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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.
00:49Epositions of Ukraine
00:59J-13
01:01June 22nd. 217 BCE. 20 kilometres south of Gaza.
01:04June 22nd, 217 BCE, 20 kilometers south of Gaza, on the sand, blood is about to flow.
01:20This desert land would become the scene of one of the greatest battles of antiquity,
01:25the Battle of Raffia.
01:28Two sworn enemies are about to clash.
01:31On one side, Pharaoh Ptolemy IV, ruler of the Lajid Dynasty that reigns over Egypt.
01:38With 70,000 soldiers, 5,000 horsemen and 73 war elephants poised to fight.
01:48On the other, Antiochus III, nicknamed Antiochus the Great, ruler of the immense Seleucid Empire.
01:56With 62,000 soldiers, 6,000 horsemen and 102 war elephants.
02:05The forces involved are extraordinary.
02:08The value of the two enemies' armies are as high as the stakes of the battle.
02:15Antiochus, Pharaoh Ptolemy's number one enemy, posed a direct threat to Egypt's survival.
02:25Ptolemy and Antiochus were the heirs of Alexander the Great.
02:30A century earlier, their great-grandfathers, generals Ptolemy I and Seleucus I fought alongside
02:37him.
02:38Together, they forged one of the greatest empires in history.
02:43When Alexander the Great died, they shared his empire.
02:48Two immense and powerful forces emerged.
02:52The Lajid Empire, which controlled a large part of the Mediterranean.
02:56And the Seleucid Empire, which extended from modern-day Turkey to Central Asia.
03:01But the brothers-in-arms soon became enemies.
03:05Their descendants continued to clash.
03:08And Ptolemy IV and Antiochus III thirsted for revenge.
03:13At the heart of the conflict, West Asia.
03:17For thousands of years, Coelcyria was highly coveted.
03:22Coelcyria was a very rich region, essential for Egypt.
03:31Because it had numerous raw materials that the Ptolemies lacked, such as wood.
03:40The stakes are also commercial.
03:42Raphael lies on the route for spices, myrrh and incense.
03:47The area of Raphael was incredibly important to be able to trade all the resources that
03:56came from Petra and the East towards the Mediterranean Sea.
04:01If Ptolemy loses the battle, he loses his economic resources and likely the means to pay his army,
04:09and the Ptolemaic Empire will collapse.
04:12The threat was not just to the economy of Ptolemaic Egypt.
04:17Most importantly, the pharaoh's lands had to be protected.
04:21For Ptolemy IV, Egypt's defense was at stake.
04:25The area of Raphael was incredibly important, considering that it was just a corridor that
04:32led to Sinai and Egypt afterwards.
04:35Around 400 kilometers separate Raphael from the capital of Pharaoh Ptolemy, Alexandria.
04:43The Sinai is a strategic territory.
04:47It is the gateway to Egypt.
04:49If Antiochus succeeded, he could threaten Egyptian territory and the Ptolemaic dynasty.
04:59In the event of victory, Antiochus III would unite the two greatest Hellenistic empires,
05:05the Seleucid and the Ptolemaic.
05:08He'd find himself head of the greatest power in the world, so the stakes are colossal.
05:16Faced with Antiochus III, Pharaoh Ptolemy IV was gambling the survival of his young dynasty.
05:24He must draw on the strengths of the Egyptian empire if he wants to become his own legend.
05:29In Raphael, two brothers face each other as enemies, heirs of the same military traditions.
05:36Since Ptolemy I, the Egyptian army was transformed into something new.
05:41The Lajid army, that of the Ptolemies, was not an Egyptian-style army but a Macedonian-style army.
05:50They adopted the same formation as Alexander the Great's army.
05:54The Macedonian phalanx had proved extremely efficient in fighting and in gaining success.
06:03Alexander the Great used it very efficiently in his own war all over the world.
06:09The Macedonian phalanx dominated the battlefields of the Mediterranean and West Asia for more than two centuries.
06:19In the phalanx formation, the heavily equipped soldiers are organized in very close ranks, armed with large spears called cerises.
06:31They form an impenetrable wall and perform perfectly coordinated movements.
06:37The aim? To annihilate the enemy with a massive frontal assault.
06:42These phalanxes form the central core of both armies.
06:47At Raphael, Ptolemy brought together 25,000 phalangites.
06:52Antiochus' camp had 20,000.
06:55Two armored walls stood on the battlefield.
07:00Vincent Torres-Hougon practices experimental archaeology.
07:04He dons the armor and weaponry of Hellenistic soldiers in order to study them.
07:10The phalangites' weapon of choice is the sarissa.
07:15When primed, the sarissa four will hold the sarissa in both hands and protect themselves with a pelt, protecting them from head to toe.
07:28Phalangites make all the difference on the battlefield.
07:33This sarissa had a spike.
07:36The spike is needed to dig into the ground in the event of a cavalry charge.
07:42The phalangite will be able to withstand a cavalry charge without problem.
07:47The sarissa is securely fixed and supported by Finns.
07:51This weapon is about to evolve beyond recognition.
07:56Initially, Alexander's and his father's army had shorter sarissas.
08:02But when his father died, the Greeks and the Macedonians started fighting amongst themselves, which led to a longer sarissa.
08:10He can touch me, but I cannot touch him.
08:14So what can I do?
08:17I'm going to make my weapon longer so that I can reach him.
08:20And if possible, I'll make an even longer sarissa so that I'm out of range, but I can touch him.
08:29A competition that reached new heights at the time of Ptolemy IV and Antiochus III.
08:37At Raffia, the spears were almost seven meters.
08:41It's like adding this spear onto this one.
08:44The Battle of Raffia was a battle of superlatives.
08:48A battle of military genius that pushed all limits.
08:52Never before has a pharaoh assembled such a large army.
08:58A tour de force, made possible by the immeasurable legacy of the Ptolemies.
09:04And the dominant position they established in the ancient world.
09:11The dynasty of the Ptolemaic pharaohs stood out from all the others that had ruled Egypt before.
09:18They set up their capital in Alexandria, the city founded by Alexander the Great.
09:24The Ptolemies transformed the city into a center of learning.
09:30It became the largest city in the world, where the two most powerful civilizations of the times met.
09:38The Ptolemies were both Greek rulers, as to Alexander the Great, and true Egyptian pharaohs.
09:45They had a dual identity.
09:53Ptolemy IV was the great-grandson of the founder of this Greek-Egyptian dynasty.
09:59His ascension to the throne was a bloodbath.
10:03When Ptolemy IV accesses his throne, he is quite young.
10:07His advisor, Sosibius, takes advantage of his youth.
10:12Sosibius wanted to take advantage of the king's youth to rule Egypt.
10:19He wanted to clear the air around him.
10:24He had Ptolemy IV's mother, uncle, and his younger brother killed.
10:30As a result, there was no other competition.
10:35He ensures that he has full control of the young king.
10:41In this family massacre, only his sister, Arsenault, was spared.
10:51Ptolemy needed her to legitimize his power.
10:54Traditionally, pharaohs ruled in pairs.
10:57The concept of a king and queen is not very common in Greece.
11:01It's mostly men predominant.
11:03You know, the king of Ithaca, the king of Troy, the king of whatever.
11:07But in Egypt, kings and queens are alike.
11:11So the Ptolemies went all the way through applying this method to keep the Egyptians happy
11:17and to avoid any riots or any instability.
11:21In Ptolemaic tradition, it is customary for a brother and a sister to get married, to be wed.
11:30This tradition of brother and sister, king and queen duo,
11:34comes from the tradition of Isis and Osiris, the gods of the beginning of times in Egypt.
11:45Ptolemy IV married Arsenault III and became a living god and king, with the goddess queen by his side.
11:53A new incestuous royal and divine couple reigned over Egypt.
11:57But the Ptolemies did not originate from Egypt.
12:08To rule Egypt, it's not enough to be king.
12:12You have to be pharaoh.
12:14When the Ptolemies took control of Egypt, it had been 700 years since any large-scale construction programs.
12:22Under the Lajid dynasty, Egyptian rituals were to be enhanced and renewed.
12:29The Ptolemies wanted to reign over the whole of Egypt.
12:33To gain control, they were going to rewrite the rules that had ensured the omnipotence of the pharaohs for 2,000 years.
12:42One of the roles of the ancient Egyptian kings was to be a builder.
12:47They had to build temples for the gods.
12:54Ptolemy IV, in turn, demonstrated his power.
12:58He completed the construction of the Temple of Edfu, dedicated to Horus, warrior and god of the sky.
13:06Identifiable by his falcon head, he was the protector of Egyptian royalty and their avenger.
13:16The great pharaohs of antiquity used their spoils of war to promote their military exploits.
13:26Ptolemy IV also recorded his warrior legend in stone.
13:30One exceptional stela has survived.
13:33It tells the story of the Battle of Raffia.
13:39It's a bilingual document inscribed in both Greek and Egyptian.
13:43We even have two Egyptian versions.
13:46One in hieroglyphics here.
13:49And then, on the back, the language spoken at the time.
13:54On the sides is the Greek translation.
14:03This stone is exceptionally rare and precious for Egypt, because it allows Egyptologists to compare these three languages.
14:10It's the same for the famous Rosetta stone, which enabled Champollion to translate the hieroglyphs.
14:16On this stela, Ptolemy IV occupies the function of a great pharaoh, a warlord, who protects Egypt from chaos.
14:27He was responsible for maintaining a just order, known as the Mahat.
14:35This is the order willed by the gods.
14:37And here, the creator god is represented.
14:39It is the god, Atom, who hands a victory sword to the pharaoh, who is his earthly representative,
14:48and who ensures Mahat is upheld by striking down Egypt's enemies.
14:53Ptolemy is also represented as the heir to Alexander the Great.
14:58Alexander was often depicted on his horse, Bucephalus.
15:02He's brandishing the Macedonian spear, the saris, and impales a kneeling enemy.
15:10So, we have a dual representation.
15:12This is a Greco-Egyptian pharaoh.
15:22To keep their enemies at bay, the Ptolemies established an unprecedented new system in Egypt,
15:28which both ensured their security and increased their prosperity.
15:34At its core, the Lajid army comprised of the phalanx, some horsemen, and clerics.
15:43These clerics were descendants of Greeks and Macedonians who had emigrated to Egypt, attracted by Ptolemy's promise.
15:50They were given land in exchange for joining the armed ranks in the event of war.
15:56It's a way of paying them and securing their loyalty, as they came from all over the Greek world.
16:04And even further afield, from Thrace and Asia Minor, they came to settle in Egypt.
16:10They were colonial soldiers.
16:12The Ptolemies considered themselves fully Egyptian and protected the freedom and rights of Egyptian people.
16:20So, it was inconceivable to expropriate Egyptian subjects to give these territories to Greek colonists.
16:29Other land had to be found.
16:35The Ptolemies were to exploit a region that had been neglected by the great dynasties, the Fayum.
16:42They dug, channeled, and irrigated it, making an immense desert territory fertile.
16:53The clerics trained in the Macedonian phalanx.
16:56At Raphia, tens of thousands responded to the call of Pharaoh Ptolemy IV.
17:01As well as the clash between phalanxes, the armies of Ptolemy and Antiochus were preparing for a much heavier cavalry clash.
17:16A fearsome, frightening confrontation between two battalions of war elephants.
17:22What's special about the Battle of Raphia is that it's the biggest elephant battle in human history.
17:30Elephants were the ancient tanks.
17:33They were heavy.
17:35They were massive.
17:36They were impressive.
17:37They had archers on their back.
17:39And they were quite destructive.
17:42They're prepared for combat.
17:45Used to hearing the war drum, the beat of the weapons and moving around in formations.
17:50And above all, their aggression is developed to confront fellow soldiers.
17:59At Raphia, the elephant battalions were positioned in the flanks, on the front line ahead of cavalry and soldiers.
18:06In all, 170 war elephants were assembled on the battlefield.
18:11The Seleucids relied on Indian elephants, which they had transported through their empire.
18:17While the Lachids had a battalion of African elephants at their disposal.
18:22So the northern Africa, which is a breed that is now extinct, were smaller than the Indian elephants.
18:28They were African elephants that the Ptolemies had brought from present-day Somalia, that traveled across the Red Sea on large ships called elephant carriers.
18:43Just as we have aircraft carriers today, there were elephant carriers in ancient times.
18:54We have depictions specifically from the Roman period, some mosaics of ships carrying elephants.
19:00And I always ask my students about this.
19:02How can you fit an elephant in a ship?
19:04The Ptolemaic fleet was the forte of their army.
19:12It was capable of transporting elephants and enabled them to establish their dominance at sea.
19:18Under Ptolemy IV, the Lajid Empire was at its height.
19:24It stretches from Nubia in present-day Sudan to the north of the Aegean Sea.
19:32They controlled most sea routes with a primary motivation of keeping their Macedonian and Seleucid enemies at bay.
19:40Their empire was defensive.
19:43The Ptolemies wanted to create powerful naval power.
19:48They built what is called a thalassocracy.
19:51Thalasso the sea and craty power, the control of maritime space.
19:56Ptolemy IV had an exceptional heritage.
20:00The founder of his dynasty, Pharaoh Ptolemy I, was a great ship owner.
20:05He had ordered the construction of a huge fleet.
20:08He had 330 warships and hundreds of other ships to transport troops and equipment.
20:23There had never been such a powerful fleet.
20:33Even in land battles, like the Battle of Rafah, for example,
20:37all these troops went there by ships, by boats, including their armaments, their weapons, their horses, their whatever, all went by boats.
20:47We know that under Ptolemy IV, the fleet of the Ptolemies exceeded up to 3,000 ships.
20:53And this is a huge number.
20:59Triremes were the most common warships in ancient times.
21:04They first appeared in Athens in the 5th century BCE.
21:08A replica has been built by archaeologists in an attempt to uncover the secrets behind the success of this legendary ship.
21:16This boat, Trirem Olympia, is unique in the world.
21:22The length of the boat is 35 meters.
21:26The maximum width is 5.5 meters.
21:30We have 170 rowers.
21:33These are the machine of the boat.
21:36They move the boat.
21:38It's called Trirem because it has three lines of rowers.
21:43The construction of the Olympia has enabled us to gain a better understanding of the workings of the Trireme,
21:50meaning Class III, the smallest boat in Ptolemy's fleet.
21:56Faced with enemy threats, the pharaoh embarked on a supersizing race to maintain control over his maritime space.
22:03But then, we started seeing the quinquereens, septereens, and bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger ships.
22:11We started hearing of the 15th and 17th and the 20th.
22:16The ships acted as business card in some kind of way.
22:23The ship displayed and manifested the power of the king that had built them.
22:28The different kingdoms competed on naval warfare.
22:34They engaged in a boasting war, which reached its peak during the reign of Ptolemy IV.
22:41We know that under the IV Ptolemy, the sizes of ships exceeded a limit that was never known before.
22:47The sizes of ships were all the way until the 40, which was two 20s connected together.
22:52What does these numbers mean?
22:55If we assume that the 3 is a ship with three levels like the Olympias, what would the 15 be?
23:02The architecture of the largest ships is still poorly understood.
23:10But we know their size must reflect the destructive capacity of the Ptolemaic fleet.
23:17With the largest war fleet ever built, Ptolemy asserted his supremacy over the Mediterranean.
23:23Naval battles enabled the Ptolemies to conquer key territories such as Cyprus.
23:38The Greek pharaohs used the island as a strategic military outpost.
23:45Salamis is only 85 kilometers from the Syrian coast.
23:52Paphos is 400 kilometers from Alexandria.
23:57The Ptolemies set up a shipyard in Paphos and built a huge port.
24:04Located at the southern tip of the island, it made it possible to sail to Egypt in under two days.
24:12A specialist in ancient cities and their defense, Claire Boulondier has been conducting archaeological research in Paphos for 35 years.
24:23Their aim was to protect the Nile Valley, Egypt, the heart of their kingdom.
24:32So they tried to control the surrounding territories.
24:37Cyprus formed part of this protective layer around Egypt.
24:41The Ptolemies took possession of the island of Cyprus, turning it into a guard post against the Seleucid threat.
24:52There seems to be a garrison established here, a military colony.
24:58A small town for soldiers to control the port in particular.
25:04Then there was a real planned town, a small Alexandria, emerging from the ground.
25:12And building the world's largest navy requires vast quantities of wood.
25:19There aren't any forests in Egypt, so they had to look elsewhere for wood.
25:26The Paphos site is very close to the Trudos mountains, and it's a beautiful forest.
25:31So they can get sap, tar and wood for shipbuilding.
25:38As well as timber, Cyprus is rich in resources.
25:42It has large granaries and a wealth of minerals, the most important of which is copper.
25:48Copper takes its name from the island Kipros.
25:51Copper is used to make bronze armor, since both copper and tin are needed to make the helmets,
25:57and armor for the equipment of ancient armies.
26:00This is the gymnasium at Salamis in Cyprus.
26:11Once the Ptolemies had established their power on the island, these garrisons needed to train
26:16and prepare for war.
26:17So there were gymnasiums, a place where you could go naked to train and physically prepare.
26:24The soldiers train in a large central area called the palestra.
26:30It's in the open air, covered in sand, conditions similar to the battlefields.
26:40It can be combat sports, pugmasia wrestling, where you fight and learn to take blows, work
26:46on your balance and develop your strength and endurance.
26:50It can also be practical sports such as javelin, discus throwing, jumping, running, which prepare
26:56the fighter for a whole range of activities they might encounter in war.
27:02We know inside the gymnasiums there were stones that you could carry above your head, enabling
27:08combatants to develop their muscles to endure the torments of war, to carry the equipment,
27:14which was heavy, and to do it for extended periods in the sun.
27:18In 222 BCE, Ptolemy IV controlled the entire eastern Mediterranean.
27:29He had solid military support, which kept his enemies out of reach.
27:34But just 100 kilometers away, the archenemy Seleucid Empire has just crowned its new king, Antiochus III.
27:42Just 18 years old, he is determined to restore his ancestor's empire.
27:48As soon as he ascended the throne, Antiochus was thirsty for revenge.
27:53He wanted to reconquer Coelcyria and push back the Egyptian Empire.
27:59Why not even crush Ptolemy IV?
28:01In Seleucid tradition, a good ruler should excel on the battlefield in the image of Alexander
28:08the Great.
28:09The war is on.
28:12Antiochus first seized Seleucia of Peiria.
28:15He breached Ptolemy's defenses and made dangerous progress towards Egypt.
28:21When Antiochus started progressing towards Egypt,
28:27Ptolemy IV, and especially his chief minister, Saussebius, stole for time.
28:34He was very skillful.
28:37He entered into negotiations with Antiochus III.
28:40There was even an armistice for several months during the winter of 219 to 218.
28:46This enabled him to send recruiters to Greece to recruit soldiers.
28:50The aim was to build an army capable of repelling the Seleucid invaders.
29:02Maritime dominance also provides access to soldiers far from Egypt's borders.
29:08The Lajids recruited highly specialized elite troops to complete their army.
29:14Among them, Cretan archers.
29:17Well-versed in military exercises, they are reputed to be formidable warriors.
29:25They need to move easily on the decks of ships, on top of fortifications or on the battlefield,
29:31to be sent to the right or the left, wherever they are needed.
29:35They are extremely versatile and professional mercenaries.
29:38These archers will use virtually the same equipment in every city.
29:42Firstly, a double curved bow.
29:44A composite bow.
29:46It will be made of sinew, wood and bone.
29:49Then they are going to have an arrow.
29:51The arrows here are historical reproductions with a beautiful tail.
29:56Tar pitch to hold the feathers and a triangular point at the front.
30:01This is what we find in archaeology because everything else unfortunately has degraded.
30:09Archers are mercenaries, professional fighters, who are also prepared for hand-to-hand combat.
30:16They will have short straight blades, xiphos and pelts.
30:22For the Battle of Rafia, these archers were one of the only units capable of attacking the elephants.
30:29Having good accuracy, they could both shoot the mahouts to prevent the elephants being led
30:34and even shoot the soldiers in the towers above the elephants.
30:39Mahouts are elephant trainers.
30:41Sitting on the animal's head, they lead them into battle.
30:45Without them, the elephants become uncontrollable and can turn against their own side.
30:53In Rafia, the archers are mainly positioned around the elephants,
30:58ready to defend their battalion and attack the opposing unit.
31:02Three thousand archers will join the pharaoh's army.
31:05They will fight alongside tens of thousands of other mercenaries from the farthest reaches of the empire.
31:12Soldiers were recruited from Greece with various backgrounds.
31:17There were also Thracians from what is now Bulgaria and Galatians.
31:22In other words, Celts, Gauls in fact, but Gauls who lived in Asia Minor where they had settled.
31:28Minister Sosepios also decided to train 20,000 Egyptians for the Macedonian phalanx, the Makamo.
31:40Until then, the Egyptians had been confined to stewardship roles.
31:44This was the first time they had taken up arms.
31:47Before this, it was only citizens of Greek and Macedonian descent who formed the ranks of the army.
31:57Because the Ptolemies did not want any civic demands to arise from military training.
32:05These Makamo will be trained for several months in the greatest secrecy.
32:11So, let's go. The bottom of the Sarissa needs to be next to your right foot, always.
32:17En garde!
32:19The Makamo played a crucial role in the Battle of Raffia.
32:23In the spring of 217 BCE, the pharaoh's army sets off eastwards.
32:3570,000 soldiers, 5,000 horsemen, and 73 elephants traveled by land and sea.
32:42Conflict was inevitable.
32:45Ptolemy IV did not go to war alone.
32:52Pharaohs ruled and fought in pairs.
32:55His sister wife, Arsenault, also went to the battlefield.
33:03June the 21st, 217 BCE.
33:07The enemy troops set up their respective camps just a few kilometers apart.
33:12Tensions are at their height.
33:15It was then that Theodotus, a traitor, challenged the security of the Lajid camp.
33:21Very early in the morning, Theodotus managed to break into Ptolemy IV's camp with the aim of assassinating him.
33:30He entered the royal tent, but Ptolemy IV was nowhere to be seen.
33:36Actually, Ptolemy's doctor, Andreas, was there.
33:39And it was he who Theodotus murdered.
33:45A murder that will precipitate the battle.
33:49War is imminent.
33:51The next day, Ptolemy's army faces Antiochus' army on the battlefield.
33:58A total of 130,000 men, 11,000 horsemen, and 175 war elephants prepared to fight.
34:09The battle of Raphael starts with Antiochus III.
34:13He launches his war elephants on the Ptolemaic war elephants.
34:19The fight is colossal.
34:25These are living tanks with mercenaries mounted on them who are hard to reach.
34:33Never before in history have so many elephants been present on a battlefield.
34:44The Indian elephants in the Seleucid camp quickly get the better of the African elephants.
34:50Antiochus III had more elephants, around 100 compared to Ptolemy's 73.
34:57The elephants in Ptolemy's camp panicked when Antiochus' elephants charged them.
35:07The problem is that when an elephant panics, it's impossible to regain control and it often
35:13turns against its own side.
35:17Ptolemy's formation will be completely broken when its own elephants turn and run.
35:23This disruption of the ranks favored Antiochus' charge, which crushed the Ptolemaic left wing.
35:30Frightened by the elephants, Ptolemy's cavalry fled several kilometers.
35:37At that very moment, Antiochus made a serious mistake.
35:41He set off in pursuit of the routed cavalry.
35:44Antiochus followed the cavalry fleeing because he was sure that Ptolemy IV was among the cavalry.
35:58If he manages to reach the pharaoh, he could hail victory with a minimum loss.
36:04But Ptolemy was hiding behind his phalanx in the center of his line of battle.
36:16With Antiochus away from the battlefield, the Seleucid camp was weakened.
36:23The advantage could swing in favor of Ptolemy.
36:26It was at this point that Arsenault, the pharaoh's sister and wife, arrived.
36:33And this played a very important role according to Polybius, where to boost the morale of the
36:38army she promised gold during a powerful speech.
36:41It was tradition in ancient kingdoms for rulers in general to give a speech to their troops.
36:49Generally, mercenaries are paid in silver coins.
36:54She promises them gold coins to motivate them.
36:57If you win, you'll be paid in gold coins.
37:01A strategy that will pay off.
37:05The horsemen of Ptolemy's right wing launched their attack.
37:09To avoid the elephants of Antiochus, they would bypass the Seleucid wing and cause a debacle
37:15of these outside units.
37:18Ptolemy then ordered a frontal assault with his Greek phalanx and his new Egyptian recruits.
37:36The battle then swung in favor of the Legidians, who flanked their enemies.
37:42But how can the Seleucid's retreat be explained?
37:49The great disadvantage of the Macedonian phalanx is that it cannot pivot to the left.
37:54If the phalanx is caught flanking and suddenly wants to tilt the lances, they'll be blocked
37:59by their companions.
38:01Example.
38:02Gentlemen, pivot to the left.
38:04It can't work.
38:05The Sarises are far too big.
38:07At Raffia, the Sarises are the longest they've ever been.
38:11They protrude five meters at the front and almost a meter at the back.
38:16Any rotation greatly weakens the phalangites.
38:18If they want to rotate the formation, they're going to have to straighten the Sarises, make
38:23a quarter turn left and tilt the Sarises again.
38:29This is extremely difficult if the formation is very long.
38:34With a single line it's possible, but with a phalanx that can exceed several thousand fighters,
38:39it's much harder.
38:41If one of the phalanges is bypassed, it's death.
38:52Antiochus finally understood his mistake.
38:56Ptolemy was not ahead of him.
39:01In the distance, he could see clouds of dust rising and closing in on his camp.
39:10Something was wrong.
39:14When Antiochus III, far from the battle, finally returned to the fight, it was too late.
39:20His army had retreated and he realized he had made a huge mistake thinking he was pursuing
39:25Ptolemy.
39:28It's a serious mistake, especially as at the time, the Hellenistic king had to be present
39:32at the battle, like Alexander the Great.
39:35He led his men and so Antiochus III's troops fled all the more easily without their king in sight.
39:43The Ptolemaic cavalry pursued and massacred the fleeing Seleucids.
39:47Antiochus could do nothing more.
39:49He too was forced to flee.
39:51And so the Seleucid army collapsed.
39:53And despite heroic resistance, the losses on the Seleucid side, especially in the phalanx, were enormous.
40:00The battle resulted in losing all the territories he had conquered in the last two years, except for Seleucia.
40:12He could keep Seleucia of Pyrrhea.
40:15Some 13,000 men were killed in the battle, alongside 1,000 horses and 20 elephants.
40:26The pharaohs have once again defeated their hereditary enemy.
40:32With this victory, not only was the Ptolemaic domination of the region saved, but the whole of Egypt.
40:39Queen Arsenault's promise of gold had crucially impacted the outcome of the battle.
40:50Would she keep her word?
40:53The Richelieu Library holds one of the largest collections of Greek coins in the world, with over 120,000 pieces.
41:02The sinew of war. Money has played an essential role in ancient history.
41:07But the Battle of Raffia changed this for good.
41:12Julien Olivier manages the collections in the coin department.
41:16He is one of the few people authorized to handle this treasure.
41:21Some of the coins Arsenault promised on the battlefield have survived 2,200 years of history.
41:28These are the heavy Ptolemaic gold coins, which weigh around 27.8 grams, which are gigantic for the Hellenistic period.
41:35In this period it was more like 8 or 9 grams, here we are at 28.
41:40So these are really big coins that represent enormous value.
41:45To understand the coins in more detail, researchers recreated a minting workshop, identical to those that existed in Alexandria.
41:54Historically, we have very few archaeological or written sources on the manufacturing of money.
42:03Today, the only means we have to understand it is to study the coin, allowing us to understand how it was made.
42:08Researchers are interested in the tool used to create coins, called a die, an object which strikes and imprints to denote money.
42:20The point of experimentation is to understand the wear and tear of the die.
42:24The die will eventually wear out, whether it is the bottom or the top corner.
42:29When several thousand coins are struck, the wedge eventually breaks, making it impossible to continue using it.
42:40A new corner is then engraved.
42:44By studying these different dies, researchers can calculate the number of coins produced at a given time.
42:51They were able to study these series of large gold coins and discover they were mass-produced.
42:58And they are all connected.
42:59All this gold, all this coinage, was produced in one block, in an extremely short period of time.
43:09And it corresponds to the reward distributed at the end of the Battle of Raffia.
43:19Ptolemy and Arsenault were determined to use this victory to elevate themselves to the rank of the gods and great pharaohs of antiquity.
43:27In the aftermath of the battle, they ordered the construction of the Raffia stela.
43:34Ptolemy IV and Arsenault III are not just portrayed as great military victors, but pious rulers who defended Egyptian religion and temples.
43:46The rulers are both victorious and pious.
43:57But Ptolemy was not content with the decree.
44:01He wanted his legend inscribed alongside the great ancient warrior pharaohs, in the heart of the new empire, in the sacred temple of Karnak.
44:12Here, they built the largest sanctuary in Egypt.
44:19Ptolemy IV restored the central structure and engraved his name and image on the top of the columns.
44:27He rose to the heights of pharaohs, like Thutmose III and Ramses II.
44:33The great pharaohs of the new kingdom used all their wealth, their empire's spoils, and gifts from conquered people to build this great temple in honor of Amun.
44:52This was the god of heaven, a great creator, who was considered to be the equivalent of Ri, the god of the sun.
45:03It was on the walls of this temple that they glorified themselves, displayed their military glory, and inscribed their legend.
45:19Ptolemy tried to bring back the prestige of the new empire, but this was not enough to keep the peace.
45:26After the Battle of Raffia, a wave of revolt swept through Egypt.
45:32The Battle of Raffia was a paradoxical victory, undoubtedly a great victory for Ptolemy IV and Arsenault III, who saved their kingdom.
45:44But the consequences were disastrous for the Ptolemaean kingdom.
45:47There were tax revolts, because Ptolemy IV and Sosibius had to raise taxes to finance the war effort and maintain their unique lifestyle.
46:05A lifestyle of royal splendor, made up of all kinds of excess.
46:10Far from the concerns of the people, Ptolemy IV ordered the construction of a floating palace, the Thalamos.
46:23Thalamos in Greek means the bedroom, the palace, and it's a colossal boat, the biggest ship ever built.
46:32It's not a warship, it's a state ship.
46:35Faced with this reckless extravagance and contempt for the people, the Egyptians became angry.
46:46Particularly, the Makamo, the soldiers enlisted in Raffia.
46:51They did not get the land they were promised.
46:53Karnak, Edfu, Abu Simbel, all the major sites in southern Egypt are about to fall into the hands of the insurgents.
47:02Upper Egypt became an independent kingdom.
47:07The rebels demanded a pharaoh chosen from the local elite, named Hoenefer.
47:13Ptolemy IV would never regain control of the region.
47:18Ptolemy IV died prematurely, at just 34 years of age.
47:23In the end, Ptolemy IV died just 13 years after the Battle of Raffaea.
47:30It was his sister and wife, Arsino III, who acted as queen for the child they had had together.
47:36After the death of Ptolemy IV, Sosibus again leveraged his power to murder the ruling queen, Arsinoe, to gain power over the new king, Ptolemy V.
47:48In the end, Egypt was weakened by all this, and a few decades later, these Hellenistic kingdoms gave way to a new arrival in the eastern Mediterranean, Rome.
48:00Rome.
48:01Rome.
48:02Rome.
48:03Rome.
48:04Rome.
48:05Rome.
48:06Rome.
48:07Rome.
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