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00:00The 24th of August, 410 A.D.
00:12The magnificent city of Rome is under attack.
00:19The ancient capital of the mightiest empire on earth
00:24is at the mercy of a barbarian leader,
00:28thirsting for revenge.
00:32The rich scramble to hide their wealth.
00:37The poor run for their lives.
00:40No one saw this coming.
00:43The sack of Rome is one of the iconic events of Western history.
00:49Imagine thousands of men pouring into your city
00:53and rushing into your house.
00:55The fear must have been extraordinary.
00:59Rome believed it had an immortal imperial destiny.
01:06This empire dominated Europe for 500 years.
01:11How did it come to collapse?
01:13This is the story of three men
01:17and how their fateful decisions brought the mighty Roman civilization to its knees.
01:25A refugee treated with cruelty and prejudice, driven to violence.
01:31A weak emperor, blind to the reality beyond his palace walls.
01:38And a wily general, caught between two worlds and trusted by no one.
01:46They have gambled with Rome's future.
01:49Now the eternal city is running out of time.
01:53Ancient Egypt.
02:09The Roman Empire.
02:14The Aztecs of Mexico.
02:17And the samurai of Japan.
02:25Four great civilizations.
02:28Each a pinnacle of human ingenuity and achievement.
02:33Each lasted for centuries.
02:35Their people thought they would endure forever.
02:42Until suddenly...
02:44Everything changed.
02:51These civilizations faced challenges that are all too familiar today.
03:01Climate catastrophe.
03:03Pandemic.
03:12War.
03:15Challenges for which ancient societies had few solutions.
03:26But what if there was a place that had the answers to what went wrong?
03:31A place full of secrets and stories.
03:34A repository of memory stretching back through time.
03:40The British Museum, home to more than 8 million artifacts, is a record of how and why the greatest civilizations rose to power and then spectacularly fell.
03:59It's treasures are the human traces that survived disaster.
04:07But might they also hold lessons for our own future?
04:11Every civilization throughout history has had an expiry date.
04:19With great societies, the seeds of their destruction are sown within the society.
04:26They're already there.
04:30No civilization ever thinks it's going to fall.
04:33But the question is, what can we learn from the past?
04:38To be continued...
05:08Rome is the largest city in the world.
05:15Home to over 700,000 people, traders and artisans, senators and slaves.
05:25Arriving to Rome and entering from one of the gates of its wall in the late 4th century,
05:31we would see a city at the height of its splendour.
05:43Rome is still this monumental city.
05:46It has this history of emperors building things.
05:49You would still have seen things like temples, the forum and the curia, the senate house, the coliseum.
05:56Rome's magnificence is built on the spoils of empire.
06:04800 years earlier, Roman armies began to carve out a growing territory
06:12that by the 4th century stretches across 1.7 million square miles.
06:19From Britain to North Africa and the Middle East.
06:22The empire is so vast, it's now split into two halves, east and west, each ruled by its own emperor.
06:33Around 40 million people, a fifth of the world's population, now live under Roman rule,
06:48in a heady mix of cultures and languages.
06:51It's all held together by a ruthless military might.
06:58But also by the benefits of a shared peace and pioneering advances in technology.
07:07Aqueducts for clean water.
07:10Concrete for construction.
07:12And a complex road network that brings trade and prosperity.
07:24In the western half of the empire, a handful of aristocratic families have profited more than most from Rome's imperial success.
07:34They need a strong emperor to keep the status quo.
07:41But their new ruler is a major cause for concern.
07:55Emperor Honorius is young and inexperienced.
07:59Honorius was not from Rome. He is not even born in Rome. He's born in the east. He really spends most of his youth living amongst the other courtiers.
08:14He's made a few visits west to see his father, the previous emperor.
08:19But his first big trip is the one that ends up being permanent. He comes over and shortly thereafter, his father dies.
08:34The accession of a child like Honorius is extremely odd.
08:40In fact, in previous eras, Roman politics had never tolerated child emperors.
08:47The personal leadership of the emperor in earlier eras is just too important.
08:53You can't have a child on the throne.
08:57By 395, it is common practice for Romans to prostrate themselves, literally crawl on all fours in front of the emperor.
09:08This was an act of humility and homage.
09:19It was required as part of the imperial ritual.
09:22Imagine how tough that would have been if you were an extremely wealthy, successful senator, and here you are crawling before a child.
09:42Honorius is remembered as an indifferent, foolish, self-absorbed emperor.
09:50Honorius is completely at sea.
09:55Left to his own devices, I think Honorius would have lasted no more than ten minutes.
10:03It's inevitable that someone else is pulling the strings.
10:08General Stilicho.
10:10Stilicho is this really interesting combination of loyal servant to the empire, but also perhaps a little bit of a conniving opportunist.
10:24Stilicho is commander of Rome's western armies.
10:30Under the previous emperor, he had become a trusted advisor.
10:37Then he married into the imperial family, consolidating his power.
10:41Now, no one has greater influence over the young Honorius.
10:49Stilicho is competent militarily, politically astute.
10:53He knew the type of alliances that you had to make with the key civilian and military leaders, how to appoint people who were loyal to him.
11:08He absolutely has his eyes on protecting Honorius, doing what he can to keep Honorius in power.
11:16Of course, if Honorius isn't in power, neither is he.
11:29Honorius needs to persuade Rome's elite that he can project absolute power across his domains.
11:35He's not the only Roman emperor to face such a challenge.
11:53This is the very first emperor, Augustus.
11:57Augustus was one of the most brilliant minds, a real game changer, someone who changed forever the path of history.
12:12The head of a bronze statue of Augustus is a really extraordinary object that we have from the first century BCE.
12:33Partly extraordinary because it still has its eyes.
12:35We're not used to seeing these eyes, we're used to very vacant sort of eye sockets of our Roman figures, but it still has its eyes, which make it a really fascinating object to see and a really evocative object.
12:52When this statue was cast, Augustus had just defeated his rivals in a brutal civil war to lead Rome.
12:59It was the first time one man ruled alone, and Augustus used this image to cement his reign.
13:16What we see with Augustus is actually a bit of a change in the way that Roman politicians, Roman statesmen were presented.
13:22Previously, age was seen as a sort of way of communicating wisdom, so statues and busts of wrinkles and signs of age on a face was something that you would have been used to seeing.
13:36Augustus doesn't do this.
13:39Rather, he wants to put forward the sort of youthfulness, I guess, of a ruler and the vitality of a ruler.
13:45This is a young kind of a movie star. He's going to attract everyone with his magnetic beauty and make everybody want to follow him.
14:02So in that sense, it's a real shift of gears from the traditional way of representing authority.
14:08The scale is larger than life, giving Augustus the appearance of a god.
14:18And yet, this object is also a cautionary tale for future rulers like Honorius.
14:28Look closely and you can see microscopic grains of sand embedded in the bronze.
14:35They tell a story of the dangers of imperial ambition.
14:41The reason why the head is so well preserved is because it was purposely buried.
14:50In 30 BC, Augustus' army invaded Egypt and expanded into Kush to the south.
14:59But the Kushites resisted and pushed back.
15:03They looted Roman treasures, pulling the head of Augustus' statue from its body.
15:05They carried their prize back to their capital, Meroe, where they buried it under the steps of a temple.
15:09Kushites could now literally rub their feet in the face of Augustus.
15:10The Kushites could now literally rub their feet in the face of Augustus.
15:14So, in a very disrespectful and insulting way,
15:17every day of Augustus' statue,
15:18the head of Augustus' statue,
15:19the head of Augustus' statue from its body.
15:21They carried their prize back to their capital, Meroe,
15:24where they buried it under the steps of a temple.
15:29Kushites could now literally rub their feet in the face of Augustus.
15:34So, in a very disrespectful and insulting way, every time someone went on pilgrimage to this temple,
15:47what they did was ultimately walking on the head of the emperor,
15:51the most powerful leader of the world of that time.
15:55It was a sign that aggressive empire building comes at a cost.
16:06The downside to invading your neighbours is that often,
16:09you don't just create new frontiers, but also new enemies.
16:14In the US military, there's a term for this, blowback.
16:18Rome suffered from blowback again and again.
16:20Augustus had been an ambitious young emperor who presided over a fragile peace.
16:32Now, four centuries later, the young Honorius needs to persuade the people
16:37that he too can successfully unite his fractious empire.
16:42His advisor, Stilicho, embarks on a campaign to construct a new image for Honorius.
16:53One of power, stability and authority.
16:59The start of a new regime was always marked by a ceremonial payout to the military of gold coins.
17:06These coins aren't just sent out as spending money, but as propaganda.
17:29Passed from hand to hand, they can reach all corners of a sprawling empire.
17:46These early coins slapped with the head of Honorius, a part of a meet-and-greet campaign.
17:52You wouldn't know from the coin that this is somebody who's underage for being a full-fledged Roman emperor.
18:01It's the way he's shown in profile with a diadem and this sort of slightly 1980s hairstyle.
18:11But something that I think is particularly interesting on this coin is if you turn it over and you look at the back.
18:22You have Honorius standing with his foot on the neck of a soldier.
18:29And Victory is just up in the corner holding her crown as if she's going to crown him.
18:34And it's a very brazen military image for him to choose, given that he is not yet battle-tested.
18:51Victory is the crucial characteristic of a legitimate emperor.
18:57This is the claim that's being made on that coin, that Honorius is a legitimate emperor.
19:06But Honorius and General Stilicho will soon discover that success requires more than mere propaganda.
19:13Little does this regime know that in just a few short years their world would be turned upside down.
19:24The empire would be shook at its very foundations and one of them would end up in his grave.
19:30The man destined to become Rome's nemesis is leading a rebellion in the Balkans.
19:50Attacking Roman forces and taking captives and plunder wherever he can.
19:56His name is Alaric.
20:01Alaric is a legend.
20:04We know he's an experienced soldier and an admired and feared one.
20:09Unlike a traditional monarchy, or indeed the Roman Empire, he's not holding power because his father held power.
20:17He is the one they are following because they choose to follow him.
20:20Alaric is charismatic, intelligent and very capable.
20:26He's also a bitter man.
20:29A man who has good reasons to be going rogue.
20:35The root of Alaric's anger stretches back to his childhood.
20:39Soldiers manning Rome's northern border along the river Danube begin to see large crowds of people gathering and asking for help.
20:53If a huge number of people end up on your border, it means that something has gone really, really wrong.
21:12My experience is that people really don't want to move, they don't want to leave their countries, and with the kinds of numbers we're talking about, I think it means that there was conflict raging and they had to come.
21:30These are Alaric's people, the Goths.
21:39Their homeland lies north-east of Rome, stretching from present-day Romania to Ukraine.
21:46For generations, they've lived as warriors and farmers.
21:50But now a rival people, the Huns attack, forcing the Goths to flee south.
21:59Something like 100,000 Gothic men, women and children come towards the Danube River.
22:08It's a migration on a scale the Romans have not encountered.
22:13Even today, 100,000 people is a lot of people.
22:22And any government would look at 100,000 people and see problem.
22:29In Roman times, they will have been looking at their own resources and thinking about how can they look after people who need to be fed, who need to be housed,
22:40so they don't become a problem further down the line.
22:52Despite the diverse populations within their empire, the Romans are uneasy about such a vast influx of people.
23:03And it plays into deep-seated prejudices.
23:11Racial stereotypes are so enduring because they're ubiquitous in ancient culture, just like they are in ours.
23:19This mask is meant to evoke somebody from the north, a barbarian.
23:33This mask is meant to evoke somebody from the north, a barbarian.
23:38The word barbarian comes from a Greek, barbaros, and the Greeks invented it because, to them, it sounded like the bar-bar-bar-bar-bar-bar,
23:54the babbling of peoples whose languages they could not understand.
23:58The Romans, like the Greeks, conceptualized race as being essentially environmental.
24:10The further you get away from the Mediterranean, the further you get away from that environment that was so familiar to them,
24:17the more likely you are to be a barbarian.
24:20The Roman stereotype of the barbarian was always defined by certain traits.
24:33Clothing, hairstyle, customs.
24:36They're savage.
24:37They're less cultured.
24:40They always have looser hair.
24:43A theatre mask designed to depict a barbarian has to convey that.
24:47A giveaway is the ponytail.
24:53You might notice that the man's hair is pulled back.
24:56It looks like a kind of man bun.
24:59That man bun is the dead giveaway.
25:01Romans don't wear man buns.
25:05These were the kinds of stereotypes that Romans would have absorbed by going to the theatre and really internalized them.
25:12And that can be weaponized in all sorts of ways.
25:18It's a stereotype you can appeal to, to rally other people to support you.
25:23The 20th, early 21st century has seen more examples of that than one can easily count.
25:31Reducing people to a stereotype means you don't have to regard them as full human beings, usually with tragic results.
25:40Romans may see the Goths as primitive savages, but they have their uses.
25:50Working in the fields, or as conscripts in the army.
25:55Under orders to remove their weapons, the soldiers at the border begin to let the Goths in, in increasing numbers.
26:04The problem is not migration.
26:08The problem is not displaced peoples.
26:11Moving is fundamental to being human.
26:14It is the reason why we survived through the ice age.
26:18The problem is how governments respond to displaced people.
26:21You can choose to take them into your society, or to make them into an enemy.
26:25A number of the local Roman officials see these refugees and think, right, how can I profit from the situation?
26:44Only give food to those that are willing to pay?
26:50Why actually give them the good food, when you can send them anything else that you might have, like dog meat?
26:57Can you take away some of the Goths? Sell them off into slavery?
27:01If I was giving advice to the Roman government, I would say be careful.
27:08These people are competent soldiers.
27:12You know, the last thing you want to do is create a situation where people feel that they're being treated cruelly and that they owe you nothing.
27:21Enraged by their humiliation at the hands of the Romans, 30,000 Goths stage a fight back.
27:36The battle is a catastrophic defeat for the Roman Empire.
27:41The larger estimates think that 20,000 Roman soldiers are killed on this battlefield in one afternoon.
27:47It means the Goths are now inside the Empire.
27:53There's no way that they can be driven out again.
27:58The crushing defeat forces the Romans to do a deal.
28:03They give the Goths land to settle in the wilder regions of the Balkans.
28:09In return, the Goths supply warriors for the Roman army.
28:13It's not actually a long-term solution to the problem.
28:18Effectively, it buys time.
28:21Another decade or so of relative peace.
28:24And then we come to Alaric.
28:25Alaric has followed the path of many Goth refugees and served in the Roman army.
28:36He has been a loyal commander for four years.
28:39Until the Romans betray him.
28:40At a battle in the Alps, Alaric and his fellow Goths are sacrificed as cannon fodder for the Roman Empire.
28:52The Goths were put in the front line.
28:53After all, there'll be effective shock troops.
28:54And they are effectively abandoned there.
28:55Ten thousand Goths were killed.
28:56Alaric was there.
28:57He's a survivor.
28:58He cannot possibly have forgotten.
28:59What we have is the battle of the Alaric.
29:00He's a survivor.
29:01This is a survivor.
29:02We have a battle of the Alaric.
29:03At a battle in the Alps, Alaric and his fellow Goths are sacrificed as cannon fodder for the Roman Empire.
29:08The Goths were put in the front line.
29:11After all, there'll be effective shock troops.
29:14And they are effectively abandoned there.
29:16Ten thousand Goths were killed.
29:19Alaric was there.
29:20He's a survivor.
29:22He cannot possibly have forgotten.
29:26What we have is a two-tier society.
29:30Promises have been broken to them time and time again.
29:34No respect is given to them.
29:37And at the end of the day, they feel they have to rise up and fight for their rights.
29:43ALERIC TAKES THE OPPORTUNITY TO MOUNT A MAJOR REBELLION AT THE HEAD OF THESE GOTHIC SOLDIERS WHO'D FOUGHT ON THAT CAMPAIGN,
30:00I THINK CERTAINLY RESPONDING TO THE LEVEL OF CASUALTIES THAT THEY'D SUFFERED ON IT.
30:05BUT FOR THE EMPEROR HONORIUS AND GENERAL STILICO, AN UPRISING IS SOMETHING THEY CAN ILL AFFORD.
30:25BECAUSE WHILE THERE IS PLENTY OF MONEY SWILLING AROUND THE ROMAN EMPIRE,
30:31LESS AND LESS OF IT IS GOING INTO THE IMPERIAL COFFERS.
30:35AND MORE INTO THOSE OF ROME'S SUPER-RICH.
30:54THIS CASKET IS FOR A VERY ELITE WOMAN.
30:59ONE OF THE ONE PERCENT.
31:05THE LID CONTAINS A PORTRAIT WITH A MAN AND A WOMAN STANDING SHOULDER TO SHOULDER.
31:24THIS IS A CLASSIC MARRIAGE SCENE.
31:29WE DO KNOW FOR SURE IT BELONGED TO A WOMAN NAMED PROIECTA BECAUSE THERE'S AN INSCRIPTION ON THE EDGE OF IT.
31:37THE INSCRIPTION REFERS TO PROIECTA AS WELL AS A MAN NAMED SECUNDUS.
31:42AND WE BELIEVE THAT THIS CASKET WAS GIVEN TO THEM AS A WEDDING PRESENT.
31:51THESE ARE TWO INCREDIBLY WEALTHY PEOPLE.
31:57THIS WOULD HAVE BEEN THE WEDDING OF THE YEAR.
32:00IT'S ELABORATELY CARVED WITH SCENES ALL OVER ON ALMOST EVERY SIDE OF IT.
32:14THERE'S A BEAUTIFUL IMAGE OF VENUS SORT OF STEPPING UP OUT OF A BATH, MOSTLY NAKED.
32:21THERE'S A SCENE OF A PROCESSION OF AN ELITE WOMAN TO THE ROMAN BATH HOUSE,
32:34WHICH IS THE PLACE OF GLAMOUR AND LUXURY IN THE ROMAN WORLD.
32:40A LOT OF OBJECTS LIKE THE CASKET ARE REALLY ABOUT SHOWING OFF OSTENTATIOUS WEALTH,
32:46MAKING IT VERY CLEAR THAT YOU ARE IN THAT VERY SMALL STRATTA OF SOCIETY,
32:52WHERE YOU CAN SPEND MOST OF YOUR TIME DOING VERY LITTLE,
32:58ENGAGED IN PLEASURABLE ACTIVITIES.
33:02THIS CELEBRATION OF LUXURY IS PART OF A WORRYING TREND.
33:08THE 1% HOOVERING UP THE WEALTH OF THE WIDER EMPIRE.
33:12THERE ARE ESTIMATIONS THAT 20 FAMILIES OWNED ALL OF SOUTHERN FRANCE AND ITALY, FOR EXAMPLE.
33:25RECENT EXCAVATIONS IN DIFFERENT AREAS OF ROME HAVE UNCOVERED
33:29ABSOLUTELY LUXURIOUS URBAN RESIDENCIES THAT DATE PRECISELY TO THIS BEIROD.
33:37THEY WERE REALLY LEAVING LA DOLCE VITA.
33:45THE WEALTHY OF LATE ANTIQUE ROME ARE A LOT LIKE THE SUPER-WEALTHY BILLIONAIRE CLASS OF TODAY.
33:52THEY LIVE IN THESE ENORMOUS HOUSES THAT THEY HAD CREATED BY COBBLING TOGETHER A BUNCH OF PRE-EXISTED BUILDINGS,
34:01JUST LIKE WE SEE TODAY IN CITIES LIKE NEW YORK AND LONDON.
34:07THIS IS A FAMILY GETTING RICHER BY THE DAY.
34:15AND YET THE EMPEROR IS NOT SEEING THE BENEFIT OF THIS BOOM TIME FOR THE WEALTHY ELITE.
34:25THE RICH IN PRINCIPLE ARE SUPPOSED TO PAY TAXES, BUT THINGS DON'T REALLY CHANGE IN HISTORY.
34:37AND YESTERDAY, AS IT HAPPENS TODAY, THOSE WHO HAVE CONNECTIONS FIND MORE OR LESS LEGAL AND MORE OR LESS CONVENTIONAL WAY NOT TO PAY TAXES.
34:51THIS KIND OF TAX AVOIDANCE IS SQUEEZING THE EMPEROR'S FINANCES, FORCING THE REGIME TO LEAN INSTEAD ON THOSE WHO CAN LEAST AFFORD IT.
35:03THE BURDEN SEEMS TO BE FALLING ON THE LOWER CLASSES.
35:09THE VAST MAJORITY OF ROMANS ARE LIVING IN TENEMENT BLOCKS, IN CROWDED, SHARED SPACES, RAT AND COCKROAT INFESTED.
35:22THEY ARE LIVING VERY DIFFERENT LIVES TO THE LIVES THAT THE WEALTHY ARE LEADING.
35:32GROWING WEALTH AND EQUALITY IS THE MOST COMMON AND CRUCIAL ALEMENT IN SOCIETAL CLASS.
35:40IT CORRODES THE SOCIAL FABRIC.
35:45WEALTH AND EQUALITY, IN SHORT, HOLLOWS OUT SOCIETIES, LEAVING THEM TO BE A BRITTLE SHELL,
35:51WHICH CAN BE CRACKED ASUNDER BY NUMEROUS DIFFERENT SHOCKS, SUCH AS DISEASE, CLIMATE CHANGE AND INVADERS.
35:58FOR THE LAST SEVEN YEARS, ALERIC AND HIS ARMY HAVE BEEN PLUNDERING WHAT THEY CAN IN THE BALKANS.
36:07NOW HE MARCHES HIS MASSED FORCES TOWARDS ITALY.
36:17ALERIC IS IN SEARCH OF A DEAL, AND THAT IS A MORE RECOGNIZED POSITION WITHIN THE ROMAN IMPERIAL STRUCTURE.
36:22PAYMENTS FOR HIS DEPENDENTS AND RECOGNITION FOR HIMSELF AS AN IMPERIAL GENERAL.
36:29ALERIC DOESN'T WANT TO DESTROY THE ROMAN IMPIRE.
36:34HE WANTS TO BE A PART OF IT.
36:37IF HE CAN OVERCOME ROMAN PREJUDICE AGAINST THE GOTHS.
36:43HIS GREAT PROBLEM, STILICO IS IN THE WAY.
36:47STILICO AND ALERIC MAY BE ON OPPOSING SIDES, BUT THE TWO MEN HAVE MORE IN COMMON THAN STILICO WOULD LIKE TO ADMIT.
37:09STILICO IS ACTUALLY HALF BARBARIAN, HALF ROMANIAN.
37:15half-barbarian, half-Roman on his mother's side, and half-Vandal on his father's.
37:25The Vandals were close neighbours of the Goths beyond the northern frontier. Stilicho followed
37:32his barbarian father into the army and rose on merit. He is an example of how Rome could
37:40assimilate outsiders when it chose to. The Roman Empire has controlled a vast region
37:49for 400 years, and one of the secrets is integrating people. You don't actually treat the peoples you've
37:56absorbed as barbarians if you learnt the right languages. If you became part of the Roman system,
38:04you got all the benefits. Roman law, Roman trade networks.
38:12Stilicho has also committed to a Roman way of life, but his journey to the top has not been easy.
38:24If you're born in a country where you're a minority, very often you have to show more resilience,
38:31you have to work harder, you have to prove yourself, because some of the, you know, the narrative
38:37around who you are and what you're about and what your community about is extremely negative.
38:48Stilicho was a Roman by upbringing, by culture. He didn't identify himself as something separate
38:54from the Roman Empire. Unfortunately, there is a strong faction within Italy, within the imperial
39:02court, who've never liked the prominence of a half-vandal soldier dominating affairs.
39:15If Alaric hopes Stilicho, a fellow barbarian, will help him cut a deal,
39:20he's much mistaken.
39:26Stilicho is the top general. His job is to quell the rebellion. I don't think that
39:31that he's busy thinking, oh, I have a little bit of sympathy for this guy.
39:36Rome is a great military power at that stage. You use your power.
39:42Stilicho finally meet at the Battle of Palentia. According to our main source, Stilicho strikes
39:57the barbarians like a thunderbolt. Alaric is defeated, his wife is taken, plunder is taken,
40:05and his people are scattered. But crucially, Stilicho fails to capture Alaric himself.
40:17It will prove a costly mistake.
40:20Stilicho begins to hear rumors that his most trusted general has allowed Alaric to slip through
40:36his fingers on purpose, in a barbarian master plan to overthrow him.
40:42As soon as his regime is looking a bit shaky, when other people are getting in
40:50Honorius' ear, then the barbarian card is the obvious one to play. You can use it both to
40:57disparage Stilicho and also to say that he's secretly in league with Alaric and always has been.
41:07For Honorius, tales of a palace plot would be all too familiar.
41:13As a child, he had been brought up on stories of emperors being overthrown or murdered,
41:21as well as myths of how the powerful punish those who betray them.
41:25He may even have held one such myth in his hands.
41:38The Lycurgus cup, perhaps the greatest single surviving example of magnificent late Roman glassware,
41:51a cup crafted so beautifully that it does indeed reflect light in different colors, from green to red,
42:06depending on where the light comes from.
42:21If people are drinking by candlelight or the wine is being poured in and that's changing the color as well,
42:29so it's making these marvelous effects.
42:31This cup must have belonged to someone with extraordinary wealth, perhaps a member of the imperial court,
42:40even the emperor himself.
42:53The cup shows the myth of the king Lycurgus, who offended the god of wine Bacchus,
43:02and as punishment was entrapped in the grapevine, had stones held at him by Bacchus' followers.
43:09The god punishes the upstart Lycurgus by putting him to death.
43:19Probably the message of that cup was, don't get too big for your britches.
43:24For Honorius, the myth offers some stark advice.
43:41Get rid of those who are a threat to you.
43:44He becomes increasingly paranoid.
43:47As society becomes top-heavy, you suddenly have more elites, generals, wannabe emperors,
43:55competing for a small, limited number of high-status positions.
44:00We see this again and again in Rome.
44:01It was always a Game of Thrones.
44:04And it leads to worse decisions.
44:17The emperor has heard news of multiple barbarian incursions into Roman territory.
44:31Incursions General Stilicho has failed to repel.
44:41Palace insiders spin these failures as proof of Stilicho's treachery.
44:48Pushing Honorius' paranoia to breaking point.
44:53A figure of the imperial court finally convinced Honorius that Stilicho,
45:00being half-vandal, was a barbarian after all.
45:03And therefore, he would have inevitably conspired with other barbarians to take over the imperial throne.
45:11And he would have taken over the imperial throne.
45:13Honorius reaches a fateful decision and orders Stilicho's arrest.
45:20Pushing Honorius is growing up.
45:32Stilicho's been the dominant figure at his court for over 13 years.
45:36It's pretty normal for this kind of child emperor to start kicking over the traces as they get older.
45:46It certainly was a decision that had really serious consequences.
45:55Stilicho is faced with a choice.
46:00Some of his colleagues are urging him to take the choice of actually going into rebellion
46:05against the ruling regime.
46:07He says,
46:09No, I'm not going to cause mayhem at the heart of the Western Empire at a moment of stress.
46:19That's an extraordinary testament to his loyalty to the basic Roman system.
46:24Stilicho has given Rome his allegiance.
46:31Rome has repaid him with suspicion.
46:35And a death sentence.
46:41History will judge it a catastrophic error.
46:45Stilicho's execution means disaster for the Western Empire.
46:56It is a chronically misguided, short-sighted action.
47:02Honorius has just removed the one man who could either do a deal with the barbarians
47:08or defeat them in battle.
47:15He's also unleashed dark forces that will bring carnage to Italy.
47:25As violence against immigrants erupts.
47:34Stilicho's execution triggers a bloodbath.
47:38The opposition to Stilicho flows into a major assault on
47:44anybody of barbarian descent or related to the barbarians in Italy.
47:52There's no question that the level of severity, the ferocity of this massacre,
47:58going after not just the men, but going after their wives and children,
48:03this went way beyond the kind of political purge that you would normally expect to see
48:10following the death of somebody who's a major leader.
48:12The extent to this suggests that there was some layer of prejudice at work here.
48:21But if the massacre is meant to terrify the barbarians into submission,
48:25you can't appeal to the emperor, you can't appeal to the local population.
48:39You can't appeal to the emperor, you can't appeal to the local population.
48:44Who might protect you?
48:46There is one very obvious candidate, Alaric.
48:50And so a lot of these soldiers who had been loyal to Stilicho now flood to join Alaric.
48:57Estimates are perhaps 10,000.
49:00Soldiers now swell Alaric's forces.
49:04Not only is his greatest opponent dead and the Western military is in chaos,
49:09but Alaric's own following has been greatly strengthened.
49:15Alaric goes for the jugular.
49:19He marches unopposed through Italy to Rome.
49:23His forces surround the city and cut off the food supply.
49:29Alaric is still the single most prestigious city in the empire.
49:36And so Alaric is threatening to sack that city as leverage for the things he actually most wants.
49:45So what does he demand?
49:47Gold, silver, both in thousands of pounds of quantity.
49:52He wants somewhere to settle.
49:58And he wants an official Roman title, the one Stilicho held, commander-in-chief of the Western Army.
50:11Our sources about the siege of Rome are quite unanimous in its severity.
50:18People are starving. Our sources even talk about cannibalism.
50:26The citizens of Rome are suffering, but their emperor is not suffering with them.
50:33He has retreated to the relative safety of Ravenna, over 200 miles away on Italy's Adriatic coast.
50:41Numerous people go up to beg Honorius to help, to send an army, to make a deal with Alaric.
50:53Our sources report that Honorius declares that he will never do a deal with one of Alaric's race.
51:01What it's suggesting is an unwillingness on Honorius' part to wake up and smell the coffee.
51:08The Goths are here as a permanent structure within the Western Empire, and you have to find a way of living with them.
51:16You can see why he might resist that.
51:19Honorius has grown up in a world of total Roman dominance.
51:25He doesn't realize that the world has changed.
51:31He doesn't realize that the world has changed.
51:45Alaric gets tired of waiting, and he decides it's time to just sack Rome.
51:50The Romans stereotype Alaric and his people, and in a way force him to become the thing that they're fearful of.
52:07Alaric's followers are targeting the noble houses.
52:11They're targeting everything they can basically gather together and carry off.
52:15Amazingly, some of Rome's treasures from that time survive.
52:30They offer a glimpse of the riches the Goths discovered, and bear witness to the violence they unleashed.
52:38The Praetica casket is part of a hoard of objects, almost all silver, nearly 60 of them, discovered in the ruins of a Roman house in the city of Rome.
52:52What's particularly interesting is the dating of the objects align very, very attractively with the sack of Rome.
53:06It's pretty likely that this hoard was created precisely at the moment when Alaric was at the gates of the city.
53:16And this is one family's attempt to preserve its wealth, its heirlooms.
53:24Why would no one come back for such a very expensive luxury collection of treasures?
53:30It's possible that some of the family members fled the city.
53:34It is, of course, entirely possible that these were people who did indeed fall victim to the Goths.
53:47The Goths are primarily interested in taking every single thing they can carry and bringing it out with them.
54:05But it also, importantly, includes people.
54:08Human trafficking, captive taking, captive taking, was one of the primary forms of booty in the ancient world.
54:21And this was a major goal of the army when they came through.
54:26Honorius, inexperienced, isolated, is entirely unable to comprehend what has happened.
54:41Honorius was told that Rome had just fallen.
54:45And the reaction of the emperor was an immediate expression of grief and desperation.
54:53But what he said was, but I had fed her with my own hands just a few hours ago.
55:01Because Honorius had a hen house and one of the hens was called Rome.
55:10Such was the idea that Rome could not fall.
55:14After three long days of violence and plunder, the Goths finally leave Rome.
55:25As a psychological event, the sack of Rome sends a shockwave across the Roman Empire.
55:31It is one of those events where, when you heard about it, you remember where you were when news reached you.
55:38And the city, like 9-11.
55:42Events that trigger a spark across a consciousness.
55:50Nobody could accept the idea that the most powerful city of all times had eventually capitulated.
55:59Alaric and the Goths have forged a path that others will follow.
56:11The Gothic migration, the refugee crisis of the 370s,
56:16effectively marks the beginning of the so-called decline and fall of the Roman Empire.
56:23The Goths will eventually form their own kingdoms on Roman territory.
56:39It becomes the model for other barbarian peoples.
56:44One by one, the territories of the former Western Roman Empire fall away from imperial control.
56:53Rome lost its grip on Western Europe over 1500 years ago.
57:03With a weak, inexperienced leader, blinded by paranoia.
57:10What the Romans got wrong was refusing to understand the political moment.
57:19The instability, the fragility of the government.
57:23No leader rising to the top who could calm the situation and end the standoff.
57:31This didn't have to happen.
57:35It was a two-tier society that favored the rich.
57:39While failing to solve the challenges of mass migration.
57:47This story is a refugee crisis gone wrong.
57:51It is something we are now very familiar with in our modern world.
57:55The fall of Rome, for many people, was a liberation from a predatory autocracy which overtaxed citizens,
58:06mistreated immigrants and persisted through conquest.
58:10Do not mourn the empire.
58:11The Romans did not believe their empire was about to collapse, but it did.
58:20Our world order will change.
58:23That will always be the great lesson of history.
58:26Egypt, a civilization that has thrived for 3000 years, is torn apart by a toxic dynasty.
58:42Forcing the great Cleopatra to face civil war, famine and foreign invasion.
58:50Threatening to end the age of the pharaohs.
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