1 00:00:05,500 --> 00:00:09,940 He is perhaps the most famous ancient Roman of them all. 2 00:00:10,980 --> 00:00:15,860 When his name is mentioned, we think of power, victory, and betrayal. 3 00:00:17,460 --> 00:00:22,140 Julius Caesar changed his own world in unimaginable ways, 4 00:00:22,140 --> 00:00:24,500 and he's left a pretty big mark on ours. 5 00:00:25,700 --> 00:00:30,860 Julius Caesar, as the story goes, was born by C-section. 6 00:00:31,100 --> 00:00:35,460 The C in C-section is actually short for Caesarean. 7 00:00:37,460 --> 00:00:41,420 The whole story's almost certainly a myth, 8 00:00:41,420 --> 00:00:44,660 but out of the millions of mums who give birth this way, 9 00:00:44,660 --> 00:00:48,500 very few realise that the whole procedure 10 00:00:48,500 --> 00:00:53,620 is named after Julius Caesar, the most famous, 11 00:00:53,980 --> 00:00:57,060 probably most notorious ancient Roman of the lot of them. 12 00:00:59,060 --> 00:01:01,940 BABY BAWLS 13 00:01:03,260 --> 00:01:04,980 There you are! Gosh! 14 00:01:07,420 --> 00:01:08,740 10 lbs. 15 00:01:12,100 --> 00:01:14,580 The name "Caesarean section" 16 00:01:14,580 --> 00:01:19,620 is just one of the many ways Julius Caesar is still with us. 17 00:01:19,620 --> 00:01:22,020 I'm going to find out how and why. 18 00:01:23,300 --> 00:01:26,500 I'm about to come face-to-face with Julius Caesar. 19 00:01:27,780 --> 00:01:31,020 Caesar was never called Emperor of Rome 20 00:01:31,020 --> 00:01:33,660 but, in a way, he was the first one, 21 00:01:33,660 --> 00:01:36,660 and he took all the powers that the emperors had 22 00:01:36,660 --> 00:01:39,340 over the next hundreds of years. 23 00:01:39,340 --> 00:01:43,300 And his impact has lasted a lot longer than that. 24 00:01:43,300 --> 00:01:47,060 This old Roman is still part of our everyday language. 25 00:01:47,060 --> 00:01:50,300 For the first time, we went across the Rubicon. 26 00:01:50,300 --> 00:01:54,020 He has given us some wonderfully grabby Latin phrases. 27 00:01:54,020 --> 00:01:56,780 Veni, vidi, vici. 28 00:01:56,780 --> 00:02:00,660 I came, I saw, I conquered! 29 00:02:00,660 --> 00:02:02,700 Getting that punch and simplicity 30 00:02:02,700 --> 00:02:06,180 that still marks the modern political sound bite. 31 00:02:06,180 --> 00:02:07,580 Yes, we can! 32 00:02:07,580 --> 00:02:09,580 Take back control! 33 00:02:09,580 --> 00:02:12,740 Make America great again! 34 00:02:12,740 --> 00:02:15,060 I will track down the evidence 35 00:02:15,060 --> 00:02:18,140 to show how Julius Caesar rose to the top... 36 00:02:18,140 --> 00:02:22,180 We call it conquest but it was really genocide. 37 00:02:22,180 --> 00:02:24,860 ..uncover his tricks of the trade... 38 00:02:24,860 --> 00:02:28,660 Like countless men over the last 2,000 years, 39 00:02:28,660 --> 00:02:31,100 he became a master of the comb-over. 40 00:02:32,780 --> 00:02:34,660 ..and reveal how our modern leaders, 41 00:02:34,660 --> 00:02:37,620 from dictators to elected politicians, 42 00:02:37,620 --> 00:02:42,860 have used tactics and methods he first perfected 2,000 years ago. 43 00:02:43,340 --> 00:02:47,900 Hail, Caesar! Come on! ALL: Hail, Caesar! 44 00:02:47,900 --> 00:02:48,940 Yes! 45 00:02:57,500 --> 00:02:59,020 Modern Rome. 46 00:02:59,020 --> 00:03:01,620 A city where loads of people still come 47 00:03:01,620 --> 00:03:04,340 to catch a glimpse of a lost world. 48 00:03:07,020 --> 00:03:11,380 And one Roman stars in more selfies than any other. 49 00:03:13,420 --> 00:03:14,820 Julius Caesar. 50 00:03:14,820 --> 00:03:20,060 A conqueror, a populist leader, the biggest power-grabber of the lot. 51 00:03:20,660 --> 00:03:25,740 The man who turned Rome from a democracy into a dictatorship. 52 00:03:27,980 --> 00:03:33,180 And he would no doubt be thrilled to know that we still recognise him, 53 00:03:33,500 --> 00:03:35,060 2,000 years later. 54 00:03:36,220 --> 00:03:37,660 Can you tell me who this guy is? 55 00:03:37,660 --> 00:03:39,060 Yeah, that's Julius Caesar. 56 00:03:39,060 --> 00:03:41,580 Julius Caesar. That is Julius Caesar. 57 00:03:41,580 --> 00:03:43,260 LAUGHING: It is. 58 00:03:43,260 --> 00:03:46,500 But how much do we really know about him? 59 00:03:46,500 --> 00:03:48,780 Can you tell me anything that happened to him? 60 00:03:48,780 --> 00:03:51,540 It's been a long time since I was at school. 61 00:03:51,540 --> 00:03:52,740 Do you know? 62 00:03:52,740 --> 00:03:53,980 LAUGHING: Oh, no! 63 00:03:53,980 --> 00:03:55,540 Emperor of Rome? 64 00:03:55,540 --> 00:03:58,460 He was the boyfriend of Cleopatra? 65 00:03:58,460 --> 00:03:59,660 He was indeed. 66 00:03:59,660 --> 00:04:03,100 I know that he came over here for a certain reason. 67 00:04:03,100 --> 00:04:04,620 He wasn't meant to cross the river! 68 00:04:04,620 --> 00:04:07,580 Did he come to a good end? No, he came to a bad end. 69 00:04:07,580 --> 00:04:09,260 And I can't remember why. 70 00:04:09,260 --> 00:04:10,780 THEY LAUGH 71 00:04:10,780 --> 00:04:12,380 Ooh, um... 72 00:04:12,380 --> 00:04:14,380 ..stabbed... 73 00:04:14,380 --> 00:04:16,100 Was he stabbed? Was he assassinated? 74 00:04:16,100 --> 00:04:20,580 Didn't his...brother... kill him, or something? 75 00:04:20,580 --> 00:04:22,380 Murder? Murder? 76 00:04:22,380 --> 00:04:23,660 He was murdered. 77 00:04:23,660 --> 00:04:24,900 He took it in the neck. 78 00:04:24,900 --> 00:04:26,260 MARY LAUGHS 79 00:04:26,260 --> 00:04:27,420 As they say. 80 00:04:27,420 --> 00:04:30,420 I guess we have to start with a spoiler, 81 00:04:30,420 --> 00:04:33,700 because if there's one thing most of us half-remember 82 00:04:33,700 --> 00:04:36,660 about Julius Caesar, it's the ending. 83 00:04:36,660 --> 00:04:40,300 So, if you don't want to know the result, look away now. 84 00:04:47,460 --> 00:04:51,100 It was the 15th of March, 44 BC. 85 00:04:51,100 --> 00:04:53,260 And, according to contemporary accounts, 86 00:04:53,260 --> 00:04:55,340 Julius Caesar was going to work. 87 00:04:57,780 --> 00:05:01,660 Very little of Caesar's Rome still exists, 88 00:05:01,660 --> 00:05:05,460 but we can get a glimpse of the ruins of the Senate house, 89 00:05:05,460 --> 00:05:07,820 the building where he died. 90 00:05:07,820 --> 00:05:11,820 When he gets to where the Senate is meeting, somewhere around here, 91 00:05:11,820 --> 00:05:16,860 everybody's chatting and gossiping until Caesar takes his seat. 92 00:05:18,060 --> 00:05:21,460 At that point, one of his friends, 93 00:05:21,460 --> 00:05:24,260 apparently wanting to ask him a favour, 94 00:05:24,260 --> 00:05:28,220 goes over to his chair and pulls on his toga. 95 00:05:28,220 --> 00:05:30,260 That's the signal. 96 00:05:30,260 --> 00:05:33,100 Suddenly, 20 or more of them - 97 00:05:33,100 --> 00:05:36,860 friends, colleagues, politicians - surround him. 98 00:05:36,860 --> 00:05:40,940 Out come their daggers, and everyone has a go! 99 00:05:42,780 --> 00:05:46,500 Into Caesar's face, his thighs, his chest. 100 00:05:48,540 --> 00:05:52,380 Caesar fights back with the only weapon he's got. 101 00:05:52,380 --> 00:05:55,780 It was his pen, and it's hopeless. 102 00:05:55,780 --> 00:06:00,900 There's mess and panic everywhere, and everybody scarpers. 103 00:06:01,380 --> 00:06:04,620 That's what everybody knows about Julius Caesar - 104 00:06:04,620 --> 00:06:05,940 he gets killed. 105 00:06:07,460 --> 00:06:11,300 He wasn't the only famous Roman to meet a bloody end, 106 00:06:11,300 --> 00:06:15,980 but no other has captured our imagination in quite the same way. 107 00:06:17,740 --> 00:06:21,060 The scene of Caesar's murder has been immortalised 108 00:06:21,060 --> 00:06:22,900 in hundreds of paintings 109 00:06:22,900 --> 00:06:25,700 and in William Shakespeare's tragedy, Julius Caesar. 110 00:06:28,140 --> 00:06:30,220 It was in fact Shakespeare 111 00:06:30,220 --> 00:06:33,660 who coined the famous phrase, "Et tu, Brute?" - 112 00:06:33,660 --> 00:06:35,100 "You too, Brutus?" - 113 00:06:35,100 --> 00:06:37,540 that Caesar is supposed to have cried out 114 00:06:37,540 --> 00:06:40,940 when he saw one of his dearest friends wielding a dagger. 115 00:06:41,980 --> 00:06:44,180 Words we still use today 116 00:06:44,180 --> 00:06:47,980 as a shorthand for disloyalty and backstabbing. 117 00:06:47,980 --> 00:06:52,340 Maybe something we hear a bit too often in modern politics? 118 00:06:54,180 --> 00:06:58,260 But how and why did Julius Caesar end up, 119 00:06:58,260 --> 00:07:01,260 literally and metaphorically, stabbed in the back? 120 00:07:03,540 --> 00:07:07,380 How could a rich, but frankly not A-list aristocrat, 121 00:07:07,380 --> 00:07:11,660 gain such power that the only way to get rid of him was to kill him? 122 00:07:14,900 --> 00:07:18,540 The Rome that Caesar was born into in 100 BC 123 00:07:18,540 --> 00:07:22,220 wasn't a bit like the ancient Rome we see in the movies. 124 00:07:22,220 --> 00:07:26,500 It was super-powerful all right, but there was no Coliseum, 125 00:07:26,500 --> 00:07:30,940 no gleaming white marble - all that came later. 126 00:07:30,940 --> 00:07:34,620 Caesar's Rome was home to about a million people. 127 00:07:34,620 --> 00:07:39,820 Most of them living in pretty squalid, low-rise brick buildings. 128 00:07:40,660 --> 00:07:43,140 It was a sort of democracy. 129 00:07:43,140 --> 00:07:45,980 That's to say, everybody had a vote - 130 00:07:45,980 --> 00:07:48,820 apart from the women and the slaves - 131 00:07:48,820 --> 00:07:54,060 but real power was in the hands of a few rich, aristocratic families 132 00:07:55,300 --> 00:07:57,340 like Caesar's. 133 00:07:57,340 --> 00:07:58,940 How very different from now, eh? 134 00:08:00,860 --> 00:08:04,420 So this was not yet the Rome ruled by emperors. 135 00:08:04,420 --> 00:08:06,300 It was a democracy, 136 00:08:06,300 --> 00:08:10,900 where power was never in the hands of one person for too long. 137 00:08:12,540 --> 00:08:14,420 But Caesar would change all that. 138 00:08:16,100 --> 00:08:19,900 Looking back on it, you can almost see his rise to power 139 00:08:19,900 --> 00:08:23,020 as a brilliantly-executed strategy game. 140 00:08:23,020 --> 00:08:25,580 A masterclass in how to be top, 141 00:08:25,580 --> 00:08:28,900 and engineer the ultimate power grab. 142 00:08:28,900 --> 00:08:33,660 One that would become a manual for leaders, right up to now. 143 00:08:33,660 --> 00:08:35,900 And step one was simple - 144 00:08:35,900 --> 00:08:38,780 rewrite your own history. 145 00:08:38,780 --> 00:08:42,540 Caesar wasn't always marked out for success. 146 00:08:42,540 --> 00:08:46,340 But, like all so-called great men, 147 00:08:46,340 --> 00:08:48,940 almost every aspect of his early life 148 00:08:48,940 --> 00:08:52,580 was eventually spun to suggest that he was. 149 00:08:52,580 --> 00:08:55,540 In Caesar's case, right back to his birth, 150 00:08:55,540 --> 00:08:58,220 C-section or not. 151 00:08:58,220 --> 00:09:00,540 It's a kind of creation myth. 152 00:09:01,740 --> 00:09:07,020 The truth is that his early career was actually pretty ordinary. 153 00:09:09,460 --> 00:09:12,100 Playing by the rules. 154 00:09:13,500 --> 00:09:18,620 Like all Roman posh boys, he does a bit of military service, 155 00:09:19,620 --> 00:09:22,820 he stands for a few political offices, 156 00:09:22,820 --> 00:09:26,500 and we really don't know much about the details. 157 00:09:26,500 --> 00:09:28,660 What we do know for sure 158 00:09:28,660 --> 00:09:33,620 is he pretty soon becomes rather good at the gambits 159 00:09:33,620 --> 00:09:35,940 and the strategy, 160 00:09:35,940 --> 00:09:40,900 and he makes some really clever moves. 161 00:09:41,140 --> 00:09:46,420 And, eventually, he starts to change the rules themselves. 162 00:09:47,860 --> 00:09:52,300 And if he starts out as a little chap like this... 163 00:09:53,740 --> 00:09:58,980 ..he turns out to be pretty much like a king. 164 00:10:00,380 --> 00:10:02,860 And according to a later legend, 165 00:10:02,860 --> 00:10:06,980 there was a dramatic, life-changing turning point. 166 00:10:11,180 --> 00:10:15,220 In 69 BC, Caesar was sent to Spain 167 00:10:15,220 --> 00:10:18,580 as an elected official of the Republic of Rome. 168 00:10:18,580 --> 00:10:22,620 Like dozens of other young administrators, 169 00:10:22,620 --> 00:10:27,020 he was taking his first big step on the Roman political ladder. 170 00:10:31,460 --> 00:10:35,780 By this time, through a combination of conquest and alliance, 171 00:10:35,780 --> 00:10:39,420 the power of Rome extended through the whole of Italy, 172 00:10:39,420 --> 00:10:41,900 into North Africa, the Middle East, 173 00:10:41,900 --> 00:10:44,380 southern France, and most of Spain. 174 00:10:45,740 --> 00:10:50,220 And it was on a tiny island off the coast of Spain, near Cadiz, 175 00:10:50,220 --> 00:10:53,060 that Caesar was later said to have had the encounter 176 00:10:53,060 --> 00:10:56,220 that changed the course of his life. 177 00:10:56,220 --> 00:11:00,580 It was with the most glamorized - or to me the most murderous - 178 00:11:00,580 --> 00:11:04,860 ancient Greek General of them all, King Alexander the Great, 179 00:11:04,860 --> 00:11:09,700 who by the age of 33, had conquered half the known world. 180 00:11:11,740 --> 00:11:15,300 The story goes that, somewhere around here, 181 00:11:15,300 --> 00:11:18,020 Caesar actually came face-to-face 182 00:11:18,020 --> 00:11:21,060 with a statue of Alexander the Great. 183 00:11:21,060 --> 00:11:22,700 And he started to cry. 184 00:11:24,140 --> 00:11:28,820 "Isn't it terrible," he said to his friends, "that at my age, 185 00:11:28,820 --> 00:11:33,260 "Alexander was already king of so much of the world." 186 00:11:34,900 --> 00:11:36,740 "But look at me. 187 00:11:36,740 --> 00:11:39,980 "I've done nothing at all remarkable!" 188 00:11:39,980 --> 00:11:41,420 Yet. 189 00:11:43,540 --> 00:11:47,700 Nothing survives of the temple that once housed the statue. 190 00:11:47,700 --> 00:11:51,340 We don't even know if the whole story's true, 191 00:11:51,340 --> 00:11:55,620 but it became a key chapter in Caesar's legend. 192 00:11:55,620 --> 00:11:59,740 This is a much later attempt to capture the scene. 193 00:11:59,740 --> 00:12:04,380 There's the statue of Alexander here, and Caesar's admiring it, 194 00:12:04,380 --> 00:12:06,940 in his rather splendid red outfit 195 00:12:06,940 --> 00:12:09,580 and some particularly natty shoes. 196 00:12:09,580 --> 00:12:11,620 In fact, ever after, 197 00:12:11,620 --> 00:12:15,660 artists and writers have reimagined this encounter 198 00:12:15,660 --> 00:12:19,940 as a turning point in Caesar's life. 199 00:12:19,940 --> 00:12:21,580 We all do it! 200 00:12:21,580 --> 00:12:25,260 If you wanted, I guess I could give you the turning point 201 00:12:25,260 --> 00:12:27,740 when I decided to become a classicist. 202 00:12:27,740 --> 00:12:31,940 In reality, of course, it's all much more complex. 203 00:12:31,940 --> 00:12:35,100 For me, and certainly for Caesar. 204 00:12:35,100 --> 00:12:39,900 All the same, people have often fixed on this occasion 205 00:12:39,900 --> 00:12:44,580 as the moment when Caesar became Caesar. 206 00:12:44,580 --> 00:12:48,660 True or not, this is the symbolic moment 207 00:12:48,660 --> 00:12:52,260 when Caesar the ordinary administrator 208 00:12:52,260 --> 00:12:55,740 turned into Caesar the wannabe top dog. 209 00:13:04,460 --> 00:13:07,100 If step one in Caesar's rise to power 210 00:13:07,100 --> 00:13:09,660 was mythologizing his early life, 211 00:13:09,660 --> 00:13:14,460 step two was winning the loyalty and devotion of the military. 212 00:13:14,460 --> 00:13:18,420 It's something that he and later leaders would come to rely on. 213 00:13:19,580 --> 00:13:24,500 And ten years after that defining encounter with Alexander the Great, 214 00:13:24,500 --> 00:13:25,780 he got his chance. 215 00:13:32,300 --> 00:13:36,700 After a series of political trade-offs and backstage deals, 216 00:13:36,700 --> 00:13:38,940 Caesar was elected Consul, 217 00:13:38,940 --> 00:13:42,340 the highest political office there was at the time. 218 00:13:42,340 --> 00:13:45,100 Only two were appointed each year, 219 00:13:45,100 --> 00:13:48,540 and that made him one of the principal power brokers in Rome. 220 00:13:50,380 --> 00:13:55,060 And with that kind of political power came a big military command. 221 00:13:55,060 --> 00:13:58,620 Caesar left Italy to lead the conquest of Gaul, 222 00:13:58,620 --> 00:14:00,540 a vast territory that included 223 00:14:00,540 --> 00:14:03,340 modern-day France, Belgium, and Luxembourg. 224 00:14:05,420 --> 00:14:09,140 It was in Gaul that Caesar got to lay the foundations 225 00:14:09,140 --> 00:14:13,700 on what all his later successes in some way would be built. 226 00:14:13,700 --> 00:14:15,180 A loyal army. 227 00:14:16,740 --> 00:14:21,060 One man who can help us see how he managed this is Admiral Lord West, 228 00:14:21,060 --> 00:14:23,180 who understands Caesar's campaigns 229 00:14:23,180 --> 00:14:26,100 from a rather different point of view to mine. 230 00:14:27,500 --> 00:14:29,780 I met him - fittingly, I guess - 231 00:14:29,780 --> 00:14:33,100 in the shadow of a Roman military memorial in Gaul. 232 00:14:33,100 --> 00:14:36,500 Julius Caesar, I think, was a brilliant strategist. 233 00:14:36,500 --> 00:14:39,540 He understood how he should divide and split up his enemies, 234 00:14:39,540 --> 00:14:42,020 not fight too many of them at once, he understood 235 00:14:42,020 --> 00:14:45,020 the political background that he was working against, 236 00:14:45,020 --> 00:14:48,460 he had a very clear concept of what his aim was. 237 00:14:48,460 --> 00:14:52,620 But what he manages to do, he manages to get those guys, 238 00:14:52,620 --> 00:14:57,820 I mean, first of all, to slaughter the enemy, nastily. 239 00:14:58,060 --> 00:15:00,220 How do you get people to do that? 240 00:15:00,220 --> 00:15:02,420 Because that must be part of the secret. 241 00:15:02,420 --> 00:15:04,940 Basically, they felt he was part of them. 242 00:15:04,940 --> 00:15:08,580 He... He took the same risks, he led from the front, 243 00:15:08,580 --> 00:15:10,420 he understood about the fighting. 244 00:15:10,420 --> 00:15:12,940 And you're right, it was visceral and unpleasant and nasty. 245 00:15:12,940 --> 00:15:14,900 Killing 10,000 people in those days meant 246 00:15:14,900 --> 00:15:17,060 you had to kill with a sword or a stabbing. 247 00:15:17,060 --> 00:15:19,540 You right out killed 10,000 people. 248 00:15:19,540 --> 00:15:23,020 But he made each one of them feel that they were individuals. 249 00:15:23,020 --> 00:15:24,300 He won, he won! 250 00:15:24,300 --> 00:15:27,100 There's nothing like having a man who wins to be your commander. 251 00:15:27,100 --> 00:15:29,460 If you have a man who is your commander who keeps winning, 252 00:15:29,460 --> 00:15:32,500 you jolly well like that. And when you look at that totality, 253 00:15:32,500 --> 00:15:33,980 then it's a cohesive unit. 254 00:15:33,980 --> 00:15:35,780 And they felt part of something bigger! 255 00:15:35,780 --> 00:15:37,420 Is that what generals do now? 256 00:15:37,420 --> 00:15:39,140 Is it always the same? 257 00:15:39,140 --> 00:15:42,700 Well, the morale and the focus on the individual 258 00:15:42,700 --> 00:15:44,460 is as important today as it was then. 259 00:15:44,460 --> 00:15:46,140 I mean, that actually is crucial. 260 00:15:46,140 --> 00:15:48,220 If you don't do that, you will not win. 261 00:15:48,220 --> 00:15:50,220 I want you to be absolutely frank on this one. 262 00:15:50,220 --> 00:15:52,740 You've got scruffy prof here. 263 00:15:52,740 --> 00:15:55,140 Do you think you could turn her into a good soldier? And how? 264 00:15:56,500 --> 00:16:01,620 I think, because you have a belief in certain things and a focus, 265 00:16:01,780 --> 00:16:03,020 I think I could make you 266 00:16:03,020 --> 00:16:06,260 be quite unpleasant on the battlefield to somebody else. 267 00:16:06,260 --> 00:16:09,740 There goes my pacifist credentials at a stroke! 268 00:16:13,100 --> 00:16:14,420 But what was it like 269 00:16:14,420 --> 00:16:17,500 for the ordinary squaddie to fight for Caesar? 270 00:16:18,980 --> 00:16:24,140 There's one curious museum treasure that offers us an unexpected glimpse 271 00:16:24,820 --> 00:16:28,140 of the world of the Roman battlefield from the bottom up. 272 00:16:31,460 --> 00:16:36,220 I've waited for ages to get my hands on these strange little things. 273 00:16:36,220 --> 00:16:39,980 Because they give us one of the few glimpses we can get 274 00:16:39,980 --> 00:16:43,140 of what life was like for the ordinary soldier 275 00:16:43,140 --> 00:16:46,700 in an army camp in Caesar's day. 276 00:16:46,700 --> 00:16:48,420 Because what these are 277 00:16:48,420 --> 00:16:51,220 are the ancient equivalent of bullets. 278 00:16:51,220 --> 00:16:53,220 They're called sling-bolts, 279 00:16:53,220 --> 00:16:56,940 and you put them at the end of a cord, you whirl the cord, 280 00:16:56,940 --> 00:17:01,140 let the bullet go, and it does its deadly work. 281 00:17:01,140 --> 00:17:04,820 But what's really interesting about them is that they've got, 282 00:17:04,820 --> 00:17:08,180 either scratched on them or more often 283 00:17:08,180 --> 00:17:11,220 moulded actually into the lead, 284 00:17:11,220 --> 00:17:15,340 they've got messages to take to your enemy. 285 00:17:15,340 --> 00:17:17,580 We're in a way familiar with that. 286 00:17:17,580 --> 00:17:22,260 Bombs in World War II often had rather rude messages 287 00:17:22,260 --> 00:17:25,900 scrawled on the side, you know, "Run, Adolf, run." 288 00:17:25,900 --> 00:17:27,380 That kind of thing. 289 00:17:27,380 --> 00:17:31,020 These Roman ones are actually rather ruder. 290 00:17:31,020 --> 00:17:33,900 This one says "pathice". 291 00:17:33,900 --> 00:17:37,300 The only way you could translate that I suppose is... 292 00:17:37,300 --> 00:17:38,700 "You're buggered." 293 00:17:38,700 --> 00:17:40,940 From a very academic point of view, 294 00:17:40,940 --> 00:17:42,500 this one's the most interesting. 295 00:17:42,500 --> 00:17:45,420 It's aimed at one of the women, 296 00:17:45,420 --> 00:17:49,020 one of the prominent women on the other side, called Fulvia. 297 00:17:49,020 --> 00:17:51,260 You can see her name there very clearly. 298 00:17:51,260 --> 00:17:56,460 And it says, "Peto" - I'm going for - the "landicam" of Fulvia. 299 00:17:57,500 --> 00:18:01,660 That is the first example in Latin 300 00:18:01,660 --> 00:18:04,740 of the use of the word clitoris. 301 00:18:04,740 --> 00:18:08,140 "I'm going for Fulvia's clitoris." 302 00:18:08,140 --> 00:18:10,820 Now, it's blokeish, it's rude. 303 00:18:10,820 --> 00:18:13,020 I think we also have to remember 304 00:18:13,020 --> 00:18:15,660 that these were really deadly weapons. 305 00:18:19,540 --> 00:18:21,820 Deadly is right. 306 00:18:21,820 --> 00:18:24,020 In less than five years, 307 00:18:24,020 --> 00:18:28,100 Caesar and his men had marched and fought their way 308 00:18:28,100 --> 00:18:32,540 some 1,500 km to grey Northern Gaul. 309 00:18:34,140 --> 00:18:37,820 We know about this campaign in minute detail, 310 00:18:37,820 --> 00:18:41,420 because in one of the most amazing survivals from the ancient world, 311 00:18:41,420 --> 00:18:44,940 we still have Caesar's own step-by-step account. 312 00:18:46,220 --> 00:18:48,220 And one description above all 313 00:18:48,220 --> 00:18:51,860 underlines the brutality and the obedience of his men 314 00:18:51,860 --> 00:18:54,860 as they fought a battle against native tribes. 315 00:18:56,900 --> 00:19:00,060 Caesar describes this battle in detail. 316 00:19:00,060 --> 00:19:03,380 He talks about his own lightning speed, 317 00:19:03,380 --> 00:19:07,420 and how he met the enemy "ad confluentem" - 318 00:19:07,420 --> 00:19:11,140 at the confluence of two rivers. 319 00:19:11,140 --> 00:19:12,740 He hemmed them in 320 00:19:12,740 --> 00:19:16,220 so that they despaired of being able to flee away. 321 00:19:16,220 --> 00:19:19,060 "Fuga desperata!" 322 00:19:19,060 --> 00:19:24,220 And a large number of them - "magno numero" - were killed. 323 00:19:26,020 --> 00:19:31,020 The rest threw themselves "in flumen" - 324 00:19:31,020 --> 00:19:32,460 into the river. 325 00:19:33,860 --> 00:19:36,140 Goes on to say that this tribe 326 00:19:36,140 --> 00:19:39,380 had once numbered over 400,000 people, 327 00:19:39,380 --> 00:19:42,500 and he implies that there were not very many left. 328 00:19:45,020 --> 00:19:46,860 Archaeologist Nico Roymans 329 00:19:46,860 --> 00:19:52,140 has identified the location of the battle, and its grisly legacy. 330 00:19:52,300 --> 00:19:55,700 Caesar describes the dramatic massacre here 331 00:19:55,700 --> 00:19:59,300 taking place in 55 BC, 332 00:19:59,300 --> 00:20:02,500 and we indeed have this kind of archaeological material 333 00:20:02,500 --> 00:20:04,140 in huge quantities. 334 00:20:04,140 --> 00:20:08,820 You can really see just how deadly Caesar's campaigns were 335 00:20:08,820 --> 00:20:11,860 when you look at the finds that you've got here. 336 00:20:11,860 --> 00:20:15,620 It's a human skull of an adult male, about 60. 337 00:20:15,620 --> 00:20:20,620 This man has actually had his face cut off with a sword. Yeah, indeed. 338 00:20:20,780 --> 00:20:22,820 With a single sword blow. 339 00:20:22,820 --> 00:20:25,700 This is part of a female skull, 340 00:20:25,700 --> 00:20:28,900 and there's a hole here above one of the eyes 341 00:20:28,900 --> 00:20:32,100 caused by a spearhead or a sword point. 342 00:20:32,100 --> 00:20:37,020 So the casualties include, then, women and children? 343 00:20:37,020 --> 00:20:39,460 We have also bones of children. 344 00:20:40,700 --> 00:20:43,340 It was described as a battle by Caesar, 345 00:20:43,340 --> 00:20:46,220 but in fact it was one large massacre. 346 00:20:46,220 --> 00:20:51,340 It was an attempt to massacre the complete population here. 347 00:20:51,340 --> 00:20:53,940 It tends to make real some of the claims 348 00:20:53,940 --> 00:20:58,780 that people now make, that what Caesar was doing in Gaul was... 349 00:20:58,780 --> 00:21:03,260 We call it conquest, but it was really genocide. 350 00:21:03,260 --> 00:21:05,780 Yeah, I think we can use that term. 351 00:21:05,780 --> 00:21:09,380 This was a landscape of terror, more or less. 352 00:21:09,380 --> 00:21:11,220 Killing fields. Yeah, yeah, killing fields. 353 00:21:11,220 --> 00:21:13,380 In that mid-first century BC. 354 00:21:18,460 --> 00:21:20,740 Julius Caesar has always had 355 00:21:20,740 --> 00:21:24,180 the number-one reputation as great conqueror. 356 00:21:24,180 --> 00:21:28,460 He's a towering hero among generals ancient and modern. 357 00:21:28,460 --> 00:21:33,700 But my problem is, it's such a sanitized view of ancient warfare. 358 00:21:33,940 --> 00:21:38,260 It's easy enough to glorify a conquering general like Caesar 359 00:21:38,260 --> 00:21:42,460 2,000 years ago, when you don't see the collateral damage. 360 00:21:42,460 --> 00:21:45,060 When you don't see the innocent victims, 361 00:21:45,060 --> 00:21:48,940 you don't hear their voices, you don't even know their names. 362 00:21:48,940 --> 00:21:54,100 Now, we watch the maimed children in hospital on our televisions. 363 00:21:55,220 --> 00:21:59,380 And that makes it a lot harder to glorify conquest. 364 00:22:01,180 --> 00:22:04,180 But leadership isn't only about conquest - 365 00:22:04,180 --> 00:22:08,020 it's about commanding the unquestioning loyalty of your men. 366 00:22:08,020 --> 00:22:12,460 And Caesar's men would follow him to the ends of the earth. 367 00:22:12,460 --> 00:22:17,620 In 55 BC, Caesar decided to cross the Channel and check out 368 00:22:18,020 --> 00:22:21,580 what the land he could see on the other side was all about. 369 00:22:24,300 --> 00:22:29,180 Almost 100 years before Roman armies actually conquered Britain, 370 00:22:29,180 --> 00:22:32,460 Caesar became the first Roman we know 371 00:22:32,460 --> 00:22:35,460 to have set foot on British soil. 372 00:22:35,460 --> 00:22:37,860 He landed here, in Kent. 373 00:22:39,380 --> 00:22:43,860 This wasn't conquest, it was exploration. 374 00:22:43,860 --> 00:22:46,140 More like a moon landing, really. 375 00:22:46,140 --> 00:22:48,060 Because for the Romans, 376 00:22:48,060 --> 00:22:51,700 Britain really was beyond the final frontier. 377 00:22:51,700 --> 00:22:53,980 And when they got here, 378 00:22:53,980 --> 00:22:59,060 they did actually find themselves face-to-face with little blue men. 379 00:22:59,060 --> 00:23:04,300 Now, it was in fact Julius Caesar who has given us 380 00:23:04,500 --> 00:23:09,780 the first surviving eyewitness account of us. 381 00:23:10,180 --> 00:23:13,700 And there's good news in it for the people of Kent. 382 00:23:13,700 --> 00:23:16,100 This is some of what he's got to say. 383 00:23:16,100 --> 00:23:18,220 SHE TRANSLATES: Out of all the people there, 384 00:23:18,220 --> 00:23:21,540 by far the most sophisticated - humanissimmi - 385 00:23:21,540 --> 00:23:24,460 are those who inhabit Kent, 386 00:23:24,460 --> 00:23:28,700 which is a seaside region, not very different from Gaul. 387 00:23:28,700 --> 00:23:33,140 But all the Britons dye themselves with woad, 388 00:23:33,140 --> 00:23:35,580 which gives them a blue colour 389 00:23:35,580 --> 00:23:38,220 that makes them really awful to look at - 390 00:23:38,220 --> 00:23:41,300 horridiores - in battle. 391 00:23:41,300 --> 00:23:46,220 They let their hair grow long, and every part of their body is shaved 392 00:23:46,220 --> 00:23:48,780 except their head and their upper lip. 393 00:23:48,780 --> 00:23:50,300 They're moustachioed. 394 00:23:50,300 --> 00:23:54,860 Now, I don't really recognise myself in that description, 395 00:23:54,860 --> 00:23:58,500 but that really is the first time 396 00:23:58,500 --> 00:24:01,780 that the British enter real history. 397 00:24:08,060 --> 00:24:12,140 Caesar's writings didn't just record events. 398 00:24:12,140 --> 00:24:15,220 His accounts cast him as a Roman hero, 399 00:24:15,220 --> 00:24:17,860 a kind of soldier-adventurer, 400 00:24:17,860 --> 00:24:20,860 and that's where their true purpose comes in. 401 00:24:20,860 --> 00:24:24,540 They are propaganda for a contemporary Roman audience. 402 00:24:26,140 --> 00:24:28,420 It was, if you like, step three 403 00:24:28,420 --> 00:24:31,620 in Caesar's handbook for would-be leaders - 404 00:24:31,620 --> 00:24:33,260 set the news agenda. 405 00:24:34,700 --> 00:24:38,180 Caesar had the problem all politicians have. 406 00:24:38,180 --> 00:24:40,740 How do you keep yourself in the public eye? 407 00:24:40,740 --> 00:24:43,020 How do you get your message across? 408 00:24:43,020 --> 00:24:48,100 Today, that's done by Twitter, 24-hour news, and the internet. 409 00:24:48,260 --> 00:24:50,980 Caesar had none of that. 410 00:24:50,980 --> 00:24:56,180 But that's where those step-by-step accounts of his conquests come in. 411 00:24:56,460 --> 00:24:59,900 Because I don't think that they were written 412 00:24:59,900 --> 00:25:03,740 just to help out historians 2,000 years later. 413 00:25:05,540 --> 00:25:09,460 Those accounts actually make pretty odd reading now 414 00:25:09,460 --> 00:25:12,260 because he didn't write, "I did this, and then I did that, 415 00:25:12,260 --> 00:25:13,980 "and then I did the other." 416 00:25:13,980 --> 00:25:17,780 What he wrote was, "Caesar did this! And then Caesar did that!" 417 00:25:17,780 --> 00:25:21,700 That could be because he was frightfully pompous, 418 00:25:21,700 --> 00:25:26,900 but much more likely is he wrote this stuff to be read out in Rome, 419 00:25:28,020 --> 00:25:31,540 directly to the Roman people, by one of his staff, 420 00:25:31,540 --> 00:25:34,580 when he was hundreds of miles away. 421 00:25:34,580 --> 00:25:36,420 Let's give it a try. 422 00:25:38,260 --> 00:25:39,860 Friends! 423 00:25:39,860 --> 00:25:41,500 Romans! 424 00:25:41,500 --> 00:25:43,220 Countrymen! 425 00:25:43,220 --> 00:25:48,420 I am bringing you dispatches from Gaul! 426 00:25:50,100 --> 00:25:54,140 TRANSLATING: Caesar as always, hurries ahead 427 00:25:54,140 --> 00:25:57,340 to be in the very midst of the battle! 428 00:25:57,340 --> 00:26:02,500 You can spot him from the distinctive colour of his uniform. 429 00:26:02,820 --> 00:26:06,500 But Caesar, again, as always, 430 00:26:06,500 --> 00:26:10,180 goes ahead to harass the enemy! 431 00:26:10,180 --> 00:26:12,740 He sends them packing! 432 00:26:12,740 --> 00:26:15,060 Impressed? 433 00:26:15,060 --> 00:26:17,300 THEY CHEER Yes! 434 00:26:17,300 --> 00:26:19,660 Triumphant stuff! 435 00:26:19,660 --> 00:26:24,020 And I'll bring you more news soon. 436 00:26:24,020 --> 00:26:26,060 Hail Caesar! 437 00:26:26,060 --> 00:26:28,500 Come on! ALL: Hail Caesar! 438 00:26:28,500 --> 00:26:30,260 Hail Caesar! 439 00:26:30,260 --> 00:26:31,700 APPLAUSE 440 00:26:36,180 --> 00:26:37,980 In his written accounts, 441 00:26:37,980 --> 00:26:40,020 Caesar gave the Romans in the streets 442 00:26:40,020 --> 00:26:43,700 something and somebody to celebrate. 443 00:26:43,700 --> 00:26:47,700 You might say he whipped up national pride. 444 00:26:47,700 --> 00:26:49,460 And never more successfully 445 00:26:49,460 --> 00:26:53,100 than in one particular report of a later victory. 446 00:26:53,100 --> 00:26:57,180 Writing the story down and reading it out isn't enough. 447 00:26:57,180 --> 00:27:02,140 Caesar absolutely grasped the value of a good sound bite. 448 00:27:02,140 --> 00:27:05,620 Veni, vidi, vici. 449 00:27:05,620 --> 00:27:09,900 I came, I saw, I conquered. 450 00:27:09,900 --> 00:27:14,220 These must be the most famous words that Caesar ever wrote. 451 00:27:14,220 --> 00:27:16,980 They're probably the most famous words 452 00:27:16,980 --> 00:27:19,620 in the whole of the Latin language. 453 00:27:19,620 --> 00:27:23,220 They've got tremendous zing, rhythm, 454 00:27:23,220 --> 00:27:25,500 and they're really to the point. 455 00:27:25,500 --> 00:27:27,220 I won! 456 00:27:28,540 --> 00:27:30,380 I kind of think of them 457 00:27:30,380 --> 00:27:34,700 as the forerunners of some of our best slogans. 458 00:27:34,700 --> 00:27:37,100 Yes, we can! 459 00:27:37,100 --> 00:27:41,020 Education, education, education! 460 00:27:41,020 --> 00:27:43,580 Even Caesar's contemporaries 461 00:27:43,580 --> 00:27:48,100 were impressed with the punch and the genius brevity. 462 00:27:48,100 --> 00:27:51,940 It's all a lot less than the average tweet! 463 00:27:51,940 --> 00:27:55,500 Come to think of it, I might actually send it 464 00:27:55,500 --> 00:27:59,060 to the world's most famous tweeter. 465 00:28:01,540 --> 00:28:05,540 @Potus... SHE LAUGHS 466 00:28:05,540 --> 00:28:09,220 There you are, Donald. Mr President. 467 00:28:09,220 --> 00:28:10,820 Please enjoy. 468 00:28:17,780 --> 00:28:20,460 Caesar knew exactly how important it was 469 00:28:20,460 --> 00:28:24,420 to get your message across directly to the people. 470 00:28:24,420 --> 00:28:26,500 It's something that Robert Harris, 471 00:28:26,500 --> 00:28:31,380 who has written about ancient and modern politics, gets very well. 472 00:28:31,380 --> 00:28:33,180 Caesar - he didn't write 473 00:28:33,180 --> 00:28:37,060 quite as much as you, but he wrote a huge amount, 474 00:28:37,060 --> 00:28:40,940 which is very unusual in the ancient world in surviving. 475 00:28:40,940 --> 00:28:42,820 And what do you make of them? 476 00:28:42,820 --> 00:28:45,380 Well, I think they show that he was a master of propaganda. 477 00:28:45,380 --> 00:28:48,820 So if one imagines what it must've been like when the herald or whoever 478 00:28:48,820 --> 00:28:51,100 appeared in the forum, the crowd gathering, 479 00:28:51,100 --> 00:28:54,100 people going, "Come and look! Let's see what he's done now!" 480 00:28:54,100 --> 00:28:57,340 And the things that he was doing, of course, were, as someone said, 481 00:28:57,340 --> 00:28:59,660 landing in Britain was like the trip to the moon. 482 00:28:59,660 --> 00:29:03,660 It was astonishing that one of their citizens was doing this! 483 00:29:03,660 --> 00:29:07,140 So a lot of ordinary people, they really liked to hear that. 484 00:29:07,140 --> 00:29:10,980 They really like to see their leaders are cutting it out there 485 00:29:10,980 --> 00:29:13,620 and anyone who gets in their way gets it. 486 00:29:13,620 --> 00:29:15,820 You know, "Make Rome great again" 487 00:29:15,820 --> 00:29:17,860 seems to be the kind of message 488 00:29:17,860 --> 00:29:20,340 that's coming through these commentaries. 489 00:29:20,340 --> 00:29:22,540 Of course, you know, it's quite a common phenomenon 490 00:29:22,540 --> 00:29:25,980 for politicians to refer to themselves in the third person. 491 00:29:25,980 --> 00:29:28,980 Look at President Trump. He often refers in tweets to 492 00:29:28,980 --> 00:29:32,100 "President Trump has done this, that, or the other." 493 00:29:32,100 --> 00:29:35,340 And Caesar's appealing to the socially excluded, 494 00:29:35,340 --> 00:29:38,620 just like some modern populist politicians. Exactly, 495 00:29:38,620 --> 00:29:42,460 and that the more outrageous he was, the more people he killed, 496 00:29:42,460 --> 00:29:45,460 the more he flaunted his own misdemeanours, 497 00:29:45,460 --> 00:29:47,620 the better they liked him. 498 00:29:47,620 --> 00:29:49,580 So one of the things you ought to do 499 00:29:49,580 --> 00:29:52,380 if you're in either Caesar or Trump's position 500 00:29:52,380 --> 00:29:56,140 is kind of bypass the rest of the political structure 501 00:29:56,140 --> 00:29:59,980 and speak to the citizens directly. 502 00:29:59,980 --> 00:30:02,780 Yes, what he did, which I think is very modern, 503 00:30:02,780 --> 00:30:05,820 is that although he was himself immensely wealthy, 504 00:30:05,820 --> 00:30:09,140 he nevertheless managed to appeal over the head of what he called 505 00:30:09,140 --> 00:30:11,380 "a rotten and corrupt elite". 506 00:30:11,380 --> 00:30:14,300 All great dictators, in a way, 507 00:30:14,300 --> 00:30:16,940 or charismatic leaders, 508 00:30:16,940 --> 00:30:19,100 I think addressed their followers directly, 509 00:30:19,100 --> 00:30:24,180 and they stage-manage very carefully the form in which they do it. 510 00:30:24,180 --> 00:30:27,820 Obviously, Hitler with his rallies, Caesar the same. 511 00:30:27,820 --> 00:30:32,100 And would our world be different without him? 512 00:30:32,100 --> 00:30:37,300 Yes, I think that Caesar is one of the architects of the modern world. 513 00:30:37,460 --> 00:30:41,220 I have no doubt that the world would've been a different place 514 00:30:41,220 --> 00:30:43,580 if Julius Caesar hadn't been born, 515 00:30:43,580 --> 00:30:46,420 and there aren't many figures in history of whom that can be said. 516 00:30:52,540 --> 00:30:57,580 By 50 BC, Caesar could say that the job in Gaul was more or less done. 517 00:31:00,460 --> 00:31:04,500 He had the love of the people at home and the loyalty of his army, 518 00:31:04,500 --> 00:31:06,300 a dangerous combination. 519 00:31:07,540 --> 00:31:11,580 It made his fellow politicians back in Rome increasingly nervous. 520 00:31:16,300 --> 00:31:19,860 Victory in Gaul brought new problems for Caesar. 521 00:31:19,860 --> 00:31:21,980 The metropolitan elite in Rome, 522 00:31:21,980 --> 00:31:24,580 who were a pretty conservative bunch, 523 00:31:24,580 --> 00:31:27,900 decided that his military job was over. 524 00:31:27,900 --> 00:31:31,940 They thought that he'd gone altogether too far too fast, 525 00:31:31,940 --> 00:31:36,540 and that his appeals to the Roman people were dangerous. 526 00:31:36,540 --> 00:31:40,980 They had in mind to get him back and to impeach him 527 00:31:40,980 --> 00:31:45,020 for legal irregularities, real or imagined, 528 00:31:45,020 --> 00:31:47,180 committed years before. 529 00:31:47,180 --> 00:31:50,180 Caesar had been backed into a corner. 530 00:31:50,180 --> 00:31:53,220 Either he went home to face prosecution, 531 00:31:53,220 --> 00:31:57,300 or he stayed in Gaul against orders, a rogue general. 532 00:31:57,300 --> 00:31:59,340 It was catch-22. 533 00:31:59,340 --> 00:32:01,180 Faced with that dilemma 534 00:32:01,180 --> 00:32:06,260 and to protect what he was always calling his dignitas, his dignity, 535 00:32:06,260 --> 00:32:11,460 he decided to lead his loyal troops across the border between Gaul and 536 00:32:12,140 --> 00:32:15,460 Italy, and to march on Rome. 537 00:32:15,460 --> 00:32:18,140 It was effectively the start of civil war. 538 00:32:21,860 --> 00:32:26,020 The border lay on the line of a river, the River Rubicon. 539 00:32:26,020 --> 00:32:30,020 For a Roman general to cross this border and march his troops 540 00:32:30,020 --> 00:32:32,460 on Rome was almost unthinkable, 541 00:32:32,460 --> 00:32:36,820 like some Commander-in-chief rolling his tanks onto Parliament Square 542 00:32:36,820 --> 00:32:39,020 or Capitol Hill. 543 00:32:39,020 --> 00:32:42,020 That was Caesar's make-or-break moment. 544 00:32:42,020 --> 00:32:46,500 He chose to gamble everything and take on the political establishment. 545 00:32:46,500 --> 00:32:50,300 It's really step four in getting to the top - 546 00:32:50,300 --> 00:32:54,740 spot your opportunity for the power grab and take it. 547 00:32:54,740 --> 00:32:59,020 Oddly enough, Caesar doesn't say a word about this moment in his own 548 00:32:59,020 --> 00:33:03,340 writings. There's a rather guilty silence, I suspect. 549 00:33:03,340 --> 00:33:05,860 But there were loads of Roman stories 550 00:33:05,860 --> 00:33:08,220 about what was going on in his head 551 00:33:08,220 --> 00:33:13,420 at the time. The anxieties, the dreams, the godly apparitions. 552 00:33:14,100 --> 00:33:16,740 Should he? Shouldn't he? 553 00:33:16,740 --> 00:33:18,180 But ultimately, 554 00:33:18,180 --> 00:33:23,420 Caesar gave us the phrase "crossing the Rubicon" to mean taking a daring 555 00:33:24,060 --> 00:33:29,300 gamble and going past the point of no return. 556 00:33:30,660 --> 00:33:33,780 "Alea iacta est," he's said to have declared. 557 00:33:33,780 --> 00:33:35,460 "The die is cast." 558 00:33:35,460 --> 00:33:39,300 Or, "I rolled the dice, and it's all up in the air now." 559 00:33:39,300 --> 00:33:43,780 The funny thing is that no-one knows exactly where the river was. 560 00:33:43,780 --> 00:33:45,980 It was Benito Mussolini, 561 00:33:45,980 --> 00:33:49,860 the Italian dictator who came to power in the 1920s, 562 00:33:49,860 --> 00:33:54,020 who decided that this slightly underwhelming stream 563 00:33:54,020 --> 00:33:55,340 was THE Rubicon. 564 00:33:56,500 --> 00:33:58,460 In his march on Rome, 565 00:33:58,460 --> 00:34:03,660 he was trying to reconstruct exactly the route taken by Julius Caesar, 566 00:34:03,860 --> 00:34:08,860 in a way to cast himself as the new Caesar. 567 00:34:08,860 --> 00:34:11,580 But in reality, Mussolini took the train. 568 00:34:15,660 --> 00:34:19,380 Caesar's crossing of the Rubicon has long been seen as a symbol of 569 00:34:19,380 --> 00:34:22,300 single-minded determination and risk-taking. 570 00:34:23,980 --> 00:34:25,780 And not just by Mussolini. 571 00:34:26,820 --> 00:34:29,060 For Caesar's fellow politicians, 572 00:34:29,060 --> 00:34:31,460 it was, of course, an act of aggression, 573 00:34:31,460 --> 00:34:32,460 a coup d'etat. 574 00:34:34,300 --> 00:34:36,780 And it plunged Rome into civil war. 575 00:34:38,780 --> 00:34:42,060 The fighting dragged on across the Roman world for years. 576 00:34:43,180 --> 00:34:45,100 But to all intents and purposes, 577 00:34:45,100 --> 00:34:49,540 Caesar had control of the city itself within a matter of months. 578 00:34:49,540 --> 00:34:51,620 He was elected dictator, 579 00:34:51,620 --> 00:34:55,980 a perfectly traditional office in ancient Rome reserved for times of 580 00:34:55,980 --> 00:35:00,300 crisis, which placed power in the hands of a single individual 581 00:35:00,300 --> 00:35:02,580 for a short time. 582 00:35:02,580 --> 00:35:07,820 Caesar took that power for a year, and now effectively ruled Rome. 583 00:35:09,180 --> 00:35:12,700 It's easy to imagine that Caesar crosses the Rubicon one minute 584 00:35:12,700 --> 00:35:15,060 and gets assassinated the next. 585 00:35:15,060 --> 00:35:16,380 But actually, 586 00:35:16,380 --> 00:35:20,700 it's what happens in the five years in between that's so crucial. 587 00:35:20,700 --> 00:35:22,740 And he's facing all the problems 588 00:35:22,740 --> 00:35:25,100 that victors in civil wars always face. 589 00:35:26,420 --> 00:35:28,540 What do you do with those you've defeated? 590 00:35:28,540 --> 00:35:30,860 What do you do with your supporters? 591 00:35:30,860 --> 00:35:33,020 Because you've no doubt promised them loads, 592 00:35:33,020 --> 00:35:35,100 and you've now got to deliver. 593 00:35:35,100 --> 00:35:37,300 And how do you make sure you stay in power? 594 00:35:38,540 --> 00:35:43,100 Some of the strategies he uses are easily recognisable to us. 595 00:35:43,100 --> 00:35:48,180 He invests in infrastructure, or at least he promises to. 596 00:35:48,340 --> 00:35:53,540 So there's walls, bridges, he drains the swamps. 597 00:35:54,380 --> 00:35:59,460 And he has a programme of slum clearance and new towns. 598 00:35:59,460 --> 00:36:04,020 And he looks out for the ordinary Roman with food rations. 599 00:36:04,020 --> 00:36:05,540 And he takes some measures 600 00:36:05,540 --> 00:36:08,220 to deal with what we'd call the credit crunch. 601 00:36:08,220 --> 00:36:13,220 The bottom line of all this is strength and stability. 602 00:36:13,220 --> 00:36:17,500 But he's also flooding the city with his own image. 603 00:36:17,500 --> 00:36:20,900 The idea is that there should be a statue of him 604 00:36:20,900 --> 00:36:22,820 in every single temple. 605 00:36:22,820 --> 00:36:27,900 And what he's doing is making Rome his showcase. 606 00:36:29,740 --> 00:36:34,460 Caesar was turning into a dictator in the modern sense. 607 00:36:34,460 --> 00:36:38,420 And by that, I don't just mean winning power by killing people 608 00:36:38,420 --> 00:36:40,500 and commanding fear, 609 00:36:40,500 --> 00:36:43,940 I mean he was changing the world in which he lived, 610 00:36:43,940 --> 00:36:46,580 putting himself at the centre of it. 611 00:36:46,580 --> 00:36:51,420 And he understood the importance of getting his image out there. 612 00:36:51,420 --> 00:36:53,900 It's a technique we recognise well - 613 00:36:53,900 --> 00:36:57,740 the face of the beloved leader pasted across every available 614 00:36:57,740 --> 00:37:01,620 surface from newspapers to flags and billboards. 615 00:37:01,620 --> 00:37:06,660 It was pioneered by Caesar, who had his bust sent everywhere. 616 00:37:08,740 --> 00:37:12,860 And it's true that we do still see his face everywhere. 617 00:37:12,860 --> 00:37:18,100 But actual portraits done from life are almost impossible to find. 618 00:37:19,900 --> 00:37:24,140 Perhaps the orders had not been completed by the time of his death. 619 00:37:24,140 --> 00:37:26,860 Perhaps they were thought to be hot property and destroyed 620 00:37:26,860 --> 00:37:28,140 after his assassination. 621 00:37:30,420 --> 00:37:32,260 But then, in 2007, 622 00:37:32,260 --> 00:37:35,540 archaeologists in France found something intriguing. 623 00:37:38,980 --> 00:37:42,020 It was one of those discoveries that made the headlines. 624 00:37:42,020 --> 00:37:44,140 It was only a few years ago, 625 00:37:44,140 --> 00:37:47,500 an archaeologist was diving right here, 626 00:37:47,500 --> 00:37:50,140 searching for remains on the riverbed. 627 00:37:50,140 --> 00:37:54,620 He's down there, and he spots a bit of marble. 628 00:37:54,620 --> 00:37:59,300 He brings it up to the surface, still dripping, 629 00:37:59,300 --> 00:38:03,340 takes a closer look and then shouts out, 630 00:38:03,340 --> 00:38:06,820 "Putain, mais c'est Cesar!" 631 00:38:06,820 --> 00:38:11,700 Which could only be translated as, "BLEEP me, it's Caesar." 632 00:38:28,380 --> 00:38:31,700 I'm about to come face-to-face with Julius Caesar. 633 00:38:34,540 --> 00:38:36,620 Today, the bust is on display 634 00:38:36,620 --> 00:38:39,300 in the archaeological museum in Arles. 635 00:38:39,300 --> 00:38:42,540 Hello. Or bonjour. 636 00:38:42,540 --> 00:38:44,580 SHE GIGGLES 637 00:38:46,300 --> 00:38:49,020 This is about as up close and personal to Julius Caesar 638 00:38:49,020 --> 00:38:50,620 as you can get. 639 00:38:50,620 --> 00:38:55,340 The question is, what kind of image in this portrait is Caesar trying to 640 00:38:55,340 --> 00:38:57,020 project of himself? 641 00:38:57,020 --> 00:39:00,820 I think one thing's for sure, is it's not glam. 642 00:39:00,820 --> 00:39:05,340 He's got a really wrinkled, furrowed brow, kind of saying, 643 00:39:05,340 --> 00:39:08,580 "I'm working terribly hard on behalf of the state, 644 00:39:08,580 --> 00:39:12,020 "on behalf of Rome, thinking through politics!" 645 00:39:12,020 --> 00:39:16,700 And his neck is really craggy and wrinkly, 646 00:39:16,700 --> 00:39:19,220 with a big Adam's apple. 647 00:39:19,220 --> 00:39:22,580 This is not the kind of youthful idealism. 648 00:39:22,580 --> 00:39:26,620 This is sort of middle-aged, elderly bloke style. 649 00:39:28,060 --> 00:39:30,100 But, yes, as a sculpture, 650 00:39:30,100 --> 00:39:33,340 the Holy Grail of classical archaeology. 651 00:39:33,340 --> 00:39:35,540 For centuries and centuries, 652 00:39:35,540 --> 00:39:40,060 archaeologists have tried to track down 653 00:39:40,060 --> 00:39:45,220 a portrait of Caesar done in his lifetime. 654 00:39:45,300 --> 00:39:46,540 And here you are. 655 00:39:50,180 --> 00:39:52,260 Or are you? 656 00:39:52,260 --> 00:39:55,900 The problem is it's very hard to tell whether this really 657 00:39:55,900 --> 00:39:57,260 is Caesar. 658 00:39:57,260 --> 00:40:00,780 After all, there's no name on him. 659 00:40:00,780 --> 00:40:03,220 If we want to pin down his portraits, 660 00:40:03,220 --> 00:40:06,860 all we can do is what the archaeologists at Arles did - 661 00:40:06,860 --> 00:40:11,900 match them up with portraits of him that are very clearly labelled. 662 00:40:12,060 --> 00:40:13,540 And guess what? 663 00:40:13,540 --> 00:40:15,100 We have hundreds of those. 664 00:40:16,300 --> 00:40:19,060 Bonjour, Madame. Bonjour, Madame. 665 00:40:19,060 --> 00:40:22,260 Verre de vin blanc, s'il vous plait. Oui. 666 00:40:22,260 --> 00:40:25,780 Voila. Merci. 667 00:40:25,780 --> 00:40:29,940 There's actually only one way of knowing what Julius Caesar looked like, 668 00:40:29,940 --> 00:40:35,140 and that's by looking at the tiny little images on his coins, 669 00:40:35,380 --> 00:40:37,820 which are named. 670 00:40:37,820 --> 00:40:42,900 But these coins were much more revolutionary than they seem. 671 00:40:42,900 --> 00:40:47,020 We take it absolutely for granted that we'll find the Queen's head 672 00:40:47,020 --> 00:40:48,500 on all the currency, 673 00:40:48,500 --> 00:40:52,700 and we assume that one obvious type of political propaganda 674 00:40:52,700 --> 00:40:57,420 is seeing the mugshot of the dear leader plastered everywhere. 675 00:40:58,860 --> 00:41:03,740 But Julius Caesar was the first person to get into that. 676 00:41:03,740 --> 00:41:08,580 He was the very first person in the West systematically 677 00:41:08,580 --> 00:41:13,140 to put his head on the coinage. 678 00:41:13,140 --> 00:41:16,340 It must have been actually quite shocking. 679 00:41:16,340 --> 00:41:19,980 Every time you went to pay for a glass of wine, 680 00:41:19,980 --> 00:41:21,420 or for a takeaway, 681 00:41:21,420 --> 00:41:24,420 or for the ancient equivalent of a cup of coffee, 682 00:41:24,420 --> 00:41:27,180 you were paying with him. 683 00:41:27,180 --> 00:41:32,340 That's to say, Romans went around with Julius Caesar in their pockets. 684 00:41:34,420 --> 00:41:36,140 Madame, l'addition, s'il vous plait. 685 00:41:36,140 --> 00:41:39,300 Deux euros quatre-vingts. Voila. 686 00:41:39,300 --> 00:41:42,740 Je regrette, je ne prends pas le Cesar. 687 00:41:42,740 --> 00:41:44,780 I did try! 688 00:41:44,780 --> 00:41:49,020 Voila. En l'euro. Merci, merci. 689 00:41:49,020 --> 00:41:50,620 Merci. 690 00:41:51,700 --> 00:41:55,540 Some people may have found the idea of carrying Caesar's face around in 691 00:41:55,540 --> 00:41:59,980 their pockets a bit big-headed, but ordinary Romans loved him. 692 00:42:02,660 --> 00:42:06,700 He was seen as the anti-establishment candidate, 693 00:42:06,700 --> 00:42:10,980 not part of the Roman metropolitan elite. 694 00:42:10,980 --> 00:42:13,620 And he knew the value of keeping the people happy, 695 00:42:13,620 --> 00:42:18,700 what a later Roman satirist would describe as "bread and circuses". 696 00:42:18,700 --> 00:42:23,940 Caesar was generous to the Roman people on a spectacular scale. 697 00:42:24,580 --> 00:42:27,780 It was 100 years before the Colosseum was built, 698 00:42:27,780 --> 00:42:32,660 so he gave his gladiator shows here, in the Forum. 699 00:42:32,660 --> 00:42:35,380 But the point was that Caesar's shows 700 00:42:35,380 --> 00:42:37,940 were on a bigger and better scale 701 00:42:37,940 --> 00:42:41,060 than anyone had ever given before. 702 00:42:41,060 --> 00:42:45,580 And so, too, were his public banquets. 703 00:42:45,580 --> 00:42:50,580 Once, he gave a free feast to the Roman people, 704 00:42:50,580 --> 00:42:54,820 with some frightfully posh fish on the menu, 705 00:42:54,820 --> 00:42:59,900 all laid out on 22,000 tables. 706 00:42:59,900 --> 00:43:02,340 It must've made the Forum 707 00:43:02,340 --> 00:43:06,900 feel like it was a vast, free outdoor restaurant. 708 00:43:06,900 --> 00:43:09,780 All courtesy of Julius Caesar. 709 00:43:13,420 --> 00:43:17,700 But in the Forum, you could find more than fights and feasts. 710 00:43:17,700 --> 00:43:21,460 This was the seedy city centre of Caesar's Rome, 711 00:43:21,460 --> 00:43:25,020 what you came to grab a take away, pick up a prostitute, 712 00:43:25,020 --> 00:43:27,940 or simply hang out and watch the world go by. 713 00:43:29,780 --> 00:43:34,860 The Forum was also the place where Rome put itself on display. 714 00:43:35,100 --> 00:43:39,020 It was here that big Roman funerals happened. 715 00:43:39,020 --> 00:43:42,780 In fact, Caesar was cremated just over there. 716 00:43:42,780 --> 00:43:48,020 And it was through here that the soldiers marched with their generals 717 00:43:48,220 --> 00:43:52,740 after some particularly big or bloody victory. 718 00:43:52,740 --> 00:43:56,580 My guess is that Caesar's squaddies 719 00:43:56,580 --> 00:44:00,580 must really have enjoyed taking the mickey out of him 720 00:44:00,580 --> 00:44:02,700 when they passed this way. 721 00:44:02,700 --> 00:44:06,740 "Romans, lock up your wives," they sang, 722 00:44:06,740 --> 00:44:10,900 "the bald adulterer is back in town!" 723 00:44:27,060 --> 00:44:28,700 I'm sorry to say, gentlemen, 724 00:44:28,700 --> 00:44:33,060 but most Romans thought that baldness was rather silly 725 00:44:33,060 --> 00:44:35,380 and a little bit embarrassing. 726 00:44:35,380 --> 00:44:37,940 So when Caesar began to thin on top, 727 00:44:37,940 --> 00:44:41,020 he was awfully keen to cover it up. 728 00:44:41,020 --> 00:44:44,660 Like countless men over the last 2,000 years, 729 00:44:44,660 --> 00:44:47,780 he became a master of the comb-over. 730 00:44:47,780 --> 00:44:50,580 But he had other tricks up his sleeve. 731 00:44:50,580 --> 00:44:54,660 When he was granted the right to wear a laurel wreath 732 00:44:54,660 --> 00:44:57,140 on any occasion he fancied, 733 00:44:57,140 --> 00:45:00,420 Caesar was absolutely delighted, 734 00:45:00,420 --> 00:45:03,620 not so much because it was a very special honour, 735 00:45:03,620 --> 00:45:08,100 but because it allowed him to cover up that bald patch. 736 00:45:09,700 --> 00:45:10,700 Grazie. 737 00:45:11,940 --> 00:45:13,340 Perfetto. 738 00:45:13,340 --> 00:45:15,220 You look Cesare. Grazie. 739 00:45:18,260 --> 00:45:22,260 Caesar may have been embarrassed by his baldness, 740 00:45:22,260 --> 00:45:27,340 but my guess is he'd be quite flattered to be called an adulterer. 741 00:45:27,380 --> 00:45:30,180 Rome was certainly a macho culture. 742 00:45:30,180 --> 00:45:32,580 It was full of willy-waving, 743 00:45:32,580 --> 00:45:37,660 and the locker-room chat must've been decidedly unsavoury. 744 00:45:37,780 --> 00:45:42,860 But even in Rome, Caesar was a bit of an extreme case. 745 00:45:42,860 --> 00:45:46,460 Was there anyone in the city he hadn't slept with? 746 00:45:46,460 --> 00:45:48,860 Women, men. 747 00:45:48,860 --> 00:45:51,260 And not just in Rome. 748 00:45:51,260 --> 00:45:54,140 He had an affair with Cleopatra 749 00:45:54,140 --> 00:45:57,700 long before her dalliance with Mark Antony. 750 00:45:57,700 --> 00:46:01,780 Makes me think of big men ever since. 751 00:46:01,780 --> 00:46:05,820 They can't keep their hands off women or off power. 752 00:46:07,420 --> 00:46:10,780 It wasn't long before Caesar decided that a year 753 00:46:10,780 --> 00:46:14,100 perhaps wasn't a long enough term as dictator. 754 00:46:14,100 --> 00:46:16,580 Perhaps ten years would be better. 755 00:46:16,580 --> 00:46:19,780 And with that kind of time span, he began to think bigger. 756 00:46:21,340 --> 00:46:26,580 What strikes me is how Caesar's virtues came to reinforce his power. 757 00:46:27,540 --> 00:46:31,020 One of the qualities he always boasted about was his mercy, 758 00:46:31,020 --> 00:46:32,380 or clemency. 759 00:46:32,380 --> 00:46:36,940 He had a history of surprising acts of kindness. 760 00:46:36,940 --> 00:46:39,740 But there's more to that than meets the eye. 761 00:46:41,340 --> 00:46:44,180 As for his defeated enemies in the civil war, 762 00:46:44,180 --> 00:46:47,980 they must've expected that they'd be strung up in the Forum. 763 00:46:47,980 --> 00:46:52,340 Instead, they found themselves publicly pardoned 764 00:46:52,340 --> 00:46:55,140 in what was almost a general amnesty. 765 00:46:56,580 --> 00:47:01,660 But of course, that kind of mercy is always authoritarian. 766 00:47:01,660 --> 00:47:05,420 And it's only the powerful who could issue pardons. 767 00:47:05,420 --> 00:47:09,580 But more to the point, it tells us something about Caesar himself. 768 00:47:10,940 --> 00:47:13,620 Not that he was kind, 769 00:47:13,620 --> 00:47:16,060 but that he was colossally self-confident. 770 00:47:22,380 --> 00:47:25,180 And it was this colossal self-confidence 771 00:47:25,180 --> 00:47:28,940 that was to leave a permanent mark on our world. 772 00:47:28,940 --> 00:47:33,540 You see, we think of dictators as people who rule by fear - 773 00:47:33,540 --> 00:47:34,820 state terror, 774 00:47:34,820 --> 00:47:37,820 secret police, mass killings. 775 00:47:37,820 --> 00:47:41,540 In fact, dictators have much cleverer strategies. 776 00:47:41,540 --> 00:47:45,740 The most successful of them change the natural order, 777 00:47:45,740 --> 00:47:50,580 so that what wasn't natural before now seems it. 778 00:47:50,580 --> 00:47:53,260 And Caesar was the master. 779 00:47:53,260 --> 00:47:57,460 I bet that not many people know that our month of July 780 00:47:57,460 --> 00:48:01,500 takes its name from Julius Caesar. 781 00:48:01,500 --> 00:48:05,860 The Romans decided to rename the month that had been called rather 782 00:48:05,860 --> 00:48:10,460 unsexily Quintilis as Julius, or July, 783 00:48:10,460 --> 00:48:12,540 and so it's been ever since. 784 00:48:14,180 --> 00:48:17,580 But that is as nothing to Caesar's real legacy - 785 00:48:17,580 --> 00:48:19,860 the modern Western calendar. 786 00:48:22,700 --> 00:48:24,540 Before Julius Caesar, 787 00:48:24,540 --> 00:48:29,740 the Roman calendar year had weirdly been only 355 days. 788 00:48:31,020 --> 00:48:34,460 That wasn't actually long enough, so every few years, 789 00:48:34,460 --> 00:48:37,220 they had to add another month in. 790 00:48:37,220 --> 00:48:41,180 The problem was they were pretty hopeless at doing the calculations, 791 00:48:41,180 --> 00:48:45,860 so the months of the calendar got increasingly out of sync with the 792 00:48:45,860 --> 00:48:47,700 natural seasons. 793 00:48:47,700 --> 00:48:51,700 What I mean is that it would be what you thought was September, 794 00:48:51,700 --> 00:48:54,180 and you'd want to celebrate your harvest festival, 795 00:48:54,180 --> 00:48:57,340 but the vines would only be just coming in to leaf. 796 00:48:57,340 --> 00:49:01,860 Or it would be in the middle of apparently wintry December, 797 00:49:01,860 --> 00:49:04,940 and there'd be bunches of grapes all over the vineyard. 798 00:49:04,940 --> 00:49:07,580 Caesar solved this. 799 00:49:07,580 --> 00:49:10,060 With the help of a few tame scientists, 800 00:49:10,060 --> 00:49:12,900 he pulled the plug on the old system 801 00:49:12,900 --> 00:49:18,180 and he launched the 365-day year that we now have. 802 00:49:18,740 --> 00:49:23,740 In all kinds of ways, it was a really useful and practical reform. 803 00:49:23,900 --> 00:49:29,140 But it also reveals something that only dictators can do - 804 00:49:29,940 --> 00:49:32,180 change time. 805 00:49:32,180 --> 00:49:35,020 As one of his friends wryly observed, 806 00:49:35,020 --> 00:49:38,860 "He'll be bossing the stars in the sky around next." 807 00:49:40,500 --> 00:49:44,380 Caesar was becoming a dictator in our sense of the word - 808 00:49:44,380 --> 00:49:47,940 a man who puts himself above the political process, 809 00:49:47,940 --> 00:49:53,100 a man who reorders the world around him, a man who can change time. 810 00:49:54,580 --> 00:49:59,140 And he used public celebrations to reflect his status, 811 00:49:59,140 --> 00:50:01,980 though we can dictate certain anxieties. 812 00:50:03,260 --> 00:50:08,460 This is a version of a 15th-century painting which shows just how 813 00:50:08,540 --> 00:50:11,180 preoccupied later ages were, too, 814 00:50:11,180 --> 00:50:14,180 with the image of the triumphant Caesar. 815 00:50:14,180 --> 00:50:19,260 What you've got here is Julius Caesar thinning a bit on top, 816 00:50:19,260 --> 00:50:23,540 sitting on his elaborate, triumphal chariot. 817 00:50:23,540 --> 00:50:26,860 And there's placards and spoils and loot being processed 818 00:50:26,860 --> 00:50:29,900 through the streets in front of him. 819 00:50:29,900 --> 00:50:32,620 But there's a moral here, too, 820 00:50:32,620 --> 00:50:36,100 in these figures, Caesar on the chariot, 821 00:50:36,100 --> 00:50:39,780 and this slave standing behind him, 822 00:50:39,780 --> 00:50:43,460 who's about to crown him with a laurel wreath. 823 00:50:43,460 --> 00:50:48,700 And we know from Roman writers that what this slave did throughout the 824 00:50:49,340 --> 00:50:54,460 procession for every victory parade was he whispered into the ear of the 825 00:50:54,780 --> 00:50:59,700 general all the time, "Remember you're a man, remember you're a man, 826 00:50:59,900 --> 00:51:01,940 "remember you're a man." 827 00:51:01,940 --> 00:51:05,820 The idea was that anybody who had this kind 828 00:51:05,820 --> 00:51:10,700 of lavish ceremonial would be very likely to forget 829 00:51:10,700 --> 00:51:14,340 that they were just an ordinary human being. 830 00:51:14,340 --> 00:51:16,260 So this, in a way, 831 00:51:16,260 --> 00:51:21,340 is a reminder to Julius Caesar not to get above himself. 832 00:51:21,340 --> 00:51:26,580 All the same, Caesar was aware of the popular power of a good military 833 00:51:26,940 --> 00:51:30,580 parade, something later leaders have been quick to adopt. 834 00:51:33,420 --> 00:51:35,460 Even in the democratic West, 835 00:51:35,460 --> 00:51:39,940 displays of military might have long been part of our national tradition, 836 00:51:39,940 --> 00:51:42,580 from Trooping the Colour to Bastille Day. 837 00:51:45,020 --> 00:51:49,700 Caesar's power over Rome by now seemed almost absolute. 838 00:51:49,700 --> 00:51:53,740 His military image only strengthened his popular appeal. 839 00:51:53,740 --> 00:51:57,180 He was central to almost every aspect of Roman life. 840 00:51:58,220 --> 00:52:03,060 Statues put up later would emphasise this power and authority. 841 00:52:03,060 --> 00:52:06,940 Like this one, still standing in Rome's City Hall, 842 00:52:06,940 --> 00:52:11,100 overhearing traffic regulation and planning disputes. 843 00:52:11,100 --> 00:52:14,820 But it's what's written underneath in this modern inscription 844 00:52:14,820 --> 00:52:17,340 that's even more to the point, 845 00:52:17,340 --> 00:52:21,540 because it gives Caesar his official title - 846 00:52:21,540 --> 00:52:24,380 dictator perpetuus. 847 00:52:24,380 --> 00:52:27,660 He's dictator forever. 848 00:52:27,660 --> 00:52:32,740 Now, the Romans wouldn't have found the word dictator remotely shocking. 849 00:52:32,940 --> 00:52:38,140 It was a title given to an entirely traditional short-term office 850 00:52:39,860 --> 00:52:43,660 that was used for coping with particular emergencies. 851 00:52:43,660 --> 00:52:48,380 What they would have found shocking is the idea that Caesar took that 852 00:52:48,380 --> 00:52:51,020 power forever. 853 00:52:51,020 --> 00:52:55,300 It's a bit like how we would feel about someone being elected 854 00:52:55,300 --> 00:52:58,700 Prime Minister for life. 855 00:52:58,700 --> 00:53:03,900 And it's in that way that Caesar has given us the modern sense 856 00:53:04,620 --> 00:53:06,780 of the word dictator. 857 00:53:10,140 --> 00:53:15,180 What happened is that Caesar made sure that his term as dictator was 858 00:53:15,180 --> 00:53:19,980 extended, not just from one year to ten years, but to forever. 859 00:53:21,380 --> 00:53:24,020 The dictatorship was only one way 860 00:53:24,020 --> 00:53:28,180 in which Caesar disrupted Roman politics. 861 00:53:28,180 --> 00:53:32,060 Roman democracy was based on free elections, 862 00:53:32,060 --> 00:53:37,180 but Caesar managed to make sure that you knew the outcome in advance. 863 00:53:37,660 --> 00:53:42,340 And he found all kinds of ways of putting himself above the rest 864 00:53:42,340 --> 00:53:44,700 of the political class. 865 00:53:44,700 --> 00:53:48,100 It wouldn't have made a blind bit of difference to the women and men in 866 00:53:48,100 --> 00:53:49,940 the Roman street, 867 00:53:49,940 --> 00:53:53,940 but his fellow politicians got very worked up 868 00:53:53,940 --> 00:53:56,620 when he couldn't be bothered to rise from his chair 869 00:53:56,620 --> 00:53:58,460 when they came into the room. 870 00:53:58,460 --> 00:54:03,700 And anyway, that chair was beginning to look suspiciously like 871 00:54:04,220 --> 00:54:06,060 a golden throne. 872 00:54:07,940 --> 00:54:09,620 For Caesar's enemies, 873 00:54:09,620 --> 00:54:13,460 his appointment as dictator perpetuus effectively, 874 00:54:13,460 --> 00:54:15,300 well, crossed the Rubicon. 875 00:54:18,140 --> 00:54:20,860 It was a watershed - 876 00:54:20,860 --> 00:54:23,580 the point at which leader became tyrant, 877 00:54:23,580 --> 00:54:26,940 a subversion of the ideals of freedom and democracy. 878 00:54:29,140 --> 00:54:32,100 He may have been popular with the people 879 00:54:32,100 --> 00:54:35,460 and he may have commanded the loyalty of the army, 880 00:54:35,460 --> 00:54:36,860 but for Caesar, 881 00:54:36,860 --> 00:54:41,220 the price of tyranny was paid in blood here, in the Senate House. 882 00:54:42,620 --> 00:54:46,380 Perhaps this should be the real lesson for modern leaders. 883 00:54:46,380 --> 00:54:49,060 Be careful what you wish for - 884 00:54:49,060 --> 00:54:52,500 too much power comes at a cost. 885 00:54:52,500 --> 00:54:56,100 And there's always somebody waiting in the wings. 886 00:55:01,180 --> 00:55:05,980 The version that we have of Caesar's assassination makes it a heroic and 887 00:55:05,980 --> 00:55:09,100 successful fight for freedom against tyranny. 888 00:55:10,580 --> 00:55:12,620 In reality, it was nothing of the sort. 889 00:55:13,980 --> 00:55:17,300 For a start, if it was freedom for anyone, 890 00:55:17,300 --> 00:55:20,140 it was for a few privileged politicians. 891 00:55:20,140 --> 00:55:23,780 Ordinary Romans wept at Caesar's death. 892 00:55:23,780 --> 00:55:26,420 But you also can't really call it successful. 893 00:55:27,620 --> 00:55:32,940 The problem of assassinations always is that it's easy enough to take the 894 00:55:33,740 --> 00:55:38,780 guy out, it's a lot harder to know what to do next. 895 00:55:39,020 --> 00:55:42,860 Assassins always risk bringing about the very thing they thought 896 00:55:42,860 --> 00:55:44,420 they were fighting against. 897 00:55:45,580 --> 00:55:48,900 In this case, once the deed was done, 898 00:55:48,900 --> 00:55:53,180 the conspirators turned out to have no forward plan. 899 00:55:53,180 --> 00:55:56,500 What they got was civil war, 900 00:55:56,500 --> 00:56:00,300 which ended up producing one-man rule, 901 00:56:00,300 --> 00:56:05,260 emperors, or, if you like, dictators forever after. 902 00:56:08,300 --> 00:56:12,100 So Caesar's assassination only served to strengthen 903 00:56:12,100 --> 00:56:15,980 the very thing it meant to destroy. 904 00:56:15,980 --> 00:56:21,020 The upshot was that Rome fell under the absolute rule of one man - 905 00:56:21,260 --> 00:56:25,340 Caesar's heir and great-nephew Octavian. 906 00:56:25,340 --> 00:56:29,380 The Republic of Rome was now ruled by an emperor. 907 00:56:29,380 --> 00:56:32,660 What I'm interested in is that people come 908 00:56:32,660 --> 00:56:34,860 and they still leave these offerings on... 909 00:56:34,860 --> 00:56:37,100 This is where Julius Caesar was cremated. 910 00:56:37,100 --> 00:56:39,260 And so what they do is...round here is... 911 00:56:39,260 --> 00:56:42,620 The temple of Julius Caesar, they put up after his death. 912 00:56:42,620 --> 00:56:45,820 And so you've got flowers and occasional c... 913 00:56:45,820 --> 00:56:47,540 Look, there's coins. 914 00:56:47,540 --> 00:56:50,820 Caesar would forever after be celebrated 915 00:56:50,820 --> 00:56:54,380 as the originator of the imperial dynasty. 916 00:56:58,380 --> 00:57:01,100 All later emperors took his name. 917 00:57:01,100 --> 00:57:05,100 From that moment on, Caesar wasn't just a surname any more, 918 00:57:05,100 --> 00:57:06,940 it became synonymous with leader. 919 00:57:09,620 --> 00:57:11,860 And not only in Roman times. 920 00:57:11,860 --> 00:57:16,900 The term tsar and Kaiser go back to, you've guessed it, Caesar. 921 00:57:18,300 --> 00:57:22,220 And leaders ever since have done more than just take his name. 922 00:57:22,220 --> 00:57:23,780 For good or bad, 923 00:57:23,780 --> 00:57:28,300 they have used the template he created to ground their own rule. 924 00:57:28,300 --> 00:57:30,100 Even now. 925 00:57:30,100 --> 00:57:34,580 And more than 2,000 years after his bloody assassination, 926 00:57:34,580 --> 00:57:39,860 Julius Caesar is still with us in all kinds of surprising ways. 927 00:57:40,620 --> 00:57:44,540 So every time you put your hand in your pocket for some loose change, 928 00:57:44,540 --> 00:57:47,140 or have a party in July, 929 00:57:47,140 --> 00:57:52,180 each time you consult the calendar, or hear a snappy political slogan, 930 00:57:52,340 --> 00:57:55,580 when you next think about a caesarean section, 931 00:57:55,580 --> 00:57:59,660 or here a political betrayal described as backstabbing, 932 00:57:59,660 --> 00:58:04,700 spare a thought for the man who inspired all this and more. 933 00:58:04,860 --> 00:58:08,820 I've always been a bit allergic to the idea of Julius Caesar, 934 00:58:08,820 --> 00:58:10,620 the great conqueror. 935 00:58:10,620 --> 00:58:13,780 But if you have to choose just one Roman 936 00:58:13,780 --> 00:58:18,420 who's still absolutely embedded in the way we think, 937 00:58:18,420 --> 00:58:22,220 talk, act and judge, 938 00:58:22,220 --> 00:58:26,180 then it's got to be Gaius Julius Caesar, 939 00:58:26,180 --> 00:58:29,420 dictator perpetuus. 940 00:58:29,420 --> 00:58:32,900 You can kill him, but you can't get rid of him.