Original subtitles

Thousands of years ago,

ancient powers ruled our world--

Egypt, China, India, Greece, and Rome,

players in a high-stakes game of strategy and luck.

Success will bring them wealth and immortality...

failure, oblivion and death.

In their battle for survival, each civilisation

will face the same challenges.

How they respond will shape their destiny.

In this episode, "Law and Order,"

in an unruly world,

our ancient powers must lead their people,

create ways to govern, and keep rebellion at bay.

Who will find the right way to rule?

Our ancient powers have established their cultures,

built monuments and trade links,

and fought battles to protect their homelands.

Now they confront their next challenge...

Egypt is peaceful, prosperous, and powerful.

Its three million people are happy and well fed.

But the sudden death of its pharaoh,

Thutmose II, plunges this ancient power into crisis

because the heir to the throne is only a child.

Thutmose II'’s son,

he was about two or three years of age,

and so, although he was crowned king, he needed a regent.

Without a strong guiding hand,

the boy king'’s rule is in danger.

Who can step in and take charge?

The only choice is Thutmose'’s wife and queen.

Hatshepsut was a woman of royal blood,

but in terms of kingship, a king was male,

so Hatshepsut being female was a little bit confusing.

She needs a way to secure her reign,

so Hatshepsut embarks on a radical transformation.

She showed herself as a man,

dressed in pharaoh'’s paraphernalia.

There'’s nothing female about her.

So for all the Egyptians, the pharaoh is as he should be,

it just happened to be she.

While these visual tricks work for some,

others see her rule as dangerous and unacceptable.

But Hatshepsut understands her people

and knows that to succeed,

she needs to make a permanent mark,

and she has a plan.

The ancient Egyptians were big on propaganda and imagery

and that'’s how they communicated what was going on.

So Hatshepsut built throughout Egypt saying, "I am king."

But building alone isn'’t the answer.

She also needs to have the Gods on her side.

At Karnak Temple in Thebes,

Hatshepsut erects a huge obelisk,

carved from a single 30-metre-high block

of granite, it is dedicated to the God Amun-Re.

An obelisk is a symbol of the sun god.

It'’s like a sunbeam.

And that'’s why the top, which is also a little pyramid,

would have been covered by electrum,

and when the sun hit it at certain times of day,

the whole area would just explode with light.

For the common Egyptians, it would look as if

the Gods were really present and radiating their light out.

And by putting her obelisks here, it'’s establishing

a close rapport and relationship

between Hatshepsut and the God Amun,

which also is a way of giving her more legitimacy.

Hatshepsut convinces her subjects of her power.

But there is another formidable group she must get onside,

the priests.

They gather taxes and receive lucrative offerings

for the Gods.

They are powerful and influential,

strong enough to depose a pharaoh.

To buy their loyalty,

Hatshepsut plans an enormous temple complex.

This huge temple takes 13 years to construct.

Built of dazzling limestone,

it'’s a stunning architectural achievement

and is propaganda on the grandest possible scale.

This is one of the most unusual of Egyptian funerary temples.

The mountain is embracing this monument.

The approach was lined with sphinxes,

which all had her face.

On the facade, Hatshepsut depicts herself as Osiris,

the male God of the dead.

On the walls, she creates reliefs

illustrating her royal exploits,

and inside,

in a sacred space where only priests are allowed,

Hatshepsut makes an audacious claim,

part of her divine origin myth.

Here you have the Goddess Hathor,

who is crowning Hatshepsut

and sort of presenting her to Amun as the rightful ruler.

Hathor is the Goddess of love, beauty, and fertility.

Here, she is represented as a cow.

And we have these fabulous images of the Goddess Hathor

and Hatshepsut suckling, and by taking in the milk,

she herself is getting even more divine

because she'’s ingesting from the Goddess.

Hatshepsut'’s remarkable power play pays off,

and she rules for over 15 years.

Hatshepsut'’s reign was a wonderful time for Egypt.

She was innovative.

She had good ideas with architecture, decoration,

programmes for establishing the legitimacy of kingship

and setting out the whole mechanism

for large scale Egyptian propaganda

for the new kingdom pharaohs.

Hatshepsut changes history by proving a pharaoh'’s gender

doesn'’t always matter.

The people and priests can accept women

who they believe are divine.

And this pharaoh secures a golden age for Egypt.

I have to say that she has always been

one of my favourite pharaohs

because when you have a woman pharaoh

and you yourself are a woman, it'’s quite a buzz.

In Egypt, the power of the Gods

legitimises a pharaoh'’s claim to rule.

To the east, ancient India has many different belief systems,

but here too, religion is key to maintaining law and order.

Power in India is fragmented.

In the north, small kingdoms battle for control,

but soon, one wins out--

the Guptas.

The territory they conquer stretches from coast to coast

across the northern half of the Indian subcontinent.

Two decades into their imperial rule,

India'’s greatest king takes the throne--

Samudragupta.

Samudragupta was a man of many, many talents.

On the one hand, he was a great warrior.

We read about how his body was adorned with the scars

he received in various battles from axes and swords.

But he was also something of a creative thinker--

a poet king who composed a lot of poetry himself.

Samudragupta has millions under his command,

but faces a challenge.

How can he keep control of his vast and diverse kingdom?

He turns to his religion, Hinduism, for answers.

Oh Lord, lead me from ignorance to truth,

lead me from darkness to light

lead me from death to immortality.

The Vedas are the sacred foundation of Hinduism.

The Vedic Samhitas are collections of mantras.

They are passed on to disciples by their master from generation to generation.

The Vedas are the roots.

Without the roots the tree cannot exist,

so the Vedas are crucial to Hinduism.

The oldest of these sacred texts,

the Rigveda, discusses rituals and the praise of Gods,

the origin of the universe, and the nature of the divine.

But crucially for Emperor Samudragupta,

one of these hymns suggests how society should be structured.

There'’s one controversial verse

in the Rigveda that talks about how

from the body of the cosmic creator,

God himself, it was from the mouth

that the Brahmin emerged.

The Brahmins are the sacred theological priestly community.

It was from the arms that the Kshatriyas emerged.

The Kshatriyas were the fighters and the warrior class.

It was from the thighs that the mercantile class emerged.

And finally, the Shudras from the feet.

And the Shudras are the service communities

that serve everybody else-- peasants and so on.

This was used as a justification to say

that in the most sacred of the Hindu scriptures,

there is reference to stratification.

Samudragupta and the other Gupta kings take this idea

and build on it, dividing society

into distinct classes or castes.

This system proves to be a powerful form of control.

The caste system in the early Gupta period

wasn'’t necessarily set in stone.

It was a lot more fluid.

There are strong indications

that the Guptas might'’ve been Brahmins themselves,

and if the kings themselves were Brahmins, of course,

you see Brahmins receiving state power

and thereby becoming stronger in Hindu society.

Samudragupta cements his power at the top of the caste system

and transforms Indian society.

You see that there'’s arts and cultures thriving,

the empire'’s stable, there'’s economic activity.

In fact, to many Hindus,

this was the golden age of Hindu civilisation.

The Guptas use religion to organise

and control their people.

In China, the ruler of a new dynasty

faces a similar problem,

but will find a very different solution.

For over two centuries, different states compete

for domination of China.

Eventually there'’s a winner--

the Qin.

But its new emperor, Qin Shi Huang, has a problem.

How can he unify over 30 million people

from different cultures

who have different customs and beliefs?

He begins at ground level,

creating 36 new administrative districts

known as commanderies and building 7,000 kilometres

of new roads to link them.

Next, to make trade between regions easier

and collect taxes,

he standardises currency, units of length, and weights.

But he doesn'’t believe these unifying measures

will be enough.

Something else is needed.

The text on these bamboo slips is Qin Shi Huang'’s solution

to the problem--

hundreds of rules and instructions,

a legal code detailing the dos and don'’ts of his new empire.

This is from the Shuihudi tombs strip.

which mentions

'’Gu zhe min ge you xiang su'’

means in the past, people had different customs

'’huo bu bian yu min, hai yu bang'’

means some of these are inconvenient

and harmful to the country.

'’Shi yi sheng wang'’

'’zuo wei fa du'’

So the emperor has made laws.

'’qu qi xie pi chu xi e su'’

means to get rid of bad behaviours and customs.

This new way of ruling is known as legalism.

It suggests that the human nature is evil,

people need to be motivated with benefits.

It imposes great restrictions on ordinary people.

Severe restrictions.

And ultimately the Qin uses Legalism

as a means to unify the six states.

Brutal and absolute, legalism is strict authoritarian rule.

It makes Qin Shi Huang China'’s most powerful emperor.

His enormous tomb reveals the secrets of his rule.

Covering over 56 square kilometres,

this burial ground is a mirror of his empire in life.

On one hand, it'’s his lifestyle

and he also wants to bring his established political system

and the government structure to the underground.

He'’s buried with his fearsome army,

critical to enforcing his rule.

But he'’s also accompanied by some less familiar figures.

They all wear a long headdress.

So their level is very senior.

On their waist, we found a small knife

and a knife-sharpening stone.

The knife is used for scraping the bamboo slips.

If you make a mistake writing on the slips,

you can use the knife to scrape it off.

It'’s just like a rubber today.

Based on the appearance of these figures,

we believe this pit represents the department of Tingwei.

What kind of office is Tingwei?

It'’s a department that manages justice and prisons.

These men are buried much closer to their emperor

than his army.

The officials'’ pit is at the southwest corner of the tomb mound.

It is very close, less than 100 metres.

It shows that it'’s very important

and they have a very close relationship to the emperor.

These officials write the laws

that maintain the emperor'’s iron grip on power,

so crucial to his rule that he keeps them close,

even in death.

In China, strict laws and regulations

help unify this ancient power.

Far to the west, Rome also needs to exert authority

on its ever-expanding territory.

Rome'’s population is now almost 60 million people,

but the empire is in turmoil.

Divided by bloody civil war as different factions

attempt to seize control, how can its new emperor,

Vespasian, get the people back onside and restore law

and order to the empire?

His idea is a no-expense-spared gift to the people,

a mighty monument to house the greatest show on earth.

This is the largest arena the world has ever seen,

a place where 50,000 people can witness

spectacles of bloodlust.

Gladiatorial games were fundamental

for Roman society.

On one side, you'’ve got this society

which we can find ourselves in in many ways .

They have poetry, they have democracy,

they have art.

And then on the other hand ,

they appeal to the brutal side of man .

It'’s this marriage between beauty and violence.

The Romans love the games.

They'’re a celebration of macho athleticism,

and the gladiators are superstars.

They'’re the most sexually-desired athletes

of the Roman empire.

They are muscly, oiled up men that ladies love

and men want to be.

Each gladiator plays a different role.

The Secutor is a heavily armoured warrior,

the Murmillo, the enemy from Gaul,

and the Retiarius, a fisherman.

Each distinctive character fights

with different armour and weaponry.

But they are all heroes that the crowds can cheer on.

The Retiarius, he has the galera here,

nice bit of armour on the shoulder ,

which protects the side of his face so he can look over it.

He'’s got the trident , and he'’s got the net.

But his body'’s exposed, his leg'’s exposed.

You think that'’s hardly fair because look at this guy.

This guy'’s got the scutum.

He'’s also got a wonderful helmet .

You'’d say, "I definitely wanna be this guy. "

Well, don'’t let appearances fool you ,

because here'’s the problem-- he can'’t breathe very well.

He is gonna get tired way quicker ,

and it'’s wonderful to see what the outcome'’s gonna be

because you don'’t know.

But the games aren'’t simply gory entertainment.

They are powerful propaganda,

reenactments of Rome'’s victories,

which celebrate its control over its dominions,

a visceral spectacle that draws the crowd.

The atmosphere would'’ve been electric .

First of all you'’ve got the roar of the crowds

chanting for their team .

You'’ve got sounds from the beasts

so you can already hear them

as you'’re walking towards the Colosseum.

You go to any sports stadium,

and when you'’re walking with the crowds,

you feel that enthusiasm, that passion, that excitement.

For many people, it would'’ve been the highlight of their week

to go and see a gladiatorial contest.

These violent displays bring the Romans together,

a trick repeated all across their empire,

in more than 200 amphitheatres, each built to impress,

entertain, and assert the emperor'’s power.

Ultimately, if you take it from the emperor'’s point of view,

well, why is the emperor putting on these lavish games?

It'’s simple.

He needs to distract you because there'’s famine coming

through the city, there'’s problems.

It'’s fine, watch the games.

Vespasian'’s distraction works.

For over 400 years

the gladiatorial games help keep the peace.

All people need is food and distraction,

bread and circuses, panem et circenses.

And for the most part, the mob is happy,

and that'’s what the emperor wants--

your happiness, his popularity,

his reign continues, and everyone'’s good.

And that'’s why the emperor does it.

In ancient Rome, entertainment maintains

law and order across its empire.

Further to the south, a belief in their Gods

has kept Egypt safe for millennia...

until now.

In the century after Hatshepsut'’s reign,

Egypt has gone from strength to strength.

The great builder pharaoh Amenhotep III is on the throne.

Like his predecessor, he uses architecture

to celebrate his religion.

Amenhotep III loved statues, the bigger the better.

He made gorgeous images of himself.

He loved to show off himself and his power.

Key to Amenhotep'’s authority are Egypt'’s many Gods.

The Gods were the foundation of the entire economy

and the political structure of ancient Egypt.

Without the Gods, there wouldn'’t be an Egyptian state.

Amenhotep, like all pharaohs,

relies on religious belief to justify his rule

and maintain peace and stability

in this life and the next.

When Amenhotep dies after 40 years on the throne,

the priests transport his body to a huge underground tomb.

Here, his people believe

the Gods of the underworld are waiting.

I have Amenhotep III here, portrayed as a young man,

heading off on his journey to the afterlife.

And the God Anubis, the God of embalming,

is taking him by the hand

and showing him the way to the other side.

Over here, there'’s another version of Amenhotep III

with the Goddess Hathor.

She'’s embracing him, holding the key of life.

And over there, I can see Amenhotep III

receiving life from the God of the underworld, Osiris.

All of these Gods are helping Amenhotep III

make his way into the afterlife.

But just as Amenhotep'’s body is entombed

in his granite sarcophagus, his son and heir, Akhenaten,

plots a religious revolution.

To turn away from the Gods would'’ve been unfathomable

to most ancient Egyptians.

But not for Akhenaten.

He closes down the temples

and cults of Egypt'’s multiple deities

and replaces them with monotheism,

the worship of just one God.

Akhenaten became fascinated by the sun disk, Aten,

this only one being that he thought was the source

for all life for everything, and it was the only God.

Akhenaten plans a huge new desert city to honour his God,

known today as Amarna.

It was challenging to build a new spot in the desert.

He had to build everything-- his own palace, temples, tombs.

Built in great haste,

all is not well for this new city'’s 30,000 inhabitants.

The rest of Egypt is enjoying a time of great bounty,

but here, food is scarce and disease rife.

Recent excavations show that people were suffering,

that there was malnutrition, there was illness,

but the biggest problem in Akhenaten'’s reign

is that he ignored the rest of Egypt.

He let the rest of the country fall apart.

With the temples closed and Gods banned,

Egypt'’s economy suffers.

People thought that he was a bad king.

They thought that he was insane, that he ruined Egypt.

But before things completely fall apart,

Akhenaten mysteriously dies, and with him his new religion.

His son soon abandons Amarna and reinstates the old Gods.

Akhenaten is branded a heretic.

He failed to take into account how important the Gods

were to the Egyptian people and to the Egyptian state.

Without the temples, the society crumbled.

As Akhenaten'’s statues are smashed and his name

is erased from history, order is restored.

In Egypt, religious revolution comes close

to bringing down society.

In Greece, traditionally, power has rested

with whoever seizes control, but now, change is in the air.

Greece is a loose collection of individual city-states.

Athens is one of the most powerful.

It is populated by slaves,

ordinary men and women, and wealthy hereditary nobles,

and whichever noble manages to grab power rules the city.

They are known as tyrants, and the role is now shared

by brothers Hipparchus and Hippias.

Our historical sources make it very clear that Hippias

is the one actually ruling whereas Hipparchus, the brother,

is concerned primarily with enjoying a good life.

Hippias seems to have ruled

without many problems for a number of years.

But in 514 BCE, everything changes

when a love rival murders Hipparchus.

The assassination occurred at a famous Athenian shrine

called the Leokoreion, which was a shrine

to the daughters of the hero Leos.

And we think that we'’ve discovered that shrine

because we'’ve discovered a number of inscriptions

that mention the hero, Leos.

The impact of his brother'’s murder

is devastating for both Hippias and the Athenians.

After the assassination, his rule becomes more cruel.

He'’s paranoid.

He kills people in the city

that he thinks were coconspirators

and exiles others.

Hippias'’s brutal rule, harsh taxes, exiles,

and executions soon lead to civil strife,

and eventually, he is deposed.

But the Athenians are reluctant to live

under another brutal tyrant

and begin to ask, could there be another way?

The man with a plan is Cleisthenes.

He is a wealthy noble,

but wants to overturn the idea of hereditary privilege

and hand power to the people.

He proposes any Athenian can attend its governing body,

the assembly.

We'’re at the Pnyx. We'’re above the Athenian Agora,

and we'’re also in front of the Acropolis hill.

This is the place where the citizen assembly,

the Ecclesia, would'’ve met.

There is a stand where the speaker could'’ve addressed

the crowd-- that'’s called the bema--

and then there'’s a large open space

where the crowd can sit or stand.

And we think that there was probably space here

for about 6,000 people, maybe upwards of 10,000.

This is the centre of political life.

But this early form of democracy has its quirks.

Members are not elected, but randomly selected.

It means that you can'’t become a career politician.

You can'’t try and corrupt people

towards making certain decisions.

It means that the whole citizen body

is represented as fairly as possible.

But not everyone is eligible to take part in making decisions.

It'’s just the adult males who are over 18

and are Athenians.

That means no women, no children, no slaves,

and also no resident foreigners.

Despite only representing 10% of the city'’s population,

this version of democracy works.

It brings political stability

and allows culture and arts to thrive,

making Athens the dominant force

in the growing Greek empire.

It is an idea so successful that it spreads.

So this move from a system of tyranny

to this direct democracy,

that'’s quite a radical political revolution.

It'’s something that will take hold

throughout the Greek world later,

but Athens it the place where this sort of idea begins.

Democracy transforms ancient Greece and ushers in a new age.

To the east, the ancient Chinese are also looking

for a different way to govern.

The Qin'’s severe laws and punishments

have kept their people in check for decades,

but they are beginning to tire of authoritarian rule.

So when a new dynasty and an ambitious teenage emperor,

Wu, comes to power, he seeks a new way to rule.

The system he discovers resonates in modern China

to the present day--

Confucianism.

Today we commemorate Confucius'’ 2573rd birthday.

Every year on this day, we the Confucius descendants

commemorate our ancestor'’s legacy.

Orphaned in childhood,

the young Confucius is self-taught.

He spends most of his career working for the government,

where his radical ideas make him political enemies.

At 55, he failed in politics

and was forced into exile.

He led a group of students

travelling across different states for 14 years

to lobby the kings with his philosophy.

Confucius advocates a kinder,

more harmonious approach to life.

Confucius says, "Let the ruler be ruler, minister be minister,

father be father, and son by son".

This means, everyone has his own position,

his own duty, rights and benefits.

As a ruler, what should he do?

He needs to be compassionate.

Treating others as you wish to be treated

is an act of benevolence.

Confucius proposes that these acts don'’t just apply

to personal relationships,

but also how the country is run.

Confucius believed the king should use virtue and benevolence to rule a state

and to keep compassion for his people.

But as civil war engulfs China,

the people forget Confucius and his ideas.

Until three centuries later, Emperor Wu

is introduced to them by one of his advisors.

Dong Zhongshu raised the idea that the emperor'’s rights were given by heaven,

which made Emperor Wu very happy.

Dong Zhongshu also raised the idea of interaction between heaven and man.

If an emperor doesn'’t rule well,

then it induces all kinds of disasters.

If he rules well, then a good harvest and peace will follow.

But more than this,

Dong convinces the emperor that he should adopt Confucianism

for his government,

and that only students of this philosophy can work in it.

Confucianism transforms Chinese society,

and it helps Emperor Wu enjoy a long and prosperous reign

and consolidates the Han Dynasty'’s

grip on power.

Thanks to Dong'’s efforts in adopting Confucianism,

this philosophy ruled the Han empire for over 400 years.

And later it became the main governing philosophy

of all the following dynasties and emperors.

Every ancient power has found a way to control their people

with their own brand of authority.

In Egypt, the old Gods

help the pharaohs reinforce their rule of law,

and beware those who challenge tradition.

China finds that whilst harsh rules can keep people in check,

it'’s a more caring philosophy that endures.

The ancient Indians impose a caste system

to organise society.

While the Greeks, tired of tyranny,

hand control over to their citizens.

And in Rome, the masses are kept happy

by bloody spectacle.

But soon, each will learn the harsh lesson

that nothing lasts forever.

Our ancient powers are approaching the end game.