Original subtitles

NARRATOR: In 160 AD, Rome stands supreme, the lone superpower

of the world.

But peace and prosperity \h\h\h\hlull the empire

into a dangerous complacency.

When Rome’s enemies sense its weakness,

emperor Marcus Aurelius \h\h\hrallies the empire

to fight for its very survival.

Now, in the third century AD, as the Roman Empire struggles

\h\h\h\h\hagainst foreign invasions and the growing

\h\h\hpower of Christianity, one emperor emerges from the chaos.

\hHis name is Decius, a leader who calls upon brutal warfare

\hand ancient pagan gods to deliver Rome

\h\h\hfrom the powerful forces tearing it apart.

By the middle of the \hthird century AD,

Rome has fallen into a full-blown crisis.

Barbarians prey upon the \hweakening borderlands,

\hand civil war breaks out across the empire.

\hTHOMAS R. MARTIN: It was a dangerous time,

and it was a really tension-filled time

\hbecause the Romans didn’t know how they were going to organize

\htheir government to provide them the safety and prosperity

that they’d grown accustomed \h\h\h\hto over the past 200

years of Roman peace.

\h\hNARRATOR: Desperate for answers, many Roman citizens

\hlooked to their ancient pagan gods

to deliver them from \hthe perils of war.

But others find solace in \ha radical new religion,

Christianity.

\h\h\h\h\h\hDAVID S. POTTER: Christianity, in the middle

\hof the third century, is the most rapidly expanding

\hreligious movement in the Roman Empire.

There’s still not a \hlot of Christians.

I mean, let’s not think in terms of more than a few 100,000,

but it’s a religion which \his getting more visible.

NARRATOR: New believers wash \haway their old pagan gods

through an act described in a second century catechism.

MAN: Baptize in living water.

\hBut if thou has not living water,

then baptize in other water.

And if thou art not able \hin cold, then in warm.

\h\hIn the name of the Father and of the son.

And of the Holy Spirit.

\h\h\hNARRATOR: In this ritual of purification,

\h\hRomans are born anew as Christians.

\h\hBelieving in only one true God, they reject the empire’s

traditional pagan religion.

\hTHOMAS R. MARTIN: Christians are still trying to figure out

\hhow they are going to live successfully and faithfully

in a world where they are \hstill a small minority,

and the majority of the \hcitizens of the empire

are not Christian and \hindeed are believers

\h\hin the traditional Roman religion with its many gods

and goddesses.

\h\h\h\h\hNARRATOR: As outsiders, Christians

must rely on the goodwill of the Roman emperor for protection.

In 248 AD, Rome’s Emperor Philip is one of the most tolerant,

giving an audience to many \hlocal Christian leaders

in his imperial palace.

DAVID S. POTTER: Philip was not a great traditionalist.

He seems to have been \h\hopen to discussion

with a wide variety of different people, including Christians.

He wasn’t a Christian himself.

That much is very clear.

\h\hNARRATOR: Though Philip may take a genuine interest

in this new religion, his \htrusted General Decius,

a resolute pagan, disapproves.

MICHAEL KULIKOWSKI: The \h\hmost important thing

to realize about Decius is that he’s extremely traditional.

\hHe’s very dedicated to a sort of almost mythical view of Roman

values.

\h\h\hAnd what that means, of course, is

that things that can be \hperceived as un-Roman

\h\hare looked at as dangerous by Decius.

NARRATOR: Decius fears Philip’s Christian sympathies will anger

\h\hthe pagan gods, worsening the crisis already enveloping

the empire end to end.

In Syria and Germania, Roman soldiers launched mutinies.

\hAnd in Moesia, modern day Bulgaria and Serbia,

a vicious new tribe \h\h\hof barbarians,

\h\hthe Goths have crossed the Danube into the empire itself.

\hThis is no time to anger the gods.

\h\hAs the Goths pour into Roman territory,

\hthe imperial forces led by Commander Marinas Pacatianus

must defend the empire against \h\hhis new and savage enemy.

\h\hEDWARD J. WATTS: The intentions of the Goths

perhaps were well-known \h\h\h\h\hto the Romans,

but to the extent of their strength

\h\hand the duration of their attack is something the Romans

couldn’t have anticipated.

And the degree and the depth to which they penetrate into Roman

territory also is something \h\h\h\hthat Romans probably

wouldn’t have imagined as well.

\hMICHAEL KULIKOWSKI: We don’t know very much about the Goths

in this period.

What we do know is that the \hregion north of the Danube

became the launching post \h\hfor hit and run raids

into the Roman Empire.

\h\hNARRATOR: Pacatianus is able to hold the Goths back

\h\h\h\hand for the time being secure the empire’s frontier.

\h\hNOEL LENSKI: The Romans at this point

were as powerful as a military \hforce as they had ever been.

\h\h\hAnd they were certainly more than

prepared to square off against \h\h\hthese barbarian peoples.

\hNARRATOR: But in their crude camp,

\h\hthe soldiers grow tired of taking orders

from a distant ruler.

Instead, they choose \h\htheir commander,

\hPacatianus to replace Emperor Philip in Rome.

Pacatianus has now become the most dreaded political player,

a usurper.

\h\hTHOMAS R. MARTIN: A usurper, that is to say,

man who could become the emperor through unofficial channels,

\h\h\h\hwould gain the throne by getting the support of the army.

The support of the army in the end was what made

and unmade emperors.

\hThe Roman senate was supposed to give legitimacy to an emperor

\h\hby recognizing his right to rule.

But without the support \h\h\h\hof the soldiers,

no emperor was going to last.

NARRATOR: As a usurper, Pacatianus is confident

that the support of \hthe military will

\hallow him to lead his legions to Rome

and take the throne himself.

\h\hBack in Rome, after learning of the rebellion on the Danube,

\h\h\ha desperate Emperor Philip seeks guidance from his General

Decius.

EDWARD J. WATTS: Philip senses that not only is

his military support eroding, but also his position in Rome

is likely to erode, and he knows that this is a revolt that he

has to deal with personally and he has to deal with quickly.

NOEL LENSKI: When Philip \h\hconfronts the senate

and asks them what they \hwould advise him to do

about this revolt, most of them are too scared to say anything,

but Decius actually speaks up and says,

let the thing collapse under its own weight.

\h\hNARRATOR: From the Danube region himself,

\hDecius tries to instill confidence

in Philip but in vain.

\h\hThe emperor has good reason to be concerned.

THOMAS R. MARTIN: Philip would have been particularly worried

\habout Pacatianus because Pacatianus

\hwas commanding soldiers to the north in the region

of the Danube River where \hyou could expect to find

\h\hthe toughest, most battle hardened soldiers and the best

commanders.

So Philip knew that Pacatianus \h\hwas a real military threat

to Philip’s political position.

\h\hNARRATOR: Trusting his general Decius completely,

Emperor Philip sends him from Rome across the alps to Moesia

to quell Pacatianus’s revolt. But even before Decius arrives

in Moesia, mutiny breaks \hout among the soldiers

of Pacatianus’s camp.

THOMAS R. MARTIN: The region where Pacatianus had gained

\hhis support was under real pressure of attack

from barbarians.

Pacatianus hadn’t been successful in keeping

the barbarian attackers from ravaging the region

where his army was from.

Pacatianus’s army wanted to win.

\hEDWARD J. WATTS: Pacatianus is a relatively middling character.

One source actually tells us that Pacatianus wasn’t even

a very high ranking \hmilitary official.

Pacatianus is done in.

\hHe’s killed by his soldiers, and that’s

the end of the little incident.

\hNARRATOR: On his mission to Moesia,

General Decius brings his son \h\hHerennius, a young soldier

in the Roman army.

\hBut when Decius arrives, he finds a camp without a leader

and soon learns of Pacatianus’s fate.

THOMAS R. MARTIN: Pacatianus’s men got rid of him, I suspect,

\h\hbecause they heard that Decius was coming

to take care of things.

\hAnd Decius was from that part of the Roman Empire.

He would have been known as a tough, capable, local guy.

\hDAVID S. POTTER: Decius’s claim was

\h\h\h\hthat once he had arrived in the Balkans,

\h\hPacatianus was overthrown by his own soldiers who would then

attach themselves to the cause of Decius.

\hHe was then left with a rebellious army that still

\hdidn’t think that his demands were being met.

\h\h\hNARRATOR: With Pacatianus murdered,

General Decius relishes his new role as leader.

He and his son Herennius attempt to restore order

to the orphan army.

The mutinous soldiers have \hother plans for Decius.

DAVID S. POTTER: There are very few ways in which an army can

\h\h\hactually make its voice heard if it feels that it has

grievances, and the basic \h\hway that any army can

do that is by mutiny effectively in these cases going on strike.

NARRATOR: Demanding a ruler more capable

than Philip of protecting \h\h\hthe Roman frontier,

\hthe soldiers proclaim General Decius emperor.

EDWARD J. WATTS: This makes a lot of sense.

He’s from the region, \hgenerally speaking.

He’s from the Balkans.

And so he’s sympathetic \h\h\h\h\hto the plight

of armies along the Danube.

He also, I think, \hvery much senses

that when these troops \hproclaim an emperor,

\hthey’re willing to fight for him.

\h\hThey trust him, and he can help them pursue their agenda

at core.

NARRATOR: In an act \hof utter betrayal,

\hDecius has become a usurper himself, cheered on by his son

Herennius.

Though Philip is an \hold friend, Decius

sees no other way of returning \h\h\hRome to its former glory

than wresting control of the \hempire with his own hands.

Emperor Philip dispatches his trusted General Decius

to suppress a rebellious \h\h\h\harmy in Moesia,

but it is Decius who launches \ha new revolt as his soldiers

proclaim him emperor.

\hIn Rome, Emperor Philip is enjoying

his comfortable imperial life and expects nothing

\h\hfrom Decius but news of the rebellion’s end.

EDWARD J. WATTS: When Philip learns that Decius has been

made the new emperor has been proclaimed emperor

\hby the Nubian legions, Philip has every reason

to be very much afraid.

And so Philip has to understand that while Decius marches

\h\hon Italy, Philip has to go out and meet him.

He can’t stay in the city of Rome

and hope to retain his position.

\hNARRATOR: Stunned by the deepest betrayal,

Philip must now prepare himself to face his former friend

and ally.

\h\hHe orders his legions to ready themselves for battle.

Philip and his troops ride north from Rome to Verona

to confront Decius’s army coming from Moesia through the alps.

Emperor Philip and Decius \hmeet in a bloody battle

near the alpine pass.

DAVID S. POTTER: Once the army is on the Danube have declared

him emperor, Decius is in a very powerful position and marches

into northern Italy.

Philip comes out to meet him.

\hHe has a very small army at his disposal.

\h\h\hHe has the sort of basic strategic reserve

of the empire, a couple \h\hof legions in Italy,

but he’s heavily outnumbered.

\h\h\hNARRATOR: Sixth century chronicler [inaudible] records

the day.

\hMAN: The supporters of Decius, though they knew that the enemy

\h\h\hhad the imperial forces, still retain their confidence

\hin Decius, trusting his great skill and prudence.

\h\hTHOMAS R. MARTIN: The battle would sort of hinge

on who would give way first.

Morale was an incredibly \h\h\h\h\himportant part

\h\h\h\hof all ancient battles but especially

at this time when there \h\hare fewer soldiers,

\h\h\h\h\h\h\hthey’re less well-trained, and frankly,

more susceptible to panic.

Panic was the real enemy \hin an ancient battle.

\h\hIf your side lost its spirit, lost its cohesion,

and turned to run, all was lost.

Soldiers who had panicked \h\hand were running away

\hcould be picked off at will without any danger

to the enemy.

DAVID S. POTTER: When the \h\harmies meet in battle,

Decius wins a very easy victory.

We don’t have any \hprecise details,

\hbut we have a pretty good idea of what the difference would be

in the forces on the two sides, and we can see that Philip

really didn’t have a chance.

\hNARRATOR: In the battle of Verona, Emperor Philip

himself is brutally slain \h\hand his army defeated.

\hVictorious, Philip’s former general and confidante Decius

is now eager to begin his reign as emperor of Rome.

Back in the capitol, Decius \h\h\hand his son Herennius

\hare received by the members of the senate, who hail Decius

as emperor.

\hHe believes that in order to restore Rome’s security,

\hthe empire must first uphold its traditional pagan values.

MICHAEL KULIKOWSKI: \hOne of the things

that Decius is very \hconcerned with is

\h\h\h\h\h\hthe health and the correctness of Roman worship,

of imperial worship.

\hI think it’s clearly the case that the crisis that the empire

is facing, the very large \h\h\hnumber of civil wars

\h\h\hand the very large number of foreign wars,

makes a correct relationship \h\hwith the gods important.

NARRATOR: Ready to overcome the crises they experienced

in Philip’s reign, the senate welcomes the strange and pagan

rule of Decius complete \hwith ritual sacrifice.

THOMAS R. MARTIN: The \htraditional religion

of the Romans--

we call it paganism--

involved worshipping and honoring and respecting

many gods and goddesses.

If the Romans didn’t show their respect by sacrificing animals

\hby really dealing in the blood and meat that literally brought

life, then the Romans expected \hthat the gods would abandon

them.

NARRATOR: For the empire at risk for barbarian attacks on almost

every border, it seems the gods have already abandoned them.

\hNOEL LENSKI: The third century in Roman history

\his often referred to as a period of crisis,

\hand the period when Decius comes to power

is just as that crisis is \hreally coming to a head.

\h\h\hThe situation on the frontiers is about as bad

as it’s ever been.

NARRATOR: Barbarian Goths \hcontinue to wreak havoc

\hon the Roman borderlands, depleting the once powerful

Roman armies.

\hMICHAEL KULIKOWSKI: In an ancient battle,

there was almost no visibility.

The noise was tremendous.

It was very important to stand one’s ground

\h\h\hbecause once a line was broken, it

\h\hwas much harder to defend yourself and defend the person

next to you.

And once the line was broken \h\h\hand your enemy started

coming around to your side, it \hwas very easy for a massacre

to start.

\hNOEL LENSKI: The northern frontiers, for reasons that

\h\h\haren’t entirely clear, a number of peoples who had once

been controlled, contained \h\h\halong the frontiers

are now attempting to move into the empire.

\hThis is extremely dangerous from Rome.

\h\hNARRATOR: If something isn’t done, the borders of the empire

will collapse completely.

To start, new pagan temples are commissioned by Emperor Decius

\h\h\hin Rome, hoping to appease the angry gods.

\h\h\h\hNaming his son Herennius co-emperor,

Decius sets out to impose \htheir traditional values

on the entire empire.

\h\h\h\hThey will not tolerate Christianity

or any other deviation \hfrom pagan devotion.

NOEL LENSKI: The Romans very much

\hbelieved in the power of the past,

and that meant that Decius \h\h\hdecided to undertake

\h\h\hmajor religious reform, he simply looked back to the past.

How have we always done things?

\h\h\h\h\hWe’ve always performed sacrifices.

I’ll ask the people to \hperform a sacrifice.

NARRATOR: In temples \hacross the empire,

all Roman citizens are required to follow Emperor Decius’s

\h\h\h\h\hdecree and make public sacrifices to the gods of Rome.

\hTHOMAS R. MARTIN: The central activity

of traditional Roman religion \h\hrevolved around sacrifice,

which is after all involved \h\h\h\hwith life and death

\hin the most immediate and even brutal fashion.

You kill an animal, and \h\hyou cook it in order

\hto show your respect to the gods and to literally

share the stuff of life.

For Romans, sacrifice \h\h\h\hwas absolutely

essential to ensuring what they called our peace with the gods.

NARRATOR: Emperor Decius demands that every Roman take part,

regardless of religion.

DAVID S. POTTER: What he did was insist that every single person

make the sacrifice and obtain a certificate that they had done

so.

He was able to use \hthe tax system,

the tax rolls to make sure that you could bring everybody in,

\h\hand you had to make the sacrifice

in front of witnesses.

NARRATOR: Anyone who does not \hsubmit documentation proving

\h\h\htheir sacrifice risks imprisonment or even death.

\h\hDAVID S. POTTER: This created terrible problems

for Christians.

Do they simply do this?

Do they make the sacrifice, \h\h\h\h\hor do they refuse?

If they refuse, what is going to happen to them?

They’re violating a direct \horder from the emperor.

NARRATOR: The citizens of Rome, Christian and pagan,

await an uncertain future.

\h\h\h\hAfter Decius slays Emperor Philip in battle,

he sets out to strengthen \h\h\hthe troubled empire

\hagainst the growing Christian population.

The pagan Decius and \hhis son Herennius

\hbegin by issuing strict orders compelling everyone

to sacrifice.

\h\hEmperor Decius proclaims that all Christians on pain

of torture and death must make sacrifices to the pagan gods,

even though their faith forbids it.

THOMAS R. MARTIN: Christians \h\h\h\h\hcouldn’t sacrifice

to the traditional gods without forsaking their religion

and believing that they were doomed to eternal damnation.

NARRATOR: Forced to obtain a certificate

\h\h\h\hto prove their sacrifice, Christians

face an impossible choice \h\hbetween their emperor

and their religion.

DAVID S. POTTER: How could they remain loyal subjects

\h\hand also make sacrifice to what they regarded as demons?

Some Christians find \hways out of this.

We know of Christians \h\h\hwho paid bribes

to obtain a certificate \h\h\h\h\h\hon sacrifice

without actually having \h\hmade the sacrifice.

\h\h\hWe know that other Christians did actually

make the sacrifice.

NARRATOR: They can only hope that their god will forgive

such transgressions in these difficult times.

But not all Christians comply with Emperor Decius’s decree.

In 250 AD, Fabian, the bishop of Rome

\h\hhimself, shows the people of Rome

\hthe earthly consequences of an unbending Christian faith.

EDWARD J. WATTS: It’s quite \h\h\hpossible Decius didn’t

understand that Christians \h\h\h\h\hcouldn’t perform

these sacrifices.

But in effect, by requiring that everyone in the empire

act religiously in the same way, Christians are now excluded.

And the penalty that Decius \hset out for not performing

these sacrifices is a severe \h\h\hpenalty, in some cases

extending even to death.

\h\h\hNARRATOR: Fourth century Christian chronicler, Eusebius

\hof Caesarea writes of the Christians martyred

\h\h\hduring the third century persecutions.

\hMAN: I am struck with wonder and their all enduring courage

and the open profession \h\h\h\hof their faith,

\hhow the martyrs were not cast down in their minds,

\h\hbut their eyes looked upwards, and they neither

trembled nor feared.

\h\h\h\hNARRATOR: Third century Christian chronicler Lactantius

raves against the emperor.

\hMAN: Decius appeared in the world, an accursed wild beast

to afflict the church, and who but a bad man

would persecute religion?

NARRATOR: As the religious \h\h\h\hfervor escalates,

many Christians cannot find the same strength as the martyrs.

They choose instead to keep \h\htheir heads down and try

to stay alive.

But in 250 AD, no one is safe from the scourge of angry gods

as a deadly uncontrollable plague sweeps the empire.

NOEL LENSKI: We don’t know that much about the plague

from a medical perspective.

\h\hWe don’t know precisely which kind of plague it was,

whether it was the bubonic plague or something else.

NARRATOR: Not even the empire’s most innocent are spared

from the plague’s blight.

The disease ravages the \hempire, at its height

between 251 and 266 AD, killing thousands a day

in the city of Rome alone.

\hTHOMAS R. MARTIN: There were no really strong antibiotics.

There were some plants.

\h\h\hEven onions have a mild antibiotic effect.

\hBut in the face of plagues, especially

which could be viral, there was no defense.

\hYou could be healthy one day and at death’s door the next.

NARRATOR: Even the emperor is powerless against such

a virulent enemy.

THOMAS R. MARTIN: I think \h\hDecius would have been

\h\hdistressed to find that even after he tried to have

this universal sacrifice, \h\h\hthat things got even

worse, especially when the \hplague hit subsequently.

\h\hEDWARD J. WATTS: You have bodies decomposing and pieces

of bodies.

The city is littered \h\h\hwith the dead.

\hThe living are, of course, affected immensely by this.

And the living begin to wonder about their fate and the fate

of the empire and ultimately the cause of such suffering.

NARRATOR: Across the \hempire, Christians

fear for their safety as pagan \h\hRomans blame the outsiders

for what they see as a divine punishment.

\h\hNOEL LENSKI: They look for a scapegoat naturally,

and one of the scapegoats that they found was the Christians.

\h\hAnd it’s therefore likely that the plague played a role

in initiating the desire \h\h\hfor a persecution.

NARRATOR: In a desperate \h\hform of retribution,

\h\h\h\hthe pagans hope the Christian blood will appease

their angry gods.

NOEL LENSKI: The locals decided to turn upon the Christians

in their area, and they \hliterally slaughtered

their next door neighbors one by one systematically, hunted them

\hdown, ferreted them out, put them on trial and killed them.

\h\h\h\hNARRATOR: The persecutions weakened

many Christian communities \h\hthroughout the empire.

\h\h\hEven the small Christian community

of Ephesus in modern day Turkey bears witness to the violence.

\h\h13th century chronicler Jacobus de Voragine records.

\h\h\hMAN: When Decius the emperor came into Ephesus,

\h\hhe sought out the Christians commanding

them to make sacrifice or to be put to death.

NARRATOR: Upon finding seven \h\hChristian men who refuse

his edict, Decius orders \h\h\ha cruel punishment

depicted in both Christian and Islamic medieval manuscripts.

MAN: Decius enclosed them in a cave sealed with stones so

that they should die within \h\hits walls out of hunger

for lack of food.

\hNARRATOR: The legend has the seven martyrs

\h\hsleeping in the cave for 208 years,

only waking when a Christian \h\hemperor rules over Rome.

Many of the empire’s Christians flee to the wilderness,

hoping to avoid persecution.

\h\hNOEL LENSKI: There were important figures who tried

to escape martyrdom by fleeing.

And this was not necessarily \hfrowned on by the church.

\h\h\h\hThe church did not encourage people actively

to seek martyrdom.

If you wish to preserve \hyour church community

and preserve your own life, \hit was acceptable for you

\h\hto try to run out into the countryside.

\h\h\h\h\hNARRATOR: The most unfortunate of the refugees

are left vulnerable to attack \hby the scavenging barbarian

tribes, who prey upon those \h\h\halong the weak borders

of the empire.

THOMAS R. MARTIN: The Roman Empire had no police force.

\h\h\hWhen you left your community, you literally

didn’t have any kind of \hautomatic protection.

\h\hThere was no 911 to call in the Roman Empire

if you were attacked.

So Christians suffered \hmiserably, I’m sure,

when they had to flee \hthe centers in order

to avoid sacrificing.

\hNARRATOR: The fourth century Christian chronicler, Eusebius

\h\h\hof Caesarea, recounts the journey of a fleeing Christian.

\h\hMAN: One man fled with his wife to the mountains

\h\hnever to return, and of the Christian

brethren searched diligently.

They could not find either \h\hthem or their bodies,

\hand many who fled to the same mountain

were carried into slavery \h\h\h\hby the barbarians.

\h\hNARRATOR: The empire appears even more chaotic now than when

the hopeful Decius was crowned.

\h\hFirst angry gods, then plague, and now barbarians

\h\hare about to threaten the future of the civilized world.

Emperor Decius struggles as the empire’s defenses are weakened

by civil unrest and plague, allowing invading barbarians

to threaten Rome’s borderlands.

\h\hIn 250 AD, the barbarian Goths again cross the Danube

\hinto the imperial province of Moesia.

The Goths are now led by the mighty chieftain Kaniva, who

enjoys the security \hof a loyal tribe.

MICHAEL KULIKOWSKI: The \hway a man like Kaniva

would secure his position walls by rewarding his followers,

\h\hby giving them a chance to get rich.

\h\hThere was only so much wealth north of the river,

north of the Danube.

South of the river, where \hthere are Roman cities,

there’s an almost limitless \h\h\h\hsupply of captives,

of treasure, of coined money.

NARRATOR: Sixty century \hchronicler, Jordanes,

recounts the Gothic king’s plan to relieve the empire

of its abundant wealth.

MAN: Kaniva divided the \h\harmy into two parts,

\hand while he stayed in camp with 70,000 men on the Danube,

he sent the other warriors to \hwaste Moesia knowing that it

\h\hwas undefended for the neglect of their emperor.

NARRATOR: In the rural \hvillages of Moesia,

the Roman citizens \hhave no warning

before this sudden violent \h\h\hattack of the Goths.

This is a group that’s very \h\hmuch devoted to plunder

and probably also the \hseizing of captives.

EDWARD J. WATTS: So Romans would have seen in this an incursion

\h\h\h\h\h\hof a very large and well-organized group, very much

\hdetermined to take whatever they could

get their hands on and destroy \h\h\hwhat they couldn’t take

with them.

DAVID S. POTTER: One advantage that the Goths have actually,

\h\h\honce they get within the empire is

that there is an excellent road system along the Danube, which

they know will lead \hthem to the cities

\h\hthat they want to sack so they can take the plunder back

north of the river, \h\h\hand the chief

will become a more famous \hand more powerful chief.

NARRATOR: With the Goths now raiding within the empire’s

borders, they must be \hstopped at all costs

before they reach the heart of Rome itself.

Emperor Decius quickly \hprepares for battle

and takes no chances in planning his attack on the Goths.

His oldest son Herennius will join him in Moesia,

\hbut his younger son Hostilian, only a boy, will remain behind.

EDWARD J. WATTS: Hostilian is left in Rome with his mother.

\h\h\hThe rationale for this I think it is relatively clear.

\h\h\hIf the situation in Rome requires an imperial presence,

Hostilian can represent \hthe principate there.

But it’s a way of trying to divide the imperial presence

and secure Decius’s authority \h\h\h\hthroughout the empire.

NARRATOR: If Decius \h\h\hand Herennius

fail to survive their mission, the entire weight of the Roman

\h\h\hEmpire will fall on the shoulders of young Hostilian.

\h\h\h\hEmperor Decius and Herennius travel from Rome

\h\heastward to face Kaniva and the Goths

\hat Nicopolis Ad Istrum on the Danube River in Moesia.

Outside Nicopolis, the Gothic king Kaniva and his barbarian

\h\hwarriors prepared to besiege the Roman city.

\h\hDAVID S. POTTER: Kaniva is clearly a very able character

\hon a tactical level, but he doesn’t have a strategic plan,

\hrather than to sort of smash, grab, and return,

which is what the tribes \h\h\hsee Rome as being,

a place to go steal cool stuff and bring it home.

\hNARRATOR: Emperor Decius and Herennius intercept the Goths

just in time before they \h\hcan reach Nicopolis.

MICHAEL KULIKOWSKI: When you’re in ancient warfare in a battle

between Romans and \hbarbarians, you

were face to face with the person you were fighting.

\h\hYou were face to face with the person

that you were trying to kill.

And the battles often didn’t last very long

\hfor the simple reason that it was very tiring.

\hIt was very tiring, and after the initial impact,

people wore out very quickly.

NARRATOR: Sixth century \h\hchronicler Jordanes

describes Kaniva’s defeat.

\h\h\hMAN: When the emperor Decius drew

\h\hnear, Kaniva with his army, still in good shape,

at last withdrew to the Haemus \h\hMountains of the Balkans,

which were not far distant.

NARRATOR: But the \hpersistent Goths

do not continue their \hretreat and instead

move south into the Thracian \h\h\hcity of Philippopolis.

The Goths terrorize the land \hsurrounding Philippopolis,

\hbrutally abducting the Roman women to be sold into slavery.

EDWARD J. WATTS: The Goths that erupt are a very well-organized

force.

\h\h\h\hTheir king doesn’t command a small war band.

It seems that he commands \ha relatively large army

of thousands.

This makes him different from \h\hprevious Germanic invaders

in the Danube region.

So this is going to be a moment of profound fear.

NOEL LENSKI: Kaniva managed \h\hto besiege Philippopolis

and eventually take it \hin ruthless fashion.

\hHe did this and killed, according

\h\hto one source, as many as 100,000 people in the process.

\h\h\h\hNARRATOR: But despite his campaign,

\h\hKaniva finds an unlikely ally inside the city walls.

Titus Julius Priscus, an ambitious Roman governor

who would prefer to be emperor.

Kaniva lures Priscus into making a traitorous pact.

\h\hHe allows Kaniva into Philippopolis in exchange

\hfor barbarian support against a shared enemy, Emperor Decius.

THOMAS R. MARTIN: Both \h\hPriscus and Kaniva

had the goal of bringing down \h\hthe Roman emperor, Priscus

from the inside, Kaniva \h\h\hfrom the outside.

And so Priscus made a secret \h\hdirty deal saying, look,

\hI’ll surrender our people to you if you promise to get rid

\hof the ones who support the emperor instead of me.

And Kaniva said, that’s a deal.

NARRATOR: The two leaders seal \h\hthe deal with a common act

for both barbarian and Roman.

THOMAS R. MARTIN: Priscus and Kaniva

\h\hwould have had a formal ceremony in which they swore

\hbefore the gods over a sacrifice,

pouring a libation of wine to \hthe gods to show each other

\h\h\h\h\hthat their faith was guaranteed by divine sanction.

In this case, Kaniva was lying.

NARRATOR: Priscus will learn soon enough it’s all a ruse.

\h\hThe Goths take what they need, supplies and captives,

and brutally dispose \h\hof what’s left.

Emperor Decius has driven the \h\hGoths back, but in 250 AD,

\h\h\htheir king Kaniva tricks a Roman governor

\h\hinto surrendering his city, provoking a face-off

\hwith Decius and his imperial army.

\hAfter the Goths plunder and desert Philippopolis,

\h\hEmperor Decius pursues the fleeing king Kaniva northward

to Abrittus in Roman Moesia.

In their camp outside Abrittus, Decius, his son Herennius,

and their legion’s priest \h\hturn to the only force

\h\hthey know will guarantee victory, their beloved pagan

gods.

THOMAS R. MARTIN: Decius knew that this was going

to be the struggle of his life.

\h\hSo Decius did what he was supposed to do

to win the favor of the gods.

He sacrificed.

\h\hAnd with the smoke rising to the heavens

\has far as the eye could see on and around the altars, then

\hno one could doubt that Decius had done absolutely the maximum

to try to win this titanic struggle.

NARRATOR: Sixth century \h\hchronicler Jordanes

remembers the sacred \h\hplace of worship

\h\h\h\houtside the modern Bulgarian city of Razgrad.

\hMAN: To this day, that place is still

\h\hcalled the altar of Decius because there he

had offered amazing sacrifices \hto idols before the battle.

NARRATOR: If Decius is going to bring stability to Rome,

he must push the Goths back \h\hacross the Danube River

for good.

\hFinally, in 251 AD, Decius’s army

confronts the Gothic forces \hat the Battle of Abrittus.

The terrain is wet and difficult for the highly organized

Roman army who falter against \h\h\h\htheir barbarian enemy.

\h\h\hNOEL LENSKI: I think Decius really

thought that he was going to \hfinish off Kaniva finally.

But instead, Kaniva was \h\hable to surprise him

\hwith the number of troops that he had who were hidden

in these marshes and then \halso to outmaneuver him

\hon a type of battlefield that just didn’t work well for Roman

fighters.

\hNARRATOR: The Gothic forces soon overpower Decius’s army.

\h\hThe sixth century chronicler Jordanes recounts the emperor’s

greatest laws.

MAN: In the battle \h\hthat followed,

\h\hthe Goths quickly pierced Herennius, the son of Decius,

with an arrow and crudely slew him.

\hNOEL LENSKI: When his son, Herennius Etruscus,

\h\htakes an arrow and is dying on the battlefield,

Decius doesn’t break down.

Instead, he proclaims, "Let no one be afraid.

\hThe loss of one soldier is no diminution to the state,"

as if he didn’t care, as if it \hdidn’t matter to him at all.

\h\hNARRATOR: Decius dismounts his horse

\h\h\hand furiously charges into battle.

But this time, his pagan \hgods cannot save him.

\h\h\hAccording to sixth century Byzantine scholar [inaudible],,

MAN: Decius and his army were \hso assailed by the missiles

of the barbarians that not one of them escaped with his life,

thus ended the life of the excellent emperor Decius.

NARRATOR: Decius is the first \h\h\hemperor in Roman history

\hto be killed by a barbarian army.

\hEDWARD J. WATTS: It’s a moment where the Roman Empire probably

seems to its inhabitants to \hbe beginning to careen out

\hof control, and the loss of an emperor, especially one who

seems to be as effective as Decius, in this sort

\hof circumstance has profound implications.

It must contribute in a very significant way

to a loss of a sense of security that the Romans would feel.

NARRATOR: Though some say the emperor’s body is never found,

\h\hthe fourth century Christian chronicler Lactantius describes

Decius’s ultimate end.

MAN: Stripped and naked, he lay to be devoured by wild beasts

\hand birds, a fit end for the enemy of God.

NARRATOR: Back in \hRome, the plague

\h\hhas taken the ultimate toll, as Decius’s heir, Hostilian, is

\hstruck with the disease not long after his father’s death.

THOMAS R. MARTIN: The death of an emperor and of his son

were signs that the gods’ \h\h\hfavor had been lost.

Romans would have been \hfilled with tension,

wondering how are we going to regain the lost divine favor.

\h\h\hNARRATOR: With Emperor Decius and his sons’ deaths,

the crisis of the third \hcentury only worsens.

Usurpers revolt in Gaul.

Barbarians continue to attack the empire’s northern borders.

\hAnd to the east, territory is lost to foreign invaders

as well.

\hYet Christianity continues to grow, despite an increase

in persecutions.

MICHAEL KULIKOWSKI: Decius’s experiment with persecution

was a failure.

In the decades that \h\hfollow, there’s

only one other sustained attempt at persecution.

\hAnd then for more than 40 years, the Christian church

is allowed to grow \hat its own pace.

NARRATOR: Eventually, over 100 years later in 380 AD,

Christianity becomes the official state religion

\hof the Roman Empire, an apt reward for their faith

and courage, according to fourth century chronicler Eusebius

of Caesarea.

MAN: Anyone who examines \hthe events of history

\hwill find that all those who have acted

\h\hon the side of the righteous and the just

have tasted the sweet \h\hfruit of success.

\h\h\hNARRATOR: Emperor Decius allowed religion

\h\h\hto divide the empire, turning Roman against Roman

in a desperate time of \hviolence and plague.

\h\hWithout a unified front, Rome’s borders

\hare left open to the greatest and bloodiest

of all enemies, the barbarians.