Roman Empire by Train with Alice Roberts Season 1 Episode 6

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Transcript

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 taking the train I'll be traveling 1,300

00:23miles through Italy France and Spain to discover its origins and the secrets of its success I'll be

00:33exploring some well-known Roman sites this is where you can hear Pompeii and some unfamiliar

00:39ones there is nobody here from the massive it's curved yeah to the miniature it's like a fourth

00:47century Barbie doll I want to know how a single city comes to control such a vast territory experts

00:55from around the world will help me bring to life Roman culture the sands of Capua become the jungles

01:02of India and provide insights into why this Empire was so successful who said the time machine does

01:09not exist we got it in this final leg of my journey I'll be exploring how the Romans secured new

01:17Mediterranean conquests so this is 30,000 troops arriving according to believe us yes how they

01:25amassed incredible wealth we've got massive monumental ingots and how their legacy lives on which part of

01:34us it's not at least a little bit Roman on my travels through Roman settlements around the Western

01:50Mediterranean I'm currently at figueras velafonte on the border of France in Spain but it's time to hit the

01:58road or rails again my previous trip to Emporias gave me an insight into rooms initial incursions into

02:14Spain I'm eager to learn more about how the Iberian Peninsula became part of the Roman Empire on this

02:26journey I'll be traveling to Tarragona via Barcelona a distance of 118 miles once again train travel allows

02:39me to just kick back and enjoy the unfolding countryside and the child in me is full of

02:47anticipation not just of the destination but about how quickly we'll get there here we go we're just

02:55getting faster and faster and faster 120 128 kilometers an hour 136 kilometers an hour how fast will it go

03:13there we go there we go we've reached cruising speed I think speeding through the Spanish countryside

03:26unfortunately I can't get too comfortable on this intercity train

03:33but it's a quick change of Barcelona and I'm soon aboard a suburban train to Tarragona

03:42Tarragona is hugely significant it was the first Roman settlement on the Iberian Peninsula

03:50and will become the capital of the largest Roman province in Spain the Romans are in evidence as we

03:57near Tarragona this is the magnificent Ferreri's aqueduct or devil's bridge but an impressive

04:05collection of Roman monuments awaits me in the city itself which in the year 2000 were together

04:13declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site I think we must be nearing Tarragona now and that there is surely a

04:25bit of Roman Tarragona when the Romans arrived here in 218 BCE it wasn't by train but by sea to

04:36halt the

04:37advance of Hannibal Hannibal was a general from Carthage in North Africa the center of a huge trading empire in

04:47the Western Mediterranean in the third century BCE the tension between the Roman and Carthaginian

04:53superpowers came to a head as Hannibal amassed an army in Cartagena and marched north past the Pyrenees

05:00into Gaul and over the Alps towards Rome in response the Roman army sailed to Tarragona to cut his supply

05:08lines

05:14with the help of Spanish historian Paco Tova I want to understand how crucial Tarragona would become not just in

05:23this war but to the future of the Roman Empire

05:29yeah

05:30so when the Romans came here in this beach in this beach this beach and where the harbor is so

05:37there would have been Roman ships yeah imagine the Normandy landings the troops landing from the ships so we're talking

05:43about the navy and the army coming down yeah okay so then they came here and then they built a

05:49military camp at the very top of that hill so this is 30 000 troops arriving

05:53according according to Polybius yes and from here Roman Romanization will spread but they knew that through the everywhere you

06:00could control Spain you could penetrate the interior absolutely absolutely so that's why I say that we are ground zero

06:06for civilization Roman civilization in Spain

06:12sending tens of thousands of troops to Tarragona worked well for the Romans Hannibal ran out of supplies and he

06:21was eventually forced to retreat back to North Africa and the Romans took over all the territory in Iberia that

06:29had been under the control of the Carthaginians with the Romans here to stay the settlement of Taraco would grow

06:36into a formidable fortified city

06:41this exile yeah that's the Roman wall yeah over there okay down in the back to the third century BC

06:48right okay yeah because right back to the first Romans here yes yes because well as is the first settlement

06:55you need to do the first things which is a wall to defend that that settlement and then the

07:02you have to be a token of tower and the wall is medieval 14th century built out of Roman material

07:06that

07:06they're medieval we love we we the Catalan's in Spain we are really famous as the Scottish in Britain so

07:12we got deep pockets and short arms

07:14no so and then we we love saving and then obviously you can save a lot of money if you

07:19can just really recycle yeah the Roman remains but the wall it's obviously medieval

07:26behind the medieval wall lies a Roman ruin a mural gives a clue to what it was once part of

07:35a Roman circus

07:39so imagine 56 front arches okay so that will be the entrance of the circus very grand entrance of course

07:46so

07:47circus for horse racing yeah so it's really famous in Roman times so it's a place that people love to

07:53come yeah 30,000 spectators out of 40,000 inhabitants so we are best preserved than the Roman circus in

08:00Rome so

08:01we can see more yes of course imagine so that's half of it so the other half is behind the

08:06houses so this

08:07could just carries on yeah more seeds there more seeds there so it's not just this is just the end

08:13of it

08:13here yeah that's the end feel the corner so from the town hall till this from the trees right behind

08:20the trees you will see more seats and there so the red brick building down there that's the yeah that's

08:24the other end of the pull down all this we could find the circus again yeah because obviously not all

08:30but most of it is still there we can imagine it with this end I think and as well this

08:35is a place

08:35in which the the chariots were having races as we wander the streets of the old town we find more

08:46evidence of the recycling of Roman buildings in the medieval period yeah but instead of putting down

08:52or just finding an empty space so what medieval cities to recycle the building so it's those houses

08:59are not built attached to or above they are built literally in the room yeah you've got 20th century

09:07brick here and here we've got Roman first century with the sandstone blocks of stone yeah so who said

09:16the time machine does not exist we got it so we can see 2,000 years well 1,900 years

09:23yeah on the same

09:24spot you can see even a small rose window yeah done in the 13th century because there was a convent

09:31here yeah not now and then fills in yes now this yes looks medieval but it looks like it probably

09:37has

09:38Roman origins yes so you can see medieval tower inside of a Roman building you can see the columns

09:45carved into the wall oh my goodness yes that would be part of a portico that portico was just really

09:53huge for two centuries after they first arrived the Romans fought the Carthaginians and local tribes

10:01across the Iberian Peninsula while on campaign here in 27 BCE the Emperor Augustus fell ill and stayed in

10:13Tarako for two years to recover his misfortune was great for the city day elevating the status of

10:22Tarako even further so we are now in the Roman Forum as the capital city of the province so we

10:33deserve

10:33the right to have a larger space in order to rule the province I've seen this classic Roman format again

10:40and again on my journey with the forum as the beating heart of the city have we reached the

10:45end of the forum well the end of this corner of the floor yeah because the forum continued that way

10:51this is a huge forum this is 60,000 square meters and I say east not wars because the square

11:00is still

11:01there occupied by houses yeah yeah there are houses in it okay so this is the largest square the largest

11:05forum in Roman in the Roman Empire ever built yeah the strength of Roman power can be seen we know

11:12even that Augustus received Indian ambassadors here really okay because he was he was living here so

11:19obviously the capital was it was Rome did he like it do we know well probably he liked it because

11:25we'll turn

11:25right probably if you like it mainly because for almost 400 years we were the capital city of the

11:31the largest province in the Roman world the province was named Hispania Taraconensis after

11:39Taraco and covered most of the Iberian Peninsula stretching from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic but

11:47the value of this province lay not just in its strategic location but its natural resources gold tin and

11:55silver and then the cathedral and when does this date to the cathedral was started in 1171 12th century

12:04yeah so it's more or less than the same period of time in which you did Westminster hmm so it's

12:08equivalent to Norman architecture and late Norman early Gothic and then the Roman temple dedicated to the

12:16the emperor to Augustus stood right there is there anything of it or is it completely we found the

12:21basement under the cathedral that can't be seen because they did the archaeological excavation it was open

12:25then was covered there's one last vestige of Roman life I want to see and it's the monument I

12:33spotted alongside the railway line as my train pulled into the station the amphitheater that is beautiful

12:39yeah so that's the last monumental building Romans did here and when does it date to around second

12:45century AD but the amazing thing is that's the only amphitheater half of it was carved into the rock

12:51yeah recycling the hill that's really unusual I've seen quite a few amphitheaters on my travels and I've

12:57they've always been built up from the you know from the ground up yeah not built into it into a

13:02cliff

13:02this is much more familiar to me from the semi-secular theaters exactly exactly these amphitheater

13:08obviously it's not it's not the largest one so if we compare that with with a close here in Rome

13:13it's like yeah really really small but between 12,000 and 14,000 spectators okay out of 40,000

13:20inhabitants so proportionally this is large enough to be amazing that's cross-shaped building obviously

13:27in ruins we got in the middle can you see that the church we got in the middle of the

13:31amphitheater there's

13:32a church yeah that's a church that makes these amphitheater exceptional it's the only one in the

13:37whole Roman Empire with the remains of no one not one but two churches why we got two churches as

13:43obviously were built much later when the Roman Empire collapsed and just anything was the only

13:48religion yeah and that's why we got the church our lady of the miracle and when was that church

13:53created the first that can be seen so the basement of the first was only in the sixth century so

13:59100

13:59years after the Empire collapsed the Western Empire and the church we can see now we don't know exactly the

14:04date but we know that in 1154 yeah the church was done okay so 12th century normal style I've learned

14:13how Tarragona played a key role as the Romans expanded their Empire to take in the whole of

14:20the Iberian Peninsula what started as a military maneuver to pull the rug from under the feet of

14:26Hannibal culminated with the development of this city into a flourishing regional capital from the

14:33glory days of the Western Roman Empire through to its demise Tarragona remained a focus of wealth and

14:40power and the elites of the city were keen to display their prosperity and status it's a town yeah yeah

14:48and

14:49it's not even the big one so imagine if the tour was like this the food would be something like

14:54this

14:55it's enormous

15:03I'm in Tarragona on the Mediterranean coast of Spain the first Roman settlement on the Iberian Peninsula

15:12Paco's street tour showed me just how much of that Roman past is still visible in the city today after

15:20the Emperor Augustus made Tarragona his home the city became even more prestigious and there were fortunes

15:27to be made here in trade and gold mining the Roman rich didn't shrink from displaying their status

15:38I've come to the National Archaeological Museum of Tarragona close to the harbour where wealth is still

15:45very much on a show I'm meeting curator Georgia Acosta Georgia hi nice to meet you nice to meet you

15:57how are you very good are you enjoying the city it's it's absolutely beautiful city and I love the fact

16:02that so much of its Roman past is there to see as you walk around it but we've got some

16:08of the

16:08artifacts here yeah in the museum let me show you around okay yeah yes for example you know here in

16:13Tarragona we have not only the city there was powerful people living around in for example 10 minutes

16:19driving the Roman villa called the Bill of Saint Celia's which has some of the most amazing early

16:25Christian mosaics in the world and this bill it's a mystery maybe the mansion of a great military

16:33leader most of the materials most of the decorations come from Italy from the Imperial factories in Rome

16:40yeah and but later here the city begins to be more more apart from Rome and so they start to

16:47build

16:48things for themselves and this is a beautiful local material yeah yeah it's a great example of wealth

16:55and power that the cities had and really interesting to kind of be able to trace that transition and

17:01to the Roman Empire as well yeah from that we have some lovely mosaics from the villa who was the

17:08the

17:08governor of Tarragona all these look a bit like the ones I saw in Paris the colors in them are

17:14gorgeous

17:15on my yeah those were made by specialized artists I mean normally they make the first mosaic the the big

17:23one yeah and then right in the middle they would insert these small pieces that were more difficult

17:28to make follow me I have something else to show you oh wow this it's probably one of the most

17:37iconic

17:38most beloved archaeological pieces we have here in Tarragona it's this ivory doll I always said it's like

17:46a second fourth century Barbie doll because where is it found the palo-christian necropolis of Tarragona

17:53one of the biggest burial Roman burial sites was found in the tomb of a child a little girl she

18:00was

18:00like four years old and she was buried with her favorite doll we have to assume that she was from

18:06a rich

18:07family it's been demonstrated that it had little dresses made with golden thread oh really yes and

18:15the hair style the hairstyle yeah it is the kind of hairstyle an aristocrat or a princess yeah would

18:22have yeah seeing something like that you you're just taking back to that moment of a family losing

18:27a child and I think things like this it really kind of transport you back and you see that human

18:33connection that's such a beautiful object isn't it and even the fingers are carved it's beautiful when

18:40we think about the Romans if you remember how much childhood mortality there was you know with

18:45harmful children not reaching adulthood here we have to the lampadarius to put the lamps we don't have

18:53that many bronze statues around because you know it's expensive it gets yeah it's down yes may make

18:59things to make anything but here it's so delicate so beautiful and he's African yeah the big thing

19:08probably a young slave hmm it's estimated that between 10 and 25 percent of the Roman Empire's

19:17population were enslaved men women and children could be bought sold and mistreated in sometimes harrowing

19:27conditions ultimately the wealth of the Roman Empire depended on slavery with slaves working on farms in

19:35mines and in households he maybe it was made after a real child was a slave in a house we

19:45don't know we

19:45have so many mysteries yeah yeah I mean it reminds us that people are moving around yeah the Empire for

19:51all sorts of reasons there are merchants moving around there's the army moving around and then

19:56there's an enormous amount of movement in terms of slaves being moved from different parts of the Empire as

20:01well yeah well these heads are great it comes from the from the forum next to the theater okay so

20:12this is

20:12from an urn a huge huge one just simply for decoration that's lovely marble isn't it so this is just

20:20a

20:20fragment of something that was enormous I mean that curve there can you imagine how big this whole urn was

20:27enormous and just for the creation yeah I mean I suppose it fits in that enormous forum yeah yeah the

20:34way to

20:34demonstrate the power of the empire was with this like kind of things so we have to imagine a visitor

20:41coming to Tarraco I mean from the provinces right entering the city and realizing that they are well

20:47visiting a city that had the imperial favor yeah it's built to impress the house yeah okay this for me

20:56it's

20:56great because it tells us a little bit about Roman religiosity this is a representation of Jupiter Amon so

21:04a mix between the two pieces and it just Egyptian god it was part of the decoration of the provincial

21:11forum was it in tobacco yeah the Romans loved loved Egyptian religion and here we have another example in

21:19this center of the government in Tarraco it speaks to these kind of connections right across the Empire

21:26doesn't it we were talking about the temple well we have that gigantic toe it's yeah yeah yeah and it's

21:34not even the big one it's one of the other toes so imagine if the toe was like this the

21:40food would be

21:40something like this enormous it's the statue that was in the temple and you imagine how big that statue

21:46she was and we think this was a statue of Augustus yeah yeah the museum's collection demonstrates the

21:57city's affluence and the skill of the artists and crafts people with such a rich heritage I'm dying to

22:05know how Georgia feels about living in such a place today what do you call yourself a Tarragonian

22:11uh in Catalan Tarragonina Tarragonina yes a woman from Tarragon yes and do you think of yourself as a

22:18Roman as well ah that's such a difficult question I think that we cannot negate Roman Empire our part of

22:28the world it was so important that it shaped not only the Roman period it shaped everything you can see

22:37it in architecture in the laws in yeah our calendars in our religion which part of us it's not at

22:45least

22:46a little bit Roman right yeah but I mean they probably they were pretty cool the Romans not very nice

22:53people but very cool so I don't actually mind right that was amazing thank you so thank you it seems

23:05that

23:05Rome is still crucial to modern identity not only of Tarragona as a city but its 21st century

23:12inhabitants before I leave I'm going to the top of the Praetorium Tower at the edge of the Forum for

23:20a

23:20last look at this city the Romans prized so highly what a view ah this is fantastic I can look

23:30out over the

23:31see Italy is somewhere right over the other side and then here are these Roman walls which were added

23:39to during the medieval period we've got the end of the circus as well and then if we walked to

23:44this

23:45end I would have been looking out on that massive massive square of the Roman Forum and what would have

23:55been the Temple of Augustus right up in the the highest part of this promontory now occupied by the

24:04Cathedral of St Tecla what a view you can see for miles out over the plains as well so this

24:13is an

24:13incredible strategic location for the Romans defeating the Carthaginians but also then for

24:25their further expansion into Hispania before I head to the train station that child in me sees an

24:35opportunity for some fun right there's no time for larking about I've got a train to catch tomorrow I'll

24:50be finding out how trade routes determined who rules the Mediterranean Hispania pay taxes to run through oil we

25:00call the oil the green goal I'm back at Tarragona station to pick up a ticket to my next destination

25:20the last ticket on my journey

25:27and my last train

25:31the railway network really has been the backbone of my trip the rail services of Italy France and Spain

25:40have been impeccable the final leg of my journey will take me to Cartagena nearly 300 miles away and

25:50once a very important Carthaginian port

25:57Cartagena contains this memory of the Carthaginians in its name it was founded as

26:06the new Carthaginians the new Carthage and that's essentially what we're still calling it today it

26:13was such an important power base for the Carthaginians and there were silver mines nearby that silver was

26:20really important for them to be able to pay their armies so this is taking me into the heart of

26:26the

26:26clash between the Carthaginians and the Romans the Carthaginian Empire centered in North Africa had long

26:35been a thorn in the side of the Romans with both powers vying for dominance in the Western

26:40Mediterranean the Romans needed to take Cartagena if they were to control the Iberian Peninsula

26:54arriving into the city I can see why Hannibal's brother Hadribal chose to build a stronghold here in the

27:01third century BCE it's surrounded by hills making it easy to defend but the main attraction is its

27:13natural harbour with deep water Carthaginian ships would have docked here to offload men and supplies

27:21for the battles with the Romans but the port was also an important node in their vast network of trade

27:30routes crisscrossing the Mediterranean this was a well-established trading Empire started by the

27:37forerunners of the Carthaginians the Phoenicians who came from the area we know today as Lebanon

27:50I've come to the National Museum of Underwater Archaeology to learn how trade across the Mediterranean was

27:58the lifeblood of these three ancient empires everything on display here was recovered from

28:06exploration and excavations carried out under water yeah for Nostia yes nice to meet you Rocio Castillo

28:18will be my guide um tell me about this ship brick how old is that she say are the remain

28:24of both from

28:25Phoenician time between the seventh century and the beginning on the sixth century I mean that is

28:32incredible that this timber has survived yes because was covered with sand amazing isn't it is this the

28:40most ancient shipwreck in the museum in the museum yeah yeah one of the oldest in the Mediterranean yeah

28:47that's incredible this bait the Mazaron one was excavated in 1988 off the coast of Cartagena how is it

28:56constructed without any metal nails yeah do we know what kind of wood that is olive so strong yes

29:06very strong to fish all the wood and what about the planks the plants are pine thrown at the same

29:13time

29:14flexible to make the fall of the boat yeah what cargo is in this boat we don't know in this

29:21case

29:22because we found only these small remains okay and what about a boat of this size because it's a boat

29:28rather than a ship I mean do you think this is traveling large distances in the Mediterranean or do

29:33you think it's plying coastal trade the bottom is very flat right and for this reason most people

29:40think that this boat was for local sailing yeah when Rome was a near settlement on the Italian

29:49peninsula centuries before it rose to dominance the Phoenicians were a maritime superpower their trade

29:59networks reached from the eastern to the western Mediterranean and then into the Atlantic as far as

30:05Britain and they were the traders who founded Carthage this is a very very important Phoenician

30:16sir right because of his cargo is it African elephant ivory doing yeah yeah yeah you can see only 13

30:23but in

30:24the last excavation the two thousand two thousand seven and two thousand eleven the people have found another fifty four

30:32elephantas all from the same ship yes yes yes wow how old are these tasks two thousand seven hundred years

30:41it's really ancient writing yeah what does it say most of them are in relation with the people who made

30:50the trade so it's almost just like a commercial aphorism yeah so this one is your humble servant yeah yeah

30:58it's almost like a letter on an elephant yeah yeah and what have we got here is this from the

31:04same shipwreck yeah

31:05yeah it's like an altar here we have this kind of a stone anchor yes

31:12that's an anchor yes we are very common yeah so is this typical Carthaginian pottery yeah

31:20where's this pottery from Greece pottery oh okay right yeah Phoenician people are right here yeah bring us the pottery

31:29yes yeah the coins and trading in fluids as well what would have been carried out of it

31:35what would have been carried in these jars it could be wine or fish something about a pottery style how

31:41they knew it was definitely Phoenician pottery so it's something to do with the style of the handles

31:47the handle look this handle yeah long handle yeah and the other one are smaller round oh like ears yeah

31:55so that's typically Phoenician yes that definitely looks like little ears

32:01in 209 BCE the 27 year old Roman general Scipio was spearheading the offensive against the Carthaginians in Iberia and

32:12he attacked and captured the important port and stronghold of Cartagena

32:18within three years the Carthaginians would be routed from the whole peninsula so is this from a Roman cargo

32:27it's just outside of the Cartagena and they are we found a sure it came from the south of Italy

32:35this kind of pottery a tableware pottery yes yeah do we know from the cargo whether it was leaving Cartagena

32:44or coming in

32:45coming in coming in and nearly made it yeah it was within sight of Cartagena it's a tragedy from 2

32:55,200 years ago but it just gives you this incredible time capsule and knowledge about the trade that was happening

33:04because we have the written documentation which gives us some ideas but here you've got the actual physical objects and

33:13then you can do all this scientific

33:14analysis and find out exactly where everything is coming from and understand this so much better it is brilliant so

33:23the Romans are really inheriting that trading network all for the Phoenicians and the Carthaginians they they're the inheritors of

33:31that they keep going to the same places

33:39the same route yes this is lovely I think it's really nice to see that construction

33:48oh really yes yeah to avoid the

33:53gribbles yes yes very important you don't want them boring into your boat

33:59the area around Cartagena was rich in resources with lead and silver mined here and this kind of shows

34:08why the Romans were so interested in this area we've got massive big yes monumental ingots the empire families

34:16Italian families came to this area to make the exploitation of the mines yeah yeah and each family

34:22has different names and different symbols yeah in this case that Queenie was the anchor and the dolphin oh

34:31yeah I can see that Queenie so that's the name of a Roman family that's involved in this mercantile trade

34:37yeah

34:38and then this is and this is later Roman yeah so we're well into the empire here we can change

34:43the

34:43pottery at the beginning was a black style yeah and now is the red one so they've so the black

34:50glazed pottery has

34:51gone out of fashion now yes it's all in the empire it's old-fashioned everybody likes this red stuff

34:57the red one is a new fashion so what was in there for oil for olive oil yeah in this

35:02period hispania

35:05pay taxes to run through oil they pay taxes through oil we call the oil like the the green gold

35:14so this

35:15Roman cargo was headed out yes yeah so there must have been people here who were becoming very rich

35:22through this trade especially through the mining industry mine but then also actually a lot of this

35:28wealth is headed to the center of the empire yeah so the the taxes are being collected the the wealth

35:35is

35:35being extracted and it's all being funneled back to Rome yeah yes thank you so much for showing me

35:43around Rossio has shown me how maritime trade was fundamental to the wealth and power of both the

35:51carthaginians and the romans but only one of these civilizations would triumph in the end

35:59in 146 bce another scipio the adoptive grandson of the one who took cardahena defeated the carthaginians

36:09at carthage in north africa now the entire carthaginian trading empire and the wealth it generated was rome's

36:24i've won more excursion on my itinerary and i've definitely saved the best until last

36:41still in cartagena i'm off to visit a museum with a very large exhibit

36:48i'm looking at the entrance you wouldn't think there was much here

36:55as soon as i enter there's something right up my street well this is getting very exciting looking

37:01archaeological corridor to walk down i'm in the roman theater museum but this theater's existence was

37:11actually unknown until about 35 years ago since then excavations have turned up a wealth of stunning

37:19and informative artifacts and they're all here on display

37:26those three cylindrical altars represent the capitoline triad the most important gods of rome

37:34you've got the al for minerva the eagle for jupiter and the peacock for juno

37:41there's just so many layers of history here this is a floor from the second century bce before the

37:50theater was even built and then much much later two millennia later it becomes part of a 19th century chapel

38:00and then here we've got medieval archaeology these enormous blocks date to the islamic period and

38:08here's elena elena ruiz valeros is here to meet me and that large exhibit cartagena's spectacular roman

38:22theater itself look at that this is a moment there wow amazing

38:32the 6000 capacity theater is situated on one of the highest parts of the city

38:40but it was only found when archaeologists were exploring the ruins of the cathedral of santa maria

38:47la vieja which had been built over it in the 13th century elena you dug here then in the 1990s

38:58si todo empezó porque se iba a hacer un centro regional de artesanía y aparecieron unos restos

39:05el 6 de febrero de 1990 que ya puntaba que será un teatro y en el 91 hicimos una pequeña

39:11excavación y

39:13vimos que estaba el graderío y que todo el barrio que estaba muy deprimido que se venía abajo estaba

39:20encima del teatro el teatro se construye entre el año 5 al año 1 antes de cristo sabemos que ya

39:32estaba

39:32inaugurado porque estaban los altares dedicados por ejemplo a callo césar y bueno es un y este que es el

39:40mayor monumento que que se que se queda en la ciudad

39:45after scipio's capture of cartagena the city would be thoroughly romanized

39:53called carthadast by the carthaginians the romans knew it as carthago nova new carthage the emperor

40:01augustus invested heavily in the city as well as a theater other civic buildings were built to match

40:07those in tarragona did tarragona remain the most important city in iberia or is cartagena rising to

40:17that status yo personalmente pienso que en época romano republica incluido augusto esta ciudad tiene

40:28más valor para roma porque es la ciudad que conquistó escipión scipio is so young i mean a brilliant general

40:38but rising to power very very quickly para roma conquistar cartagonova era quitarle a los

40:49cartagineses las minas de plata el puerto y todo una vez que roma consigue conquistar cartagonova se

40:59abre todo un proceso de conquista de la península iberica lo dice estipión en su discurso su harén a

41:06los soldados necesitamos conquistar esta ciudad porque con esto le quitamos al enemigo todo y estipión

41:13vuelve gloriosa roma y por eso es estipión el africano yes pero yo creo que tenía que haber sido el

41:22hispano the story here in katagena really encapsulates this story of roman uh expansionism

41:32and creating this vast empire which in the end takes in the whole of the iberian peninsula

41:39also north africa and then all around the eastern mediterranean as well do you think it just got too

41:45big si después de bueno de tanta conquista es lo que pasó que a veces es ingobernable tantas provincias

41:54tanto imperio y ellos de todas maneras eran bastante permisivo quiero decir en esta ciudad

42:03tenemos una colección epigráfica maravillosa sabemos las gentes que vivieron aquí muchos y muchos eran

42:11libertos muchos eran de origen oriental había una mezcla de indígenas de fenicios oirios o lo que

42:19sea que habían estado por aquí algún griego entonces sí que hay por un lado que eso cada vez se

42:24estudia

42:25más no como es como se roma se integre como la sociedad de indígenas se integran en esta nueva

42:31sociedad y desde luego claro aquello se desbordó eso junto a la corrupción pues las poblaciones cada

42:39veces estaban más a disgusto y los que vivían allí ya habían nacido allí ya no no no sentían a

42:45roma

42:45tan en el tan profundamente no and then by the fifth century it's starting to fall apart here in the

42:53west

42:53how does the roman period end here in katahena aquí en concreto entre el siglo segundo y tercero ya

43:01empieza cierta crisis y hay un declive en que de pronto lo que tenemos es la llegada de los bizantinos

43:09que hay un buen tarios de siria vino de gaza vemos otra vez como la ciudad conectada comercialmente con

43:20todo el mediterráneo aceite del norte de áfrica y sí que aquí empieza otra vez otro declive con el

43:29conflicto entre bizantinos y visigodos ya no está tan organizado en época romana la ciudad es el el

43:36eje vertebrador de todo el territorio no y esto pues se diluye ahí es donde es una transición un cambio

43:45no importante the legacy of the carthaginians and romans is still here cartagena is an important

43:55maritime city the mediterranean fleet of the spanish navy use it as their main base it also handles a huge

44:04volume of freight and its regular destination for cruise ships before i leave there's one more

44:13connection a ride up the panoramic lift which will take me to the city's highest point

44:21i'm flying above casa henna i can see the port over there

44:30that is high

44:35the railway networks of italy france and spain have carried me in a matter of weeks across a thousand

44:42years of roman history finally coming to an end here in spain where the roman empire faced its biggest

44:50rival in the west

44:56this is a suitably epic place to finish my epic journey following the expansion of rome building

45:06its territorial empire through fear and favor it's an incredible story it resonates down through the

45:15ages i think it tells us so much about who we are today not just in europe but around western

45:23asia

45:23and of course north africa as well this idea of of roman this this idea of romanitas lives on

45:34because it became completely enmeshed with the state religion of rome in the fourth century so when

45:43we look at this city and we see the roman theater we also see churches and then those churches really

45:53are what the roman empire turned into romanitas becomes christianitas

46:05so

46:17so

46:19so

46:36Transcription by CastingWords

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