Original subtitles

(uplifting orchestral music)

(birds squawking)

I'm Christopher Clark, Cambridge historian.

I was born in Australia, for Europeans

that's practically the other end of the world.

But the European continent and its incredible diversity

always fascinated me, even in the far off country

where I grew up, I was always aware that so much

of our world has its roots in Europe,

and modern Europe is one

of the greatest achievements in human history.

I want to share the grand saga of this continent

and in the process I hope to re-discover

its wonders for myself.

Where does Europe start and where does it stop?

I'm at the south western most point of the continent.

From here on there's just water, next stop America.

Luís de Camoes, the national poet of Portugal

described this cape in the 16th century

in these words, (speaks foreign language).

Where the earth ends and the ocean begins.

In fact most of Europe is surrounded by water.

Europe is a continent in name only,

in reality it's a peninsula and it's history

is deeply shaped by this fact.

That history begins 135 million years ago.

Actually Europe as we know it isn't really all that old

in a geological sense.

In the beginning all the continents are one.

Then the world is set in motion,

land masses break off, drift apart and reunite

creating mountains and rivers in the process.

Bit by bit the continent as well know it today

begins to take shape.

Ice masses form fjords, mountains unfold,

the lava flows we can still see today

give us an inking of earth's incredible power

to create and reshape, and at some point

these elementary forces will produce

a denser array of unique cultures and peoples

than anywhere else on the planet.

How did it all begin?

Asia, to which this rather small continent

is a kind of appendix has always been the gateway

to Europe, also for the first humans to arrive here.

But who were the first Europeans and where were they from?

It's during an ice age that the first people leave Africa

to conquer the rest of the world.

A sheet of ice kilometers thick covers the continent

where today we find cities like London, Berlin and Warsaw.

But homo sapiens will not be deterred.

From what we know today it seems that they traveled

to the continent via the Middle East, the Levant and Romania

and slowly it begins to grow warmer in Europe,

the ice age is coming to an end.

This is where the first migrants come into contact

with the neanderthals and begin to mix with them.

Even today all Europeans have a bit of neanderthal in them.

By 30,000 years ago, the neanderthals have died out

and the homo sapiens, the wise human, has taken over.

They hunt and gather, live in groups of varying sizes

and spread across massive swathes of territory

often in rocky areas with caves

such as Southern France and Northern Spain.

It's around this time that the intellectual world

of the early Europeans actually begins to take shape.

The depths of the caves are sacred places

for these early peoples.

Pre-historic cathedrals where they feel the presence

of the supernatural world.

But above all the caves offer protection and warmth,

absolute necessities that allow

these early Europeans to survive.

Here we can see the first evidence of the ancient Europeans.

I'm in the Chauvet Cave in Southern France

and I can hardly believe that people painted

something like this 30,000 years ago.

The talent and precision

of these early European artists are staggering.

When Pablo Picasso first saw the cave paintings

of Stone Age humans he was shocked.

We've learned nothing since then he said.

The people of the Ardehe Valley in modern day France

created these first European works of art

nearly 40,000 years ago and they did it for eternity,

probably without realizing it.

How could they know that we would one day

admire the wooly rhinoceros, cave lions,

mammoths and bison that they drew

with such energy and elegance.

A quantum leap in human history.

Homo sapiens became a cultural being.

Humans reflected on their own existence,

observed and record their environment

and invented a new form of communication.

A bison with eight legs like a time lapse image.

We can't know for sure but they were probably

supposed to suggest movement, a kind of Stone Age cinema.

(light music)

These works are among the oldest expressions

of human creativity anywhere on earth

a kind of cultural big bang.

We have no idea what brought it about.

All human societies have produced art

and there have always been moments

in which something new emerged.

What was special about Europe was the tension

between memory and renewal, between continuity and rapture.

Michelangelo may have imitated the Greeks

but he also creating something new.

Something that had never been seen,

landscapes, objects and people came to be seen in news ways.

Art rebelled against tradition without escaping

from its authority.

Images and objects from Asia and Africa

enriched the visual repertoire.

Boundaries were tested and breached.

Freed from the obligations to depict anything real

paintings took on a life of their own.

And these astonishing moments of creativity

would have been unthinkable without the diversity

of the cultures on this continent and the cultural

competition between them.

(light music)

it would be difficult to underestimate the spiritual

effect these caves had on the people of that era.

We're now fairly certain that some caves were used

specifically for rituals.

Humans already lived in groups at this point

and they divided up their work among themselves.

It's easy to imagine that during the winter

when the opportunities for hunting and gathering

were limited, they would have honed their cultural skills.

And that's how we get the Lion Man

carved from a mammoth tusk 35,000 years ago.

Half man, half lion, perhaps even a demigod.

It began in caves but soon spread into the world beyond.

The first outdoor venues of collective worship

sprang up in multiple locations across Europe

around 5,000 years ago.

The first settled peoples positioned enormous boulders

in circles creating sites like Stonehenge.

They were aligned with the course of the sun

and primarily served as observatories.

Transporting and setting up the stones

must have been an incredibly challenging task

for the people of that era.

They had to be highly organized and must

have developed specialized skills

and technologies for the job.

Ancestor worship played an important role here.

They wanted to immortalize the world of their forebears

in stone for all eternity.

Cults and strictly defined rituals seem to have

been the glue that held these early societies together.

Of course we need to see this in perspective.

While the Europeans were positioning boulders

the Egyptians were building pyramids.

Stone monuments sprang up from Spain to Sweden

and Poland to France.

For the first time these megaliths mark

a visible commonality among the various peoples

of Europe but at the same time

the first cities are already appearing

in modern day Iraq and Syria.

Europe is still at a developing country.

The the Eastern Mediterranean on the other hand

things are starting to get interesting.

Myths and legends are being woven.

Why is Europe called Europe?

Well the answer lies here in Greece.

A myth relates that Zeus, father of the gods

fell in love with beautiful Europa,

daughter of the Phonetician king of Sidon

in today's Lebanon.

Europa immediately fell in love with the bull

or rather Zeus, and climbed onto his back.

Together they swam to Crete.

There the bull took human form and asked

the beautiful maiden to be his queen.

The part of the world where she lived

would forever bear her name.

It's a myth of course but like all myths

it contains a kernel of truth because the origins

of Europe really did lie outside this continent

in Asia Minor, the Levant and Africa.

From the very beginning Europe was a place

where cultures met and mixed

and this would one of the keys to its power and creativity.

It all started on Crete.

The islanders were gifted seafarers and traders.

Crete became Europe's first commercial power

crafting an impressive trade network

that stretched across the entire Mediterranean

to Egypt and Mesopotamia.

The Cretans grew olive and exported the valuable oil

to place like Egypt.

King Minos who according to legend,

was the son of Zeus and Europa

commissioned the construction of a magnificent palace

in Knossos, over 3,000 years ago.

Today it still bears witness to the golden age

of both the island and the Minoans,

the first advanced civilization in Europe.

Europe's first kingdom emerges here.

But there are many indications that the Minoans

aren't particularly interested in personally

exercising power.

For everything we know about this mysterious culture

it appears that leaders and heroes didn't play

an especially eminent role.

The first European laws and courts have their roots

in Minoan society, their legal codes governed

everything from family law to criminal law,

literally letter by letter.

And Minoans were the first Europeans

who could read and write.

They adopted their writing system from the Phoenicians.

This Middle Eastern alphabet is the mother of all

European writing systems.

The Minoans even stamped these symbols in clay

on the famous Phaistos Disc nearly 3,000 years

before Johannes Gutenberg invented modern printing.

The meaning of the ancient symbols may have been forgotten

over time but the Greeks ultimately based

their own alphabet on the Minoan writing system

and both our Latin alphabet and the Cyrrelic

Eastern European alphabet have their origins in Greek.

For centuries to come Europe's path would be shaped

by the legacy of Ancient Greece.

What was so special about Greece?

Well partly it was question of geography.

The Greeks were scattered in some 1,500 cities,

the polis around the shores of the Eastern Mediterranean

and the Black Sea.

The terrain of the Greek mainland crisscrossed

by mountains and ravines favored small communities

but also obliged them to trade

and negotiate with each other.

Not all of the cities were democracies.

Some were ruled by oligarchs or by tyrants,

but one city established a system of government

that would leave a deep imprint on world history.

Nothing compares to Athens in its golden age.

Many of the traits that define modern Europe

can be found here.

The Greek's world consists of numerous gods

to whom they dedicate the temples they build

but also are brilliant thinkers

who spend their days investigating earthly concerns.

The grand Parthenon Temple on the Acropolis

is the most beautiful representation

of what the streets and squares of ancient Athens

brought forth into the world.

Architecture, science, philosophy,

art, literature and also political thought.

Athens isn't ruled by a king but by the people.

For the first time in the continent's history

all men share responsibility for the decisions

that affect everyone.

Women don't yet play a political role

but it's a start, democracy is born.

Calm down, all opposed to the proposal raise your hands.

And all in favor raise your hand now.

Perhaps we could learn a thing or two

from the ancient Athenians.

They used a voting machine known as a kleroterion

to fill political offices.

Men were elected by lottery so there was no

opportunity for corruption or for lobbying.

Leonidas Linas, you are elected.

(people cheering)

But all of this didn't happen overnight.

Democracy in Athens developed slowly, step by step

and it was repeatedly reformed.

The Athens democracy possessed three institutions

that remain crucial to the political organization

of any free society.

A basic law or constitution

dating back to the 5th century BC.

A parliament, the Ecclesia

where matters of state were discussed

by the citizenry and the system of independent courts.

And these performed their tasks

in magnificent public buildings

located at the heart of the city.

The climate must have helped

because a lot of the public life of this culture

took place outdoors.

The athenian democracy was not invincible

just too centuries after its inception

it was terminated by the rising power

of the Macedonian Kingdom.

But the fact that the democracy of Athens

failed to hold out against a military dictatorship

does nothing to diminish its world historical importance.

What was it Winston Churchill told the British parliament?

Democracy is the worst form of government

except for all those other forms

that have been tried from time to time.

(light music)

In that sense it's easy to understand

why Greek architecture is still reflected

in so many parliament buildings in Europe today.

Symbols representing the power of the people

even if the Athenian form of government

has little in common with out modern

representative democracy.

This is where things come full circle.

The idea of democracy, the balance of power

is supposed to be reflected

in the golden ratio of the buildings.

It all traces back to Greek's pursuit of perfection.

Democracy would later become one of the founding principals

of modern Europe and the cornerstone

of this community of nations.

Of course we shouldn't idealize Athenian democracy.

Only free male Athenians held citizenship.

Women and slaves had no political rights at all.

And this democracy like all democracies

was an untidy and open-ended affair.

The nobility were always trying to expand their privileges

and even on occasion, to overturn the system.

The power of money was another problem

when the wealthiest citizens used their cash

to secure power, plutocracy loomed.

And then there was the power of the public word.

Demigods, the literal translation means

leader of the people, was the name Greeks

gave to those gifted orators who sought

to sway the masses in their decisions.

This didn't have to a bad thing

when demigods placed themselves in the service

of the political system they could do great good.

But as soon as they placed their own interests,

or those of a particular faction above those

of the city they became a threat to the general good.

And today in an evermore complex world

the demigods are prospering once again in Europe.

(gun shot blasts)

The marathon is the most

democratic sporting event of all time.

Young, old, fat, thin, anyone can join in the run.

Millions of people around the world catch

marathon fever every year.

This long-distance run is named

after a small town in Greece.

The first marathon runner of history was completely alone.

His name was Pheidippides and he ran

the approximately 40 kilometers from the town of Marathon

to the market place in Athens in order to announce

the victory of the Greeks over

a much larger Persian army in a decisive battle.

It's said that he then collapsed dead on the ground

but not before warning the Athenians

that the remaining Persian forces

were swiftly approaching the city.

(footfall crunching)

And so 490 years before the Christian era

Athenian soldiers moved into position.

Here's the story.

The global super power of the time,

the expansive Persian Empire feels threatened

by the rival cities of Corinth, Sparta and Athens.

The Greeks are united by this common enemy

and they react together with a preemptive strike.

For the first time they feel like Europeans

and they even call their homeland Europe.

It is an identity born of shared fate.

Athens defeats the Persians.

The war continues but the future of the continent

is decided in the dust of Marathon.

The victory at Marathon was a defining moment

for the Greek democracy, a sign of what

could be achieved through unity and self confidence.

Then as so often in its history the destiny of democracy

was tied up with war.

Above all the victory at Marathon

showed the deeper popular participation in political

life can actually heighten the striking power

of a state and the gods too were granted their share.

In its gratitude for the victory

the city sacrificed 500 goats every year

until the number of slaughtered goats

matched the number of Persian dead.

The story of that victory

is classic Hollywood blockbuster material.

Back then it was immediately adapted for the stage.

That's right, Athens is also the birthplace

of the entertainment industry.

The Greeks have loved heroic tales

since the days of Homer

and the story of the Persian wars is no exception.

Actors step into the role of their old enemy

and relive a victory that all Greeks are proud of.

Be stern and remember chin up and chest out.

Aeschylus, a veteran

of the Battle of Marathon

is the author of this thrilling work.

It's your turn now.

With support from the young

politician Pericles, the playwright hopes to win

the theater competition that the Athenians

hold every year in honor of Dionysus

the god of wine and mirth.

Aeschylus himself hadn't exactly covered himself in glory

on the battlefield, but this play

would immortalize his name.

The playwright portrays the senselessness of war

which leads to nothing but horror, despair,

death and grief.

He tells the story from the perspective

of the losing side without denigrating

the Persians for their loss.

In this way he hopes to educate his audience.

And the Athenians understand his message.

The Persians won first prize.

It's the oldest surviving theatrical work in the world.

From tragedy to comedy, the Greeks

showed the world the meaning of good entertainment.

The narrative forms established then

have survived the test of time

and the play commemorating the event

that gave rise to the idea of Europe, the Persian wars

is still regularly performed on stage even today.

Art, architecture, political thought,

society in ancient Greece was open and sophisticated

and over the centuries Europe has drawn again and again

from this cultural wellspring.

So this is where the roots of our

European civilization lie, but outside of Hellas

no one else yet identified themselves at European.

So how did the ancient Greeks disseminate their culture?

And how did Greek culture become European culture?

In the 4th century before the birth of Christ

Macedonian King Alexander, later known

as Alexander The Great, conquers all the Greek

city states with the exception of Sparta.

He wants to spread Greek culture around the world.

He creates a global empire in Asia

which he feels is more promising to reign

than the European continent.

The Greeks on the other hand establish colonies

around the Mediterranean including Massilia,

today known as Marseille.

This is where explorer Pytheas set sail

in the 4th century before Christ.

A contemporary of Alexander The Great,

Pytheas wants to explore northern Europe

and his discoveries will revolutionize

the Greek's view of the world.

Up to that point they had believed

that the best and most intelligent people

could only be found in the Mediterranean.

Then Pytheas met the Celts and a new power

appeared on the scene.

The Celts are not a unified people

and they don't have an empire.

Instead they live in numerous different tribal groups.

But, they have shared customs

and when they feel threatened they close ranks.

That sounds almost European you might say.

And in fact in the 1st century BC

the Celts expand their tribal territory

from Central Europe to Anatolia and Britannia.

Their culture continues to grow and develop.

The north is full of nothing

but backward barbarians the groups think.

They believe that the cold and fog of the north

has made the people sluggish.

Still they give them the northerners a flattering name.

The Celts, or the brave ones.

The Greeks are also interesting in doing business.

They have olives and wine to trade with the Celts

for amber and tin.

But first they need to interesting the Celts

to Greek culture.

A few gifts, mainly gold, help to solidify their friendship.

Pytheas, the explorer from Marseille

knows how important this is,

he was the first Greek to reach the northern edge

of the known world at the time.

The Celts are more than just strong warriors

they're also gifted metal workers

and slowly they development a taste

for the Mediterranean lifestyle, especially for wine.

This vessel, as tall as an adult

came from Greece and was found in the tomb

of a Celtic chieftainess, the ubiquitous drinking horns

are further evidence of the Celts and unquenchable thirst.

The Celts were the ones who built the first

cities north of the alps, around 150 of them in fact.

One of the most famous is the Heuneburg

located in modern day Southern Germany.

It's the oldest known Celtic settlement

north of the alps to be mentioned in literature.

Even Greek historian Herodotus

was interested in this city.

Built in 600 BC the Heuneburg was the residence

of Celtic chieftains with clever fortifications

to fend off enemies.

The Celts carefully organized their lives

behind the high walls.

They had their own coins and a system

for the division of labor.

Up to 10,000 people lived in this form of ancient city.

From here the Celts increasingly traded with the Greeks

and with Pytheas' home town, Marseille.

(light music)

The Celts weren't exactly methodical

when it came to occupation and conquest.

But in 387 BC they briefly conquered Rome.

A traumatic experience that remained a vivid memory

for the city's ensuing generations.

(light music)

The imperial Romana, the Roman Empire

isn't an exact model for our modern concept

of Europe of course, but today's Europe

certainly has many of its roots in Rome.

The idea of the republic, the laws, the architecture.

In many areas the Romans were able to build

on what the Greeks had created.

The Pantheon is a good example here.

Behind the Greek style facade is one of the oldest

and largest domes in Europe and it's made of cement.

Both of those things Roman inventions.

In all areas of life the Romans looked

to the Greeks for inspiration

but they wanted to improve on things as well.

The ambitious Gaius Julius Caesar is no exception.

He sees a bright future for himself.

He dreams of being a conqueror like Alexander The Great

but before he can make history

he has to tread the career path

of a Roman civil servant, a long hard slog.

He spares no expense or effort in pursuit

of his ambitions, spending enormous sums on bribes,

and by the time he becomes consul,

Caesar has racked up considerable debts.

What he needs now is a war, a campaign of plunder

to burnish his reputation and fill his empty coffers.

But Caesar has a problem, there's not much left to plunder.

His predecessors have already quashed competition

around the Mediterranean.

His only remaining option is the wild north of Europe.

The land of the Celts, or the Gauls as the Romans call them.

Caesar plans to slow these barbarians who's boss.

300 years after the Celts themselves had plundered Rome.

Better late than never.

Which brings us to the bane

of every Latin student's existence,

the Caesaris Commentarii de Bello Gallico,

or Caesar's account of the Gallic wars.

In the region today known as France

Celtic chieftain Vercingetorix

attempts to block the path of Caesar's legions

barricading himself into the city of Alesia.

Caesar and 50,000 of his legionaries

surround the city with two layers

of circular fortifications

secured with guard towers, moats and traps.

Caesar describes the brutality of this war

without betraying a hint of emotion.

Vercingetorix sends all the women,

children and elderly out of the city

but they are trapped by the Roman fortifications

and Caesar refuses to help them, the wall remains closed.

Then Vercingetorix attacks.

The battle lasts four days.

More than once the Gauls are close to surmounting

the Roman wall but they are beaten back

and suffer major losses each time.

(warriors screaming)

finally the Roman commander himself

takes to the front lines of his cavalry

bolstering the wavering ranks of his legionaries.

They capture such a large number of prisoners

that each legionary receives one as a slave.

After six years of fighting Vercingetorix surrenders.

His people the Gauls are absorbed into the Roman Empire.

With this victory, Caesar successfully

expands the Roman Empire far into the west.

In the 19th century the Gaulish Vercingetorix

becomes French.

In modern France he's still considered

a national hero deserving of a monument

as a symbol of their unity as a nation.

The world of the Celts shrinks

after the battle of Alesia.

First they disappear north of the alps

and then Caesar conquers Gaul and incorporates it

into the Roman Empire.

In the end only the Celts on the British Isles remain.

Caesar's path is drenched in blood.

By his own account he had over

one million lives on his conscience.

Look behind you and remember you are but a man.

This good advice is drowned out

by the cheers of the masses.

With the praise heaped upon Caesar

he rises to the status of demigod and he knows it.

Megalomania becomes his constant companion.

After his victory over the Gauls,

Caesar calls for a victory parade

the likes of which have never been seen before.

It's an unparalleled show of strength.

He dresses as Jupiter, the chief deity

in the Roman Pantheon, no false modesty here.

And Caesar presents his most

important trophy, Vercingetorix.

He keeps him alive just for this performance.

Caesar, the conqueror of the Barbarians,

the message comes across loud and clear.

(crowd cheering)

With Caesar a new idea takes hold in Europe,

the concept of empire.

Roman had been a republic up to that point,

ruled by the nobility.

But the senators transfer full control to Caesar

naming him dictator for life.

The Roman republic becomes the Imperial Romana,

incorporating broad swathes of Europe.

So ironically Europeans have one the world's

greatest egomaniacs to thank for the first political union.

European emperors and dictators invoke Caesar's name

from Roman times up until the 20th century.

His successors, the Caesars became Kaisers and Czars.

Charlemagnen,

Ivan The Terrible,

Napoleon Bonaparte,

Emperor Wilhelm II,

and Benito Mussolini.

Caesar's adopted son and heir Augustus

is the first to truly infirm and establish the idea

of empire and it's under his rule

the people become aware of what it means

to govern the continent.

And this included perfect communication

his subjects across Europe.

Augustus who built this forum

was a master of public relations.

He really understood the marketing of power.

And here as you can see, he's depicted on a coin.

This is how, for the first time in European history

the image of a ruler traveled a million times over.

Augustus preempted Andy Warhol's 20th century axiom,

exposure yourself, take your picture,

bit yourself up and send your image around the world.

Facebook, Instagram, nothing new there then.

As his power increased, Augustus' picture changed.

At the beginning his face was still folded

in the worry lines of a politician preoccupied

by the res publica, the affairs of state.

Later the line fell away, the face depicted

in pictures and on coins is completely smooth,

timeless and godlike.

The image minted here was meticulously designed

and thought through by Augustus and his spin doctors.

And the message was, you can be proud Romans

that you reign over the world.

This is your calling.

The comforts offered by the Roman way of civilization

are one of the primary factors driving

the success of Greco-Roman civilization.

The Romans established colonies everywhere

from Southern France and Trier in Germany

to Bath in Britain, from the Atlantic to the Balkans.

And the dense network of roads they construct

in the lands they conquer make it easy

for legionaries, traders and travelers

to cross the continent.

(rocks crunching)

Roman roads crisscross thousands of kilometers

throughout Europe.

The Romans organize an entire continent.

They connect Europe with their empire and their language

and they unite Europe with their laws.

Soon Roman law would apply everywhere in Europe

governing the daily lives of its peoples

and stipulating the means of resolving all disputes.

The Romans have a criminal law

and a defined code of criminal procedure

which would form the basis for everything

that came afterwards.

The Roman's citizenship in particular

had a tremendous power to integrate.

It was granted to all inhabitants of the Roman Empire

in the year 212, slaves were the only exception.

Emperor Caligula ensured that there was equality

before the law and he also looked to the pleasure

of the Romans, ordering that the system

of aqueducts be extended and that gigantic

thermal bathes be built.

Whether dressed for the public bathes

or standing before a court of law

everyone was equal and possessed, in principal at least,

the same opportunities for advancement.

Theoretically, anyone could assume public office

and the Romans never forced a citizen

to give up his own culture.

Many of the those who fell under Roman sway

wanted in any case to be like the Romans

and so voluntarily assimilated themselves

to the Roman norm.

And so the Pax Romana came about.

Internal peace in this huge empire

and will it a loose community

that one might describe as Proto European.

But not all Europeans are prepared to trade

their freedom for a bath at a Roman spa.

The peoples of the regions today

known as Germany and Scotland offer stubborn

assertive resistance.

Rather than subduing the ruly barbarians

the Romans seal themselves off with Hadrian's Wall

today on the border between England and Scotland.

It was named for the Roman emperor

who commissioned its construction.

They also set up a border defense system against

the Germanic tribes along the Rhine and Danube rivers,

the Limes, a 550 kilometer cultural border

that cuts right through Europe.

On one side are the cities of the Roman Empire

where civilization flourishes.

There are magnificent buildings here,

spas and bustling market places.

When Augustus reigned, many millions of people

lived in these cities.

Germanios which is not occupied by the Romans

is thinly populated, it looks a bit like

a gigantic nature reserve.

East of the Rhine live numerous Germanic and Slavic tribes

in far-flung villages, it's a completely

different world, an archaic world.

A handful of travel reports full of stories

about the Barbarians to the north

were circulating in Roman.

They were likely the basis for the work of

Publius Cornelius Tactius, who's most famous publication

bears the succinct title, Germania.

The senator and historian apparently never traveled

to the wild of Europe himself,

but that didn't stop didn't stop him from writing

46 chapters about these backward barbarian tribes

in the year 98 AD.

He describes them as slovenly dressers

and he makes mention of their simple foods

and their unusually intoxicating drink,

something called beer,

which was unknown in Roman at the time.

Tactius praises the hospitality of the Germanic tribes,

their modesty and their bravery,

but in fact his aim is to hold a mirror up to Roman society.

He's particularly impressed with the marital fidelity

of the Northerners, but he also mentions

their tendency to drink to excess

and to gamble on games of dice.

Of course, what else can they be expected to do

in such barren wooded country Tactius wonders.

He puts all these musings to paper

as he continues to marvel at these exotic Teutons.

There is brisk trade between the Romans

and the Germanic tribes in the border regions

via Gates and the Limes.

On the whole the European neighbors seem

to have come to an arrangement.

Only occasionally do the Numeri,

a Roman rapid response force need to step in.

Like border police, they take action

against the frequent raids plotted by Germanic hoards

against the wealthy Romans on the other side of the wall.

But walls and fences aren't a permanent solution.

And the Romans learn that the hard way.

When nomadic Asian tribes invade Europe

in the 4th century, the old order crumbles.

Roman officer and historian Ammianus Marcellinus

describes the arrival of the Hun peoples

saying that they were excited by an unrestrained

desire of plundering the possessions of others.

And that they went on ravishing and slaughtering

all the nations in their neighborhood.

(horse hoofs clopping)

After more than 300 years the Pax Romana

the peace within the Roman Empire comes to an end.

Germanic tribes descend on the Empire

as refugees and as conquerors.

The Goths are the first to seek refuge in the Empire.

They cross the Danube in 376.

Other Germanic tribes would follow.

Ammianus Marcellinus observes this mass migration

and reports of large numbers of unfamiliar Barbarian

tribes composed of various nations

now with all their families wandering about

in different directions on the banks

of the river Danube.

At first his intelligence was lightly treated

by our people he writes.

And in fact the Romans gradually lose control,

first over their borders and then over their Empire.

The Empire is finally divided in the year 395

into a Western and an Eastern Roman Empire.

This migration period upsets the balance

of ancient Europe, but at the same time

Europe as we know it begins to take shape.

Germanic kingdoms arise in the territory

of western Roman, including the powerful Franconia

in the region that is today Germany and France.

I've traveled to Angals and Saxons in England,

or to be more specific, to Cambridge.

(light music)

Europe has always been about movement.

Peoples and nations came and went,

everything got mixed up.

And the record of this long history

or more or less constant movement

over thousands of years is recorded

in the genetic material of the Europeans.

And with the modern methods of gene technology

we can read it, every individual can find out

what kind of mix he or she is made up of.

And that's interesting.

I for example, would very much like to know

how much of Europe is inside me as an Australian

and what paths my ancestors followed on the old continent.

With some patience and a little bit of saliva

I can find it out.

I'm going to send this sample to a laboratory

in the United States.

My genetic material will be deciphered

and I'm looking forward to getting the result.

By the way, all of this is only possible

because Frances Crick and James Watson

discovered, here in Cambridge

how our genetic material is constructed

and it was in this pub that they first

informed the public of their discoveries in 1953.

Pop this into the postbox, let's see what they say.

I'm eagerly awaiting my results

and two weeks later they arrive.

Ah, the results of my gene test are in.

And here we have it.

78.5% of me is British or Irish, that's hardly surprising.

At least 5.1% is French or German,

apparently you can't distinguish between

French and German genes.

2.5% is Scandinavian,

and the 11% of my genes come from

the north European and Baltic Sea region.

That must be the Viking in me.

But I'm also 0.7% Sardinian.

I'm particularly proud of that element

of my genetic heritage.

And then there are the Neanderthal genes

which apparently we all have, and the DNA

from North Africa, apparently that too

is universal and from the Middle East.

All the result of migratory movement to and within Europe.

History has been mixing Europe together

since the Stone Age, and even I, as an Australian

am part of that story.

It's this extraordinary diversity,

this blend of languages and cultures

that had always triggered movement in Europe

just as it did in the Roman era

when the Imperium Romana collapsed.

It was a gradual process.

The supposed decadence of late Roman culture

wasn't the only thing that led to its downfall.

What does an empire look like as it disintegrates?

The continuous civil war and declining economy

of Western Roman means that that part

of the Empire has essentially already dissolved.

A child emperor Romulus Augustulus

sits on the imperial throne.

The influence of the Germanic tribes

has grown significantly.

Now they seize complete control of Western Europe.

The story of the Roman Empire in the west

ends after 503 years with the dethronement

of the child emperor by Germanic leader

Odoacer in the year 476.

Take the imperial mantle to Byzantium.

Tell the emperor of East Rome

that we not longer need it, not here.

From now on I'll have a new title,

Rex Italiae, King of Italy.

This fountain in the middle of Rome,

right in front of the Pantheon

tells a typically European story.

The Roman emperors loved obelisks

because as the Ancient Egyptians already knew,

obelisks are kind of antenna to the gods,

so they caused them, this one for example,

dates from the time of Ramesses II

to be brought to The Eternal City.

A thousand years later, Pope Clement XI

had it erected here and added another antenna

in the form of a cross on top.

And here you can see his coat of arms.

The dolphins were added later during the Baroque

and represent Christ, the redeemer of souls.

And then there's the water in the fountain itself.

The worship of river gods and spring nymphs

was of course a widespread practice among the Greeks.

And for Plato the philosopher,

water always performed an allegorical function.

Plato compared the ideal state to a body of clear waters

into which all springs and brooks flow and merge.

And one could compare this fountain with Europe itself.

What was there is its past is constantly mingling

with something new.

From this dynamic mixture great things can grow.

So what remains?

For me Rome's most beautiful building is the Pantheon

with its massive dome.

It's a place that reflects the highs and lows

of European history like no other.

I want to go back there one more time.

(gentle echoing vocalizing)

The resonance of this place conveys

something of its immensity.

This really is a break-taking temple.

When Michelangelo first clapped eyes

on the Pantheon in Rome he thought that such

an architectural wonder could scarcely have been created

by mortal hands, it must have been the work of angels.

And perhaps he was right

because that would explain why the Pantheon

survived the devastating destructions

of the Teutons in Rome as well as a couple of earth quakes.

At any rate, the seizure of power by the Teutons

turned out not to be the end of European history.

On the contrary, it further enriched

the unique mix on whose foundations European civilization

rests until this day, because instead of destroying

the ancient culture of the Greeks and Romans

the Germanic warriors cultivated this legacy.

A further ingredient was still to come, Christianity.

What will bind the Europeans together

but also bitterly divide them, is their faith.

(light music)