The Aztecs battle to save their civilisation from Spanish invaders - but is the real threat from the enemy within?
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#civilisationsriseandfall, #bbcdocumentary, #historydocuseries, #ancientcivilizations, #romeegyptaztecsamurai, #history2025
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00:0029th of August 30 BC the Egyptian city of Alexandria a 17 year old boy is running
00:16through the streets pursued by assassins he was born to rule an empire but his
00:27people will not help him his army has deserted him and his mother has taken her
00:37own life he does not know it yet but this teenager will be the last Pharaoh of
00:46ancient Egypt a 19-day reign that will bring to an end 3,000 years of history
00:55ancient Egypt the Roman Empire the Aztecs of Mexico
01:19and the samurai of Japan for great civilizations each a pinnacle of human
01:32ingenuity and achievement each lasted for centuries their people thought they
01:42would endure forever until suddenly everything changed
01:53these civilizations faced challenges that are all too familiar today
02:01climate catastrophe
02:05pandemic
02:10challenges for which ancient societies had few solutions
02:22but what if there was a place that had the answers to what went wrong a place
02:35full of secrets and stories a repository of memory stretching back through time the
02:47British Museum home to more than eight million artifacts is a record of how
02:54and why the greatest civilizations rose to power and then spectacularly fell its
03:04treasures are the human traces that survived disaster but might they also hold
03:11lessons for our own future every civilization throughout history has had an expiry date
03:21with great societies the seeds of their destruction are sown within the society they're already there
03:30no civilization ever thinks it's going to fall but the question is what can we learn from the past
03:40by the first century
04:00ancient Egypt is the jewel in the crown of ancient history it's wealthy it's got
04:16three thousand years of the most spectacular history it's monumental buildings it's phenomenal
04:25and it was the country and it was the country all others aspired to be it had it all
04:36Egypt is advanced architecturally they've built amazing temples and of course the pyramids
04:44and on top of that there are huge advances in writing and in medicine as well
04:52the natural resources of this land have allowed the Egyptians to build a vast and powerful kingdom
04:59stretching from the Mediterranean deep into Africa
05:03the secret to Egypt's success is its unique river the Nile
05:11the Nile the great bounty of the river Nile allows Egypt to become the breadbasket of the ancient world
05:22because each year when the rains fall in the summer up in the Ethiopian highlands it causes a great rush
05:29of water down the Nile and that causes the river to flood its banks and it brings water and nutrients to the fields
05:37it enables the super abundance of grain this is the currency that the world economy depends upon and Egypt has this in huge quantities
05:49grain provides Egypt with vast wealth and power making it the first nation state in history
05:56it is led by a single all-powerful ruler the Pharaoh
06:04one jewel of the British Museum's Egypt collection is a grand monument to the most famous Pharaoh of them all
06:25Ramses ruled Egypt during its prime when its empire spread far and wide unifying his diverse subjects
06:54with a singular vision this is a surviving fragment of a 23 foot statue that struck awe and wonder into all who saw it and played a vital role in uniting his people behind him
07:13the eyes are slightly tilted down walls so when you're looking up you've got this powerful feeling that Ramses is looking down on you
07:20this really give you a real sense of majesty and dominance
07:28on Ramses crown is his royal symbol a deadly snake the cobra
07:35it reveals the secret behind the pharaoh's absolute power for the Egyptians you have a leader who is the king but the Egyptian king is someone who is not just a human when you see the cobra on the forehead of anyone it means that they are divine the king or the Pharaoh was a sort of God on earth
08:04he was supposed to enter into a contract with the gods and make sure the gods were appeased and therefore he was both the ruler as well as a deity and this gave him special privileges and powers
08:19Egypt thrives when its people unite behind their god-king
08:26Egypt thrives when its people unite behind their god-king but this is a challenge for the latest pharaohs
08:34Egypt
08:51a thousand years after Ramses the second
08:55a new dynasty rules
08:57the Ptolemies
08:59The Ptolemies are, without doubt, the most violent royal dynasty that there's ever been.
09:11The Ptolemies are not Egyptian, but Greek, successors of Alexander the Great, who conquered
09:18Egypt and built one of the grandest cities of the ancient world, Alexandria.
09:27To begin with, the Ptolemies build a strong economy and a thriving society.
09:34But after 200 years, there are signs that their riches and successes have gone to their heads.
09:44This is a family that over several generations has been tearing itself apart, vying for ultimate
09:51control of Egypt.
09:53Like any situation where great wealth or great power is at stake, it is fertile breeding ground
09:59for rivalry.
10:02In the days of Ramses, pharaohs represented permanence and invincibility.
10:08But under the Ptolemies, chaos now reigns.
10:15This is a sandstone stela, a monument.
10:39Traditionally, the name of the ruling pharaoh would be inscribed into the stone in an oval
10:45symbol called a cartouche.
10:49But this stela is different.
10:54We get, in this period, examples of blank cartouches.
10:58The cartouches usually contain the pharaoh's name.
11:02But in the records, we find many hundreds of examples of blank cartouches.
11:09They've never been filled in.
11:10The artist hasn't even tried to fill it in.
11:16The turnover of pharaohs has become so rapid that the stonemasons are reluctant to carve
11:24the name of a specific Ptolemaic pharaoh.
11:27Because who knows, you know, in five minutes' time, this name might be no more and we'd have
11:32to carve it out and rewrite it.
11:37Dynasties have been at war with brothers.
11:40Husbands have been at war with their wives.
11:43One had his own son killed and the body parts sent to the boy's mother on the eve of her
11:49birthday celebration.
11:51So this gives you a bit of a sense of the kind of blood-spattered nature of the Ptolemaic
11:56royal family.
12:01Dynasties are a pressure cooker.
12:03And the people who are at the top of the dynasty tend to become corrupted by power.
12:07We now have ample evidence from neuroscience and psychology that people's brains seem to
12:13change once they get a hold of power.
12:16This is a recipe for disaster.
12:19It's 51 BC and pharaoh Ptolemy XII lies dying.
12:31His reign has been dominated by infighting.
12:35He has squandered Egypt's wealth and territory to preserve his power.
12:41He is about to hand this poisoned chalice to his successor.
12:47Ptolemy has five kids and is looking to them to pave the way for the survival of the dynasty.
12:59But that shows a chronic lack of self-awareness about dynastic politics and the family that
13:07he has bred.
13:09Of his five children, his formidable 18-year-old daughter seems the obvious choice to succeed
13:16him.
13:17And that quality of ruthless ambition is something Ptolemy has
13:47deliberately encouraged.
13:58Great family dynasties, whether you're talking about Murdoch, the Hurst family, Rockefeller,
14:05the means by which the head of the dynasty keeps control is by making sure they all understand
14:13that they can be up, but they can come down again.
14:20In a sense, he's encouraged division.
14:23He's encouraged ambition.
14:27He has created a ready-made battlefield that's going to explode.
14:35Ptolemy does have a male heir, also called Ptolemy, but he is only 11 and too young to rule.
14:46Their father insists that brother and sister join forces and become joint pharaohs by marrying
14:54each other.
14:56Of course she does not want to marry her brother.
15:02Cleopatra is a headstrong young woman who was well-versed in statecraft, so why would she
15:08want to share the throne?
15:09She was astute enough to know that this was a power struggle waiting to happen, and she
15:14wanted to nip it in the bud.
15:23When her father dies, Cleopatra makes her move, but she inherits a deeply divided society.
15:35The Ptolemies have promoted a Greek elite, and they expect a male ruler.
15:41Egypt is a difficult country to rule.
15:44There are tensions between the indigenous population and the Greek settlers.
15:51By this time, the Egyptians feel that they are towards the lower end of the hierarchy, that
16:00the best jobs are actually reserved for the Greek population.
16:08We could see Egypt as a kind of tinderbox.
16:14She tries to appease the Egyptian people.
16:18Cleopatra knows that the people's support can be the tipping point in her infighting with
16:26her brother.
16:30Cleopatra believes if she can get the Egyptians on side, the Greeks will have to follow.
16:45So she embarks on an audacious campaign.
16:51The Egyptians have always claimed to be divine, but Cleopatra takes it one step further.
17:00Cleopatra refers to herself as a goddess.
17:03The new Isis, or Isis personified.
17:07The great mother goddess, the bringer of fertility, the bringer of wealth.
17:32By Cleopatra's time, Isis has absorbed all the powers of all the collective goddesses
17:39of Egypt.
17:40So she is the ultimate deity.
17:45She is pretty much everywhere.
17:47She's on the walls of temples.
17:49And with some of these statuettes and figurines, these are often put in domestic shrines so
17:56people could worship Isis at home.
18:00Everybody literally loved Isis.
18:06This is a stunning sculpture representing the nurturing aspect of the mother goddess Isis.
18:12She is gently raising her hand towards her breast, which means that she was about to breastfeed
18:18her son.
18:19Now, if we look closer to her hair, that's probably my favourite bit.
18:27She's wearing a vulture headdress, and every single feather is detailed in dark blue.
18:35In ancient Egypt, Isis is the ultimate symbol of motherhood, protection, magic, but also
18:41of divine rulership.
18:46By identifying herself with Isis, Cleopatra is really saying to the Egyptians, I am your
19:04living goddess, I will protect you as Isis protects you.
19:08The tears of Isis give you the Nile.
19:10I am Isis, I give you the Nile, I give you life.
19:14I give you protection, I give you fertility.
19:17It was a very sensible political ploy.
19:22So when Cleopatra puts it out there that she actually is a goddess, part of you might
19:27think, well, that's absurd and it's just a piece of spin, dare I say.
19:32But actually, we quite like the idea of thinking there's somebody out there that we can trust
19:40to lead us in a certain direction.
19:50She may be winning over the Egyptian people.
19:53But Cleopatra also needs allies with real power.
19:59She looks to her forefathers for inspiration.
20:03Who did they turn to, to secure their crown?
20:05Who did they turn to, to secure their crown?
20:10Who did they turn to, to secure their crown?
20:18The Rosetta stone is so important to us as Egyptologists.
20:24The Rosetta Stone is so important to us as Egyptologists because on this hunk of granite
20:39you have hieroglyphs, Egyptian, Domotic and Greek written.
20:48The Rosetta Stone, a magical key that allowed 19th century historians to decode hieroglyphs for the very first time.
21:00But the Rosetta Stone is more than just a translation device.
21:05The words written on it explain one of Cleopatra's most important decisions.
21:13When the Rosetta Stone was written there was an uprising and the Ptolemies were struggling to maintain control.
21:21And so the Rosetta Stone really is a document that tells us what the Ptolemies did to solve this problem.
21:28The Ptolemies really have to get the Egyptian priests on side.
21:34The priests are very influential figures amongst the native Egyptian population.
21:38On the face of it, it's a simple contract between the priests of Egypt and the royal family.
21:46The early Ptolemies made a deal.
21:49They gave priests tax breaks and land.
21:53In return, the priests decreed that the Ptolemies were god-kings who must be faithfully followed.
22:08Cleopatra strikes the same deal.
22:11Lavishly funding temples and enriching the priests.
22:16In return, they proclaim her sole pharaoh.
22:21And she rules unopposed for 18 months.
22:27But not everyone accepts the new status quo.
22:32While Cleopatra was winning the hearts and minds of the Egyptians and of the priests, she left one thing out of the equation.
22:41Because her brother went off and got the Greek elites and the military on his side.
22:48But Cleopatra and her brother, Ptolemy XIII, are playing with fire.
22:55The population, rather than being unified by a single belief in the pharaoh, is instead divided upon multiple ethnic lines.
23:04Different ethnic and ideological groups can become fault lines across society.
23:10This makes society by nature far more fragile.
23:13Cleopatra has the loyalty of the people, but Ptolemy has control of Egypt's mighty army.
23:35As his forces approach Alexandria, Cleopatra flees the country.
23:40But she will not accept defeat.
23:47We're talking about Cleopatra here.
23:52She was born to rule.
23:54She was trained to rule.
23:55She was a goddess and a queen.
23:57So she was not going to let that little sniveling brat take over.
24:02And so she was going to come back and fight for what was hers.
24:07Desperate to reclaim her throne, she takes a monumental gamble.
24:22And turns to a superpower even mightier than her own.
24:27The unstoppable rising force of Rome.
24:32The Romans are probably the most warlike society on earth.
24:39Its great deity is Mars, the god of war.
24:47Rome was stampeding its way across the Mediterranean.
24:56Their tactics are swift and bloody and brutal.
25:02That's what it was all about for them, was to expand the idea of Romanitas, being Roman, and creating a civilized world out of that.
25:15It would be a very dangerous thing for Cleopatra to get Rome on her side because of course she has to be able to A convince the Romans that she is the right ruler.
25:27And B hold Rome in check so that they don't swallow her up.
25:32There's a potential here for Rome, as dangerous as it is, to actually be the saviour of Cleopatra.
25:41But getting into bed with the devil is a dangerous thing.
25:45If fortune favours the bold, this is Cleopatra's moment to be fearless.
25:58The legendary Roman general Julius Caesar is passing through Egypt on a military campaign.
26:13So she smuggles herself back into the country, risking her own life in order to meet the man she hopes will save her.
26:28It is always challenging for a woman to be a ruler, or it has been in the past few thousand years.
26:34And this was obviously something that Cleopatra had to struggle with.
26:39I think the biggest problem was getting military might immediately behind her.
26:46Cleopatra was very astute politically, and she knew that she could use other gifts in her arsenal.
26:53Her charm, her wit, her humour, her wealth, and even her body.
26:59I think that this is where all of that charisma of the woman comes out.
27:09This kind of magic that she works in terms of conversation and intellect.
27:15Julia Caesar, he is smitten, he is absolutely smitten with her.
27:23I think it's a great meeting of minds.
27:27But also, there's a lot of sexual energy in the room too.
27:33Cleopatra had few options as to what she could do, and this was indeed a gamble.
27:40But nothing ventured, nothing gained, and the die is cast.
27:45With Caesar's support, she now has the might of Rome on her side.
27:51But Cleopatra and her brother have unleashed the dark forces of division in Egypt.
27:57Within a matter of weeks, outright civil war breaks out.
28:06This is very serious.
28:08This is politics turning against the people and against the things they hold most dear.
28:14This infighting that happens among the Ptolemies does affect people's daily life.
28:21People who had been living in relative tolerance with one another, suddenly they have to pick sides.
28:29The violence boils over into Alexandria as Cleopatra's forces set light to her brother Ptolemy's ships.
28:38A devastating fire sweeps across the city, destroying its treasures.
28:43What's going through Cleopatra's head as the library of Alexandria that her ancestors built and that was the pride of her city is in flames.
28:56They had set the task for the first librarian to collect every book in the world.
29:04Now thousands of books are burnt and lots of homes are destroyed.
29:09The irony to a large extent is that what's at stake isn't as great as that.
29:16It's a sibling rivalry. It's not worth the damage that's taking place.
29:23Alexandria never recovers.
29:26This is a huge tragedy for Egypt and indeed for humanity.
29:30I think leaders often find it difficult to separate out their own interests and the national interest and they can persuade themselves that the two are one and the same thing.
29:45And it leads to levels of brutality and ruthlessness.
29:50And I think once that happens, it is dangerous.
29:55The Romans proved too powerful for Ptolemy XIII.
29:58He is hopelessly outnumbered and outflanked.
30:01At the age of just 15, he drowns, fleeing Caesar's troops.
30:08Cleopatra's brother is gone.
30:10Restored as pharaoh, Cleopatra must now heal the divisions of civil war.
30:28But family feuds and infighting have ravaged Egypt's economy.
30:47More than ever, she must rely on the bounty of the Nile.
30:51But seismic events 6,000 miles away are about to plunge Egypt deeper into chaos.
31:08There is a large eruption in Alaska, of all places.
31:12In fact, the largest volcanic eruption in the last 2,500 years in the northern hemisphere.
31:17So this is a very big eruption.
31:23What we've learned in the last couple of years is that very large volcanic eruptions can impact the East African monsoon,
31:31which drives the Nile flood that hits Egypt every year.
31:36Egypt is dependent on the annual flood of the river.
31:39And when that goes wrong, when it's weak or there's no flood, then things are really bad.
31:49This climate disaster leads to food shortages.
31:54And Egypt's grain exports come to a halt.
31:58Cleopatra has to resort to desperate measures to keep her country afloat.
32:03Cleopatra has to do with the country afloat.
32:07Cleopatra has to have a signal in order to prepare them for the 0.154.
32:10Sunriseeles, where are we, theARs, where are we, theARs, why are we, theARs, why are we, theARs and why are we, theARs!
32:12TheARs must not be of theARs-theARs, because of theARs of the river.
32:13TheARs must be of theARs and theARs not forever, only efforts to keep them in the future.
32:15TheARs must remain on the U.S.
32:28TheARs must remain on the other side of the river and theARs must remain on the right side of the river as well.
32:29The Egyptian economy is in real sharp decline at this point.
32:44Cleopatra has to respond economically as best she can.
32:49Her extreme measures are revealed in these coins of father and daughter, minted only
32:5720 years apart.
33:03The economic crises are coming thick and fast, and what do rulers throughout history do when
33:09they're faced with economic crisis?
33:10Well, they devalue the currency, they debase the coinage.
33:14There are two coins, one of Ptolemy XII, the other of Cleopatra.
33:25You can see significant changes already in the silver content.
33:31The coin of Ptolemy XII has about 90% silver content, it's larger.
33:38The coin of Cleopatra is about 30% silver content, and it's smaller.
33:43But it tells a really important story of the drop-off of the Ptolemaic economy between
33:49Ptolemy XII and Cleopatra.
33:51Within just 20 years, the value of Egypt's currency plummets by nearly 70%.
34:00She is faced with a whole array of issues which no ruler on earth could have solved.
34:07To make matters worse, the floods fail to return for almost 10 years.
34:13Food reserves are gone, and mass famine breaks out.
34:18Cleopatra has to use all the emergency stocks of grain that the Egyptian government hold,
34:26and she depletes the treasury in order to feed her people.
34:30And it really, a combination of those things, essentially bankrupts Egypt.
34:39And there is evidence that Cleopatra's subjects place their faith elsewhere.
35:06They turn in increasing numbers to worshipping animal gods.
35:21This is Sobek, Egypt's god of fertility.
35:31This crocodile mummy is fantastic.
35:34Even though I've seen hundreds of them, I still get a frisson because each one is different.
35:41To see Sobek, we are actually in the presence of the divine.
35:46It's extraordinary for us to be able to see a living god from Egypt 2,000 plus years later.
35:56It's about four metres plus long, and it's very much blackened because it's got this resinous black goo on it.
36:03And what's really cool is, on the back, they're babies that are stuck to the back.
36:12There were temples dedicated to the crocodile god, so the young crocodiles were brought in, put in the sacred pools.
36:18They were given a very luxurious lifestyle, and they were literally treated like the gods that they were assumed to be.
36:29During the Ptolemaic era, the number of animal mummies is mind-boggling.
36:34At one site, we have eight million dogs, two million ibises.
36:41You have hundreds and thousands of baboons.
36:47An upsurge is an indication that things are not okay, things are awry.
36:54Like everyone else in this world, when it is a time of crisis and the rulers are not doing their job, you turn to the gods.
37:01The pharaoh, who once promoted herself as the all-powerful goddess Isis, is losing her grip.
37:21It's a very difficult moment when a pharaoh fails, because the pharaoh is the incarnation of the gods.
37:27Something has gone wrong in the cosmic setup of the world.
37:31There are calls in the south of Egypt to break off from the rest of Egypt.
37:42Certainly, the Ptolemaic dynasty is hanging by a thread.
37:52Time is running out for the Ptolemies.
37:54Time is running out for the Ptolemaic dynasty.
37:57But unlike her male predecessors, Cleopatra has an ace that only she can play.
38:43Nine months after Cleopatra and Julius Caesar were first holed up together in the royal palace, she gives birth to a son.
38:55He has the blood of Rome and the blood of Egypt flowing in his veins.
39:00And she thinks, if I can unite the military might of Rome with Egypt, this is an unstoppable force.
39:08So she really thinks that this is, you know, not the end of a dynasty, but the beginning of a great new chapter in the Egyptian story.
39:18On this sandstone monument, Cleopatra proclaims that her son will forge a new empire, one that can feed its people and restore its fortune.
39:32A winged sun and a scarab beetle represent the dawn of a new golden age.
39:43Gifts are offered to Egypt's fertility gods, including Sobek and Isis.
39:51And Cleopatra's son is shown as the new pharaoh.
39:59He will be known by his Roman nickname, Caesarian or Little Caesar.
40:07This would be a startling new world, unparalleled, unmapped, uncharted, unstoppable.
40:17If the plan works, not only do the problems of Egypt get solved, but Egypt regains a position as a superpower.
40:31For her strategy to work, Cleopatra must get the Romans to also embrace Caesarian as their future leader.
40:41But events outpace her.
40:46In Rome, Julius Caesar is brutally murdered before he declares his heir.
40:54The assassination of Julius Caesar comes as a hammer blow to Cleopatra.
41:09Not only on the most personal level.
41:13I think she genuinely loved him.
41:15But of course, it brought a swift end to her political ambitions as well.
41:21All that came crashing down in one foul day.
41:27A lesser ruler might now accept defeat, but not Cleopatra.
41:45After one of her sisters plots against her, Cleopatra uses the opportunity to wipe out any possible opposition.
41:54Power can be like a drug.
41:58And once you're hooked on it, very, very, very hard to give up.
42:03Because you can't really see life beyond it.
42:06Over the next three years, she murders all her remaining siblings.
42:13There's a sort of moral corruption that power can do to people.
42:22You certainly see it having sometimes a very corrosive psychological impact on people.
42:28You're prepared to do anything, anything, to stay in power and to meet your objectives, up to and including killing people.
42:41The Ptolemy line will continue, but only on Cleopatra's terms.
42:50She now needs to form a new alliance with Rome.
43:07So she looks to the men who take Caesar's place.
43:12Two candidates emerge.
43:17Caesar's nephew, Octavian, takes control of the Western Roman world.
43:22He sees himself as Caesar's rightful heir, so will never accept Cleopatra's son.
43:30But there's also the general who takes control of Rome's vast eastern territories.
43:36Mark Antony.
43:42And so she casts her eye on Mark Antony to do the kind of work that she needed to be done.
43:49Mark Antony was, to his core, a squaddie.
44:03You know, he was a rough Roman soldier, heavy drinking, heavy womanising, living for pleasure and living to fight.
44:12She clearly recognised that Antony was not a deep thinker, that he was impulsive, that he was easily persuaded.
44:22He was open to flattery, that's for sure.
44:24And so she plays this brilliant political game.
44:43She knows what she wants, and she's able to attract those to her side to support her vision of almost like the takeover of the ancient world.
44:53She was so magnetic in her charm, her ability to understand what makes the male ego tick, to flatter them.
45:10And that is a heady mix that no one could ever resist.
45:23Mark Antony is besotted.
45:38He abandons his Roman wife and sets up home with Cleopatra, throwing his weight behind her plan for an Egypto-Roman empire, ruled by the now 13-year-old Caesarian.
45:53This culminates in a spectacular ceremony called the Donations of Alexandria.
46:00This was not merely a coronation, but a politically provocative event to strengthen their rule in the East.
46:10And there in front of all of the Alexandrians and ambassadors from different states around the Mediterranean, Mark Antony doles out the lands of the Eastern Roman Empire to Cleopatra and her heirs.
46:32And he says that all of these lands belonging to the East of Rome will be in perpetuity inherited by Cleopatra and Caesarian.
46:47So there is a real possibility at this moment that Cleopatra and Caesarian could become the rulers of a vast empire.
47:02But when news of the ceremony reaches Octavian, Mark Antony's rival back in Rome, he is outraged.
47:15He refuses to allow Roman lands to be broken up and given away.
47:21Antony and Cleopatra had so much power at their disposal.
47:28The only weapons Octavian had to throw at them was to ridicule them.
47:35Octavian starts a smear campaign to destroy Cleopatra and Antony's credibility and turn all Romans against them.
47:46Now this fragmentary marble relief is fascinating.
48:02It shows Mark Antony and Cleopatra engaged in what's euphemistically called a sexual act on a boat.
48:09It's a sort of a symbol of how some in the Roman world, certainly Mark Antony's enemies, saw how he was being manipulated by this harlot queen of Egypt.
48:24Octavian creates multiple pieces of propaganda like this to destroy Cleopatra's reputation and play on fears that Egypt might one day overshadow Rome.
48:39Where her allure and beauty were once part of Cleopatra's armory as a leader, now they are used to attack her.
48:54And so they're using this as a sort of crowbar to sort of prize apart the two worlds.
49:00And this relief really brings that idea to the fore, to use ridicule and misogyny to undermine one's enemies.
49:21Octavian's plan works, and the Romans turn against Mark Antony and Cleopatra.
49:30But things have gone too far for her to back down now.
49:37There are times when it looks like she has Egypt's best interest at heart.
49:41There are other times when her decisions appear to suggest that she's only really interested in holding on to power.
49:51This is absolutely an all-or-nothing gamble for Cleopatra.
49:56If she wins, she re-establishes the Ptolemaic dynasty in all its former glory.
50:05If she loses, well, all bets are off.
50:10Octavian declares war, and his fleet sets sail.
50:14On the 2nd of September, 31 BC, Cleopatra and Mark Antony face Octavian in a legendary naval battle off the coast of Greece at Actium.
50:40One extraordinary witness to what happened that day still survives.
50:54This fitting belongs to a boat which participated to the famous Battle of Axiom in 31 BC.
51:01It is made of leaded copper.
51:20You can see it's highly corroded and encrusted with sea creatures.
51:24Emerging from the medallion at the front of this prowl is this beautiful figure of Athena, the goddess of strategy, war and wisdom.
51:38Now this is the goddess you want leading your fleet into battle.
51:42Believing the gods are on her side, Cleopatra has every reason to be confident.
51:51She has the numbers too.
51:52Antony and Cleopatra's fleet of ships, there were about 230 of them, and there were about 150 Roman ships in this.
52:05So, on the face of it, the Egyptians really outnumbered the Romans.
52:10But Cleopatra makes an epic miscalculation.
52:15She lets her fleet be pushed back towards the coast.
52:19The Egyptian fleet was essentially being hemmed in, and the Romans moved their fleet closer and closer.
52:27And essentially the Egyptians were trapped. They couldn't get out of it at all.
52:30Octavian then unleashes burning oil and tar.
52:38An inferno breaks out across the Egyptian navy.
52:43Cleopatra and Mark Antony know the game is up.
52:48They make their escape, abandoning their fleet.
52:52Including the ship this prowl once served.
52:55It becomes a burnt, battered witness to a monumental defeat.
53:04Little intro
53:20Her navy decimated, her treasury depleted, and her political legitimacy shattered.
53:28Cleopatra barricades herself with Mark Antony inside their royal quarters, while Octavian's
53:37triumphant army marches into Egypt.
53:41It all ends badly.
53:47Antony knew the way in which Roman traitors were treated.
53:55And he knew that a spectacle of death awaited him.
54:00So he took his life to avoid the dishonor of a traitor's death in Rome.
54:08He is taken to Cleopatra, who weeps over his body and then gives him a proper decent burial.
54:13But then she then realizes, of course, the only option would be for Octavian to march
54:19her into Rome in chains, humiliated, and she was not having any of it.
54:26Cleopatra takes a venomous asp and lets it bite her.
54:31This cobra, once the symbol of unassailable Egyptian royal power, in her hands becomes an instrument
54:40of death.
54:44Even to the end, Cleopatra is mistress of her own destiny.
54:56Octavian instructs his forces to hunt down Cleopatra's heir, Caesarean.
55:02The fate of Egypt now rests in the hands of its 17-year-old pharaoh.
55:13But who will come to his aid?
55:21Decades of the most dysfunctional family in world history had caused a complete disconnect
55:29with much of Egypt.
55:33The Egyptians had been through a lot in terms of civil wars and famines.
55:38The people probably knew it was the beginning of the end for the Egypt they knew.
55:48Lacking both military and popular support, Caesarean is abandoned to his fate.
55:58He is murdered by Octavian's troops.
56:03It is the last moment of a 3,000-year-old empire and the end of the Egyptian pharaohs.
56:17For three millennia, Egypt thrived, united behind its mighty pharaoh.
56:24The dysfunctional dynasty of the Ptolemies, with their vicious infighting, tore this once
56:31great civilisation apart.
56:34Had the Ptolemies been less inclined to just pursue short-term power gains, ancient Egyptian
56:42pharaonic values would still be alive and well today.
56:46But I think the number of Ptolemies who sought to just benefit themselves, I think that's
56:54what destabilised things ultimately.
56:59In their desperation to cling on to power at all costs, the Ptolemies forgot what it was
57:05to rule and left Egypt vulnerable and fatally exposed.
57:12Theopatra, in the end, was undermined by a perfect storm.
57:17Warfare, now flood failure, political instability, Rome threatening her, on top of which a shock
57:26of a volcanic eruption.
57:27And there are many people today who rightly suggest that we should be on the lookout for
57:33a perfect storm event.
57:35I think it's a lesson to learn from Cleopatra's time and what happened to her.
57:44Countries can rise.
57:45They can have a standing and a reputation in the world that is huge.
57:50And it can go.
57:51And it can fall.
57:53And I don't think we should ever think that we're immune.
58:04The Aztecs, one of the most remarkable civilisations in history, faces an unimaginable threat.
58:14His old world meets new.
58:18And a ruthless leader struggles to save his empire from powerful new enemies.
58:33Meet the Engineers, Saving Venice, starting now on BBC4.
58:37On iPlayer, the extraordinary tale of a boy suspected of a shooting.
58:41Watch The Man in the Mask and Orkney Murder now.
58:44And following a panic attack, Tony's on the road to revenge.
58:47Man Out of Time, Mammoth is back for a new series.
58:50Next.
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