WEBVTT - How Civilizations Die - with Paul Cooper 0:00:15.410 --> 0:00:30.010 Pushkin Britannia, the farthest the leakist province of the Roman 0:00:30.050 --> 0:00:36.930 Empire three ninety CE a harsh, misty land of savages 0:00:37.010 --> 0:00:44.570 and strange mystics. Forty thousand soldiers, about an eighth of 0:00:44.610 --> 0:00:49.890 the imperial army, are needed to control the unruly native tribes, 0:00:50.330 --> 0:00:55.130 protect the archipelago from pirates, and push any marauder's back 0:00:55.250 --> 0:01:01.610 over Hadrian's Wall and into Scotland. Such a mighty army 0:01:01.890 --> 0:01:05.530 needs a tremendous leader, and they have one in the 0:01:05.530 --> 0:01:13.770 shape of Magnus Maximus. Maximus is a distinguished general. As 0:01:13.810 --> 0:01:17.170 a younger man, he helped restore order after the Picts 0:01:17.170 --> 0:01:21.530 from Scotland, the Scotty from Ireland and the Saxons from 0:01:21.570 --> 0:01:26.050 the continent joined forces to attack Roman Britannia in the 0:01:26.090 --> 0:01:32.450 Great Barbarian Conspiracy of three six seven ceve. Then he 0:01:32.530 --> 0:01:36.290 fought in successful campaigns against the Moors in North Africa 0:01:36.690 --> 0:01:42.770 and the Alamanni on the Danube River. For ten years now, 0:01:43.010 --> 0:01:47.770 Maximus has governed Britannia. He's put down raids by the Picts, 0:01:48.530 --> 0:01:53.050 built a huge church on London's Tower Hill, and forced 0:01:53.090 --> 0:01:56.650 the country to bend to his will. But he can't 0:01:56.730 --> 0:02:01.890 wait to leave this wet, windy and wild isle, this 0:02:02.170 --> 0:02:07.370 backwater of the Empire. He spires opportunity back on the mainland. 0:02:07.890 --> 0:02:11.650 A young and pop popular emperor sits on the throne 0:02:11.730 --> 0:02:16.210 in Rome. His courtiers are turning against him, and rivals 0:02:16.330 --> 0:02:24.490 are carving their armies. Maximus is a great military general, 0:02:24.530 --> 0:02:28.170 and he leads the biggest, toughest army in the Empire. 0:02:29.050 --> 0:02:33.530 He instructs the entire Roman garrison of Britannia to board 0:02:33.530 --> 0:02:37.090 a fleet of ships, and they sail for the mainland 0:02:37.410 --> 0:02:43.650 and victory. If only Maximus have consulted the history books. First, 0:02:45.450 --> 0:03:13.930 I'm Tim Harford, and you're listening to cautionary Tales. Magnus 0:03:13.970 --> 0:03:18.170 Maximus wasn't the first governor of Britannia with ambitions to 0:03:18.210 --> 0:03:21.210 be a Roman emperor. Here to tell us all about 0:03:21.330 --> 0:03:25.010 him and the history he should have studied is Paul Cooper, 0:03:25.450 --> 0:03:30.450 presenter of the podcast Fall of Civilizations, Stories of Greatness 0:03:30.490 --> 0:03:32.970 and Decline, and the author of a book of the 0:03:33.010 --> 0:03:36.450 same name. Paul. Welcome to caution details. 0:03:36.970 --> 0:03:38.610 That's a great pleasure to be here. Paul. 0:03:38.610 --> 0:03:41.010 You're going to tell us all about Magnus Maximus. But 0:03:41.170 --> 0:03:44.090 first I wanted to know what attracted you to studying 0:03:44.130 --> 0:03:47.490 the fall rather than the rise of civilizations. 0:03:48.690 --> 0:03:51.810 My PhD focused on the idea of the ruin in 0:03:51.850 --> 0:03:56.530 literature and film, and also how various ruins have become 0:03:56.690 --> 0:04:00.890 figures of importance for culture throughout history. So I've always 0:04:00.890 --> 0:04:03.090 been drawn to the idea of the ruin, what they 0:04:03.170 --> 0:04:06.530 mean and what they've meant for people who are creating 0:04:06.570 --> 0:04:09.090 works of art. Ruins are amazing space. 0:04:09.610 --> 0:04:12.930 Yeah. I was really struck just reading your book, really 0:04:12.930 --> 0:04:17.050 struck by this amazing Anglo Saxon poem about a ruined 0:04:17.210 --> 0:04:19.650 Roman bath house. And I've never encountered it before, but 0:04:19.650 --> 0:04:20.570 it's a spellbinding. 0:04:20.810 --> 0:04:22.930 Yeah. It's an old poem called the Ruin, which has 0:04:23.010 --> 0:04:25.970 found in the collection known as the Exeter Book, and 0:04:26.010 --> 0:04:30.490 it's a marvelous rendition of a person writing in Old English, 0:04:30.730 --> 0:04:34.730 a kind of Anglo Saxon, early medieval British person wandering 0:04:34.770 --> 0:04:38.530 through a ruined bath house and viewing the crumbling pillars. 0:04:38.970 --> 0:04:42.930 The bath's now overgrown with weed, with frogs, you know, 0:04:43.010 --> 0:04:46.370 jumping in and out of the pools, And as they're 0:04:46.370 --> 0:04:50.730 walking these shattered bath halls, they're imagining the place as 0:04:50.730 --> 0:04:53.730 it used to be feasts that might have gone on here, 0:04:53.890 --> 0:04:56.130 bright warriors in their armor who might have come to 0:04:56.130 --> 0:04:59.370 celebrate their victories, the kings and the great society that 0:04:59.450 --> 0:05:02.370 once built this. And it's believed that this poem has 0:05:02.410 --> 0:05:05.690 written about the Roman baths in the town of Bath, 0:05:06.210 --> 0:05:09.090 one example of many of a person in his way 0:05:09.450 --> 0:05:12.130 wandering through the ruins of a society that came before 0:05:12.650 --> 0:05:15.210 and having that amazing experience that people always seem to 0:05:15.210 --> 0:05:17.730 have in these ruined places, which is a moment of 0:05:17.770 --> 0:05:21.290 contact with the people of the past, a sudden appreciation 0:05:21.810 --> 0:05:24.410 not only of the power of time and it's you know, 0:05:24.570 --> 0:05:30.050 immense size, but also the ability of human monuments to 0:05:30.130 --> 0:05:32.450 survive the ravages of that very same force. 0:05:33.210 --> 0:05:36.010 It does raise the question of, well, how could a 0:05:36.050 --> 0:05:42.250 civilization build such remarkable monuments, achieve such heights of greatness, 0:05:42.250 --> 0:05:45.450 and yet somehow that civilization is no longer with us, 0:05:45.490 --> 0:05:49.170 which is It's something you explore in your podcast and 0:05:49.490 --> 0:05:52.770 in your book on cautionary Tales. We are scholars of 0:05:53.410 --> 0:05:55.290 failure with fascinated by disaster. 0:05:55.770 --> 0:05:57.250 Yeah, that we have in common. 0:05:57.410 --> 0:06:02.410 Yeah, yeah, the fall of civilizations seems it's cautionary tales. 0:06:02.450 --> 0:06:07.370 In extreme slow Moll while you're just going, yes, I 0:06:07.410 --> 0:06:09.210 really appreciate the crossovers between the pod. 0:06:09.810 --> 0:06:12.690 Yeah, absolutely. I mean there's a human fascination with disaster, 0:06:12.810 --> 0:06:16.490 isn't there. Traditional view of history is one of monuments 0:06:16.490 --> 0:06:19.730 and great men and victorious battles. But actually the story 0:06:19.730 --> 0:06:22.450 of failure is one that's completely ingrained in the human epic. 0:06:22.570 --> 0:06:25.170 I mean, these stories of societal failure are as much 0:06:25.210 --> 0:06:28.010 a part of us as those of success and triumph. 0:06:28.370 --> 0:06:31.650 So trying to draw out some common threads then in 0:06:31.770 --> 0:06:37.010 why civilizations do fail? One theme that comes up again 0:06:37.050 --> 0:06:42.570 and again is violence. And obviously violence is needed to conquer, 0:06:43.490 --> 0:06:46.530 but it poses dangers to the aggressors too, doesn't it. 0:06:46.770 --> 0:06:49.890 Well, that's right, Yeah, any empire is by definition a 0:06:50.050 --> 0:06:55.290 violent undertaking. But also some empires who build their power 0:06:55.330 --> 0:07:00.770 build their territory through this bellicose approach, this excessive, expansionist, 0:07:01.010 --> 0:07:04.930 aggressive violence, are actually sowing the seeds of their own 0:07:04.970 --> 0:07:06.250 destruction in doing so. 0:07:06.730 --> 0:07:10.570 Now the Assyrians bring to mind, they were quite notorious. 0:07:10.690 --> 0:07:14.970 Absolutely, the Assyrian empire flourishes mostly in the first half 0:07:15.010 --> 0:07:19.770 of the last millennium of the BC period. It conquers 0:07:19.770 --> 0:07:23.970 its neighbours with extreme violence. You know, piling pyramids of 0:07:24.010 --> 0:07:27.610 heads outside cities, flaming people alive, you name it, you know. 0:07:27.650 --> 0:07:30.690 Assyrian kings have done it, and people who rebel against 0:07:30.730 --> 0:07:36.850 the empire are slaughtered executed in displays of public brutality. 0:07:37.370 --> 0:07:41.370 Often entire populations uprooted and sent to a different part 0:07:41.370 --> 0:07:43.250 of the empire where they don't know the land, don't 0:07:43.290 --> 0:07:46.930 know the territory, you know, disconnected from their ability to 0:07:46.970 --> 0:07:49.970 exploit their knowledge of the land to resist empire. But 0:07:50.130 --> 0:07:54.570 in this kind of ruthless, remorseless approach, the Assyrian Empire 0:07:54.610 --> 0:07:58.730 becomes absolutely despised around the region. In the end, as 0:07:58.770 --> 0:08:04.530 the seventh century BC wears on and the last great 0:08:04.610 --> 0:08:08.330 king of Assyria, Ashurbanipal, dies, you get a succession of 0:08:08.530 --> 0:08:13.130 weak kings, followed by a rebellion in Babylon. Suddenly a 0:08:13.330 --> 0:08:15.490 horse rearing people called the Meads who live in the 0:08:15.570 --> 0:08:19.690 Zagros mountains of Iran join in to invade Assyria. You 0:08:19.770 --> 0:08:23.690 get rebellions in Egypt, and suddenly revolts happening all around 0:08:23.690 --> 0:08:27.730 the empire as outside enemies are uniting against it. The 0:08:27.930 --> 0:08:31.010 Babylonians and Meads sign a pact in the ruins of 0:08:31.010 --> 0:08:33.770 an Assyrian city called ashore and in the next year 0:08:33.810 --> 0:08:36.490 is really only a period of about three years, the 0:08:36.530 --> 0:08:39.290 Assyrian Empire, what was the most powerful empire in the world, 0:08:39.410 --> 0:08:42.770 is completely dismantled. Many of its cities never recover as 0:08:42.770 --> 0:08:43.770 centers of population. 0:08:44.130 --> 0:08:46.650 Yeah, because I mean, they didn't make any friends, because 0:08:46.650 --> 0:08:48.970 they were incredibly brutal. So when the end comes, it 0:08:49.850 --> 0:08:50.930 comes incredibly quickly. 0:08:51.090 --> 0:08:51.330 Yeah. 0:08:52.090 --> 0:08:56.370 And another theme that you pick out is taxation. And again, 0:08:56.810 --> 0:09:00.090 if you're going to have a successful civilization, you need 0:09:00.130 --> 0:09:05.890 some kind of mechanism for levying resources from the populace 0:09:05.970 --> 0:09:09.730 and deploying those resources to assemble armies and to build 0:09:09.770 --> 0:09:12.210 these great monuments and so on. But of course it's 0:09:12.290 --> 0:09:14.650 possible to overdo it. And you point to both the 0:09:15.170 --> 0:09:19.090 Hand dynasty of China and the khmerd innersity of Cambodia 0:09:19.290 --> 0:09:23.690 as the civilizations that overdid the taxation and then that 0:09:23.770 --> 0:09:24.610 was their undoing. 0:09:25.090 --> 0:09:28.690 Yeah. I think I wouldn't describe it as excessive taxation 0:09:28.810 --> 0:09:32.530 so much as an entrenched sense of inequality, which you 0:09:32.570 --> 0:09:35.970 see in places like China are obviously built on laboring peasants. 0:09:36.370 --> 0:09:39.570 You see in Rome built on a slave class, a 0:09:39.650 --> 0:09:43.290 vast slave class. Ancient Greek cities. In Athens, you might 0:09:43.330 --> 0:09:46.690 have a slave population about equal to the free population, 0:09:46.930 --> 0:09:50.530 but in Sparta, the slave population is ten times the 0:09:50.570 --> 0:09:53.330 size of the free population, made up of entire conquered 0:09:53.370 --> 0:09:56.530 ethnicities who are forced to work in the fields, and 0:09:56.570 --> 0:09:59.570 the entirety of the agricultural sector of this city is 0:09:59.890 --> 0:10:03.410 propped up by people who hate and despise the people 0:10:03.410 --> 0:10:06.930 they're feeding. This means that the Spartan army is never 0:10:07.010 --> 0:10:10.010 able to leave the city for very long. It's never 0:10:10.050 --> 0:10:14.130 able to stop defending from these constant threatened rebellions from 0:10:14.170 --> 0:10:17.090 this hell up class. So this is one example in 0:10:17.090 --> 0:10:20.650 which inequality becomes a great weakening agent in a society, 0:10:20.970 --> 0:10:24.850 preventing them from engaging in long term planning, from feeding 0:10:24.850 --> 0:10:28.530 their population without immense resentment building. And there are many 0:10:28.530 --> 0:10:29.850 examples throughout history of this. 0:10:30.290 --> 0:10:33.530 Yes, I mean some of them perhaps not very historical 0:10:33.610 --> 0:10:38.410 at all. It's very striking to draw these parallels between 0:10:38.410 --> 0:10:41.210 the modern world and these ancient civilizations. But every now 0:10:41.210 --> 0:10:44.730 and then I encountered something in the book for which 0:10:44.730 --> 0:10:46.410 I think, oh, I'm not sure we have a parallel 0:10:46.450 --> 0:10:49.610 for that one. And one of them was the hand 0:10:49.610 --> 0:10:53.770 Innessty in China. The power very much in the hands 0:10:53.850 --> 0:10:56.330 of women, which of course we do have in the 0:10:56.330 --> 0:11:00.450 modern world, and eunuchs. Not so many eunuchs in power 0:11:00.530 --> 0:11:02.770 in the modern world, So tell me about them. 0:11:02.930 --> 0:11:06.410 Yeah. That handynasty in China is a fascinating example. There's 0:11:06.410 --> 0:11:09.850 an increasing concentration of power in the Imperial Palace in 0:11:09.970 --> 0:11:13.650 Luo Yang, and the two great power blocks inside the 0:11:13.690 --> 0:11:19.010 palace are the eunuch attendants and the dowager empresses. The 0:11:19.010 --> 0:11:21.970 mothers of both the emperor and previous emperors, who have 0:11:22.010 --> 0:11:27.930 passed on their power and prestige depended completely on their sons, 0:11:28.050 --> 0:11:31.330 their progeny, and how close they were to the imperial throne. 0:11:31.890 --> 0:11:36.450 So this meant a constant jockeying for power among these rivals. 0:11:37.450 --> 0:11:41.650 Dowagers would poison the sons of other empresses in order 0:11:41.690 --> 0:11:43.890 to get them off the throne and get their son 0:11:44.050 --> 0:11:47.570 just one step closer to inheriting it. In this way, 0:11:47.690 --> 0:11:51.770 the Imperial Palace of China ran red with blood. Now, 0:11:51.770 --> 0:11:55.730 eunuchs served in the palace because essentially this was the 0:11:55.730 --> 0:11:59.170 place where the emperor lived with his women, and I 0:11:59.210 --> 0:12:03.130 mean a it was thought to be safer to castrate 0:12:03.490 --> 0:12:07.010 these men in order to prevent them from entangling themselves 0:12:07.130 --> 0:12:09.610 with palace women, shall we say, But it was also 0:12:09.610 --> 0:12:13.250 a way of ensuring that they would have no aspiration 0:12:13.370 --> 0:12:15.570 for the throne. It was thought that someone who was 0:12:15.610 --> 0:12:19.610 unable to have children would have less desire to topple 0:12:19.650 --> 0:12:22.130 the emperor do a palace coup. But what we see 0:12:22.170 --> 0:12:25.410 in these centuries is a power contest between the dowager 0:12:25.450 --> 0:12:29.650 empresses and the eunuchs, with the emperor being essentially a puppet, 0:12:29.730 --> 0:12:32.290 a kind of game piece that's being passed between them. 0:12:32.450 --> 0:12:35.170 And for this reason, the emperor was very often a child. 0:12:35.370 --> 0:12:38.410 The emperors. Shan was actually a six month old baby 0:12:38.450 --> 0:12:41.690 who was crowned emperor while still in his crib. This 0:12:41.730 --> 0:12:43.570 is because children were easier to control. 0:12:43.930 --> 0:12:48.330 Yeah, so that's the ultimate symbolic head of state, right, 0:12:48.370 --> 0:12:50.730 I mean, if it's a six month old baby, you 0:12:50.770 --> 0:12:53.650 can have all of the pomp and the ceremony and 0:12:53.690 --> 0:12:58.250 the genuflecting to the imperial throne and none of the 0:12:58.290 --> 0:13:01.370 difficulty of them actually having any opinions other than I 0:13:01.410 --> 0:13:02.490 need my nappy changing. 0:13:02.690 --> 0:13:05.370 That's right, Yeah, But I would contend that that does 0:13:05.410 --> 0:13:08.530 have echoes in the modern gerontocracy. That seems to be 0:13:08.610 --> 0:13:12.130 taking over in places like the United States. You know, 0:13:12.290 --> 0:13:16.010 Ronald Reagan used to joke that Soviet premiers kept dying 0:13:16.050 --> 0:13:18.130 on me. I think he said, but it was true. 0:13:18.330 --> 0:13:21.290 In the Soviet Union, they had a problem with Joe intocracy, 0:13:21.330 --> 0:13:24.490 with passing on power to the next generation. Power became 0:13:24.530 --> 0:13:27.650 incredibly encrusted in these men who are in the seventies 0:13:27.690 --> 0:13:31.370 and eighties, and the society really didn't have a healthy 0:13:31.370 --> 0:13:35.410 mechanism for passing that power down. We now see that 0:13:35.530 --> 0:13:39.690 same situation developing in the United States, where the election 0:13:39.810 --> 0:13:44.210 before last saw Donald Trump and Joe Biden contesting the presidency. 0:13:44.770 --> 0:13:48.050 You know, both of them in their seventies. And it's 0:13:48.090 --> 0:13:50.850 that inability to pass on power to the next generation 0:13:50.930 --> 0:13:52.970 that I think has echoes in something like the Imperial 0:13:53.010 --> 0:13:53.730 Court of China. 0:13:54.010 --> 0:13:57.170 Yeah, it is remarkable. I think Biden was the oldest 0:13:57.210 --> 0:14:00.490 president ever, and if Trump survives to the end of 0:14:00.490 --> 0:14:03.530 this term, he will be even older than Biden was. 0:14:04.170 --> 0:14:06.010 Ronald Reagan was. I mean, he was thought of as 0:14:06.010 --> 0:14:08.890 an old man, but he was young compared to these 0:14:09.930 --> 0:14:13.210 He diffused the issue of his age by saying, I 0:14:13.250 --> 0:14:17.850 refused to exploit my opponent's youth and inexperience for political 0:14:17.890 --> 0:14:21.810 reasons and that kind of he knew what he was doing. 0:14:22.730 --> 0:14:25.610 One more question before we return to Rome and Britain, 0:14:25.770 --> 0:14:30.570 and the teaser we began with is environmental degradation, because 0:14:30.610 --> 0:14:35.810 this is I think often associated with the fall of civilizations. 0:14:35.810 --> 0:14:39.650 I think Jared Diamond wrote a famous book Collapse. He 0:14:39.690 --> 0:14:42.730 was very interested in this problem. Is it the case 0:14:42.770 --> 0:14:46.410 that climate change or some other environmental problem has historically 0:14:46.530 --> 0:14:50.050 often been the trigger for the fall of ancient civilizations. 0:14:50.250 --> 0:14:53.450 Yeah, it's an undeniable resonance with today that in a 0:14:53.570 --> 0:14:55.570 very large number of the stories we've looked at, there 0:14:55.570 --> 0:15:00.010 has been some element of environmental change that has struck 0:15:00.090 --> 0:15:05.050 these societies. Some crucial examples are the Sumerian society, which 0:15:05.250 --> 0:15:09.450 flourished in the third and second millenniums BC in Valley 0:15:09.450 --> 0:15:10.330 of Mesopotamia. 0:15:10.810 --> 0:15:13.130 It's not as famous as the Romans or the Greeks, 0:15:13.170 --> 0:15:17.370 but the Sumerians, you know, they invented accountancy, they invented writing, 0:15:17.650 --> 0:15:20.170 They I mean, they invented the city. I mean this 0:15:20.290 --> 0:15:23.650 is really an incredibly important early civilization. 0:15:24.410 --> 0:15:28.410 Yeah. They were one of the earliest city dwelling civilizations 0:15:28.850 --> 0:15:31.890 to really create what we would think of as an empire, 0:15:32.210 --> 0:15:36.050 multiple walled cities connected by trade networks going up and 0:15:36.090 --> 0:15:39.290 down the rivers Tigris and Euphrates. As you say, the 0:15:39.330 --> 0:15:42.410 first examples of writing in the world are found in 0:15:42.770 --> 0:15:46.850 Mesopotamia and the city of Uruk. But as we get 0:15:46.850 --> 0:15:50.530 to the end of the third millennium BC, so around 0:15:50.570 --> 0:15:55.450 the twenty two hundred BC, we get a small localized 0:15:55.530 --> 0:15:59.290 climate shift that had kind of tendrils happening elsewhere in 0:15:59.330 --> 0:16:01.490 the world. But in general this was a kind of 0:16:01.490 --> 0:16:05.290 Eurasian shift, perhaps a change in currents going over the 0:16:05.290 --> 0:16:09.170 Sahara Desert, a drying of air around the Mediterranean. And 0:16:09.210 --> 0:16:12.170 it must be underlined that this was a very minor 0:16:12.210 --> 0:16:14.130 climate shift compared to what we're looking at in the 0:16:14.130 --> 0:16:18.730 coming century. But nevertheless, this caused a period of drought 0:16:18.810 --> 0:16:22.250 and aridity in the eastern Mediterranean and the Near East. 0:16:22.930 --> 0:16:26.930 This meant that crops that were flourishing like wheat were 0:16:26.970 --> 0:16:30.410 suddenly being replaced by hardier, more drought resistant, and salt 0:16:30.450 --> 0:16:34.730 resistant crops like barley. People began to starve in cities, 0:16:34.810 --> 0:16:39.450 and crucially, because this was affecting the whole region, the 0:16:39.570 --> 0:16:43.330 rivals of the Sumerians were struggling too. They were then 0:16:43.450 --> 0:16:46.770 driven to raid and plunder in Sumerian lands. So we 0:16:46.810 --> 0:16:49.050 see that as the environment tightens its news around a 0:16:49.090 --> 0:16:52.290 whole region, that creates conflict, that creates the desire to 0:16:52.810 --> 0:16:57.250 invade fertile, abundant areas. And this was too much for 0:16:57.290 --> 0:16:59.730 the Sumerian society to handle, and each one of the 0:16:59.770 --> 0:17:04.130 Sumerian cities is destroyed. In turn, we see that societies 0:17:04.130 --> 0:17:07.770 from the past were sometimes completely destroyed by these climate 0:17:07.810 --> 0:17:10.530 shifts that today I would hardly even notice. 0:17:10.850 --> 0:17:14.610 This is cautionary tales. I'm speaking to Paul Cooper, the 0:17:14.770 --> 0:17:19.890 broadcaster and author about his book and podcast Fall of Civilizations, 0:17:20.410 --> 0:17:23.890 and after the break we will return to Roman Britain 0:17:24.090 --> 0:17:26.570 and Paul is going to tell us what happened to 0:17:26.730 --> 0:17:41.050 Magnus Maximus. We're back. I'm Tim Harford talking to the 0:17:41.050 --> 0:17:46.010 broadcaster and author Paul Cooper about Fall of Civilizations, which 0:17:46.050 --> 0:17:49.290 is both a book and a podcast. Paul, I wanted 0:17:49.410 --> 0:17:52.370 you to take me to Roman Britain really and perhaps 0:17:52.450 --> 0:17:57.010 begin by telling me what the Romans initially thought when 0:17:57.010 --> 0:18:00.330 they arrived in Britain and how difficult did they find 0:18:00.410 --> 0:18:02.490 Britain to colonize. 0:18:02.410 --> 0:18:05.850 Britain had a unique place in the Roman Empire. It 0:18:05.930 --> 0:18:08.650 was a large island, which is a kind of territory 0:18:08.650 --> 0:18:14.490 that they never really conquered before. But this provided problems 0:18:14.530 --> 0:18:18.090 of supply, problems of connection to the mainland. That would 0:18:18.090 --> 0:18:20.530 always mean that Britain sat in a slightly awkward position 0:18:20.730 --> 0:18:24.210 within the Western Empire. When the Romans arrived in Britain, 0:18:24.330 --> 0:18:27.810 they loved playing up how wild and untamed and semi 0:18:27.850 --> 0:18:32.210 monstrous the people were. The Roman writer Amianus Marcollinus even 0:18:32.570 --> 0:18:36.290 famously describes Britain's sitting in swamp water up to their 0:18:36.330 --> 0:18:39.410 necks for days on end, living only on nuts. 0:18:39.490 --> 0:18:41.890 I mean, story checks out well, you see. 0:18:41.930 --> 0:18:44.890 Jokes about British weather and bad food have been going 0:18:44.890 --> 0:18:48.730 on for two millennia, it seems. But when Rome slowly 0:18:48.970 --> 0:18:53.610 conquered and began a process of Romanization in Britain, they 0:18:53.850 --> 0:18:57.890 would always find it arrestive province. With its long coastline, 0:18:57.930 --> 0:19:01.090 it was always prone to attack from people like the 0:19:01.170 --> 0:19:04.610 Atticotti and Scottie in Ireland. These are kind of warlike 0:19:04.690 --> 0:19:08.930 tribal peoples from Saxon's Dutes, geets you name it, come 0:19:08.970 --> 0:19:12.810 out from the east in Germany and Denmark, Norway, etc. 0:19:13.530 --> 0:19:17.570 And from people beyond Hadrian's Wall, the northern limit of 0:19:17.610 --> 0:19:20.570 the Empire, people who had become known as the Picts 0:19:20.810 --> 0:19:24.770 due to the pictures that they painted on their skins. Now, 0:19:25.090 --> 0:19:28.610 all of these threats menacing Roman Britain meant that it 0:19:29.130 --> 0:19:32.650 needed a large garrison. This was somewhere between three to 0:19:32.730 --> 0:19:35.690 four legions at various times, which is up to sixteen 0:19:35.770 --> 0:19:41.450 thousand soldiers. But these were augmented by many thousands of auxiliaries, 0:19:41.490 --> 0:19:44.130 who are usually local people who are armed and trained 0:19:44.170 --> 0:19:46.730 and so on by Rome, but who aren't necessarily citizens. 0:19:46.930 --> 0:19:49.770 Were they well integrated. Did the British kind of become 0:19:50.090 --> 0:19:52.810 citizens of the Empire in the same way that, for example, 0:19:52.850 --> 0:19:53.570 the Gauls did. 0:19:53.690 --> 0:19:55.730 It's not going question of debate, but I would say 0:19:55.730 --> 0:19:58.690 that Britain struggled to become as integrated as gaul which 0:19:58.770 --> 0:20:02.130 is what we call France today. No Britain ever was 0:20:02.210 --> 0:20:04.970 raised to the rank of equity, which was one of 0:20:04.970 --> 0:20:08.050 the highest ranks in Roman society, and was required to 0:20:08.090 --> 0:20:11.650 hold position of power of you to become a statesman. 0:20:12.170 --> 0:20:15.810 So we get a sense that Britain's were never really 0:20:16.290 --> 0:20:21.490 considered fully Romanized. Certainly in towns like Camulodenum, Colchester, or 0:20:21.570 --> 0:20:26.450 Londinium London, there was a great Romanized population there. People 0:20:26.490 --> 0:20:30.730 were living large on olives and wine from gall red 0:20:30.730 --> 0:20:34.570 gloss pottery, all of the signs and symbols of Roman 0:20:34.650 --> 0:20:39.330 excess and luxury. People were building villas with mosaic flaws. 0:20:39.410 --> 0:20:42.970 But outside in the countryside people still lived in you know, 0:20:43.090 --> 0:20:47.690 roundhouses with turf walls and thatched ceilings, living much as 0:20:47.690 --> 0:20:50.290 people had in the British Iron Age. So we get 0:20:50.290 --> 0:20:53.490 the sense of a two tier system, right. 0:20:53.690 --> 0:20:56.290 So the old line one of the Romans ever done 0:20:56.370 --> 0:20:58.410 for us. The answer is, well, if you live in 0:20:58.410 --> 0:20:59.450 the country, not very much. 0:20:59.490 --> 0:21:03.290 Yeah, that's absolutely right. You know, although it was subject 0:21:03.410 --> 0:21:07.450 to invasions, raids from these people outside the empire, the 0:21:07.530 --> 0:21:10.130 time of Roman Britain was a I'm of relative peace 0:21:10.210 --> 0:21:13.810 while the Empire flourished. When Roman arrived, Britain had been 0:21:13.850 --> 0:21:18.370 a patchwork of you know, tribes like the Ikenai. 0:21:17.770 --> 0:21:21.410 Famously led by Boudica or Bodhisi exactly, yes, who gave 0:21:21.410 --> 0:21:23.170 the Romans quite quite a scare. 0:21:23.250 --> 0:21:26.290 Yeah, well, I live in Norwich, So Budica is a 0:21:26.330 --> 0:21:29.890 big figure for us. The Aquinai were our local tribe, 0:21:30.090 --> 0:21:32.970 and they burnt Colchester to the ground, something I think 0:21:33.010 --> 0:21:34.450 that they've never quite forgiven us for. 0:21:35.090 --> 0:21:38.610 So, I mean, this is an unruly place. It takes, 0:21:38.610 --> 0:21:42.090 as you mentioned, a big army to keep the peace. 0:21:42.410 --> 0:21:44.450 You also need a strong man. You need a strong 0:21:44.690 --> 0:21:49.530 governor or strong generals to command that army. And we 0:21:49.610 --> 0:21:53.130 mentioned Magnus Maximus at the beginning of the conversation. But 0:21:53.170 --> 0:21:55.730 Magnus Maximus wasn't the first of these these strong men. 0:21:55.850 --> 0:21:58.610 So tell us about Clodius Albinus. He seems very I'd 0:21:58.650 --> 0:22:01.130 not heard of him before reading your book, and he's 0:22:01.170 --> 0:22:02.490 a very intriguing figure. 0:22:02.650 --> 0:22:06.250 Yeah, he's a remarkable guy who's born in North Africa 0:22:06.690 --> 0:22:10.370 and is a classic Roman statesman who flown into Britain 0:22:10.490 --> 0:22:15.130 to rule over these unruly people. As a Roman, he 0:22:15.210 --> 0:22:17.490 is therefore in charge of one of the largest armies 0:22:17.530 --> 0:22:21.050 in the Empire, which you know is necessary to defend 0:22:21.090 --> 0:22:25.050 Britain from all the threats it faces, but also provides 0:22:25.450 --> 0:22:29.090 an irresistible temptation to anyone who leads it. 0:22:29.170 --> 0:22:31.170 Was he militarily successful. 0:22:30.810 --> 0:22:35.050 Yeah, absolutely, he's a good governor. But the Empire is 0:22:35.090 --> 0:22:38.690 going through a period of political upheaval and turmoil. This 0:22:38.810 --> 0:22:41.410 is during the reign of the emperor Commodace, who's memorably 0:22:41.450 --> 0:22:44.010 played by Juaquin Phoenix in the movie Gladiator. 0:22:44.410 --> 0:22:47.130 Yes, it's a terrible, terrible human being in the movie, 0:22:47.210 --> 0:22:50.810 and it sounds like perhaps not much better in real life. 0:22:50.890 --> 0:22:52.770 Well, actually, if you can believe it, I think the 0:22:52.930 --> 0:22:55.850 movie had to dial down some of the insanity of Commodus. 0:22:55.930 --> 0:22:59.450 Commodus was fascinated with gladiators and with the idea of 0:22:59.530 --> 0:23:02.170 himself as a gladiator, and he would actually go into 0:23:02.210 --> 0:23:06.130 the arena himself to kill animals like ostriches and giraffes 0:23:06.170 --> 0:23:09.450 and you know, exotic animals of this kind. He once 0:23:09.610 --> 0:23:12.370 cut off the head of an ostrich and went to 0:23:12.450 --> 0:23:16.050 the stands where the senators were sitting and shouted up 0:23:16.090 --> 0:23:17.210 to them, you will be next. 0:23:17.610 --> 0:23:19.410 That's not cool, No. 0:23:20.170 --> 0:23:22.770 It's certainly not. It is a larger than life character 0:23:22.810 --> 0:23:28.250 who's violent, mad, tyrannical, you name it. But Commodist dies 0:23:28.290 --> 0:23:31.850 in one ninety two AD and suddenly the empire is 0:23:31.930 --> 0:23:35.970 up for grabs, and essentially the two contestants who emerge 0:23:36.050 --> 0:23:38.730 as the last people standing from a period of chaos 0:23:38.810 --> 0:23:42.690 that's called the year of the five emperors are Clodius 0:23:42.690 --> 0:23:47.250 Albinus in Britain and the Emperor Septimius Severus. These two 0:23:47.290 --> 0:23:49.930 come together at the Battle of Lugdanum in one ninety five, 0:23:50.490 --> 0:23:54.050 and it's an enormous battle that takes place over two days, 0:23:54.530 --> 0:23:58.970 and Clodius Albinus is finally defeated. When he realizes he's 0:23:58.970 --> 0:24:01.330 going to lose, he runs himself through with his dagger, 0:24:01.770 --> 0:24:05.530 and the Emperor Septimius Severus tramples him with his horse. 0:24:06.210 --> 0:24:10.170 This is tragic for Albinus personally, but for Roman Britain. 0:24:10.170 --> 0:24:12.650 His departure was also a disaster. 0:24:12.490 --> 0:24:17.050 Because he basically took the entire army to fight Septimius 0:24:17.610 --> 0:24:20.410 and left Britain without an army, which sounds like it 0:24:20.490 --> 0:24:23.770 might be an opportunity, but turns out that the opportunity 0:24:23.770 --> 0:24:24.770 for the wrong kind of people. 0:24:24.930 --> 0:24:26.410 Well that's right. I mean, if you're going to try 0:24:26.450 --> 0:24:28.690 and seize the imperial throne, you need every man you 0:24:28.730 --> 0:24:31.530 can take. The loss of a single unit could mean 0:24:31.530 --> 0:24:34.130 the loss of a battle, So he took every one 0:24:34.170 --> 0:24:38.410 of Britain's legions. But this leaves Britain largely defenseless. It's 0:24:38.650 --> 0:24:42.890 raided by picks from the North Atti Cotti from Ireland, 0:24:43.370 --> 0:24:45.690 who are roomored to eat human flesh. By the way, 0:24:46.850 --> 0:24:50.610 but it wasn't only a military threat coming from outside. 0:24:50.770 --> 0:24:53.690 It was also the collapse of the British economy. The 0:24:53.810 --> 0:24:57.610 entire economy in Britain was predicated on this situation of 0:24:57.850 --> 0:25:00.170 forty thousand armed Roman soldiers. 0:25:00.170 --> 0:25:00.410 There. 0:25:00.730 --> 0:25:05.490