foreign years ago one civilization held the entire Western World in its grasp from northern Europe to Africa and the Middle East it imposed laws ideas and a single language [Music] for two Millennia we've dreamed of its cities and its triumphs its idealism and its decadence Rome the power and the glory thank you [Music] [Music] over a thousand years after Rome's fall the armies of the French Emperor Napoleon descend on the city Napoleon's forces have already battled their way through Europe take Rome seems by this time it's a Backwater but for Napoleon it has an almost religious significance he claims he's the spiritual descendant of the Roman emperors he has himself painted wearing the Roman crown of laurels as if Rome still rules the world his troops March unopposed into the city [Music] it's like walking into a ghost town they find the frightened Romans hustling among the ruins of the ancient city crumbling palaces and arches still seem to Echo the Magnificent triumphs they were built to celebrate [Music] goats and cattle Grays where thousands once thronged the streets foreign A.D when the emperor vespasen started building the massive Coliseum Rome was 10 times larger than the city Napoleon found the space in one of the great theater for the Gory spectacles Romans so loved [Music] scale of the Roman games like the scale of Rome itself was staggering [Music] Coliseum had seating for 45 000 and standing room for twenty thousand more [Music] series of games 5 000 people and eleven thousand animals were slaughtered nothing in Hollywood could compare with this gruesome splatterfest [Music] the blood and brutality were all too real and the Romans were addicted to it [Applause] when he saw the blood rather than turn away he fixed his eyes on the scene and took in all its Frenzy he reveled in the wickedness of the fighting and grew intoxicated with the bloodshed when he left the arena he took with him a sick which left him no peace until he came back again Saint Augustine they did get excited watching Gladiators kill one another I'm not denying that but you know what so do we I think for example of the brouhaha over Mike Tyson right what Mike Tyson did when he bit Evander Holyfield's here that would have been applauded in the Roman Arena that's great that's what you saw in fact you're supposed to rip the ear off and and March around the arena with it in your mouth that's what you're supposed to do foreign savagery was matched by its size when the Coliseum was built Rome was a city of a million people and growing not until London of the 19th century would a city approach this size again [Music] what I think you'd notice if a time traveler went back would be the smell the noise the dirt the crowdedness I think there'll be lots of Beggars lots of signs of sickness disease lots of small children we rather like Calcutta or Rio crowded modern Town very poor with these Monumental buildings in the center expressing the wealth and power of the empire traffic was terrible Julius Caesar forbade wheeled traffic during the day so people could move around which meant that at night all these carts started going on these Stone streets and it was so noisy that you couldn't sleep to manage the problems of organizing such a huge concentration of people the Romans invented the science of urban planning invented cement built gigantic public store houses and installed city-wide sewage systems but their greatest achievement was the water supply aqueducts of Rome reached 60 and 70 miles into the hills to guarantee a continual flow of fresh water into the city that flow of fresh water provided enough of water gallons per person per day that was not equaled by the city of Rome until the 1950s along with millions of gallons of water Romans consumed a staggering 8 000 tons of grain weekly super tankers each carrying a thousand tons of grain crisscross the Mediterranean they were the largest ships built until the Atlantic Steamers of the 19th century the city of Rome was the heart of an Empire that stretched from Scotland to Syria [Music] never has the Western World been better organized or more united [Music] in the year 100 A.D you could travel from Egypt to France on paved roads with only one currency and one passport in your pocket oh [Music] vast well-organized Empire would muster the largest army the world had ever seen [Music] Rome was the superpower of the ancient world [Music] later superpowers never stopped learning the lessons of its spectacular rise and fall Napoleon was not alone in his own twenty years before Napoleon marched into Rome on the other side of the Atlantic a group of men were designing a political system for their new country in designing the constitution of these United States of America we have at various times sought precedent in the history of that ancient Republic and endeavored to draw lessons both from its leading ideas and from the tumult and factions which finally brought it low Thomas Jefferson the American founding fathers spent most of their childhood in much of their adulthood reading the Latin classes to the founders the past was not something that was dead it was something that was alive especially the Roman past it was alive with personal and social meaning this was crucial I think to the American Revolution because they were doing something really unprecedented in this Revolution and it and yet they were able to feel that they were not the first the basis of our political system I think lies in Rome [Applause] the Western World grew up in Rome's shadow [Music] it's Legends its laws its institutions and its language Napoleon said the story of Rome is story of great commanders and politicians men like Caesar Augustus Hadrian and Constantine but it's also a story of the poor Who Bore the brunt of their leaders ambitions [Music] it's a story of vast idealism and an equally vast read for power and finally it's the story of Rome's spectacular fall and the chaos that followed [Music] thank you but behind all that are the stories of Rome's Beginnings almost 3 000 years ago in the Lush Hills of central Italy [Music] when the Mediterranean Sailors of ancient Greece and Egypt looked West toward Italy they stared into a great unknown it was 800 years before the birth of Christ and Rome still didn't exist but stories were told of mysterious peoples with strange exotic customs and Untold riches the tales were irresistible foreign setting off the great civilized cities of the East like Athens and tire adventurous Greek Traders sailed West into Uncharted Seas foreign [Music] by the stars without instruments they began to explore a remote and little-known peninsula of the Western Mediterranean [Music] they called it Hesperia land of the [Music] evil [Music] Westward Expansion Phoenicians going west Greeks going west founding colonies but when the Greeks sailed into Italy they found something they didn't expect in advanced civilization already there oh here in the hills of Tuscany there were already walled cities [Music] there were Kings and high priests there were skillful craftsmen who created a tender and sensuous art like no other in the Mediterranean and there were Traders ready to barter the finest gold and iron work the ancient world had ever seen foreign there were the Etruscans they taught the Romans everything but left no written records incredible the Etruscans were some of the most amazing artisans that the West has ever seen they worked in metal for sculpture they worked in terracotta and life-sized statues these amazing infighting Expressions very warm they're not cold and distant but they are they're they're people that you want to meet [Music] the Etruscans lived in the fertile Hills of Tuscany but their real wealth lay underground the richest deposits of iron ore copper and tin in the central Mediterranean [Music] as early as 700 BC they created shafts tunnels Subterranean galleries [Music] smelters and slag heaps so vast that two and a half thousand years later Mussolini reprocessed them to produce weapons for World War II [Music] Etruscans traded their metal work as far afield as Syria Portugal and even Sweden but above all the Etruscans were famous for their open displays of affection between men and women it shocked the ancient world [Music] the Greeks who knew the Etruscans from very early on before Rome was anything before Rome was saw that the Etruscan people gave a position to women that the Greeks certainly wouldn't not only were women part of the entire house women reclined at Banquets with men which for a Greek was absolutely unthinkable no shame for the Etruscans to be seen having sexual experience for this too is normal there it seems to be the local custom posidonius and they show no shame in sensuous Acts while the Torches are still lit servants bring in courtesans sometimes even their own wives and they all engage in love making publicly the apompous the Greeks and later the Romans love to embroider scandalous stories about the decadence of the Etruscans they were almost certainly untrue but it is true that the Etruscans created memorable portraits of sensual pleasure [Music] the idea of portraying such intimacy between men and women disappeared from Western Art for almost two thousand years [Music] the change began with the Romans who grew up in their shadow foreign the first Romans were primitive tough back woodsmen they resented the Etruscans but had everything to learn from them including the darker sides of civilization [Music] like all ancient people the Etruscans were rigidly divided by class brutal rituals enforced the power and Prestige of the nobility Etruscan staged games at the funerals of important men the losers were killed their blood celebrated The Prestige of the dead man and was an offering to his spirit [Applause] the wrestlers were slaves captured in Warfare their lives were worth nothing only their deaths were significant the practice of human sacrifice was common in the ancient world the Etruscans were no exception the blood of slaves and captives watered the ground at State rituals throughout the Mediterranean inherited the Etruscan taste for sacrificial gladiatorial combat was the Roman equivalent of these gory celebrations of power [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] Rome took everything from the Etruscans Etruscan Engineers showed them how to drain the marshes where Rome now stands and channel the water into underground sewers Etruscan Architects and Builders laid out the Roman Forum as a Public Square in the 7th Century BC though Romans owed everything to the Etruscans they would one day turn on them Crush their beautiful cities and defame their memory it would be the first step on Rome's path to Empire [Music] foreign most of what we know about the birth of Rome comes from the work of one man one of Rome's greatest historians Livy he lived in the reign of the Emperor Augustus over 700 years after the city was founded the glory of Rome was at its height but Romans were already haunted by the Specter of decline the empire was emerging from Decades of Civil War critical Intrigue were rampant [Music] decadence greed and profiteering were the order of the day to men like living raised on the Roman stoic virtues of Valor loyalty and self-sacrifice it seemed the spirit of Rome was rotten I feel that Indulgence has brought us through every 4 of sensual excess to be morbidly attracted to death in all its forms Rome is at the dark dawning of an age in which we can neither endure our vices nor face the remedies needed to cure them cure was what Emperor Augustus was looking for he cracked down on dissent and passed laws to punish immorality [Music] he was determined to reform the Empire and force a return to Roman family values body poets like Avid who wrote The Art of Love were banished to the Asian steps when his own daughter Julia was rumored to have slept with half the Senate Augustus banished her as well Livy saw in Augustus or in Octavian a chance for the world to finally settle down and get back to business what made Rome great to begin with you've got to go back and look who were the heroes of the past that made Rome the city she was I hope that history may be the best cure for a sick mind at least it can remind us of what we once were and show us the depths to which we are now sinking Livy set out to write a brief history of early Rome celebrating its glories and virtues propaganda for the reforms of Augustus what he had to go on were stories handed down over the centuries it were a mixture of fact and Legend five for one am looking forward to absorbing myself in antiquity I'm so deeply tired of the modern world and all the troubles which tormented living thank you he believed Rome's mythological Beginnings would reveal the stories of heroism and nobility Romans needed to hear foreign but the stories of Rome's Origins were short on stoic virtues and long on murder rape Mayhem and fratricide to his dismay Libby discovered they echoed the cruel realities of the Roman world of his own day [Music] Legends told that Rome was founded by Romulus and Remus twins who were cast Into the Wilderness to die the boys were said to be saved by a she-wolf who suckled them they grew up like Savages in the woods when they returned to found the city of Rome they were filled with the simple ferocious Spirit of their wolf mother [Music] according to Legend Romulus and Remus then LED their people to the bend in the river Tiber where she found them there Rome was born the year was 753 BC but hardly had they founded the city than the two brothers quarreled over who should be king it was left to the augers to decide augers were the priests of early Rome who divide the will of the gods they studied the movements of birds the weather the entrance of sheep before making their pronouncements known as the augeries foreign ERS placed each brother on a Hilltop then waited and birds flopped over Romulus they knew he would be the first king of thrones but Remus refused the augury and the brothers fought foreign killed him the first king of Rome suckled by a wolf bathed in his brother's blood walked away Furious and triumphant it was a fitting augury for the Bloodshed and strife that lay ahead the story about Romulus killing his twin brother and the member of the founding of the city is a very old story it's it's very very remarkable that in the late Republic the Romans were fighting Civil Wars and of course [Music] Escape that notice that there seemed to be prefigured in the in the myth with Romulus killing his brother they actually thought this was a sort of curse on them that they were fated to to destroy each other well the whole Roman Reiki [Music] that's based on fat fratricide right one brother kills another to found a city um and from that point it just escalates [Music] the violence of the early Romans in fact and fiction was born of desperation in real life shunned by neighboring tribes Rome was forced to welcome outcasts vagrants and fugitives and they lured their neighbors the sabines to a ritual of peacemaking and they're all pretty desperate a lot and around the earliest community that is organized in that way of course there's a place where no woman wants to go so they haven't got any women that's the first problem and so the Romans Romulus in particular got an idea new religious Festival let's invite the neighbors bring your wife and kids especially the daughters the sabines were wary but accepted as the festivities went on into the night the sabines relaxed their guard it was what the Romans were waiting for Romulus gave the sign and they attacked they grabbed the women and drove off to say by me once they didn't kill foreign [Music] ERS of a later age portrayed the rape of the Sabine Women they imagined a classical City they were wrong the early Romans were primitive people struggling desperately to survive the Grimm stories of the first Romans were as surprising to Livy as they are to us they certainly didn't provide the role models he was looking for foreign his little book turned into one of the most Monumental histories ever written by the time he died in 17 A.D it had grown to 142 volumes all written laboriously in wax [Music] it had absorbed his entire life Livy's Chronicle was the best seller of its day it was more successful than he could ever have hoped had no effect whatsoever on the moral chaos of Empire even 142 books were no match for the influence of so much power by now Rome was a Juggernog whose momentum was Unstoppable its course set by its Mythic Beginnings whether fact or fiction [Music] as it approached the 5th Century BC Rome was emerging from its legendary past in a world of recorded history it was now a thriving province of the Etruscan world ruled by Etruscan Kings primitive mud and thatch Huts of Rome's early days had given way to a city of brick thank you Rome was absorbing people from surrounding lands and growing fast Etruscan and Greek Traders met in its busy streets Phoenician boats from Sicily and North Africa sailed the Tiger wine olives and gold flooded into Italy but Rome was still no different from many other prosperous cities of the Mediterranean but first set it apart was not its capacity for trade or engineering or even Warfare but its ability to organize itself [Music] man who reshaped Roman society was an Etruscan King called servius tullius there are no statues of him we have no idea what he looked like he never became as famous as later rulers of Rome but his mark on history may be even greater and yet all servius tullius did was carry out history's first census census the Roman senses are a very important institution they would the Roman citizens all right and list them and then distribute them in their appropriate classes and political units and so on the census was a kind of way of grading Roman citizens according to their status and prestige in the 6th Century BC the census detailed every Roman's obligations to the city to obey its laws pay taxes and do military service [Music] but much more important it also gave them rights [Music] this was the great innovation of service in proportion to their contribution Romans were given a say on how their city was run Serbia sowed the seeds representational government he organized an assembly to govern the city and gave it a name Senate [Music] finally the census decreed that each of the city's social classes should contribute a group of soldiers for Rome's defense they were called the legions the fighting force that was going to put Rome's Destiny back in its own hands and one day give it the world foreign [Music] equality or democracy Rome remained a society governed by Kings and Nobles women had few rights but it created a level of organization unheard of in the ancient world no man did more for Rome than the Etruscan King service his reforms laid the foundations for Rome's greatest achievement the creation of the Republic but like so many Roman rulers he was brought down by treachery and intrigue the king's own daughter wanted her husband tarquin on the throne her henchmen knew how to get him there and after they murdered the great king power and paranoia went hand in hand in Rome [Music] for almost two centuries Rome had been ruled by Etruscan Kings and Etruscan Mobility foreign things had gone well under tarquin his successor brutality and decadence flourished while he and his relatives devoted themselves to pleasure their henchmen carried out campaigns of political murder to remove any and all opposition [Music] we're beginning to trust and stood for resentment smoldered foreign [Music] Lucretia was the spark that would set it on fire she was well loved and highly regarded for her kindness Beauty and loyalty she represented everything Romans felt they had and the Etruscans didn't honor virtue bravery [Music] one day the King's son and son of his Etruscan nobles were on a journey away from Rome drunk they decided to creep back into the City and spy on the most beautiful women to see what they were up to they found their own wives as expected partying [Music] they found Lucretia hard at work because this was an indication of good virtuous matronly Behavior right this is how Roman women should behave they should not be sleeping with 300 members of the Senate like augustus's daughter allegedly did they're not supposed to be poisoning members of their family as Livia allegedly did they're supposed to be producing cloth the next night when he knew lucretia's husband was away King tarquin's son crept back to her house alone foreign he raped her and swore that if she breathed the word of it he'd kill her that would be unnecessary the next day too proud to live with her dishonor krisha killed herself Romans went wild mobs tore through the streets and attacked the truscans wherever they found them a Stern nobleman named Brutus organized a furious attack on the Etruscan King in his courtiers they were overwhelmed and fled for their lives Romans were finally free of their Etruscan overlords lucretia's Legacy to Rome was its freedom [Music] Romans vowed they would never again live under a king so how exactly were they going to live would they govern themselves their solution was momentous they declared that the Affairs of Rome would belong to the people that citizens would vote and that Rome would be a res publica a public Affair a republic government would no longer be the business of Kings Rome would be ruled by laws and elected officials first two elected leaders called consulates were Brutus and lucretia's widowed husband and so King was replaced with first two breeders eventually two consuls with two both of them in agreement on everything elected annually so that no one person ever had very much power for very long at all this paranoia about Kings continues all the way through Roman history in ways he never could have imagined xervious's census had borne fruit the new Republic would be organized according to voting categories and classes he put in place 40 years earlier the birth of the Republic staked Rome's claim to a place in history spqr was the Republic's Banner sonatos popular Romanos Senate and people of Rome it was the ancient world's first representational government it paved the way for Rome's glories and all democracies to come [Music] Romans set themselves free from the Etruscans in 510 BC next they needed to be sure they stayed free thank you so they set about building the fiercest fighting machine the world had ever seen and now it had its Old Masters to practice against foreign [Music] declared its independence it was at war with the Etruscans who fought desperately to regain their old possession they were no match for the highly disciplined Roman Legions who'd fight to the death to defend Rome's Liberty as Roman soldiers fought for the Republic a man named codified its leading ideas This legal system set a remarkable precedent for republics of the future [Music] two thousand years later when the founding fathers of the United States needed to defend their constitution they too wrote Under the name of Publius I think the American Revolution was an exciting period for the founding fathers they were excited by the opportunity to match their ancient Heroes struggles against tyranny in a sense to rival the noble Deeds they had spent their youth reading about and they were thrilled by this idea by this thought that they were beginning Anew the work of the ancient Republicans only this time with an unprecedented a chance of success throughout the 5th Century BC the struggle for the Republic went on Rome and the nearest Etruscan City they faced each other across the Tiber in an endless stalemate of attack and counter-attack and finally after Decades of bitter skirmishing a Roman army battled its way toward the Etruscan City the year was 392 BC their goal was to take Day by storm and once and for all bring to an end the Etruscan threat to Rome's survival the truscan soldiers fought furiously at the city walls priests prayed to their gods to save them from destruction [Music] the Romans smashed through the Etruscan defenses and laid waste to the city they slaughtered the man and made slaves of the women [Music] it was Rome's first great Victory there would be many more each celebrated by the building of a triumphal Arch a monument to the glory of Victory and the humiliation of the defeated Rome now piled Victory upon Victory all across Italy as one by one her neighbors fell to the legions Rome's rise was gathering momentum and by now seemed Unstoppable but she suffered one setback which haunted the Empire forever [Music] the year was 386 BC Horsemen appeared and thundered told Rome Romans called them barbarians they were Celts from golf present-day France the goals were a war-like people but this time they weren't looking for battle [Music] Wars with their neighbors had pushed them out of their own territory now they needed a new home Rhone dominated Central Italy so the Gauls asked them for territory [Music] Roman envoys refused Point Blank who did these barbarians think they were to presume upon Rome in this way they'd insulted the gods which was a mistake the Gauls descended on wrong in a fury but they weren't given they would take Romans were Fierce Warriors but had no idea how to fight these people who charged into battle in a suicidal Frenzy savagery even by Roman standards was terrified by surprise the Romans barricaded themselves inside their city and hoped these terrifying wild men would go away thank you the balls smashed their way into the City and ransacked [Music] the Romans only escaped being slaughtered by paying the goals everything they had to move on and leave them in peace [Music] Rome's humiliation was complete the words of the gallic chieftain as he exacted his crushing payment would ring in Roman ears for centuries to come woe to the vanquished thank you Rome Rose from this Devastation stronger better organized more determined than ever than have forged an iron spirit and a civilized code of honor the stoic virtues of Valor discipline and self-sacrifice [Music] that code produced soldiers and commanders with an unflinching dedication to duty one of the most famous was Cincinnatus Cincinnatus was a Roman who came to embody the classic virtues like no other [Music] although a nobleman he liked to work his Fields with his own hands one day as he worked a messenger arrived with news that Rome was being attacked and in such an emergency situation as this the Roman Constitution called for the appointment of a dictator somebody who would be elected by the people but then once selected would have absolute power life and death power over all citizens but only for a maximum of six months [Music] he dropped his plow hurried to the city took up command of the army and was named dictator he quickly won a great Victory and returned to the city in Triumph now he could have stayed on and he and he could have used his power as he wished but the very day that he returned to the city we're told he immediately resigned to the office of dictator walked back to his farm outside the city and continued to plow his farm and the Romans loved to tell that story because here was a man who was totally selfless who cared nothing for his own for his own livelihood for his own life but Mary to serve wish to serve so it's no accident [Music] one of the most sculptures in American history is that of George Washington as a Cincinnatus George Washington knew that many people compared him with Cincinnatus and he liked that and he consciously worked to encourage that image and so for instance during the darkest periods of the war when some thought maybe he should resign he held off that resignation because he wanted to do like Cincinnatus did wait until the enemy Was Defeated and then in a in a Big Show laid down his power which he did and he retired to his own plow at Mount Vernon Cincinnatus became the role model of the Roman politician commanders Napoleon so admired he embodied the code of conduct that powered Rome's rise and extended Rome's dominion over the entire Western world Rome's battles abroad would highlight the conflict within its own soul the struggle to resist the corrupting influence is so much power it would haunt the empire for centuries to come but first Rome's era of power and Glory was about to begin [Music] thank you [Music] foreign