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Archaeologists find traces of a sea-battle that transformed Ancient Rome; archaeologists investigate how Rome rose to dominate the ancient world....
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00:15Off the coast of Sicily, maritime archaeologists have discovered a mysterious artifact on the
00:23sea floor.
00:24It's incredibly exciting to be able to see this sitting here after more than 2,000 years.
00:28It may reveal clues about a fierce naval battle that completely changed ancient Rome's history.
00:37We have liftoff.
00:39I'm hoping it comes up in one piece.
00:55Rome, the Eternal City.
00:58Two thousand years ago, it was the greatest city of the ancient world and the heart of
01:06a mighty empire that stretched for almost three million square miles.
01:12Today, teams of archaeologists dig Rome and its empire, searching for clues to understand
01:19how this city rose to dominate so much of the ancient world.
01:24For me, as an archaeologist, this is a great site because you can see the growth and the
01:30rise of the Roman Empire.
01:32How did this one city conquer the entire Italian peninsula, the Mediterranean world and beyond?
01:41We follow excavators as they investigate how Rome and its people drove an incredible expansion
01:48expansion from city-state to imperial power.
01:54In search of answers, Canadian archaeologist Eve MacDonald has come to the heart of the ancient
02:01capital.
02:02Here it is, the Roman Forum, the center of the city of Rome.
02:10Rome, the very essence of the city that became a world empire.
02:17Eve has been studying the Romans for over 20 years.
02:22I find the Romans absolutely fascinating.
02:24If you don't understand the Romans, you really can't understand so much of Mediterranean history,
02:30of world history.
02:34To see evidence of Rome's early ambitions of conquest, she's heading to one of the city's
02:40oldest structures, built in the 4th century BC.
02:47Here we have a massive defensive wall.
02:52These stones that we look at come from a site outside of Rome itself.
02:57They were quarried from a city called Veii, which isn't very far away.
03:01It's only on a tributary of the Tiber River.
03:04But it is a symbolic place because it stands for one of Rome's great early conquests.
03:11From its earliest times, Rome had a thirst for war and conquest.
03:17Even before it was a powerful city.
03:23In the 4th century BC, Rome was a vulnerable city-state.
03:29It had a track for chariot racing and mass entertainment, the Circus Maximus.
03:36Temples for worshipping gods and for public meetings.
03:39And many houses made of mud brick and wood.
03:44It was spread across seven hills, an area of 610 acres, and was protected by a huge wall,
03:5332 feet tall, built in response to repeated attacks.
03:59How did this city begin the conquests that led to its complete control of the Mediterranean world?
04:09This wall tells us about two aspects of the Romans.
04:12One is their aggressive conquest of their neighbours, with their taking of the city of Veii.
04:18And the other is their incredible resilience in the face of challenge.
04:21It was a zero-sum game, conquer or be conquered.
04:28In Trapani, Sicily, 260 miles south of Rome...
04:33I think moving further east to delineate the battle site is a great plan.
04:39Maritime archaeologist Peter Campbell and his colleagues from the RPM Nautical Foundation
04:44are setting sail on a state-of-the-art research vessel, the Hercules.
04:50They're looking for traces of a brutal naval battle fought in the 3rd century B.C.
04:57The Battle of the Egity Islands is one of the most important ancient naval battles that took place.
05:03This is a point where history changed.
05:06First lap, tourist boat in Trepido is approaching on your port side.
05:12Peter is a specialist in ancient marine warfare.
05:15He hopes the mission will provide clues to how the Romans mastered the seas to achieve one of their most
05:22important conquests.
05:24The significance of this battle is that Rome took on Carthage, which was a superpower at the time.
05:31It's really exciting to be part of this project for me because there's very little evidence for ancient warships that
05:37has survived.
05:38Ancient historical accounts reveal the clash took place off the western coast of Sicily.
05:44To identify the full extent of the battlefield, the investigators used the very latest search technology,
05:51including side-scan sonars, which map the seabed.
05:55The search area is 5.5 times larger than Manhattan, and we're sitting on a research vessel 100 meters above
06:03the seafloor.
06:04So it's a bit like searching for objects that are less than a meter wide from sitting on top of
06:10the Empire State Building.
06:12Peter and the team have identified anomalies on the seafloor.
06:17The challenge now is to examine each of these targets at a depth of 260 feet,
06:24and find out if they are traces of the battle.
06:31The archaeologists head to one of the most promising sites.
06:41The team launches a cutting-edge remote-operated vehicle, or ROV.
06:48The ROV serves as our eyes on the seafloor.
06:52Technology like this has revolutionized maritime archaeology.
06:56Long-lost treasures are now within reach.
07:01This underwater robot houses a high-res camera, allowing the archaeologists to study their targets close up.
07:14With the ROV successfully deployed, Peter and the team can now examine every inch of the seafloor.
07:24If you spin left, we might have a little flicker of something.
07:28We can try and see if anything flashes.
07:33Dave, you know what current is here? 1.0 from 350.
07:37The ROV moves carefully from target to target.
07:42Got something there, about eight meters away.
07:46I think it's a rock. What do you guys say?
07:48Rock.
07:49All right, let's keep moving.
07:52If you come back up...
07:56It's a bit like looking for a needle in the world's largest haystack.
07:59So what we're trying to do here is search this area and hope that something pops out of the abyss.
08:12Visual contact.
08:14Suddenly, the image on screen gets everyone excited.
08:20Moving to the lab stop.
08:23Large visual contact here.
08:28Trying to keep you up, down.
08:29Looking down.
08:30There it is.
08:31That's a beauty.
08:33Bingo.
08:36In Terra Cina, 50 miles southeast of Rome, a team of archaeologists is digging at an intriguing site on top
08:45of a mountain.
08:47This is the central place where all the people from Terra Cina are coming together to worship their gods.
09:00Archaeologists Paul Shedding and Francesca Diasono are leading the excavation.
09:06The thing that I enjoy the most being an archaeologist is that you can touch history, so you have real
09:12objects you can touch.
09:14We have so much work to do now in a wonderful landscape.
09:19Terra Cina is a very ancient settlement, dating from at least 600 BC, and it was one of Rome's neighbors.
09:27Paul and Francesca hope it can yield clues to the early stages of Roman expansion within the Italian peninsula.
09:35Hey guys, how are you doing?
09:37Hi.
09:38Something special?
09:40Yes.
09:41Oh, we found an ingot.
09:43It's a piece of lead.
09:45Yes.
09:46An inscription.
09:47Oh, it's very unusual to find it.
09:50Very rare.
09:50Yes.
09:53Inscriptions are valuable clues.
09:55The names and style of lettering can reveal their date.
10:00This is a V and the A, this has to be maybe.
10:03And this is also complete.
10:05Yes, and it's definitely Roman.
10:07So we have something in hand we can work on.
10:11This is an exciting day actually for us.
10:14The inscribed ingot shows the presence of the Romans on site, but not when they arrived and took over.
10:20To confirm the date, the archaeologists need much older evidence.
10:27Hi guys.
10:28How's it going?
10:29Fine.
10:31Francesca checks in with her team in another section of the site.
10:36How about the material, what you find?
10:38We found some pottery, some black glaze.
10:42I think it's a piece of pottery.
10:44Yes.
10:45You have to keep it.
10:47Every tiny shard of pottery they find can provide vital clues.
10:52To the expert eye, minute differences in shape and decoration can be evidence of place and time of production.
11:00We found big plates of Roman period from, I think, second century BC.
11:08This is a big jar for containing food.
11:13This is pre-Roman pottery, but it's very, very small.
11:18This is pre-Roman because it's handmade pottery.
11:22So, before Rome arriving here.
11:24The pre-Roman pottery is mostly found in deeper archaeological layers, which points to a date of Roman conquest.
11:33The Racinas Roman colony started at the end of the 4th century BC.
11:40From its earliest times, Rome started clashing with its neighbors and was slowly expanding.
11:49In the 4th century BC, it kept pushing south to Terracina and beyond to the Bay of Naples.
12:01By the middle of the 3rd century BC, Rome controlled most of the Italian peninsula.
12:12The excavation is going well for Paul and Francesca, but many mysteries remain unsolved here.
12:19The temples and the architecture were built in different steps.
12:25So, we want to get also a clue how this whole area developed and to link all the structures to
12:32the rise of Rome.
12:38Off the coast of Sicily...
12:40Look at that.
12:44Peter and the team are trying to work out what the sunken relic is.
12:50Oh, it's all twisted and covered in fishing line.
12:54Johnny, can we get on the back?
12:55Yep.
12:56Okay, I'll come up and start moving around so you can try and get a good overall view.
13:02The team hopes this evidence can identify a section of the battle site where Rome fought for mastery of the
13:09Mediterranean.
13:11Look at that.
13:12That's a ram.
13:17It's a bit of a jumble, but underneath all of that, it looks like a really impressive, robust ram.
13:24This ram was attached to the front of a ship.
13:29It was designed to strike and sink enemy vessels.
13:37This is an incredible discovery.
13:40It extends the battlefield and it tells us that it covered a huge territory, much larger than what we expected.
13:48Now, the archaeologists want to lift up the ram and examine it closely.
13:54They want to find out if it's Roman or Carthaginian.
13:59Team members Jim and Johnny are figuring out how to do it without damaging the fragile find.
14:06We're going to have to deal with that ship, the line that's snarled around it, and get some kind of
14:12rigging on it, don't you think, Johnny?
14:15Yeah.
14:15To bring it up.
14:16I think we need divers in the water to try and release that.
14:21In Tunis, the capital of Tunisia, archaeologist Najib Ben-Lazreg is investigating Rome's great rival in the Battle of the
14:31Agates, the Carthaginians.
14:35I became interested in archaeology after reading about a discovery done in Egypt.
14:42I knew that Tunisia is full of ancient sites.
14:45Wherever you dig, you find something.
14:49He heads to the seafront of the modern city, looking for ancient remains.
14:57We are in the middle of the military harbor, which was around.
15:02In the very middle, we have an artificial island, because the harbors were dug in the mainland.
15:08They didn't have jetties.
15:12Carthage's harbor was a masterpiece of ancient engineering.
15:15It could fit up to 220 warships.
15:21The foundation of the power of Carthage was due to their control of the sea waves.
15:30In the third century BC, Carthage was a major power.
15:36Their navy gave them control of territories on the Mediterranean coast.
15:41They had fought the Greeks for over 300 years to conquer western Sicily.
15:49In 264 BC, Carthage seized the port of Massana on the east coast of the island, only three miles from
15:57Roman territories on the Italian mainland.
16:03Sensing danger, Rome sent troops and ships to Sicily, triggering war with Carthage.
16:15Carthage in the third century BC was an important metropolis.
16:20The Carthaginians were master seafarers.
16:24Their ships outnumbered the Romans.
16:27So when the two fleets clashed off the Agates Islands, it was a crucial test of Rome's maritime ambition.
16:38500 miles north of Rome in Gunzenhausen, Germany, classical historian Boris Dreyer is leading a team of experimental archaeologists.
16:51Their innovative project aims to reveal the technology the Romans used to fight at sea.
16:59They have rebuilt two Roman boats based on wrecks found in the Danube and the Rhine, and want to test
17:06their speed and efficiency on water.
17:10The best preserved wrecks can be found here in Germany, not in the Mediterranean.
17:15They were fixed on the bottom of the river, so the conditions were airtight, and the ship could survive as
17:222,000 years.
17:26The wrecks only provide partial evidence.
17:31Boris has had to make some mathematical estimations in important places.
17:36This is the ram of the boat.
17:38We don't actually know the length of the ram.
17:42This length is just a guess, but they know that there must have been a ram.
17:48This boat is a quarter of the size of the ones used in the Battle of the Agates.
17:54Its ram is made of wood, unlike the bigger boats, whose ram was bronze or iron.
18:00Boris thinks the ram reduces the turbulence alongside the hull, and keeps the boat balanced as it cuts through the
18:07waves.
18:08This kind of design makes the boat more stable in water, because the boat is very shallow.
18:16The next challenge for Boris and the team is making the boat waterproof.
18:21He wants to try an ancient method, using hemp, one of the earliest plants to be spun into fibre in
18:29the ancient world.
18:30Hemp is important to make the space between the planks dense.
18:38The planks are pressing to each other, so that no water will come into the boat.
18:44When the wood is wet, it expands, compressing the hemp between the planks and sealing the hull.
18:52But problems soon emerge.
18:55So here is still about 20cm.
18:58I can't even get there.
19:01Some of the hemp has been pushed in too far, leaving gaps between the planks.
19:07I just have the iron.
19:09Yes, exactly.
19:09No.
19:11This can jeopardize the boat's seaworthiness, because the planks will not be locked together.
19:17Boris must make sure all the gaps are filled, or his boat could sink.
19:27In Terracina, Paul heads to the centre of the modern town.
19:35Here are some inscriptions left here.
19:39It's the letter I, then V or U, and S.
19:45This is the inscription of the man who financed the forum.
19:51The full inscription reads Aulus Aemilius.
19:55He was a wealthy Roman citizen.
19:58This is the ancient forum, and this is the actual ancient floor.
20:04Wherever Romans like Aulus Aemilius went, they rebuilt Rome.
20:10Their new subjects soon enjoyed the benefits of life under Roman rule.
20:15Right next to Terracina's forum, another ancient structure helps reveal how the Romans took control of all Italy.
20:24The most important thing here is the road over there, you can see, coming from the north and going through
20:33the south.
20:35This ancient road, the Via Appia, connects Terracina directly to Rome.
20:42It's evidence of an ingenious tactic of Roman control.
20:47In Rome, 50 miles north of Terracina, Eve examines traces of the same road leading out of the capital.
20:58This is this amazing example of one of the many, many, many thousands of tombs of people who wanted you
21:07to see as you walked into the city that they were prominent Romans.
21:13These many tombs of wealthy Romans reveal the importance of this road.
21:20It is the main entrance into the ancient city.
21:24Eve can date the road through these monuments.
21:28We often date portraits from the Roman period by the hairstyle.
21:33The hairstyle of the woman who's on the lap is very similar to the hairstyle that we see on some
21:41of the portraits of the first Roman Empress, Livia.
21:47That's Augustus Octavian's wife.
21:50So the first century BC would be a good date for the family here.
21:55The dates of these tombs reveal that by the first century BC, the Via Appia was already established as one
22:04of the most important highways in the ancient world.
22:08The Romans began building it almost as soon as they started expanding in the fourth century BC.
22:16The Via Appia led to Terracina to the south, extended southeast through Capua, ending at Brundisium in 264 BC.
22:33Spanning over 360 miles, it was the first superhighway the Romans ever built and was a vital route for marching
22:43armies and military supplies.
22:48This huge paved road, averaging 20 feet in width, allowed Rome to concentrate its troops rapidly and maintain control of
22:59far-flung territories.
23:00It was crucial to Rome's military domination of the Italian peninsula.
23:06Very early on in Rome's history, it has the ability to create massive infrastructure.
23:15In Terracina, at the dig site, Paul and Francesca are hunting for artifacts to date the buildings of the temple
23:24here and find new clues about Rome's expansion.
23:28But their project might have to come to a halt.
23:31There are thunderstorms coming from the north to Terracina.
23:35This is quite a difficult situation for us because we are on top of the mountain, so we are kind
23:41of exposed.
23:42Last year, the team sheltered in one of the ancient temples during a storm, and it was hit by lightning.
23:49Excavating in a thunderstorm is like the most dangerous thing that you can do.
23:55Everyone hurries off the site.
24:01In Gunzenhausen, Germany, Boris and his team are ready to put their Roman replica boat on water.
24:11Hello.
24:13Hello.
24:13Hello.
24:14How is it going?
24:15How is it going?
24:16Are we ready to take off?
24:18Oh, yeah, yeah.
24:19Hopefully it will not sank.
24:21They want to test its speed and efficiency to find out if shipbuilding, technology and engineering are the secret to
24:29Rome's expansion into the Mediterranean.
24:32First, they need to tow the 2.2-ton vessel out of the hangar.
24:42You may go ahead.
24:45You're ready.
24:46It has been a year in the making, so they take great care.
24:55Once out, Boris reverses the boat slowly into the water.
25:01No one knows if the ancient hemp waterproofing technique will work.
25:07There's a real risk.
25:09It will sink.
25:15The boat is finally afloat.
25:26But water starts seeping in.
25:31We just have to look.
25:32Yeah, it's not sure.
25:37Water is coming in, but it seems to be okay.
25:41It's the right amount of water.
25:42The boat can handle around three inches of water inside the hull, but more could become dangerous.
25:50This allows the planks to expand and lock the hemp inside.
25:59The Roman shipbuilding design is so far proving solid.
26:09Off the west coast of Sicily, the divers have cleaned up the ram and wrapped a strap around it.
26:21Peter and the team aboard the Hercules are getting ready to lift it.
26:30Okay, we've got a ram.
26:32Here we go.
26:33All right, start moving the boat, please.
26:35Request six meters, zero to zero.
26:41The main challenge is to attach the strap to the ship's powerful crane without damaging the brittle ram.
26:48Back deck, deploy the crane.
26:51Back deck, deploy the crane.
26:53First, the ROV has to pick up the heavy hook of the crane.
26:59If you could just keep an eye on the tether on the top left.
27:02Right.
27:03No, no, no.
27:04Left.
27:05We'll go with the left.
27:09Down.
27:10Oh.
27:12Okay.
27:12Then, it needs to pass the tether of the strap through the crane's hook.
27:18You have to spin around, come in that way.
27:20Back up.
27:21Back up.
27:22Back up.
27:23Let it clear.
27:24Each movement of the ROV kicks up sand.
27:27Reducing the water visibility.
27:30So, progress is slow.
27:32You got a straight shot in.
27:33Straight shot in.
27:35Push right.
27:38All right.
27:40Eventually, the two are connected.
27:43Does everybody agree we're clear?
27:45We're clear.
27:47All right, let's lift.
27:48The ram has been underwater for 2,300 years.
27:52There's a huge risk that lifting it will tear it apart.
27:57Everyone in the control room holds their breath.
28:01I'm hoping it comes up in one piece.
28:03Yeah.
28:04Up 3 meters.
28:06Coming up.
28:13In Gunzenhausen, Germany, Boris has enlisted the help of 18 students and volunteers.
28:23Loose the ropes.
28:25Okay.
28:26Ready at oars.
28:27Put the oars in the water.
28:29At the signal.
28:30Go.
28:31And go.
28:33And go.
28:34And go.
28:34They want to find out how fast a Roman ship is and how easy it is to maneuver.
28:39It could reveal if engineering gave Rome the edge in naval warfare.
28:45Against the wind.
28:47Yeah.
28:48Rowing against the wind.
28:50Very, very heavy.
28:52Difficult.
28:54Go!
28:57The strong winds bring the boat to a standstill.
29:02I can't hold my hands actually, but we have to continue rowing.
29:05Keep to the river!
29:08The Roman soldiers who rowed into battle needed their energy to fight.
29:14Far from shore, in the full blast of the wind, Boris is facing another challenge.
29:19There's no modern keel and we only have the grip of the rudders in the back part of the ship.
29:28The ancient keel of the boat is flat.
29:32It only extends around 13 inches underwater.
29:36The wind is coming from the side and the ship is drifting.
29:40In windy conditions, the flat boat drifts dangerously.
29:45Boris tries to direct his team and stabilize the course.
29:57In battle, losing control of the boat could be fatal.
30:04The Roman admirals and mariners must have been extremely well trained to navigate large ships at sea.
30:12Back on course, the boat quickly starts gaining speed.
30:18I think the design is rather good.
30:22So fast tripping.
30:24The boat averages four miles per hour, but it can reach up to eight miles per hour during a sprint.
30:32At this speed, plunging into another ship with a ram attached to the front would cause catastrophic damage.
30:52After almost two hours on the water, Boris and his team returned to harbour.
30:59Before starting, I thought it would be harder.
31:02I guess the wind is quite exhausting, but once we are at some speed, it's much easier.
31:08And I think we could do it for some hours.
31:11This boat is very easy to manoeuvre and one can understand that Roman soldiers are able to control the boat,
31:19to find the best position according to the wind.
31:21And I think the result is a success.
31:26With a fleet of hundreds of fast, well-built ships, the highly skilled Roman sailors had become a formidable match
31:34for their enemies, the Carthaginians.
31:43Off the coast of Sicily, the ram is finally coming out of the sea.
31:50We have liftoff.
31:52Step to the ram.
31:55Ram is at 8-0. Bring it to the surface.
31:59Everyone has gathered on deck for the big moment, including the Director of Underwater Cultural Heritage, Valeria Livini.
32:10The heavy ram has made it up in one piece.
32:19Peter, look, the force of the damage here produced a crack all the way up here.
32:26And also in teeth?
32:29Yes, yes.
32:31Damage on every face.
32:33It's made of cast bronze, but still bears traces of the violent clash that sank the ship it was attached
32:41to during the Battle of the Agates.
32:44The next challenge for Peter and Valeria is to work out if it's from a Roman or Carthaginian ship.
32:53No inscription.
32:55So forse it's Carthaginian.
32:57Forse.
32:58I think.
33:01The Romans usually decorate and inscribe their rams.
33:06The lack of any inscription suggests this one is Carthaginian.
33:12And remarkably, the size of the ram itself hints at the dimensions of the ship.
33:19And on the inside is the wood.
33:21Yeah.
33:23Three different timbers.
33:25Yeah.
33:26And this, I mean, this is a big keel.
33:27We really need to get some samples. Can we do that?
33:30We will.
33:32Great.
33:32I mean, it's big timbers that it's covering here.
33:35I mean, this would have been a big ship.
33:37The ship's size might have been a significant drawback.
33:41It made it harder to maneuver.
33:44This might even be the reason it was rammed and sank.
33:47This ship must have run into one that was much better made.
33:52And, uh, it must have just crushed like a can when it impacted the other vessel.
33:59For centuries, the Carthaginians ruled the Mediterranean.
34:04The rams on their ships were lethal weapons.
34:09In 241 BC, at the Battle of the Agates, they outnumbered the Romans, but were heavy with supplies.
34:22The Roman navy, now a match for their enemies, took down their masts and rode at speed into battle.
34:31They outmaneuvered the Carthaginians, ramming and sinking 50 of their ships and winning a shock victory.
34:45The unexpected naval victory changed the balance of power in the Mediterranean and opened the door for Rome's conquests overseas.
34:56This was an amazing mission that is rewriting what we know about the Roman navy, the Carthaginian navy and ancient
35:04military history.
35:05It really is giving insight into what it was like to be on board ships in the ancient period.
35:12Next season, Peter and the team plan to return and scour the seabed for more artifacts,
35:19to get a fuller picture of this defining Roman victory.
35:27In Tunis, Najib investigates how the loss of this battle affected Carthage.
35:36He heads to a very special site in the south of the city.
35:41We find several layers of burials.
35:44The earliest layers go back to 750 BC.
35:48The site is a tophet, a sacred burial place for children.
35:55This special cemetery was established at the same time as the city of Carthage, around the 8th century BC.
36:05Each of these stelae was placed next to an urn, which held the cremated remains of a child.
36:12Najib looks for the last burials.
36:15They stopped by the mid-2nd BC.
36:19Only 100 years after the Battle of the Agates, the Carthaginians abandoned their precious graveyard.
36:27The tophet functioned with a city, with people who lived here, and they buried their babies here.
36:33The use of such a cemetery stopped with the destruction of the city of Carthage.
36:42Najib looks for more clues of this devastating event.
36:46In a corner of the site, he finds an unexpected ancient construction.
36:51A vault.
36:53It was not built by the Carthaginians, because Carthaginians never knew the use of the vault, nor the arch.
37:04So it could be only Roman.
37:07The Romans built this vault and surely many other ones on top of the remains of Carthage.
37:13The Romans built over this precious burial site.
37:17It's evidence the Battle of the Agates wasn't the end of the rivalry.
37:24A few decades after the clash at sea, a Carthaginian warrior rose up.
37:30Hannibal.
37:31He crossed the Alps with war elephants, and wreaked havoc in Italy for 15 years.
37:38Then, in 204 BC, Roman General Scipio landed his army in North Africa, forcing Hannibal to return home.
37:47They fought an epic battle.
37:50The fast Roman cavalry massacred the Carthaginian infantry.
37:55Carthage signed a truce that lasted just 50 years, until Rome invaded and burned it to the ground,
38:02and later rebuilt it as their own city in Africa.
38:09In the second century BC, Rome's expansion engulfed the Carthaginian Empire, and was pushing even further.
38:24In Terra Cina, the storm has passed.
38:29Paul needs to assess its damage on the dig site.
38:34The storm last night was very terrible, so what are we doing?
38:39Today the soil is very wet.
38:41I think it's a good idea to make a little survey of the area we don't excavate, so we can
38:47find pottery.
38:49The team can use the setback to its advantage.
38:53The dark waterlogged soil means pale pottery is much more visible.
38:58We have a lot of fines, more fines than a normal day.
39:03The temple that once stood here is now in ruins, its remains scattered on the mountainside.
39:10The archaeologists hope these many pieces of pottery can reveal when the Romans built it, and what it looked like.
39:19Francesca spots something unexpected among the fines.
39:22This is one of the decoration of the temple, the terracotta.
39:26I think it's a flower or something like this.
39:29Yeah, that's amazing.
39:31Wow, yeah, this is an actual part of the architecture.
39:37Yes, this is the early decoration.
39:39The Romans used terracotta to help decorate their buildings.
39:43The style of these pieces can help pinpoint the date of their earliest temple on site.
39:50This is a Roman tile, you can say by the form.
39:53It was part of the roof.
39:55This must have been part of the second century BCE, more or less.
40:02From the second century BCE, the Romans built magnificent temples here.
40:09The largest was likely dedicated to Venus, their goddess of love, fertility and victory.
40:15They overlooked the commercial harbour of Terracina, and were a visual representation of Rome's power and riches.
40:28Picture yourself as an ancient Roman standing in the streets of Terracina, looking up the hill,
40:33and then the monumentalisation of these temples, like growing, growing and growing,
40:39as the empire was growing at this very time.
40:45Paul thinks the temple here is built on even greater spoils of war.
40:50He examines an extraordinary recent discovery, a terracotta head.
40:55What we see here is the most amazing piece we found just a couple of days ago.
41:01Paul compares its features to an established depiction of a famous warrior.
41:06The most recognisable feature is that he's turning his head, and you can see it here.
41:12So it gives you an expression that he is in a dynamic position and looking through the landscape,
41:20also the armies he's in control of.
41:24We are quite sure that it's Alexander the Great.
41:27Alexander the Great built a huge empire in the 4th century BC.
41:34Paul thinks the Romans wanted to follow his example.
41:38Alexander the Great, he conquered the East until modern India.
41:43And now the Romans starting to conquer this territory which was already conquered by Alexander the Great.
41:50So this is really a symbol for the power of Rome in the East.
41:55The Romans conquered Alexander's homeland, Greece, in the middle of the 2nd century BC.
42:01Just as they conquered Carthage.
42:04These incredible victories established Rome as the new military powerhouse of the ancient Mediterranean world.
42:12You show the man who had conquered the world and now the Romans had conquered the world.
42:23In Rome, Eve examines the ancient buildings inside the Forum.
42:31We see the Colosseum in the distance there, built on the spoils of conquest and war.
42:37We see triumphal arches.
42:40So when Roman victorious generals came back through to the city, cheering crowds would greet them
42:46and they would parade the spoils of conquest through the Forum.
42:53Rome's unexpected victory in the Battle of the Agates was a springboard for many more conquests,
43:00monumentalized in this famous capital city.
43:04They were the first to display their enormous power, potential, their military might in such grand terms.
43:14They're there for us to read and they're there for us to try and understand.
43:21The team's investigations have led to new evidence of how Rome first expanded into its immediate neighborhood.
43:29It then built imposing structures like temples and roads to control its growing territories and showcase its power.
43:42The Romans built a mighty fleet that defeated a formidable enemy, the Carthaginian Empire,
43:50and gave them control of the Mediterranean.
43:56Future excavations will add precious information to how one small city gained so much power that it dominated the ancient
44:05world.
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