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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
00:221300 miles through Italy France and Spain to discover its origins and the secrets of its
00:30success I'll be exploring some well-known Roman sites this is where you can hear Pompeii and some
00:38unfamiliar ones there is nobody here from the massive it's curved yeah to the miniature it's
00:47like a fourth century Barbie doll I want to know how a single city comes to control such a vast
00:53territory experts from around the world will help me bring to life Roman culture the sands of Capua
01:01become the jungles of India and provide insights into why this Empire was so successful who said
01:08the time machine does not exist we got it in this episode I follow the original Roman
01:17road north to Palma and Turin hello so this is absolutely beautiful this Roman gateway and then
01:32I cross the Alps to the city they call the Rome of France
01:50I want to go to Palma
01:54the
01:57Therefore
01:59it is
02:01in the
02:04the
02:04U
02:06the
02:20헐
02:32I'm travelling north on this train journey firstly going across the Apennines with lots
02:38of tunnels and then now we've reached the northern Italian plain it's suddenly very
02:42very flat now the Romans really wanted to get hold of this land this was a large area of very
02:50fertile very agriculturally productive land they really wanted it so they build roads this is how
02:58they conquer Italy we've seen that with a via Appia pushing to the south now they're going to
03:04build roads to the north so in the third century BCE they start by building this road the via
03:10Flaminia north through the Apennines reaching a colony which will be a Riminum Rimini and then
03:19this road which just tracks along the northern border of the Apennines is the via Emilia and along
03:27this road they will be seeding colonies and these colonies have still got names which go back to
03:35the Romans so there's a colony called Bononia that becomes Bologna at Mutina Modena Regium
03:43Amelia Palmer still Palmer Placentia becomes Piacenza and they're pushing pushing pushing further and
03:53further northwards like all conquerors the Romans were after territory resources to plunder and strategic
04:02towns to fortify as bases for the further expansion of their Empire Palma's an interesting name in itself it
04:10seems to have been an Etruscan name which was then adopted by the Romans which obviously suggests there
04:15was an Etruscan settlement there before the Roman colony and it's thought to mean or relate to a round
04:22shield the kind of shields that the Etruscans had in this area or perhaps to the fact that Palma was
04:29a
04:29metaphorical shield against the Gauls to the north right where are we now this is Palma yes we've been
04:41through Reggio Emilia we're at Palma
04:5810 minutes from the station is Piazza Garibaldi below this modern town square lies the ancient Roman forum
05:11the forum was a constant feature of Roman cities forming the legal administrative and religious center
05:19surrounded by impressive buildings it was symbolic of the power and sophistication of Roman civilization
05:26local archaeologist Marco Padini has arranged special access to guide me through Palma's hidden ancient past
05:55so this underground area has been closed off to the public for the last 20 years
06:03so I'll pass and be careful here okay so what is this place this was a hotel that was built
06:17in
06:18around 1928 underground underground hotel yeah okay
06:29oh look at that when they built the hotel the underground hotel they found a mosaic and there
06:40was this beautiful centaur with a vase of cantars for the wine and since it was so beautiful
06:47they decided to cut it and put in the museum in 1928 so that's where this piece of mosaic was
06:54lifted from
06:54in 1928 when was Palma founded as as a Roman settlement it was founded in 183 BC only Piacenza which
07:06is the
07:06end point of the end point of the Via Emilia was founded earlier in 218 but then Hannibal came and
07:15yeah it was a great battle near Piacenza and so there was a very difficult moment for the Roman Empire
07:23because Hannibal stayed here in all more than 10 years
07:26so when he was finally defeated he was finally defeated in at the end of the third century BC so
07:33201 yeah
07:34if you want now if you want now we can go to the Roman bridge another very very important excavation
07:41which was
07:42yeah done in 2010 oh lovely yes I'd love to see that yeah yeah
07:50just five minutes walk from the old forum is the river Palma that divides the city and once proved a
07:57fearsome obstacle to Roman ambitions
08:01our walk takes us along a familiar route
08:07so this road that is the original route of the Via Emilia that is the Via Emilia yeah this is
08:13it's still called the Via Emilia is it yeah yeah actually are the lines the train line follow the Via
08:22Emilia I thought I must have been tracking along with it because I'm passing through all the times which were
08:28originally Roman
08:29Roman colonies we came through Bologna yeah Reggio Emilia and if I was to carry on I'd end up in
08:34in Fidenza and then Piacenza which is the end of the Via Emilia
08:38yeah in 2010 work began here to build a multi-story car park and what they found may have been
08:47the single most significant section of the Via Emilia here
08:52where the road crosses the river oh amazing yeah actually we see the medieval phase probably in the 12th century
09:05yeah this moment and this has been excavated out right down to the the footings down there I mean could
09:11it be that these
09:12footings are Roman exactly this bridge dates to the reign of Emperor Augustus in the 1st century CE
09:20the Romans perfected arch bridges built in stone and concrete crucial for moving goods and troops around the Empire
09:30the bridge was built at a place where travelers would have previously waded across the river over a ford
09:36near this ford there was probably some a sacred area a cultural area right because um in there
09:45many pits were found many metal elements okay like 3 000 coins were found and you can see all these
09:55pieces
09:55that these items that are exposed in the showcases where are the showcases here we're gonna see them here it
10:03seems
10:03that locals crossing the ford may have been hoping for divine protection oh wow oh this is lovely yeah
10:11you can still see the coins stuck in the in the mortar yeah the main hypothesis that there was a
10:21probably a sacred area
10:23yeah or a temple in some way or a shrine connected to this passing to this crossing point yeah and
10:32you see there are
10:33many metal elements it's a gift probably to the gods isn't that interesting I mean we see this
10:40right across Europe don't we we see we see this kind of offerings and watery places yeah in the iron
10:46age
10:46yeah exactly the last coin found was around the third century and that they come from all the Mediterranean area
10:55really yeah yeah there are some coins that come from the Ibiza Island in Spain yeah yeah that's a little
11:06lion's claw
11:08probably for yeah a table yeah in there yeah I love this I love this museum in an unexpected place
11:16under the bridge
11:19oh I'm sorry I didn't even see those down there yeah
11:26the cities and towns along the ancient Roman road network are rich in archaeology
11:32every modern building project reveals more ancient history
11:38I've just over an hour before my next train journey and Francesca suggested I make a quick visit to Palmer's
11:46archaeology museum to see what else has been unearthed here
11:52Pilota Park is the city's historic center home to a grand palace and several other museums
12:00in the courtyard here there seems to be a philosophical message written on the wall
12:05what does it say it's in English time present and time past are both
12:13perhaps present in time future I like that and it's very apt for my journey
12:22because I am here in the present learning about the past and you're watching this in my future
12:34the museum has a vast collection of artifacts dating from the Bronze Age right through to the 19th century
12:42a whole floor dedicated to the Roman era features an array of exhibits from Palmer's Forum
12:49I'm hoping to find the mosaic that was removed from the floor of the underground hotel
12:58there it is
13:06so this is the missing mosaic
13:10from the underground hotel
13:17so I've seen the edge where it was cut
13:21and now I'm seeing the whole thing
13:26he's great
13:27what a fantastic image for a dining room floor
13:30a centaur balancing a jug of wine on his head
13:39this mosaic provides a glimpse of the wealth and sophistication of Roman society in Palmer
13:46but the museum here holds a further extraordinary artifact
13:52it's a rare written record found in the ancient town of Vallea
13:5740 miles south west of Parma
14:00and it offers a far more detailed picture of Roman life
14:06it is a massive inscription
14:09look at it it's completely covered in letters
14:11on bronze
14:13in fact it's the biggest inscription from the Roman world
14:17there's some 40,000 letters engraved on this piece of bronze
14:23and what it is
14:25is a record of a loan
14:28a loan from the Emperor Trajan
14:30to the people of the town of Vallea and the surrounding region
14:36which was hard hit
14:39they were really struggling
14:40and so he gave them a loan
14:43and they are going to have to pay back interest
14:44but a small amount of interest
14:46and actually that interest is going to be used
14:49also to support the people in this region
14:51particularly orphans
14:53and what we've got here
14:55is just an incredible record
15:00of everything in this region
15:01all the towns and villages
15:04that were given pots of money
15:07in this big loan
15:09so it's almost like a census as well
15:11it contains a lot of information
15:15and this was discovered by a farmer
15:19who knew it was bronze
15:22folded it up
15:24and presumably he was going to sell it to be melted down
15:28but the local priest got to have a look at it
15:30and of course he's a priest
15:31so he can speak Latin
15:32and he realises that this is a really, really, really important inscription
15:38and in fact this kicks off then
15:41the excavation of the lost town of Vallea
15:45which had been destroyed in a mudslide
15:48in the middle of the first millennium
15:51and there were many, many more treasures to be found
16:04what a beautiful bronze of a young woman
16:08and it's possible that we even know her name
16:11because we know that somebody called Barbia Basila
16:15gave money to the Forum in Vallea
16:18to build a new portico along the side
16:21and this could be her
16:24looking at her hairstyle with this hairband
16:28that gives us a rough date as well
16:31because this was the fashion in the first century BCE
16:35it's amazing to read the inscriptions
16:38to be able to read words from 2,000 years ago
16:41but I think it's even better to come face to face with a Roman
16:46x
16:57x
16:58x
16:59x
17:00x
17:12x
17:14Palmer and I'm now heading west towards Augusta Torinorum, more commonly known
17:20today as Turin. There I'm hoping to find out how the Roman population was kept
17:28satisfied, as the satirical poet Juvenile said, in a rather deprecating fashion
17:33that the Roman population could be kept happy with bread and circuses. I've seen
17:39the circus at Capua, and now I'm going to explore the meaning of bread in the Roman
17:45world as I head towards Turin.
18:02Turin was an important military base for the Romans in the time of Julius Caesar,
18:07when he had his sights set on the conquest of Gaul. The town sits on the mighty Po River,
18:14just 10 miles from the Alps, with Gaul on the other side of the mountains. During the reign
18:20of the first emperor Augustus, Turin was re-founded as a Roman colony. And yet, apart from the
18:28classic grid layout of its streets, Rome's barely visible here. That's because much later,
18:36in the 16th century, the ruling Duke Emanuele Philibert rebuilt Turin in the Baroque style.
18:49Buongiorno. Buongiorno.
18:50Buongiorno. Buongiorno. Buongiorno. Buongiorno. Buongiorno. Buongiorno. Buongiorno. Buongiorno. Buongiorno. Buongiorno. Buongiorno. Buongiorno. Buongiorno. Buongiorno. Buongiorno. Buongiorno. Buongiorno. Buongiorno. Buongiorno. Buongiorno.
19:15Buongiorno. Buongiorno. Buongiorno. Buongiorno. Buongiorno. Buongiorno. Buongiorno. Buongiorno. Buongiorno. Buongiorno. Buongiorno. Buongiorno. Buongiorno. Buongiorno. Buongiorno. Buongiorno. Buongiorno. Buongiorno. Buongiorno. Buongiorno.
19:20Buongiorno. Buongiorno. Buongiorno. Buongiorno. Bu
19:20More nuts. That might be nougat, I think.
19:24Some kind of fondant.
19:27Pistachio.
19:28That, that, that, that.
19:32That one. That's got nuts in it.
19:35Nougat, what's that one?
19:37They're all so beautiful. They're like little jewels.
19:40That's a very nice little bag of chocolates.
19:47That's 21 euros and 70 cents.
19:49Lovely, thank you.
19:56Grazie mille.
19:57Arrivederci.
20:07Travel gifts sorted are now heading to the museum,
20:11which is housed here in the Palazzo Madama,
20:14currently listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
20:22Part of this structure dates back to the 1st century BCE.
20:30Today, it houses a wonderful collection of ancient artefacts.
20:44This is a really fascinating museum, and not just because of what it contains, but because of what it is.
20:49Because this building is actually the original Roman Decumanus Gate into Turin, or I should say Augusta Turinorum, as it
20:59was originally founded.
21:00And this series of illustrations are brilliant, because you can see how the two towers, the two octagonal towers are
21:07part of that original Roman gate.
21:09And then the building evolves so much over the centuries, but all the way through, those towers are part of
21:18it.
21:18Until today, you've just got the tops of them poking out of the roof.
21:23And then over here, the excavations inside this courtyard area have been laid bare and then preserved under a glass
21:31floor,
21:32so I can actually walk over the ancient Roman cobbles.
21:51So you can walk up inside this tower, I'm walking on an 18th century staircase, but then I can step
21:57into this space.
21:59And here we've got the original wall of the Roman tower of Augusta Turinorum.
22:07Isn't that incredible? So this is part of that gateway, the gatehouse into the old Roman city.
22:14And I just can't believe it's still standing and it's still part of this building.
22:22Over the centuries, the building was extended and took on many forms.
22:28After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, it was still a defensive stronghold.
22:34It was enlarged into a castle before becoming a palace.
22:42The current building has got four towers. The original Roman one only had two.
22:46And now I'm looking across at one of those two Roman towers of the original gate.
22:53And it's just pushing up through the roof.
22:56This is a great building and it has really just accumulated over time.
23:02There's been so many different phases from the Roman through the medieval right through to the 19th and 20th centuries
23:09when it became the civic museum.
23:11But sometimes it's great just to pause and look for archaeological clues and try to work out how old something
23:19is.
23:19Sometimes it's just about feel. And I think if I feel these bricks, I can work out that actually they
23:27were laid in 1884.
23:28It requires a lot of experience and expertise to do something like that.
23:43As their territory expanded, the Romans had to feed their ever increasing population.
23:50I'm meeting up with archaeologist Farrell Monaco.
23:56She's been sifting through the evidence with her investigation into the staple ingredient of the Roman diet.
24:08So I've been learning a lot about Roman life, but I want to kind of immerse myself in it a
24:14bit more as a Roman.
24:16How important was bread?
24:17I think it was incredibly important. If we look at archaeological evidence such as bakery counts, for example.
24:24In Rome, we have upward of 250 Roman bakeries were in place according to the regional catalogues.
24:32In Pompeii, we have 35 and there's still a quarter of that site that remains unexcavated.
24:36So this shows us clearly that bread was the backbone of the Roman diet.
24:41But part of my mission is to show that it isn't just about carbohydrates and calories.
24:46It's so much more complex and beautiful than that.
24:49Bread is very symbolic in the Roman world.
24:52It plays a substantial role in the religious sphere as well.
24:56Yeah. I mean, it's interesting, isn't it?
24:58Walking around Pompeii and seeing the bakeries and then it's almost as though there's one on every insula.
25:03I mean, there are loads of them.
25:04It's like Roman Starbucks.
25:06Yes.
25:07They're on every corner.
25:07Or Pret-a-Manger.
25:08They're on every corner and there it is again.
25:10Yeah.
25:10And were people making bread at home or was everybody going out and buying it from these
25:16bakeries on the street?
25:17They were making bread at home, but they were also buying bread in these commercial bakeries.
25:21And this is because approximately 50% of households wouldn't have cooking facilities.
25:27Okay.
25:27So they would eat out at the de Berne or they would buy their bread at bakeries.
25:33Isn't that interesting?
25:34Yeah.
25:34Because I think, you know, today when we see a bit of a shift towards less home cooking
25:39and more going out to eat or getting other people to cook your food for you, we think
25:43this is something that hasn't happened before, but actually the Romans were doing it in their
25:46cities.
25:47Yeah.
25:47It's like living in a studio in Manhattan.
25:49Yeah.
25:49You go out and you go out for dinner and you come back home and you go to bed.
25:52To see Turin's Roman agricultural past, you don't have to line up at a museum.
25:57You don't have to pay to get into an archeological site.
26:00All you have to do is hit a bakery because the bread forms that are on these shelves haven't
26:04changed in millennia or in hundreds of years.
26:07Yeah.
26:08So I brought one for you to try, well, for us to try together.
26:13I mean, this is extraordinary because, I mean, you think with globalization that bread's
26:17going to become standard everywhere, but it's not.
26:19No.
26:20That's the beauty of Italy is regional breads have stayed relatively unchanged.
26:25Yeah.
26:27Over a hundred years, it's gotten, you know, since the war and since the railway was put
26:33in, things have changed a little bit because people move back and forth.
26:36Yeah.
26:36But Italy is a bastion of bread culture that has been unchanged for centuries and millennia.
26:43So this particular loaf here, this is called paninero or black bread.
26:49Black bread.
26:49Yeah.
26:49It's very dark.
26:51It is mixed with rye and wheat.
26:54Can we taste it?
26:55Yeah, of course we can.
26:56So we are, we're going to go, we're going to do this old school.
26:59We're not going to use a knife.
27:00We are going to break bread.
27:01Yeah.
27:02Francho panis.
27:02So go ahead and break it.
27:03And then we are going to have it with a little bit of olive oil.
27:06You can also have this with a robust red wine, like a Yanico.
27:11I'm going to break off a chunk as well.
27:13Bread is my carbohydrate of choice.
27:17You know, along with porridge, it's been what we have been eating since the dawn of agriculture.
27:23This is delicious bread.
27:25Isn't it great?
27:26It's lovely.
27:27This has been absolutely fascinating.
27:28The fact that you can go to a bakery down here in Turin and buy bread, which is basically
27:36the same as the bread that the Romans would have been eating.
27:39I think, I think that's really interesting.
27:40Yeah.
27:41Where are you going next on your travels?
27:43I'm headed to Rome next to do some research into the Eucharist.
27:49So now I'm going to start looking at the representation of these forms in early Christian context,
27:57the feeding of the 5,000, for example, and how they're being used to portray something sacred,
28:03much in the same way as they did in a pagan atmosphere.
28:07But this time they're, you know, Christian in nature.
28:09That is fascinating because, of course, Christianity is nothing if not a Roman religion.
28:14Yes.
28:14Yeah, exactly.
28:16What an enthralling first day in Turin, discovering more about its history and ancient cuisine.
28:24Tomorrow I'm going to find out about the newest method of dating Roman cities.
28:29And I'm hoping to find a famous movie landmark.
28:44The ancient Romans, like the Greeks before them, were stargazers.
28:50They named the stars and planets after their deities.
28:56And their understanding of astronomy helped them in navigation, farming, predicting the seasons,
29:03and marking time.
29:05Their astronomical observations fed into the development of the calendar.
29:11They used the stars and the sun to determine directions and to lay out their towns.
29:19Two millennia on, this ancient knowledge of the heavens helped to solve one of archaeology's great riddles,
29:27right here in Turin.
29:30There's no record of the actual date of the foundation of Turin.
29:36But astrophysicist Mireia Teresa Crosta and archaeologist Sandro Caranzano wondered if the answer lay in the stars.
29:45This is absolutely beautiful, this Roman gateway. Should we walk down to it?
29:49Yeah, sure.
29:51And are we walking on one of the principal Roman roads of the city here?
29:55Yes.
29:55The archaeologists can talk better than me.
29:58Yeah, let's talk about this road.
30:00Originally it was the Cardo, which was the main city road running south and north.
30:06Okay.
30:07So they rebuilt the pavement because, you know, it's not exactly the original one, but it was very similar.
30:13Yeah.
30:13It's stones and, you know, this is the north gate of the city.
30:17And the whole city is laid out on a grid like most Roman cities.
30:22Yes, yes.
30:22Roman love very much, geometry love very much.
30:25Yeah, yeah.
30:26The Romans used the sun and stars to align their street grids north, south and east, west.
30:33But the exact positions of sunrise and sunset on the horizon have changed over time.
30:39Combining Sandro's archaeological research and her knowledge of astronomy,
30:44Maria Teresa believed she could precisely calculate Turin's foundation.
30:49So what did you do?
30:50How did you try to establish the date of the foundation of Turin?
30:57Okay, so just by combining archaeological findings with astronomical data.
31:05Yeah.
31:05And Anissian text written by surveyors.
31:09Yeah.
31:10They were in charge to dividing the land, take measurements in order to construct the ideal town,
31:18which has to integrate with the cosmos.
31:22This was fundamental because astronomy was essential in those days, in the past, to measure the time.
31:31So when we look at Roman towns, do they all have this attention to detail
31:35when it comes to making sure that they are facing cardinal points,
31:40that they have a north-south road, that they have an east-west road, or does it vary?
31:43Yes.
31:45This was fundamental for them.
31:47The main axis of the town should align perfectly with east towards west.
31:54That perfect alignment worked for them at a particular time.
31:59But if the grid were to be laid out in the same way today, using astronomical markers,
32:05the alignment would be slightly different.
32:08With archaeology providing a rough timeframe, Maria Theresa's challenge was to work out
32:14when the astronomical conditions would have perfectly matched up with the Roman grid.
32:22And that should yield a date for the origin of the city.
32:29This is fascinating because I think it's an approach to archaeology where it reminds me of the difference
32:35between relative dating and absolute dating, where you might say,
32:40I'm dating this on the basis of a style of pottery, and I think it's this particular date.
32:44Then you have something like radiocarbon dating, and you can absolutely pin the date down.
32:47And what you're doing, where you're trying to reconstruct the solar year in the past, seems similar to me.
32:55Because the sun is the time keeping.
33:01So what was the date you finally arrived at?
33:05The 30th of January, no?
33:0730th of January.
33:0730th of January.
33:08In which year?
33:10I know, before Christ.
33:12That's absolutely wonderful.
33:13Yes, people are.
33:14And what a fantastic example of interdisciplinary research.
33:18You know, a physicist and an archaeologist, who'd have thought?
33:20Yes, yes, exactly.
33:22Thank you so much.
33:24Thank you to you.
33:25It's really clever.
33:26And it also, it also just tells us how clever the Romans were.
33:30That when the Romans are trying to find north, they haven't got magnetic compasses.
33:34Yes, true.
33:35They're using the stars.
33:36Of course, they use the stars.
33:37The stars, the perfect guidance.
33:42Thank you to you.
33:44Maria Theresa and Sandro's conclusion is that Turin was founded on the 30th of January,
33:51in the year 9 BCE.
33:54They put their mathematical model to the test on the city of Aosta.
33:59That has a foundation date written in stone.
34:03And their method proved to be correct.
34:07They planned to take their expertise to other Roman cities with unknown foundation dates.
34:16Now, I'm off to find out where they blew the bloody doors off.
34:21I've been exploring Turin, looking for evidence of the Romans here.
34:27And I've seen some fantastic, upstanding Roman archaeology.
34:32This isn't Roman.
34:33It's 19th century, this church of Gran Madre de Dio.
34:37But it's nonetheless incredibly historical because these were the very steps that the minis drove down in the Italian job.
35:06It's 7am and my next train journey is the first on this adventure that will take me across an international
35:13border.
35:14And a spectacular physical border.
35:18And a spectacular physical border.
35:21Buongiorno.
35:22Una biglietto per Lyon, per favore.
35:26Si.
35:32Great.
35:33Grazie.
35:38Believe it or not, Turin's Porta Sousa station opened a century and a half ago in 1868.
35:47But it was modernised in 2006 to take in extra regional services as the railways here expanded.
35:55It's an early start this morning, so I need this.
35:58So I'm going to be leaving Italy, travelling into France, catching the train to Paris.
36:03I'm not going as far as Paris, I'm getting off at Lyon and then changing trains.
36:07And then by about lunchtime I should arrive into Nîmes.
36:18This is my first time ever doing this journey and it's one I've been looking forward to for weeks.
36:25After all, what a way to see the mighty Alpine mountain range.
36:53So we're generally just travelling up river valleys through the Alps.
37:00I can see some snowy peaks up there.
37:03But occasionally, of course, we do have to go through mountains as well.
37:08So I've just been through one tunnel.
37:10I think there's going to be another one because there are some very, very high mountains ahead of us here.
37:16And these are going to be time-honoured routes through the mountains, of course,
37:20because people will have always been utilising the valleys
37:26and then trying to find the lowest pass, the lowest, easiest pass.
37:31to get from one side to the other.
37:39And the architecture is changing as well.
37:42It's very different from Parma and Turin.
37:52This part of northern Italy is known for its world-class wines and intense truffles.
38:00The white Alba truffle was prized by the Romans, who considered it a delicacy with aphrodisiac qualities.
38:11About two hours into the journey and I'm around halfway through the Alps.
38:16This small alpine village is quite a significant station.
38:21They've just stopped en route at the border town of Modane.
38:25I'm now in France.
38:26And this railway line was built in the 19th century, right on the border between France and Italy.
38:35And that fort was also built.
38:40The fort at Modane sits at 1,210 metres above sea level.
38:45And it was built 140 years ago to defend the entrance to the railway tunnel.
38:51Around 2,000 years before that, one of the greatest human feats took place somewhere in these mountains.
39:01From the third into the second century BCE, there were two superpowers fighting it out for supremacy in the western
39:10Mediterranean.
39:11You had the Roman Republic to the north and the Carthaginian Empire in North Africa to the south.
39:19And eventually, of course, the Roman Republic would win.
39:24But in the Second Punic War, the Carthaginian general Hannibal invaded Italy, coming through the Alps, bringing all his forces
39:35and just fighting elephants with him.
39:38And historians have tried to work out the route that he took through the Alps and we just don't know.
39:45We don't have enough evidence from the literature of the time and the geography means that there are too many
39:53possibilities to know.
39:55French historians have come up with this incredible term, Hannibalism, for trying to answer an impossible question.
40:11I've now travelled 100 miles from the Italian border and I'm arriving into the French city of Lyon.
40:22Where I'm changing platforms to find the connecting train to Nîmes.
40:28Now, Lyon was an incredibly important Roman city.
40:31It was important before the Romans were here.
40:34Back in the Iron Age, it was a regional capital for the Gauls.
40:39And it was called Lugdunum.
40:41That becomes Luon and then eventually Lyon.
40:44So we're basically using the same name 2,000 years later.
40:47And under the Romans, it was a big city.
40:51A couple of emperors were born here.
40:53Claudius and Caracalla.
40:55And it was a hub for Roman roads in Gaul.
40:58It's got an absolutely beautiful Roman theatre.
41:00But I can't stop because I'm on my way to Nîmes.
41:29Nîmes is 600 miles from Rome.
41:33And is known as the Rome of France.
41:47Once again, a key military base for Julius Caesar in his conquest of Gaul in the 1st century BCE.
41:54The Emperor Augustus would invest in it, turning it into a beautiful, thriving Roman city.
42:04It lay on the Via Domitia, a vital route for Roman troops and trade, travelling between Italy and Spain.
42:19Today, it has the best preserved amphitheatre in France.
42:24The French have named it Les Arrennes.
42:26And it's still in use for a range of musical and sporting events.
42:31And this, the Maison Carré, is the best preserved Roman temple anywhere in the world.
42:38Not quite as well preserved as the Temple of Diana, which will be my first stop.
42:46And I'm pleased to see that it's still in use.
43:11It's not what you expect to find going on in a Roman temple.
43:21What an amazing backdrop for a music video!
43:34Do you speak English?
43:35A little.
43:36A little.
43:36Are you a band?
43:38Yes.
43:38Yeah.
43:39We're a dance crew.
43:41Are you...
43:42So you're filming a music video?
43:44Yes.
43:44Where can I see it?
43:45Where will you put it?
43:46On YouTube.
43:46On YouTube?
43:47Yes.
43:47It's amazing.
43:48Why did you choose here to film?
43:51Uh...
43:52I think that out of Nîmes, that's the best place to film that music video because that
43:57fits the best vibe of the thing we want to give.
44:01Yeah, yeah.
44:02I don't know if you want to say that.
44:03I'm sorry.
44:03The best vibe in Nîmes.
44:04Yeah.
44:05And this Roman temple.
44:07Yes.
44:07Yeah.
44:08Are you Nîmoise?
44:09Yes.
44:10Yeah?
44:10Yeah?
44:10Born and bred in Nîmes?
44:12Uh...
44:12Not born here.
44:13Yeah.
44:14But I'm living here.
44:14They're living here now.
44:15Yeah.
44:16And there's Romans everywhere in Nîmes.
44:19There's Roman pastors everywhere and you're bringing it alive.
44:21It's absolutely brilliant.
44:23Thank you very much.
44:25See you on YouTube.
44:30The Temple of Diana may in fact not originally have been built as a temple.
44:36It was probably a library.
44:41During medieval times it was transformed into part of a monastery ensuring its survival.
44:49Today it sits proudly in the Jardin du Fontaine.
44:57These gardens are beautiful.
44:59They were engineered in the 18th century by Jacques-Philippe Maréchal working for Louis XV.
45:07And there'd been some excavation here trying to get at the source of the spring water actually in order to
45:14provide water to the city's textile industry, the dyeing industry.
45:19But then when they started to find more and more Roman remains, these assumed an importance in their own right.
45:27And Maréchal laid out these fantastic gardens, really putting all of this Roman archaeology on show.
45:35And it became famous.
45:38They're the first public gardens in Europe, apparently.
45:42And at their heart is this astonishing archaeology.
45:52Next time, I take a closer look at this most exquisitely preserved Roman temple.
45:58What a wonderful treasure to have in the city.
46:01Yeah.
46:02It's fantastic.
46:03And experience one of the most awe-inspiring monuments of the empire.
46:07And we're out into the sunshine.
46:10And I follow the Romans into Spain.
46:15This is consummate artistry.
46:40To this known ganzen
46:41black soñel G
46:42And we're near the gray soxin.
46:44And it's so true.
46:47And by the time, we all use up the �ango consuming photos.
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