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00:00A civilization immortalized by awe-inspiring monuments and priceless treasures, ruled by pharaohs, living gods, and legendary warriors.
00:14But their wealth masks a darker truth. Power was bought with blood.
00:25They assembled the greatest armies in history.
00:30Revolutionized the art of warfare, and waged spectacular battles, and titanic conquests.
00:43This is the hidden face of Egyptian history. The story of the pharaohs at war.
00:49Actium, Greece. 2nd of September, 31 BCE. The calm before the storm.
01:10The coming battle will change the course of history. It will seal the fate of Egyptian civilization and of the Roman Republic.
01:23On one side, Octavian, the official heir to Julius Caesar. Octavian's army consisted of 400 ships, 120,000 soldiers, and 12,000 horsemen.
01:38On the other side, the pharaoh Cleopatra, defending her dynasty with her ally, the Roman general Mark Antony, Octavian's great rival.
01:49Cleopatra and Mark Antony had assembled a powerful army. Five hundred ships, 100,000 soldiers, and 12,000 horsemen.
02:00At Actium, what is at stake is the survival of Egypt. Cleopatra, via her ally, Mark Antony, must defeat Octavian.
02:09Otherwise, he would take charge of Egypt, or even worse, annex it, putting an end to the Ptolemaic dynasty.
02:15The battle of Actium would seal the fate of Egypt and Rome. At the end of the conflict, there would be only one emperor in the Mediterranean.
02:26Octavian wanted to crush the ambitions of Cleopatra and her husband, Mark Antony.
02:32It would be Cleopatra's final battle. She is already a powerful living legend.
02:40But she will be remembered above all for her daring confrontations with Rome's most powerful men.
02:55Cleopatra was heir to the Ptolemaic dynasty founded by Ptolemy I, an officer to Alexander the Great, who became king of Egypt.
03:04Thereafter, all the rulers bore the name Ptolemy until Ptolemy XII, Cleopatra's father.
03:12The Ptolemies ruled the Laged dynasty, founded in the 4th century BCE, following the death of Alexander the Great.
03:21At the height of their reign, the Ptolemies possessed an immense empire stretching from Nubia to the north of the Aegean Sea.
03:29But by the time Cleopatra was born, the Ptolemy's Egypt was at its weakest, reduced to the Nile Valley and the island of Cyprus.
03:40Cleopatra's dynasty experienced countless familial conflicts that weakened it over the centuries.
03:48Cleopatra's father, Ptolemy XII, sought to consolidate his power, so he turned to Rome, a choice that sowed the seeds of the conflict to come.
03:59Ptolemy XII used Egypt's resources to bribe the powerful Romans of the time.
04:05And finally, he bought Julius Caesar himself in 59 BCE, and it was Julius Caesar who officially recognized him as king, ally and friend of the Roman people.
04:16But all that gold wasn't enough to satisfy Rome's territorial appetite.
04:25A year later, Ptolemy XII learned that the Romans had decided to annex their only remaining province outside Egypt, the island of Cyprus.
04:34This is a major blow for Egypt, and another step towards Roman domination of the Mediterranean.
04:42The Romans were interested in getting hold of the copper mines, the timber supplies for the fleets, and above all, strategic control of the entire eastern Mediterranean.
04:53Before the Roman annexation, the island of Cyprus was the last Egyptian stronghold in the Mediterranean.
05:04The capital, Paphos, known as Little Alexandria, is situated just 400 kilometers from Egypt.
05:11Cleopatra's ancestors used the island to build the largest fleet in history.
05:18Thanks to building such an extensive fleet, the Ptolemies had established a telethocracy in the Mediterranean Sea.
05:28The Lasso, the sea, and Krati, power, the control of maritime space.
05:37The Ptolemies were confined to their own territory.
05:40By expanding to Cyprus roads and the Aegean Sea, they could establish their domination.
05:48The island of Cyprus was the Greek pharaoh's military strategy outpost.
05:52Claire Belondier is an archaeologist specializing in ancient cities and their defensive policies.
06:01The site of the king's tomb was one of the last to be built by the Ptolemaic military elite.
06:07This type of peristyle tomb recreates their home environment.
06:12In other words, there's columns all around it.
06:15So in death, they hope to continue to live in the same environment as the one they had lived in previously in Alexandria.
06:29Cyprus was the last jewel in the crown of the Mediterranean for the Ptolemies.
06:34The Alexandrians were outraged by the Roman annexation of this strategic territory.
06:39And they demanded the alliance with Rome be broken.
06:41With the loss of Cyprus, the people of Alexandria and the Egyptians in general feel a sense of betrayal towards Rome.
06:52Ptolemy XII did not just receive hostility from the people.
06:57Even his daughter Berenice opposed him.
07:00He had the rebel assassinated his daughter Berenice so that his favorite daughter Cleopatra could take her place.
07:08She was 17 years old when Ptolemy XII ascended her to the throne.
07:17She was crowned and became a goddess.
07:20She was known as the Philopator goddess, the goddess who loved her father.
07:26She reigned jointly with him.
07:28They were a royal father-daughter couple.
07:30The Ptolemaic dynasty was inspired by pharaonic traditions.
07:37It took two to wield power.
07:45Against the backdrop of conflict, Ptolemy XII had to establish his legitimacy as pharaoh.
07:50He inscribed his legend in stone as the great warrior pharaohs and builders of the new kingdom had done before him.
07:59On the temple walls of Edfu, King Ptolemy XII actually has himself represented as a typical Egyptian pharaoh.
08:08He is smiting his enemies.
08:16He is holding a group of enemies in one hand and is about to decapitate them with a weapon in his other hand.
08:23Ptolemy XII never went to war and it was Rome that put him in power.
08:27This is typical pharaonic propaganda and a twisting of realities.
08:34He wants to demonstrate he is like the great pharaohs.
08:38He accomplishes his mission to maintain the mat, just order, by massacring foreign enemies who are seen as the vectors of chaos.
08:58Ptolemy XII died in 51 BCE.
09:03Cleopatra, already pharaoh, expected to rule Egypt alone.
09:08But she opened her father's will and discovered he requested her to marry her younger brother, Ptolemy XIII, aged 13 or 14, in order to respect dynastic custom.
09:21So she married Ptolemy XIII and we have a new couple, a brother-sister couple, a common tradition in the dynasty.
09:32Together they could rule Egypt, but in reality, Cleopatra had no desire to share power.
09:39Cleopatra has no intention of respecting tradition and reigning in anyone's shadow.
09:45An unprecedented situation which causes cracks and inevitable conflict at the height of power.
09:51The court advisers chose to support her brother, Ptolemy XIII, because they thought that the young Ptolemy XIII would be easier to manipulate than this dynamic and ambitious queen.
10:08And so a civil war broke out between Ptolemy XIII and Cleopatra.
10:13Cleopatra was forced into exile. She fled to Syria with one objective, to return to the throne.
10:25It was against this backdrop of civil war that Julius Caesar, Rome's most powerful general, arrived in Alexandria.
10:33He does not look favorably on this conflict, which risks damaging his interests. For Egypt to be profitable for him, the country must return to peace.
10:45He positions himself as referee, but soon becomes trapped.
10:49The Alexandrian people were still very unhappy with the loss of Cyprus. And on top of that, the advisers of Ptolemy XIII had pushed for skirmishes against the Roman forces.
11:04Ptolemy XIII had no trouble stirring up the people of Alexandria against Caesar.
11:15Ptolemy and his entourage thought they could take advantage of Caesar's numerical inferiority with only 3,200 men.
11:22You have to realize that Alexandria was the most densely populated city in the Mediterranean basin at the time.
11:32There were at least 500,000 inhabitants.
11:35Ptolemy distributed weapons to all volunteers, even slaves, in order to create a militia that would help the regular Ptolemaic army.
11:44The situation soon deteriorates. Caesar found himself trapped in Alexandria, surrounded by the civilian population and the 20,000 soldiers of Ptolemy XIII.
12:01The siege of Alexandria began.
12:03Vincent Torres-Hougon is an expert in ancient armies. He dons the armor and weaponry of the ancient soldiers in order to study their equipment and tactics.
12:20The Egyptian fighters are the Thereophorite. These shield-bearers, the Thereos, which in Greek means the door, is a fairly compact shield.
12:33And when the combatant is on guard, on guard, this shield covers from the ankle to the head.
12:41So even if you're lightly armed, you can still be well protected.
12:45Ptolemy's armed forces were large, but lacked the experience of Caesar's troops.
12:50His troops are fully equipped, loyal and well-trained.
12:55They wear body armor. This is the most common type of protection which all Roman legionaries wore after the Gaelic War.
13:01It's called logica armata or chainmail. The concept behind chainmail is that it's extremely protective and shields against jabs and slashes.
13:12The Romans were masters of military art.
13:15One maneuver that made them particularly successful on the battlefield was the turtle, where the soldiers grouped themselves in a square and formed a shell with their shields.
13:25They also developed offensive tactics, such as permutation.
13:31This soldier is wounded and asks his companion to replace him, and so on down the line.
13:43All the combatants can rest and have direct confrontation in short bursts.
13:49This experience benefited Caesar, while Pharaoh Ptolemy XIII only had troops that would continually fight,
13:57and where the front lines would only withdraw when they were dead or wounded.
14:00With this knowledge, Cleopatra felt she had a card to play. The tide could turn in her favor.
14:09Cleopatra was well-educated. She had been educated with her father at the Roman court.
14:17She had access to all the Alexandrian knowledge from the Library of Alexandria.
14:22Cleopatra was a linguist. She was the first pharaoh to speak Egyptian.
14:28Above all, she understood the Mediterranean issues of her time.
14:32She knew that Rome had the power to make or break kings.
14:35She knew how the world turned and what made the world change.
14:41Unlike her brother, who was young and inexperienced, Cleopatra was a woman of action,
14:47a strategist who had already ruled. Faced with Rome, she made a bold decision.
14:55She would do anything to regain her title as pharaoh.
14:59And she will go down in history, thanks to a now-famous ruse.
15:04You have to imagine Cleopatra hidden at the bottom of a boat.
15:09She discreetly enters the port with a single servant called Apollodorus.
15:13Apollodorus. He's a Sicilian athlete.
15:17This is important because once he arrives at the quay near the palace,
15:22he carries her on his back in a rucksack, and this is how she enters the palace.
15:28The bag is placed at Caesar's feet, so he doesn't know what it is.
15:36He finds the young queen of Egypt, who's 21 years old.
15:40She emerges from the bag, and he immediately asks his staff to leave the room,
15:46and they become lovers that night.
15:49Julius Caesar is 52, she is 21, and her idea, which will dictate her entire strategy,
15:56is to form a political or erotic political alliance with the powerful Romans.
16:02Her father has given money to the powerful Romans, and she's going to take it for herself.
16:07Cleopatra, Julius Caesar, and his men find themselves besieged in the palace of Alexandria.
16:18So we have to hold out. That's the essence of Caesar's strategy.
16:24They're waiting for reinforcements, supplies, troops to arrive.
16:29Caesar ordered the burning of Pharaoh Ptolemy's ships, which were depriving him of access to the sea.
16:37The collateral damage was devastating. A fire ravaged the famous Library of Alexandria.
16:42Pharaoh Ptolemy was also planning a major coup. The city of Alexandria is a masterpiece of engineering,
16:55built around an intelligent irrigation and storage system that provides drinking water to every corner of the city.
17:01Since the people of Alexandria couldn't force Caesar to give up, they tried to make him and his troops thirsty.
17:09The insurgents are deliberately pouring sea water into the pipes and cisterns that bring drinking water to the palace.
17:19The aim is obviously to make it unfit for consumption.
17:23So Caesar ordered his men to find new water sources. And within one night, after digging throughout the night, they found and dug a well.
17:36Thanks to their unrivaled coordination, the Romans succeeded just in time.
17:41After several months of siege, Cleopatra and Caesar finally received reinforcements.
17:54Mithridates of Pergamum, a king of Anatolia, wants to seek favor with Caesar.
18:00He raised an army of tens of thousands of men in Cilicia and Syria and headed for Egypt.
18:05In response to the threat, Ptolemy XIII reinforced the fortified outpost of Pelusium.
18:12But this did not stop Mithridates, who crushed the Egyptian garrison and continued to advance towards Alexandria.
18:19Faced with this serious threat, Ptolemy XIII and his army tried to block the way.
18:25But Caesar also sent troops to the Nile Delta.
18:28It was on the banks of the sacred river that the final battle took place.
18:32And it would seal the fate of the young pharaoh Ptolemy XIII.
18:37The allied Roman forces would crush Ptolemy's army.
18:42The shock is so great that the battle probably didn't last long.
18:47Ptolemy XII defeated, fled and drowned in the Nile.
18:52It was a huge victory for Caesar and Rome, but mostly for Cleopatra, who watched her main opponent to the pharaonic throne die in battle.
19:04Julius Caesar put Cleopatra back on the throne.
19:11But as there had to be a pharaonic couple, Cleopatra married her second remaining younger brother, Ptolemy XIV.
19:20Ptolemy XIV was only 12 years old and posed no threat to the pharaoh.
19:28Cleopatra now has full power over Egypt.
19:31In the end, it was Cleopatra who really triumphed in the Battle of the Nile.
19:39Thanks to her alliance with Caesar, she established her authority over Egypt.
19:44And above all, because Caesar needed her to keep the peace in Egypt, he was going to give her diplomatic gifts, including the return of Cyprus.
19:52For the Egyptian people, it was a relief. For Cleopatra, a new horizon.
20:03The return of this island, a key part of the Egyptian defensive system, enabled Egypt to revive its dream of thalasocracy and domination of the eastern Mediterranean.
20:14After the war, Cleopatra launched a diplomatic operation using resources worthy of the pharaohs.
20:24She showed Caesar the treasures of Egypt aboard the Thalamos.
20:29Thalamos in Greek means the bedroom, the palace, and it's a colossal boat.
20:37It's the biggest ship ever built. Not a warship at all, but a ship of state. It's a huge yacht, in a way.
20:47She was proud to show Julius Caesar the glorious heritage of the pharaohs that she claimed for herself,
20:55and which, in a way, also symbolizes her power as the Egyptian goddess queen.
21:02She wanted to show Julius Caesar a part of herself.
21:05Cleopatra offers Caesar a spectacle like no other.
21:12Three thousand years of pharaonic splendor and architectural gems are revealed to him.
21:20But at the same time, it gave the opportunity to Caesar to assess the wealth of Egypt on the resources he was interested in.
21:31He was more interested in the wheat resources than perhaps in the old temples.
21:38For her, it was an opportunity to demonstrate her power over Egyptian territory and establish important diplomatic relations with the new strongman of Rome.
21:48Caesar, on his part, wasn't fooled. It was a way for him to establish his authority in Egypt, to leave an ally loyal to his own interests, so that he could continue his civil war and control Egypt through Cleopatra.
22:02Both had an interest in this alliance.
22:09As luck would have it, Cleopatra's romance led to her becoming pregnant and, more importantly, to her giving birth to a son, the future Caesarian, the new pharaoh, who would be of Ptolemaic and Roman origin.
22:21For Cleopatra, this was a way of establishing her authority.
22:27After the birth of her son, Cleopatra eliminated her last brother, Ptolemy XIV.
22:34She could now reign Egypt with Caesarion at her side, like Isis and Horus before them.
22:41From then on, Cleopatra developed a pharaonic propaganda campaign around her son.
22:47He was at the heart of her political strategy.
22:50At the temple of Dandera, she ordered the creation of monumental reliefs, in which she represented herself and Caesarion in the manner of the great pharaohs.
23:00Her son was only three years old, but he was depicted as a bloodthirsty warrior.
23:04Inside the temple, Cleopatra addressed the gods directly.
23:14An extraordinary number of reliefs, honoring the mother and her son, adorn the most sacred spaces.
23:228, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, about 20.
23:28The message here is clear.
23:29There are about 20 representations of Caesarion and only four of Cleopatra.
23:34She really wanted to showcase her son.
23:37So it's an official discourse, a discourse of pure propaganda.
23:48Cleopatra traveled to Rome in the hope that Caesar would recognize Caesarion as her official heir.
23:54But Octavian, Caesar's grand-nephew and legitimate heir, had little regard for her claims.
24:02But her attempt to have Caesarion recognized as an official heir to Caesar was stopped.
24:14Unfortunately for Cleopatra, Caesar was assassinated.
24:18It was a serious blow to her strategy of getting close to the strong man of Rome.
24:21Caesar's death put everything back into play.
24:25Without a Roman protector and without recognition of her son as the official heir,
24:31Cleopatra was vulnerable.
24:33There are two main heirs to Caesar who share the Roman Empire.
24:37Octavian, the nephew, adopted as his son by Caesar, who basically dominated the West.
24:47And then Mark Antony, who was one of Julius Caesar's loyal collaborators, and his heir in the East.
24:55Mark Antony was loyal to Julius Caesar, had fought alongside him, and actually fought to defend his honor against the people who had murdered him.
25:11Mark Antony was a logical choice for Cleopatra to approach in order to establish a new alliance.
25:17Mark Antony and Cleopatra meet in 41 BCE in what is now southern Turkey.
25:24Immediately a legendary political, military, and romantic alliance begins.
25:30Their passionate relationship will upset the balance of power in the ancient world.
25:34And it's quite natural, you might say, that Cleopatra will become attached to Mark Antony.
25:43Who is the Roman of the moment, with whom she will repeat her erotic political strategy.
25:49She's going to marry him and importantly give him three children.
25:55First came twins, Alexander Helios and Cleopatra Selene.
26:00Then another boy, Ptolemy Philadelphus.
26:06For Mark Antony, an alliance with Cleopatra is really helpful.
26:13She provides him with supplies, with food, with fleet, gold and silver.
26:21She becomes the purse of Mark Antony's war efforts in the East.
26:28For Cleopatra, this is an opportunity to rebuild perhaps soon the kingdom of Ptolemy I as it was.
26:41With the union of Cleopatra and Mark Antony, Egypt became the axis of Roman domination in the East.
26:47In 37 BCE, Cleopatra obtained a gift from Mark Antony, a series of territories in the Near East, in Cyrenaica and Cilicia, to the south of present-day Turkey.
27:00She was one step closer to her dream of restoring the great legend empire.
27:04She established herself as an all-powerful sovereign, reigning over land and sea.
27:13Cleopatra, for the Egyptians, she was Isis, the goddess of the sea, the queen, sister, ruler.
27:21For the Greek people, she was Aphrodite's goddess of love, sure, but goddess also that came out of the sea.
27:31Located on the southwest coast of Cyprus, Aphrodite's rock is the mythical place where, according to legend, the goddess Aphrodite emerged from the waves carried by a shell.
27:44According to mythology, anyone who swims around the rock is blessed with eternal youth and beauty.
27:52Claire Boulondier has discovered an extraordinary place of worship, buried deep in the ground, and had been ignored for over 2,000 years.
28:02We were surprised to discover this fantastic setting, which is a large shell carved into the rock.
28:09Cleopatra and Marc Antony were to become gods.
28:16She identifies with the goddess Aphrodite and he with the god Dionysus.
28:22And symbolically, they are going to show their political and emotional association in a wedding that is going to take place where?
28:30In Cyprus, in the sanctuary of Aphrodite.
28:34Cleopatra is the goddess of love and beauty.
28:37Marc Antony, the god of wine and celebration.
28:40But that's not all.
28:42In the east, Dionysus is also a god of war and conquest.
28:47Antony and Cleopatra founded a community called the Inimitables, where the two sovereigns celebrated the Dionysian cult through an art of living and extreme decadence, as only the great Hellenistic sovereigns could afford.
29:03The cup of the Ptolemies is a priceless royal treasure dedicated to the cult of Dionysus.
29:11Carved from a block of fine stone, it was sculpted in Alexandria in the first century BCE and has been used to crown a multitude of kings.
29:19Cleopatra and Marc Antony propaganda was expressed through luxuries.
29:26They took part and created parties and luxurious feasting, which were completely normal in the eastern part of the Mediterranean Sea.
29:40On the other hand, for the Romans, this was debauchery.
29:46Cleopatra is the one who led Marc Antony into a life of eastern luxury and perversion.
29:53In Rome, starts an act of propaganda against Cleopatra. She is everything the Romans do not agree with.
30:03Octavian orchestrated a terrible campaign against Cleopatra, smearing her with all manner of evils.
30:09The author, Cassius Dion, transcribed Octavian's insults to the pharaoh.
30:16It would be unbearable for us to be defeated and despised by a woman, an Egyptian woman.
30:23This propaganda is fundamentally xenophobic and misogynistic.
30:30In the patriarchal society of the Romans, women were submissive. There were no female senators.
30:38Whereas in Egypt, there was a tradition of female power.
30:44Who would not weep when they saw Antony himself bowing down at the feet of this female?
30:49He is no longer Roman, he is Egyptian. He has renounced all the sanctity of ancestral institutions to go and play symbols in the slums of Canope.
31:00It was the incessant criticism by Octavian of Cleopatra that led to the Battle of Actium. He even described her as an Egyptian whore.
31:10And Antony, almost in spite of himself, like a victim, became the enemy of the Roman people.
31:15In 34 BCE, a new event would set the world alight, the Alexandria Donations.
31:24During the Donations of Alexandria in 34 BCE,
31:28Mark Antony, not only did he recognise Caesarean as rightful heir of Judas Caesar, but he also awarded part of his land, which he was controlling for Rome, to each of his children.
31:45Cleopatra and Mark Antony seek to strengthen their power by crowning their children.
31:52They laid the foundations for a new dynasty that would take control of the entire eastern Mediterranean.
31:59East is given to Alexander Helios. North went to Ptolemy Philadelphus.
32:04The West became the kingdom of Cleopatra Selene. And as for Caesarean, he became the King of Kings.
32:14For Rome, it was a scandal. And the threat of a new dynasty in the East, an Egyptian dynasty, led to a conflict with Octavian.
32:24The donated lands provoked the anger of the Roman Senate, which refused to approve the agreement. This sealed the conflict with Rome.
32:34And so Octavian declared war only on Cleopatra, the femme fatale, the evil woman, and not on Mark Antony, because Mark Antony no longer represented anything but a toy in Cleopatra's hands.
32:48The war is on. Cleopatra and Mark Antony are going to assemble a huge army. They are more determined than ever to confront Octavian.
33:00Cleopatra is not a queen of the shadows. She is a sovereign on the front line, a determined warrior.
33:08She embarks with her troops for the battle that will seal the future of her dynasty.
33:13Mark Antony and Cleopatra have joined forces with 500 warships and an army of 100,000 soldiers and horsemen.
33:32In the summer of 32 BCE, Cleopatra and Mark Antony left Alexandria with their huge fleet.
33:38They made several stopovers, gathering more and more troops from across the empire.
33:44In the spring of 31 BCE, they settle at Actium, ideally positioned on the sea routes linking Greece, Italy, and Egypt.
33:54They want to control the passages that are vital to Octavian.
33:57Jenny Barka is a historian. She is fascinated by the war that was fought right here in the Bay of Actium.
34:09The first supply camps were built in the Peloponnese. Others were installed on the Ionian Islands. One on the island of Lefkada, in front of us. The others on Ithaca and Corfu.
34:26Octavian had assembled slightly fewer ships, but had better prepared for the war. He had a secret weapon within his ranks.
34:40Octavian forces amounted to 350 ships, 80,000 infantry, and 12,000 cavalry.
34:47He's helped by a successful land general, Agrippa, who also became an incredible admiral of his fleet.
35:01General Agrippa was one of the strongest assets of Octavian, and probably the reason why he won that war.
35:09Octavian's headquarters were on the hills to the north of Actium.
35:18From there, he had an overview of both land and sea.
35:23His troops are positioned facing out to sea, providing easy access to shipping lanes.
35:39He established his headquarters on this exact spot. So this entire range of the hills was covered by his army.
35:50And here he had the command of the plane below him, on the waters of the Ionian Sea. You can see over there was the navy.
36:01On the other side, we see the waters of the Ambrosian Gulf, where inside the navy of Antony was stationed.
36:16Cleopatra and Mark Antony's ships were sheltered from storms by the Gulf of Ambrosia. Their camps were set up nearby.
36:24In the event of a land offensive, the soldiers of Mark Antony and Cleopatra, like those of Octavian, were ready to fight back, separated only by the mouth of Actium.
36:38A strategic choice that would backfire on Cleopatra and Mark Antony.
36:43They selected a point that actually was low on the water, easily accessible to their ships, but it contained swamps.
36:56That area, during the summer, had standing waters, so it was in a healthy position.
37:04Many of the troops were decimated by disease, particularly malaria and dysentery.
37:19Their situation only got worse. The shrewd strategist Agrippa, Octavian's commander, undermined Cleopatra and Mark Antony's position.
37:28He led a series of offensives against the supply points they had established along their route from Egypt.
37:39Agrippa's strategy led to a situation of blockade for Mark Antony and Cleopatra's troops.
37:49This siege organized by Agrippa causes enormous damage to Cleopatra and Mark Antony's army.
37:54Firstly, there were deaths, but also the planned reinforcements didn't arrive.
38:00This situation, which dragged on for months, forced Cleopatra and Mark Antony to go on the offensive.
38:08Actium is a way out of the siege.
38:11The Egyptian fleets and Mark Antony's Roman fleet surged to break the blockade organized by Agrippa.
38:16We're probably in the same place here where the battle began, on 2nd of September 31 BCE.
38:27The combined fleets of Mark Antony and Cleopatra sailed into the Bay of Actium.
38:32When Cleopatra and Mark Antony finally sail out of the Gulf of Ambratia, Octavian's fleet is waiting for them, lined up in battle position.
38:46The fleet assembled by Cleopatra and Mark Antony was theoretically more powerful and more destructive.
38:52Their warships were designed to crush smaller enemy boats by smashing them in a standard configuration.
39:03The larger the boat, the more imposing the rostrum.
39:06It indicates more rowers, greater acceleration and impact, and more damage to enemy ships.
39:12But at Actium, history was to take a very different path.
39:24Germain Rousseau, an interdisciplinary physicist, is studying these ancient ships.
39:31He has examined the Battle of Actium in great detail.
39:34We're going to accelerate during an extremely fast phase, lasting around 1-2 minutes.
39:41With rowers, we will collide with the opposing hull, create a hole and the enemy boat sinks.
39:55When we look at the two sides here, Octavian on one and Mark Antony on the other,
40:00if the impact is made at the same speed, as you can see, a larger size gives you a competitive advantage.
40:08But for some mysterious reason, at Actium, Mark Antony's ships were struggling to make headway.
40:15And this question motivated us.
40:18Why couldn't Mark Antony use the rostrum technique and crush Octavian as he should have done on the open sea?
40:24The Bay of Actium has some unique features.
40:32Here, fresh water from the Ambray-Shin Gulf meets seawater from the sea,
40:37creating special sailing conditions, the phenomena of dead water.
40:42Fresh water, which is lighter than salt water, will create a layer on the surface.
40:46Scientists are studying the various factors that may have played a role at Actium.
40:56The depth of the water in the Bay.
40:59The power of the boats.
41:01Their positioning.
41:03And also, the depth of their hulls.
41:05The bigger they are, the deeper they sink into layers of different densities.
41:09The difference is that Octavian's boats penetrated the layer by about 80 centimeters, while Mark Antony's boats penetrated the layer by about 2.5 meters.
41:22Mark Antony's boats didn't feel the jumping density between fresh and salt water.
41:27As it accelerates, the boat will create a wave between the two layers.
41:32Depending on its depth and speed, the boat will either be carried or slowed by this ripple.
41:39So the boat has just accelerated, so it's generating the internal wave of the stern.
41:46And so the question is whether or not it's going to catch up, break away, or whether the boat will manage to escape.
41:53It catches up, so it breaks, and so the boat stops.
41:57In this configuration, Mark Antony's boats were at a disadvantage.
42:03But Octavian's boats were at an advantage.
42:06The ship has generated a wake, here.
42:08But it's not going fast enough to escape.
42:10It's a wake that the boat can serve.
42:12Instead of being slowed down by the internal weight generated, this time it's accelerated.
42:16It has an advantage.
42:18In ancient texts, it's said that not only were Mark Antony's boats slowed down, but Octavian's boats had a doubled impetus.
42:25Impetus in Latin means the quantity of movement, so they were going twice as fast as usual.
42:32For Cleopatra and Mark Antony's side, it was impossible to attack with the rostrums.
42:38The frontal attack did not take place as planned.
42:41General Agrippa expanded his front line, both north and south, and ordered his fleet to gradually surround the enemy ships, which were slowly advancing to the front.
42:51These smaller boats were going to board Mark Antony's big ships, and that's why the battle takes a completely different turn.
43:01The ships are neck and neck, very close. The fighting is close. It's not really a naval battle anymore.
43:10With no ramming, there's a cry for boarding. Mark Antony's legionnaires, like Octavian's, were professionals, experienced in close combat.
43:22It was no longer a naval battle, but hand-to-hand combat, Roman against Roman, in the Bay of Actium.
43:35An almost familial battle on home ground, Roman legionnaires were at each other's throats,
43:41wearing the same armor, same helmets, and using the same weapons.
43:48They had to develop their own method of identifying the enemy.
43:54That's why in the chaos of battle, if there's any doubt, each combatant has a watchword that is provided before the battle, so that he can be identified.
44:02If the soldier doesn't give the right answer, they are an enemy.
44:09For example, Mark Antony could have very well used a pharaonic phrase.
44:13The other one would have to answer Ra, and if he didn't answer properly, he would have been attacked.
44:17Cleopatra remained in the background. The ramming has failed, and Mark Antony and his troops are in peril.
44:30She is faced with a difficult choice, whether to throw her ships into battle and risk everything,
44:36or protect the gold she has already loaded on board her boat.
44:39She chooses to save her treasure, and her life.
44:46When a loophole appeared in General Agrippa's system, she seized the opportunity and fled.
44:58Mark Antony realizes he's going to lose the battle.
45:03And at that precise moment, everything changes.
45:06Mark Antony decides to follow the Egyptian queen.
45:12By following in Cleopatra's footsteps, Mark Antony abandoned many of his ships, and the vast majority of his troops.
45:23Octavian took advantage of the situation and presented Mark Antony's defection to the remaining troops,
45:32announcing that the victory was his, and the battle was over.
45:38In the midst of uncertainty, the lonely troops on the battlefield make a fateful decision.
45:44These legionnaires are used to changing sides. They line up behind the winner or whoever pays better.
45:50All of Mark Antony's allies gradually defected and sided with Octavian.
46:00Which meant that Mark Antony could no longer count on anyone.
46:05He couldn't organize another great battle against Octavian.
46:10Mark Antony and Cleopatra didn't just lose the battle, they lost the war.
46:17Nicopolis literally means the city of victory.
46:28Here Octavian had a huge building erected at his headquarters.
46:34A gigantic frieze, 50 meters long, in monumental letters, in honor of Mars and Neptune, the gods of war and the sea.
46:44To thank them for their incredible support, he dedicated trophies to them.
46:5135 rustra seized from the tips of Cleopatra and Mark Antony's ships are set in stone.
46:58The defeated Actium was a tragedy for Mark Antony and Cleopatra.
47:05They had to return to Alexandria.
47:07They waited for reinforcements that never arrived, and finally Octavian came to lay siege to them.
47:13Forcing them to make a dramatic choice.
47:17Suicide.
47:19It was the last major political act of this queen, who buried the Ptolemaic dynasty with her.
47:24The walls of this room were made at precisely the moment when Cleopatra killed herself.
47:33And it's worth noting that the cartridges were not filled in, because in the meantime,
47:39Caesarian was assassinated by Octavian, and Cleopatra killed herself.
47:43Cleopatra the seventh died, but also the 3,000 year history of pharaohs, of Egyptian kings, on the throne of Egypt.
47:56Cleopatra was to be the last pharaoh, the last representative of the Egyptian gods on earth.
48:02Cleopatra a
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