1 00:00:08,600 --> 00:00:13,520 Ever since modern people began to spread from Africa, 2 00:00:13,520 --> 00:00:17,080 our biggest battles had been with the forces of nature. 3 00:00:22,760 --> 00:00:26,160 But, as we created the first civilisations, 4 00:00:26,160 --> 00:00:29,280 we found we faced a sharper threat... 5 00:00:29,280 --> 00:00:30,640 CHANTING 6 00:00:30,640 --> 00:00:32,160 ...human nature. 7 00:00:32,160 --> 00:00:34,440 SHOUTING 8 00:00:34,440 --> 00:00:35,720 3,000 years ago, 9 00:00:35,720 --> 00:00:39,000 the world was being churned and pulled apart 10 00:00:39,000 --> 00:00:41,160 in the first great age of empire. 11 00:00:42,760 --> 00:00:44,880 This was a time of vicious civil wars, 12 00:00:44,880 --> 00:00:48,360 all the way from China, through India, to the Mediterranean. 13 00:00:51,600 --> 00:00:54,800 And you'd think that all this violence 14 00:00:54,800 --> 00:00:56,680 would push the human story back. 15 00:00:59,960 --> 00:01:05,640 The awkward truth is that all the violence in fact drove the human story forward. 16 00:01:12,240 --> 00:01:15,720 This is a period of extraordinary new thinking 17 00:01:15,720 --> 00:01:18,600 on everything from democracy to God, 18 00:01:18,600 --> 00:01:21,240 from some of the greatest minds we've ever come across. 19 00:01:29,200 --> 00:01:32,520 War is always terrible. 20 00:01:32,520 --> 00:01:36,120 But here, in a way, is the case for war. 21 00:01:36,120 --> 00:01:39,440 SHOUTING 22 00:02:03,160 --> 00:02:05,400 The first empires spread 23 00:02:05,400 --> 00:02:09,080 a pall of smoke and a stench of death. 24 00:02:09,080 --> 00:02:11,600 From their grand palaces, kings and emperors 25 00:02:11,600 --> 00:02:16,560 assumed that to be great was to conquer, burn and enslave. 26 00:02:16,560 --> 00:02:20,720 And yet, from this blood-soaked soil, 27 00:02:20,720 --> 00:02:27,400 new ideas about how to rule and how to live would flower. 28 00:02:34,560 --> 00:02:38,440 The palace of Nineveh in what is now Iraq. 29 00:02:38,440 --> 00:02:43,080 So massive, it was known as the palace without rival, 30 00:02:43,080 --> 00:02:47,160 a stony monument to the power and determination 31 00:02:47,160 --> 00:02:50,120 of one of the earliest great empire builders - 32 00:02:50,120 --> 00:02:54,400 Sennacherib, king of the Assyrians. 33 00:02:54,400 --> 00:02:58,440 Underneath the eyeliner, a tiger of a man. 34 00:03:00,040 --> 00:03:04,440 Sennacherib was the original, the prototype, 35 00:03:04,440 --> 00:03:06,720 for the empire-building maniac. 36 00:03:06,720 --> 00:03:08,840 With an army better than anyone else's, 37 00:03:08,840 --> 00:03:14,080 he had around 200,000 battle-hardened regular troops. 38 00:03:15,600 --> 00:03:17,880 And he knew how to use them. 39 00:03:19,440 --> 00:03:24,760 In 701 BC, the Assyrians had the world's most potent empire. 40 00:03:24,760 --> 00:03:29,880 And then, ridiculously, the King of Judah dared to rebel. 41 00:03:29,880 --> 00:03:33,400 Retribution came like a thunderbolt. 42 00:03:33,400 --> 00:03:36,520 The city of Lachish was about to find itself 43 00:03:36,520 --> 00:03:41,480 on the wrong end of the most terrifying military machine of the age. 44 00:03:44,760 --> 00:03:46,560 The first thing Sennacherib did 45 00:03:46,560 --> 00:03:50,160 was to get his army to build a massive siege ramp 46 00:03:50,160 --> 00:03:52,240 up against the city walls. 47 00:03:55,080 --> 00:03:59,360 25,000 tonnes of earth and stone. 48 00:03:59,360 --> 00:04:02,480 A big lump, and it's still there. 49 00:04:04,400 --> 00:04:07,840 Lachish, on the other hand...isn't. 50 00:04:12,720 --> 00:04:18,440 Today, we talk about "total war" and "shock and awe". 51 00:04:18,440 --> 00:04:22,240 Well, invented by the Assyrians. 52 00:04:24,520 --> 00:04:31,200 The Bible calls them "a nation grim of face, like a vulture in flight... 53 00:04:31,200 --> 00:04:33,840 "ruthless towards the old... 54 00:04:34,800 --> 00:04:36,720 "...pitiless towards the young." 55 00:04:38,920 --> 00:04:43,080 What happened if you fought back? 56 00:04:43,080 --> 00:04:45,120 Well, captives were flayed alive. 57 00:04:46,200 --> 00:04:49,960 Their leaders had their heads displayed on stakes, 58 00:04:49,960 --> 00:04:54,400 and anyone who survived was deported and enslaved. 59 00:04:54,400 --> 00:04:58,000 SCREAMING 60 00:05:04,400 --> 00:05:07,480 Anything left behind was torched. 61 00:05:24,280 --> 00:05:29,040 1,500 men, women and children died at Lachish. 62 00:05:29,040 --> 00:05:32,920 Archaeologists have found their remains in a mass grave. 63 00:05:37,160 --> 00:05:40,320 It's been estimated that the Assyrians deported 64 00:05:40,320 --> 00:05:42,600 more than four million people 65 00:05:42,600 --> 00:05:45,520 during three centuries of dominance - 66 00:05:45,520 --> 00:05:49,960 slave labour to build monuments to the glory of their captors. 67 00:05:49,960 --> 00:05:52,920 You may ask how we know about all of this. 68 00:05:52,920 --> 00:05:56,760 Well, the truth is that Assyrian leaders boasted about it 69 00:05:56,760 --> 00:06:00,200 on clay tablets, and had huge friezes, 70 00:06:00,200 --> 00:06:03,160 in effect propaganda pictures, 71 00:06:03,160 --> 00:06:04,600 made of their victories. 72 00:06:06,760 --> 00:06:09,240 The palace walls of Nineveh displayed 73 00:06:09,240 --> 00:06:11,960 this gruesome catalogue of brutality. 74 00:06:13,280 --> 00:06:15,160 The flayings. 75 00:06:16,480 --> 00:06:19,120 The impalings. 76 00:06:20,320 --> 00:06:22,480 The deportations. 77 00:06:24,200 --> 00:06:29,440 What kind of civilisation chooses this as its wallpaper? 78 00:06:33,320 --> 00:06:37,960 But the ruthless warmongers have left little trace on the world, 79 00:06:37,960 --> 00:06:40,960 and the biggest legacy of this time 80 00:06:40,960 --> 00:06:44,120 was one the Assyrians were barely aware of. 81 00:06:47,240 --> 00:06:51,840 Sennacherib had conquered most of the world he knew about. 82 00:06:51,840 --> 00:06:54,160 But he could never have dreamed 83 00:06:54,160 --> 00:06:58,360 that the great gift of the Assyrian age to humanity 84 00:06:58,360 --> 00:07:03,880 had nothing to do with his terror tactics or his glittering palaces. 85 00:07:03,880 --> 00:07:09,160 It was the scratchings of a group of sailors and tradesmen 86 00:07:09,160 --> 00:07:14,600 that he had terrorised and forced out over the seas. 87 00:07:17,760 --> 00:07:20,560 They were a seafaring people. 88 00:07:20,560 --> 00:07:22,600 The Greeks called them Phoenicians, 89 00:07:22,600 --> 00:07:25,600 living on the coast of today's Lebanon and Syria. 90 00:07:27,040 --> 00:07:30,720 Being merchants, they tried to buy off the Assyrian invaders. 91 00:07:33,280 --> 00:07:36,040 They sailed the length of the Mediterranean 92 00:07:36,040 --> 00:07:41,400 to trade silver and other gifts which they then offered as tribute. 93 00:07:41,400 --> 00:07:43,920 And as they sailed, these traders carried 94 00:07:43,920 --> 00:07:46,360 something remarkable with them. 95 00:07:47,440 --> 00:07:50,560 The Phoenicians' great export was something 96 00:07:50,560 --> 00:07:53,720 that surrounds us all today - 97 00:07:53,720 --> 00:07:55,640 the alphabet. 98 00:07:55,640 --> 00:07:58,320 Before then, writing was basically 99 00:07:58,320 --> 00:08:01,720 lots of simplified little pictures of things. 100 00:08:01,720 --> 00:08:04,120 So you might have a picture of a fish. 101 00:08:04,120 --> 00:08:07,640 But it didn't tell you how to say "fish". 102 00:08:07,640 --> 00:08:09,520 What the Phoenicians did was, 103 00:08:09,520 --> 00:08:12,480 they started to use little symbols for sounds. 104 00:08:12,480 --> 00:08:14,840 And then you put the sounds together 105 00:08:14,840 --> 00:08:17,200 and you can say them back and you've got words. 106 00:08:17,200 --> 00:08:21,920 It's an incredibly useful, revolutionary breakthrough. 107 00:08:21,920 --> 00:08:25,000 This is part of the Phoenician alphabet. 108 00:08:26,840 --> 00:08:28,760 Aleph, 109 00:08:28,760 --> 00:08:30,200 beth, 110 00:08:30,200 --> 00:08:31,720 gimel... 111 00:08:33,160 --> 00:08:34,400 daleth... 112 00:08:34,400 --> 00:08:37,920 It's beginning to look rather familiar, isn't it? 113 00:08:37,920 --> 00:08:43,720 Just imagine how useful this is going to be to a trading people, 114 00:08:43,720 --> 00:08:46,120 bouncing around the coast of the Mediterranean, 115 00:08:46,120 --> 00:08:50,400 doing deals with peoples with many different languages 116 00:08:50,400 --> 00:08:52,600 and having to note those deals down. 117 00:08:52,600 --> 00:08:57,680 The Phoenicians simply found the alphabet a very useful tool. 118 00:08:58,840 --> 00:09:02,760 And so, since then, have many of the rest of us. 119 00:09:02,760 --> 00:09:06,640 The alphabet spread quickly. 120 00:09:06,640 --> 00:09:09,720 The Greeks adapted it with vowel sounds. 121 00:09:09,720 --> 00:09:13,000 And then, later on, the Romans - it forms the basis of Latin. 122 00:09:13,000 --> 00:09:17,520 The Hebrews used a version for their Bible. 123 00:09:17,520 --> 00:09:19,200 In fact, it's thought that 124 00:09:19,200 --> 00:09:22,400 all today's Western alphabets spread from here. 125 00:09:24,240 --> 00:09:29,560 Other cultures left behind palaces or pyramids. 126 00:09:29,560 --> 00:09:34,120 The Phoenicians left something far more impressive. 127 00:09:37,080 --> 00:09:41,040 Within 100 years of Sennacherib's rampage through Judah, 128 00:09:41,040 --> 00:09:44,320 the Assyrians were a spent force... 129 00:09:44,320 --> 00:09:48,880 making way for the next new empire, that of the Persians. 130 00:09:48,880 --> 00:09:53,720 And their most famous ruler wasn't exactly a wallflower either. 131 00:09:53,720 --> 00:09:58,400 "I am Cyrus. Great king, mighty king. 132 00:09:58,400 --> 00:10:00,200 "King of the globe. 133 00:10:00,200 --> 00:10:02,960 "King of the four quarters of the Earth." 134 00:10:02,960 --> 00:10:06,880 We have heard this kind of thing before in world history. 135 00:10:06,880 --> 00:10:09,240 We'll hear a lot of it again. 136 00:10:09,240 --> 00:10:14,320 But what does make Cyrus the Great different and possibly even great 137 00:10:14,320 --> 00:10:17,600 is that unlike any previous ruler, 138 00:10:17,600 --> 00:10:20,680 he listened to the people he conquered, 139 00:10:20,680 --> 00:10:24,440 he was open to cultural and religious influences. 140 00:10:25,760 --> 00:10:29,760 And if that makes him sound like an early liberal, think again, 141 00:10:29,760 --> 00:10:32,840 because before the listening came the old business 142 00:10:32,840 --> 00:10:35,680 of the conquering and the slaughtering. 143 00:10:39,080 --> 00:10:43,240 In 547 BC, the mighty Cyrus turned his attention 144 00:10:43,240 --> 00:10:46,480 to one of the wealthiest little kingdoms in the world. 145 00:10:48,560 --> 00:10:50,520 These are the ruins of Sardis, 146 00:10:50,520 --> 00:10:54,000 the capital of Lydia, in what is now Turkey. 147 00:10:55,480 --> 00:10:59,360 The Persians were hitting back against a troublesome rival 148 00:10:59,360 --> 00:11:02,480 but they were also following the money 149 00:11:02,480 --> 00:11:05,000 because the Lydians were rich. 150 00:11:05,000 --> 00:11:08,760 And when the invaders came knocking, 151 00:11:08,760 --> 00:11:11,560 they knew exactly who they were looking for... 152 00:11:15,320 --> 00:11:17,760 ...Croesus, the king of Lydia. 153 00:11:17,760 --> 00:11:19,080 YELLING 154 00:11:19,080 --> 00:11:22,280 He may have been the richest man in the world 155 00:11:22,280 --> 00:11:25,240 but now, as he tried to hide with his son, 156 00:11:25,240 --> 00:11:28,560 his great wealth was putting his life in danger. 157 00:11:28,560 --> 00:11:30,240 DOORS THUDDING 158 00:11:32,200 --> 00:11:35,440 And that great wealth came from right here. 159 00:11:37,120 --> 00:11:39,360 This doesn't look much like a significant site 160 00:11:39,360 --> 00:11:41,480 in the history of the world economy, but it is. 161 00:11:41,480 --> 00:11:46,080 This is the river bed of the Pactolus, which in ancient times 162 00:11:46,080 --> 00:11:50,400 was a stream running with very rich gold and silver deposits, 163 00:11:50,400 --> 00:11:53,480 which the Lydians learned to refine 164 00:11:53,480 --> 00:11:56,840 and turn into reliable, valuable coins 165 00:11:56,840 --> 00:12:01,480 which circulated all around this part of Asia. 166 00:12:01,480 --> 00:12:06,120 There was gold in the hills up there and this is why, even today, 167 00:12:06,120 --> 00:12:09,000 when we're talking about somebody who's loaded, 168 00:12:09,000 --> 00:12:11,760 we say, "He's rich as Croesus." 169 00:12:14,440 --> 00:12:19,800 Croesus's gold coins were stamped with symbols of power and strength - 170 00:12:19,800 --> 00:12:21,840 the lion and the bull. 171 00:12:23,320 --> 00:12:26,120 Now, other cultures had had currencies before. 172 00:12:26,120 --> 00:12:30,880 They'd had bronze, or silver, or even rare seashells. 173 00:12:30,880 --> 00:12:32,720 But what the Lydians did for the first time 174 00:12:32,720 --> 00:12:38,840 was produce gold coins of a reliable weight and purity. 175 00:12:38,840 --> 00:12:41,680 Even today when people are frightened 176 00:12:41,680 --> 00:12:43,480 about the banks and governments, 177 00:12:43,480 --> 00:12:45,240 they go to gold. 178 00:12:45,240 --> 00:12:47,880 Well, it started here. 179 00:12:47,880 --> 00:12:51,640 CLATTERING AND THUDDING 180 00:12:55,320 --> 00:12:57,200 SCREAMS 181 00:13:03,080 --> 00:13:08,560 The fate of King Croesus now lay at the mercy of the Persian leader - 182 00:13:08,560 --> 00:13:09,920 Cyrus. 183 00:13:15,800 --> 00:13:17,800 Lessons from history - 184 00:13:17,800 --> 00:13:20,600 if a Persian king invites you to a barbecue, 185 00:13:20,600 --> 00:13:22,400 it's probably wise to say no. 186 00:13:38,400 --> 00:13:42,320 Solon! Solon! 187 00:13:42,320 --> 00:13:45,120 Croesus called on the god Apollo to save him. 188 00:13:45,120 --> 00:13:47,640 COUGHS 189 00:13:47,640 --> 00:13:49,960 Aargh! Apollon...! 190 00:13:52,040 --> 00:13:55,120 THUNDERCLAP 191 00:13:57,120 --> 00:14:00,520 And he sent down a shower of rain to douse the flames. 192 00:14:00,520 --> 00:14:03,240 LAUGHS 193 00:14:06,800 --> 00:14:10,000 Well, maybe, maybe not. 194 00:14:10,000 --> 00:14:14,600 Some of what we know about Cyrus and Croesus, we think we know 195 00:14:14,600 --> 00:14:18,080 because of the writings of the great Greek historian Herodotus. 196 00:14:18,080 --> 00:14:20,080 LAUGHS 197 00:14:20,080 --> 00:14:25,040 The trouble is that he is not an entirely reliable witness. 198 00:14:25,040 --> 00:14:28,080 Apart from being known as "the father of history", 199 00:14:28,080 --> 00:14:32,480 Herodotus is also sometimes called "the father of lies". 200 00:14:32,480 --> 00:14:37,160 He certainly had that fatal journalistic weakness 201 00:14:37,160 --> 00:14:38,840 for a great story. 202 00:14:41,200 --> 00:14:43,160 According to Herodotus, 203 00:14:43,160 --> 00:14:47,440 the Persian king asked his prisoner why he'd fought him. 204 00:14:48,680 --> 00:14:51,920 Croesus, typically, blamed the gods. 205 00:14:51,920 --> 00:14:56,360 "Mmm," thought Cyrus, "bad advice?" 206 00:14:57,840 --> 00:15:00,640 "Well," said Croesus, 207 00:15:00,640 --> 00:15:03,840 "in peace, sons bury their fathers. 208 00:15:03,840 --> 00:15:07,760 "But in wartime, fathers bury their sons." 209 00:15:07,760 --> 00:15:11,120 SPEAKS IN ANCIENT GREEK 210 00:15:11,120 --> 00:15:12,960 "Mm, fair point," 211 00:15:12,960 --> 00:15:14,480 thought Cyrus. "Rather well put." 212 00:15:14,480 --> 00:15:17,560 And so he let Croesus off the hook 213 00:15:17,560 --> 00:15:21,560 and appointed him as his adviser instead. 214 00:15:21,560 --> 00:15:24,240 CHUCKLING 215 00:15:24,240 --> 00:15:29,800 But it wasn't just wise advice and mottos that Cyrus got from Croesus. 216 00:15:29,800 --> 00:15:34,280 The Persians also picked up the Lydians' great invention - 217 00:15:34,280 --> 00:15:37,520 reliable, effective currency. 218 00:15:37,520 --> 00:15:41,920 Coins begin to spread around a large area at this time 219 00:15:41,920 --> 00:15:44,480 because of the Persian Empire. 220 00:15:44,480 --> 00:15:47,800 Currency becomes current because of war. 221 00:15:54,440 --> 00:15:57,240 Enriched with the gold from Croesus, 222 00:15:57,240 --> 00:16:00,520 Cyrus carried on his rampage across the Middle East. 223 00:16:00,520 --> 00:16:05,840 And eight years later, he conquered the great city of Babylon. 224 00:16:07,240 --> 00:16:11,840 There, the Hebrews of Jerusalem had been exiled and enslaved. 225 00:16:11,840 --> 00:16:15,520 "Weeping by the waters of Babylon," says the Bible, 226 00:16:15,520 --> 00:16:19,440 and Cyrus set them free, sending them home. 227 00:16:26,600 --> 00:16:31,000 Cyrus even paid for the rebuilding of their temple in Jerusalem. 228 00:16:31,000 --> 00:16:33,480 The Wailing Wall is part of it, 229 00:16:33,480 --> 00:16:38,560 and remains the most sacred Jewish site to this day. 230 00:16:38,560 --> 00:16:41,880 Through these acts of religious tolerance, 231 00:16:41,880 --> 00:16:45,720 the Persian king became the only Gentile ever 232 00:16:45,720 --> 00:16:49,480 to be honoured with the title messiah. 233 00:16:49,480 --> 00:16:54,000 Like the Assyrians, like every great ruler before him, 234 00:16:54,000 --> 00:16:58,040 Cyrus had hacked and slaughtered his way to power. 235 00:16:58,040 --> 00:17:03,960 This period of history is a long catalogue of butchery and burning. 236 00:17:03,960 --> 00:17:11,160 But, out of it comes the alphabet, the first standardised currency 237 00:17:11,160 --> 00:17:15,440 and the birth of one of the world's great religions. 238 00:17:16,800 --> 00:17:21,840 Free and back in Jerusalem, the Jewish faith really developed. 239 00:17:21,840 --> 00:17:24,640 And one big idea set them apart 240 00:17:24,640 --> 00:17:27,320 from most other religious groups at the time. 241 00:17:27,320 --> 00:17:30,080 They believed in one god. 242 00:17:31,320 --> 00:17:37,200 The great discovery, or invention, of the Jews was monotheism - 243 00:17:37,200 --> 00:17:39,880 the belief in one god only. 244 00:17:39,880 --> 00:17:43,240 And in a world of so many billions of Christians and Muslims, 245 00:17:43,240 --> 00:17:45,000 it might seem an obvious idea, 246 00:17:45,000 --> 00:17:48,680 but in the ancient world, it was truly odd. 247 00:17:48,680 --> 00:17:51,920 Then, wherever you looked around the world, 248 00:17:51,920 --> 00:17:53,680 there were huge numbers of gods - 249 00:17:53,680 --> 00:17:57,120 gods on mountains, gods in rivers and forests, father gods, 250 00:17:57,120 --> 00:17:58,520 mother gods, child gods. 251 00:17:59,520 --> 00:18:03,240 So how was it that this people 252 00:18:03,240 --> 00:18:08,480 came up with something so radical and so different? 253 00:18:11,200 --> 00:18:17,120 There had been one-god cults and faiths before in world history, 254 00:18:17,120 --> 00:18:24,480 but the Jewish experience of exile would produce a much stronger story. 255 00:18:24,480 --> 00:18:28,000 And that's partly because they could write it all down 256 00:18:28,000 --> 00:18:35,000 using one of those wonderful, flexible, new-fangled alphabets. 257 00:18:36,400 --> 00:18:39,200 In the Book of Isaiah, God says, 258 00:18:39,200 --> 00:18:42,040 "...there is no other god but me. 259 00:18:43,080 --> 00:18:48,480 "No god was formed before me, nor will be after me." 260 00:18:49,760 --> 00:18:51,400 Just one god. 261 00:18:51,400 --> 00:18:56,960 The Hebrews had never said it as loudly and clearly before. 262 00:18:56,960 --> 00:19:02,160 Monotheism is one of the most powerful ideas in world history. 263 00:19:02,160 --> 00:19:07,480 And without war and exile, it might never have happened. 264 00:19:08,640 --> 00:19:10,600 BELL RESOUNDS 265 00:19:13,520 --> 00:19:16,120 CHANTING 266 00:19:16,120 --> 00:19:20,760 In India, a similar time of warfare and turmoil 267 00:19:20,760 --> 00:19:23,840 was also making people question 268 00:19:23,840 --> 00:19:26,160 and explore the meaning of life. 269 00:19:27,280 --> 00:19:30,520 And here, the search for an answer was to lead 270 00:19:30,520 --> 00:19:34,200 to a creed of compassion, tolerance and non-violence. 271 00:19:38,200 --> 00:19:40,880 HORNS BEEPING 272 00:19:46,960 --> 00:19:49,120 In the 5th century BC, 273 00:19:49,120 --> 00:19:53,120 India was going through a period of massive social change. 274 00:19:53,120 --> 00:19:57,560 The new technology was iron, which made ploughing much more effective. 275 00:19:57,560 --> 00:19:59,040 Agriculture was spreading. 276 00:19:59,040 --> 00:20:02,080 The ancient forests were being torn down. 277 00:20:02,080 --> 00:20:04,600 Towns and even cities were appearing. 278 00:20:04,600 --> 00:20:08,640 And everywhere there were vicious little wars. 279 00:20:08,640 --> 00:20:13,440 So it's not surprising that at a time of such social shaking, 280 00:20:13,440 --> 00:20:18,200 people are asking themselves, "Isn't there something more?" 281 00:20:18,200 --> 00:20:20,600 There is a hunger for new ideas. 282 00:20:26,200 --> 00:20:31,080 Life in India was shaped by the caste system - 283 00:20:31,080 --> 00:20:33,480 a fixed hierarchy of classes. 284 00:20:33,480 --> 00:20:37,960 At the top were rulers like Siddhartha Gautama. 285 00:20:37,960 --> 00:20:42,320 His family were wealthy clan leaders in the foothills of the Himalayas. 286 00:20:42,320 --> 00:20:46,480 He lived a remarkably easy life for the time - 287 00:20:46,480 --> 00:20:49,960 cut off from the suffering and the turmoil outside. 288 00:20:49,960 --> 00:20:53,280 A loving wife, a newborn boy - 289 00:20:53,280 --> 00:20:55,800 what more could any man ask for? 290 00:20:58,440 --> 00:21:02,920 By his late twenties, Siddhartha was becoming frustrated. 291 00:21:03,960 --> 00:21:07,800 He became sickened by his easy life, 292 00:21:07,800 --> 00:21:11,440 reflecting that even his comparative wealth 293 00:21:11,440 --> 00:21:15,480 wouldn't stop him from suffering, growing old and sick. 294 00:21:15,480 --> 00:21:20,640 And so he began to ask the fundamental questions. 295 00:21:20,640 --> 00:21:25,080 Life, what is it for? What is it about? 296 00:21:25,080 --> 00:21:27,320 INSECTS CHIRRUP 297 00:21:31,280 --> 00:21:35,000 After much anguish, Siddhartha abandoned his family 298 00:21:35,000 --> 00:21:37,000 and his life of privilege 299 00:21:37,000 --> 00:21:41,320 and went in search of an answer to the questions that haunted him. 300 00:21:45,040 --> 00:21:48,880 EERIE MUSIC AND LAUGHTER 301 00:21:53,080 --> 00:21:56,720 In the streets outside, he came face to face 302 00:21:56,720 --> 00:22:00,680 with poverty, pain and illness. 303 00:22:14,960 --> 00:22:19,240 For six years, he wandered through the forests of northern India. 304 00:22:19,240 --> 00:22:22,360 This was a time of wandering prophets, 305 00:22:22,360 --> 00:22:25,120 and on his travels he came across holy men, 306 00:22:25,120 --> 00:22:29,080 but they didn't have the answers he was looking for. 307 00:22:30,280 --> 00:22:33,440 He tried almost suicidal fasting. 308 00:22:33,440 --> 00:22:35,480 That didn't work either. 309 00:22:35,480 --> 00:22:39,240 Eventually, he concluded that to discover wisdom, 310 00:22:39,240 --> 00:22:41,800 compassion and insight, 311 00:22:41,800 --> 00:22:44,880 he needed to meditate about the meaning of life. 312 00:22:47,080 --> 00:22:50,600 One day, he came upon a bodhi tree - 313 00:22:50,600 --> 00:22:53,320 it's a kind of big fig tree - 314 00:22:53,320 --> 00:22:55,440 and he settled himself down 315 00:22:55,440 --> 00:23:00,320 and vowed to remain more or less literally rooted here 316 00:23:00,320 --> 00:23:04,560 until his concentration and his focus 317 00:23:04,560 --> 00:23:09,480 allowed him to break open the great secret that he was searching for. 318 00:23:22,520 --> 00:23:27,920 Slowly, Siddhartha was able to let go of the world's distractions. 319 00:23:35,320 --> 00:23:38,320 THUNDERCLAP 320 00:23:41,160 --> 00:23:43,000 Hour by hour, 321 00:23:43,000 --> 00:23:45,240 day by day, 322 00:23:45,240 --> 00:23:47,080 his mind became clearer. 323 00:23:55,440 --> 00:23:57,240 GASPS 324 00:23:57,240 --> 00:23:59,200 EXHALES 325 00:23:59,200 --> 00:24:00,480 BREATHES DEEPLY 326 00:24:00,480 --> 00:24:05,240 At last, he reached a state of radiant inner peace - 327 00:24:05,240 --> 00:24:07,280 spiritual liberation... 328 00:24:11,440 --> 00:24:12,920 ...enlightenment. 329 00:24:17,480 --> 00:24:20,440 BIRDSONG 330 00:24:22,120 --> 00:24:26,600 Tradition says that Siddhartha sat under his bodhi tree 331 00:24:26,600 --> 00:24:28,840 for 49 days and 49 nights, 332 00:24:28,840 --> 00:24:30,520 right here. 333 00:24:30,520 --> 00:24:32,440 And this tree is said to be a cutting 334 00:24:32,440 --> 00:24:34,360 of a cutting of the original tree. 335 00:24:34,360 --> 00:24:38,160 So a kind of grandson of Siddhartha's tree. 336 00:24:41,360 --> 00:24:44,680 Siddhartha himself became known as The Buddha - 337 00:24:44,680 --> 00:24:46,040 "the awakened one". 338 00:24:48,240 --> 00:24:53,120 A temple was built next to the tree where he had sat and meditated. 339 00:24:53,120 --> 00:24:58,000 Pilgrims come here to Bodh Gaya from all over the world. 340 00:25:00,720 --> 00:25:07,280 It's the nearest thing that Buddhism has to a Jerusalem or Rome or Mecca. 341 00:25:07,280 --> 00:25:11,840 But it's small and quiet and very little developed. 342 00:25:11,840 --> 00:25:14,080 THEY CHANT 343 00:25:14,080 --> 00:25:16,800 For the rest of his life, the Buddha travelled and taught. 344 00:25:18,840 --> 00:25:21,560 "But how," you may ask, "can we know anything 345 00:25:21,560 --> 00:25:26,240 "about the life or the words of someone who lived so far back, 346 00:25:26,240 --> 00:25:28,440 "before there were books in India?" 347 00:25:28,440 --> 00:25:31,560 Well, the group chanting of stories and sayings - 348 00:25:31,560 --> 00:25:35,520 so that everybody remembers the same words together - 349 00:25:35,520 --> 00:25:41,120 is partly a way of trying to stop things being distorted or forgotten. 350 00:25:42,840 --> 00:25:45,240 This is the power of oral history. 351 00:25:49,360 --> 00:25:51,080 The Buddha was one of the first, 352 00:25:51,080 --> 00:25:54,960 great radical thinkers in world history. 353 00:25:54,960 --> 00:26:00,120 At a time of shaking social change and civil war, 354 00:26:00,120 --> 00:26:03,800 he said, "Turn inward." 355 00:26:03,800 --> 00:26:06,280 When all of what we call history 356 00:26:06,280 --> 00:26:11,960 is about technology and violence thrusting forward in one direction, 357 00:26:11,960 --> 00:26:15,240 he is saying, "No, no, no! Walk the other way." 358 00:26:16,280 --> 00:26:18,920 And his version of enlightenment 359 00:26:18,920 --> 00:26:22,200 contained no hierarchy, no aggression, 360 00:26:22,200 --> 00:26:26,520 it was open to everybody - from kings to paupers. 361 00:26:31,640 --> 00:26:33,480 Compared to other creeds, 362 00:26:33,480 --> 00:26:36,760 this was a remarkably unpolitical reply 363 00:26:36,760 --> 00:26:39,240 to an unfair and painful world. 364 00:26:43,400 --> 00:26:45,160 But in a corner of Europe, 365 00:26:45,160 --> 00:26:48,840 at around the same time, politics became central, 366 00:26:48,840 --> 00:26:53,120 as another people asked, "How shall we live together?" 367 00:26:55,000 --> 00:26:59,960 In Greece, one of the original experiments in Western civilisation 368 00:26:59,960 --> 00:27:01,360 was about to begin. 369 00:27:06,400 --> 00:27:09,360 It was led, not by a king or a prophet, 370 00:27:09,360 --> 00:27:15,720 but by the ordinary, dusty citizens of the city state of Athens... 371 00:27:15,720 --> 00:27:19,720 who'd had enough of the tyrant of the day. 372 00:27:23,000 --> 00:27:28,800 And so they did something extraordinary and new. 373 00:27:28,800 --> 00:27:30,360 They threw him out. 374 00:27:32,080 --> 00:27:35,120 The world's first democratic revolution started here 375 00:27:35,120 --> 00:27:37,440 at the Acropolis in Athens. 376 00:27:37,440 --> 00:27:42,240 The people massed in this area and refused to leave 377 00:27:42,240 --> 00:27:45,640 until the tyrant was sent off into exile. 378 00:27:45,640 --> 00:27:49,680 And after he'd gone, remarkable reforms followed. 379 00:27:49,680 --> 00:27:55,240 All male citizens had complete freedom of speech in public 380 00:27:55,240 --> 00:27:58,680 and they could vote on almost everything. 381 00:27:58,680 --> 00:28:02,120 It didn't matter how rich or poor you were, 382 00:28:02,120 --> 00:28:05,040 your vote counted just the same. 383 00:28:06,440 --> 00:28:08,920 The Greeks had two words - 384 00:28:08,920 --> 00:28:15,640 "demos", people and "kratos" for power or rule. 385 00:28:15,640 --> 00:28:19,720 Demos kratos, the rule of the people. 386 00:28:20,920 --> 00:28:22,240 Democracy. 387 00:28:27,720 --> 00:28:32,080 Next door to the Acropolis is the actual site - the Pnyx - 388 00:28:32,080 --> 00:28:35,480 where this new democracy was put into practice. 389 00:28:37,240 --> 00:28:39,480 For anyone interested in politics, 390 00:28:39,480 --> 00:28:44,120 this is sacred ground, because it was right here 391 00:28:44,120 --> 00:28:47,520 that the 6,000 Athenian citizens would meet 392 00:28:47,520 --> 00:28:51,800 and listen to arguments and debate and then vote. 393 00:28:51,800 --> 00:28:56,680 On this meagre soil, something was grown 394 00:28:56,680 --> 00:29:01,880 which has been transplanted to every democracy in the world. 395 00:29:22,520 --> 00:29:25,800 And yet it's very important to remember 396 00:29:25,800 --> 00:29:30,120 that Greek democracy was not our version of democracy. 397 00:29:30,120 --> 00:29:32,880 It excluded all women 398 00:29:32,880 --> 00:29:35,520 and it excluded slaves, 399 00:29:35,520 --> 00:29:39,320 because Athens was a slave-owning society. 400 00:29:39,320 --> 00:29:42,640 For every free Athenian, it's been estimated 401 00:29:42,640 --> 00:29:46,360 there were at least two slaves working the soil, 402 00:29:46,360 --> 00:29:50,040 cutting the stone, cleaning, doing all the jobs 403 00:29:50,040 --> 00:29:57,280 which allowed free Athenian men to sit here and listen and choose. 404 00:30:01,520 --> 00:30:05,560 But, within 20 years, this fledgling experiment in democracy 405 00:30:05,560 --> 00:30:07,840 was about to face a life-or-death struggle 406 00:30:07,840 --> 00:30:11,160 with our old friends, the Persians. 407 00:30:15,560 --> 00:30:17,800 They had the biggest empire in the world 408 00:30:17,800 --> 00:30:20,560 and they were determined to conquer the Athenians. 409 00:30:20,560 --> 00:30:23,080 A massive invasion force was dispatched. 410 00:30:24,960 --> 00:30:28,880 The armies met face to face, a short distance from Athens, 411 00:30:28,880 --> 00:30:32,480 on the coast at a place called Marathon. 412 00:30:40,200 --> 00:30:45,480 490 BC, and the Battle of Marathon - 413 00:30:45,480 --> 00:30:49,000 the most important battle in the ancient world. 414 00:30:49,000 --> 00:30:53,360 On the one side, a free, citizen army 415 00:30:53,360 --> 00:30:57,600 fighting for the right to think and speak as they wished. 416 00:30:57,600 --> 00:31:01,200 On the other side, the army of a despot. 417 00:31:02,280 --> 00:31:05,040 On the outcome of the Battle of Marathon 418 00:31:05,040 --> 00:31:07,960 hung not only the fate of this part of the world, 419 00:31:07,960 --> 00:31:12,680 but also, in many ways, how we still think today. 420 00:31:18,360 --> 00:31:23,160 No Greek army had ever defeated the Persians in open combat. 421 00:31:23,160 --> 00:31:26,320 The very name struck fear into the heart of the Athenians. 422 00:31:31,880 --> 00:31:35,280 And now, as the Greeks confronted the invaders across the battlefield, 423 00:31:35,280 --> 00:31:41,240 they could see that they were hugely outnumbered by at least two to one. 424 00:31:41,240 --> 00:31:44,760 The Persian commander was convinced that, 425 00:31:44,760 --> 00:31:46,760 faced with such overwhelming force, 426 00:31:46,760 --> 00:31:51,760 the Greeks would do the obvious and simply surrender. 427 00:31:55,360 --> 00:31:58,760 This was not a professional army. 428 00:31:58,760 --> 00:32:03,720 These were craftsmen and farmers and tradesmen 429 00:32:03,720 --> 00:32:07,240 and writers, protecting one another. 430 00:32:08,720 --> 00:32:10,760 In the ranks of this citizen army 431 00:32:10,760 --> 00:32:13,920 was a young playwright called Aeschylus. 432 00:32:15,080 --> 00:32:18,000 Alongside him, his brother, Cynegeirus. 433 00:32:22,760 --> 00:32:27,400 The Athenian commander, Miltiades, had a bold strategy - 434 00:32:27,400 --> 00:32:31,360 he ordered his troops to do something almost ridiculous. 435 00:32:31,360 --> 00:32:33,480 YELLS ORDER 436 00:32:33,480 --> 00:32:37,040 TROOPS CHANT 437 00:32:44,040 --> 00:32:46,320 YELLS ORDER 438 00:32:50,520 --> 00:32:53,280 Drawn up opposite the Greek army, 439 00:32:53,280 --> 00:32:56,600 the Persians looked on with amazement. 440 00:32:56,600 --> 00:33:00,880 The Greeks were doing the one thing that made no sense at all. 441 00:33:00,880 --> 00:33:02,520 They were attacking. 442 00:33:04,520 --> 00:33:07,400 YELLS ORDER 443 00:33:07,400 --> 00:33:09,840 To the vastly superior Persian force, 444 00:33:09,840 --> 00:33:12,640 the Greek tactics must have seemed like suicide. 445 00:33:13,760 --> 00:33:15,840 But there was method in the madness. 446 00:33:15,840 --> 00:33:20,560 Now, the Athenians were of course hugely outnumbered, 447 00:33:20,560 --> 00:33:23,920 but Miltiades had a cunning plan. 448 00:33:25,600 --> 00:33:29,920 He had deliberately weakened the Greek front line. 449 00:33:29,920 --> 00:33:32,000 YELLING 450 00:33:34,000 --> 00:33:38,280 The Persians punched through them with deceptive ease. 451 00:33:38,280 --> 00:33:42,160 Miltiades now had them outflanked. 452 00:33:42,160 --> 00:33:47,000 He ordered his two wings to act like pincers... 453 00:33:47,000 --> 00:33:50,120 gripping the Persian enemy tight... 454 00:33:52,080 --> 00:33:54,200 ...and squeezing it slowly to death. 455 00:34:02,080 --> 00:34:03,520 That day at Marathon, 456 00:34:03,520 --> 00:34:06,840 6,000 Persian soldiers were slaughtered. 457 00:34:11,000 --> 00:34:14,880 But just 200 Athenians died. 458 00:34:16,880 --> 00:34:19,800 The brother of Aeschylus was among them. 459 00:34:19,800 --> 00:34:23,560 YELLS 460 00:34:33,520 --> 00:34:36,480 Every Greek who died at the Battle of Marathon 461 00:34:36,480 --> 00:34:39,480 was remembered as a hero. 462 00:34:39,480 --> 00:34:42,600 Uniquely, in the story of ancient Athens, 463 00:34:42,600 --> 00:34:46,600 their bodies were not brought back to the city. 464 00:34:46,600 --> 00:34:49,600 Instead, they were buried here 465 00:34:49,600 --> 00:34:52,160 on the battlefield where they'd died. 466 00:34:53,400 --> 00:34:57,040 And 2,500 years on, 467 00:34:57,040 --> 00:34:59,720 here they are still - 468 00:34:59,720 --> 00:35:05,120 under a simple, modest mound of earth and grass. 469 00:35:06,240 --> 00:35:09,120 Can you imagine anything 470 00:35:09,120 --> 00:35:13,920 less like the pompous monuments raised for tyrants? 471 00:35:17,280 --> 00:35:21,600 But back on that extraordinary day, the danger was far from over. 472 00:35:22,600 --> 00:35:25,360 The surviving Persians returned to their ships 473 00:35:25,360 --> 00:35:26,880 and set sail for Athens. 474 00:35:26,880 --> 00:35:32,400 The exhausted Athenians now had to race back to defend their city 475 00:35:32,400 --> 00:35:34,720 before the Persians could get there. 476 00:35:40,000 --> 00:35:44,440 The Greek army's heroic 26-mile run 477 00:35:44,440 --> 00:35:47,920 back to defend their city 478 00:35:47,920 --> 00:35:51,720 is of course remembered today in the Olympic Games, 479 00:35:51,720 --> 00:35:56,040 the ultimate test of courage and stamina - 480 00:35:56,040 --> 00:35:57,680 the marathon. 481 00:36:01,600 --> 00:36:05,280 The Athenian soldiers got there just in time, 482 00:36:05,280 --> 00:36:08,760 and the Persian fleet turned tail and sailed home. 483 00:36:10,120 --> 00:36:12,640 The young soldier Aeschylus went on to become 484 00:36:12,640 --> 00:36:14,920 one of history's greatest playwrights. 485 00:36:18,120 --> 00:36:19,800 YELLS 486 00:36:29,720 --> 00:36:34,880 The Parthenon itself, the crowning achievement of Greek architecture, 487 00:36:34,880 --> 00:36:37,560 is a remarkable offering of thanks 488 00:36:37,560 --> 00:36:40,320 for the Athenian victory over the Persians. 489 00:36:43,960 --> 00:36:47,560 If the Persians had won at Marathon, 490 00:36:47,560 --> 00:36:50,480 the world today would feel different. 491 00:36:50,480 --> 00:36:54,000 Greek culture would be just a footnote. 492 00:36:54,000 --> 00:36:56,320 And however we governed ourselves, 493 00:36:56,320 --> 00:36:59,080 we certainly wouldn't call it democracy. 494 00:37:00,480 --> 00:37:03,560 But the victory gave the Athenians 495 00:37:03,560 --> 00:37:06,400 the most extraordinary outpouring 496 00:37:06,400 --> 00:37:10,640 of self-confidence and cultural brilliance. 497 00:37:21,800 --> 00:37:25,120 Yes, this is a story about war, 498 00:37:25,120 --> 00:37:29,320 but there was once a golden age. 499 00:37:30,720 --> 00:37:32,200 And it happened here. 500 00:37:39,800 --> 00:37:43,320 While the Greeks were developing the idea of democracy, 501 00:37:43,320 --> 00:37:47,640 a very different set of values was beginning to take shape in the East. 502 00:37:49,560 --> 00:37:54,880 This new thinking was also born in a time of turmoil and chaos. 503 00:37:59,160 --> 00:38:02,680 In 500 BC, much of the land we now call China 504 00:38:02,680 --> 00:38:06,080 was dominated by the Zhou dynasty - 505 00:38:06,080 --> 00:38:09,760 a line of rulers going back hundreds of years. 506 00:38:13,600 --> 00:38:15,600 But now, the country was at risk 507 00:38:15,600 --> 00:38:18,880 of fragmenting into small rival states. 508 00:38:18,880 --> 00:38:22,440 The threat of war dominated the times. 509 00:38:25,200 --> 00:38:30,080 Out of these wobbly, anxious years came one man with a clear vision 510 00:38:30,080 --> 00:38:33,360 of a safer, kinder, better-ordered world. 511 00:38:37,680 --> 00:38:39,280 The man was an official, 512 00:38:39,280 --> 00:38:43,080 a bureaucrat, who'd worked his way up. 513 00:38:43,080 --> 00:38:45,960 He famously liked his food 514 00:38:45,960 --> 00:38:50,120 and he was very proud of his ability to hold his drink. 515 00:38:50,120 --> 00:38:53,400 The Chinese know him as K'ung Fu-tzu. 516 00:38:53,400 --> 00:38:56,400 We call him Confucius. 517 00:38:59,320 --> 00:39:04,080 Confucius worked in the court of Lu in eastern China. 518 00:39:07,600 --> 00:39:11,680 He was one of the old school who yearned for the good society 519 00:39:11,680 --> 00:39:15,120 and the stability of the past. And he could see 520 00:39:15,120 --> 00:39:20,320 that standards of discipline, behaviour and respect were slipping. 521 00:39:21,440 --> 00:39:23,760 'Without feelings of respect, 522 00:39:23,760 --> 00:39:27,680 'what is there to distinguish men from beasts?' 523 00:39:29,880 --> 00:39:33,760 Confucius thought that the best way to rebuild the good society 524 00:39:33,760 --> 00:39:37,440 was to encourage the proper performance of rites. 525 00:39:37,440 --> 00:39:42,640 Now, that meant the proper way to mourn, to praise and to pray, 526 00:39:42,640 --> 00:39:46,960 the proper way to conduct celebrations and anniversaries, 527 00:39:46,960 --> 00:39:50,000 even the proper way to eat a meal and dress. 528 00:39:50,000 --> 00:39:51,560 This is no easy matter. 529 00:39:51,560 --> 00:39:53,840 In traditional Chinese society, 530 00:39:53,840 --> 00:39:59,200 a well-educated gentleman had to know around 3,000 different rules. 531 00:40:00,200 --> 00:40:06,200 And yet, for Confucius, this is an essential moral crusade. 532 00:40:09,120 --> 00:40:11,920 Confucius began a campaign of reforms 533 00:40:11,920 --> 00:40:16,280 to improve standards in the court, and he had some success. 534 00:40:17,880 --> 00:40:23,360 But then he was to face a further challenge from his master himself. 535 00:40:29,800 --> 00:40:34,000 He started neglecting his duties after he was introduced 536 00:40:34,000 --> 00:40:38,360 to some particularly enticing new courtesans. 537 00:40:38,360 --> 00:40:43,080 Audiences were cancelled, work was left undone. 538 00:40:43,080 --> 00:40:45,760 Confucius believed that if you didn't set 539 00:40:45,760 --> 00:40:47,400 a good example at the top, 540 00:40:47,400 --> 00:40:49,480 there was little hope for anyone else. 541 00:40:55,840 --> 00:40:58,600 SPEAKS IN CHINESE 542 00:41:00,640 --> 00:41:03,400 Feeling bitterly let down, 543 00:41:03,400 --> 00:41:07,720 Confucius packed up and left the court. 544 00:41:09,600 --> 00:41:13,320 He was having one of the most important mid-life crises 545 00:41:13,320 --> 00:41:15,440 in the history of ideas. 546 00:41:15,440 --> 00:41:21,200 In his mid-50s, he was completely sure that he was a failure. 547 00:41:21,200 --> 00:41:24,760 But he was walking out to change China. 548 00:41:32,120 --> 00:41:36,960 Like The Buddha in India, Confucius went on the road. 549 00:41:36,960 --> 00:41:39,640 He travelled through China, listening, 550 00:41:39,640 --> 00:41:43,120 teaching, gathering converts. 551 00:41:43,120 --> 00:41:47,960 He was convinced that individual actions on a small scale 552 00:41:47,960 --> 00:41:51,960 could shape the whole of society. 553 00:41:51,960 --> 00:41:56,200 And so he urged his followers to honour tradition, 554 00:41:56,200 --> 00:42:01,640 respect their families and follow ancient rules of good behaviour. 555 00:42:01,640 --> 00:42:04,240 'Respect yourself and others...' 556 00:42:04,240 --> 00:42:06,760 'And not to do it is to...' 557 00:42:06,760 --> 00:42:08,960 'Do not do unto others 558 00:42:08,960 --> 00:42:11,440 'what you would not like done to yourself.' 559 00:42:19,600 --> 00:42:22,920 Confucius died aged 72, 560 00:42:22,920 --> 00:42:26,720 and his story might have ended in failure 561 00:42:26,720 --> 00:42:30,360 were it not for the fact that his followers wrote down 562 00:42:30,360 --> 00:42:34,880 his wise sayings and his teachings in a book called The Analects. 563 00:42:37,280 --> 00:42:41,040 After his death, his followers spread his ideas 564 00:42:41,040 --> 00:42:45,000 with remarkable success, and a cult developed, 565 00:42:45,000 --> 00:42:49,640 which was eventually embraced by the rulers of China themselves. 566 00:42:55,200 --> 00:43:00,320 The social philosophy of Confucius took root in Chinese society. 567 00:43:00,320 --> 00:43:04,480 Over time, it became deeply embedded in state institutions. 568 00:43:07,280 --> 00:43:09,880 Confucian teaching was drilled into 569 00:43:09,880 --> 00:43:13,560 generation after generation of Chinese civil servants. 570 00:43:13,560 --> 00:43:17,640 And the emperors, for hundreds of years, had a bureaucracy 571 00:43:17,640 --> 00:43:22,000 that was infinitely more efficient and effective and just 572 00:43:22,000 --> 00:43:24,000 than anything in the West. 573 00:43:27,840 --> 00:43:30,680 2,400 years after his death, 574 00:43:30,680 --> 00:43:35,160 Confucian ideas are still enduring in today's China. 575 00:43:35,160 --> 00:43:37,440 WOMAN SPEAKS IN CHINESE 576 00:43:37,440 --> 00:43:39,920 CLASS RESPONDS IN CHINESE 577 00:43:42,000 --> 00:43:46,160 For those looking for something more than Communist ideology 578 00:43:46,160 --> 00:43:47,640 or mere materialism, 579 00:43:47,640 --> 00:43:52,160 his teachings on morality and good conduct are still seen 580 00:43:52,160 --> 00:43:55,800 as an important lesson for the next generation. 581 00:43:55,800 --> 00:43:58,240 THEY RECITE IN CHINESE 582 00:44:01,200 --> 00:44:04,800 Confucius' ideas were a response to disorder, 583 00:44:04,800 --> 00:44:09,760 and they made Chinese civilisation more distinctive, more itself, 584 00:44:09,760 --> 00:44:11,320 even unique. 585 00:44:13,760 --> 00:44:16,720 But in the Mediterranean, just the opposite would happen. 586 00:44:19,520 --> 00:44:22,760 HORSE WHINNIES 587 00:44:22,760 --> 00:44:27,440 Conflict was about to crash rival civilisations together. 588 00:44:30,920 --> 00:44:35,400 In 356 BC, a legend was born. 589 00:44:35,400 --> 00:44:37,920 He'd be a new kind of empire builder. 590 00:44:42,240 --> 00:44:46,720 According to legend, when he was a boy, a wild, unbroken horse 591 00:44:46,720 --> 00:44:49,560 was brought to his father's court in Macedonia. 592 00:44:51,640 --> 00:44:56,600 The boy begged his father to let him try to tame the beast. 593 00:44:57,520 --> 00:45:02,280 He had noticed that the horse was afraid of its own shadow. 594 00:45:06,400 --> 00:45:10,360 WHINNIES AND SNORTS 595 00:45:12,080 --> 00:45:15,320 The horse was called Bucephalus. 596 00:45:15,320 --> 00:45:19,280 And the boy would, of course, grow up to be... 597 00:45:20,480 --> 00:45:22,880 ..Alexander the Great. 598 00:45:22,880 --> 00:45:26,320 Alexander was brought up on stories 599 00:45:26,320 --> 00:45:30,080 of Homer's heroes from the Trojan wars. 600 00:45:30,080 --> 00:45:33,120 He was a true child of the Greek golden age. 601 00:45:35,240 --> 00:45:38,720 His father hired the great philosopher Aristotle 602 00:45:38,720 --> 00:45:41,520 and asked him to create a little school, 603 00:45:41,520 --> 00:45:44,800 here in a remote part of Macedonia, 604 00:45:44,800 --> 00:45:46,840 where he spent three years 605 00:45:46,840 --> 00:45:49,480 intensively teaching the young Alexander 606 00:45:49,480 --> 00:45:51,960 everything from history and geography 607 00:45:51,960 --> 00:45:54,160 to mathematics and philosophy. 608 00:45:54,160 --> 00:45:58,600 And one of the things that started to entrance Alexander 609 00:45:58,600 --> 00:46:00,920 were the stories of the Persians. 610 00:46:04,440 --> 00:46:07,720 Cyrus the Great became a particular hero of his. 611 00:46:09,440 --> 00:46:11,720 His father said to him, "My son, 612 00:46:11,720 --> 00:46:15,520 "seek out a kingdom worthy of yourself. 613 00:46:15,520 --> 00:46:18,560 "Macedonia's too small for you." 614 00:46:19,920 --> 00:46:23,560 Alexander became king of Macedonia at the age of 20 615 00:46:23,560 --> 00:46:25,880 after his father was assassinated. 616 00:46:25,880 --> 00:46:30,680 His imperial ambition was said to be limitless. 617 00:46:33,000 --> 00:46:35,760 After finishing off independent Greece, 618 00:46:35,760 --> 00:46:37,920 he crashed through today's Turkey, 619 00:46:37,920 --> 00:46:40,680 marched into the Middle East, then into Egypt, 620 00:46:40,680 --> 00:46:43,520 before conquering the old enemy - Persia - 621 00:46:43,520 --> 00:46:48,040 and carrying on towards Afghanistan and the borders of India. 622 00:46:50,320 --> 00:46:52,280 Along with war and conquest... 623 00:46:53,480 --> 00:46:58,720 ...Alexander founded 70 Greek-style towns... 624 00:46:58,720 --> 00:47:02,120 across North Africa and Asia. 625 00:47:02,120 --> 00:47:06,880 And Greek became the new common language across his empire. 626 00:47:12,800 --> 00:47:16,560 Alexander's Macedonian veterans scattered his enemies 627 00:47:16,560 --> 00:47:18,440 wherever he led them, 628 00:47:18,440 --> 00:47:20,560 but, like his hero Cyrus, 629 00:47:20,560 --> 00:47:24,440 Alexander was fascinated by the people he conquered. 630 00:47:24,440 --> 00:47:29,000 And he thought that knitting together their different traditions 631 00:47:29,000 --> 00:47:34,800 could create a new kind of almost multicultural empire. 632 00:47:34,800 --> 00:47:40,040 Cyrus the Great had tempered tyranny with tolerance, 633 00:47:40,040 --> 00:47:42,800 but Alexander wanted to go a lot further 634 00:47:42,800 --> 00:47:47,240 and actually mingle Macedonian and Greek customs 635 00:47:47,240 --> 00:47:48,840 with Persian customs. 636 00:47:48,840 --> 00:47:52,640 So he started wearing Persian clothes 637 00:47:52,640 --> 00:47:55,240 and the Persian royal crown, 638 00:47:55,240 --> 00:47:58,640 and even making people prostrate themselves in front of him 639 00:47:58,640 --> 00:48:00,640 in the Asian manner. 640 00:48:00,640 --> 00:48:02,400 So it's not surprising 641 00:48:02,400 --> 00:48:07,480 that his plain-speaking Macedonian generals became outraged 642 00:48:07,480 --> 00:48:11,640 at his decadent clothing and his increasingly foreign habits. 643 00:48:13,400 --> 00:48:16,920 Even Alexander's trusted friend Cleitus 644 00:48:16,920 --> 00:48:18,560 thought he was going too far. 645 00:48:18,560 --> 00:48:20,720 Alexander! Cleitus? 646 00:48:20,720 --> 00:48:23,920 Cleitus was the leader of the Macedonian cavalry. 647 00:48:23,920 --> 00:48:27,520 He'd once saved Alexander's life in battle. 648 00:48:30,160 --> 00:48:34,040 Now, he was taunting him for being more Persian than Greek. 649 00:48:38,080 --> 00:48:43,680 The Macedonians were famous across Greece for being great drinkers, 650 00:48:43,680 --> 00:48:46,080 and Alexander was no exception. 651 00:48:47,480 --> 00:48:49,400 YELLING 652 00:48:51,360 --> 00:48:55,200 But this fight was just a bit worse than your average drunken brawl. 653 00:49:19,800 --> 00:49:21,960 After the death of Cleitus, 654 00:49:21,960 --> 00:49:26,440 Alexander is said to have wept and fasted for three days. 655 00:49:27,640 --> 00:49:32,680 But he then briskly wiped the tears away and marched straight on, 656 00:49:32,680 --> 00:49:37,160 until his empire was the biggest the world had ever known. 657 00:49:41,920 --> 00:49:45,400 And to bond his peoples, he went far further 658 00:49:45,400 --> 00:49:49,040 in trying to fuse the cultures of Greece and Asia. 659 00:49:49,040 --> 00:49:53,480 He married not one, but two Asian princesses himself. 660 00:49:53,480 --> 00:49:58,000 And he then applied the same logic to his troops. 661 00:49:58,000 --> 00:50:02,200 Alexander organised a mass wedding of Macedonian soldiers 662 00:50:02,200 --> 00:50:04,440 and Persian women and gave them all 663 00:50:04,440 --> 00:50:06,560 generous golden dowries. 664 00:50:06,560 --> 00:50:11,400 And the marriages were extended way down into the Macedonian army. 665 00:50:11,400 --> 00:50:14,680 Alexander hoped that the children would become 666 00:50:14,680 --> 00:50:20,480 rulers for his new empire - a literal marriage of East and West. 667 00:50:23,400 --> 00:50:25,400 Alexander wanted the children 668 00:50:25,400 --> 00:50:28,520 of these hundreds of Greek and Persian marriages 669 00:50:28,520 --> 00:50:31,720 to be the beginning of a new warrior people 670 00:50:31,720 --> 00:50:35,400 who'd preserve his empire long into the future. 671 00:50:36,680 --> 00:50:40,240 But within a year of the mass wedding, aged just 32, 672 00:50:40,240 --> 00:50:44,080 Alexander was dead - some say poisoned. 673 00:50:44,080 --> 00:50:48,880 It's more likely that he died unheroically of typhoid fever. 674 00:50:53,880 --> 00:50:58,880 Alexander's gigantic empire was divided up between feuding successors, 675 00:50:58,880 --> 00:51:02,560 but the spread of the Greek language and culture continued 676 00:51:02,560 --> 00:51:08,120 from Athens to Syria, North Africa, right the way to Afghanistan. 677 00:51:08,120 --> 00:51:09,840 And the culture of ancient Greece, 678 00:51:09,840 --> 00:51:14,960 its architecture and its legends, its poetry and its philosophy 679 00:51:14,960 --> 00:51:17,640 would shape the classical world 680 00:51:17,640 --> 00:51:19,680 and then, later, all the West. 681 00:51:21,200 --> 00:51:27,200 In the broad sweep of human history, Alexander's empire was a heartbeat, 682 00:51:27,200 --> 00:51:29,600 a mere puff of smoke, 683 00:51:29,600 --> 00:51:35,240 but he acted as a kind of giant, bloody, cultural whisk - 684 00:51:35,240 --> 00:51:40,800 churning together the Greek and the Persian worlds. 685 00:51:42,680 --> 00:51:47,080 And his story reminds us of the uncomfortable truth 686 00:51:47,080 --> 00:51:49,440 that war, however horrible, 687 00:51:49,440 --> 00:51:53,880 is one of the great change-makers in human history. 688 00:51:56,880 --> 00:52:00,120 To achieve his empire, Alexander had swept aside 689 00:52:00,120 --> 00:52:03,400 all remnants of Greek democracy, 690 00:52:03,400 --> 00:52:06,480 but the deeper challenge to the idea of democracy 691 00:52:06,480 --> 00:52:09,600 didn't come merely from force of arms, 692 00:52:09,600 --> 00:52:14,320 but from the sheer difficulty of running an open society. 693 00:52:14,320 --> 00:52:16,400 CHANTING 694 00:52:16,400 --> 00:52:20,400 And this challenge had been thrown down 80 years earlier, 695 00:52:20,400 --> 00:52:22,440 not by a glory-drunk hero, 696 00:52:22,440 --> 00:52:26,640 but an old man who asked awkward questions - 697 00:52:26,640 --> 00:52:29,520 questions which are still being asked today. 698 00:52:31,240 --> 00:52:36,920 400 BC, and the Athens of this time wasn't a happy place. 699 00:52:36,920 --> 00:52:41,120 Wars had drained away her wealth 700 00:52:41,120 --> 00:52:45,720 and social conflict ate away at her young democracy. 701 00:52:45,720 --> 00:52:48,640 Tyrants had briefly seized power and used thuggery 702 00:52:48,640 --> 00:52:51,520 to suppress the voice of poorer citizens. 703 00:52:52,520 --> 00:52:57,880 When democracy was restored, it felt itself besieged. 704 00:53:00,600 --> 00:53:04,680 And one of its most contemptuous critics 705 00:53:04,680 --> 00:53:07,920 was the philosopher Socrates. 706 00:53:08,960 --> 00:53:12,760 Today we remember Socrates as the father of philosophy, 707 00:53:12,760 --> 00:53:16,760 the founder of a tradition picked up by Plato and Aristotle. 708 00:53:19,120 --> 00:53:21,600 But in Athens, at the time, 709 00:53:21,600 --> 00:53:24,680 he was seen as a dangerous influence - 710 00:53:24,680 --> 00:53:30,080 a dissident who was a genuine threat to this embattled democracy. 711 00:53:31,920 --> 00:53:35,840 He taught his students to question everything. 712 00:53:37,520 --> 00:53:42,240 For him, learning to ask challenging questions was essential 713 00:53:42,240 --> 00:53:44,920 to the development of a mature civilisation. 714 00:53:44,920 --> 00:53:49,960 So he jabbed and pinched the Athenian democracy. 715 00:53:49,960 --> 00:53:52,680 Political leaders lacked virtue 716 00:53:52,680 --> 00:53:56,440 and some voters were simply too stupid to choose well. 717 00:53:57,760 --> 00:53:59,800 This was dangerous stuff. 718 00:53:59,800 --> 00:54:03,720 And Socrates' adoring pupils included aristocrats 719 00:54:03,720 --> 00:54:06,480 who would later revolt against the democracy, 720 00:54:06,480 --> 00:54:09,480 turning tyrant themselves. 721 00:54:13,520 --> 00:54:17,680 The greatest problems for would-be democracies have never really been 722 00:54:17,680 --> 00:54:20,680 about voting systems or institutions, 723 00:54:20,680 --> 00:54:23,440 hard though those are to get right. 724 00:54:23,440 --> 00:54:29,960 It's about how an open society deals with genuinely subversive critics. 725 00:54:29,960 --> 00:54:33,600 Socrates was challenging the Athenian democrats 726 00:54:33,600 --> 00:54:36,560 to come up with an answer to this dilemma. 727 00:54:36,560 --> 00:54:39,600 When the democracy is under threat, 728 00:54:39,600 --> 00:54:41,800 for how long do you hold on 729 00:54:41,800 --> 00:54:45,960 to your principles of free thought and free speech? 730 00:54:45,960 --> 00:54:51,280 When do you give way to censorship and repression? 731 00:54:52,320 --> 00:54:59,760 By 399 BC, the authorities had had enough of Socrates' awkward questions. 732 00:55:02,400 --> 00:55:07,440 SPEAKS IN ANCIENT GREEK 733 00:55:07,440 --> 00:55:11,040 They panicked and arrested him. 734 00:55:13,440 --> 00:55:20,320 Socrates was tried on charges of corrupting the youth of the city 735 00:55:20,320 --> 00:55:22,760 and undermining the government. 736 00:55:22,760 --> 00:55:26,640 He gently mocked the court as he forced them to confront 737 00:55:26,640 --> 00:55:30,400 the consequences of their own censorship. 738 00:55:30,400 --> 00:55:34,000 He was narrowly convicted. 739 00:55:34,000 --> 00:55:36,520 The sentence was death. 740 00:55:39,720 --> 00:55:42,800 In Athens, the death sentence was carried out 741 00:55:42,800 --> 00:55:44,520 by making the prisoner drink 742 00:55:44,520 --> 00:55:48,360 the poisonous juice of the hemlock plant. 743 00:55:48,360 --> 00:55:52,160 Socrates could easily have bolted for exile, 744 00:55:52,160 --> 00:55:55,600 which would perhaps be an easier way out for his critics as well, 745 00:55:55,600 --> 00:55:58,920 but his principles would not allow that. 746 00:55:58,920 --> 00:56:02,240 And so he said goodbye to his wife and his family 747 00:56:02,240 --> 00:56:07,320 and, with his students around him, he calmly prepared to die. 748 00:56:10,480 --> 00:56:15,080 Better that than shut up or live as a hypocrite. 749 00:56:21,520 --> 00:56:28,120 Confucius had argued that the good society is ordered and obedient. 750 00:56:28,120 --> 00:56:33,320 For Socrates, it was stroppy, dissident and open. 751 00:56:44,120 --> 00:56:48,600 Thinking of the differences between China and the West today, 752 00:56:48,600 --> 00:56:51,960 it's pretty obvious that these ancient stories 753 00:56:51,960 --> 00:56:54,840 still haunt the modern world. 754 00:56:56,640 --> 00:56:58,280 And so they should. 755 00:57:01,360 --> 00:57:06,040 One of the great Greek tragedies was the death of Socrates. 756 00:57:06,040 --> 00:57:11,400 He showed that even this wonderful, brave, pioneering society thought 757 00:57:11,400 --> 00:57:15,000 there were some questions too dangerous to ask. 758 00:57:15,000 --> 00:57:21,280 And even the greatest minds were not able to express themselves quite freely. 759 00:57:21,280 --> 00:57:26,160 And he leaves all open societies with the same dilemma. 760 00:57:26,160 --> 00:57:30,680 When you feel genuinely threatened by a dissident, 761 00:57:30,680 --> 00:57:34,600 when you may feel your own liberties are challenged, 762 00:57:34,600 --> 00:57:39,200 do you lock them up? Do you shut them up? 763 00:57:39,200 --> 00:57:44,680 Ancient Athens didn't have the answer to this, and nor do we. 764 00:57:45,800 --> 00:57:47,360 In the next programme, 765 00:57:47,360 --> 00:57:50,680 the word and the sword. 766 00:57:50,680 --> 00:57:53,880 Allah... 767 00:57:53,880 --> 00:57:56,640 Who would rule the world? 768 00:57:56,640 --> 00:57:59,000 Kings and emperors... 769 00:58:00,560 --> 00:58:02,200 ..or the gods? 770 00:58:03,400 --> 00:58:06,960 If you'd like to a little bit more about how the past is revealed, 771 00:58:06,960 --> 00:58:12,040 you can order a free booklet called How Do They Know That? 772 00:58:12,040 --> 00:58:16,960 Just call 0845 366 0255, 773 00:58:16,960 --> 00:58:22,040 or go to bbc.co.uk/history 774 00:58:22,040 --> 00:58:25,160 and follow the links to the Open University. 775 00:58:40,960 --> 00:58:44,000 Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd