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00:03I'm on another train and another adventure into the past, but this is my most ambitious
00:10journey 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.
00:37And some unfamiliar ones.
00:40There is nobody here.
00:42From the massive.
00:43It's curved.
00:45Yeah.
00:45To the miniature.
00:46It's like a fourth century Barbie doll.
00:49I want to know how a single city comes to control such a vast territory.
00:55Experts from around the world 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'm invited to descend into an ancient tomb.
01:17Even though the tomb looks empty, there might be some information here.
01:21Yeah.
01:21There could be.
01:22I swapped the train for a less comfortable ride.
01:25OK, some bumps coming up.
01:26You ready for this?
01:32And discover that the Roman Empire looted more than material wealth.
01:37It's all feeling as though the Romans have kind of stolen Etruscan culture.
01:49This time, I'm in the very beating heart of the empire.
01:57Italy's mesmerising capital city of Rome.
02:02Just setting foot on these streets is both exhilarating and slightly overwhelming.
02:10It's a bustling and vibrant modern city,
02:13home to the Catholic Church and Europe's biggest university.
02:17But it's also a dazzling living monument to the power once wielded by the Roman Empire
02:24and home to some of the world's most celebrated ancient sites.
02:29At its peak early in the second century CE,
02:33Rome was the jewel in the crown of an empire stretching 1.9 million square miles.
02:39The ancient city had a population of over a million people,
02:44larger than any other in Europe until the 19th century.
02:49It was the global centre for architecture, science, medicine and engineering.
03:09It's my first time back in Rome since around 25 years ago,
03:14when I spent all of two hours here, but I'm planning to make up for that now.
03:19Rome are 24 hours. That is, I think, what I need.
03:26Hello. This is my ticket to Rome.
03:33The Rome Metro is Italy's first rapid transit system, dating back to 1955.
03:41With 73 stations and 37 miles of track,
03:45it carries over 800,000 commuters and a significant number of tourists every day.
03:55I want to get a flavour of what life is like for a local in one of Europe's most visited
04:00cities,
04:00so I'm heading towards one of Rome's premier tourist destinations
04:04to meet tour guide and resident Edwin Salnitro.
04:11Edwin.
04:12Hello.
04:13Buongiorno.
04:14Buongiorno.
04:15Oh, we're Italian.
04:16How are you?
04:17Very good.
04:18Great.
04:19So we're just on the edge of the forum here.
04:22That's amazing.
04:23You're living in this 21st century city, which has got all this very obvious history.
04:30Amazing, upstanding archaeology.
04:32What does that mean to you as a Roman today?
04:35Um, OK, I think you are like a tourist.
04:39So you just walk, you enjoy the city and you say, wow, I'm here.
04:44Yeah.
04:44But when you are working in Rome, you must park your car in Rome.
04:49It's a little bit different.
04:51So sometimes as a Roman, you must do like, you must live like a tourist just to enjoy it.
04:57Enjoy it, yeah.
04:57Because you have the, OK, all the Romans.
05:00So the foundation, the seven kings, the republic age, the emperors.
05:04After you have the pope's kingdom, the church.
05:07Yeah.
05:08So 900 churches, a lot of fountains.
05:12900 churches in Rome.
05:13900 churches and also 1,500 fountains.
05:19So that's why it was called back in time, but also still now, Regina Aquarum, the queen of the water.
05:26The queen of the water.
05:29Ancient Rome's crowning glory was a system of elevated aqueducts that, fueled only by gravity,
05:37delivered water to over a thousand drinking fountains.
05:41These fountains came to symbolize Roman prosperity and engineering prowess.
05:47Two millennia later, water is piped directly into the homes of the city's three million residents,
05:52but there are still public fountains.
05:56So you've got fountains throughout the city which are still fresh drinking water today.
06:00Yes, you can drink from each one.
06:02That's why we have that small fountains called Nazone.
06:07Nazone means big nose.
06:09Big nose.
06:10Because of the shape.
06:11Because of the spout.
06:12Yeah.
06:13Yeah.
06:14We love nickname.
06:17Oh.
06:18This Nazone you can find all over the city.
06:22OK.
06:22Two thousand and five hundred.
06:25Oh, really?
06:26And you must know how to drink from this fountain.
06:28So, can you show me?
06:30Let me see.
06:30I would have to get down here, I think.
06:32OK.
06:32And maybe do that.
06:34Wrong way.
06:35No.
06:35Sorry.
06:36Wrong way.
06:36Can I show you?
06:37Yes, please.
06:38OK.
06:39Ah.
06:39OK.
06:41Get ready.
06:42Get ready.
06:44Ole.
06:44Oh, brilliant.
06:46Oh, I didn't spot that hole.
06:48Yeah.
06:49And this for two reasons.
06:51The first one.
06:52Here, dogs.
06:55Yes.
06:56Second one, we are lazy.
06:58So, we can't do, ah, no.
07:00Yeah, yeah.
07:01We are lazy, so just like this.
07:02Ah.
07:03Mmm.
07:05That's so much easier.
07:07Well, you made it look easy.
07:09I don't know if it is that easy.
07:10Let's try it.
07:10Yeah.
07:11Oh, hang on.
07:12Perfect.
07:14Great.
07:15Lovely.
07:16Yeah.
07:16That's refreshing.
07:17Yeah.
07:17And now you know how to drink, so you can enjoy.
07:20Fantastic.
07:20From the big noses.
07:28Oh, it's so picturesque, isn't it?
07:29Every time you turn a corner and you just get this beautiful view.
07:32Yeah.
07:32It's everywhere.
07:33Yeah.
07:33Every, everywhere.
07:38I've only been to Rome once before.
07:41A long time ago.
07:43Yeah.
07:43And I was only here for two hours.
07:45And I came into the centre.
07:47I looked at Trader's Column.
07:49I looked at the Colosseum.
07:50And then I left.
07:52Oh.
07:52Knowing that I'd have to come back.
07:54Yeah.
07:56Edwin thinks that a return to one of these sites might help me better understand what fired
08:01this city's hunger for power.
08:05The most beautiful thing here and interesting is the first Instagram story in the world,
08:13the Column of Trajan.
08:16By a spiral way, they record the wars, the battles that he won.
08:22Yeah.
08:22So that's why we can say an old Instagram story.
08:25Yeah.
08:26It is, isn't it?
08:26It's public display.
08:28Yeah.
08:28Look what I've done.
08:29The Emperor Trajan commissioned this column to mark his triumph over the mighty Dacian Empire
08:36of Eastern Europe.
08:38A war that lasted six years.
08:40Building this column took seven.
08:44It is huge.
08:45How tall is it?
08:46Yeah, it's like 30 metres.
08:48Yeah.
08:49Like an ancient comic strip, the column features 155 scenes carved in a spiral frieze on 20 drums
08:58of finest Carrara marble, ensuring Romans far and wide could revel in their latest conquest.
09:06Trajan was not born in Rome, but outside the city.
09:10Where did he come from?
09:11In the actual Spain.
09:13It was Spanish, we can say.
09:14Okay.
09:14And was also the first emperor not elected by family, like the dynasty Flavius.
09:20Yeah.
09:21But was elected because he was a great man.
09:24So that's why he had this column.
09:27How did Trajan become emperor then?
09:29He's not in the dynasty.
09:30He's not born into it.
09:32Is he coming from a military background?
09:34Yes.
09:35Perfect.
09:35Because it just, step by step, we can say in Italy, we say Gavetta.
09:40When you start from down and step by step you become powerful, powerful, powerful.
09:45It was like a star.
09:47Yeah.
09:50Trajan knew that he could ensure his popularity by plundering fresh riches for the glory of Rome,
09:57making sure, of course, that everyone knew about it.
10:00During his rule, the empire reached its largest extent, and he marked that by building the fifth
10:06and grandest of all Rome's forums.
10:09A huge town square in front of a massive new basilica, Rome's biggest ever city hall,
10:16of which only the columns remain today.
10:18Should we walk down here then, round the edge of the forum?
10:21Yeah.
10:22Having outshone the previous grandiose efforts of Julius Caesar and Augustus,
10:28this was also the last imperial forum.
10:31The density of Rome's buildings made clearing space for such lavish projects impossible.
10:38As this current construction site illustrates, Rome remains a city literally buried in its own history.
10:46Before, over there, there was like a little square.
10:49Yeah.
10:49Now, work in progress, a metro stop, a metro station.
10:54So, they went underneath and they discovered something, everything.
10:58Yeah.
10:58Like a big laundry coming from the second century after Christ.
11:03Everywhere you dig, you're going to find archaeology here.
11:06Everywhere.
11:06Everywhere.
11:06Yeah.
11:07In fact, to understand a little bit the city, you must think lasagna.
11:12Yeah.
11:13Because different layers.
11:14Because underneath, we have the ancient Rome.
11:17We discover less than the 20% of the ancient city.
11:22Yeah, of course.
11:23So, nothing.
11:24Just nothing.
11:25Yeah, yeah.
11:25Because some of it's, well, most of it is underneath existing buildings.
11:28Underneath, yeah.
11:29The first layer of our lasagna.
11:31Yeah.
11:31Yeah.
11:32So, looking around here, you've got Rome through the ages.
11:36Yeah.
11:36You've got 20th century Rome.
11:38Yeah.
11:39All the way back to nearly 2,000 years ago.
11:42Yeah.
11:42It's everything, isn't it?
11:43Here, you can find something that you will never find in another place.
11:48Only here.
11:49Thank you so much, Edmund.
11:50It's been brilliant.
11:51It's lovely to look at Rome with a Roman and to think about that lasagna-like layering
11:59of all that history.
12:01Absolutely brilliant.
12:01It was a pleasure.
12:02It was a real pleasure.
12:09Rome's unique lasagna of historical treasures is well documented.
12:13But I'm heading to Roman roads less travelled to see for myself the single biggest driver
12:21of Roman expansion.
12:30I've travelled south of the historical centre of Rome to see a monumental feat of engineering
12:36that many consider the driving force behind the spread of the Roman Empire.
12:44Jason.
12:45Hello, Alice.
12:47Welcome to the Appian Way.
12:49Thank you so much.
12:50And an American historian called Jason Spieler knows all about this most celebrated of Roman roads.
12:59So, this is actually the Appian Way, is it?
13:02This is the Appian Way.
13:03You have these modern paving stones that we call the Sampietrini.
13:09Underneath that, is the original Roman road down there?
13:12It is indeed.
13:13If we tore these up, we would find the stratum, right, the layers of the ancient road,
13:18still supporting the modern road.
13:20They went roughly five feet down.
13:23They did different layers, the layers of chunky stone, finer stone, finer stone,
13:28a layer of concrete, then the paving stones, and they built this thing to last.
13:35And it really has lasted, still carrying traffic today.
13:40Look out, you're going to get run over on the Appian Way.
13:42Come here, come here.
13:46Construction began in 312 BCE,
13:48and the road eventually stretched 350 miles to the port city of Brindisi on Italy's southeast coast.
13:58And the purpose of this road, then, is this about Rome expanding its power base?
14:03Indeed.
14:04The primary purpose was militarily.
14:07They were trying to conquer and subjugate the Samnite people down in the south of Italy.
14:13Yeah.
14:13And they were sort of a difficult group to subjugate.
14:16But by building this road, you're able to resupply the army from the city of Rome.
14:23And Appian relates to the man who ordered it to be built.
14:27Claudius Appius.
14:28Yeah.
14:28And who is he?
14:29He was a censor.
14:31So, he's the one who orders the construction of this road.
14:34Yeah.
14:34And he is also the one who orders the construction of the first aqueduct.
14:37Ah.
14:38So, very forward-looking gentlemen,
14:41realising if the Romans had infrastructural advantages.
14:45Yeah, yeah.
14:45They would have, well, you know, they would have an advantage over their rivals.
14:49And then once the Romans get this taste for building roads, they don't stop.
14:53They end up building hundreds of highways that crisscrossed and interconnected the entire empire.
14:59At its peak, 373 great roads formed a network stretching 250,000 miles, connecting every corner of the vast empire.
15:12And I think the logistics of this are what is really mind-blowing to think that in the 4th century
15:17BCE,
15:17you've got somebody who is basically in charge of logistics for the Roman Republic.
15:23And he has this vision of a road which is going to underpin the latest success of the Republic and
15:31then the Empire.
15:32Indeed.
15:33Spurring military advantages, trade advantages, commercial advantages for all of Rome.
15:38And it really starts right here, on this road here.
15:44With little room left for construction in central Rome,
15:47one emperor identified the outskirts along the Appian Way as the happening new place to immortalise himself.
15:55So remember, it would have been incredibly expensive to have even just a small plot of land on the Appian
16:01Way.
16:01And here, the emperor takes this massive space.
16:04So this is a statement, right, that he has arrived.
16:09On becoming emperor in 306 CE, Maxentius snapped up this 80-acre plot of land two miles along the original
16:18road.
16:21There are so few tourists here.
16:23Very few tourists here.
16:24Yeah.
16:25This is one of these, you know, kind of off-the-beaten-track sites in the city.
16:29This is a wonderful place.
16:33Maxentius' tilts at immortality saw him commission a grand residence, a mausoleum and his own personal sporting arena.
16:45So is this the circus?
16:47This is it.
16:48Oh, wow.
16:50So the precedent for this is the Circus Maximus.
16:53The Circus Maximus also had two towers at the entrance.
16:57Yeah.
16:57They don't survive any longer.
16:59This circus is much better preserved than the Circus Maximus.
17:04The Circus Maximus, the great circus, was the home of chariot racing in Rome, regularly attracting 250,000 spectators.
17:15Maxentius wanted something almost as large for himself.
17:18It's not quite as big as the Circus Maximus, but it's not considerably smaller either.
17:24The length of this is a little over 500 metres.
17:27Circus Maximus was just a little bit over 600 metres.
17:30Yeah.
17:30So it's not much smaller.
17:32Not much smaller.
17:32Yeah.
17:33So you can imagine chariots tearing around here.
17:37Now I've heard in Capua, looking at the amphitheatre there, about the fame and fortune that the gladiators could achieve.
17:45Was it the same for charioteers?
17:47Absolutely.
17:47Absolutely.
17:48These were the rock star athletes of the ancient world.
17:51Yeah.
17:51Remember as well that chariot racing is more popular even than the games of the amphitheatre.
17:55Is it really?
17:56They were, the games were cheaper to put on.
17:58Yeah.
17:58They were more frequent.
17:59Okay.
18:00And the capacity of these circuses, all right, are much bigger than the capacities of the amphitheatres.
18:06Yeah.
18:06So the number one spectator sport for the ancient Romans was the chariot racing.
18:12But not much racing was seen here.
18:16Just six years into his reign, Maxentius was killed in battle by his successor Constantine,
18:22who later left Rome to establish a new imperial capital in modern day Turkey, leaving this estate to fall into
18:31ruin.
18:33Well, I'm going to leave the circus of Maxentius, imagining the thunder of the chariots,
18:38and I'm going to go and thunder my way down the Appian Way and check out some of these other
18:42archaeological sites.
18:44That's a good idea.
18:59Okay, some bumps coming up.
19:00You ready for this?
19:09Yeah, I wouldn't recommend doing the Via Appian Antica on a bicycle that doesn't have front shocks.
19:18I've got front shocks.
19:19I quite like to have back shocks as well, actually.
19:24Gonna have a sore bum.
19:29But how amazing to be making my way along the first Roman road.
19:41Everywhere you go along this road, of course, there are Roman monuments.
19:46There's a bit over there.
19:48Headless statue.
19:51There's another bit over there.
19:54And this runs through this fantastic archaeological park.
20:00And then somewhere along here, there's a really beautifully preserved villa.
20:09The villa of the Quintilli.
20:13And when this was discovered, it was called Roma Vecchia, Old Rome.
20:20Because it was so enormous, they thought they had literally found the original city of Rome.
20:24But it is just an enormous villa.
20:30Here we go.
20:38The villa complex sprawls over 60 acres, almost 40 football pitches.
20:49It was built around the year 150 CE by high-ranking public officials, the Quintilli brothers.
20:56And we know this because of a piece of lead.
21:00Having internal plumbing was so prestigious in Roman times that those who could afford it often stamped their pipes.
21:11Oh, look at this.
21:12It's absolutely palatial.
21:16I mean, it's a ruin, but what?
21:18What a palace.
21:19What a pile.
21:20They were, obviously, incredibly wealthy, but it was a bit dangerous to be that wealthy and to own something as
21:28beautiful as this palace.
21:33despite the lofty status of the quintiles in the year 182 the emperor commodus had the brothers
21:40arrested on trumped up charges and executed leaving commodus free to commandeer this
21:48sumptuous villa for himself and all its groundbreaking gizmos there's another classic
21:55bit of roman engineering here i mean we've seen the the wonders of the road the appian way here are
22:03the wonders of underfloor heating and what we've got are these these towers of thick tiles these
22:10pili and the floor which is this is supported on these and it would have stretched right the way
22:16across this rather enormous banqueting hall and this is the winter dining room so in winter time
22:24you'd have slaves stoking a furnace and the hot air circulating under the floor
22:30so underfloor heating the romans worked that out first
22:47oh my goodness me this is enormous this is such a huge palace
22:51and you're getting an impression of the incredible wealth that rome was amassing
23:01you know as this project grew to encompass the whole of italy and then of course
23:09most of southern europe and the eastern mediterranean and north africa
23:15and the money was pouring in and it all comes back to rome
23:43so believe it or not i'm still following the via appia antica the old appian way
23:49it's down here running right underneath the floor of mcdonald's oh it's just fantastic
23:58while constructing the restaurant in 2014 builders uncovered this offshoot of the appian way
24:06which mcdonald's decided to integrate into their design bringing a whole new meaning to the phrase when in
24:17rome next an old friend has managed to get access to an active archaeological dig
24:23that's shedding new light on where the romans got some of their best ideas
24:35my old friend archaeologist emma bentley just happens to be in italy emma
24:40i can't believe you're in rome i cannot believe this this is amazing yay amazing amazing
24:46emma has secured exclusive access to a dig going on right now which is uncovering staggering new
24:54details about the etruscans who ruled much of italy before rome's rise the sites up in the hills of
25:02barberano romano about 40 miles north of rome it's really exciting to go to a dig that's actually
25:10happening and i do want to know more about how the etruscans relate to the ancient romans
25:20this must be first millennium bce or even earlier uh yeah much earlier 9th century bce
25:27wow so this goes back to the kind of the foundation myths of rome doesn't it
25:32yes i think it was meant to be founded in the 8th century bce and then you've got seven
25:39kind of legendary kings but they've got etruscan names
25:48etruscan culture flourished around central italy from the 8th to the 4th centuries bce
25:56with a federation of 12 cities becoming the first superpower of the western mediterranean
26:03i'm hoping this site might shed some light on what italy was like before rome began its meteoric rise
26:10to power so this is a lovely picnic spot yeah where's the archaeological site it's just down here
26:22we're greeted by professor david zori the site director hi david lovely to meet you this is
26:29professor alice roberts alice nice to meet you hi nice to meet you too
26:35so you've got a team of students digging here over the summer yes two teams of about 15 people at
26:42each
26:58this is the necropolis area and if we go around to the other side you can see a little bit
27:07better the
27:08the giant bedrock feature that we're digging it's a huge burial tumulus
27:15recently excavated etruscan tombs here resemble lavishly decorated homes filled with pottery
27:21ornaments weapons and jewelry a reflection of the etruscan belief that the afterlife
27:28is merely an extension of life and when does this date to about the 7th century bc the end of
27:34the 7th
27:35century bc wow this tomb dates from around the same time as the legendary foundation of rome by
27:44the brothers romulus and remus is this a team for one individual or several what was the what was the
27:52funerary ritual at the time it was most likely several individuals but unfortunately the soil in
27:58this area is a very dense acidic clay right and it dissolves the bones and over the centuries they've
28:04just dissolved we found a couple of dog teeth and we uh we sent those um with some soil samples
28:11to
28:11our ancient dna specialist who's working on a process to extract dna from soil deposits yes and so
28:16we're going to see if she can come up with any human dna from that soil as well since we
28:20didn't find
28:21any any human obviously human bones that were testable it's always worth trying isn't it because
28:26you've got these really important questions about who the etruscans were and you know where they came from and
28:31what their connections were that are interesting culturally but we'll see biologically as well
28:36yeah are you going to try to climb in yeah go on
28:42i'm wishing i'd worn trousers today rather than my dress but touching the rock over on the side there we
28:47go
28:55all right come on in oh it's quite big do you know what this reminds me of the
29:02the ancient greek beehive teams in a way etruscan culture is linked with greece but recent genetic
29:10studies have shown that it was homegrown in italy and the mud here might hold further clues to etruscan
29:17identity so this is sedimentary ancient dna you're you're looking at trying to extract dna from mud from
29:23mud yes i was i was shocked when she told me about it i was like here are some samples
29:28yeah you can do
29:29yeah that would be amazing yeah yeah so even though the team looks empty there might be some information
29:33here yeah there could be did you find anything else in here during x yeah there was a lance point
29:38in
29:39that uh little niche right there oh um there would have been stone platforms over these we have them
29:45fragmentary outside we took them out so these rocks had um slabs on top did they yes yes forming a
29:52sort
29:52of bench and this is probably about the level where the bench would have been yeah yeah so this is
29:58more
29:58like a platform where they would have placed offerings or an ossuary for past burials and then
30:04they would have interred the dead in an inhumation style on these platforms and then when the tomb would
30:09be reopened and reused they could gather up the remains if they wanted to place them in a secondary
30:14container and place a new person in there yeah and this is a period of time when legendarily
30:20rome is starting when we've got the kind of the king of rome yes the history of rome is the
30:27same as the
30:27history of the etruscan cities it's just that rome through its interest in martial activities ended
30:33up creating this sequence of alliances that brought them into greater dominion right through the sort
30:39of foreign policy of all these communities so do you think if rome hadn't developed in the way that
30:44it did and and been built on over the the centuries they would have seen a city of the living
30:49and an
30:50acropolis of the dead if we go back this far yes probably and the difference is that this place
30:55became abandoned exactly in rome it grew bigger and bigger did do you think there are more etruscan
31:01settlements that have been oh certainly that are lying out there yet to be discovered yeah the local
31:06people know where they are do they we just have to make friends enough for them to tell us yeah
31:10local
31:11knowledge yeah you lose you have to use the local knowledge when it's there yeah so should we move out
31:17to the city of the living yeah well that's just incredible i wasn't expecting that
31:28thanks emma oh pleasure i just wanted to go second yes
31:38professor zori now leads me and emma to the land of the etruscan living
31:43a town mysteriously abandoned in the third century and just as mysteriously reoccupied in medieval times
31:54we're on top of the acropolis now and we've got a team excavating here inside a medieval castle but
32:01we're reaching etruscan levels hello everybody hi we've been landing on you to film your dig oh
32:10howling do you want to come say hello hi there hello hello i'm alice i'm colleen hello
32:17this is a family affair david is the husband of archaeologist dr colleen zori who's also leading this project
32:26it's amazing to come somewhere that's still being investigated very active exactly yeah you know the
32:32etruscans were incredible managers of the landscape and one of the biggest things you have to contend
32:38with in this area is water yeah too much water in the winter too little water in the summer and
32:45so um
32:45in order to to drain the these plateau tops and reduce erosion they put in these coniculi the
32:51they have a a tube that goes down and then horizontal shot or a shaft and then horizontal
32:57tubes yeah so that drain pipe a drain pipe exactly sewage system this is something that actually was
33:03expanded and then maintained by the medieval people yeah yeah and we think about the romans being
33:09masters of of water management um also of roads and and moving things around the landscape i mean how
33:17were the etruscans doing back in the first millennium bce they were sort of pathfinders in some ways
33:24for the romans and harbingers of things the romans would do so both for roads and water management
33:30i think the etruscans had a lot to teach the romans so we i we think about the romans being
33:35innovators
33:35inventing raids inventing water management and aqueducts the etruscans got there first they did
33:41they did arches supposedly too and togas okay so it's all feeling it's all feeling as though the
33:48romans have kind of stolen etruscan culture i think if you were in the seven or six hundreds and looking
33:56at the central italian landscape and the civilization here the etruscans would be the civilized peoples
34:01yeah this would be the kind of upstart group of villages so this culture's permeating southwards
34:09towards what becomes rome and then eventually the romans turn around and go actually we're in charge
34:15now yeah yeah yeah things changed oh it's really interesting isn't it the best thing to do as an
34:22empire is to take advantage of the wisdom of the areas that you conquer so sometimes you conquer people
34:29that are actually more sophisticated politically than you are but who just couldn't field a big
34:34enough army yeah to turn you back and in that way then you come and you say oh here are
34:39the things
34:40we'll take your water management specialists and we'll use them to do what we need to have done
34:46yeah now in our lands and you know what you get to do as an empire
34:54what an incredible sight nestled away tucked away like a secret in the landscape here and
35:01barely investigated until now and what's really astonishing to think about is that if we go back
35:10to the seventh eighth century bce this would have been exactly what rome would have been like
35:16uh a hilltop settlement but instead of here on the palatine hill probably surrounded by a necropolis in
35:26exactly the same way but whereas this site was abandoned rome would grow and grow and grow
35:43i'm leaving one etruscan settlement that didn't develop into a roman town
35:48and traveling north to see one that did
35:54at this stage i feel as though i've got a really rich understanding of what roman culture and civilization
36:02was about the militaristic nature of the society the importance of engineering of road building
36:10and aqueducts all of that is crucial i think to rome's success but what i really want to understand now
36:21is what happens as we get towards the end of the first millennium bce
36:25and what had been a very successful republic transforms itself into an empire how does that happen
36:35as i continue my journey that's the crucial question that i want to find the answer to
37:05that i'm passing through the beautiful tuscan countryside
37:11might actually get to see some of it though oh and it is gorgeous
37:18it's a very different landscape here you know i started my journey down on the flanks of vesuvius
37:26around naples and and that landscape had its own character and then moving up to rome and the plain of
37:33latium and now i'm well into the hills of tuscany and it's beautiful look at that
37:45i'm traveling to a town close to the city of florence to further explore the role etruscan ideas played in
37:53the rise of the roman empire the small town of fiesole was etruscan until taken over by the romans in
38:02the
38:02first century bce archaeologist francesco tanganelli is my guide and keen to show me physical evidence of
38:11how roman culture evolved out of local etruscan traditions francesco hi elis buongiorno buongiorno
38:22i'm very happy to meet you here oh my god in the archaeological area obviously isn't this beautiful
38:29yes it's a very beautiful and wide archaeological park can we get down into the site yes yes we can
38:37go to see first the etruscan roman temple yeah okay that would be lovely
38:45this is the stair of the staircase of the roman temple but if you come with me and
38:54you give a look beyond you can see another staircase to the central room of the ancient etruscan temple
39:02where the archaeologists started to dig under the the etruscan cella there was a small howl and do you
39:12know the howl was the symbol of minerva the ancient greek katina so the goddess of wisdom and so probably
39:20in
39:20this temple the ancient inhabitants of fiesole worshipped the the goddess minerva or in etruscan
39:28if you want minerva so you know that there was an etruscan goddess yes yes minerva minerva
39:36minerva in roman minerva minerva was the roman goddess of wisdom whose symbol was the owl
39:47but like so many things roman they inherited her from the etruscans who while trading with the greeks
39:55in the 8th century had helped themselves to their goddess of wisdom athena
40:01i love all these cultural connections between the etruscans and the greeks and the roman yes yes
40:09that's a bit more than just a plunge pool there yes this was one uh swimming pool in open air
40:16yeah
40:17one and there is also a second one it had its own leader oh my goodness but as well as
40:26this open
40:27air pool there's a whole bath house here including a version of something i saw at the villa of the
40:33quintilly and presumably this would have been slaves here yes this was a work for slaves yeah but the
40:42slaves here weren't heating a dining room floor inspired by the etruscan fondness for bathing in
40:49natural thermal springs the romans of fiesole decided to create their own where there was no thermal
40:57springs so the heated the water and the air to create an artificial uh thermal bath yeah it's
41:06interesting isn't it so you think the idea came from natural yes thermal waters to begin with and then
41:11and then other people thought hang on a minute we can do this we can actually heat the water ourselves
41:15we can engineer this yes they were great engineers yeah yeah
41:21but there's one piece of roman political engineering i'm still trying to fathom
41:29i want to know how in 27 bce augustus managed to elect himself the emperor of rome
41:38bringing down the curtain on 500 years of democracy
41:43i wanted to talk to you about the roman republic and how it turns into an empire suddenly it switches
41:52from being a republic to being an empire with one man in charge how on earth does that happen consider
41:59that in the age of augustus the inhabitants of rome saw at least three civil wars he presented himself
42:09as a savior so he's basically saying you know we've had this dreadful period of civil war
42:17and i'm the person who can stop this yes but i can only do it if i'm your emperor and
42:23i stay put
42:23and i have all the power myself yes the image of a savior and the image of a man who
42:30can bring the peace
42:32in all of the empire so people admired him and wanted to be ruled by him but augustus was so
42:42clever
42:42that he was able to gain more and more power giving them the impression that nothing has changed
42:51it and then and then after augustus that's it i mean it is an empire after that it doesn't go
42:56back to
42:56being a republic at all no no no no it remained uh an empire for uh until the the end
43:03of that world
43:04yeah it's almost by stealth isn't it it's yeah without people noticing you wake up the next
43:10morning and go ah we seem to have an emperor
43:17a very persistent bell yes i wonder why what's happening i don't know but it's nice to hear the
43:24campanile in action as the bell tolls on my trip to fiesole i head to nearby florence the cradle of
43:34the
43:34renaissance to take in the splendor of the cathedral of santa maria del fiore and its renowned dome
43:43just as the romans built on the legacies of the etruscans so the medici borrowed heavily from two
43:50certain empires what an absolutely amazing building it is mind-blowing i mean what what a feat of
44:00architecture and engineering and the man whose job it was to engineer that dome up there the duomo
44:10was brunelleschi and it's thought that he'd traveled to rome and looked at roman domes
44:19and basically that's how he came up with his engineering solution
44:23to spanning the enormous width of the octagonal end of this cathedral with a dome a dome that's
44:31actually made of of two shells and this was of course the renaissance the rebirth
44:37what's it the rebirth of the classical world all things greek and roman
44:51after a long day i enjoy a little renaissance of my own all in the name of historical
44:59research of course whoa that's strong i'm in florence so i have to have a negroni it was invented
45:08here apparently in 1919 by king camillo negroni he was drinking something called an americano which
45:14had campari and vermice and soda water but he wanted it a bit stronger so he asked the bartender
45:20to switch the soda water for gin cheers
45:28it's nice though
45:34next time right where are we now this is palma i get a taste of northern italy
45:44italy is a bastion of bread culture that has been unchanged for millennia and i travel across the alps
45:52to the city they call the rome of france it's not what you expect to find going on in a
45:57roman temple
46:03sun sea and seriously smart savings with bargain holiday secrets stream now ahead of your next
46:10lot of holiday hacks this tuesday at eight next steven spielberg casts michelle williams and seth rogan
46:17in the fablemans
46:29first time i williams and seth rogan in the york munca
46:29nine three next time ein
46:30ten day
46:30eight next time
46:30seven
46:30seven
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