All language subtitles for 05 - Rome Rise Fall - The Invasion of Britain

Previously on "Rome:
Rise and fall an empire"

Rome's defeat by the germanic tribes in 9 A.D.
shatters the illusion of Roman moral superiority.

What Rome calls civilization, her neighbors call tyranny.

It's a lesson Rome seems doomed to repeat.

Now:

In the first century A.D., Rome's forces find themselves
in a legendary land, which still lies beyond her reach:

Britannia.

Shrouded in dense forests and inhabited by strange savages,
it fascinates and terrifies the romans.

And conquering it will be a glorious feat,
worthy of a magnificent emperor.

ROME, RISE AND FALL OF AN EMPIRE

THE INVASION OF BRITAIN

For six centuries, the Roman empire
bends the ancient world to its will.

By the fourth decade A.D., it stretches from the
sands of Arabia to the rocky coast of the North sea

In every corner it seduces its enemies with trade and luxury

all backed by the iron fist of the most
disciplined army ever known to man.

The romans like to think of themselves
as bringing civilization to other places.

They were proud of the fact
that they were governing well.

They believed that Jupiter gave them this power.
Governing is their real strength.

Romans believe that this godly power
is vested in the emperor.

But not all emperors are divine.

In 41 A.D., the excesses of emperor
Caligula shake Rome to its core.

Caligula was a spoiled brat.

He may also have had mental illness.

We hear the stories about his naming
his horse a consul, for example.

He builds bridges just so he can ride
his chariot across them.

He does these bizarre things and just to have power,
to show that he has power.

Significant numbers of those people very close to
him began to feel that they were just in danger,

that the emperor was too unstable, too
paranoid and probably just plain too crazy.

Members of the elite militia
known as the Praetorian guard

decide that Caligula must
go before he turns on them.

They make their move as the emperor
returns from an afternoon of gambling.

First-century biographer Suetonius:

"Caligula lay writhing on the ground.
"I am still alive!" he shouted;

but word went round: "Strike again!"
And he succumbed to thirty further wounds."

It was a really crucial moment that
revealed the military underpinnings

of an emperor's power for the first
time in a very raw and obvious fashion.

The Praetorians will choose their
own man as the new emperor.

Behind a curtain, they find their candidate cowering:
Caligula's uncle, Claudius.

Here is someone who will be easy to control,
a puppet to be manipulated.

He drooled. He stammered. He twitched.

Perhaps the only reason he survived was
simply because nobody took him seriously.

Nobody saw him as a possible candidate.

Confident in their choice, the guard proclaims
Claudius leader of the greatest empire on earth.

The senior members of his
household when he was growing up

had chosen not to give him significant
administrative or military experience.

Almost all other young men in the imperial house
were thrust very rapidly into public positions.

None of this happened to Claudius.

Emperor Claudius has a lot to prove to his subjects,
who think he's incompetent.

And to the Praetorians, who have made him emperor,
he owes a great debt.

One event will serve both needs.

A war.

Honor and booty for the soldiers,
prestige and dignity for the victorious emperor.

An active conquest of some area,

an active military adventure will always be
preferred economically for the Roman soldier.

Psychologically, soldiers don't want to be inactive.
Psychologically, they want to go out and fight their best.

The more spectacular the conquest, the better.
But where to go?

Emperor Claudius' answer is as daring as it is unexpected:

Britannia, the fierce and remote island that defeated
Julius Caesar nearly a hundred years earlier.

The man who tames it will be greater than Caesar himself.

To lead the expedition, Claudius chooses Plautius,
a distinguished senator and well-established commander.

He leads four legions into a strange land,
haunted with a dangerous history.

The troops are edgy and afraid.

This kind of fear of the unknown I think cannot
be minimalized in this type of engagement.

There was this real fear that
maybe some first century

weapon of mass destruction was going to
be on the other side of the channel.

Dark rumors fly about the fearsome magic of the druids,
the priests of Britannia's pervasive and secretive religion.

Classical sage Pliny the elder:

"Britannia is fascinated by magic.

The monstrous druid cult professes that to
murder a man is an act of great devoutness

and to eat his flesh most beneficial."

Evidence of human sacrifice fills the soldiers with disgust.
And leads emperor Claudius to ban druidism.

For any religious cult to be suppressed,
they had to be doing things that the romans didn't like.

One of those things
would be human sacrifice,

which the druids are accused of doing
and they may well have been involved in.

Another thing would be being some kind
of a political or socially destabilizing force.

Politics and magic: A deadly combination.

Cautiously, the romans march from
their beach head at Rutupiae,

present day Richborough, toward the Thames,

the river which borders the extensive
lands of the powerful Catuvellauni tribe.

Steeped in druidic mysteries, Caratacus,
prince of the Catuvellauni people, wears no armor.

He relies instead on the strong magic of his warpaint.

It apparently took a lot of education for
druids to be able to master these things,

maybe up to 20 years of learning to pick up the various texts,
the poems, the chants, the words of prayer, the magic.

The druid priests are ringleaders of
rebellion against the romans.

They pass freely from one tribe to the next, spreading
intelligence of the enemy and gathering new recruits.

Druids are not only middlemen
between the people and the gods,

but as judges, as leaders,
they were individuals to be reckoned with.

In virtually every area of Celtic society,
the druids have a stake, have power.

Togodumnus, brother of Caratacus and
warlord of the neighboring kingdom,

arrives with his own soldiers
to bolster the resistance.

Their forces combined, the princes
face the romans with supreme confidence.

The British hadn't been conquered the
last time the romans had come over.

And of course, they were fighting on
their home turf and knew the territory

and they had had some experience
of observing the romans in action.

So for all these reasons,
they may have felt some confidence

in being able to destroy the
Roman forces when they arrived.

Wales had the harshest of terrain
and it also had the fewest people

but they were people who were more
warlike than some of the others.

What the soldiers were being trained to
do was to fight in long legion formations

and to have the auxiliary troops on the sides, to
be able to operate out in the open, and this worked.

It worked in north Africa.

It worked in the middle east.
It worked in Gaul.

It worked less well in Germany.
And it certainly didn't work at all in Britain.

Third-century historian Dio.

Barbarians took refuge in the swamps and the forests,
hoping to wear out the invaders in fruitless effort.

They knew where the firm ground and
the easy passages in this region were to be found.

Roman attempts to follow them
were not so successful."

If you're fighting the romans, it seems to me that
the initial British strategy was really quite a good one.

They allowed the romans to land unopposed
and I guess the plan was to draw them in

and then take them out when they were trapped
further inland and they couldn't escape.

When the British strike, it is with guile and savagery.

The discipline of the Roman soldiers
is well known and well documented.

The fact that Roman soldiers can stay disciplined
even in the midst of the worst of battles is remarkable.

And certainly denotes a military skill of leadership
and of training that establishes the Roman soldier

as the finest soldier on earth at that time,
perhaps in all of history.

In one skirmish after another, Plautius suffers
humiliating defeats, but he remains undaunted.

The Roman army, above all, was patient.

There's no question of
decisive victory here.

This is going to be a campaign and
the campaign was going to take long.

After all, where do the romans have to go?

Back in Rome, emperor Claudius preens and
prepares for his own invasion of Britain.

Soon, he will personally see to her surrender.

For the first time in his life,
he tries on the garb of warrior.

He needed to establish
his military credentials.

This was an essential part
of being in the public eye.

In ancient Rome was to be militarily efficient
and to have some achievement under your belt,

preferably victory over some foreign enemy.

Claudius plans to overwhelm the barbarians with the most
destructive and imposing weapon of the classical world:

Battle elephants.

They will announce the grand
entrance of the emperor.

Then Claudius will teach the britons to
grovel before the almighty Roman empire

and claim a piece of glory for himself.

In 43 A.D., emperor Claudius prepares
to conquer the fabled island of Britannia.

He sends his seasoned general Plautius and
four legions to clear his way.

At first, the romans are outfoxed by the druids,
lured ever deeper into unfriendly territory.

But now, Plautius sees an opportunity to turn the tables.

He orders a special force of provincials to launch
a sneak attack across the river Thames.

The Roman army was composed of more
or less two kinds of soldiers,

those whom they called legionaries,
who were Roman citizens,

and those whom they called auxiliaries,
who were recruited from subject populations.

So Plautius has these auxiliaries
swim across the Thames,

not because the Roman soldiers
couldn't have swum across the Thames.

It's just if it's more dangerous, if there is the
potential of losing a large number of regular troops,

why not let the auxiliaries do it?

Like all druids, the warlords Caratacus
and Togodumnus hold water sacred,

believing the mighty river
protects them from their enemies.

Not burdened by this belief, the Roman
auxiliaries cross silently and unseen.

They prove to be very good at discerning
what types of armies they were facing,

how unified those types armies they were
facing, what their arms and armor were.

So they operate as scouts and seem
to understand a little bit better

who they were encountering
and what the numbers were.

Having learned what they need to, the auxiliaries kill the
barbarian horses, cutting off any possibility of a fast retreat.

Only now does Plautius send in
his full force to attack the catellauvians.

The troops are fighting it out hand-to-hand.

It does become a big m�l�e, where you're just
trying to use brute force to overwhelm the enemy,

to scare them, to frighten them,
to force them away and then pursue them.

But on the second day, the advantage tilts towards the romans.

The Roman army would emerge hail and healthy
at the end of the day and able to fight again,

where the other side was reeling from the
psychological, emotional and otherwise affects

of the devastation the
romans wreaked on them.

In the ensuing slaughter, Togodumnus is mortally wounded.

Stricken, the survivors vanish into the swamps.

The families of the druid leaders awaken to a new reality.

Word of the catastrophe
triggers a panic and a scramble to escape.

Caratacus and his family must also flee.
Or face humiliation and slavery at the hands of the romans.

When the romans won a
significant military victory,

the general was traditionally awarded the right to
hold what we would think of as a ticker tape parade,

what they called a triumph.

If possible, the leader of the conquered
forces was marched throughout the parade

to display in his or her person the
subjugation of the foreign people

and traditionally that person was then
executed at the end of the parade

as an enemy of the Roman people.

Caratacus has no intention of being a Roman trophy.

Swearing revenge, he gathers his supporters
and leads them on a long journey west

to the rugged hill country, where the
heart of the druid establishment lies.

Caratacus correctly assumes that
the romans will not follow.

Instead, they plant themselves
on the banks of the Thames.

Third-century historian Dio:

"Because of the troubles he had encountered
on the Thames, Plautius became afraid.

Instead of advancing any farther, he proceeded to guard
what he had already won, and sent for Claudius.

But is it really fear that stops Plautius, or politics?

I doubt a man of the experience and ability of Plautius would have been
daunted too much by a river like the Thames.

It seems more likely to me that he was
given orders that, at a suitable point,

once a certain beachhead
had been established,

once there was a certain hinterland
that the romans could operate in,

that the emperor be summoned,

that he should show up in person to establish that
military credibility which he so badly needed.

Emperor Claudius attempts
to sail to Britannia.

His ship is nearly lost off the Spanish coast and
he must march instead through Gaul to Gesoriacum,

present day Boulogne,
before finally crossing the channel.

It is late in the campaigning season by the time he arrives.

We know that the emperor showed up in style.

He came with cohorts of his personal bodyguard,
the so-called praetorian guard, and he also came with elephants.

Which is something, obviously, is not an animal
native to Britain or anywhere in Western Europe.

So by showing up with elephants,
he was really announcing his presence.

And then he supervised, probably from a safe distance in the rear,
the capture of various towns and cities.

Claudius' surprising arrival coupled
with Caratacus's humiliating defeat

prompts many British warlords
to submit rather than fight.

We modern people have our own idea of freedom.

That's part of our makeup.

That's not necessarily the makeup
at all of the ancient world.

The majority of people simply accustom
themselves to their new leadership.

The taxes they were paying to leader "a,"
they would now pay to leader "b,"

and it didn't matter much.

If they could cut down on any violence that
could be made against them by an army,

principally that army not being allowed to rape or pillage
or destroy their lands, by acquiescence they would.

To resist the romans, or collaborate.

In the northern kingdom of brigantes,
the decision looms like an ominous shadow.

The choice will be made by their
powerful queen Cartimandua.

The British were willing
to stand up behind women,

who must have been very
powerful personalities,

who must have had powerful men folk that they were
attached to, I think, who established their status.

And then they must have been able to,

by dint of force of personality, charisma
and so forth, rally their people behind them.

The queen's husband, Venutius, has no doubt
about which way the brigantes should go.

He opposes the romans with all his heart.

In the area that will become known as Wales,
there is no indecision either.

Here, Britain's fiercest warlords cleave to the old ways
and vehemently reject imperial domination.

The druids call upon their gods
to drive the romans from their shores.

In their hour of need, they perform their greatest mistery,
the sacrifice of a living man.

The exiled Caratacus becomes their righteous agent.

His passion ignites the resistance.

He was able to combine some of these
very disparate tribes of people

into an anti-Roman stance
by creating a common enemy.

This must have made him the most
charismatic British person of the time

because how could he go about and convince so
many individuals to oppose a Roman war machine?

Bound by common hatred and their ancient religion,
the celts vow to fight on to the bloody end.

Victory in battle restores confidence
among the Roman rank and file.

They no longer fear the British.

Little do they know that the worst is yet to come.

In 43 A.D., emperor Claudius claims victory in Britannia
even as rebellion takes root on the outskirts of the island.

He establishes a Roman province
with its capital at Camulodunum,

present day Colchester, where he receives
allegiance from a dozen kingdoms.

The support of these new allies against the rebels
provides a buffer to the fledgling province.

After only sixteen days in Britain, Claudius returns home.

In total, he has been gone just six months,

but in terms of status, he is light
years away from where he started.

He is a conqueror.

The propaganda value of such
a trip is extraordinary

and it gave him a bump in the
political favor of the people

in a way that's similar to a modern
president visiting his troops on the line,

even if he never goes
anywhere near the fighting.

Third-century historian Dio:

"The senate gave him the title of
Britannicus.

They also voted that there
should be an annual festival

to commemorate the conquest and that
triumphal arches should be erected."

The stunning monuments known as triumphal
arches stand as much as seventy feet tall.

He gets a triumphal arch with an inscription
commemorating his achievements in conquering Britain.

That's to say a permanent
monument in the city of Rome

with his name on it that marks Claudius
as a great general and a great conqueror.

So the military honors are the whole
point of the reason to go into Britain.

That's the purpose of it, first and
foremost, to give claudius that degree of,

as I say, a military sort of credibility,
military standing that he had formerly lacked.

To Plautius, whom the emperor leaves
behind as governor of Britannia,

the celebration must seem premature.

Anytime the romans step
outside their zone of safety,

they become targets of well-orchestrated guerilla
attacks, inspired by Caratacus, the rebel leader.

They would have communicated by
means of runners and messengers

and, again, knowing the lay of the land, knowing what the
quickest ways between the various parts of Britain were

then they would have had an advantage in getting
information swiftly between different parts of the island.

Some of the greatest ambushes in history
have come from simple logs being rolled down

or stones being rolled down onto
soldiers below from the mountain above.

So, here's the Roman. He has his
conventional spear, he has his short sword,

he's used to close fighting and suddenly
he's having rocks pelted on him,

he's having spears thrown at him, he's having axes
thrown at him, he's having trees rolled down on.

All of these things take their toll.

The British succeeded in outfoxing the
romans because they knew the terrain

and that local generals-- that is British
generals-- inspired their troops by giving speeches

in which they exhorted them to fight off
the invaders who wanted to enslave them,

that these were foreigners
seeking to conquer them.

Caratacus was very effective at fighting,
I guess, what we call a guerilla warfare.

The romans probably called it terrorism or
insurgency but he would have called it resistance.

And this was fairly effective.

Too often, the rebels melt away
into the forests after an attack.

Plautius must crush the resistance or
watch it destroy his new province.

This meant that the officers on
the ground had to make decisions

that were not just straight wrote out of whatever
training manual that they had been thought from,

but they actually had to adapt themselves
to the terrain and also to the tactics,

might call guerilla tactics,
of their opponents.

In 45 A.D., he sends a surge of troops
from his headquarters in Camulodunum.

Three legions march south, west and north.

The ninth heads for the land of the brigantes.

The courageous brigantes control the north country,
an important buffer from other barbarians.

For the Roman ambassador, the cooperation
of queen Cartimandua is key.

You're trying to divide and conquer.

You're trying to separate and isolate
individual groups, subdue them,

and having friends on the home
fields is a big advantage.

Cartimandua accepts the imperial offer.

After all, with a legion on her doorstep,
her options are limited.

What good are you doing for your people if
the choice is not between freedom and conquest

but between collaboration or destruction?

For somebody like Cartimandua, collaborating with
Rome allowed her to remain in a position of authority

and to risk a great deal less, perhaps personally,
than she might have if she tried to fight.

Venutius, the queen's consort,
vehemently opposes her decision.

And he is not alone.

It's to the romans' advantage
to have these arrangements.

The problem, of course,
is that sometimes as with Cartimandua,

you get a split internally,
where her husband turns against her.

Venutius chafes on his short leash,
but for now, he suffers the queen's will.

Bitter but unbowed, he waits for events to change.

The romans roll across the country,
subduing one village after another.

The main thing for the Roman governor, particularly in a province
that has just been established, is maintaining stability.

He has to try to make links with the local community.

So, any kinds of romanization, making local people
feel comfortable with the romans there, is to their advantage.

For those who co-operate, the Roman hand is gentle.

For those who resist, the vengeance is swift.

Soldiers hunt down insurgents and teach
them imperial justice at the point of a spear.

Every corner turns up troublemakers.

But the legionaries find potential converts too.

Slowly but surely, they expand Rome's domain,
winning hearts and minds as they go.

In the arena of Roman politics,
general Plautius is a hero.

Four years after the invasion,
a grateful Claudius calls him home.

He brings along his British prisoners
for the gladiator ring.

Four years is very standard for a
person to be in command of a province

or of an army like that,
and then somebody else would come in.

You don't want a person to be in command for too long,
in case the troops become too attached to their commander.

And if that happens, they may get ideas that maybe
this commander would make a good emperor.

Third-century historian Dio:

"In the gladiatorial combats many persons
took part, including the British captives.

Plautius used up ever so many men in this part
of the spectacle and took pride in the fact."

The blood sport of the arena confirms
the superiority of every Roman heart.

The barbarians are dust beneath their feet.

In 47 A.D., the romans claim much
of the southern part of britain.

Some leaders, like queen Cartimandua of the brigantes,
come into the imperial fold voluntarily.

But many choose to fight, like the rebel prince Caratacus.

The work of pacifying a population
to the point where Roman armies

could be removed from a province
was an arduous process.

The romans must have taken a very long-term view
to the process of annexation and conquest.

They must when facing a charismatic opponent like Caratacus.

Caratacus may have had the most
significant of these rebellions.

He seems to have been able to combine most
of the British people and they have successes.

The romanized villages reel under
Caratacus' audacious attacks.

His surprising string of victories
makes him first among British chieftains.

All look to him to push the invaders from their shores.

In November, when he learns that a new
Roman governor is assigned to Britannia,

Caratacus launches his
most virulent assault yet.

The new governor, Scapula, receives
a bloody welcome to his province.

But things do not go as Caratacus predicts.

The Roman troops never waver.

Scapula deals Caratacus his first
major defeat of the insurgency.

Still, the rebel leader remains defiant.

Caratacus retreats to southern Wales
and sparks an uprising there instead.

As it spreads north
through the hill country,

Scapula pulls the ninth legion
out of Brigantes and heads west.

All he finds are women and children.

The rebels have vanished, like smoke into the hills.

The Welsh rebellion flourished, as almost
all rebellions in Wales will flourish down

through the early modern period, simply
because it's hard to get to the rebels.

Now they have to go into the mountains
and the woods and the islands

and find where these rebels are,
and then take them out.

It's actually not unlike the situation that American
soldiers found themselves in popular histories of Vietnam,

where the Americans found themselves
fighting in jungle terrain

where the quality of their training
elsewhere didn't prepare them

for the ability of the enemy
to melt into the background.

Scapula's solution is to obliterate their hiding places.

He destroys every rebel village and presses forward.

But behind him, treachery strikes, threatening a second rebellion.

In the forests of the brigantes, the druids are gathering.

The people of the brigantes see
the romans heading into Wales,

which is very difficult territory and said,
well, this is a good opportunity.

When they're busy over there, we can cause trouble
in the rear and perhaps gain an advantage.

Maybe if they're caught between two forces,
they'll be destroyed.

To make this second rebellion work,
one noble is vital:

Venutius, husband of the collaborator,
queen Cartimandua.

Venutius, Cartimandua's husband
of course was a significant figure.

He didn't hold a hereditary
position in his own right,

but he was perhaps the most highly
visible male leader in the kingdom.

And as such,
his break in ranks with his wife provided

a very significant focus for anybody
with aspirations to rebellion.

The rebellious nobles discuss Venutius' name and loyalty.

Who, after all, would benefit more,
if his wife, the queen, is overthrown?

But they underestimate Cartimandua's reach.

She has spies everywhere.

When the names of the ringleaders are revealed
by her husband's own manservant,

she learns that her most valuable
warriors are in the plot.

Desperate, she turns to Rome.

Client kings and queens, chieftains that
support the romans are supporting them

because the romans have worked
out some kind of arrangement.

In other words, we will come to your aid,
it's kind of an ongoing arrangement.

Through the roman envoy, she sends word to Scapula.

He must return to brigantes immediately
and honor Rome's pledge to protect her.

The timing couldn't be worse for Scapula.

He has no choice but to pull out of Wales and march
the ninth legion back east to support the queen.

His departure creates an opening for
the Caratacus and the Welsh rebels.

With the romans withdrawing, warriors rally
to Caratacus from all over Britain.

They bring their weapons, ancient beliefs and their families.

This time the resistance will not hit and run.

Caratacus orders his troops to dig in.

Classical court historian Tacitus.

"He selected a site where numerous factors helped him
and impeded us and all defenses were strongly manned.

An entrenched defensive position like that
gives a huge advantage to the defender

and he had every reason to believe,
perhaps on this occasion,

given these circumstances, that he had chosen
the ground and he had prepared the ground,

maybe the romans would falter.

I think that Caratacus had a reasonable
expectation that he could win.

The last chance for British independence
hangs on that fragile hope.

In the name of the emperor Claudius,
Rome enters the sixth year of the bitter conquest of Britain.

The Roman emperor was imagined
and in fact functioned,

very broadly speaking,
as commander in chief of the Roman empire.

The emperor was ultimately
conceived to be responsible

for the success or failure of virtually
any enterprise by the Roman state.

Continuing chaos in Britain could cast a shadow
on Claudius's tenuous hold on the throne

Cartimandua,
Rome's client queen in the north,

demands that the empire defend her
against her rebellious subjects.

She and her followers barricade
themselves in her stronghold,

waiting for Roman general
Scapula to rescue her.

In short order, Scapula crushes her rebellious
subjects, and brings her the head of its leader.

The royal consort Venutius is outraged.
His sympathy for the resistance grows stronger.

At last, Scapula marches to Wales
with the ninth legion once more.

Desperate to finish off Caratacus,
he doubles his troop complement,

ordering the 20th legion
out of Camulodunum as well.

In 50 A.D., with the honor of
the empire weighing on him,

Scapula leads thousands of the
most highly trained men on earth

against a well-entrenched
and determined enemy.

It might have been possible for a man
like Scapula to persuade Claudius

that failure under the particular
circumstances would have been acceptable.

But basically what was at stake beyond,
say, life and death

was his chance for a further
post after this one.

Failure is not an option, but victory will not be easy.

Classical biographer, Tacitus.

"Our soldiers reached the rampart,
but in an exchange of missiles,

they came off worse in
wounds and casualties."

The romans simply regroup and come on once more.

Rome takes over.

Rome becomes Rome-the war machine

and there is no future for the rebellion and
that's precisely how history played out.

So they really wanted to get to grips
with the britons and finally end this thing.

The vehemence and ferociousness of the assault
was such that the britons were overwhelmed.

The luckiest have the good fortune of a quick death.

The rest are soon captured.

Humiliation, slavery and ritual
murder await the captives.

To his horror, Caratacus realizes his wife
and children are among them.

Caratacus himself escapes.

Remarkably, he flees all the way
to the kingdom of brigantes

Even though their queen, Cartimandua,
is a Roman collaborator.

Cartimandua's husband,
venutius, is a known patriot

and opposed Cartamandia's collaborationist
policies with the romans.

I would suggest that Caratacus fled
not to Cartimandua but to Venutius

in the hope of perhaps gaining his support and
maybe convincing Cartimandua to turn finally.

Cartimandua does not bend.

She is Rome's creature.

The queen trades Caratacus, the hero of the resistance,
to cement her position as a friend of Rome.

The betrayal disgusts her husband, Venutius.

Paraded through the streets of Rome,
Caratacus and his family thrill the citizens.

Classical court historian Tacitus.

"The reputation of Caratacus had spread beyond
the islands and through the neighboring provinces to Italy itself.

These people were curious to see the man
who had defied our power for so many years.

Even at Rome his name meant something."

This was the symbol of their victory.

You know, here's the enemy chieftain
marching through our streets in submission.

What normally happened to enemies of Rome

was that they were brought into the
prison and put into a pit and strangled.

But in this instance, it didn't happen.

Instead, caratacus was led to Claudius sitting
on a large raised sort of a tribunal or dais

and he gave a stirring speech.

And if we believe Tacitus, the speech
was about the need to resist domination

and that if he allows Caratacus to live, that he
would be a living symbol of Claudius's clemency.

To bestow mercy implies superiority,

and above all else that is how
romans see themselves, as superior.

Moved by Caratacus's speech, Claudius grants his
celebrity barbarian and all of his family pardon.

He was probably retired to a villa
somewhere in the neighborhood of Rome

where he would have lived out his life in
relative comfort but of course, lacking freedom.

A golden cage.

The assimilation of Caratacus is at last complete.

The romanization of Britain is not so smooth.

Within a decade the rebels rise again.

This time with Venutius at their head.

Even a century later, the northern border remains untamable.

It never becomes fully romanized.

It's just too far away.

And the romans will eventually, of course,
have to build Hadrian's wall to keep out invaders from the north.

It's going to be difficult to hold
and finally they'll abandon it.

And, frankly, there isn't a lot left of Roman rule in Britain.

Conquered to shore up an emperor's reputation,
the island drains men and resources for centuries.

And when Rome falls at last,
Britain will be the first to revert to its "barbarian" state.

Next on "Rome: Rise and fall of an empire"

As the empire ascends to its zenith,
its rulers forsake the greater good to chase personal glory.

Trajan finds gold in the Transylvanian hills
but ultimately meets wretched defeat.