Original subtitles

[music playing]

\h\hNARRATOR: Emperor Trajan scales new heights of glory,

\h\h\hdefeating the treacherous Dacians,

reaping a fortune in barbarian gold

and pushing the imperial borders to their limit.

It is the zenith of the empire.

Now, after three centuries \h\h\h\hof relentless war,

Rome stands at the center of the world, a lone superpower

without rival.

But peace makes the empire soft.

\hWrapped in luxury, distracted by elaborate games in the arena,

the Romans are slow to recognize the threat of a new barbarian

horde bent on the empire’s \h\h\h\hutter destruction.

[music playing]

In the 200 years following \h\hJulius Caesar’s death,

the empire blossoms.

Peace and prosperity usher in \hRome’s gold and silver ages.

\h\hBut it may be too much of a good thing.

CLIFFORD ANDO: The peace had, of course, allowed

\h\hRome to concentrate their economic energies inward away

from military affairs, and it’s this that may have produced

the sort of general air of prosperity and flourishing

of arts.

\hIt may also, however, have had various pernicious side

effects.

The people, as they became \h\hused to not fighting,

found themselves subsequently \h\h\h\h\hreluctant to fight.

They may have left themselves \h\h\h\hsomewhat less prepared

than they otherwise \h\hwould have been.

NARRATOR: But barbarians \h\halong the frontier,

ever restless, continue \h\h\hto probe and raid,

seeking weak spots on the empire’s immense borders.

By 160 AD, the border stretches across three continents,

and 400,000 soldiers protect the 50 million people lucky enough

to live inside.

[music playing]

\h\hBack in Rome, the young heirs to the imperial throne

\hlive a comfortable life in their father’s palace.

\h\hTheir names are Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus.

Plucked from separate aristocratic families

\hwhile still boys, both are adopted by Emperor Antoninus

Pious, who has no \hsons of his own.

The princes could not \h\hbe more different,

according to third century \h\hhistorian Cassius Dio.

ACTOR AS CASSIUS DIO: Marcus \hwas often frail of health

\h\hand devoted the greater part of his time to letters.

Verus, on the other hand, was a vigorous man of younger years.

NARRATOR: A free spirit, \hVerus’s rowdy exploits

frequently shock Rome.

In contrast, intellectual \h\h\h\h\hMarcus Aurelius

takes his position seriously.

\h\hMarcus Aurelius had been groomed for rule

\hlonger than just about anyone else

in the history of the empire.

NARRATOR: Between his two \hsons, Emperor Aontoninus

has a clear favorite, the scholarly Marcus.

To him he gives his prized possession, his daughter,

\h\h\h\hFaustina, making Marcus the senior heir.

[music playing]

\h\h\h\hIn 161, when the Emperor Antoninus dies,

\h\hMarcus and Verus claim the throne, supported and approved

of by the emperors personal army, the Praetorian Guard.

\hGARRETT FAGAN: It would have been easy for the praetorians

to accept these two young \h\hmen as their emperors.

Of all the troops of the empire, the praetorians

would have known them because \hthey were stationed in Rome

\h\hand they would, therefore, have been guarding the palace,

\h\hand they would have had interactions with these two

princes over many years.

NARRATOR: They cement their \h\hbond to the praetorians

with a generous kickback, a bonus equal to several years

of regular guardsman’s salary.

\h\hMarcus and Verus will need the loyalty of the Roman army

as war looms large \hon the horizon.

\hTo the East, the Parthians invade Rome’s ally, Armenia,

\h\h\h\h\hmaking Syria vulnerable to attack.

[music playing]

Classical historian Cassius Dio.

ACTOR AS CASSIUS DIO: \hThe Parthian general

\h\h\hhemmed in the Romans on all sides,

\h\h\hstriking them down and destroying the whole force,

leaders and all.

\h\h\hNARRATOR: The fighting is savage,

\hand Roman forces cannot hold against the Parthian assault.

\h\hIn 162, Rome has no choice but to send its troops to war.

\hFor the first time in two generations,

an emperor leads the \hway, Lucias Verus.

\h\h\hHis brother, Marcus Aurelius, remains in Rome.

\h\h\hBoth men really were inexperienced militarily.

Marcus, who is the senior \h\h\hof the two emperors,

\h\hsends Lucius Verus to the East to deal with this threat.

\hNARRATOR: Verus marches from Rome

\h\h\h\hto a comfortable headquarters in Antioch,

far from the battlefront.

\h\h\h\hKELLY DEVRIES: He’s constantly in communication,

\hor at least, his bureaucracy is constantly in communication

\h\hwith leaders on the front, but mostly, this

is a leadership in absentia.

And it works.

It works as long as you’ve got good leaders up front.

NARRATOR: Fortunately, \h\h\h\hon the front,

Verus has one of the best leaders of his generation,

\h\h\h\h\hAvidius Cassius, the commander of Syria’s legions.

Avidius has been a long time player in imperial politics,

\hbut war proves to be his real talent.

He was an experienced general.

Was himself Syrian.

\hHe had connections with the nobility of the East.

Verus staying in Antioch and partied, basically,

while Avidius had run the \hcampaign on the ground.

[music playing]

NARRATOR: Avidius masterminds \h\ha string of victories that

\htake the Romans into the Parthian heartland

face-to-face with their enemy.

\h\hTHOMAS MARTIN: The real killing that Roman soldiers

did came at arm’s length.

That frightened everybody.

To keep fighting at arm’s length, when your enemy is

there with a sword or an ax and you can’t tell what’s going on

behind you or to the side of \hyou because you’re wearing

a helmet, you can hardly hear and you can only see straight

\h\hahead, it required courage and dedication

in overcoming your fear to an overwhelming, amazing degree.

NARRATOR: Over the next three years, Avidius and his troops

make a brutal sweep \h\hacross Parthia.

In 165 AD, they reached the capital, Ctesiphon,

which lies near modern Baghdad.

[music playing]

\h\h\h\hThe Romans cruelly ravaged the ancient city.

Classical historian Cassius Dio.

\h\hACTOR AS CASSIUS DIO: When the Parthian king was deserted

\h\hby his allies, Avidius pursued him into Ctesiphon

and razed his palace \h\h\hto the ground.

NARRATOR: The looting \h\hgets out of hand.

\h\h\hWhile plundering the temples of the local gods,

\hthe soldiers steal sacred vessels and other treasures.

It’s an abomination to violate temples.

\h\hDivine punishment for the crime comes swift and furious.

The soldiers contract \h\h\ha deadly disease

from their Parthian victims, \h\hpossibly bubonic plague.

\hThe Romans leave Ctesiphon swollen

on success and unwittingly \h\h\hcarrying contagion.

Having conquered Parthia and secured the Eastern empire,

\hAvidius and Emperor Verus return to Italy.

[music playing]

The city honors the \h\hglorious victory

with a magnificent parade, \hpublic feasts, and games

that pit gladiators \hagainst captives,

\hall part of an extraordinary exhibition known as a triumph.

\hGARRETT FAGAN: Tens of thousands of people

would be coming out to watch.

\h\hThey’d be waving flags, throwing things and cheering

as the army went by, and then behind that

\hwould be just a massive display of captured loot,

captives, and heaps of arms \h\hthat had been captured.

\h\hSo it was really an enormous public.

NARRATOR: Months in the making, at the cost of a small fortune,

the triumph is a once in \ha lifetime experience.

Verus celebrates with his new \hbride, Lucila, the daughter

\hof his brother and co-emperor, Marcus.

GARRETT FAGAN: When Marcus Aurelius And Lucius Verus

\h\hcelebrated this triumph in the 160s,

\h\ha whole generation had been born and had reached middle age

and had never seen a triumph, \h\h\hso it was a huge event.

It would have been \h\ha major event.

\h\hNARRATOR: But Emporer Marcus is unable to enjoy

the festivities.

\hHe knows that the campaign in the East

has greatly depleted \h\h\h\hRome’s army.

[music playing]

And even as Rome parties, \h\h\h\hsavage barbarians

prepare to attack the reduced \h\h\hdefenses on the empire’s

northern frontier.

[music playing]

\h\h\hAlong the northern border, the legionaries

left to guard the fortifications are seriously undermanned.

Too few troops have returned \hfrom the war in the East.

\h\h\hThe guards make an easy target for barbarian tribesmen

\hwho creep out of the dense woods to prey on the Romans.

[whistles]

GARRETT FAGAN: The fighting \h\habilities of the Germans

in the second century had grown proportionately, astronomically

\hcompared to the initial encounter between Germans

\h\hand Romans that went all the way back into the second century

BC.

\h\hAnd these were tribes that could field very large armies,

for a start.

So they were really formidable.

Already, by the second century, they were very formidable.

NARRATOR: Out on the edges of the empire,

\h\h\h\h\hsoldiers are mercilessly cut down.

\h\h\h\hThe dark forests of Germania become their tomb.

[music playing]

While the brothers \hMarcus and Verus

\h\hshare the title of emperor, their general, Avidius Cassius,

successfully conquers the \h\hgreat Parthian empire,

but at a terrible price.

The soldiers carry back a great pestilence to Rome.

[music playing]

CLIFFORD ANDO: The Parthian war of Marcus’s adopted brother,

Lucius Verus, seems to have been responsible for bringing back

some form of plague into the \hMediterranean basin, which

\h\h\h\h\hled to simply untold devastation of the population

of the empire.

\h\h\h\hSome very, very large percentage of the Roman world

died off in the reign \hof Marcus Aurelius.

Estimates vary from 10% to 25%.

And it will have been very, very much worse

\hin major population centers because the people were piled

one on top of each other.

[music playing]

NARRATOR: Charlatans prey \h\hon the people’s fears,

\h\h\h\hselling bogus herbal charms to ward off disease.

They say the plague is the God’s revenge for raiding Parthian

temples.

Emperor Marcus must atone for \htheir sin with a sacrifice.

THOMAS MARTIN: The only rational response for a Roman emperor

\h\h\h\hin the face of a giant natural disaster like a plague

\hwas to try to restore our peace with the gods

\h\h\h\h\h\hby increasing sacrifices, by increasing

\hpublic manifestations of devotion to the gods,

because in a case of a natural disaster,

\h\h\h\hthe emperor had the responsibility of preserving

the people by winning back the goodwill of the gods.

NARRATOR: Despite seven \h\h\hdays of sacrifice,

the gods are still hungry.

The death toll continues \h\hto rise, especially

\hamong the troops in the army camps.

\h\h\h\hSo a lot of experienced soldiers would have been lost,

\h\hand large numbers of the civilian population.

So it was hard to \hrebound quickly.

[music playing]

\h\hNARRATOR: Wounded and sick, the empire is weak.

Its enemies swoop \hin for the kill.

In 167, 6,000 German barbarians cross the Danube River

and burst into the Roman \hprovince of Pannonia.

They ravage the unprotected \h\h\h\hprovincials at will,

\h\hplundering villages and taking hundreds of hostages.

Some barbarians even claim land.

RICHARD WEIGEL: We don’t know \hwhether they’re just raiding

or whether they want to migrate.

A lot of the tribes \hsee the advantages

of Roman civilization \h\h\h\hand would like

to have a piece of the action.

So raids become frequent, \hand it’s hard for Marcus

to mobilize the troops \h\hto keep them out.

NARRATOR: For several \h\h\hagonizing days,

\h\hthe barbarians attack the defenseless Pannonia.

The Roman legions are too far away,

\hstrung out along the vast frontier.

When the legionaries \h\harrive at last,

the ferocity of the Germans \h\hnearly overwhelms them.

\h\h\h\h\hI suspect a lot of them would have had imitation style,

or even captured Roman equipment.

So I think the German army of \hthe time of Marcus Aurelius

\h\h\hwould have presented quite a formidable facade.

NARRATOR: Just as the \hfirst wave falters.

More Roman troops arrive from other points along the border.

Their well-timed cavalry assault coupled with fresh infantry

forces the barbarians \h\h\h\h\hto retreat.

[music playing]

\h\hShowing incredible confidence, the German

warlord [inaudible] of the powerful Marcomanni tribe

ventures into the Roman camp to negotiate a peace treaty.

Surprisingly, he represents \h\hnot only his own people,

but 10 other tribes, as well.

This unified front spells a new type of danger for the empire.

GARRETT FAGAN: The German \hthreat that Marcus faced

\h\hwas different from the one that had been faced by earlier

emporers.

They’ve become more organized.

Their societies have changed, \h\h\h\hprobably by influence

and exposure to the Romans.

There’s a great irony there.

[music playing]

\hNARRATOR: Alarmed by the growing barbarian menace,

\h\h\hEmperor Marcus heads for Pannonia.

With no experience in battle, Emperor Marcus

\h\h\hmust rely on his chief military officer Pompeianus

to help him earn his glory.

KELLY DEVRIES: German raids \hhad gone across the Danube

stealing cattle, stealing \h\hslaves, stealing goods

for centuries.

Why now does Rome \hactually decide

it’s going to lead \h\han expedition,

a punitive expedition against these Germans?

In my estimation, \hMarcus Aurelius

\his simply building that into a case for more military activity

in order to give himself more legitimacy in Rome.

NARRATOR: Though Marcus’s \hbrother, Emperor Verus,

also joins the campaign, he is drunk and unwell.

Before they can even \hreach the border,

\h\hVerus succumbs to plague, forcing the entire expedition

to turn back.

\hMarcus has no choice but to return to Rome

\h\h\hwith his brother’s body, abandoning the northern border

to the ever-growing \hbarbarian threat.

He returns to a court facing its own crisis.

\hThe empire’s many wars have exhausted the royal treasury.

\hThere is nothing left to fund a new expedition

against the Germans.

KELLY DEVRIES: Most officials \hprobably were wealthy enough

\hthat a missed payday wouldn’t matter much.

\h\h\h\hBut a soldier who was basically living hand-to-mouth

and supplementing that living by gathering booty from conquest,

those things begin to matter.

NARRATOR: Unable to \hpay his soldiers,

Marcus resorted to extreme measures,

\h\haccording to the "Augustan History".

\h\h\h\hACTOR (AS AUTHOR): Marcus held a public sale

of his own imperial furnishings.

He sold goblets of gold and crystal,

\h\hand even his wife’s silk and gold embroidered robes.

GARRETT FAGAN: It’s sort of as if the royal family in England

ran out of money and had to put the crown jewels on eBay

or something to raise money.

CLIFFORD ANDO: I call this a public relations scheme

because you couldn’t possibly \hraise enough money to manage

a war by selling off your second and even

\hyour third set of china, which is more or less what

the emperor did.

But it amounted to an attempt to show that even the emperor was

going to make a personal \h\h\hsacrifice in favor

\hof the common good, the sort of sacrifice

\hthat Americans once made in the buying of war bonds

in World War II.

NARRATOR: Marcus’s recruiters hope the money will help lure

new soldiers for the German \hwar, but the call to arms

gets few takers.

CLIFFORD ANDO: The Roman Empire was suffering a huge drain

in manpower and economic power.

And this may well have made people reluctant to sign up,

and left families terribly, \h\h\h\h\hterribly reluctant

to send off healthy young males to war.

\h\hNARRATOR: Resurgent attacks, of plague also

\h\hstretch the empire’s resources to the limit.

Scandalously, Pompeianus, \h\h\h\h\hEmperor Marcus’

chief military advisor, turns \h\h\hto the dregs of society,

\has the "Augustan History" reports.

ACTOR AS CASSIUS DIO: They armed gladiators

and turned the bandits of \hDalmatia into soldiers.

They even trained slaves \hfor military service.

NARRATOR: Pompeianus \h\h\hus is appalled

by the quality of recruits.

But before he can prepare this ragtag army for war,

disaster strikes on the empire’s border.

\hIn 169, swarms of German warrior bands

attack Roman provinces \h\h\h\hon the Danube.

\hMarcus and Pompeianus must lead their new legions north

to Germania, ready or not.

\h\h\hFighting on the barbarians’ home turf,

\h\hthe inexperienced Roman army is clearly outmatched.

KELLY DEVRIES: When Germans who were able to draw the Romans

across the Danube and fight, \henforce the terrain where

the Roman soldiers were \h\hnot able to develop

\h\htheir military lines, not able to use their auxiliaries

effectively, the Germans had the advantage, and they often won.

[battle sounds and shouting]

NARRATOR: In the Spring \h\hof 170, the greatest

of the German tribes, the Marcomanni and the Quadi,

square off against the Romans and crush them.

KELLY DEVRIES: Marcus Aurelius is definitely

something special.

But does that mean that \h\hhe’s a good leader?

\h\hHow effectively can he lead the troops in battle?

\h\hThe fact is is that Marcus Aurelius’s record there is not

good.

Marcus’s first major battle \h\hresults in the massacre

of 20,000 Romans.

It is the worst Roman \hdefeat in a century.

Emperor Marcus Aurelius \h\hleads his first army

\h\hto battle against the Germans and fails utterly.

\h\h\hThen disaster strikes behind him.

While Marcus is bogged \hdown on the Danube,

other Germans push into Italy itself.

[battle sounds and shouting]

\h\hIn 170 AD, they pounce upon the rich port town of Aquileia,

near modern day Venice, \hand ravage it at will.

\h\hIt is the first time in centimeters that barbarians

raid the Italian heartland.

[battle sounds and shouting]

RICHARD WEIGEL: They’re \hfierce, they’re cruel,

they’re barbarian.

And they probably conjure \h\hup in the Romans’ mind

images of the Gauls coming into Rome in the fourth century BC,

\h\h\hthe threats of the Cimbri and the Teutones

in the late second century BC.

The Romans particular fear these individuals coming to Italy.

NARRATOR: With Rome in \hthe grips of terror,

Emperor Marcus Aurelius must act quickly to vanquish the enemy

once and for all.

He moves with his army north along the Danube

\h\h\hand prepares to invade the lands of the powerful Marcomanni

tribe.

\h\h\hThe cold green forests of the north

are alien to the Roman emperor.

Alone and far from the only \h\hhome he has ever known,

\h\hMarcus adjusts poorly to the rugged life of an army officer.

His health declines.

CLIFFORD ANDO: We know that the famous ancient Dr. Galen was

\h\hMarcus’s personal physician for a time.

\h\h\hAnd we know that Galen prepared a medicine for him

\hto take every day, both to treat current illnesses

and to stave off future ones.

NARRATOR: In particular, plague, which continues

to devastate his troops.

With death constantly \h\h\h\h\hon his mind,

Marcus records his innermost thoughts

\h\hin a journal known as "The Meditations".

\hIt is still in print today and reveals a man grappling

with his fate.

ACTOR AS MARCUS AURELIUS: Do not act as if you were going

to live 10,000 years.

\h\hDeath hangs over you while you live.

\h\hWhile it is in your power, be a decent man.

\h\hRICHARD WEIGEL: Philosophy gives him

a way of dealing with the crises of dealing

with the unpleasant things he \hhas to face on a daily basis

along the Danube.

\hNARRATOR: The solitude of the deep German woods

\h\his a far cry from the chaos and bloodshed Marcus

will meet on the battlefield.

\h\h\hHe launches a series of military strikes in the lands

of the most dangerous tribes, \h\hthe Sarmatians, the Quadi,

and the Marcomanni.

\hThe barbarians have defeated Marcus before

and remain confident as they set up camp along the river.

But Marcus is learning \h\h\hfrom his enemy.

He abandons the established \h\h\h\hRoman line formation

in favor of smaller, more mobile units called vexillations.

These give his army greater flexibility

\has they maneuver through the trees.

KELLY DEVRIES: It was a new war.

It was a different war.

And it was a war that was \hfar different from some

of these veterans who had just \hfought the Parthians in very

straight lines and using \h\hconventional tactics

in the Middle East.

This was a war where ambushes \h\hwere going to be the norm.

\h\h\h\h\hNARRATOR: When the barbarians least suspect it,

the Romans swoop in.

[battle sounds and shouting]

\hTHOMAS MARTIN: In the heat of battle,

\ha Roman soldier was on a very dangerous tightrope.

\h\h\h\h\hHe had to balance this incredible adrenaline rush that

would lead him to attack.

He had to stay calm even though his hormones are overcoming

him.

He had to set aside the natural panic that affects anybody when

you’re going to be only two feet away in a killing zone that’s

\hjust as dangerous to you as to your enemy.

[battle sounds and shouting]

\h\hNARRATOR: At last the ailing and inexperienced Emperor Marcus

can claim a victory \h\hon German soil.

The Romans build on their triumph

by erecting a line of garrisons in Marcomanni and Quadi

territory.

The annexation of Germania \h\h\h\hbegins in earnest.

\h\hBut the Germans respond aggressively

against the fortifications.

\h\h\hLike hornets whose nest has been violated,

the barbarians swarm the \himperial headquarters

in coordinated attacks.

\h\hGARRETT FAGAN: The Germans that came out

of the forests against \h\h\hMarcus Aurelius

are not howling savages \hdressed in bear skins

\hwith wooden shields and big axes like we see in Hollywood.

They had been dealing with the Romans now for two centuries.

\hThey had learned their techniques.

They’d observed their equipment.

\hSo they knew how the Romans fought.

[battle sounds and shouting]

\hNARRATOR: If they breach the fortress

the Romans know they will \hdestroy everyone inside.

[battle sounds and shouting]

\hInside the fortress, Marcus Aurelius moves among his men,

restoring their spirits and exposing himself to danger.

\hCLIFFORD ANDO: He may well have felt,

\h\hout of some sense of personal responsibility

of which we would entirely approve,

that if he was going to send \hmen to their death in war,

that he ought, in fact, to be present, to take an interest,

to manage those campaigns.

\hNARRATOR: As the situation becomes most critical Marcus

turns to his pagan gods, \hsacrificing and asking

for their help against \h\hthe German hordes.

They answer him with a miracle, according to the fourth century

"Augustan History".

ACTOR (AS AUTHOR): Standing his ground, he prayed to the gods

\h\hand summoned a thunderbolt from heaven against the enemy.

\hRICHARD WEIGEL: The barbarians, of course,

would have seen a thunderbolt \h\has a very negative thing.

It seemed that the gods were favoring the Romans

\h\h\hin this case, and that’s not a good thing.

So presumably, they would \hhave to deal with that.

NARRATOR: At the very gates of the fortress,

the terrified barbarians \h\h\h\h\hbreak and run.

The Romans are delivered.

Thrilled, the Romans hail \h\hMarcus by a new title,

\h\h\h\h\hGermanicus, the Conqueror of the Germans.

\hThrough perseverance, discipline, and some say

miracles, Emperor \hMarcus Aurelius

takes the upper hand in his brutal conquest of Germania.

[battle sounds and shouting]

\h\hEven the peaceful German farming communities are not

safe from Marcus’s wrath.

The Romans prove their mastery \hby the edge of their swords.

[battle sounds and shouting]

GARRETT FAGAN: A lot of these \h\h\hwars against the Germans

were genocidal kinds of wars, \h\hRomans attacking villages

\h\h\h\hand wiping everyone out, carrying women and children off

into slavery.

\hWe see soldiers bringing heads of defeated enemies

to get rewards.

NARRATOR: The Romans record the ugliness of the conflict

\h\h\hon a towering monument which commemorates Marcus’s

German campaigns.

It is known as the \hAurelien Column.

GARRETT FAGAN: The Marcus Aurelius column is saying,

this is a brutal, nasty business that your emperor is doing

for your safety.

And this is the cost of it.

You know, it’s not pleasant.

\h\hNARRATOR: In the German tribal lands,

\h\hMarcus carves out two new Roman provinces, Marcomannnia

and Sarmatia.

But just as they seem \h\hto be stabilizing,

disturbing news comes from \han unexpected quarter--

Egypt.

[music playing]

GARRETT FAGAN: Egypt was one of the most important territories

\h\hin the Roman Empire because it was so rich.

There were sort of the \hfears that somebody

\hwho controlled Egypt might threaten the entire empire.

NARRATOR: These fears \h\hprove well-founded

when Egyptian rebels lead a bloody revolt

against their Roman leaders.

\h\hThe terror in the desert only increases.

[battle sounds and shouting]

\h\h\hGARRETT FAGAN: It was definitely a worrying thing.

He had to respond to that promptly.

Egypt was a huge supplier of grain for Rome itself.

\hSo a person who controlled Egypt could put the squeeze

on the food supply for the plebs and the populace in the city

of Rome, and they would, in turn, obviously, put

\hpressure on the emperor to do something about it.

NARRATOR: In 174, Marcus \hsends to Syria, where

he has three legions stationed.

He directs them to Alexandria, Egypt.

\h\h\hAt the head of the avenging army rides one

of Marcus’s oldest and most trusted friends,

Avidius Cassius.

CLIFFORD ANDO: Marcus \hAurelius designated

a famous and successful general under his command, Avidius

Cassius, to have an overarching command in the eastern half

of the empire, superordinate \h\hto provincial governors.

[battle sounds and shouting]

NARRATOR: The hero of the Parthian campaign

does not disappoint.

Avidius puts down the \h\hrebellion swiftly,

securing the Egyptian territory and its wealth for the empire.

\h\h\hBut along the empire’s northern border in Germania,

the enemy is much more elusive.

\h\hRICHARD WEIGEL: The German campaign

seems to go on without end.

I mean, he is making progress.

But when you drive \hback one tribe,

another one might appear \h50 miles up the river

and you have to deal with that.

\h\h\hNARRATOR: For seven years, Marcus

\h\hhas battled the barbarians in the dense northern forests

to the wretched decline \h\h\hof his own health.

\h\hIn 175, he falls ill on the German frontier.

Whether it is plague or ulcers, his death seems imminent.

\hHis nurse and wife, the Empress Faustina,

has stood by him for 20 years.

\h\h\hNow she worries about her own future.

\hGARRETT FAGAN: If you’re an empress or a princess,

it’s very clear what happens.

If the male that you’re attached to dies or falls from grace

or is usurped, then your life expectancy

\h\h\hcan be reckoned in minutes, along with that

of your children. \h\h\h\hYou Want?

To be sure that your husband is doing well and is healthy

and is supportive.

\hAnd if he’s not, then you need to be thinking

about contingencies.

\h\hNARRATOR: Grief overwhelms Faustina.

Who will protect her if he dies?

\h\h\hShe offers her hand and the empire

\h\hto another noble, Avidius Cassius, the popular commander

of the armies in Egypt.

Eager to gain the glory \hhe knows he deserves,

\h\h\hAvidius leaps at the chance to become emperor.

"The Augustan History".

ACTOR (AS AUTHOR): While \hMarcus still breathed,

\h\hAvidius Cassius spread false rumors of his death.

\h\hIndeed, he told his army that the Senate had already

decreed Marcus a god.

Then he declared himself emperor.

KELLY DEVRIES: Avidius may also have felt that it was

for the benefit of the people.

Marcus Aurelius is considered \h\h\h\hto be a good emperor,

but he was not a strong \hemperor in many ways,

\h\hnot necessarily so good in the military.

\h\hNARRATOR: Yet just as Avidius claims the throne,

\hMarcus recovers from his illness,

putting both men in an \himpossible position.

GARRETT FAGAN: What do you do?

You can’t say, listen, I’m sorry about that claim on the throne

business.

It was a bit of a mistake, \hyou know, rush of blood

to the head.

Can we move on?

\hOnce you’d staked your claim, you had declared your intention

to be emperor, you’d always be suspected from that point on.

This was threatening \hto Marcus Aurelius

for a number of reasons.

\hAvidius Cassius was a major military commander

in charge of a significant \h\h\h\hnumber of troops.

NARRATOR: And now he intends to take those troops to Rome

itself and assert his claim.

175 AD.

Embroiled in his German campaign,

\hEmperor Marcus Aurelius is betrayed by a close friend,

Avidius Cassius.

\h\h\h\h\hShockingly, Avidius is encouraged by Marcus’s own wife

to claim the throne.

\h\hMarcus must crush the revolt of Avidius Cassius.

He must deal with the betrayal by his wife.

\hBut knowing he may die in the struggle to come,

he proclaims his own son, \h\hCommodus, as his heir.

CLIFFORD ANDO: Commodus was not then old enough

to be a significant power \hbroker in his own right.

\hMarcus Aurelius does not ever seem

to have considered anyone other than his son to succeed him.

\h\hNARRATOR: Having been spoiled in the indulgences

\hof his royal youth, the boy has yet to prove his character

or worth as a soldier.

But he is Marcus’s only son.

\hThe choice will not be a good one for Rom.

GARRETT FAGAN: Why did \hhe appoint Commodus?

Well, because Commodus \hwas his natural son,

\h\hand this was the normal way for Roman aristocratic families

to think.

\h\hIt had always been the case that Roman upper class senators

and aristocrats had promoted themselves

over many generations.

\h\h\hNARRATOR: With his son’s position secured,

Marcus turns now to the \hwife who betrayed him

to Avidius Cassius.

Astonishingly, he forgives her.

GARRETT FAGAN: Marcus did not \hpunish Faustina afterwards.

\hHe was a very intelligent man and understood, perhaps,

after a heart to heart with her, what her motives were.

He didn’t in any way put her aside or divorce her

or in any way dishonor her.

NARRATOR: As his troops prepare to March against the armies

of Avidius Cassius, a messenger approaches,

sent by Avidius’s soldiers.

\h\hThey have ousted the usurper, hoping to avoid

the true emperor’s revenge.

They know the price of treason.

\h\hGARRETT FAGAN: The usual course of action

would be for rounds \hof denunciations,

interrogations, tortures, \h\h\hexiles, executions,

forced suicides.

The messenger bears a grisly \hgift, the head of Avidius

Cassius, once his great friend.

Historian Cassius Dio.

ACTOR AS CASSIUS DIO: Marcus was so greatly grieved at Avidius’s

\hdeath that he could not bring himself to even look

\h\hat the severed head of his enemy.

\h\h\h\hNARRATOR: The rebellion is finished,

\hand Marcus can turn again to the great project of his life,

\h\h\h\hconquering the German barbarians once and for all .

RICHARD WEIGEL: The rebellion \h\h\hinterrupts his campaign.

He has to divert resources, divert troops, shift money.

\h\h\hAnd that causes a disruption in his plan.

\hNARRATOR: The barbarians take advantage of such distractions.

In 178, Marcus sends in troops \hto face down a violent band

of rebels on the Danube River.

Their savagery has \honly increased.

\hTHOMAS MARTIN: It was so overwhelming to face

\hthese barbarians, tall or loud or smelling, looking different,

that sometimes you’d have \hto drink before you went

into battle to calm your nerves.

NARRATOR: Marcus must \h\hsubdue this enemy,

or his years of hard work on the frontier will come to nothing.

[battle sounds and shouting]

The aging Marcus isolates \h\h\h\hthe rebel leaders

and has them brutally \h\h\h\hput to death.

He believes that just one more season of campaigning

\h\h\hwill bring the conflict to an end.

CLIFFORD ANDO: The German \hwars of Marcus Aurelius

would turn out to be extraordinarily

long and protracted.

But it’s not clear that it was obvious to Marcus or to anyone

\helse that they would be so from the start.

NARRATOR: Now almost 60, Marcus hopes that his son and heir,

Commodus, will carry on his battle against the Germans,

\ha struggle that has taken the best years of his life.

RICHARD WEIGEL: Marcus Aurelius had trained Commodus, took him

with him on his campaigns, but he was just too young.

\h\hI don’t think Marcus Aurelius fully realized

\h\h\h\hwhat kind of emperor Commodus would have become.

NARRATOR: But in his role as co-emperor,

the boy has become lazy, with no interest in hard won victories,

\has unlike Marcus as a man could be.

\hStill, he is by his father’s side

when Emperor Marcus Aurelius \hsuccumbs at last, probably

to the same ruinous plague that claimed his brother.

[music playing]

\h\h\hJust 19, Commodus has no patience for warfare and longs

for the good life in Rome.

RICHARD WEIGEL: He doesn’t have the leadership or the vision

that his father had.

And he pretty much backs off of the campaigns along the Danube.

Long term.

It’s a very negative \h\hthing for Rome.

NARRATOR: With weak treaties \h\h\hand reduced garrisons,

\h\hthe new emperor, Commodus, abandons Germania, squandering

\h\h13 years of struggle and bloodshed to return

to the comfort of Rome.

[battle sounds and shouting]

Without the vigilance of Emperor Marcus Aurelius,

the great Roman Empire fights a losing battle

against the barbarian swarm.

THOMAS MARTIN: If you \hhave a perfect storm

\h\hof bad leadership, bad luck, and foreign threats,

you were in really very deep trouble.

\hCLIFFORD ANDO: What they would discover, not least

\h\h\h\h\hin the reign of Marcus Aurelius, is that they could not

\hwithstand challenges across more than, say,

a certain number of points along that border at any given time.

\hNARRATOR: The tide is turning for Rome.

There will never be an emperor \hlike Marcus Aurelius again.

\hAccording to Dio, it is the beginning of the end.

\h\hACTOR AS CASSIUS DIO: Our history now

descends from a kingdom \h\h\hof gold and silver

to one of iron and rust.