly two million square miles over three continents
05:02Mars the muscular martial god of war was the go-to patron for Rome's expansionist ambitions
05:14so in a militaristic society where a martial ethos was paramount and the gods were considered to be
05:21crucial to everyday life it's no surprise perhaps that Mars wasn't just a premier god
05:27he was thought to be the patron god of the city of Rome itself
05:34Mars enjoyed this status because the Romans believed he was inextricably linked to Rome's foundation
05:40now like all foundation myths it's rather complicated um but actually the most straightforward version
05:49comes to us courtesy of Virgil and his wonderful poem the Aeneid and the relevant passage is actually
05:55set here in Carthage and basically to paraphrase the story Aeneas the Trojan prince is escaping from the war
06:04at Troy and he ends up here in Carthage where he falls passionately in love with the queen Dido
06:11the two of them have a raging affair and the problem is this is distracting from his real destiny which is
06:18to go on and found Rome then none other than the king of the gods himself Jupiter turns up and says don't
06:25worry all be well because Aeneas's descendants will go on to rule Italy and one of them
06:32stay with me a virgin priestess called Rhea Silvia is going to be raped by Mars the god of war and it is
06:41not a pretty story the result of that rape will be two boys Romulus and Remus and one of them will
06:48found the city of Rome but what is really crucial is that the city is not called Rome here it's actually
06:57called the city of Mars Mars was omnipresent across all of Rome's domains even in the night sky he was
07:10there as the red planet Mars and the figure of Mars dominated Rome's lunar calendar
07:18Mars was considered such a vital gods that his name was given to the most important month of the year
07:25March now this was actually the beginning of the Roman year and it marked the start of the campaigning
07:31season so when that happens the soldier priests of Mars would make their way through the city
07:37singing and dancing celebrating the fact that wars could begin again
07:47Mars was adored by the Romans but they weren't the only ones to invest in war worship
07:54the god had a much earlier incarnation in the society that the Romans admired above all others
08:01the Greeks whose civilization had flourished before Rome rose to power
08:10the Romans were religious magpies and like most of their gods
08:14Mars was basically an amalgam of lots of older gods and in large part stolen from the Greeks
08:20the Greek god of war was called Ares and he has prehistoric roots
08:30we know that he dates right the way back to the Bronze Age from this rather brilliant bit of evidence
08:36what you're looking at is the image of a linear B writing tablet and linear B was an early form of Greek
08:42and this particular one was found in Knossos on the island of Crete and the symbols here read
08:49RA this was found in a military arsenal and this is our very first evidence of Ares being actually
08:57worshipped as a god but there's something really interesting here because RA actually means a curse
09:04or an imprecation so we know that for the early Greeks the god of war was not a good thing
09:12like the Romans the Greeks could be militaristic and like Mars Ares was an
09:18ultimate embodiment of the powerful warrior
09:22but significantly the early Greeks had a very different relationship with their god of war
09:28so for instance these are a few lines from the Iliad which was the epic poem written by Homer
09:34describing the Trojan war to me you are the most hateful of all the gods constant conflict is dear to
09:43your heart wars and battles and those are words said by Zeus who was actually Ares father elsewhere in
09:52the Iliad Zeus describes Ares as his most despised son
10:11for us today this is just a myth a good yarn but for the ancient Greeks this was a tale that dealt with
10:19real events real people and gods who walked with them every step of the way
10:32these marble sculptures once adorned the east pediment the focal point of the Parthenon the most
10:39spectacular temple in fifth century classical Athens gods and goddesses abound like the Romans the
10:48greeks had a pantheon of the key gods and goddesses the mighty Olympians and as the son of the king of
10:56the gods the almighty Zeus Ares was of prime Olympian stock now the major deities are here on this
11:04pediment but is Ares here no he's not
11:08to find him you'd have to look amongst the smaller figures below and inside and even then he's rather
11:19lost in the crowd
11:22and just look at him here obviously he's lost his face across time but even so he's right at the end
11:30of the line he's almost cowering in a corner now this whole scheme celebrates Athenian supremacy and
11:37military dominance so in theory it's absolutely dream territory for the god of war calamitous wild
11:46Ares simply wasn't widely worshipped in ancient Greece in fact those the Greeks said were mad enough to
11:53really idolize him were foreigners and worse than that women the legendary warlike Amazons
12:02the Greeks believed that the Amazons had an intimate connection to the god of war they believed that the
12:07Amazons lived right the way around the black sea and one of the islands that they inhabited was called
12:12Ares island they said that the Amazons were in fact nothing less than the daughters of Ares and that
12:20they sacrificed to their father before they went into battle the Amazons fabled prowess in battle and
12:28the belief that they worshipped war didn't make them heroic in the eyes of the Greeks in fact quite the
12:35opposite calling the Amazons the daughters of Ares wasn't a compliment it was a curse
12:42to find out why the Greeks were so very hostile towards their god of war i'm meeting dr lucy jackson
12:55they don't worship Ares in the way that you might imagine a society that frequently goes to war
13:00should do what why is that do you think i think it's because they're actually all so close to war
13:06in their daily lives i think it's because they they know what it actually means to go to war
13:11that they are they do feel very ambivalent towards it in the kind of smaller society in ancient greece
13:19you would know someone who would be going to war and you would know people who had died in battle
13:23so you it's not something that you very easily glorify again one of the epithets that's often
13:29given to the god of war Ares is a bane for mankind and that's something that everyone can share in that
13:36you do not welcome his presence because his presence means death a lot of the gods and goddesses
13:41are pretty bellicose in the ancient world so so what makes Ares different there i think the epithets
13:47that he's given are often quite telling zeus himself says Ares you are the most hated to me
13:53and he has a lot of a lot of he gets a lot of insults thrown at him as well so he's not presented in a very
13:59good light there's something about Ares in particular i think it's this this wildness the
14:04the the focus that he has on um fear and terror that make him not just uh ambivalent um or worthy
14:15of suspicion but actually outright hated not just by the gods but by mortals themselves do you think that
14:22the greeks really believe that there is a divine force that encourages men to fight
14:28i think so in the same way that they were happily living alongside divine forces and mortal forces
14:34all the time i think they saw them as very much uh interacting together uh so i think they they
14:40very much recognized that although Ares and his fury and fire is a necessary part of being able to
14:48succeed in war he's also very dangerous and in need of controlling
14:54the greeks may have been deeply wary of Ares but he did help reconcile the tension between war's horror
15:01and its value the fact that some victories enabled some to flourish to act as a spur for civilization
15:09as the philosopher plato said a society without war is no more than a society fit for pigs
15:18back at the british museum i'm investigating evidence of how ritualizing warfare helped strengthen even the
15:25earliest prehistoric communities these boxes contain dozens of skeletons from around 13 000 years ago
15:33buried together in the sudan in what some have called a war cemetery many of the bones bear the scars
15:40of battle wounds the earliest evidence of organized violence between humans on the planet
15:49so who is this this poor person how much do we know about his or her story it's actually a female
15:55individual we've been able to analyze her bones and confirming that she was uh in her 30s or 40s when
16:01she died and do we know how she died um there's evidence that she uh suffered multiple wounds over
16:07a period of time we have a defensive fracture here which typically occurs when you raise your arm to
16:14defend yourself against a blow and that's what exactly what's happened in this case my god what's
16:18extraordinary is that you have two bones in your forearm and the break has gone through both bones suggesting
16:24a lot of force yeah but again here the bones have healed so this again happened before she died
16:31giving it time to heal okay so that's not what's killed her then no no this is really well fused so
16:37showing that it occurred a long time or at least several weeks or months before she died so what's
16:42doing do we know what kind of the mortal blow is it's hard to tell what killed her because of course we
16:47can only see the evidence from the bones but what we do have is the back part of a hip bone and you
16:54can see that an impact of an arrowhead the shattered part of the bone and part of the the flint part of
17:02the flint that makes up the arrowhead has been left behind and you can see that clearly we also have
17:08two cut marks yeah on this long bone here you can see one quite clearly here and another one here so this
17:16is also likely to have been another arrowhead so again repeated episodes of violence which
17:22eventually uh it's likely to have been the cause of her death i mean and do we know why they're being
17:29attacked it has been suggested that it was competition for resources imagine 13 000 years
17:35ago the nile was more erratic than it is today and i think the land that people could exploit for food
17:41and resources uh would have been under severe pressure the fact that she's been buried so
17:47carefully i mean that must say something to us yeah what's extraordinary about this the cemetery is
17:53that everybody has been carefully buried in the same manner for everybody to be clearly facing the
17:59south with their heads to the east uh suggest that they were deliberately placed some people have argued
18:05uh that maybe it was a special cemetery a place where people who died of violence maybe warriors
18:13where they were being buried the burial rites at jebel sahaba not only show the horrors of war
18:20but how this community responded fighting side by side in conflict and then respecting their dead
18:27through ritual our early ancestors created a sense of shared identity warfare had generated an idea of them and us
18:47so mars's roots and the sacralization of warfare run deep and here in tunisia there's further evidence
19:03of how worshipping a god of war can help to foster a feeling of togetherness and in rome's case to justify
19:11her imperial ambitions this is what the roman historian livy wrote if any nation should claim sacred
19:20origin and point back to divine paternity that nation is rome she claims mars as her founding father
19:29and such is her renown in war the nations of the world just accept this as they accept her dominion
19:37um now livy was a teenager when julius caesar was assassinated so he was an eyewitness to rome's journey
19:44from republic to empire and what's really fascinating is that on that journey mars gets a significant
19:51promotion he now becomes an active part of the imperial machine
19:57evidence of why worshiping mars was so important to rome's empire builders can be found in the ruins of
20:08the ancient city of mactaris a hundred miles south of carthage mactaris was originally a refugee
20:17settlement of carthaginians who fled the destruction of the punic wars
20:21two centuries on now part of the roman empire mactaris had become a prosperous roman town
20:33the incredible triumphal arch that still dominates the ruins is evidence of this transformation
20:44while their ancestors may have been the victims of roman conquest
20:48the town's citizens now celebrated roman military might
20:57and mars was crucial to their sense of imperial belonging
21:09this beautiful building right in the very heart of the city
21:12was originally a kind of clubhouse for a group of young men who were fervent mars worshippers
21:20now we know this for two reasons and first of all a statue of mars was discovered just here
21:25where he was adored by them in his cult but there was also another really intriguing bit of evidence
21:32above the doorway there was an inscribed lintel and in the inscription we read that the young men
21:38are linked directly to mars and that crucially mars was linked directly to the roman emperor himself
21:49to find out why the city's youth worship mars so fervently i'm meeting mactaris's archaeological
21:55director mohadeen chowley to show me the lintel dedicated to rome's first emperor augustus
22:02and this is the inscription is it this is the famous inscription wow it's nice really great as you see
22:12we have a lot of names 69 names and a lot of them are punic names yeah yeah either they had punic names
22:23if not they have latin names but the name of the father is punic they are the members of this association
22:32the juventus of the city of mactar and they are loving the god mars augustus and we know that it's
22:43dedicated to mars because i can see so martis that's right augustus isn't it so this association paid
22:53for the construction of a basilica and aurea like a grain store it's like a sort of grain storm yeah
23:02we say that it's an association but it's like a militia it is necessary to maintain order to maintain
23:11security so you've got punic guy signing up to this roman project it's important this mixture
23:21punic and and latin people here needs mars not only for wars but for the prosperity of agriculture it's
23:33not only a god of force it is a god of fertility also so mars helps you to gain an empire and to
23:42maintain an empire and to maintain an empire it's true it's the beginning of romanization and it's
23:50important to get some local people loving this latin god it's it's really important
23:58the mars cult here is telling warfare however horrific can bring stability crops can grow again
24:09life can flourish mars could be sold not just as a warmonger but as a peacemaker
24:17no one understood this better than the emperor augustus
24:20augustus had this coin minted after he'd founded a new temple the temple of mars altor mars the avenger
24:30right in the very heart of the roman forum basically this was a kind of sanctuary of war
24:36and of imperial military might it's where commanders would assemble before they left on campaign
24:43and it's where victorious generals returned after they triumphed abroad as mars altor the avenger the
24:51god combined the empire's aggression with its desire for order in its conquered territories
24:57rome wanted to exploit new fertile lands not scorched earth so as a god of fertility and agriculture
25:05mars was key to prosperity to the pax romana the peace of rome
25:14i'm heading to the roman city of fistris now called el gem in eastern tunisia
25:20fistris grew rich from the production of olive oil enjoying the fruits of roman peace and stability
25:28its citizens were able to build gorgeous monuments that rival the very best in the city of rome itself
25:33its spectacular amphitheater seated 35 000 spectators second only to rome's great coliseum
25:44it was in arenas like this across the empire that mars's roles as patron of bloodshed
25:51and as peacekeeper were combined after augustus had founded his temple of mars altar he inaugurated
25:59the ludi martialis the annual games of mars and from all accounts these were horrifically spectacular
26:08events we're told that hundreds of lions and crocodiles were slaughtered that the battle of
26:14salamis was re-enacted and of course there were gladiatorial contests with the cometants praying to mars
26:22before they fought basically these were glorious festivals of death
26:32gladiators were even seen as soldiers of mars and some amphitheaters had sanctuaries to worship the god
26:42one particularly successful gladiator was celebrated as being the embodiment of the martial spirit
26:47hermes the martial delight of our age hermes the glory of mars universal
26:59the origins of gladiatorial games were religious a dramatic form of sacrifice literally making something
27:08sacred by killing it these blood sports satisfied both a deep human desire for ritualized death
27:17and were a living demonstration of rome's imperial might
27:24but a new form of sacrificial victim who believed in a new god was soon to be found in the sands at el
27:32gem and across north africa and indeed the rest of the empire martyred christians whereas mars justified
27:42death in the pursuit of power this new christ cult argued that it wasn't the mighty but the meek who
27:49would inherit the earth
27:56we're told that on the 12th of march 295 a.d a young man called maximilianus was brought here so that he could
28:04become part of the army the proconsul uh agreed to take him on but maximilianus very politely
28:11refused saying that he couldn't fight because he was a christian the proconsul flew into a rage and
28:17threatened all kinds of punishments and a horrific death to their surprise maximilianus simply said bring
28:25it on i cannot fight for the world only for the lord aged 21 years three months and 18 days maximilianus
28:36was then beheaded he's possibly the first recorded instance of a conscientious objector
28:42but war was far too central to the success of rome for the protest of one minority cult to dent mars's
28:53armor and just a generation later when constantine a roman emperor himself took up the christian faith
29:00war worship endured the fact that constantine became a christian had surprisingly little impact
29:07on the status of mars and if you think about it when constantine converted we're told that he saw a
29:13blazing cross in the sky and the words in hoc signos vinces under this sign you shall conquer which is
29:22hardly very pacifist and then the theme continues and if you look at this coin that he had minted after
29:28he'd converted it shows on it the god of mars in a temple and even 20 years later once his son is in power
29:37there's another coin minted here and this shows a christian warrior and we know it's christian
29:42because it has the cairo symbol the symbol of christ and his standard but this looks pretty much
29:49exactly like mars the god of war rome had successfully co-opted christianity into the imperial mission
29:59but there was a theological tension in the fourth century what's now tunisia became an important
30:09center in the newly christianized roman empire and it still has a small community of christian
30:15worshippers here today father silvio moreno explained to me how christian teaching challenged martial precepts
30:25in the new testament in the new testament there is no time where jesus himself will say
30:34use the violence but in the contrary he says aim your enemies you have to aim your enemies those who
30:42do you evil those who do you evil those who do you evil and then it is clear and then he
30:48the war god should have been dead and buried but even a christianized roman empire needed to fight to
31:12keep christ's earthly territory intact now conveniently ancient authors aristotle cicero and the like
31:20had eloquently laid out philosophical justifications for divinely sanctioned war
31:26saint augustine who studied these classical works offered a solution he stated that wars could be just
31:35that it was right to fight as long as the battle was sanctioned by the one true god
31:45because most people think of christianity um as on paper being a peaceful religion so their
31:51ideas of love thy neighbor and turn your other cheek is there anything do you think in the new
31:56testament that actually justifies the use of violence il ya un principe qui maintient toujours saint
32:02augustine qui est très important je pense que pour nous aujourd'hui et c'est sur ça que nous que nous
32:07suivons un peu l'idée il dit on peut pas faire une guerre pour faire la guerre mais pour obtenir la paix
32:13bien sûr que le peuple a les droits de se défendre ça c'est tout à fait naturel c'est la légitime defense
32:21backed up by saint augustine's just war theory christians now had license to kill without compromising their faith
32:28while the warlike mars was also a god of peacetime ironically the peaceful christian deity had become
32:36a god of war in the 11th century the christian church would put this theory into practice
32:43embarking on the crusades centuries of holy war to reclaim the holy lands from muslim possession
32:50and mars the god of war not only survived in spirit but in name
32:55there's no doubt that mars was in the minds of these men when william marshall who was probably
33:03the most famous of all crusading knights and he was a celebrity in his own day and he fought against
33:07saladin when he died he had these words inscribed around his tomb mille's eram martis i was a soldier of mars
33:25the crusades the crusades saw waves of christian soldiers head to the holy lands
33:34fighting the cause of holy war
33:40and that influence can be tracked down here in jordan
33:55and that was the first castle built by these crusading knights
34:22a stronghold from which christian soldiers could launch their just and righteous military mission
34:35but by all accounts one of the christian rulers of showback had forgotten all codes of chivalry
34:42reino of chatillon had a reputation for being a bullying robber knight by all accounts he sounds like a
34:49dangerously clever psychopath he used to kill his enemies by putting their heads in wooden boxes
34:57and then throwing them off the battlements so they stayed fully conscious right through the moments
35:03that their bodies were being destroyed in theory just war precluded the evils of war love of violence
35:13but this was as brutal as any conflict fought on the fields of mars
35:17from this castle reino attacked a group of muslim travelers who were making their way across this
35:24landscape to the holy city of medina he stole their treasure and enslaved or slaughtered the pilgrims
35:32today considering reino's actions it's hard to reconcile the savagery that took place at showback
35:38and elsewhere with the notion of a just or holy war until you understand the medieval mindset
35:48in what was called the book of knighthood one medieval author christine de pizan set out the guidelines
35:54for being a good christian knight and mars gets a really surprisingly prominent shout out
36:00mars the god of battle may well be called the son of god and every knight that loveth and showeth arms
36:09and deeds of knighthood may be called a son of mars
36:16for crusading christian knights sacralizing war had justified their actions but they weren't alone in
36:24thinking that god was on their side after experiencing the initial savagery of the christians
36:32the medieval muslim fighters increasingly believed that they too were engaged in a righteous struggle
36:39a jihad one muslim who fought in the crusades and who fell in battle was buried with these words inscribed
36:46on his tomb he was described as a sword of those who fight the holy war leader of the armies of the
36:54muslims vanquisher of the infidels and the polytheists on other tombs men are described as martyrs
37:03they've gained immortality and enduring pleasure in the afterlife
37:11ironically christian writers referred to muslims as mere worshippers of mars both sides claimed the
37:18other were pagans and that they were doing god's will it wouldn't be until the 15th century
37:25that the legitimization of war under a sacred banner was really challenged the dutch philosopher
37:31erasmus was particularly vocal erasmus didn't believe that any war could be justified simply
37:38because you kidded yourself that you'd got god on your side as he rather neatly puts it who does not
37:45think his own cause just who can lack a pretext for going to war and to buttress his anti-war rhetoric he
37:54refers directly back to the greeks and to homer who draws inspiration from homer coins a new word to
38:02describe the god of war alo pros alos on one side and then the other and he applies it to mars because
38:09he is two-faced he favors one side and then the other there is no allegiance with mars he simply cannot
38:16be relied on as erasmus says alike to all is the god of war and slays the slayer in turn
38:27erasmus was writing during the renaissance when artists and philosophers used classical figures to
38:34question centuries worth of received wisdom through the figure of mars they asked whether warfare was
38:41indeed an essential part of the human condition from botticelli's famous painting mars and venus where
38:49the bellicose mars is lulled by his paramour to veronese's mars and venus united by love
39:00they asked whether there was any point to any war holy or otherwise
39:06i'm visiting the national gallery in london to explore how these ideas played out in politics
39:20in 1618 europe became embroiled in a devastating sectarian war between rival catholic and protestant
39:28states that would last 30 years and see eight million lose their lives
39:36attempts were made to broker peace and in 1629 the artist rubens was sent to england
39:42not just as a painter but as a diplomatic peace envoy
39:53it's an amazing painting this and it feels like there's all kind of messages going on
39:58yes this is definitely a very very busy painting um so in a way i think the heart of the composition
40:03is this figure of peace who we see here um feeding her son with milk but really the whole picture in
40:10a way is about the benefits of peace and the richness that comes with that so there's this lovely satyr
40:15and leaning in the foreground offering the children this rich cornucopia literally kind of overflowing
40:20with all the different kinds of fruit there's the most amazing playful leopard and the satyr and the
40:25leopard they're really wild creatures you know normally they'd be they'd be dangerous they'd be
40:30um a threat but here because peace is so governing everything they've become playful and subdued so
40:36it's just a kind of real um elegy in a way to all the the benefits of peace and how widespread those are
40:43and this is mars here who's who's being banished he's been pushed out yeah absolutely so the figure that
40:47we who we see behind peace is minerva goddess of wisdom and she is uh pushing mars away so his kind
40:54of black suit of armor there he's being banished along with these kind of ethereal strange furies
41:01that go with him probably symbolizing kind of pestilence and famine and all the all the horrors that
41:06come along with warfare and actually what we see in the foreground or the benefits of peace when mars
41:11isn't allowed to interfere and what i mean because it's it's usual for people to use classical figures
41:16in a kind of allegorical way like this but what is particularly personal about this because it kind
41:20of feels like a very it feels like a very passionate picture it is i think this is a very passionate and
41:26very very personal picture so this is a picture that rubens paints when he's in london he's actually
41:32here kind of with two hats on on the one hand he is here as a diplomat so he's been sent by the spanish
41:38court to kind of open peace negotiations on the other he's here working as an artist and this
41:44painting comes from the meeting of those joint missions from the diplomatic and the artistic and
41:49he he creates this painting as a gift to the king really kind of summing up in paint what it is that
41:54he's arguing for in person and he's witnessed some real horrors during this war he has i mean he's
42:01someone who's really kind of lived with the traumas of what war brings especially in his home city of
42:06antwerp which really really suffered during this period i mean and do you think you know it's easy
42:12to say that you want peace do you think that he thinks it is a possibility i think absolutely and
42:18i think more even than just a possibility i think he is making the argument here that it's absolutely a
42:23prerogative because although this is a painting very much about all the classical figures and the
42:27kind of classical allegories that are taking place there's also really at the heart of the composition
42:31this group of lovely children who are so uh tenderly painted so beautiful with their wide eyes
42:37and it's of course the children of course who are going to be damaged by war we know that these
42:41children are based on the children of the person rubens was staying with in london so i think there
42:45is this kind of heartfelt plea to kind of to take the path of wisdom rather than of warfare genuinely
42:52felt absolutely yeah when rubens painted mars again in his horrors of war 10 years later the buoyant
43:05optimism had faded europe was still steeped in blood in this painting mars charges forth trampling books
43:16representing wisdom venus tries to hold him back in vain and his accompanying furies take center stage
43:24ravaging the cowering victims at their feet
43:30using the ancient god as a symbol of the chaos and destruction of war had kept miles alive but hadn't
43:38acted as a deterrent in fact as europe continued to look back to ancient rome and greece for inspiration
43:45the figure of mars was used once again to promote the idea that warmongering was a route to peace and
43:53prosperity now this is one of the most ambitious and bellicose empire builders of the 19th century
44:02it's napoleon bonaparte but here slightly larger than he was in real life and heroically naked
44:09this is napoleon depicting himself as mars but what's really interesting is that this isn't mars the
44:17chaotic bloodthirsty god of war this is mars the peacemaker and we mustn't forget that mars had
44:24children called panic and fear but he also had a daughter named harmony and what this statue is doing is
44:32playing on the idea that conflict is something that allows societies not just to survive but to thrive
44:43napoleon celebrated mars as a bringer of order just as the romans had done 2000 years before
44:49he might have styled himself a latter-day roman conqueror with territories stretching across the
44:56mediterranean and the middle east but the gifts of this war were not peace but churn
45:02and change as one ancient philosopher put it war is a catalyst the father and king of all some war has made
45:12gods some slaves conflicts between european nations were now escalating to engulf the globe in the most
45:23devastating war the world had ever seen i'm meeting dr toby thacker amongst london's memorials to modern
45:31conflict to find out how mars and the classical world influence those who fought in world war one
45:40so just that one inscription above us 49 000 and 76 of the royal regiments of artillery gave their lives
45:48for king and country in the great war that's from one regiment the numbers tell their own um dreadful story
45:55i think when we're talking about the first world war it's so important to remember that in the minds of
46:01of these men this was in some ways a religious war i mean they they do feel that they are in some way
46:06doing god's will very much so the war was seen i think by the great majority of people in britain
46:13in august 1914 as a moral crusade but for many of these men the pagan world is still present in this
46:20conflict and mars is referenced a lot in in iconography and in the literature of the time asquith the prime
46:26minister himself was a great classical scholar um others we think of um general ian hamilton who was
46:32in charge of the gallipoli campaign uh these were men for whom mars was it was almost a living uh
46:39presence everybody even to this day is familiar with the mustachioed figure of kitchener pointing
46:45saying your country needs you and alan moorhead described how this poster was everywhere in britain
46:51um this is kitchener like the face of mars himself this is the uh cat badge from the artists rifles
46:59mars and minerva yes and the artists rifles was used as an officer training corps and as the war
47:06developed literally thousands of young men were trained in the artists rifles and went on to to serve
47:14in other roles right through the british armed forces these were young men who had been to public
47:20school were steeped in the classical tradition their whole frame of reference for understanding public
47:27affairs politics government and of course the business of warfare was classical so these are
47:33fighters who have kind of believed in the heroic ideal of the soldier and that's something which is very
47:38classical you see that slipping away as the war continues yes there is an increasingly growing
47:47sense of cynicism and disillusion this of course we're i think most familiar with through the work
47:53of some of the war poets wilfred owens um very bitter poem dulce at decorum est where he took to task
48:01that generation of older people of teachers of priests of recruiting officers who were trying to
48:08do using classical uh ideals trying to suggest that you know it was such a sweet and a good thing to die
48:14for your country by 1918 after four grueling years it's estimated that 37 million people had died across the globe
48:32as monuments to the dead were built in civic centers up and down the country
48:36mars was no longer upheld as a bringer of peace
48:45this arch was built to commemorate the 585 men from the london and southwestern railway who sacrificed
48:53their lives in the great war now up at the top you've got a triumphant figure of britannia but what's
48:59really interesting are the two sculptures underneath and on the left there's the female figure of the
49:05goddess bellona and bellona was none other than the wife of the great war god mars bellona was not a
49:14creature to be messed with and even in the ancient world people feared her her adherence had to slash
49:21their arms and their legs in her honor and she's surrounded by these ghoulish figures but what happens
49:28then is very interesting when you move to 1918 suddenly the representation is of athena athena
49:34the goddess of wisdom and peace and righteous judgment and victory and the idea is that people have
49:41learned from the horrors of the great war that war is not necessarily a good thing mars perhaps has
49:49to be left behind and instead women and men had to pursue the cause of peace and wisdom
49:59but just two decades later those hopes would be dashed
50:03between 1939 and 45 it's thought that up to 85 million were the casualties of war
50:22over 200 000 dying when the atomic bombs fell
50:26if world war one hadn't been able to kill off mars surely the scale and the horrors of world war ii would
50:37anti-war polemics were increasingly produced
50:43this was published in 1945 just three months after hiroshima and nagasaki and it's entitled the eternal art
50:52being a speech made by mars in his own defense as god of war i consider this to be a propitious moment
50:59to talk to you frankly because it seems to me the time has come at last to dispense with my services
51:05forever your feverish scientific progress is making my work increasingly strenuous in my old age
51:12i want to retire there isn't even any vestige of sport left in what i do you yourselves through the
51:19atom bomb have provided me with the means to destroy the world without a fight for your own sakes i
51:28sincerely hope that this is my swan song
51:36the threat of nuclear armageddon gripped the world's imagination with fear and dread mars would get a new
51:43outing no longer an object of worship but of terror these are just two posters from a whole plethora of
51:52films that came out in the 50s and 60s and that absolutely packed out movie theaters um now on the
52:00face of it the theme is just a common one it's all about the red planets and the threat from mars but
52:06what's really interesting that this isn't just sci-fi blockbuster fantasy there's a really serious
52:12political undertow for the threat from the red planet read the red scare and for the martians
52:19belligerent unpredictable militaristic read the communists now this is something that has been going
52:26on since antiquity we have to create an outsider another we have to turn us into us and them
52:34from hiroshima onwards when weapons of mass destruction offer godlike powers is there still room for a god in war
52:51i've come to sandhurst in surrey the british army's chief officer training college to ask what role the
53:02sacred has in 21st century conflict regimented training bears some of the hallmarks of ritual and
53:12spectacle that the ancients would have appreciated and these young women and men still parade under the
53:19gaze of mars that's um mars and minerva up there and young officers who pass out here talk about
53:29passing out under the watchful eye of the god of war and the goddess of wisdom
53:34i'm meeting army chaplain andrew totten to ask him about his direct experience of war
53:46and religion in the british military uh you walk in here under those brilliant figures of mars the god
53:52of war and minerva the goddess of wisdom on the pediment do you think they actually mean something to
53:58the officers who train and have trained here i think there is that desire to look back to your
54:04classical roots uh to look back to to rome to look back to athens uh the really interesting thing is
54:11when you get jerusalem coming into it as well so those classical gods what does it mean when you bring
54:17into the figure of mars for example the figure of christ uh not an avenging god but but a suffering god
54:25there are classical references everywhere i mean there's a huge banner there adultery at the quorum
54:29s pro patria mori sweet right it is to die for your fatherland the men and then the women who've
54:36trained here again do you think that these references are something that they've carried with them that
54:40they've taken with them um onto the battlefield or into active service i think probably modern officer
54:46cadets are probably more shocked to see that quotation from from horace via uh wilfred owens interpretation
54:53obviously of the of the pity of war and of course war is a is a pitiable thing do you think there can
54:59be ever such a thing as a sacred war no no war can't be sacred but the foundational principles of the
55:09british law of armed conflict include those of humanity of reducing suffering so it's life not war
55:18that is sacred as a historian i see through recorded time men who have been happy to call themselves
55:25soldiers of mars is this a tradition that you can imagine continuing into the future if you see that
55:35as the warrior tradition uh yes that that is alive you you'll find warriors in in every regiment certainly
55:42every combat regiment of of the british army some people say that there's a similar intensity to uh
55:51being in active service to fighting on the battlefield uh and a religious experience
55:57i think certainly of a particular patrol in in afghanistan where the soldiers came under ambush
56:03um and in the course of that uh had to respond and begin to to fight back against uh against the enemy
56:13i have never seen soldiers happier more professionally fulfilled uh where there was the sense of their
56:20their discipline their training their skills all coming together at the same time as trying to
56:25protect any innocent people who may have been in that particular battle space
56:30uh so there is almost that kind of rapture that can happen in combat and what about you because
56:37you're obviously a man of faith you're also a man of war how do you reconcile those two impulses in your
56:44life i don't think you ever completely emotionally reconcile them i don't think you should i think you you
56:52need to keep the sensitivity uh to all those ambiguities within it horrible things happen in war
56:58uh the most ghastly things happen in that respect uh and and that's where it leaves that sense of
57:05lasting ambiguity you know that you're doing something that needs to be done but it may still
57:11in its own essence be something that is evil as i've been exploring the many incarnations of mars
57:18throughout history what's become clear is that the god of war isn't simply a one-dimensional harbinger of
57:25chaos and destruction his raging spirit can bring rapture and his military might deliver the benefits
57:36of peace prosperity and order surely that is partly why we've sacralized war why as the greeks put it men
57:47love the lamentable works of aries because the uncomfortable truth is that battle can benefit
57:53societies but today with annihilation possible at the push of a button and with the passions of holy
58:01war still running high we have to embrace the idea that immortal mars will have no domain to rule over
58:09unless we accept that it is not war that is sacred but life
58:24a major new series for bbc for tomorrow examines how police attitudes towards women hampered the arrest
58:31of peter sutcliffe the yorkshire ripper files a very british crime story here at nine now the story of a
58:40russian ballet legend and his defection at the height of the cold war rudolf nuriev dance to freedom next
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