- 7 minutes ago
Category
đŸ“º
TVTranscript
00:03I'm on another train and another adventure into the past, but this is my most ambitious
00:11journey to date. I'm going in search of the Roman Empire.
00:20Taking the train, I'll be travelling 1,300 miles through Italy, France and Spain to discover
00:28its origins and the secrets of its success. I'll be exploring some well-known Roman sites.
00:35This is where you can hear Pompeii. And some unfamiliar ones. There is nobody here.
00:42From the massive, it's curved, to the miniature. It's like a 4th century Barbie doll.
00:49I want to know how a single city comes to control such a vast territory. Experts from around the
00:56world will help me bring to life Roman culture.
00:59The sands of Capua become the jungles of India.
01:02And provide insights into why this empire was so successful.
01:07Who said the time machine does not exist? We got it.
01:12In this episode, I visit the finest Roman temple still standing.
01:18What a wonderful treasure to have in the city. It's fantastic.
01:21Fantastic. I cross the river Gardon, 50 metres up.
01:26And we're out into the sunshine.
01:30And I land in the wealthy Spanish port of Emporias.
01:34This is consummate artistry.
01:47In the middle of the 1st century BCE, Julius Caesar was pushing the boundaries of the empire
01:53even further.
01:55He embarked on his Gallic Wars, conquering the land he knew as Gaul or Gallia, roughly corresponding
02:02to modern France.
02:03When the Romans reached Nîmes, there was already a settlement here, inhabited by local Gauls.
02:10By 28 BCE, in the time of the Emperor Augustus, that settlement had become a fully-fledged Roman
02:17colony.
02:18The city would be stamped with the hallmark of Rome, acquiring temples, a forum and a huge
02:25amphitheatre.
02:28But the Romans also left a more subtle mark on the city.
02:34You walk round Nîmes and you start to see crocodiles everywhere.
02:39Why is a crocodile the symbol of Nîmes?
02:43We can blame the Romans.
02:51Crocodiles can be found all over Nîmes.
02:55It's on the city's coat of arms and even its football team.
03:00The crocodile commemorates Augustus' victory over Mark Antony and Cleopatra at the Battle
03:07of Actium in 31 BCE, ending the Civil War and making Egypt part of the Roman Empire, hence
03:16the Nile Crocodile.
03:18Sophie.
03:19Hi, Alice.
03:20Bonjour.
03:21Bonjour.
03:22How are you?
03:23Very good.
03:23This is incredible.
03:25This is wonderful.
03:26It's an absolute masterpiece.
03:32This is the Maison Carrée.
03:36Built between 2 and 4 CE, it is arguably the best preserved temple from the Roman world.
03:47It stands 17 metres tall and boasts 30 Corinthian columns.
03:59The temple was dedicated to Gaius and Lucius Caesar, grandsons of Augustus, who both died
04:06in their youth.
04:09It seems that this really was a local initiative.
04:14In other words, it's not something that came down from Rome.
04:16It was really something they wanted to take part in this period of imperial mourning, and
04:21so that's how the building was constructed.
04:22So this is about worshipping the imperial family, but also about very much demonstrating your
04:29allegiance to Rome.
04:30Absolutely.
04:31Absolutely.
04:32First of all, though, I want to get into the temple itself.
04:34You want to go and have a look inside, okay.
04:36Yeah.
04:36We'll have to be careful, because we have to start with the right foot.
04:40What happens if you start with the left foot?
04:42You don't want to anger the gods.
04:43Okay.
04:44So this is literally starting on the right foot?
04:46This is literally starting on the right foot.
04:48Does it come from this?
04:49Obviously.
04:49Yeah.
04:50Okay, let's go.
04:52Let's go.
04:52On the right foot.
04:54The ultimate origin of this idea is lost, but it may have come from the Greeks.
04:59Starting on the left foot was considered unlucky.
05:03Suddenly very dark after that bright sunshine.
05:05Yes, it is.
05:06It is.
05:07It's a stark contrast.
05:10So this is intriguing, because there's basically nothing in here.
05:14I mean, there's a modern exhibition.
05:16Yeah, I mean, it's a bit unfortunate, because it's true that the rest has disappeared.
05:23You probably had two and possibly three statues, because you had the two grandsons, and obviously
05:31Augustus.
05:31That seems normal.
05:32You would have had an altar, probably inside, as well as some type of furniture for the whatever
05:39instruments they needed for their religious ceremonies and stuff like that.
05:42But what we have here is a scale model of what it was like in Roman times.
05:47And you can also see that it was surrounded by a portico of columns.
05:53There are a few remains on this side here.
05:56Okay.
05:56So that was discovered in the 19th century, when they cleared all the space around the
06:00Maison Carré, and they dug their way down to the original Roman levels.
06:05Yeah, yeah.
06:05And that's how they discovered that.
06:06Yeah.
06:06I just find it so incredible that everything else has effectively disappeared above ground,
06:13but you're left with this perfectly preserved Roman temple in the middle of it, in the middle
06:18of the city.
06:19Yes, exactly.
06:20Yeah.
06:20Exactly.
06:20It's a stroke of luck.
06:22I mean, really.
06:24What a wonderful treasure to have in the city.
06:26Yeah.
06:27It's fantastic.
06:28I never tire of it.
06:29No, I wouldn't.
06:34Across the square is a more recent building, designed by British architect Norman Foster.
06:39He used the Maison Carré as inspiration.
06:44Oh, Sophie, this has got to be the best view of any cafe anywhere.
06:47Extraordinary.
06:49Oh.
06:49Isn't that fantastic?
06:50I can see why you love the city.
06:51Yeah, it's a wonderful place to be in.
06:54What happened to Nîmes after the first century?
06:58Well, Nîmes remained a large Roman town until the mid-third, early fourth century, which
07:08is a first moment when you sort of feel a sort of contraction.
07:13In other words, there are districts of the town that were abandoned, so you feel that
07:17something went wrong.
07:18And then the city reforms around the 10th, between the 10th and the 12th century, just
07:25around the Maison Carré, between the Maison Carré and the arena.
07:29And so you end up with a much smaller town.
07:32The Roman city was 220 hectares, which is 600 acres, and the medieval city is only 80 acres,
07:39so 30 hectares.
07:40So it's much smaller, one-seventh of the original Roman town.
07:42You've got that period of time where it's essentially contracting and falling into ruin, but also
07:50that means it's not being built over and built over.
07:52So perhaps that means that actually you're more likely to have relics from the Roman period
07:57surviving through.
07:58You can feel that there was a lot of respect over the centuries.
08:02I would say from the 16th century on, there was a lot of respect for the Roman buildings.
08:07It's part of our everyday life also.
08:10When people go to the arena and when they attend a show, they are in complete connection
08:17with the Roman spectators who came before them.
08:20And so the people of Nîmes say,
08:21Je connais les arennes, I know the arena, because they don't know anything about its history
08:26or very little, but they relate to the venue, which is exactly what it's all about.
08:31We must go there.
08:33Yeah.
08:33Yeah.
08:33Yeah.
08:39The population of Roman Nîmes reached an estimated 60,000, making it a very large town for the
08:46time.
08:48That's a lot of people to keep entertained, but Augustus had that factored into his building
08:54programme.
08:57Oh!
09:00Look at this.
09:01The arena.
09:02Yeah.
09:03Yeah.
09:07Les arennes is a spectacular amphitheatre built shortly after Rome's Colosseum.
09:14And almost 2,000 years later, it's still in use.
09:28Oh, wow.
09:29So this has been renovated a bit, but the basic fabric is Roman.
09:34The basic fabric is absolutely Roman.
09:36A few of the steps were reconstructed because, as it had been lived in, a lot of the steps
09:41had been ripped out.
09:42It had been lived in?
09:43Yeah.
09:44Yeah, exactly.
09:48I hope we're going to the best seats in the house, Sophie.
09:52Well, technically, they are the best seats in the house because it's really the best view
09:57of the amphitheatre.
10:01Where do we go now?
10:03Oh, there's another one.
10:04Yeah, there's another.
10:05This is the last one.
10:07Yeah, it's the last one.
10:10Yeah, it's the last one.
10:13No, you lied.
10:14There's another one, Sophie.
10:17Five steps.
10:18Come on.
10:18Come on.
10:18A short one.
10:19A very short one.
10:20Wow!
10:22Yeah.
10:23Oh, that is phenomenal.
10:28You get a sense of a size when you're up here.
10:30And they're getting ready for a show.
10:32Yes, they're getting ready for the summer festival.
10:34Concerts.
10:36What was the original capacity?
10:38Do we know?
10:38It's 24,000.
10:3924,000?
10:4024,000.
10:41And today, we're sort of down to 17,000 because part of the seating is missing.
10:46Yeah.
10:46But it's, yeah, it's 24,000.
10:48It's really impressive, isn't it?
10:50Yeah.
10:50Yeah.
10:51I've been thinking, having explored this expansion of empire before it's an empire,
10:56you know, the territory of the Romans, and I wonder what it was like for people here knowing
11:02that the Romans were coming, because they must have known, and they would have been aware
11:05of this road that was being built, and then suddenly, before you know it, they're in town.
11:10They're in town.
11:11There must have been people that were very disquietened by that, and then there must have
11:15been other people that actually welcomed it.
11:17Yeah.
11:18The Romans brought about a positive change.
11:23In the elite, you see how the native Celts, they Latinize their name to a certain extent,
11:30because they want to be part of the thing.
11:31Okay?
11:32They want to be part of this evolution.
11:34There's another interesting development, which is a perfect illustration of what is known
11:37as the Pax Romana.
11:39And that's the fact that these, the Celts lived in, on hilltop cities, which were known
11:43as Opidum, Opida in plural.
11:45Yeah.
11:46And a few of these Opida in this region were abandoned after the conquest, because people
11:52could then live at the bottom of the hill, near the water, near their fields.
11:58Yeah.
11:58And they didn't have to spend their time trudging up and down, because they knew they were safe.
12:02And so that's a perfect illustration of the Pax Romana.
12:05Yeah.
12:05Yeah.
12:05Yeah.
12:06Sometimes, you know, when people ask me, when did the Romans leave?
12:09I say they never left, because they never came.
12:10Yeah.
12:11That's the same as in England.
12:12Yeah.
12:12It's the same.
12:13You have the administrators who are sent in, obviously, officers in the army, et cetera,
12:17et cetera.
12:18But then gradually, people take over.
12:21And you see this in the houses.
12:22You see how the native Celts never represented their gods.
12:25They never had statues of the gods.
12:27And suddenly, you see representations of their gods in the Roman fashion, with little altars,
12:33domestic altars, and so on, which is really interesting.
12:36And that's how the civilization spread, to my mind.
12:40But knowing that there are some colonizers, I think, is interesting, and that the literature
12:43supports that, that there were some people who were coming in.
12:46Definitely.
12:46Definitely.
12:46And, of course, what we will be able to do in the fullness of time with the sciences
12:51around archaeology, so ancient DNA, isotope analysis, will actually be able to get a better
12:56handle on just how much of that was going on, how much of what we're looking at is the
13:00transformation of the culture that was here before, and the people that were here before,
13:05and how much of it is people coming in from elsewhere.
13:08Yeah.
13:08Exactly.
13:09Now I'm melting.
13:10I'm absolutely melting.
13:12The Romans would have had awnings.
13:14So there you go.
13:15Civilization has regressed, I think.
13:20The Romans would have had to stay for a long time and a few hours left later.
13:33Hello.
13:34I want you to go to the Contact Center Center.
13:36Thank you, my dear.
13:44I've seen the stunning Maison Carré
13:47and climbed inside Les Arrennes.
13:51But this area has more to offer.
13:56I'm now heading 15 miles north
13:59to see a spectacular example of Roman engineering.
14:05The Pont du Gard.
14:07The Pont du Gard is an aqueduct from the 1st century C.E.
14:12Laurent.
14:14Welcome. Bonjour. Bonjour.
14:16This is incredible.
14:18I mean, I've obviously seen it in photographs.
14:22And then you come here.
14:23This bridge is quite amazing.
14:25There is only one in the world here.
14:28This amazing bridge is, in fact, just here to get the water in the city.
14:33That's all. Yeah.
14:36How long is the entire aqueduct?
14:38How long is the route that it has to take from Source to Neem?
14:41Between Source and Neem, at the arable tank, where the water is distributed in the city,
14:46you are 50 kilometres long.
14:50And it's not running straight from the Source to Neem?
14:53Because in straight line, they have to create, through the hill behind me, they have to create a long and
15:00deep tunnel.
15:01Too difficult for them.
15:02Though they prefer to create an aqueduct with a curve around the hill.
15:05So, they explain why this aqueduct is 50 long kilometres and not 20, as may be expected at the beginning.
15:13So, Laurent, where's the water coming from that's crossing this aqueduct?
15:16The water comes from a place named today Uzes, a little city a few kilometres from here.
15:22And the advantage of the spring in Uzes, the level of these springs is a little bit higher than Neem.
15:28How much higher?
15:2912 metres.
15:30So, the water is running 50 kilometres, and it's only dropping 12 metres from Source to destination.
15:38It's very light.
15:39They can get enough water every day in Neem for 20,000 people.
15:44Once again, 400 litres of water.
15:46Yeah, yeah.
15:47Constantly.
15:48It's constantly flowing in, and then that's going through lead pipes into the fountains around the town,
15:53so the whole town has got access to fresh water.
15:56Yeah, yeah.
15:57That was modern.
15:59People were happy.
16:00Yeah.
16:01They don't have to pay.
16:01The water was free.
16:02How long do you think it took to build this all the way from the source to Neem?
16:06To build the aqueduct between the spring and the city during 20 years.
16:11That's, yeah, that's OK.
16:13That's estimated.
16:14That's estimated, yeah.
16:15Yeah.
16:15They built this bridge in just maybe five years.
16:18The stone here are the same, Lambda Roman time.
16:21That's the same.
16:22Isn't that amazing?
16:23It's amazing that it survived all that time.
16:24In fact, because it's far from the city and too heavy to destroy.
16:29Yeah.
16:30Yeah.
16:31Because a lot of Roman monuments, you see that people have used them as a quarry,
16:36because it's beautiful dressed stone.
16:38You can take it.
16:39In fact, when you build this, it's because you need it.
16:43Yeah.
16:44And when you don't need it anymore, you transform it in stone to build your house.
16:48Yeah, yeah.
16:48Because you need your house, not this pile of stone.
16:51But as you say, this is far enough away from the city not to be used as a quarry.
16:54So it just stayed here in the landscape.
16:57It's incredible.
16:58It was lucky.
16:59And really well built.
17:01Yeah.
17:01I mean, really well built.
17:02And now it's a world heritage, of course.
17:05Yeah.
17:06And now if you want, we can climb these steps to go to the aqueduct.
17:10I definitely want to go to the top.
17:12The Pont du Gard stands almost 50 meters tall, and it's the very top level that carried the water,
17:20which would flow through tunnels and bridges all the way to Neen.
17:24It was built around 50 CE and in full use for 400 years.
17:32Woo!
17:33It's windy up here.
17:33Careful with your heart.
17:35The wind blow.
17:36Yes, absolutely.
17:38So this is the actual water channel?
17:41Yeah.
17:41The water was here, and the water lived on the wall, the stone you see on each side.
17:47So all of this, this is not actually part of the construction?
17:50No, it's the deposit.
17:52So this is water flowing through limestone, dissolving it, and then re-depositing it here.
17:57Yeah.
17:57The water was coming by this side, and going to Neen on the other side,
18:01and leave every few millimeters of stone on the wall.
18:04Yeah.
18:05And millimeters after millimeters, the canal reduced.
18:08Yeah, so gradually it gets narrower and narrower, this channel.
18:11At the end, the passage was quite narrow, at 40 centimeters.
18:14Yeah.
18:15And the level of the water was just under the ceiling.
18:19But progressively, it was too hard to maintain.
18:22Yeah, yeah.
18:23So they stop.
18:25So they're not maintaining it, and it's just gradually narrowing every year.
18:31Getting narrower and narrower.
18:34It gets really narrow here.
18:37Oh, yeah.
18:37It's the most narrow on the channel.
18:43Yeah.
18:43It was preserved to show that it was like this at the end of the mountain.
18:47Yeah.
18:48I mean, it's really interesting to see it, isn't it?
18:52This upper section spans 360 meters across the valley of the river Gardon below.
18:59And despite many powerful floods, the bridge has remained intact.
19:07It's estimated that it weighs over 50,000 tons.
19:16And we're out into the sunshine and on the other bank.
19:22Yeah, it's the right bank.
19:25You have crossed the top of the bridge in the Roman Hakoduk.
19:28When you look inside, you cannot see the entrance.
19:34No, because the top is not in straight line.
19:37The top is curved.
19:38It's curved.
19:38Yeah.
19:40Do you know, I didn't perceive that as we were walking through it.
19:43In fact, we didn't know what's happened.
19:46Probably, they build the bridge, probably, see.
19:50They build the bridge on the third, on the three levels with a curve behind me.
19:56And originally, it was thought that it was to protect the bridge from the flood.
20:02Yes.
20:02Like that, you see.
20:03So it's basically an arch in this direction.
20:05But it's not constant.
20:07It's not a perfect curve.
20:09During a few years, it was a possibility that because of the sun on the bridge,
20:15the stone make, I say, dilatation.
20:18Expanded.
20:19Expanded, yeah.
20:20Expanded on the day, retracting on the night.
20:22Yeah.
20:23So maybe it was proved that the bridge was curved because of this.
20:27But there is another possibility, and all in the same.
20:32There was an earthquake one day, and the bridge is very high, and the bridge moved.
20:37Yeah.
20:37And the top is a little bit curved.
20:39So we don't have the exact reason of why the top is curved, but it's a mix with all of
20:47this.
20:50The Pont du Gard is the most incredible site, but this is a mere section of a 50-kilometre journey
20:59the water would have made from the source to the city.
21:03The bridge museum has a beautiful model of the entire length.
21:08I do love a good model in a museum, and this one is brilliant because it shows you something of
21:15the scale
21:16of this massive Roman infrastructure project.
21:18It starts at modern-day users where the water is gathered from springs,
21:23and then from here it's going to travel 50 kilometres to Nîmes, not in a straight line.
21:30And sometimes that's going to be in tunnels which are going round a corner,
21:36and so you can see the tunnel disappearing off there.
21:39As it's running along this convoluted route, all the time it's having to drop slightly
21:44to keep that water flowing, to keep it heading towards Nîmes, over another bridge.
21:51And a little one here with just three arches crossing a small valley.
21:57Here's another big bridge, taking it across a valley, and this is not so well preserved today.
22:04And sometimes these tunnels are emerging, and they're still tunnels, they're still covered over,
22:10but they're leaping into the air, travelling over valleys on these little bridges.
22:15That one's just got three arches, so is this one.
22:18And as we come into the Pont du Gard, this incredibly well-preserved bit of the aqueduct,
22:26with these three tiers of arches. And I was walking along, up inside there, with Laurent,
22:35through the tunnels that the water would have flowed along.
22:39And then finally we arrive at Nîmes. This is where all that water ends up, and this is called
22:46the Castellum, which was discovered excavated in the 19th century. This is where the aqueduct
22:52finishes, and it's essentially a reservoir in Nîmes, where the water is flowing in from this very long
22:59aqueduct. And that water has dropped only 12 metres to get it to this point. It's quite incredible. I'm
23:07blown away by that. And then actually this Castellum, which is gathering all that water,
23:13is at a high point in Nîmes, eight metres above the rest of the city. So now the water is
23:20flowing
23:21out at quite high pressure to the fountains in the streets, just as they were in Pompeii.
23:30What an extraordinary example of the Roman world Nîmes is. But my time here is coming to an end.
23:38Tomorrow I'm taking the train to Narbonne to discover, among other treasures, a Roman aristocrat's
23:45luxury villa.
23:59I'm leaving Nîmes to head south-west to Narbonne, founded by the Romans in 118 BCE.
24:11It's a pleasant 90-mile train journey through the French countryside, a lot quicker than walking
24:18on foot, or even on horseback, along the Via Domitia.
24:43In the second to last decade of the second century BCE, Rome was extending its control and its
24:51influence into southern Gaul. And this was done by the general Domitius.
24:57He built a road, of course, which ran all the way from the Alps to Spain, and it brought his
25:04name,
25:04the Via Domitia. As this road got close to the foothills of the Pyrenees, there was already a
25:10settlement there known as Naro by the locals, and it became known as Nabo by the Romans.
25:16Domitius placed a garrison there in order to guard the road that he was making, and over time that garrison
25:24grew into a prosperous town. And it was known at the time as a place where Roman identity and non
25:34-Roman
25:34barbarian identity was fused together, something that was playing out across the empire.
25:41And it was known as Naro.
26:09And it was known as Naro.
26:11In the Roman city, Narbonne would be transformed
26:14into the wealthiest settlement in southern Gaul.
26:21It was known for its sophisticated urban life and its wine.
26:27But compared with Nîmes, you have to look much harder
26:31for traces of that Roman heritage here.
26:38A Roman road!
26:41It is the Roman road.
26:55There's the route of the Via Domitia coming from the Alps
27:00and then tracing along here down to Nîmes and down to Narbonne.
27:05I've been following it very closely again on the train journey.
27:09It continues down south into Spain.
27:16It's just a window into the past in the middle of the town square.
27:20This is the Via Domitia that I'm standing on.
27:23And once again, I can see the ruts, the wheel ruts in the roads.
27:28But I'm not having to cycle along it this time.
27:37I'm heading just north of the city centre to a significant Roman archaeological site,
27:43Clos de la Lombarde.
27:51Excavations here have revealed two huge Roman houses, complete with thermal baths.
27:58Built in the first century BCE, these houses were occupied for 400 years.
28:06I'm meeting Annika, a local guide who's been a volunteer here for over 12 years.
28:12Welcome.
28:13Enchanté.
28:15Welcome to my house.
28:16This is your house.
28:17Yes, 900 square metres.
28:20Oh, that's some house, isn't it?
28:22Some house.
28:23It's a wealthy house, really.
28:24Yeah, yeah.
28:25For wealthy people.
28:26Let's have a look, shall we?
28:28Do we go in here?
28:29Yes, please.
28:30The garden.
28:31So straight through the entrance.
28:33What's this?
28:34A well?
28:35Yes.
28:37A well because, of course, they settled here because there was water.
28:42And this is a pond in the middle of the garden, is it?
28:44A pond.
28:44Yeah.
28:45Beautiful pond.
28:46We can still put water, you know.
28:49It's perfectly Ă©tanche, perfectly right.
28:52So this is the original Roman cement, is it?
28:55Yes.
28:56Around the outside.
28:57It's what we call the Roman concrete.
28:59Yes.
29:00Completely waterproof.
29:01Would they have had fish, do you think?
29:03Fish, yes.
29:04Yes, they had fish.
29:05But it's more for pleasure.
29:07Okay.
29:08We can imagine the kids having a swim.
29:11Yeah.
29:12Yes, because it is a family house.
29:14Yes, I would like to have a swim today.
29:15It's baking, isn't it?
29:16Where do we go next then, Anique?
29:18We're going to see the rooms where the family sit for talking
29:23and the children have a family, like a sitting room.
29:27We call it a sitting room.
29:29Yeah.
29:29This is the sitting room here.
29:32Yeah.
29:32And when this was excavated originally, presumably there were lots of artifacts that were discovered
29:37here as well.
29:38Amazing.
29:39Hmm.
29:40Mosaics.
29:40It was taken out and it's now in the museum.
29:43Yeah.
29:43And you will see the beautiful paintings as well.
29:45When was all this excavated?
29:47It was found in 1973.
29:51The government wanted to build in Narbonne a big tax building.
29:56Okay.
29:57And so they dig and the artifacts that were removed from the ground were all really good
30:03quality.
30:03High status.
30:04Yeah.
30:04Yeah.
30:05Yeah.
30:05Exactly.
30:06And now all the paintings which have been restored, you will see them in the museum.
30:12In the museum.
30:13Yeah.
30:13Yeah.
30:13We have the name of the owner of the house.
30:18We found an altar, an altar with his name.
30:24And what is his name?
30:25Marcus Claudius Aestiwo.
30:29So we've got this name inscribed on an altar.
30:32Yes.
30:32Is he mentioned anywhere else?
30:35Are there any mentions in literature?
30:38Not literature, but his name was engraved in some of the stones.
30:43His name was twin with trade.
30:46Okay.
30:47It's lovely to have a name though.
30:48It's unusual.
30:49Yes.
30:50Yeah.
30:50Are you proud of your Roman heritage here?
30:52Definitely.
30:53Is it part of your identity?
30:54Oh, definitely.
30:55Yeah.
30:55Yes.
30:56Oh, it's been a lovely tour.
30:57Thank you very much.
30:59My pleasure.
30:59I want to look at all the artefacts now, so I must go to the museum, mustn't I?
31:03Oh, yes, please.
31:04You will be in love with the paintings there.
31:08It shows that these people, not only they had money, but they had culture and taste.
31:14Yeah.
31:15It's great to come and see the actual excavations before I go to the museum.
31:19Yes.
31:20It's nice to be able to put it into context.
31:22It's the way you should do it.
31:23Yeah.
31:23Yeah.
31:24In Roman times, Narbonne was the capital of the province of Gallia Narbonensis, covering
31:31much of what's now southern France.
31:36Clos de la Lombarde lies in an area reserved for Narbonne's elite.
31:42Clearly, the city had serious wealth.
31:45And I'm hoping to see the treasures that were unearthed from these excavations.
31:51In Roman.
31:53Hello.
31:54Hello.
31:55Bonjour.
31:56Bonjour.
31:56This is an incredible display.
31:58Yes, it is.
31:59Wow.
31:59Yeah.
32:00It's the main attraction of our museum.
32:02I mean, you just walk in and you're confronted with it.
32:04Yeah.
32:04Roman Narbonne.
32:05Well, that's the idea.
32:07Because all the city has lost all its monuments, so we wanted to recreate this monumentality
32:13and that's how we did it.
32:15Yeah.
32:16So where did these come from?
32:17They look as though they've come from lots of different places.
32:20In fact, we found them in the city walls in the 19th century because they were used as
32:26construction materials.
32:28But we think they were originally taken from funerary monuments.
32:34Okay.
32:34When the city needed to protect itself at the end of the Roman period.
32:39Yeah.
32:39And we think that the inhabitants destroyed these monuments and constructed the first city
32:45walls with all these blocks.
32:47Okay.
32:48Which century that was?
32:49We're not exactly sure.
32:50I think it's the third or fourth century AD.
32:54Okay.
32:54There are bits that look as though they're friezes.
32:56That's right.
32:56You have some...
32:57There's a fraction up there which looks like it might be a...
32:59That's right.
33:00A frieze from a temple maybe?
33:02That's right.
33:02The one they have just in front of us is a frieze that may come from a public monument.
33:08We think it's a temple.
33:09This beautiful one here with the beautiful leaves.
33:11That's right.
33:11It looks very much like the frieze you have in the Maison Carrée in Nîmes.
33:17Yeah.
33:17So we think it's a temple of the same kind.
33:20Okay.
33:20But unfortunately we only have 12 blocks of this kind.
33:24Yeah.
33:25So we're not exactly sure where it was in the city.
33:28The rest of it is gone.
33:30That's right.
33:30That's right.
33:31How many blocks there are here in this wall?
33:32So in this wall you have 760 blocks.
33:35Wow.
33:35And we still have some other ones in the storage rooms.
33:38Yeah.
33:39Quite a lot because we have 500 more.
33:42Right.
33:42And we'll try to change from time to time.
33:44There is a machine and you can see just behind us here.
33:48What's that doing?
33:48It moves the stones.
33:51So if you want to take one out of the wall.
33:54Yes it does.
33:55Really?
33:55It's basically a forklift robot.
33:58That's right.
33:58Yeah, yeah.
33:59Now I've visited the excavations at the Clos de la Lombarde.
34:03Yes.
34:03And you've got the artifacts here, haven't you?
34:05That's right, yes.
34:06We are showing the wall paintings and a lot of objects that were discovered.
34:11Yeah.
34:12Can I see those?
34:13Yes, of course.
34:13Let's go.
34:15It's just right there.
34:21So this is where we are showing a lot of paintings.
34:26It comes from the Clos de la Lombarde.
34:28We tried to rebuild some rooms with the full decoration.
34:32The floor, the walls and sometimes the ceiling.
34:35It's all in context.
34:36That's fantastic.
34:37For these two rooms it's in full context.
34:39Yeah.
34:39The other one it's only a melting of different rooms.
34:42Yeah.
34:42But we tried to show as much as possible.
34:45Oh, this is a fantastic way of displaying it.
34:47You have the decoration of something like a room, a bedroom, I think.
34:54Yeah.
34:54This one is quite huge.
34:56It's impressive because it's very, very high.
34:58Yes.
34:58It's four metres high.
34:59And they were covered with all these paintings, some rich paintings.
35:04You can see a woman standing here.
35:06But this must have all been collapsed right in.
35:09That's right.
35:10Yeah.
35:10In fact, it collapsed at the end of Roman time.
35:14Yeah.
35:14And the archaeologists discovered all these fragments 40 years ago.
35:18So this is all pieced together from fragments that have been excavated out of this tumbled down building,
35:24which has been covered up.
35:25It's a huge work.
35:26Really huge work, enormous work.
35:27Isn't that amazing?
35:28They've got it easy at Pompeii.
35:30Yes.
35:30Where they just take away the stone and the ash.
35:32There's no puzzle.
35:32And the walls are still standing.
35:34There's no puzzle at all.
35:35Here it's had to all be pieced back together.
35:37That's right.
35:37That's extraordinary.
35:38Here you have only a fragment of...
35:41We think it's a mythological episode with the...
35:45So there's a man here with two horses.
35:47That's right.
35:47And we think it's the chariot of the sun.
35:51And there's a mythological episode about this when Phoebus, you know, wants to use this chariot.
35:57So that could be Phoebus with the horses of the chariot of the sun.
36:00That's right, yes.
36:01That's right, yes.
36:04Oh, those fragments are lovely.
36:06Yes, unfortunately.
36:07Fruit and leaves.
36:09This one is more incomplete, but you can still recognise the fruits.
36:14Yeah.
36:15Oh, look at this bone comb.
36:16That's beautiful.
36:17And a tiny comb.
36:19Yes.
36:19Don't think I've ever seen such a tiny comb.
36:22And this is one of the most famous paintings of Nargonne.
36:26Yes.
36:27It represents genius.
36:29A god, which is the genius of the Roman people, just next to the victory.
36:35So kind of the personification of...
36:37That's right.
36:38That's right, yeah.
36:38Yeah.
36:39And the victory was holding a helmet or maybe a shield above her head.
36:46Oh, yeah, yeah.
36:46All the upper part has disappeared.
36:49But this kind of decoration is quite rare.
36:52You don't often see men and women represented at real size.
36:56Yeah, yeah.
36:57So this is quite...
36:58That's why this painting is famous.
37:00And he's got a cornucopia.
37:02That's right, yes.
37:04With grapes hanging down from it and ears of wheat springing from the top as well.
37:09Yes, yes, that's right.
37:11Yeah, it's wonderful.
37:16Beautiful Roman glass.
37:20So there are clearly extremely wealthy people here in Nargonne.
37:24Yes, yes.
37:24Where did their wealth come from?
37:26Trading?
37:26Trading mostly.
37:28Agriculture, wine.
37:29I mean, these were the two main sources of wealth.
37:32And being on that road between, you know, Italy and Spain.
37:37Yes.
37:38Yeah.
37:39What a grand sight those two villas must have been.
37:45Tomorrow I'm crossing the border for my first encounter with Hispania, Rome and Spain.
38:15I'm now going to leave Gaul, France, behind.
38:18And I'm travelling towards Hispania, Spain on this train.
38:23And I'm going to be exploring the very ancient city of Emporion.
38:29Now this was founded by Greeks who had a colony at Massalia, Marseille.
38:35And then they founded this other town as a hub for trade.
38:41They called it Emporion after all.
38:44And it was a really thriving, important, prosperous town.
38:48It became Romanised because of its connections with the Italian peninsula.
38:54It ended up siding with Rome in the Punic Wars against Hannibal and the Carthaginians.
38:59And was rewarded for that by continuing to be an independent city-state.
39:04But in fact, by that point, by the second century BCE,
39:09its harbour was silting up and it was going into decline.
39:17Emporion is known today as Emporios.
39:22It sits on the Mediterranean coast, just 50 miles from the French border.
39:32My next stop is Figueras Villafant.
39:35And from there, it's a short journey to the Roman remains at Emporios.
39:44The Catalan town of Figueras is famously known as the birthplace of Salvador Dali.
39:56I'm meeting Elisa, an archaeologist who's been working at this site for the past 10 years.
40:03Elisa. Hi.
40:06Buenos dias. Hola, buenos dias.
40:08These mosaics are absolutely stunning.
40:11It's part of a big damas, a big house.
40:15Yeah. Where they are living important people from this city,
40:18from the Roman city of Emporios.
40:21So how big is this house?
40:23All of these mosaics are part of one house, are they?
40:25These 3,000 metre careers.
40:28There are many other big house in this city.
40:32This city is 22 hectares of city.
40:35Okay.
40:36But now we only know 50-20% of this city.
40:40Yeah. Can we walk around this house and look at some of these other mosaics in a bit more detail?
40:45Yes, of course.
40:45They're really lovely, aren't they?
40:46And you just get the impression of mosaic artisans moving around the empire.
40:53Yeah.
40:54They come here directly from Italy.
40:57Yeah.
40:57And also the materials come from Italy.
41:00Yeah.
41:00They have found in some boats that are under the water with part of mosaics
41:06because some parts of the mosaics, the emblemata, the centre part of the mosaic,
41:11usually do it outside the town, not in the place.
41:16Oh, I see.
41:17Yeah.
41:17Because they are probably made by the best craftspeople as well.
41:21Yeah.
41:21And they're not going to travel.
41:23They're going to make them in situ and then ship them out.
41:25They export.
41:26They send it by boat here.
41:29Yeah, yeah.
41:29It's interesting, isn't it?
41:30Because you think about globalization again as a new thing and the idea that,
41:34you know, a particular big company can export a style around the world.
41:38It's like China now, with the exportation of the similar products.
41:46At the end of the third century BCE, the Romans used the town of Emporias
41:51as a military base in their battles against the Carthaginians.
41:58So there's more archaeology down here.
42:01Is this more of the Roman town?
42:04Yeah.
42:05This city that we can see now, it's a Greek city.
42:08Okay.
42:09So the Greeks were here before the Romans.
42:12When did they first start to build a city here?
42:15They arrived in the sixth century before Christ.
42:18Yeah.
42:19They arrived here because they are in an expansive trading system in the Mediterranean.
42:26Emporion means trading place.
42:28Emporion, yes.
42:29Yes.
42:29It's a market.
42:31Then, later, Roman arrives.
42:33Yeah.
42:35Roman create the camp outside this Greek city.
42:38Oh, I see.
42:39So actually these, so the Greek city and the Roman city for a period are contemporaneous.
42:43Yes.
42:44When the Roman city was completely built, the Greek city started to be abandoned.
42:49And during the first century after Christ, we can see that all the buildings started to be abandoned.
42:56Yeah.
42:56Yeah.
42:57And in terms of the excavations here then, I mean, you've got a beautifully preserved Greek and Roman city.
43:04And you can see the plan of it.
43:06You can see the layout of it.
43:08It's extraordinary.
43:09And you're still digging.
43:11Yeah.
43:11We're still digging.
43:12So can I see some of your recent finds in the museum?
43:15Yes, of course.
43:15Yeah.
43:16Yeah.
43:16Some of our work, you can find it there.
43:19I have to check it out.
43:27The finds here span almost a millennium of history.
43:31There are artworks dating to the earlier Greek city, through the later centuries of the Roman Republic, and then on
43:39into the time of empire.
43:47Those are gorgeous.
43:53Mosaics made out of the tiniest, tiniest tesseree, and so many different colours.
44:04Ah, see, these are from the big house, the big house that I was looking at with Elisa, and there
44:11were those lovely mosaic floors with the geometric designs on them.
44:17But they pale into insignificance almost, beside these beautiful figurative mosaics.
44:27So detailed.
44:28Wow.
44:29I mean, this is consummate artistry.
44:36Somebody incredibly importured and wealthy lived in that house.
44:43And here we see something which is coming in at the end of the imperial period in the west, and
44:50which will survive the fragmentation of the empire.
44:53There are the Greek letters, chi and rho, looking like a P, the first two letters of Christos in Greek,
45:06and an alpha and an omega for the beginning and the end.
45:11This is Christianity.
45:17Emporius was built for the import and export of goods, established by the Greeks, then run by the Carthaginians, before
45:26the Romans moved in.
45:27But this wasn't just a fight over a few trading outposts.
45:32The battle between the Romans and the Carthaginians was about who would dominate in the western Mediterranean, and only one
45:41empire would win.
45:46Join me next time as I travel further into Spain.
45:50I mean, we're practically on the beach.
45:52To discover how the Romans flushed their cash.
45:56So imagine if the tour was like this, the food would be something like this.
46:01It's enormous.
46:03And find more secrets to the success of the Roman Empire.
46:08Look at that.
46:09This is a moment of wow.
46:39This is the B.
46:39A weight loss
46:40This is now a moment of wow.
46:42Here is a moment of wow
46:42That is franchising 한다 and that is, not only one of the values that we are looking at
Comments