Original subtitles

NARRATOR: 2,000 years ago, at the dawn of the first century

the world was ruled from Rome, and Rome was in turmoil.

Civil war had engulfed the empire's capital city

dictators seized power

and the Roman future seemed bleak.

But from the chaos, the Roman Empire would rise

stronger and more dazzling than ever before.

Within a few short years it would stretch

from Britain across Europe to southern Egypt

from North Africa around the Mediterranean

to the Middle East.

It would embrace hundreds of languages and religions

and would till those diverse cultures into a rich soil

from which Western civilization would grow.

Rome would become

the world's first and most enduring superpower

spanning continents and epochs.

The glory days of Rome were studded

with names that reach out to us across two millennia:

Ovid and Nero...

Seneca and Caligula.

But the story of Rome is more than the story of famous men.

And millions of less familiar figures struck different chords

in the symphony of empire--

people such as the wealthy benefactor Eumachia

the rebel queen Boudicca

and countless uncelebrated soldiers and slaves

senators and peasants.

And above them all, this man: Caesar Augustus.

This was the emperor who set the tone

for the astonishing resonance of Rome.

This series tells the story of Augustus and his people--

the men and women who wrested order from chaos

shaped the greatest empire the world had ever seen

and launched the Roman Empire in the first century.

WEAVER: 2,000 years after Egypt's pharaohs reigned supreme

400 years after the flowering of Greek culture

300 years after Alexander the Great

a boy named Octavian was born in a small Italian town.

The child would one day be called Augustus

and his birth, one ancient historian tells us

would be gilded by legend.

HISTORIAN ( dramatized ): His father, leading an army through distant lands

went to a sacred grove, seeking prophecy on the boy's future.

When wine was poured on the altar

flames shot up to heaven, a sign seen only once before--

by Alexander the Great.

The priest declared

that Augustus would be ruler of the world.

WEAVER: The story is told by Suetonius.

Writing at the turn of the first century

he based his biography on eyewitness accounts

on common gossip and on research conducted as imperial librarian.

In truth, he writes

the prospects of young Augustus were far from grand.

The boy was sickly, with few connections.

His family were country people;

his father, the first in their line to join the Senate.

But worse, Augustus was born into dangerous times.

Civil war had flared for decades.

Feuding nobles, many controlling large armies

fought to gain power for themselves.

And Rome's traditions of open government

were often trampled underfoot.

So, too, were innocent bystanders.

When Augustus was just four years old

his father suddenly died.

Without a male mentor, the boy's future looked bleak.

But in 49 B.C., when he was 13

Augustus's fortune took a dramatic turn...

for in that year, his great-uncle, Julius Caesar

gained the upper hand on the battlefield.

Leading an army across the Rubicon River

Caesar declared himself master of Rome

and ruler of an empire still aspiring to greatness.

MAN: At the time of Julius Caesar

the Roman Empire was a little bit like

a boy who's reached six feet tall

and yet he's only 14 or 15 years old.

He's not yet a man.

The externals of empire were there.

The armies were there.

The Romans governed most of the coast of the Mediterranean

with the exception of Egypt.

However, they had not yet learned

to bring that into a functioning organism.

WEAVER: The past decades of internal fighting

had weakened the empire.

Northern tribes harried the borders.

Enemies were confronting Rome in the east.

And the province of Spain threatened to break free.

Julius Caesar moved quickly

to bolster the frontiers and his own legacy.

Caesar had no heir

so when Augustus completed a dangerous mission

Caesar adopted the teenager in his will.

MAN: Augustus realized, here was a tremendous opportunity.

Mind you, he had no military training.

But he was the heir of the greatest political figure

that was in the Roman sky, literally, at that time.

And he cashed in on that.

WEAVER: It was a heady opportunity for Augustus

but also a perilous challenge...

for in 44 B.C.

foreigners were not the only threat to stability.

There were enemies

within Caesar's small circle of advisers.

They murdered Caesar at a meeting of the Senate.

For the second time in his life, Augustus lost a father

but now on the verge of manhood

he thrust himself into the maelstrom of Roman politics.

MAN: The death of Julius Caesar

was not just a turning point in Augustus's life;

it was a turning point in world history.

He was extremely young at this time, only in his 19th year.

And yet, when he knew that he had been made Caesar's heir

he immediately took up the political legacy of Caesar

and entered the mainstream of Roman politics;

didn't hesitate to try to avenge his father.

But that meant, of course

stepping onto the stage of politics, raising an army

and immediately immersing himself

in a contest for supreme political power at Rome.

SUETONIUS ( dramatized ): He displayed brutality against enemy prisoners.

Once, when a father and son were begging for their lives

he ordered they should draw lots

to determine which would be executed.

The father offered himself and so was killed.

Because of this, the son committed suicide.

Augustus watched them both die.

WEAVER: Suetonius describes the crisis as trial by fire

and Augustus didn't flinch from the task.

He formed a strategic alliance with Marc Antony

a powerful general who also wanted supremacy.

Together, they massacred their enemies in the capital.

Then they pursued their rivals to the shores of Greece

where they fought and won

two of the bloodiest battles in Roman history.

When the carnage ended, the empire was theirs.

Augustus and Antony divided the spoils of war.

Augustus remained in Rome, but Antony took control of Egypt

a land not formally joined to Rome

but firmly under the empire's command.

There he joined forces with Egypt's queen.

Ancient historians, like Cassius Dio, believed

that was a fateful move.

When Antony fell deeply in love with his new ally

many feared the ambitious queen was scheming

to rule Rome herself.

Her name was Cleopatra.

CASSIUS DIO ( dramatized ): Cleopatra's brazen desire for passion and wealth

was insatiable.

By love she had made herself queen of Egypt.

But she failed in her goal to become queen of the Romans.

WOMAN: Cleopatra did not enjoy a good press in Rome.

What really irritated people about Cleopatra

is that she was a powerful woman from the East

and from a very wealthy country

with a monarchic system of government.

And she therefore symbolized lack of moderation

lack of control, frenzy, fury--

everything that Rome tried not to be.

Cleopatra and Antony were cast

as the leaders of the evil empire.

WEAVER: Antony's alliance with Augustus withered.

He and Cleopatra mobilized, but Augustus struck first.

The poet Virgil later cast the battle

as an epic struggle of East against West.

VIRGIL ( dramatized ): Standing high on the stern

Augustus leads the Italians into battle

carrying with him the might of the Senate and the people.

Opposing him, with barbarian wealth

is Antony, suited for battle.

He carries with him the powers of the Orient

and, to the scandal of all, his Egyptian wife.

Their monstrous divinities raise weapons

against our noble Roman gods.

WEAVER: Three-quarters of the Egyptian fleet was destroyed.

Antony and Cleopatra committed suicide

and the Land of the Pharaohs was formally annexed

to the Roman Empire.

HALLETT: The annexation

of Egypt, for Augustus, was immensely important.

It was the equivalent

of Hitler's troops marching through the streets of Paris.

Here was a wealthy country that was going to be providing food

that was going to be providing land.

But above all, it was a country of great cultural prestige.

And once Rome had Egypt as part of its empire

they had truly arrived.

MAN: There is nothing that men can wish from the gods

nothing the gods can do for men

which Augustus, when he returned to the city, did not do

for the Republic, the Roman people and the entire world.

Civil wars were finished, foreign wars ended

and everywhere, the fury of arms was put to rest.

WEAVER: Upon Augustus's return to a war-torn Rome in 29 B.C.

the city went wild with enthusiasm.

The triumphant general vowed to restore peace and security.

It was a promise he would keep.

The victory of Augustus launched

a period of stunning cultural vitality

of religious renewal and of economic well-being

that spread throughout the empire.

It would be called the Pax Romana: the "Peace of Rome."

And to many it marked

the return of Rome's mythic and glorious past.

But Augustus himself would never return to the past.

He was now a hardened 32-year-old man

the sole ruler of the Greco-Roman world

Rome's first emperor.

Victory had been costly

but the greatest challenge still lay ahead

for to avoid the fate of Julius Caesar

Augustus must disarm the Senate and charm the masses.

He must do better than win the war;

he must win the peace.

That challenge would occupy the rest of his life.

( rooster crows )

MAN: Let me step forward, clear my throat

and announce that I am a native of Sulmo

a few days' journey eastward from Rome.

WEAVER: While Augustus fought his way to the pinnacle of power

a boy named Ovid was coming of age

under less demanding circumstances.

OVID ( dramatized ): I was the second son, a year to the day younger than my brother.

We always had two cakes on the birthday we shared

and were close in other ways as well.

We studied together

and then went up to Rome to seek our fortunes.

I used to waste my time trying to write verses.

Our father called it waste.

He disapproved of any pursuit

where you couldn't earn a decent living

and always used to say, "Homer died poor."

WEAVER: Ovid came from the same stock as Augustus.

They were both landed gentry

and like Augustus, the young man found his identity

and his ambitions molded by his demanding family.

OVID: I tried to give up poetry

to stick to prose on serious subjects.

But frivolous minds like mine attract frivolous inspirations

some too good not to fool with.

I kept returning to my bad habits, secretive and ashamed.

I couldn't help it.

I felt like an impostor at serious matters

but I owed it to my father and brother to try to do my duty.

WEAVER: By Roman law

a father wielded absolute control over his children.

Those who displeased him could be disowned, sold into slavery

or even killed.

The young Ovid tried to meet his father's expectations.

He married.

He studied law.

But the strain proved unendurable.

Miserable, Ovid and a friend set out

on a journey of self-discovery.

OVID: We toured all the magnificent cities of Asia;

we watched the flames of Mount Etna light up the heavens.

We plowed the waves in a painted ship and also traveled by wagon.

Often, the road seemed short as we were lost in conversation.

When we walked, our words outnumbered our steps

and we had too much to say even for the long evenings of summer.

WEAVER: Eighteen months later, Ovid settled in Rome

older and more self-confident than before.

He resolved to become a poet.

He cultivated new friends in Roman literary circles

and soon, Ovid made a name for himself

as Rome's reigning poet of stolen kisses.

( festive music plays under lively conversations )

OVID: So, your husband is coming to this dinner party?

I hope he gags on his food!

Listen, and learn what you must do.

When he settles on his couch to eat

go to him with a straight face.

Look modest and lie back beside him

but secretly touch me with your foot.

Don't let him drape his arms around your neck;

don't rest your gentle head against his chest;

don't welcome his fingers to your lap

or to your eager nipples.

Most of all, no kissing.

When dinner is done

your husband will close the bedroom door.

But whatever the night shall bring

tell me tomorrow you refused him.

It's a mistake to think

that Ovid's poetry can be read very literally

in purely autobiographical terms.

That wouldn't be true, I think, of any poetry from antiquity.

But clearly at the same time, Ovid is writing

about subjects of which he has some sort of experience

and he certainly, through the love poetry, opens up a world

which is very different in tone and quality

from the official atmosphere.

WEAVER: While Ovid bloomed as a man of words

the new emperor thrived as a man of action.

He rebuilt Rome and his own family.

Divorcing his wife

Augustus married his heavily pregnant mistress, Livia.

The move raised eyebrows and hackles

for love was not the only motive.

And although Augustus shunned the trappings of absolute power

many suspected he was building a dynasty

a line of heirs to rule Rome for generations to come.

Augustus knew it was a dangerous move

that Julius Caesar had been murdered for appearing a king.

Augustus would not make the same mistake.

He relinquished high office

and struck a delicate balance between fact and fiction.

AUGUSTUS ( dramatized ): Having, by universal consent, acquired control of all affairs

I transferred government to the Senate and the people of Rome.

HALLETT: Augustus was a very cagey political leader

because he pretended to be restoring

all of these Republican political traditions

and in fact what he was running

was a full-fledged dynastic monarchy.

SUETONIUS: Augustus conquered Cantabria, Aquitania, Pannonia, Dalmatia

and all of Illyricum, as well as Raetia.

WEAVER: Augustus not only changed the empire; he expanded it.

Egypt had been added early in his career.

Soon, northern Spain was joined.

Augustus drove across Europe into Germany

and he united East and West by adding modern Hungary

Austria, the Balkans and central Turkey.

These victories employed Roman soldiers and senators

and offered welcome distractions to the city's poor.

When Augustus wasn't staging chariot races or gladiator shows

he displayed exotic animals--

the quarry of Rome's far-flung empire.

A rhinoceros appeared in the arena

Asian tigers in the theater

a giant serpent in the forum.

GALINSKY: One key constituency for Augustus was

the plebeian population of Rome

and that is basically the city mob.

You have several hundred thousand folks here

who have no jobs and, to put it very simply

who need to be kept off the streets

and be kept from making trouble

because it's a very volatile, combustible mix there.

WEAVER: The volatile mix that made up Rome stayed quiet

for the first four years of Augustus's rule.

Then, in 23 B.C., events took a critical turn.

Cassius Dio writes

that a series of disasters convinced the people

that Augustus needed not less power, but more.

CASSIUS DIO: The city was flooded by the overflowing river

and many things were struck by lightning.

Then a plague passed through Italy

and no one could work the land.

The Romans thought these misfortunes were caused

because Augustus had relinquished his office.

They wished to appoint him dictator.

( crowd shouting )

A mob barricaded the Senate inside its building

and, threatening to burn them alive

forced the Senate to vote Augustus absolute ruler.

WEAVER: The demands threatened to unsettle

the emperor's precarious political balance.

Augustus fell to his knees before the rioters.

He tore his toga and beat his chest.

He promised the mob

that he would personally take control of the grain supply.

But Augustus refused to be called a dictator.

The crowd disbanded, but the lesson was clear:

Augustus was riding a tiger.

To keep order on the frontiers, the streets and the Senate

was a superhuman task, and superhuman skills were needed.

Luckily for Rome, Augustus had them.

Then something very fortuitous happens.

Halley's Comet shows up.

And the word is given out by Augustus

this is the soul of Julius Caesar ascending into heaven.

So from this point on, he is called Julius Caesar the divine.

Politically, it became very potent

because what does Augustus do at this point?

On all his coinage

on all his writings and all his symbols, whatever

he puts out the words "D.F."-- "Son of the Divine."

And it's really quite an asset in politics

to be the Son of the Divine.

There are modern politicians, I think

who would be very jealous of being able to do that.

WEAVER: Augustus enhanced his pious new identity

with stories of his lean habits.

It was said that he lived in a modest house

and slept on a low bed, that he ate common foods:

coarse bread, common cheese and sometimes even less.

AUGUSTUS: My dear Tiberius, not even a Jew observes a fast

as diligently on the Sabbath as I have today.

I ate nothing until the early hours of evening

when I nibbled two bites before my rubdown.

WEAVER: Moral change, Augustus began to argue, was the enemy of Rome.

He believed that its future ran through its past

through the restoration

of values he thought had first made Rome great.

AUGUSTUS: I renewed many traditions which were fading in our age.

I restored 82 temples of the gods

neglecting none that required repair at the time.

WEAVER: In public, Augustus led by example.

He sacrificed animals in traditional rituals

and he reestablished traditional social rules.

New laws assigned theater seats by social rank.

Women were confined to the back rows.

Adultery was outlawed; marriage and children, encouraged.

To many, Roman society had recovered its true course.

The "Son of a God" was building an empire for the ages.

MAN: Who can find words to adequately describe

the advancements of these years?

Authority has been returned to the government

majesty to the Senate, and influence to the courts.

Protests in the theater have been stopped.

Integrity is honored; depravity is punished.

( crowd cheering and shouting )

WEAVER: But amid the applause, there were also cries of protest.

The emperor's new traditionalism

rankled friends and enemies alike.

It even rankled his own daughter, Julia.

Long a pawn of family politics, Julia assumed

that she was exempt from her father's stringent views.

She was wrong.

And in the coming years, Augustus the "Son of a God"

would have to confront Augustus the father.

OVID: If there is anyone here who is a novice in the art of love

let him read my book.

With study, he will love like a professional.

WEAVER: As the emperor Augustus firmly charted a course of moral rigor

the poet Ovid staked out different ground.

He was now Rome's most famous living poet

and his boldness grew in step with his reputation.

Having all but exhausted the conventions of love poetry

he decided to stretch them.

He began composing a manual of practical tips on adultery.

OVID: Step one: Stroll under a shady colonnade.

Don't miss the shrine of Adonis

but the theater is your best hunting ground.

There you'll find women to satisfy any desire.

Just as ants come and go

so the cultured ladies swarm to the games.

They come for the show, and to make a show of themselves.

There are so many, I often reel from the choice.

WEAVER: Many Romans yearned to follow their emperor

back to the good old days of stern Roman virtue

but others reveled in the promises

of Rome's newfound peace.

Ovid was one of them.

To the youthful poet, old limits seemed meaningless.

OVID: Do not doubt you can have any girl you wish.

Some give in, others resist

but all love to be propositioned.

And even if you fail, rejection doesn't hurt.

But why should you fail?

Women always welcome pleasure and find novelty exciting.

WEAVER: Indeed, the earlier civil wars

had unleashed enormous social change.

Some women had gained political clout--

new rights and new freedoms.

Tradition holds that one such woman was Julia

the emperor's only child.

SUETONIUS: Julia had a love of letters and was well educated

a given in that family.

She also had a gentle nature and no cruel intentions.

Together, these brought her great esteem as a woman.

WEAVER: Julia didn't reject traditional values wholesale.

She had long endured her father's overbearing control.

She dutifully married three times

to further his dynastic ambitions

and she bore five children.

Her two boys, Gaius and Lucius

were cherished by Augustus as probable heirs.

But like Ovid, Julia expected more from the peace.

She was clever and vivacious, and she had an irreverent tongue

that cut across the grain of Roman convention.

Her legendary wit was passed through the centuries

by a late Roman writer called Macrobius.

MACROBIUS ( dramatized ): Several times her father ordered her--

in a manner both doting and scolding--

to moderate her lavish clothes

and keep less mischievous company.

Once, he saw her in a revealing dress.

He had disapproved, but held his tongue.

The next day, in a different dress

she embraced her father with modesty.

He could not contain his joy, and said, "Now, isn't this dress

more suited to the daughter of Augustus?"

Julia retorted, "Today I am dressed for my father's eyes;

yesterday I dressed for my husband's."

WEAVER: But apparently Julia's charms were not reserved

for her husband alone.

The emperor's daughter took many lovers.

HALLETT: Her dalliances were so well known

that people were actually surprised

when her children resembled her second husband

who was the father of her five children

and she wittily replied

"Well, that's because I never take on a passenger

unless I already have a full cargo"

meaning that she waited until she was already pregnant

before undertaking these dalliances

so concerned was she to protect

the bloodlines of these... of these offspring.

WEAVER: Julia, like Ovid, was a testament to her times.

But neither of them were average Romans.

The life they represented

shocked traditional society to the core

and as Julia entered her 38th year, crisis loomed.

MAN: In that year, a scandal broke out in the emperor's own home

shameful to discuss and horrible to remember.

WEAVER: One Roman soldier voiced deep revulsion

at Julia's extraordinary self-indulgence.

MAN: Julia, ignoring her father, Augustus

did everything which is shameful for a woman to do

whether through extravagance or lust.

She counted her sins as though counting her blessings

and asserted her freedom to ignore the laws of decency.

WEAVER: Julia's behavior erupted into a full-blown political crisis

and it was marked by overblown claims.

The emperor's daughter was rumored to hold nightly revels

in Rome's public square.

She was said to barter sexual favors

from the podium where her father addressed the people.

When the gossip reached Augustus

the emperor flew into a violent rage.

( door slams )

He refused to see visitors.

Upon emerging, Suetonius reports

he publicly denounced his only child.

SUETONIUS: He wrote a letter advising the Senate of her misbehavior

but was absent when it was read.

He secluded himself out of shame

and even considered a death sentence for his daughter.

He grew more obstinate

when the Roman people came to him several times

begging for her sake.

He cursed the crowd

that they should have such daughters and such wives.

WEAVER: As a father, Augustus could not abide Julia's behavior;

as an emperor, he could not tolerate the embarrassment.

Augustus banished Julia for the rest of her life.

OVID: I was going to pass over the ways a clever girl

might elude a husband or watchful guard.

But since you need help, here's my advice...

SUETONIUS: Soon after Julia's exile, Ovid released his salacious poem.

It couldn't have been more poorly timed.

OVID: Of course, a guard stands in your way

but you can still write.

Compose love letters while alone in the bathroom

and send them out with an accomplice.

She can hide them next to her warm flesh

under her dress or bound beneath her foot.

Should your guard get wind of these schemes

she can offer her skin for paper

and carry out notes written on her body.

WEAVER: Ovid's poetry extolled behavior

for which the emperor's daughter was banished

and her fate loomed large as a warning.

For the present, the emperor remained mute

towards Rome's most gifted rebel.

Ovid turned his hand to less provocative forms of poetry.

He remarried

and he embraced a new appreciation for discretion.

OVID: Enjoy forbidden pleasures in their place.

But when you dress, don't forget your mask of decorum.

An innocent face hides more than a lying tongue.

WEAVER: Ovid was on notice.

The order of Augustus had firm bounds of propriety

and Ovid had tested them to the fullest.

MAN: Now consider the dangers of night:

Tiles fall from the rooftop and crack you on the head;

and the drunken hooligan, spoiling for a fight

cannot rest without a brawl.

What can you do when a raving madman confronts you?

Or tenants throw their broken pots out the window?

You're courting disaster

if you go to dinner before writing your will.

WEAVER: At the turn of first century

the poet Juvenal was writing verses

that exposed much of Rome to scorn.

He was acerbic, and had a keen eye

for the gritty realities of urban life.

JUVENAL ( dramatized ): Our apartment block is a tottering ruin.

The building manager props it up with slender poles

and plasters over the gaping cracks.

Then he bids us sleep safe and sound

in his wretched deathtrap.

MELLOR: I don't think our notion of Rome bears much relation

to the Rome of everyday life, because what is left today

are the big public buildings, not the squalid hovels

without plumbing, and without any kind of sanitary conditions

that ordinary people lived in.

That's precisely the reason members of the elite preferred

to withdraw up onto the hills

and have their villas up on the hills

a little bit away from the noise and away from the stench

and away from that incredible horde of people

pressing close together.

( woman calling in background )

JUVENAL: I would love to live

where there are no fears in the dark of night.

Even now I smell fire and hear a neighbor cry out for water

as he struggles to save his measly belongings.

Smoke pours out from the third story as flames move upwards.

But the poor wretch who lives at the top

with a leaking roof and roosting birds

is oblivious to the danger, and sure to burn.

WEAVER: In the year 4, in the imperial palace

the emperor Augustus also lost sleep

but not from fear of fire.

Now an old man of 66

Augustus had lost much of his youthful vigor.

SUETONIUS: His vision had faded in his left eye.

His teeth were few, widely spaced and worn down

his hair wispy and yellowed.

His skin was irritated by scratching and vehement scraping

so that he had chronic rough spots resembling ringworm.

WEAVER: As the emperor neared death, plots to succeed him sprouted.

His grandsons and intended heirs had both died unexpectedly

and the emperor himself lived

under constant threat of assassination.

Speaking for Augustus

one ancient historian voiced his dilemma.

"Whereas solitude is dreadful," he wrote

"company is also dreadful.

The very men who protect us are most terrifying."

MAN: In many ways

Augustus looks so solid

and what he created looked so solid you forget the fragility.

I think contemporaries were very aware of that fragility.

And surely Augustus was.

He was overanxious, in a sense

to provide a secure system after he'd gone.

( rumbling )

CASSIUS DIO: At this time there were unusually strong earthquakes.

The Tiber pulled down the bridge

and flooded the city for seven days.

There was a partial eclipse of the sun and famine developed.

WEAVER: Ancient historians report

that natural disasters predicted political ones, and indeed,

the emperor's difficulties seemed to be mounting fast.

In the year 6, soldiers-- the backbone of the empire--

refused to re-enlist without a pay raise.

New funds had to be found.

Then fire swept parts of the capital.

A reluctant Augustus turned to taxation.

It was a dangerous tactic, and the emperor knew it.

Fearing a coup, Augustus dispersed potential enemies.

He recessed the courts and disbanded the Senate.

He even dismissed his own retinue.

Still Rome remained on edge.

CASSIUS DIO: The mob, distressed by the famine and the taxes

after the fire, were unsettled.

They openly discussed rebellion.

When night fell, they hung seditious posters.

WEAVER: The crisis passed.

But soon a new and even greater disaster

battered the aging Augustus.

It began in Germany, a land of fiercely independent tribes

and, to the Roman eye, rugged barbarism.

The region had been recently conquered

and Roman customs were taking root... or so they thought.

CASSIUS DIO: The barbarians had not forgotten their ancient traditions

their free way of life, or the power of arms

but as long as they were assimilated slowly

they did not realize they were changing

and did not resist Roman influence.

WEAVER: That peaceful evolution stopped, however, in the year 9--

the year an arrogant young general called Quinctilius Varus

became commander of the Rhine army

and brought an iron fist to the province.

CASSIUS DIO: He forced more drastic change on the barbarians

and among other things, he dealt with them

as if they were slaves of the Romans

and exacted money as if they were his subjects.

( horses neighing )

WEAVER: Varus disastrously miscalculated the extent of Roman control

and misjudged German compliance.

A trusted German chieftain organized a full-scale revolt

and lured Varus's troops into a trap deep in unfamiliar terrain.

CASSIUS DIO: The mountains were rocky and cut with ravines.

The trees were dense and tall

so that the Romans were struggling to make progress.

( horse neighing )

Rain began to fall in sheets

and a heavy wind scattered their numbers.

The ground became slippery

around the tree trunks and roots.

While the Romans were dealing with these troubles

the barbarians surrounded them

and suddenly coming from everywhere.

( horses neighing )

First they hurled missiles from afar.

( horses neighing frantically )

Then since no one was fighting back and many were wounded

the barbarians came ever closer

and the Romans were unable to retaliate.

They kept crashing into each other and the trees.

They could not grip their arrows or javelins.

The rain forced the weapons from their hands.

Even their sodden shields were useless.

And so every man and every horse was slaughtered.

WEAVER: Three legions were massacred-- a tenth of Rome's army.

Augustus, his biographer reports, was traumatized.

SUETONIUS: They say he was so disturbed

that for several months he let his hair and beard grow

and would sometimes bash his head on doors

and cry out, "Quinctilius Varus, give me back my legions!"

WEAVER: The disaster in Germany underscored a stark reality:

The empire was born of violence

and to violence it ever threatened to return.

The emperor was in no mood for leniency.

OVID: Believe me

love's climax of pleasure should not be rushed but savored.

And when you reach those places your woman loves to have touched

don't let shame get in the way.

Don't back off.

You'll see her eyes shine with a trembling light

as when the sun glitters on rippling water.

She'll moan and murmur sweet words just right for the game.

But don't outpace your mistress

or let her leave you in the dust.

Rush to the finish line in unison.

When man and woman collapse together, they both win--

that's the greatest prize.

WEAVER: Ovid's sizzling words gripped Rome

when they were first published

but a decade later, they would return to haunt him.

For the patience of the emperor Augustus

had reached its lowest point.

Beleaguered, he saw plots in every corner

anarchy in every act of disobedience.

Blaming the subversive book

Augustus banished Ovid from Rome.

OVID: Hello, are you there?

If so, indulge these verses of mine.

They don't come from my garden

or that old couch I used to sprawl on.

Whoever you are

and in whatever parlor, bedroom or study

I have been writing on decks, propped up against bulkheads.

WEAVER: The poet was sent to an untamed backwater

at the edges of the empire on the shores of the Black Sea.

For Ovid, the ultimate urban sophisticate

no punishment could have been harsher.

His roguish aplomb crumbled to anguish.

OVID: When night falls here, I think of that other night

when I was cast out into the endless gloom.

We managed to laugh once or twice

as my wife found, in some old trunk, odd pieces of clothing:

"This might be the thing this season, the new Romanian mode."

And just as abruptly our peal of laughter would catch

and tear into tears and we held each other.

My wife sobbed at the hearth.

What could I say?

I took the first step with which all journeys begin

but could not take the second.

I was barely able to breathe.

I set forth again.

Behind me, she fell rolling onto the floor.

Her hair swept into the hearth, stirring up the dust and ashes.

I heard her call my name.

I thought I had survived the worst.

What could be worse?

But my wife arose, pursued me, held on to me weeping.

Servants pulled her away.

Whatever worth there was in me died there.

WEAVER: Ovid was sure his talents would bring him home.

He wrote constantly.

And as he waited, he sought refuge

in a remote frontier town.

When the temperatures dropped, Ovid wrote

wine froze in its vessels, the river in its banks.

Across the ice thundered hostile horsemen

plundering and killing.

It was a brutal life, Ovid wrote home from exile

a side of the empire that few Romans ever saw.

OVID: Beyond these rickety walls, there's no safety.

And inside it's hardly better.

Barbarians live in most of the houses.

Even if you're not afraid of them, you'll despise

their long hair and clothes made of animal skins.

They all do business in their common language.

I have to communicate with gestures.

I am understood by no one

and the stupid peasants insult my Latin words.

They heckle me to my face and mock my exile.

WEAVER: Writing for this audience, Ovid complained

was like "dancing in the dark."

As the years passed, Ovid shriveled into a bony old man.

He fell ill.

Contrition replaced his former bravado.

OVID: Oh, I repent, I repent!

If anyone as wretched as I can be believed, I do repent.

I am tortured by my deed.

WEAVER: Ovid, however, never got an answer to his pleas

and would never get a reprieve.

As he approached death

he became sadly resigned to his fate.

OVID: Look at me.

I yearn for my country, my home and for you.

I've lost everything that I once had

but I still have my talent.

Emperors have no jurisdiction over that.

My fame will survive even after I am gone

and as long as Rome dominates the world, I will be read.

WEAVER: Nine years into his exile, Ovid died.

He outlived Augustus, but he had bent to the emperor's will.

At the start of the emperor's public life

Augustus had won the wars engulfing Rome.

By the end, he had won the peace

and men like Ovid paid the price.

In the years ahead, when lesser men would rule Rome

that price would rise higher still.

MAN: O Jupiter and Mars and all gods

that raised the Roman Empire to ruler of the world

I invoke you, and I pray.

Guard this prosperity, this peace

now and into the future!

WEAVER: In the year 14, prayers such as these were heard

around the vast dominion ruled by Rome.

For in that year, the empire stood at a precipice.

The emperor Augustus had died.

Augustus had been a towering figure.

He had extinguished a century of civil war.

He presided over 40 years of internal peace and prosperity.

He forged the vision and power

that cemented the empire together.

But the peace of Augustus came at a price.

By the end of his life

Augustus had eclipsed the Senate, ruled as a monarch

and founded a dynasty that was fraught with troubles.

His heirs: Tiberius

Caligula

Claudius.

These men would lead Rome

through years of political terror

imperial madness, assassination

and through the distant founding of a new religion

that would one day engulf the empire itself.

The years to come would be years of trial

testing the endurance of subjects and citizens

soldiers and slaves

the men and women of the Roman Empire in the first century.

MAN: How miraculous.

We can now sail to Spain in just four days

Gaul in three days

and we can reach Africa on the gentlest breeze overnight.

WEAVER: As the first century unfolded

ancient observers were awestruck by their shrinking world.

MAN: Incredibly, even Egypt is barely seven days' journey.

WEAVER: For the empire that Augustus left behind

was now more than a collection of conquered lands.

It was a far-flung society

of vibrant commerce and frequent travel.

By the year 14

the people of modern-day France, Turkey, Syria

Greece, Spain and North Africa were all part of Rome.

They contributed to its wealth and gained from its protection.

But at Augustus's death

the family of Rome also included some troubling members.

Egypt, conquered some 45 years earlier

remained an exotic land of disturbing power.

Judea, added, too, a half century before

was a tinderbox.

And in Germany, local tribes resisted full subjugation.

Then there was Britain.

Once, Julius Caesar had proudly claimed the island for Rome.

But his claim did not hold, and at Augustus's death

Britain still lay tantalizingly beyond grasp.

As he lay dying, Augustus assumed a philosophical air.

"Did I play my part well in this comedy of life?" he asked.

The answer was a resounding "yes"--

the Senate declared Augustus a god.

And as he passed into legend

he passed the torch of leadership

to a man who had stood in the shadows for 50 years--

his grown stepson, Tiberius.

The years of waiting had come with wrenching sacrifice.

Once, Tiberius had been happily married

but he had been forced to divorce his wife

and marry the emperor's daughter.

Tiberius complied with Augustus's order

but his biographer reports that he was never the same.

SUETONIUS: Tiberius had loved his wife.

After the divorce, he grieved that he had pushed her away

and had great anguish in his soul.

The one time he caught sight of her

he watched her with such strained and swollen eyes

that an officer was assigned to keep her from his presence.

WEAVER: Despite his sacrifice, Tiberius had been spurned.

Augustus only chose him after more favored heirs had died.

And still, Tiberius's position was insecure

for the Senate was leery.

Its members needed leadership but hated monarchy

and many resented the turn to hereditary rule.

BRADLEY: Tiberius was in an impossible situation.

He did not expect

to become emperor originally.

He was not Augustus's first choice.

He was not Augustus;

he had not accomplished what Augustus had.

So the negotiation of his role

with regard to those who were his social peers

was very difficult indeed.

WEAVER: The Senate chamber was tense as Augustus's will was read.

Tiberius moved warily to claim his legacy

and he gave confusing signals.

"Would Tiberius assume full imperial powers?"

the senators asked.

"No," he responded.

"Which branch of government will you direct?"

one member called out.

Tiberius was silent.

"How long will Rome remain headless?" shouted another.

WALLACE-HADRILL: Tiberius wanted power all right.

The excuse for behaving in the way he does

is that that's how Augustus himself had done it.

He's trying to be a good Augustus look-alike.

Augustus came to power by refusing it.

He feels he, too, must refuse.

But... somehow, subtly, oddly, he got the game wrong.

He refused too much.

He didn't convince anyone that his refusal was genuine

and he only caused resentment.

WEAVER: As Tiberius groped awkwardly to define his role

events outside Rome turned ominous.

A message arrived from the provinces:

Two armies on the northern frontier were refusing orders.

( men shouting angrily )

It started among the legions in modern-day Hungary and Austria

just ten days' march from Rome.

One disgruntled soldier voiced

the bitter realities of army life

and mounting a rostrum made of dirt

he stoked the fires of resentment.

SOLDIER ( dramatized ): Old men are enduring 30 and 40 years of service.

Many have even lost limbs.

And discharge does not end it;

they do the same work by a different name.

And if by some chance one survives

he is dragged to the ends of the earth and given "payment"

with a swampy marsh or sterile mountainside.

By Hercules!

Life in the legions is brutal and unprofitable.

WEAVER: Gradually, the arguments struck home.

Soldiers began showing their scars.

Some looted; officers were killed;

and with words of defiance ringing in the air

mutiny gained momentum.

( crowd shouting )

SOLDIER: Why should you obey like slaves?

When will you dare demand payback

if not with a new and wavering emperor?

WEAVER: It was Rome's worst nightmare

and it demanded attention from the imperial family.

With the new emperor busy in Rome

another family member was sent to quell the rebellion.

He was called Germanicus.

He was young, charismatic

and loved by the soldiers as a man of the legions.

His wife had even given birth in an army outpost

and the couple's two-year-old son wore a tiny army uniform.

"Bootsie" the soldiers called him--

in Latin, Caligula.

The child was the darling of the Roman legions

their imperial mascot.

When Germanicus and his family reached the mutinous camp

it was clear that more violence loomed;

their very lives were at risk.

Germanicus consulted his advisers.

He tearfully urged his wife to seek refuge with a nearby tribe.

She agreed, leaving with little Caligula in her arms.

Some years later, the historian Tacitus recorded the scene.

TACITUS ( dramatized ): A wretched group of women marched away:

the commander's wife, a refugee

clutching her small son to her breast

surrounded by the weeping wives of his comrades.

The wailing was noticed by the soldiers

who came out of their tents.

They felt shame and pity and thought of her forefathers

and of her son, a child born and raised among the tents.

They begged, they insisted that she come back.

WEAVER: Rebel unity was broken.

Germanicus became a hero

and Caligula and his mother returned to camp.

Caligula as a child in the middle of this mutiny

must have seen the importance of the loyalty of the army.

And in fact he had been the darling of the soldiers

and he could appreciate the loyalty that the army felt

to the imperial family in Rome.

And yet he also could see what would happen

if the soldiers' expectations weren't met.

They were not going to maintain the loyalty.

WEAVER: Army loyalty, Caligula saw, was the core of imperial strength.

But events would offer Caligula another, darker lesson:

Popularity could be a dangerous thing.

Just five years later

Caligula's father, Germanicus, lay dying

poisoned, it was believed, on orders from the emperor.

Tiberius insisted he played no part in the death of Germanicus

but neither did he mourn, for he well knew

that public favorites could be as threatening as army mutinies

and survival demanded brutal vigilance.

Governing Rome, Tiberius mused

was like "holding a wolf by the ears."

That reality would stalk the imperial family

for generations to come.

MAN: I must go and have a bath.

Yes, it's time.

I get myself some towels, I run and catch up with the others

and I say to them one and all, "How are you?

"Have a good bath!

Have a good supper!"

WEAVER: Young and old, rich and poor

men and women, every day in midafternoon

countless people around the empire ended their work

and made their way to the baths.

MAN: Labor and worry begone!

I sing the baths, bejeweled with shining tiles!

WEAVER: Most bath complexes were large, congenial places

where all classes mingled

in one of the great unifying rituals of Roman life.

They included outdoor areas for exercise

food stands for snacks

and noisy attendants who offered every sort of service.

( many voices echoing loudly )

MAN: I would die if silence were as necessary to study as they say.

I live just above the bathhouse.

WEAVER: The philosopher Seneca found his local bath a mixed blessing.

SENECA: Consider all the hateful voices I hear.

When the brawny men exercise with their lead weights

I hear their groans and gasps.

Or when someone else comes in to get a vulgar massage

I hear the slap of a hand on his shoulders.

Add those who leap into the pool with a huge splash.

Besides these, who at least have normal voices

consider the hair plucker, always screeching for customers

and never quiet except when he's making someone else cry.

WEAVER: After several hours in the boisterous atmosphere

wealthy Romans headed home for an evening with friends.

The less privileged met at roadside cafés.

But one and all, Romans cherished

their late-afternoon rituals as staples of life.

ROMAN: Baths, wine and sex ruin our bodies.

But what makes life worth living except sex, wine and baths?

WEAVER: Away from the public eye

Augustus's first successor lived in gloom.

The emperor Tiberius was already 55

when he inherited Rome from his stepfather

and he was a dour, cynical man.

Embittered by his years of obscurity

Tiberius now resented the courtiers who once scorned him.

He despised their intrigues and obsequious manners.

"Men fit to be slaves," he muttered

as he left the Senate house.

Many senators thought little better of Tiberius.

They grew to hate him for his cryptic wishes

and his unpredictable moods.

WALLACE-HADRILL: What really gets up their noses

is that he both demands servility from them

and then pretends to be treating them like equals

and saying, "Oh, no, no, don't be servile, don't flatter me"

and "I don't want this adulation that you offer me."

And yet it was clear to them that unless he was flattered

unless they behaved like slaves, he wasn't actually happy.

That's why they called him a hypocrite.

WEAVER: With mutual contempt between senators and Tiberius

the emperor sought counsel outside their ranks

in a cavalry officer named Sejanus

a man the ancient historian Tacitus called

"a small-town cheater."

TACITUS: Sejanus was brazen with great physical endurance.

Outwardly, he appeared honorable

but inside he nursed a greedy nature.

WALLACE-HADRILL: You have to remember

that the Romans could be extraordinarily snobbish.

The Romans weren't against social mobility absolutely

but they hated to see upstarts

who they see as getting into power

not because they're good but because they cheat the system

because they worm their way into the favor of the emperors

and they cheat themselves into social standing.

WEAVER: Tiberius gave Sejanus command of the Praetorian Guard

an elite battalion created to keep order

and protect the emperor.

Sejanus concentrated his troops in a single camp.

Billeted in one place, Tacitus says

the guard enhanced Sejanus's political influence.

TACITUS: When the camp was finished

he insinuated himself into the soldiers' affections

speaking to each, man to man.

He chose their leaders himself.

And to senators, he hinted at offices and provincial posts

for those who supported him.

WEAVER: Tiberius offered his aide the highest honors.

He openly praised Sejanus

calling him "the partner of my labors"

and Sejanus reveled in the emperor's trust.

He would use it to clear a path for his own power

and subject Rome to a reign of terror

reminiscent of its darkest past.

Germanicus, the hero of the army mutiny, was dead.

Now, Sejanus warned

the dead man's family was plotting to seize power.

Germanicus's widow was parted from her children

and sent into exile.

In Rome, young Caligula was spared abuse

but his older brothers were less fortunate.

Suetonius describes their fate.

SUETONIUS: Both were judged to be traitors and sentenced to death

one in the basement of the imperial palace

where starvation drove him

to eat the stuffing from his pillow.

It is believed that the other committed suicide

when an executioner came and showed him the noose

and the hooks for dragging his corpse through the city.

Their ravaged remains were so scattered

that it was very difficult to collect them.

HALLETT: This is what's wrong

with the system that Augustus established.

It's a system that's only as strong

as the male member of the family who comes to power is

emotionally and physically.

And while there were some very impressive people--

most notably Augustus-- who assume this role

there were others who had a great deal wrong with them.

And a lot of what was wrong with them

was merely living in this household

where people are constantly vying for power and favor.

WEAVER: The emperor's aide, Sejanus, soon widened his purge.

He launched treason trials.

Rivals were routinely convicted

and, according to Tacitus, executed.

TACITUS: It was a time of corruption, greed and subservience.

Not only the elite felt insecure in their positions

but even lower-ranked officials competed

to perform foul and slavish acts.

WEAVER: Barely a decade after Augustus had died

the dynasty he founded was failing Rome.

The now elderly Tiberius

would not, or could not, stop the purge.

BRADLEY: Where was Tiberius when the trials

and other atrocities and persecutions were going on

towards the end of his reign?

It's difficult to tell.

He had withdrawn from the city

because he was tired of the capital and its politics.

He may have known of some of the trials that were going on;

he may not.

He may have simply been duped.

How do we know?

It's very difficult to tell.

WEAVER: In the year 26, disgusted and insecure

Tiberius had turned his back on Rome

and retreated to the island of Capri

an isolated refuge that offered security from his enemies

and diversions for his troubled mind.

SUETONIUS: Once retired to Capri, he set up rooms for his depraved urges.

WEAVER: Perched in one of 12 cliff-top villas

Tiberius sought release in astrology, in wine

and, according to his gossipy biographer, Suetonius

in all manner of self-indulgence.

SUETONIUS: He procured groups of girls and boys

known for their sexual inventions.

They enacted their unique depravities before him

to arouse his failing sex drive.

He decorated the bedrooms

with erotic paintings, figurines and Egyptian pornography

so they knew the work they were expected to put out.

WEAVER: Only Sejanus had regular access to the reclusive emperor

and after Tiberius's own son died

only Sejanus enjoyed the emperor's trust.

In Rome, he assumed all the powers of his absent patron

and ruled with growing autonomy.

Sejanus, it seemed, was poised to displace Tiberius himself.

Sejanus had clearly been plotting

to secure the emperorship for himself--

there's no doubt about that-- And he had waged campaigns

against members of the imperial family.

It's very difficult to know what caused his undoing in the end

because we don't have a complete account.

WEAVER: In the year 31, events took a surprising turn.

Tiberius suddenly soured on Sejanus

and suddenly embraced Caligula

the only surviving son of his imperial family.

Tiberius called Caligula to Capri.

Then he sent a secret message to the Senate condemning Sejanus.

The ancient historian Cassius Dio tells the story

as it was recounted to him.

CASSIUS DIO: At sunrise, the emperor's agent climbed the hill

where the Senate was convening in the temple of Apollo.

He found Sejanus outside.

He consoled him with lies

telling him that he was about to be named next in line.

Ecstatic, Sejanus ran into the building.

WEAVER: As the emperor's agent slipped away

Tiberius's letter was read aloud.

Line by line, it condemned Sejanus.

Slowly, senators inched away.

CASSIUS DIO: The presiding officer called Sejanus forward

but he did not obey because he had never taken orders.

He was called a second and third time.

Then the officer said, "Sejanus, come here."

Sejanus answered blankly, "Are you calling me?"

He whom they once worshiped, they now led to execution.

WEAVER: Sejanus was strangled.

His body was dumped into the river Tiber.

In an age of emperors

violence was the only recourse for the aggrieved

and brutality always lurked near the surface.

BRADLEY: What we might understand from Sejanus's downfall

is that no one was secure within the court system.

This was a secretive form of government.

Power was pursued by those who were unscrupulous

and wanted to wield it;

but no one could be secure in his control of power.

The emperor could strike down anyone at a moment's notice.

WEAVER: Still in Capri

Tiberius continued the business of government.

His rivals had all been destroyed

but so had the chance of stable succession.

As Tiberius entered his last years, weary and remote

his only surviving heir was Caligula.

WOMAN: To the official in charge of revenues:

It is now nearly two years ago

that Apollonius made off with my dowry

and he left me with the female child

which we conceived together, in rags.

WEAVER: Although emperors often struck down their political enemies

millions of anonymous people around the empire

led less eventful lives.

They paid taxes, struggled to support their families

and when problems arose

they appealed to Roman administrators for relief.

WOMAN: My husband has journeyed by boat down to Alexandria

and he has joined himself there to another woman.

He has told his father to sell our house.

Since I lack even basic nourishment

I ask you to order him to be summoned before you

and to help compel him to return the dowry to me

for life's necessities.

WEAVER: Many lived on the brink of ruin.

In their towns and cities in Egypt, Italy

and around the Mediterranean, they endured filthy streets

rampant disease, recurrent famine.

Emperors tried to alleviate suffering

by offering free grain to some quarter of a million Romans.

But even this wasn't enough.

For many of the nameless poor

feeding their families was an impossible task

especially in the Roman province of Judea, modern-day Israel.

There, on the empire's desert fringe

the dry soil supported meager harvests

and Roman taxes added to the burden.

The Jews of Judea were fervently religious.

Among them was a family from a village near the sea of Galilee.

READER: "In those days an order was sent by the Emperor Augustus

"to register the entire world.

All went to their own towns."

WEAVER: Long before Tiberius's accession

Augustus had ordered a census.

It was an enormous undertaking.

From Gaul to Egypt, from Asia to Judea

millions registered with Roman officials.

READER: "And Joseph also went from the city of Nazareth in Galilee

"to be registered with Mary, whom he was to wed

and who was expecting a child."

WEAVER: Joseph was a Jewish carpenter.

If the birth of his son caught Rome's attention at all

it was only as a statistic.

But Jesus, growing to maturity in his father's trade

would leave a legacy more enduring than Augustus himself

a legacy made possible

by the extraordinary ferment of the first century.

For in this corner of the empire at this moment in history

Judea was in turmoil.

The population had split into hostile factions.

Preachers and prophets roamed the countryside

drawing emotional crowds.

At the age of 30, Jesus joined one such group

and was baptized in the Jordan River.

Soon, Jesus began a ministry of his own

and like other itinerant preachers of his day

he walked between villages

taking his message to the homes and synagogues of Judea's poor.

JESUS ( dramatized ): No one can serve two masters.

You cannot serve God and wealth.

And so I say to you

do not worry about what you will eat or what you will drink

or about what you will wear.

Is life not more than food and the body more than clothes?

Behold the birds in the sky;

they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns

and yet your father in heaven feeds them.

Are you not more precious than they?

Blessed are the poor in spirit

for the kingdom of heaven is theirs.

Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

The Roman Empire provides a historical context

for Jesus's words and deeds

and without taking that context seriously

much of what we know or even think we know about Jesus

becomes inscrutable.

Jesus speaks of the rule of God.

He speaks of relief and hope

for the poor, the dispossessed, the disinherited.

He's speaking to a lot of people who meet that description

and he's saying that God is going to do something

about their situation;

that God is doing something about their situation right now.

WEAVER: Jesus's talk about a "kingdom" greater than Rome

electrified his listeners.

But his disciples' astounding claim

that Jesus was literally God's son also caused offense

and his demanding terms threatened to unravel

thousands of years of social tradition.

JESUS: Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth;

I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.

For I have come to pit a man against his father

and a daughter against her mother.

WEAVER: Even the people from his own small village were outraged.

They drove Jesus out of town.

They led him to a cliff

and threatened to hurl Jesus over the edge.

He escaped, but his ministry continued to draw fire.

WOMAN: But Jesus would say things

like to this young man who came to Jesus

and said, "I want to follow you

but first I have to go and bury my parents"

and he said, "Let the dead bury the dead;

you come and follow me."

And this was an utterly provocative thing to say

in a period where... where...

where a child's filial responsibility

to bury their parents was utterly fundamental.

WEAVER: About the year 33

Jesus traveled to the city of Jerusalem for Passover.

He joined throngs of pilgrims from around the world--

pilgrims who arrived with foreign monies

seeking animals to sacrifice at Jerusalem's sacred temple.

Jesus was appalled.

Commerce, he believed, defiled the holy site.

READER: "In the temple, he found people selling cattle, sheep and doves

"and money changers seated for business.

"Making a whip from cords

"he drove them all out of the temple.

"He also poured out the coins of the money changers

"and overturned their tables.

"To those selling the doves

"he said, 'Take these things out of here!

Do not make my father's house a marketplace!'"

( flock squawking )

WEAVER: The outburst enraged religious leaders

but worse, it threatened to disrupt

the precarious political stability imposed by Rome.

Jesus was arrested, probably for political subversion

and to the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate

the sentence was obvious: crucifixion.

KING: I think it's crucial to look at the story of Jesus

from the Roman point of view.

What did the crucifixion of Jesus look like?

It looked like they had justly, through just processes

gotten rid of a rabble-rouser, a criminal

and maintained the Roman peace

maintained stability and social order.

But what did the Christians do with this?

They... they turned it on its head

and they made this criminal--

who the Romans had justly and rightly put to death--

their hero and their god whom they worshiped.

The Romans got that.

The Romans understood political subversion when they heard it.

WEAVER: The decision to execute Jesus would launch a religion

that would one day subsume the Roman Empire

and resonate for millennia to come.

But the man who ordered the crucifixion

fell quickly from grace.

Pontius Pilate's mismanagement soon brought Judea

to the brink of revolt

and the Roman governor was ordered home in disgrace.

Fate, however, would spare him imperial censure

for as Pilate sailed for Rome, the emperor Tiberius died.

MAN: At the baths, there is no way to escape Menogenes.

If you take some towels, he will call them whiter than snow

although they may be dirtier than a baby's lap.

As you comb your thin hair, he will say you look like Achilles.

He will praise everything, marvel at everything

until, worn down by his boring efforts, you invite him home.

WEAVER: The antics of status-conscious Romans

delighted ancient humorists.

For in some circles

wheedling a place at a rich man's table was a daily dance

to fail a social disgrace.

MAN: My friend swears that he has never dined at home

and that is so.

He just doesn't eat without an invitation.

WEAVER: Dinner was an artful affair.

Upper-class Romans reclined on couches

and were served by slaves.

They enjoyed music, poetry and endless delicacies.

But those of more modest means enjoyed more modest amenities

as revealed by graffiti scribbled as comic dialogue

2,000 years ago.

MAN 1: Innkeeper, let's settle my bill!

MAN 2: You owe one coin for wine

one for bread and two for relish.

Agreed.

The girl you had costs eight coins.

Yes.

And the hay for your mule is two more.

That wretched mule will finish me off.

( fanfare plays )

WEAVER: In the year 37, the empire shifted into a lighter mood

for Caligula, now 25 years old, had become emperor.

SUETONIUS: By assuming command

Caligula fulfilled the wishes of the Roman people

or should I say the whole world.

WEAVER: Caligula had suffered mightily from palace intrigue.

As the lone survivor of a charismatic father

as the grown mascot of Rome's army

many hoped Caligula would breathe energy

into the gloomy city.

At first, Caligula lived up to expectations.

He recalled exiles and hosted a bonfire

where he ceremoniously burned

the records of his predecessor's treason trials.

But soon Caligula began to show disturbing eccentricities.

Two years into his rule, Caligula led an army north.

When he reached the sea

the emperor prepared to invade Britain--

the land that had eluded Julius Caesar.

Then, inexplicably

Caligula ordered the legions to gather seashells.

HALLETT: What is going on when Caligula goes up to the North Sea

and starts collecting seashells?

Well, Caligula had been seriously ill

the preceding year.

He may or may not have had something like encephalitis.

There's also reason to believe

that there's some troubled hereditary strain in this family

and that Caligula suffers from...

we might want to call it "bipolar" behavior.

WEAVER: Tyranny descended on Rome

as Caligula's quirks grew into abominations.

Once, during a sacred ritual

Caligula was to offer an animal to the gods.

But as he raised his mallet to kill the sacrifice

a whim brought it down on the nearby priest.

The man died instantly.

Caligula dressed in silken and bejeweled robes.

He forced senators to grovel on the ground and kiss his feet.

He openly seduced their wives at dinner parties

and he discussed the women's sexual performance over dessert.

BRADLEY: There's no doubt that Caligula was strange, grotesque

and perhaps even really clinically insane.

His reign does show the dangers of hereditary succession

within the system that Augustus had founded.

Military monarchy of the Augustan kind did work.

There's no doubt about that.

But its danger was that if an hereditary system was used

you could never guarantee that the ruler of the day

was going to be an effective ruler.

And certainly with Caligula

we find one emperor who was an absolute disaster.

WEAVER: The disastrous Caligula brought Rome's elite to its knees

and other Roman subjects to the brink of despair.

MAN: In Rome, on the far side of the Tiber

there was a large Jewish neighborhood.

WEAVER: The Jewish scholar Philo

belonged to one of the empire's many religious minorities.

Most of the groups, most of the time

had long enjoyed remarkable freedom.

The Jews were just one example.

PHILO ( dramatized ): Most were Romans.

They were brought into Italy as prisoners of war

and had been freed by their masters.

But they were not forced to betray

the customs of their forefathers.

And when Augustus distributed money and grain

the Jews received as much as everyone else.

WEAVER: But Caligula was not Augustus

and in the year 39, in Philo's city of Alexandria, Egypt

all tolerance broke down.

Non-Jews put statues of human gods in the city's synagogues.

When affronted Jews tore them out, violence erupted.

( mob shouting )

PHILO: The mongrel crowd attacked us

and ran through our houses, turning out the inhabitants.

Huge mobs of men destroyed the meetinghouses

setting many fires in their manic, senseless rage.

They drove men, women and children like cattle

into small pens, leaving them to starve and suffocate.

And others, while still living

they bound with straps around their ankles

and dragged them through the market

leaping on them and defiling their corpses.

WEAVER: It was a gruesome tragedy, and it came at an unfortunate time.

For emperors alone could mediate such disasters

and the emperor Caligula was past caring.

Philo and some fellow Jews set out to seek an audience.

They traveled all the way from northern Egypt to Rome.

But when they entered Caligula's presence

they knew their mission was doomed.

PHILO: When we were brought before him

we bowed to the ground out of humility and offered our hands

calling him the Most Holy Emperor.

Growling and snarling, he responded

"Are you those god haters?"

WEAVER: The emperor was inspecting a villa under renovation.

As he flitted from garden to building

the Jewish envoys strained to keep pace.

PHILO: We followed close behind, up and down, mocked by our enemies.

When he had given some orders about the building

he asked us this solemn question:

"Why don't you eat pork?"

Our adversaries burst into laughter.

We began to speak

but with our arguments so abused and ground to dust

we stopped trying and looked forward to nothing but death.

WEAVER: Philo and his companions were not killed

but neither were they successful.

As the men consoled each other back in their lodgings

they were staggered by yet another blow.

Word came that Caligula had ordered a statue carved

showing himself as a god

and planned to erect it in the temple of Jerusalem

the holiest place for Jews worldwide.

It was the ultimate sacrilege

and sure to cause new eruptions of violence.

PHILO: Those living in and around the holy city

as if answering a single sign, left their homes

and rushed as one to the camp of the Roman governor.

WEAVER: Philo says that the elders swore to die on the spot

rather than see their temple defiled.

But their sacrifice proved unnecessary.

For the Jews were not the only ones Caligula had pushed

beyond endurance.

Back in Rome, soon after their petition arrived

the emperor paid for his misdeeds.

Caligula was murdered, killed by his closest aides.

MAN: I, an honorably discharged veteran, have made a will.

I order that my two slave women over 30 years of age

become free.

WOMAN: Here rests a free handmaiden.

This monument testifies to the harmony she shared

with her mistress and spouse.

Good wishes and good-bye.

WEAVER: Slavery was an abusive and degrading institution

and it had a long history in the ancient world.

But in Rome, slavery had a remarkable feature, manumission.

Roman owners freed their slaves in considerable numbers.

Former slaves could work as craftsmen, midwives, merchants.

Sometimes they achieved wealth.

But in Rome's status-conscious world

even successful freedmen found the stigma of slavery

hard to erase.

MAN: We approached the house.

At the entrance stood a doorkeeper

shelling peas into a silver bowl.

Over the door, a magpie squawked a greeting to guests

from his golden cage.

WEAVER: The Roman nobleman Petronius had a sharp eye for satire.

In his novel, the Satyricon

Petronius lampooned the lifestyle of former slaves

by depicting a vulgar dinner party

through the eyes of a fictional guest.

GUEST ( dramatized ): We reached the dining room.

Boys from Egypt poured cooled water on our hands

while others ministered to our feet

removing the hangnails with precision.

I began chatting with my neighbor:

"Who was that woman running here and there?"

"The host's wife," he replied.

"She counts her money by the bushel.

"But take care you don't scorn the other freedmen here.

"They're oozing wealth, too.

"See that one reclining at the end of the couch?

"Today he's worth 800,000.

"He's newly freed.

Not too long ago, he carried wood on his back."

Petronius's Satyricon, uh, is a wonderful insight

into all sorts of social prejudices

in a situation where one of the big phenomena

of the first century A.D. is the rise of the freed slave--

the desire of the freed slave

to become a look-alike, real Roman.

And the characters in Petronius are these ex-slaves

who are all trying it on as Romans.

They're dining like Romans, they're bathing like Romans.

They're trying to quote bits of ancient literature, mythology

as if they were proper Romans.

They get it wrong all the time, socially subtly wrong

in a way that a Roman aristocrat such as Petronius

can laugh at them.

WEAVER: In the imperial family

another figure was the object of ridicule.

His name was Claudius.

In his infancy

Claudius's body was wracked by a mysterious illness.

To his family's shame, his biographer Suetonius tells us

Claudius was disfigured for the rest of his life.

SUETONIUS: When he walked, his knees buckled.

He had an indecent laugh and, even more disgusting

when he was angry, spittle flew from his mouth.

His nose ran, his tongue stumbled

and his head wobbled with the slightest exertion.

WEAVER: Claudius was the butt of jokes.

When he dozed after dinner, guests pelted him with food.

They put slippers on his hands

and roared with laughter when Claudius awoke

rubbing his face with his shoes.

But in the year 41, the laughter suddenly stopped.

After the emperor Caligula was murdered

Claudius became the sole surviving heir of Augustus.

SUETONIUS: Shut out by those conspiring against Caligula

Claudius retired to private rooms.

Not much later, after news of the murder

he crept out, terrified, to a nearby sun room

and hid himself in the curtains.

A soldier happened to notice his feet.

Claudius fell to his knees in fear.

But the soldier recognized him and hailed Claudius emperor.

WALLACE-HADRILL: Claudius is a strangely sympathetic figure to us

and partly that's because he was turned into such a figure of fun

by his contemporaries that it's... it's hard

not to try to see beyond what they were laughing at

and see a quite serious figure trying to do something sensible.

WEAVER: Claudius would surprise everyone.

The unlikely emperor rose every morning just after midnight

to begin work.

He passed laws protecting sick slaves.

He increased women's privileges.

He apologized to petitioners for the lack of chairs.

"This sort of behavior," Suetonius reports

"endeared him to the people."

Surprising gestures were followed by stunning acts.

Succeeding where the great Julius Caesar had failed

Claudius finally established Roman rule in Britain.

It was the foremost addition to the empire

since Augustus's death.

But there was more.

For centuries, the Roman Senate had resisted new blood.

In the year 48, Claudius argued that men from Gaul--

modern France-- be seated amongst them.

CLAUDIUS ( dramatized ): Why did Sparta and Athens fall, though mighty in arms

if not because they kept their subjects segregated?

Now that the Gauls have joined with us in marriage and culture

let them add their gold and wealth to ours

rather than keep it to themselves.

What we do today will set an example for the future.

WEAVER: The old order was defiant.

"He was determined," one senator sneered

"to see all Greeks, Gauls, Spaniards and Britons

wearing the toga."

But Claudius won the day;

the empire took another step toward integration.

It was a solid victory, but it would be followed by anguish

for Claudius was no less vulnerable to intrigue

than those who preceded him.

In fact, Tacitus tells us, he was more so.

TACITUS: And this was the end of his ignorance

towards matters in his own house.

WEAVER: In the eyes of many

Claudius's weak spot was his wife, Messalina.

The emperor adored her, but she did not return his devotion.

Instead, Messalina indulged her passions

for luxury and for affairs with palace servants.

Claudius always looked away.

But in the year 48

the affairs of Messalina suddenly turned sinister.

She took a new lover, this time a nobleman

and her affair was widely thought to signal

a coup in the making.

"Act fast," a loyal freedman urged Claudius

"or her new man controls Rome."

Claudius rushed back to the capital

and ordered his guards to kill Messalina's lover.

The empress fled to a friend's villa to compose an appeal.

Claudius's anger began to wane.

But his freedman took no chances.

TACITUS: He told their guards and their commander to kill Messalina.

A freedman was chosen to carry out the deed.

Rushing ahead of the officers

he found her cowering on the ground

with her mother sitting nearby.

She had often disapproved of her daughter

but was now overcome by pity.

"Life has passed," she said

"and there is nothing left but to seek an honorable death."

But there was no honor in that spirit so corrupted with lust.

The doors gave way to the oncoming attack.

The commander stood before her in silence

as he delivered the fatal blow.

WEAVER: Claudius was hosting a dinner party

when news reached him that his wife had died.

Without asking whether it was suicide or murder

he called for more wine.

Claudius, Rome's most improbable ruler

had salvaged, even enhanced the empire of Augustus

but he, too, held a wolf by the ears

and in the years ahead, Claudius would begin to lose his grip.

In the conclusion of The Roman Empire in the First Century

a string of tyrants rule Rome with an iron fist

the mad emperor Nero turns Roman aggression

towards the Christians

and in the aftermath of civil war

natural disaster strikes.

Next time on The Roman Empire in the First Century.