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00:00On this episode of Expedition Files,
00:04Dracula is said to be inspired by the real-life terrors of a bloodthirsty 15th century warlord,
00:12Vlad the Impaler.
00:14He's believed to have killed thousands,
00:17but the circumstances of Vlad's death and the location of his burial remained a mystery until now.
00:26Then, as the Cold War burns hot,
00:29a top-secret U.S. government program attempts to spy on the enemy using the power of the mind.
00:36But were the abilities of these so-called psychic spies real or just science fiction?
00:43We declassify the jaw-dropping truth.
00:49And in ancient Rome, Spartacus is a legendary slave-turned-gladiator who sparks a rebellion,
00:58bringing the nation to its knees.
01:01But did he really exist?
01:04New archaeological findings shed light on the man behind the myth.
01:13In the corridors of time,
01:17are mysteries that defy explanation.
01:21Now, I'm traveling through history itself,
01:27on a search for the truth.
01:29New evidence.
01:34New evidence.
01:35Shocking answers.
01:37I'm Josh Gates.
01:40And these...
01:42are my expedition files.
01:49I've been lucky enough to travel to 117 countries.
01:53But some of the best places I've ever been aren't out there.
01:57They're up here.
01:58Arrakis, The Shire, Diagon Alley.
02:01All completely fictitious.
02:03All made real by a brilliant book, plus our own brilliant imaginations.
02:07But the thing is, powerful fiction is still inspired by powerful facts.
02:13Whether it was Tolkien's time in the trenches for Lord of the Rings,
02:17or Frank Herbert hitting those magic mushrooms to create Dune.
02:21And tonight, we search for the facts behind some other equally epic fiction.
02:26Investigating three iconic stories to find the truth behind the tale.
02:31We begin in the year 1462 in the forests of Carpathia.
02:37In time, this will be part of Romania.
02:39But in this century, it's known as Transylvania.
02:43And here's the man in charge around here, Prince Vlad III,
02:47also known as Vlad Tepes and Vlad the Impaler.
02:51He's currently leading a military campaign against the invading Ottoman Empire,
02:55which has resulted in thousands of his enemies dead by, well, you get the idea.
03:01This very real man is said to go on to become the inspiration for one of fiction's most infamous vampires.
03:08Because his other name is Vlad Dracula.
03:12But while the monster becomes iconic, curiously, we know very little about the man himself.
03:18We don't know how he died or where he was buried.
03:21But 600 years from now, new discoveries may allow us to come face to face with the real Dracula.
03:39Vlad III is born in the winter of 1431 in Sigishwara, in the region of Transylvania, then part of the
03:47Kingdom of Hungary.
03:48Vlad belongs to a ruling family of Wallachia, a brutal 15th century borderland caught between Hungary and the expanding Ottoman
03:57Empire.
03:58Vlad's father is the ruler of Wallachia, and member of the Order of the Dragon, a Christian brotherhood sworn to
04:06keep the Ottomans at bay.
04:08His membership perk?
04:10His membership perk?
04:10A fearsome new title, Dracul, which makes Vlad III Dracula, quite literally, the son of the dragon.
04:20And the rest of Vlad's childhood appropriately reads like the origin story of a monster.
04:27As a boy, Vlad is hauled off as a hostage by his father's enemy, the Ottoman Turks.
04:34But while Vlad is a prisoner of the Ottomans, Wallachia's other great enemy, the Hungarians, decide to strike, assassinating Vlad's
04:44father and brother.
04:48With his dad gone, Vlad assumes the throne of Wallachia in 1448.
04:54But that only lasts for two months before he's forced out in a coup led by rival nobles.
05:01Vlad then spends the next eight years in exile, sharpening his grudges against the Ottomans, the Hungarians, the Wallachians.
05:10Frankly, anyone who will stand in his way.
05:15By 1456, Vlad is done waiting.
05:18He returns to Wallachia with an army to retake his throne by any means necessary.
05:24He's brutally successful.
05:39Vlad's first order of business is settling scores with those who he feels had betrayed his family.
05:47Accounts say he invites hundreds of local aristocrats to a grand feast, framing it as a gesture of peace.
05:55Then he has them arrested.
05:57The lucky are sent to toil as forced laborers.
06:02The unlucky are executed in what becomes Vlad's signature style, impalement.
06:09A sharpened stake driven through the body, leaving victims to die slowly.
06:15Their corpses are left skewered, a forest of warnings to anyone who dares defy him.
06:21The fearsome nickname, Vlad the Impaler, spreads throughout the land.
06:28Meanwhile, Vlad's enemies, the Ottoman Empire, push west towards his territory, spreading their Islamic regime.
06:36In response, the Pope calls for a new crusade to protect Christian territory that includes Vlad's.
06:45Eager for revenge against his former captors, the Impaler seizes the moment.
06:51When the Ottomans march into Wallachia, Vlad strikes back with scorched earth fury, raiding camps, poisoning wells, and yes, impaling
07:01thousands.
07:05The savagery works.
07:08The savagery works.
07:08The Ottomans pull back and Europe hails Vlad as a defender of the Christian faith.
07:13A hero to some, a nightmare to others.
07:17Vlad's brutal tactics become the stuff of legend.
07:21One commonly repeated tale claims he dined among the impaled, dipping his bread in their blood.
07:29Now, we should be clear.
07:31Much of what we know about these stories comes from enemy propaganda.
07:35Pamphlets from the late 1400s.
07:38In Romania itself, Vlad is today considered a national hero.
07:43A brave leader who defended his country from foreign invaders.
07:46So the line between fact and fear-mongering is blurry.
07:52The story of Vlad's death is similarly debatable.
07:56Even the year, 1476, or maybe 1477.
08:01Some say he fell in battle.
08:03Others claim he was betrayed by his own men.
08:08Another tale says his severed head was sent to the Ottoman Sultan as a trophy.
08:15As for his body, his final resting place has never been found.
08:21But just as the man becomes lost in the shadows, the monster takes center stage.
08:27In 1897, Irish author Bram Stoker writes the novel Dracula.
08:32Inspired, at least in part, by Vlad the Impaler.
08:37While writing the novel, Stoker dives into Eastern European lore.
08:41In an 1820 history book, he finds mention of Vlad III as Dracula, son of the dragon.
08:50The name is exotic, mysterious, terrifying.
08:54Stoker scraps his original villain, Count Vampyr, and instead christens him Count Dracula.
09:02From there, Stoker pulls details from Vlad III's life to shape Count Dracula's backstory.
09:08His role as a ruthless warlord, the Transylvanian setting, and his battles with the Ottoman Turks.
09:17Meanwhile, the mythical side of Stoker's tale comes from his deep dive into centuries-old vampire folklore in Eastern Europe.
09:26In the Middle Ages, long before science could explain disease and decay, villagers sometimes exhumed the dead.
09:34Fearing those who lived evil lives died with unfinished business and might rise again.
09:40When the graves were opened, some bodies showed bloated faces, darkened skin, and blood at the mouth.
09:48Natural signs of decomposition that villagers misinterpreted as proof the dead had returned to feed on the living.
09:55To stop them, communities resorted to brutal measures.
10:02Archaeologists have since uncovered anti-vampire burials throughout Europe.
10:07Skeletons nailed to the ground with stakes.
10:10Others with bricks or metal forced into their mouths to prevent biting.
10:17Several years ago, I explored these practices myself, working alongside archaeologists at a dig site in Bulgaria.
10:26Amazing.
10:27So this is the metal.
10:28And what is it exactly?
10:30It's a plowshare, the tool that local people use to plow the ground.
10:34So this is something that was done after the person died, this was then driven into them?
10:39Definitely it happened after death, and it shows evidence that this is a ritual preventing this person from becoming a
10:45vampire.
10:47These real-world horror stories gave Stoker's Dracula its fangs.
10:53But not all Dracula legends are rooted in medieval folklore.
10:59One of the most iconic, the bat, is a later invention.
11:03Drawing on reports of blood-sucking bats in the Americas, first documented in the 16th century, Bram Stoker fused this
11:11image with Vlad's fearsome reputation to create his infamous monster.
11:19Since the late 1800s, Dracula has sunk his teeth into popular culture like almost no other character.
11:25The Count has starred in stage plays, silent films, blockbuster movies and TV shows, comic books, even breakfast cereal.
11:34But behind the legend lies an unsettling mystery.
11:38The fate of the real man who inspired it.
11:41Vlad the Impaler.
11:43For centuries, historians have disagreed on how he died and where he's buried.
11:48Now, a modern-day search has uncovered new evidence that may finally lead to Vlad's long-lost remains and the
11:56secrets buried with them.
12:05For centuries, the final resting place of Vlad the Impaler, the ruthless ruler whose reign of terror helped inspire the
12:13legend of Dracula, has been a mystery.
12:16Now, Dr. Anne DeLong, professor of British and Gothic literature and editor of the Journal of Dracula Studies, follows the
12:24trail of clues that may finally lead to Vlad's lost grave.
12:28The fact that there is no clear trail to Vlad's death or to his burial site is a bit strange,
12:36particularly considering his status today as a hero of Romanian history.
12:43For many years, popular tradition believed that Vlad the Impaler was buried in a monastery in Romania.
12:50One of those is the Snagov Monastery, a site that was connected to Vlad's family.
12:57On a small island north of Bucharest, Snagov Monastery has long been linked to Vlad the Impaler's fate.
13:0516th-century accounts claim he died in battle nearby and was buried there.
13:10For generations, locals pointed to a plain stone slab inside the church as his hidden grave, a humble marker for
13:18a man with a monster-sized legend.
13:21The monastery at Snagov Monastery was excavated in 1933 in order to search for remains of Vlad.
13:30The tomb turned out to be completely empty except for animal bones.
13:36That's led some historians to look elsewhere, like Komana Monastery, a fortress-like church Vlad founded during his reign.
13:45The Komana Monastery is closer to the site where he is believed to have died.
13:51It makes more logical sense that he would have been moved to a closer monastery.
13:57But excavations at Komana in the 1970s discover no proof of Vlad.
14:02In the end, no grave site for the Impaler has ever been discovered in Romania, leading some to the theory
14:09that Vlad was buried somewhere else.
14:11In 2014, there's a fascinating new development.
14:15A team of Italian researchers identified a curious tomb at the church of Santa Maria Lenovo in Naples, featuring ominous
14:23engravings and what some claim to be a coded inscription of letters and symbols.
14:30Some historians believe that Vlad's remains ended up in Naples, which is where his daughter lived, and some have suggested
14:37that she sent for the body, then was able to memorialize him where she lived and presumably be buried with
14:44him also.
14:45Supporters of the theory point to details carved into the tomb's facade, an ornate dragon and a knight's helmet, symbols
14:53that could reference the order of the dragon to which Vlad's father belonged.
14:57Behind the tomb lies an epigraph that has yet to be fully deciphered, but two translated words, Vlad and Balkans,
15:06have fueled speculation that it may be connected to Vlad the Impaler, raising the possibility that this is his long
15:13-lost grave more than a thousand miles from the land he once ruled.
15:18Skeptics argue that the tomb may simply belong to a noble Neapolitan family, who adopted similar symbols to reflect their
15:26status and religious devotion.
15:28But that hasn't stopped the church from embracing its newfound celebrity as the possible resting place of Dracula.
15:36Researchers have asked for permission to investigate the tomb to find out for sure.
15:40But legal and ethical obstacles mean it could be years before we have a definitive answer.
15:47And Vlad's alleged tomb in Naples isn't the only recent Dracula news to come out of Italy.
15:53In August of 2023, Italian scientists examined centuries-old letters attributed to Vlad the Impaler.
16:01They detected microscopic protein traces that may have been left on the paper by his hands.
16:07These proteins are linked to a rare condition called Hemalacria, which can cause a person's tear ducts to bleed.
16:15If true, it means the man who inspired Dracula may have literally wept blood.
16:20That doesn't make him a vampire.
16:23But it's not going to help me sleep any better tonight, either.
16:31It's 1979.
16:33That's a Soviet military base somewhere near the Arctic Circle.
16:36American intelligence suspects they're building a new aircraft carrier here, but can't confirm it,
16:42because the CIA has no agents on the inside.
16:45Or do they?
16:50Nearly 5,000 miles away, in a windowless room at Fort Meade, Maryland, a new kind of operative is at
16:57work.
16:57The psychic spy.
16:59Agents who claim they can see anywhere on Earth at any time, using nothing but their minds.
17:06The U.S. government will pour millions into Project Stargate, until, after decades of operation, it's labeled a failure and
17:14shuttered.
17:15But 50 years after its inception, former members of this top-secret initiative will speak out, and declassified documents will
17:23emerge.
17:24What they reveal is nothing short of mind-blowing.
17:36The story of Project Stargate may sound like science fiction, but according to Joe McMoneagle, it's all too real.
17:45In 1978, he's a 32-year-old officer in the Army's signal intelligence program.
17:54He says he's invited to interview for a position with physicist Hal Puthoff, head of a new top-secret military
18:01operation.
18:04You served in Vietnam, correct?
18:06Yes, sir.
18:08Midway through the meeting, McMoneagle gets a question he never expected.
18:12Have you ever experienced anything called a paranormal event?
18:18He hesitates, but then decides to answer truthfully.
18:23Well, actually...
18:26He tells Puthoff about a night at a bar with his wife and a friend, when he suddenly feels sick.
18:37Stepping outside for air, he collapses and stops breathing.
18:46They rush him to the hospital, where he remains unresponsive.
18:50McMoneagle is unconscious, but will later claim he sees everything that is happening to him,
18:56watching the doctors work on his body from somewhere above it.
19:02When he finally wakes after being revived, he's back in his own body.
19:13McMoneagle figures Puthoff must think he's crazy after hearing such a wild story,
19:17but instead of being dragged out of the office in a straitjacket,
19:20he's offered a job in a top-secret psychic espionage program.
19:26McMoneagle will help found the program,
19:28tasked with harnessing his supposed supersensory abilities to see and hear things across the world,
19:35all without ever leaving his office.
19:38He's allegedly even given a code name,
19:41Remote Viewer 001.
19:43And in a time of global tension,
19:45his mind may become one of the government's most unconventional weapons.
20:00In 1978, Army Officer Joe McMoneagle allegedly joins a top-secret program called Project Stargate,
20:08and trains to become a psychic spy.
20:11Now, if you're wondering how one trains to become a psychic, you're not alone.
20:17The project stems from the work of physicists Russell Targ
20:21and Stargate director Harold Puthoff at the Stanford Research Institute in the 1970s.
20:27Convinced psychic abilities can be taught,
20:30they spend years testing the limits of remote viewing,
20:33a kind of mental teleportation where the mind's eye reaches across time and space
20:38to perceive distant locations and events.
20:43Their experiments soon catch the attention of the U.S. Army's Intelligence Command,
20:48especially with reports that the Soviets are researching similar techniques.
20:53The unit stays small, just 15 to 20 people working in secrecy in an old, leaky wooden barracks.
21:02In 1979, McMoneagle claims he starts getting real assignments.
21:08A U.S. spy satellite has captured images of a massive industrial complex at a Soviet naval base 650 miles
21:17north of Moscow.
21:19Ground operatives can't get close, leaving American intelligence completely in the dark about what's happening inside.
21:27McMoneagle says he isn't told any of this.
21:31Instead, he's given the coordinates.
21:34Meanwhile, a satellite photograph of the target is sealed in an envelope.
21:38So what do you make of this?
21:39He's asked to view the contents, not with his eyes, but with his mind.
21:51McMoneagle says he begins to sketch a series of boxes, like an aerial view of buildings.
21:57Then he reports what he believes is inside.
22:00I see an object.
22:05I see water.
22:07It's a shark.
22:10Shark is important, but shark fins, no.
22:13It has fins, elongated fins.
22:20It's a submarine.
22:27McMoneagle is told that his sketch eerily matches an overhead view of what the photo captures, a secret Soviet base.
22:35And if McMoneagle is right, then that base hides a submarine.
22:41McMoneagle says Army Intelligence reports his findings up the chain to the National Security Council.
22:47But the Council dismisses it, saying it's not plausible.
22:52Still, McMoneagle believes his so-called psychic instincts were eventually proven correct.
23:01Just four months later, new satellite photos reveal a massive submarine docked at the same Soviet base,
23:08exactly as McMoneagle described.
23:12To the Americans, this type of sub becomes known as Typhoon.
23:17Later made famous by Tom Clancy's The Hunt for Red October.
23:22But it's what the Soviets call the sub that really gets heads spinning.
23:27They call it shark, just like McMoneagle first declared when he was attempting to remotely view the site.
23:34It's a shark.
23:36You'd think a success like this would cause the military to double down.
23:41But apparently, not everyone's convinced.
23:44The CIA argues that Project Stargate is wasteful, and its results are inconsistent and hard to verify in real time.
23:53In 1984, a National Academy of Sciences report backs them up, concluding remote viewing relies on poor methodology and cherry
24:02-picked data.
24:03The U.S. Army shuts down the program as a result.
24:09But just a year later, in late 1985, the Defense Intelligence Agency steps in to continue funding the work.
24:17That's too late for Joe McMoneagle, who had already retired in 1984.
24:22By the end of his service, McMoneagle says he was involved in hundreds of remote viewing missions.
24:28Though it's worth noting, the results of his work remain classified, with no public paper trail to independently verify them.
24:36Still, McMoneagle would not be the last remote viewer to claim the program produced real results.
24:47On May 15, 1987, remote viewer Paul Smith, a one-time co-worker of McMoneagle, claims to see something terrible
24:56during a session.
24:59An American ship under fire from missiles launched by an enemy aircraft from a desert region.
25:05It's the height of the Iran-Iraq war, and tensions in the Gulf are at an all-time high.
25:12Smith says his warning is passed up the chain of command, but officials see nothing they can act on.
25:20Two days later, news breaks.
25:23The USS Stark, a U.S. Navy destroyer, is struck by two missiles from an Iraqi jet.
25:31Thirty-seven sailors are killed.
25:33Remote viewing skeptics chalk it up to coincidence.
25:38The program also suffers some clear failures.
25:41In 1988, the DIA reportedly turns to Project Stargate to help locate William Higgins, a Marine colonel taken hostage in
25:50Lebanon.
25:51A remote viewer supposedly claimed to vision that he was alive and being held at an underground location.
25:58But the information doesn't lead to his rescue, and Higgins is eventually found dead.
26:06With a much-disputed record of success, Project Stargate comes to an abrupt end once again in 1995, after a
26:14U.S. government review conducted for the CIA concludes that remote viewing fails to produce reliable, actionable intelligence.
26:23Most of the documents relating to program operations remained classified, fueling decades of rumor and speculation about what the government
26:32might still be hiding.
26:34For more than 20 years, those files sit buried in archives, sealed away from public view.
26:40But then, in 2017, everything changes.
26:43The CIA quietly uploads millions of declassified documents to its online Crest Archive, and hidden among them are the long
26:53-lost records of Project Stargate, and what they reveal is staggering.
27:03After years of secrecy, classified files tied to the government's experiments in psychic intelligence are finally declassified.
27:13For the first time, the public can access over 12,000 Stargate documents from CIA headquarters in Langley.
27:21Even the former remote viewers themselves step forward, eager to prove their incredible stories.
27:26Paul Smith, who claims he predicted the missile attack on the USS Stark, is at the front of the line.
27:33One of the things I found exciting about the archives becoming public, finally, was that it allowed me to get
27:39back into them and find my session against the ship that was attacked by the Iraqi jet, the USS Stark.
27:48And I found the typescript of that session.
27:51But what was maybe even more exciting was that I found the documentation for the Typhoon Submarine project that Joe
28:03McMoneagle is famous for, with the sketches, the descriptions, everything.
28:08And it absolutely matched the story that had been passed down to us.
28:12So this is documentation that proved that it really happened.
28:16Not only that, the CIA files reveal that plenty of government officials believed the program was getting results.
28:23For the first time, we can show McMoneagle's sketch of the Soviet base, supposedly attained through remote viewing.
28:30We can also show that it eerily matches the actual satellite images of the site.
28:37Some even go so far as to say that the data gathered through remote viewing was generally consistent with later
28:43intelligence and assessments.
28:46We were doing things, of course, that humans aren't supposed to be able to do, and yet here we were
28:51doing them.
28:52And if this was impossible and wasn't real, we shouldn't get it right ever.
28:58And yet, we actually have the evidence that we have gotten it right many, many, many times.
29:05While believers like Paul Smith argue Project Stargate proved the mind can reach beyond the limits of space and time,
29:13it should be noted that a number of the declassified CIA files tell a different story.
29:18One of lucky guesses and vague details stretched to fit facts that developed at a later date.
29:25The divide endures, yet the accounts of these former remote viewers remain fascinating,
29:31leaving many to wonder, were they really on the verge of an extraordinary breakthrough in mental espionage?
29:38To answer that question, well, you'd need to be psychic.
29:47The year is 71 BC on the banks of the Solarius River in southern Italy.
29:53An army has just been defeated in battle, valiantly led by this dying man.
29:59He is a former slave, turned gladiator, turned general.
30:03No, it's not Russell Crowe's fictional character from the movie Gladiator.
30:07This is a real person. Or at least, he might be. His name is Spartacus.
30:13Legend says that for the last two years, he's led nearly 120,000 slaves in a rebel uprising against the
30:21Roman Republic.
30:22Until it ends with his death.
30:25Did this one man really fight his way out of slavery and nearly take down the mighty Romans?
30:32Or is all of this just a myth?
30:34For 2,000 years, there will be no definitive proof that Spartacus existed at all.
30:40But a remarkable archaeological discovery may change all that.
30:53If you know the name Spartacus, it's probably thanks to Kirk Douglas' iconic on-screen portrayal in Stanley Kubrick's 1960
31:01film.
31:02Or perhaps through the more recent TV series.
31:06But as for the real story of Spartacus, curiously, we know almost nothing firsthand.
31:13No written eyewitness accounts, no definitive archaeological evidence.
31:17Instead, almost everything we think we know is written over a century after his death by the two ancient historians
31:24behind me, Plutarch and Appian.
31:26They wrote their accounts separately, decades apart, but the story they tell is quite the tale.
31:35According to ancient historians, Spartacus was born around 103 BC in Thrace, then a province of Rome, but what today
31:44is an area of Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey.
31:48He was likely raised as a free tribesman before serving in the Roman army, probably as an auxiliary soldier.
31:55Which means he fought for Rome, but without the full protections of a Roman citizen.
32:01But before long, Spartacus is no longer an ally of the Roman army.
32:06He ends up on the run after abandoning his post, and under Roman law, desertion is punishable by death.
32:15But because of Spartacus's size and strength, he isn't executed.
32:20Instead, he becomes a Roman slave and sent to become a gladiator in southern Italy.
32:28Here, Spartacus has one simple, brutal job.
32:32Fight to the death.
32:34While some gladiators were free men who fought by choice,
32:39Most were enslaved men like Spartacus.
32:43They had few rights.
32:45Their only chance to ever earn their freedom was through deadly combat.
32:50For Spartacus, if he is to die, he believes it should be on his own terms.
32:56At this time, much of Rome's power depends on slave labor, with more than a million people in servitude.
33:03With so many in bondage, revolts are a huge threat.
33:08And according to Appian and Plutarch, in 73 BC, Spartacus hatches an escape plan,
33:15Organizing a band of about 70 other gladiators, ready to fight for their freedom.
33:22Under cover of darkness, they manage to overthrow the guards.
33:28They then retreat to a hideout near Mount Vesuvius.
33:32Twice, the Romans send a small band of soldiers after them,
33:36But Spartacus and the other gladiators easily beat them back.
33:41Even overwhelming their forces to steal proper military equipment.
33:46The histories record that for months, Rome treats Spartacus' revolt like a mosquito bite,
33:52More an annoyance than a military threat.
33:55This underestimation allows Spartacus to spend time gathering more and more rebels to his cause.
34:01His army is growing fast.
34:10By the spring of 72 BC, legend says that Spartacus' forces swell to 120,000.
34:19An almost unbelievable number.
34:22What will become known as the Third Servile War is about to begin.
34:27Rome finally wakes up, and they send two legions, about 10,000 soldiers, to fight him.
34:34Initially, they are successful, cutting down about 30,000 of Spartacus' men.
34:39But despite the Roman army's superior training, Spartacus' overwhelming numbers prevail on the battlefields.
34:50It's a crushing blow for the mighty Republic.
34:54It is an extraordinary legend that has been told for centuries.
34:59But is it true?
35:00Is the uprising as epic as history claims?
35:04Furthermore, did Spartacus really exist?
35:07Now, a discovery hidden in the forests of modern-day Italy may finally offer answers.
35:19In 71 BC, following a humiliating defeat after a slave uprising, Rome prepares to finish off their leader, Spartacus, once
35:28and for all.
35:29The Republic sends nearly 50,000 elite soldiers to hunt him down in southern Italy,
35:35led by one of its most powerful and ambitious generals, Marcus Licinius Crassus.
35:41He has a single mission, kill Spartacus.
35:46As Roman pressure mounts, Spartacus and his army are pushed toward the narrow toe of southern Italy.
35:53To the south lies the Mediterranean Sea, but Spartacus has no navy, no escape route, and nowhere left to run.
36:01Crassus sees his opportunity.
36:04According to Plutarch, Crassus orders the rapid construction of a massive wall nearly 40 miles long.
36:11stretching from sea to sea across the peninsula, effectively sealing in Spartacus and his forces.
36:18The wall will also become a turning point that will shape the final chapter of this epic rebellion.
36:25Once construction of the wall is complete, Crassus then attacks, knowing that Spartacus has nowhere to hide.
36:34The rebel supposedly recognizes he has no way out and asks for a truce.
36:40But Crassus wants blood, denying the request and forcing Spartacus into a fight for his life.
36:48What is said to follow is a brutal battle, with both sides losing tens of thousands of men.
36:54Remarkably, Spartacus breaks through the Romans' barricade, but it costs him a huge portion of his army.
37:02It isn't long before Crassus' legions catch what's left of the rebels, forcing Spartacus into his final stand near the
37:10Solarius River,
37:11where the slave turned rebel general is wounded by a spear to the thigh.
37:22Spartacus forces are decimated.
37:25And with that, the man himself finally succumbs to the might of Rome.
37:30Or so we're told.
37:34The fact is, archaeologists have never found any evidence of Spartacus.
37:39No grave, no first-hand accounts.
37:41The historians who recorded his story were writing hundreds of years after his death.
37:46But that lack of evidence would seemingly change in 2024, when Paolo Visona, a classical archaeologist at the University of
37:54Kentucky, was on an expedition in southern Italy.
37:57In 2024, we were in southern Italy, and I was accosted by a group of local environmentalists who had wanted
38:07to show me some photos on their cell phones.
38:10And this is when I saw the first images of this wall.
38:15In my 30-plus year career doing fieldwork, I had never seen anything like it.
38:23So I needed to see it.
38:25When Visona and his team arrived at the site, it became clear that the small photo shown to him on
38:31that cell phone was only the beginning of something much, much bigger.
38:35Their investigation would soon blow the archaeological community away.
38:40We walked the wall with a GPS receiver so that we could plot the route of the wall.
38:46And the wall turned out to be almost two kilometers in length from east to west.
38:54What would the wall that long be doing in such a remote area on a mountain top in the middle
39:01of a forest?
39:02And then we deployed the magnetometer, and sure enough, we found the presence of the gully on one side of
39:10the wall.
39:11And only on one side, the southern side of the wall, all the way to the end.
39:18And they corroborated Plutarch's description of the fortification consisting of a ditch and a wall.
39:26So that made it possible that this could be Crassus' wall.
39:32But the metal detector was a clincher because the metal detector produced a number of objects, some of which were
39:39believed to be Roman.
39:41And these objects included fragments of weapons.
39:47They could fit a very narrow time period between 75 and 50 BCE, which is the time period within which
39:58we have the Spartacus War.
40:01Vissona believed he had found the wall that the Romans used to defeat Spartacus.
40:07If it's true, this would confirm the legend, the first physical evidence of Spartacus' stunning life.
40:14This was a planned operation that implied military strategy and also a large labor force,
40:23all of which would tend to support Plutarch's account.
40:27But it is clear that this system did not extend from sea to shining sea, like Plutarch's description.
40:35In other words, the archaeology that we have done both proves and disproves
40:41the veracity of Plutarch's account.
40:45It reminds us that we can never take ancient literary sources at face value.
40:51But in any case, I believe with confidence that this most likely was the fortification system built by Crassus.
41:02So did Spartacus truly rise up from nothing to nearly overthrow the Roman Republic?
41:08It seems more possible than ever, thanks to the evidence uncovered by Dr. Vissona's team.
41:13To this day, Italian researchers continue to investigate the site.
41:18And with any luck, more evidence will be discovered.
41:21Enough, perhaps, to finally free Spartacus from the chains of rumor.
41:25The freedom fighter, enslaved no more.
41:28I'm Spartacus. No, wait, I'm Josh Gates.
41:31And I'll see you on the next Expedition.
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