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, "The End Game,"

our ancient powers have endured for centuries,

but destruction is close at hand.

What will cause their downfall,

and who will create a lasting legacy?

Over centuries, our ancient powers

have forged successful civilisations.

They'’ve built iconic monuments, fought wars,

and devised new ways to rule their people.

Now, they face their final challenge.

And in the Mediterranean, things are looking up.

The mighty empire of Alexander the Great is poised

to take over the world.

At home, his city-states are unified and at peace.

But Alexander is rampaging across the Middle East,

conquering the territories of his arch enemy,

the Persians.

He'’s even absorbed another ancient power

into his massive empire.

Egypt in that time was under Persian rule,

and they were not very happy about it.

So they welcomed him

and also crowned Alexander as King of Egypt.

Egypt is the jewel in the crown of Alexander'’s new empire,

and to make sure everyone knows who owns it,

he founds a new city on its Mediterranean coast

and calls it Alexandria.

It'’s just one of almost 20 cities he names after himself,

stamping his ownership across the ancient world.

Now he rules a territory

of over 5 million square kilometres

and is at the peak of his powers.

But even this isn'’t enough.

Alexander wants the world.

And the next step in his plan for global domination is India.

Alexander reached the Himalayan borders

but his campaign started from the Balkans

and reached the Indus River in only 13 years.

And at this point his troops felt tired

and wanted to go back and stop this campaign.

So far, his army has done everything he'’s asked,

but now, miles from home, they threaten munity.

He makes his first and only retreat.

Alexander has to go back to Mesopotamia

to manage some issues with his generals.

And he held a huge banquet when a lot of wine was served.

What happens next will change the course of history.

Maybe he got poisoned.

Or maybe he got malaria.

But he got very ill, then died in three days.

Alexander the Great is just 32 years old,

and the death of this mighty warrior

causes his empire to fracture and fall apart.

Greece, as an ancient power, is finished.

Without a strong leader'’s charisma,

Greece implodes,

and as this empire collapses,

the fallout threatens an even older ancient power.

After Alexander'’s death,

his newly-conquered Egyptian lands

are claimed by one of his generals, Ptolemy Soter.

He becomes the first in a new line of pharaohs,

who all take his name, the Ptolemies.

But how can these Greeks secure their rule in Egypt

and ensure the allegiance of its people?

They embark on a massive building campaign.

This place is very important to the Ptolemies.

By commissioning temples here, you can extend your authority

to the southernmost reaches of your kingdom.

Philae was par excellence, the temple of Isis.

It was her main cult centre,

the jewel of the Nile as we Egyptians call it today.

1,000 kilometres south of Alexandria,

this temple is a calculated piece of propaganda.

By doing this you'’re living up to the expectations

of what an ancient Egyptian pharaoh was supposed to do.

With all the symbolism, the hieroglyphs, the figures,

he was saying, "I may be Greek in origin,

but I am pharaoh."

At first, the strategy works.

But the Ptolemies are greedy.

They paid little attention to Egypt itself.

To them, Egypt was to be exploited.

By displaying extravagance and luxury,

you'’re showing the rest of the world

how your kingdom is much better than theirs.

Yours is the richest.

The Ptolemies live extravagant lives,

all funded by ever-increasing taxes,

paid by the Egyptian people,

who are not happy about it.

In 206 BCE, it all comes to a head.

Up here, we have two decrees from the reign of Ptolemy V.

It talks about massive revolt across Egypt,

how for 20 years, people were very tired of Ptolemaic rule.

We hear about farmers completely leaving their tools

and leaving their land and going off

just to run away from taxes.

The exploitation was way too much, and ultimately,

a king who does not take care of his people,

it'’s only a matter of time until it goes into decline.

Things are no better for the Ptolemies themselves,

who make a habit of incest.

This leads to bloody disputes over succession.

The Ptolemaic family already was sort of intermarrying,

but it gets more and more complicated

with each passing generation,

such that you get into terrible situations.

Perhaps the most horrible example is Ptolemy VIII.

He marries his full sister, and on their wedding day,

he actually has her son,

from Ptolemy VI, killed in her arms.

That'’s how bad it gets.

The Ptolemies cling to power for almost two more centuries.

But, weakened by infighting and revolts,

they seek out allies across the Mediterranean in Rome.

Here, they get mixed up in bloody civil wars,

and in 30 BCE, the most famous Ptolemy of all, Cleopatra,

finds herself on the losing side.

Facing defeat, she takes her own life.

Her death ends a 3,000-year-old line

of pharaohs.

It is the end for this ancient power.

As the sun sets on Egypt,

the reach of their aggressive northern occupiers,

the Romans, is still growing.

Rome is a military superstate, and more than 1,000 years

since its foundation, it'’s at the peak of its powers.

Controlling and defending its massive territory

demands a vast army,

but there aren'’t enough homegrown recruits

to fill its ranks.

Rome'’s empire was built on the back

of the soldiers, and most of the time,

those soldiers were foreigners.

These were barbarians that essentially

were mercenaries hired by Rome

with the promise of a better life.

If you think about what the outskirts of the empire was,

the promise of being a Roman citizen,

of having their own version of Rome was very appealing.

Franks, Gauls, Goths, and Celts

are just some of the tribes drafted into the imperial army.

You could be anything but you were always,

at the heart of it, Roman.

It'’s the glue that kept the Roman empire together.

But this is a risky strategy for the emperors

back in the capital.

What happens eventually is that Rome is making its own enemies

because on one side, you need these people

to help you protect the empire.

You need to hire these mercenaries.

But on the other side, you'’re training people

who might one day turn against you.

In 260 CE, Frankish and Germanic tribes

rebel and spread chaos.

A decade later, their vandals tear through Roman territory,

threatening the capital.

Now, Rome needs to protect itself.

Rome has not needed walls for almost 700 years.

It'’s been safe.

Rome had been protected by her legions,

no need for any kind of fortifications.

Suddenly, they need walls, and they start throwing them up,

and in five years, they build a circuit of 19 kilometres.

In their desperate rush, the Romans build these walls

with anything that comes to hand.

You can see it here, a piece of a decorative architrave

of some noble roman monument that was ripped down

and built into the walls because there was no time to waste.

Despite their haphazard construction,

these walls are a protective shield,

10 metres high and four metres thick.

They stave off attacks from rampaging barbarians.

But in 408, a once-loyal Germanic tribe

arrive at the gates--

the Visigoths.

The city'’s walls now face their ultimate test.

Visigoth can smell a weakness

and smell an opportunity, and the wealth of Rome

is obviously one of the most amazing draws.

If you can invade Rome and sack Rome,

you'’ve done something that no one else has done.

It'’s the greatest prize in the ancient world.

For two years, the Visigoths repeatedly lay siege

to the city.

For a while, Rome could hold out.

But gradually, the pressure grows on the inside.

There were famines, there were plagues,

there were corpses lying in the streets.

It was desperate times.

Finally, on the 24th of August, 410...

...the barbarians breach the gates.

Fires rage,

and they loot the city for three days.

Rome has fallen.

Until 410, Rome, although embattled,

was still invincible, was still intact.

The walls had protected the city from all invaders.

And suddenly, the myth of Rome is broken--

the inviolable city, the heart of the empire

is taken by a foreign enemy, a barbarian enemy.

Now, Rome'’s enemies know it can be defeated.

It signals the end of this ancient power.

Rome falls victim to the rebellion

of foreign tribes.

To the east, another ancient power faces

internal conflicts that threaten to boil over.

The Han are a rich and successful dynasty.

They rule over 60 million people

and have conquered a vast territory

stretching from modern-day Korea in the east

to Uzbekistan in the west.

But now, they face a problem that'’s been festering

since the start of their reign.

Han emperors have always had many wives,

whose families push their own claims to power,

but there'’s also another player in this game of thrones.

A large number of terracotta figures are found here.

We have found over 10,000

of many different types.

At the time, they were wearing clothes

holding tools and wearing all kinds of head-dresses.

But after 2000 years buried underground

the organic materials have completely rotted away.

These terracotta figures are all imperial servants.

There are male officials and female attendants,

but also another type of courtier.

There'’s the so called '’third gender'’.

They don'’t have testicles and their penis is smaller.

These are the eunuchs.

These eunuchs act as attendants and confidants

for the imperial families, and this gives them sway,

especially over younger emperors.

In the Later Han, there were twelve to thirteen emperors

about half of them were in their teens or younger.

Because the emperor is young

and also lives mainly in the court,

he mostly deals with the eunuchs

who look after his daily life.

They spend so much time together, they become close.

As they grow up with the emperor,

the eunuchs gain titles, influence,

and start demanding power.

Towards the end of the Han, the political conflicts

between the eunuchs and the imperial in-laws

became increasingly fierce.

No one is in complete control.

Not only that, the royal coffers are running empty,

so the government raises taxes.

Large numbers of people in poverty

and peasants cannot afford the tax

and start to lose their land.

And many became economic refugees,

wandering across the country begging for food.

In northern China, starving peasants revolt.

With the imperial court distracted by infighting,

the rebellion spreads and rages on for the next two decades.

The weakened Han dynasty fall from power.

After more than 400 years of rule, it is over.

In China, the long-lived Han are undone by court politics

and revolution.

To the south, in India,

no dynasty expects to last long.

At the end of the 4th century CE,

the great Samudragupta,

who led India into a prosperous golden age,

dies.

He leaves a flourishing empire that covers northern India,

but the Guptas know from history

that keeping hold of this territory

will be a challenge.

Empire in India was always a slightly more complex affair.

You have almost a sort of revolving door of emperors

coming and going, coming and going,

leaving their traces, leaving their monuments,

but nothing, ultimately, was permanent.

Part of the problem for the Guptas

is communication with their diverse population

because their subjects speak many different languages.

Even if you go to India now,

almost every state has its own language.

Dialects vary sometimes from village to village,

district to district.

Without easy communication, it made empire

necessarily more challenging.

This diversity means the Guptas are never

in complete control of their territory.

There were vast areas

which were towards the peripheries of the empire

where the emperor wasn'’t necessarily in complete charge.

He depended on vassals,

he depended on subordinate governors,

hereditary governors, little kings to his great king,

and all of these people negotiated power with him.

So the emperor, in some ways, had to share power.

After the great Samudragupta'’s death,

a series of weaker emperors

begin to lose their grip on power.

Emperors in India always face this problem--

that you always had the threat of your subordinates

wanting to not just topple you,

but replace you as a future imperial power,

which meant that if one particular emperor

weren'’t up to the mark,

suddenly, the whole thing would start unravelling

because others would exploit it,

and the Guptas are a prime example of this.

Slowly, the Gupta kingdom starts to break apart.

Nomadic invaders from the north take advantage

and rip into this once-mighty empire.

The last great dynasty of ancient India is over.

Whether through the death of a great leader,

debauched rulers, rebellious uprisings,

court politics, or simply invasion,

our ancient powers have all fallen.

But they'’re not forgotten

because they'’ve all left a mark on our modern world.

After Rome was burnt and sacked by invading barbarians,

it was left broken.

But this mighty ancient power left physical reminders

of its glory days right across its fallen empire.

The fact that Rome is called the Eternal City

is so apt because ancient Rome, over the centuries,

has remained embedded in the fabric of modern Rome.

We'’re in front of the best-preserved monument

of ancient Rome,

which was one of the glories of the ancient city.

This ancient temple'’s roof is over 43 metres wide

and remains the world'’s largest unsupported concrete dome,

a brilliant testament to Roman construction.

It is massively, massively over-engineered.

There'’s a certain aiming for posterity,

aiming for when you are no more.

Another link to Rome'’s past springs out

in one of its most recognisable places.

Here we have the Trevi Fountain--

Roman water pouring through Roman pipes

along a Roman aqueduct

which was built 2,000 years ago and still in operation.

Roman water still pervades this city,

it still refreshes this city.

The Romans built this system to last.

All across the capital and throughout

this ancient empire, Roman buildings still stand,

visible testimony to the engineering prowess

and military might of this ancient power.

After the death of Cleopatra, the last of the pharaohs,

Egyptian culture slowly began to fade,

even its writing.

The hieroglyphic inscription reads,

"Before Mandulis, the son of Horus,

by the hand of Nesmeterakhem, son of Nesmeter,

the Second Priest of Isis, for ever and ever".

What we'’re looking at here

wasn'’t done by a professional sculptor.

This was carved by inexpert hands.

It'’s almost as if he knew

that he was part of this dying tradition,

and in fact, this is the very last one known ever.

Carved in 394, these hieroglyphs

were the last act of an ancient power

that had endured for almost 3,500 years.

In the centuries that followed, tombs were plundered,

statues were smashed,

and cities were lost to the sand,

and the meaning of hieroglyphs slipped out of memory.

Once knowledge was lost of how to read and write hieroglyphs,

it'’s almost as if Egypt just goes dark.

People were left wondering what these cryptic symbols meant.

The names of pharaohs and gods,

their stories and secrets, were lost.

Ancient Egypt became the stuff of myth and legend.

But in 1799, a chance discovery

unlocked the glory of Egypt'’s past.

The Rosetta Stone translates a royal decree

into three different scripts.

Thanks to the trilingual inscriptions

that you can see on the Rosetta Stone,

we were able to decode how hieroglyphs were to be read,

and thanks to that, we can finally read

what the ancient Egyptians had to say in their own words.

This civilisation'’s names, stories, beliefs, and deeds

were all deciphered.

The ancient Egyptians were brought back to life.

And today, tourists from all over the world flock

to marvel at Egypt'’s wonders.

Greece'’s ancient past is also clearly visible

in its modern landscape.

Its architectural styles are a byword

for beauty and sophistication,

adopted everywhere from the Roman empire

to the New World.

But to the south of Athens, beyond the silver mines

which were the foundation of the city'’s wealth,

are the ruins of a structure

that was central to Greek society--

a magnificent theatre, possibly the first ever constructed,

one of many built across their empire,

a place that directly connects ancient Greece

to the modern world.

In my opinion, the legacy of classical Greece

is of course art, architecture, philosophy,

all this wealth of ideas,

but it'’s something more than this.

These theatres were not just home to plays and performances.

They were also central to something

even more transformative--

politics.

These are not just stones in the dust.

They are not just relics of the past.

They are transferring an essential message from the past,

that here we have art, we have drama,

but also participation of the citizens

deciding about their own fate.

But this was an area where the citizens

would gather and decide for themselves

to make democracy happen, in these ruins.

It is the foundation of our world today.

These public spaces were the cornerstone

of the world'’s first known democracy,

a form of government that underpins

half of the world'’s countries today.

It'’s a radical legacy from this great ancient power.

Echoes of China'’s ancient past are present in the everyday,

and there'’s one cultural artefact

that stretches back 3,500 years

to one of their earliest ancient dynasties.

The Shang dynasty was China'’s first stable ancient power,

but its people lived in the world

where the weather and its impact on crops

was a matter of life or death.

So they tried to predict the future.

For all the important issues

the Shang use divination to find out

their ancestors'’ will.

When there'’s a drought, what do you do without rain?

What do you do if the crops don'’t grow?

To answer these questions,

the Shang used an extraordinary technique.

Priests took turtle shells and ox bones

and burnt holes in them.

This created cracks,

and the patterns made were used to divine the future.

But they also carve their questions

onto the bones and shells.

Today, these carved symbols are called oracle bone script.

Although this oracle bone is broken

we are lucky, there is beautiful oracle bone script on it.

It says...

'’ji hai zhen qui he, yu he shou he.'

It is closely related to farming.

'’He'’ means millet.

'’yu-he'’ means by the side of the river,

begging from the river God,

and here the river means the Yellow River.

So this script is about the Shang people

asking the river god for good harvest.

These oracle bones may not have foretold the future,

predicted poor harvests or the coming rains,

but they have created continuity.

There are many oracle bone scripts discovered.

There are around 4600 characters.

Among the 4600 characters, we'’ve recognised over one third of them.

This ancient character for crops

and the character for horse are pictographs,

but over the centuries, they slowly transformed.

They were adopted by every successive dynasty

and developed into modern Chinese.

Today, one in six people across the globe

use this writing system, making it one of the oldest

continuously-used forms of writing in the world,

an everyday reminder of China'’s ancient power.

The rich diversity of the Indian subcontinent

stopped any one empire

from holding on to power for too long,

but this also sowed the seed for a lasting heritage.

Emperors and kings would come and go,

but one thing that was always present in most people'’s lives

was the legends and mythology of our God.

Everything was woven in with the religion

and it wasn'’t just about the here and now.

This ancient Buddhist monument attracts worshipers

from far and wide.

It'’s one of the largest stupas in the world.

But it celebrates more than just one religion.

There'’s a segment here where, if you enter,

you will see Ganesh carved into a niche,

and Ganesh'’s considered a Hindu God.

What is he doing on a Buddhist site?

The answer lies in the way sites like this

were regarded by successive generations.

Sacred spots retained a certain value

across large swathes of time.

The Gods in them might rotate and revolve,

and you could have Shiva, Vishnu, even the Buddha.

In a later period some other God might eclipse the original God,

but the sanctity of the spot itself remained.

So I think if we were to look for what remains

from that period,

we would more often than not gravitate to sacred spots

because that'’s something that'’s survived

all these shifting sands across different centuries.

And this coexistence of religions side by side

has left a lasting imprint.

Just looking around us,

there'’s people of so many religious backgrounds,

so many ethnicities, clearly of such diversity.

It holds meaning for many people of many backgrounds

and many cultures,

and that'’s just the magic of the place.

It belongs to everybody.

This monument is an heirloom of the past,

an echo of ancient India in its present.

That'’s just the way the Indian subcontinent

has evolved over time, and this is perhaps

the longest-standing tradition of the Indian subcontinent--

pure diversity and the very idea

that there are multiple paths to the same destination.