WEBVTT - How Civilizations Die - with Paul Cooper 0:00:15.410 --> 0:00:22.370 Pushkin. Tim here with an exciting announcement about the Cautionary Club, 0:00:22.690 --> 0:00:26.850 our Patreon community for Cautionary Tales listeners. So many of 0:00:26.850 --> 0:00:30.210 you joined our live table read earlier this year that 0:00:30.330 --> 0:00:33.610 we're doing it again. Join me and I production team 0:00:33.770 --> 0:00:37.690 for a live reading of an unreleased episode about the 0:00:37.730 --> 0:00:43.410 people who almost invented the iPhone fifteen years early and 0:00:43.450 --> 0:00:46.770 the surprising reasons they failed. This will be a chance 0:00:46.850 --> 0:00:49.010 for you to see how the stories we tell are 0:00:49.010 --> 0:00:53.490 developed in real time and ask your burning questions about 0:00:53.490 --> 0:00:57.010 Cautionary Tales. It's on the eighth of July at five 0:00:57.050 --> 0:01:01.090 pm UK or noon Eastern. If you join the Patreon 0:01:01.170 --> 0:01:03.770 before then, or if you're already a member, you'll get 0:01:03.770 --> 0:01:10.170 your exclusive invitation. Head to Patreon dot com slash Cautionary Club. 0:01:10.450 --> 0:01:14.050 That's Patreon, p A, T R e O N dot 0:01:14.090 --> 0:01:26.210 com slash Cautionary Club. Britannia the farthest the leakist province 0:01:26.290 --> 0:01:32.010 of the Roman Empire three ninety CE, A harsh, misty 0:01:32.130 --> 0:01:40.650 land of savages and strange mystics. Forty thousand soldiers about 0:01:40.650 --> 0:01:44.490 an eighth of the imperial army, and needed to control 0:01:44.610 --> 0:01:50.010 the unruly native tribes, protect the archipelago from pirates and 0:01:50.250 --> 0:01:54.770 push any marauder's back over Hadrian's Wall and into Scotland. 0:01:57.290 --> 0:02:01.010 Such a mighty army needs a tremendous leader, and they 0:02:01.050 --> 0:02:08.530 have one in the shape of Magnus Maximus. Maximus is 0:02:08.530 --> 0:02:12.490 a distinctuish general. As a younger man, he helped restore 0:02:12.730 --> 0:02:16.770 order after the Picts from Scotland, the Scotty from Ireland 0:02:17.170 --> 0:02:21.410 and the Saxons from the continent joined forces to attack 0:02:21.570 --> 0:02:26.570 Roman Britannia in the Great Barbarian Conspiracy of three six 0:02:26.770 --> 0:02:31.690 seven Ceve. Then he fought in successful campaigns against the 0:02:31.730 --> 0:02:36.090 Moors in North Africa and the Alamanni on the Danube River. 0:02:38.690 --> 0:02:43.210 For ten years now, Maximus has governed Britannia. He's put 0:02:43.250 --> 0:02:46.970 down raids by the Picts, built a huge church on 0:02:47.050 --> 0:02:51.330 London's Tower Hill, and forced the country to bend to 0:02:51.410 --> 0:02:55.770 his will. But he can't wait to leave this wet, 0:02:55.970 --> 0:03:01.850 windy and wild Isle, this backwater of the empire. He 0:03:01.930 --> 0:03:06.930 spies opportunity back on the mainland. A young, unpopular emperor 0:03:07.370 --> 0:03:11.170 sits on the throne in Rome. His courtiers are turning 0:03:11.210 --> 0:03:20.010 against him and rivals are carving their armies. Maximus is 0:03:20.010 --> 0:03:23.370 a great military general, and he leads the biggest, toughest 0:03:23.610 --> 0:03:28.650 army in the Empire. He instructs the entire Roman garrison 0:03:28.690 --> 0:03:32.530 of Britannia to board a fleet of ships, and they 0:03:32.570 --> 0:03:38.010 sail for the mainland and victory. If only Maximus have 0:03:38.170 --> 0:03:43.970 consulted the history books first, I'm Tim Harford, and you're 0:03:44.050 --> 0:04:12.930 listening to cautionary Tales. Magnus Maximus wasn't the first governor 0:04:12.970 --> 0:04:17.170 of Britannia with ambitions to be a Roman emperor. Here 0:04:17.210 --> 0:04:19.370 to tell us all about him and the history he 0:04:19.490 --> 0:04:23.610 should have studied is Paul Cooper, presenter of the podcast 0:04:24.170 --> 0:04:28.890 Fall of Civilizations, Stories of Greatness and Decline, and the 0:04:28.930 --> 0:04:32.370 author of a book of the same name. Paul, Welcome 0:04:32.410 --> 0:04:33.330 to caution Details. 0:04:33.850 --> 0:04:35.010 That's a great pleasure to be here. 0:04:35.290 --> 0:04:37.810 Paul. You're going to tell us all about Magnus Maximus. 0:04:37.810 --> 0:04:40.450 But first I wanted to know what attracted you to 0:04:40.530 --> 0:04:44.690 studying the Fall rather than the Rise of Civilizations. 0:04:45.570 --> 0:04:48.730 My PhD focused on the idea of the ruin in 0:04:48.770 --> 0:04:53.450 literature and film, and also how various ruins have become 0:04:53.570 --> 0:04:57.770 figures of importance for culture throughout history. So I've always 0:04:57.770 --> 0:05:00.010 been drawn to the idea of the ruin, what they 0:05:00.050 --> 0:05:03.450 mean and what they've meant for people who are creating 0:05:03.490 --> 0:05:06.330 works of art. Ruins are amazing spaces. 0:05:06.490 --> 0:05:09.570 Yeah. I was really struck just reading your your book, 0:05:09.610 --> 0:05:13.450 really struck by this amazing Anglo Saxon poem about a 0:05:13.530 --> 0:05:16.450 ruined Roman bath house. And I've never encountered it before, 0:05:16.450 --> 0:05:17.450 but it's a spellbinding. 0:05:17.690 --> 0:05:19.850 Yeah. It's an old poem called the Ruin, which has 0:05:19.890 --> 0:05:22.890 found in the collection known as the Exeter Book, and 0:05:22.930 --> 0:05:27.410 it's a marvelous rendition of a person writing in Old English, 0:05:27.650 --> 0:05:31.610 a kind of Anglo Saxon, early medieval British person wandering 0:05:31.690 --> 0:05:35.410 through a ruined bath house and viewing the crumbling pillars. 0:05:35.890 --> 0:05:39.850 The bath's now overgrown with weed, with frogs, you know, 0:05:39.930 --> 0:05:43.250 jumping in and out of the pools. And as they're 0:05:43.250 --> 0:05:47.610 walking these shattered bath halls, they're imagining the place as 0:05:47.610 --> 0:05:50.650 it used to be, feasts that might have gone on here, 0:05:50.770 --> 0:05:53.010 bright warriors in their armor who might have come to 0:05:53.050 --> 0:05:56.290 celebrate their victories, the kings and the great society that 0:05:56.330 --> 0:05:59.250 once built this. And it's believed that this poem is 0:05:59.290 --> 0:06:02.610 written about the Roman baths in the town of Bath. 0:06:03.130 --> 0:06:06.690 One example of many of a person in history wandering 0:06:06.730 --> 0:06:09.610 through the ruins of a society that came before, and 0:06:09.730 --> 0:06:12.250 having that amazing experience that people always seem to have 0:06:12.290 --> 0:06:15.170 in these ruined places, which is a moment of contact 0:06:15.210 --> 0:06:18.770 with the people of the past, a sudden appreciation not 0:06:18.890 --> 0:06:23.050 only of the power of time and its immense size, 0:06:23.410 --> 0:06:27.570 but also the ability of human monuments to survive the 0:06:27.690 --> 0:06:29.330 ravages of that very same force. 0:06:30.090 --> 0:06:32.890 It does raise the question of, well, how could a 0:06:32.930 --> 0:06:39.130 civilization build such remarkable monuments, achieve such heights of greatness, 0:06:39.130 --> 0:06:42.330 and yet somehow that civilization is no longer with us, 0:06:42.410 --> 0:06:46.050 which is It's something you explore in your podcast and 0:06:46.410 --> 0:06:49.690 in your book on Cautionary Tales. We are scholars of 0:06:50.330 --> 0:06:52.210 failure with fascinated by disaster. 0:06:52.690 --> 0:06:54.130 Yeah, that we have in common. 0:06:54.330 --> 0:06:59.330 Yeah, yeah, the fall of civilizations seems it's cautionary tales 0:06:59.370 --> 0:07:04.250 in extreme slow mo. While you're just going yes, I 0:07:04.290 --> 0:07:06.410 really appreciate the crossovers between the podcasts. 0:07:06.730 --> 0:07:09.570 Yeah, absolutely, I mean there's a human fascination with disaster, 0:07:09.730 --> 0:07:13.370 isn't there. Traditional view of history is one of monuments 0:07:13.410 --> 0:07:16.610 and great men and victorious battles, But actually the story 0:07:16.650 --> 0:07:19.370 of failure is one that's completely ingrained in the human epic. 0:07:19.690 --> 0:07:22.370 These stories of societal failure are as much a part 0:07:22.410 --> 0:07:25.410 of us as those of success and triumph, So. 0:07:26.130 --> 0:07:28.930 Trying to draw out some common threads then in why 0:07:29.010 --> 0:07:34.010 civilizations do fail, one theme that comes up again and 0:07:34.010 --> 0:07:39.450 again is violence. And obviously violence is needed to conquer, 0:07:40.370 --> 0:07:43.410 but it poses dangers to the aggressors too, doesn't it. 0:07:43.650 --> 0:07:46.810 Well, that's right, yeah, any empire is by definition a 0:07:46.930 --> 0:07:52.170 violent undertaking. But also some empires who build their power 0:07:52.210 --> 0:07:57.730 build their territory through this bellicose approach, this excessive, expansionist, 0:07:57.890 --> 0:08:01.850 aggressive violence, are actually sowing the seeds of their own 0:08:01.850 --> 0:08:03.130 destruction in doing so. 0:08:04.010 --> 0:08:07.490 The Assyrians bring to mind they were quite notorious. 0:08:07.570 --> 0:08:11.890 Absolutely. The Assyrian Empire flourishes mostly in the first half 0:08:11.930 --> 0:08:16.650 of the last millennium of the BC period. It conquers 0:08:16.690 --> 0:08:20.850 its neighbours with extreme violence, you know, piling pyramids of 0:08:20.890 --> 0:08:24.530 heads outside cities, flaming people alive, you name it. You know. 0:08:24.530 --> 0:08:27.610 Assyrian kings have done it, and people who rebel against 0:08:27.650 --> 0:08:33.730 the empire are slaughtered executed in displays of public brutality. 0:08:34.250 --> 0:08:38.050 Often entire populations a uprooted and sent to a different 0:08:38.050 --> 0:08:39.890 part of the empire where they don't know the land, 0:08:39.930 --> 0:08:42.970 don't know the territory, you know, disconnected from their ability 0:08:43.050 --> 0:08:46.090 to exploit their knowledge of the land to resist empire. 0:08:46.850 --> 0:08:51.050 But in this kind of ruthless, remorseless approach, the Assyrian 0:08:51.050 --> 0:08:55.170 Empire becomes absolutely despised around the region. In the end, 0:08:55.410 --> 0:09:01.210 as the seventh century BC wears on and the last 0:09:01.210 --> 0:09:05.090 great king of Assyria, Ashurbanipal, dies, you get a succession 0:09:05.130 --> 0:09:09.930 of weak kings followed by a rebellion in Babylon. Suddenly 0:09:10.010 --> 0:09:12.290 are horse rearing people called the Meads who live in 0:09:12.330 --> 0:09:15.970 the Zagros mountains of Iran join in to invade Assyria. 0:09:16.490 --> 0:09:20.290 You get rebellions in Egypt, and suddenly revolts happening all 0:09:20.290 --> 0:09:23.690 around the empire as outside enemies are uniting against it. 0:09:24.530 --> 0:09:27.810 The Babylonians and Meads sign a pact in the ruins 0:09:27.810 --> 0:09:30.410 of an Assyrian city called Ashore, and in the next 0:09:30.490 --> 0:09:32.730 year is really only a period of about three years, 0:09:33.290 --> 0:09:35.770 the Assyrian Empire, what was the most powerful empire in 0:09:35.810 --> 0:09:39.050 the world, is completely dismantled. Many of its cities never 0:09:39.130 --> 0:09:42.050 recover as centers of population because. 0:09:41.850 --> 0:09:43.850 I mean, they didn't make any friends, because they were 0:09:43.970 --> 0:09:47.890 incredibly brutal. So when the end comes, it comes incredibly quickly. 0:09:48.970 --> 0:09:53.250 And another theme that you pick out is taxation. And again, 0:09:53.690 --> 0:09:56.970 if you're going to have a successful civilization, you need 0:09:57.050 --> 0:10:02.810 some kind of mechanism for levying resources from the populace 0:10:02.850 --> 0:10:06.650 and deploying those resources to assemble armies and to build 0:10:06.650 --> 0:10:08.930 these great monuments and so on. But of course it 0:10:09.090 --> 0:10:11.450 its possible to overdo it. And you point to both 0:10:11.490 --> 0:10:15.290 the hand Innersity of China and the khmerd Innersity of 0:10:15.330 --> 0:10:20.290 Cambodia as the civilizations that overdid the taxation, and then 0:10:20.450 --> 0:10:21.490 that was their undoing. 0:10:22.010 --> 0:10:25.570 Yeah, I think I wouldn't describe it as excessive taxation 0:10:25.730 --> 0:10:29.410 so much as an entrenched sense of inequality, which you 0:10:29.450 --> 0:10:32.850 see in places like China are obviously built on laboring peasants. 0:10:33.290 --> 0:10:36.450 You see in Rome built on a slave class, a 0:10:36.570 --> 0:10:40.170 vast slave class. Ancient Greek cities, in Athens, you might 0:10:40.250 --> 0:10:43.610 have a slave population about equal to the free population, 0:10:43.810 --> 0:10:47.410 but in Sparta, the slave population is ten times the 0:10:47.450 --> 0:10:50.250 size of the free population, made up of entire conquered 0:10:50.250 --> 0:10:53.410 ethnicities who are forced to work in the fields, and 0:10:53.450 --> 0:10:56.490 the entirety of the agricultural sector of this city is 0:10:56.770 --> 0:11:00.290 propped up by people who hate and despise the people 0:11:00.330 --> 0:11:03.850 they're feeding. This means that the Spartan army is never 0:11:03.890 --> 0:11:06.890 able to leave the city for very long. It's never 0:11:06.930 --> 0:11:11.130 able to stop defending these constant threatened rebellions from this 0:11:11.210 --> 0:11:14.210 hell up class. So this is one example in which 0:11:14.250 --> 0:11:18.330 inequality becomes a great weakening agent in a society, preventing 0:11:18.370 --> 0:11:21.850 them from engaging in long term planning, from feeding their 0:11:21.890 --> 0:11:25.850 population without immense resentment building. And there are many examples 0:11:25.890 --> 0:11:26.730 throughout history of this. 0:11:27.210 --> 0:11:30.450 Yes, I mean some of them perhaps not very historical 0:11:30.490 --> 0:11:35.290 at all. It's very striking to draw these parallels between 0:11:35.330 --> 0:11:38.090 the modern world and these ancient civilizations. But every now 0:11:38.130 --> 0:11:41.610 and then I encountered something in the book for which 0:11:41.650 --> 0:11:43.330 I think, oh, I'm not sure we have a parallel 0:11:43.330 --> 0:11:46.490 for that one. And one of them was the hand 0:11:46.490 --> 0:11:50.690 innisty in China. The power very much in the hands 0:11:50.730 --> 0:11:53.250 of women, which of course we do have in the 0:11:53.250 --> 0:11:57.330 modern world, and eunuchs. Not so many eunuchs in power 0:11:57.450 --> 0:11:59.650 in the modern world. So tell me about them. 0:11:59.810 --> 0:12:02.650 Yeah, that hand dynasty in China is a fascinating example. 0:12:03.090 --> 0:12:06.490 There's an increasing concentration of power in the imperial Palace 0:12:06.650 --> 0:12:10.450 in Luo Yang, and the two great power blocks inside 0:12:10.490 --> 0:12:15.650 the palace are the eunuch attendants and the dowager empresses, 0:12:15.770 --> 0:12:18.770 the mothers of both the emperor and previous emperors, who 0:12:18.770 --> 0:12:23.250 have passed on their power and prestige depended completely on 0:12:23.850 --> 0:12:26.930 their sons, their progeny, and how close they were to 0:12:26.970 --> 0:12:31.690 the imperial throne. So this meant a constant jockeying for 0:12:31.890 --> 0:12:36.410 power among these rivals. Dowagers would poison the sons of 0:12:36.650 --> 0:12:39.930 other empresses in order to get them off the throne 0:12:39.970 --> 0:12:43.250 and get their son just one step closer to inheriting it. 0:12:43.930 --> 0:12:47.170 In this way, the Imperial Palace of China ran red 0:12:47.210 --> 0:12:52.210 with blood. Now, eunuchs served in the palace because essentially 0:12:52.250 --> 0:12:54.650 this was the place where the emperor lived with his women, 0:12:54.890 --> 0:12:59.330 and I mean a It was thought to be safer 0:12:59.370 --> 0:13:02.530 to castrate these men in order to prevent them from 0:13:02.970 --> 0:13:06.130 entangling themselves with palace women, shall we say, But it 0:13:06.170 --> 0:13:08.570 was also a way of ensuring that they would have 0:13:08.650 --> 0:13:12.130 no aspiration for the throne. It was thought that someone 0:13:12.170 --> 0:13:15.570 who was unable to have children would have less desire 0:13:15.650 --> 0:13:18.650 to topple the emperor do a palace coup. But what 0:13:18.650 --> 0:13:21.810 we see in these centuries is a power contest between 0:13:21.810 --> 0:13:25.450 the dowager empresses and the eunuchs, with the emperor being 0:13:25.530 --> 0:13:28.210 essentially a puppet, a kind of game piece that's being 0:13:28.250 --> 0:13:30.690 passed between them. And for this reason, the emperor was 0:13:30.810 --> 0:13:34.050 very often a child. The Emperor Shan was actually a 0:13:34.210 --> 0:13:37.450 six month old baby who was crowned emperor while still 0:13:37.490 --> 0:13:40.490 in his crib. This is because children were easier to control. 0:13:40.850 --> 0:13:45.210 Yeah, so there's the ultimate symbolic head of state, right, 0:13:45.290 --> 0:13:47.610 I mean, if it's a six month old baby, you 0:13:47.650 --> 0:13:50.530 can have all of the pomp and the ceremony and 0:13:50.610 --> 0:13:55.170 the genuflecting to the imperial throne, and none of the 0:13:55.170 --> 0:13:58.250 difficulty of them actually having any opinions other than I 0:13:58.290 --> 0:13:59.370 need my nappy changing. 0:13:59.610 --> 0:14:02.250 That's right. Yeah, But I would contend that that does 0:14:02.290 --> 0:14:05.490 have echoes in the modern gerontocracy that seems to be 0:14:05.490 --> 0:14:09.810 taking over in places like the United States. Ronald Reagan 0:14:09.890 --> 0:14:13.170 used to joke that Soviet premiers kept dying on me. 0:14:13.210 --> 0:14:15.410 I think he said, but it was true. In the 0:14:15.450 --> 0:14:18.330 Soviet Union, they had a problem with joe intocracy, with 0:14:18.370 --> 0:14:21.930 passing on power to the next generation. Power became incredibly 0:14:22.010 --> 0:14:25.170 encrusted in these men who are in the seventies and eighties, 0:14:25.650 --> 0:14:29.010 and the society really didn't have a healthy mechanism for 0:14:29.290 --> 0:14:33.210 passing that power down. We now see that same situation 0:14:33.330 --> 0:14:37.290 developing in the United States, where the election before last 0:14:37.330 --> 0:14:41.850 saw Donald Trump and Joe Biden contesting the presidency. You know, 0:14:41.890 --> 0:14:45.890 both of them in their seventies, and it's that inability 0:14:45.930 --> 0:14:48.130 to pass on power to the next generation I think 0:14:48.130 --> 0:14:50.610 has echoes in something like the Imperial Court of China. 0:14:50.930 --> 0:14:54.050 Yeah, it is remarkable. I think Biden was the oldest 0:14:54.090 --> 0:14:57.370 president ever and if Trump survives to the end of 0:14:57.370 --> 0:15:00.370 this term, he will be even older than Biden was. 0:15:01.050 --> 0:15:02.890 Ronald Reagan was. I mean, he was thought of as 0:15:02.930 --> 0:15:06.170 an old man, but he was young compared to these guys. 0:15:06.850 --> 0:15:10.130 He diffused the issue of his age by saying, I 0:15:10.170 --> 0:15:15.210 refused to exploit my opponent's youth and inexperience for political reasons, 0:15:15.250 --> 0:15:18.530 and that kind of he knew what he was doing. 0:15:19.610 --> 0:15:22.770 One more question before we return to Roman Britain, and 0:15:22.850 --> 0:15:27.570 the teaser we began with is environmental degradation, because this 0:15:27.690 --> 0:15:32.690 is I think often associated with the fall of civilizations. 0:15:32.730 --> 0:15:36.490 I think Jared Diamond wrote a famous book Collapse. It 0:15:36.610 --> 0:15:39.610 was very interested in this problem. Is it the case 0:15:39.690 --> 0:15:43.330 that climate change or some other environmental problem has historically 0:15:43.410 --> 0:15:46.930 often been the trigger for the fall of ancient civilizations. 0:15:47.130 --> 0:15:50.370 Yeah, it's an undeniable resonance with today that in a 0:15:50.450 --> 0:15:52.410 very large number of the stories we've looked at, there 0:15:52.450 --> 0:15:56.930 has been some element of environmental change that has struck 0:15:56.970 --> 0:16:01.970 these societies. Some crucial examples are the Sumerian society, which 0:16:02.130 --> 0:16:05.970 flourished in the third and second millenniums BC in the 0:16:06.050 --> 0:16:07.210 valley of Mesopotamia. 0:16:07.730 --> 0:16:10.050 It's not as famous as the Roman or the Greeks, 0:16:10.050 --> 0:16:15.050 but the Sumerians they invented accountancy, they invented writing. They 0:16:15.370 --> 0:16:17.250 I mean, they invented the city. I mean, this is 0:16:17.290 --> 0:16:20.530 really an incredibly important early civilization. 0:16:21.290 --> 0:16:25.290 Yeah. They were one of the earliest city dwelling civilizations 0:16:25.770 --> 0:16:28.810 to really create what we would think of as an empire, 0:16:29.130 --> 0:16:32.930 multiple walled cities connected by trade networks going up and 0:16:32.970 --> 0:16:36.210 down the rivers Tigris and Euphrates. As you say, the 0:16:36.210 --> 0:16:39.330 first examples of writing in the world are found in 0:16:39.650 --> 0:16:43.730 Mesopotamia and the city of Uruk. But as we get 0:16:43.770 --> 0:16:47.450 to the end of the third millennium BC, so around 0:16:47.450 --> 0:16:51.490 the year twenty two hundred BC, we get a small 0:16:51.690 --> 0:16:56.090 localized climate shift that had kind of tendrils happening elsewhere 0:16:56.130 --> 0:16:58.290 in the world. But in general, this was a kind 0:16:58.290 --> 0:17:02.050 of Eurasian shift, perhaps a change in currents going over 0:17:02.090 --> 0:17:05.530 the Sahara Desert, a drying of air around the Mediterranean. 0:17:05.930 --> 0:17:08.730 And it must be underlined that this was a very 0:17:08.730 --> 0:17:10.930 minor climate shift compared to what we're looking at in 0:17:10.930 --> 0:17:14.890 the coming century. But nevertheless, this caused a period of 0:17:15.250 --> 0:17:19.130 drought and aridity in the eastern Mediterranean and the Near East. 0:17:19.850 --> 0:17:23.810 This meant that crops that were flourishing like wheat were 0:17:23.850 --> 0:17:27.290 suddenly being replaced by hardier, more drought resistant and salt 0:17:27.330 --> 0:17:31.610 resistant crops like barley. People began to starve in cities, 0:17:31.690 --> 0:17:36.210 and crucially, because this was affecting the whole region, the 0:17:36.490 --> 0:17:40.250 rivals of the Sumerians were struggling too. They were then 0:17:40.330 --> 0:17:43.650 driven to raid and plunder in Sumerian lands. So we 0:17:43.690 --> 0:17:45.970 see that as the environment tightens its news around a 0:17:45.970 --> 0:17:49.370 whole region, that creates conflict, that creates the desire to 0:17:49.690 --> 0:17:54.170 invade fertile, abundant areas. And this was too much for 0:17:54.210 --> 0:17:56.570 the Sumerian society to handle, and each one of the 0:17:56.650 --> 0:18:01.010 Sumerian cities is destroyed. In turn, we see that societies 0:18:01.050 --> 0:18:04.650 from the past were sometimes completely destroyed by these climate 0:18:04.690 --> 0:18:07.450 shifts that today we would hardly even notice. 0:18:07.770 --> 0:18:11.610 This is caution detales. I'm speaking to Paul Cooper, the 0:18:11.650 --> 0:18:16.770 broadcaster and author about his book and podcast Fall of Civilizations, 0:18:17.290 --> 0:18:20.770 and after the break we will return to Roman Britain 0:18:20.970 --> 0:18:23.490 and Paul is going to tell us what happened to 0:18:23.610 --> 0:18:37.930 Magnus Maximus. We're back. I'm Tim Harford talking to the 0:18:37.970 --> 0:18:42.930 broadcaster and author Paul Cooper about Fall of Civilizations, which 0:18:42.970 --> 0:18:46.210 is both a book and a podcast. Paul, I wanted 0:18:46.330 --> 0:18:49.250 you to take me to Roman Britain really and perhaps 0:18:49.330 --> 0:18:53.890 begin by telling me what the Romans initially thought when 0:18:53.930 --> 0:18:57.210 they arrived in Britain and how difficult did they find 0:18:57.330 --> 0:18:58.650 Britain to colonize. 0:18:59.290 --> 0:19:02.730 Britain had a unique place in the Roman Empire. It 0:19:02.810 --> 0:19:05.530 was a large island, which is a kind of territory 0:19:05.570 --> 0:19:10.890 that they had never really conquered before. But this provided 0:19:10.930 --> 0:19:14.770 problems of supply, problems of connection to the mainland. There 0:19:14.770 --> 0:19:17.010 would always mean that Britain sat in a slightly awkward 0:19:17.010 --> 0:19:21.090 position within the Western Empire. When the Romans arrived in Britain. 0:19:21.250 --> 0:19:24.690 They loved playing up how wild and untamed and semi 0:19:24.730 --> 0:19:29.090 monstrous the people were. The Roman writer Amianus Marcolinus even 0:19:29.490 --> 0:19:33.210 famously describes Britain's sitting in swamp water up to their 0:19:33.210 --> 0:19:36.290 necks for days on end, living only on nuts. 0:19:36.370 --> 0:19:37.410 I mean, story checks out. 0:19:37.490 --> 0:19:41.010 Yeah, well, you see, jokes about British weather and bad 0:19:41.050 --> 0:19:43.170 food have been going on for two millennia, it seems. 0:19:43.450 --> 0:19:47.930 But when Rome slowly conquered and began a process of 0:19:48.010 --> 0:19:52.570 Romanization in Britain, they would always find it arrestive province. 0:19:53.370 --> 0:19:56.610 With its long coastline, it was always prone to attack 0:19:56.810 --> 0:20:00.410 from people like the Atticotti and Scotty in Ireland. These 0:20:00.410 --> 0:20:05.130 are kind of warlike tribal peoples from Saxon's Dutes, Geets, 0:20:05.210 --> 0:20:09.730 you name it, coming from the east in Germany and Denmark, Norway, etc. 0:20:10.450 --> 0:20:14.450 And from people beyond Hadrian's Wall, the northern limit of 0:20:14.490 --> 0:20:17.610 the Empire, people who had become known as the Picts 0:20:17.690 --> 0:20:21.690 due to the pictures that they painted on their skins. Now, 0:20:21.970 --> 0:20:25.490 all of these threats menacing Roman Britain meant that it 0:20:26.010 --> 0:20:29.570 needed a large garrison. This was somewhere between three to 0:20:29.610 --> 0:20:32.610 four legions at various times, which is up to sixteen 0:20:32.650 --> 0:20:38.370 thousand soldiers. But these were augmented by many thousands of auxiliaries, 0:20:38.370 --> 0:20:41.050 who are usually local people who are armed and trained 0:20:41.050 --> 0:20:43.610 and so on by Rome, but who aren't necessarily citizens. 0:20:43.810 --> 0:20:46.690 Were they well integrated. Did the British kind of become 0:20:46.970 --> 0:20:49.690 citizens of the Empire in the same way that, for example, 0:20:49.730 --> 0:20:50.450 the Gauls did. 0:20:50.610 --> 0:20:52.610 It's not going question of debate, but I would say 0:20:52.650 --> 0:20:55.610 that Britain struggled to become as integrated as gaul which 0:20:55.650 --> 0:20:59.010 is what we call France today. No Britain ever was 0:20:59.090 --> 0:21:01.850 raised to the rank of equity, which was one of 0:21:01.890 --> 0:21:04.930 the highest ranks in Roman society, and was required to 0:21:04.970 --> 0:21:09.810 hold positions of power to become a statesman. So we 0:21:09.890 --> 0:21:14.610 get a sense that Britain's were never really considered fully Romanized. 0:21:15.210 --> 0:21:20.290 Certainly in towns like Camulodenum, Colchester, or Londinium London, there 0:21:20.410 --> 0:21:24.690 was a great Romanized population there. People were living large 0:21:24.690 --> 0:21:29.050 on olives and wine from gall red gloss pottery, all 0:21:29.090 --> 0:21:33.050 of the signs and symbols of Roman excess and luxury. 0:21:33.330 --> 0:21:36.850 People were building villas with mosaic flows. But outside in 0:21:36.890 --> 0:21:41.130 the countryside people still lived in you know, roundhouses with 0:21:41.250 --> 0:21:45.050 turf walls and thatched ceilings, living much as people had 0:21:45.050 --> 0:21:47.570 in the British iron Age. So we get the sense 0:21:47.610 --> 0:21:50.370 of a two tier system, right. 0:21:50.610 --> 0:21:53.210 So the old line one of the Romans ever done 0:21:53.250 --> 0:21:55.290 for us. The answer is, well, if you live in 0:21:55.290 --> 0:21:56.370 the country, not very much. 0:21:56.410 --> 0:22:00.250 Yeah, that's absolutely right. You know, although it was subject 0:22:00.290 --> 0:22:04.370 to invasions, raids from these people outside the Empire, the 0:22:04.410 --> 0:22:07.050 time of Roman Britain was a time of relative peace 0:22:07.090 --> 0:22:10.690 while the Empire flourished. When Roman arrived, Britain had been 0:22:10.730 --> 0:22:13.690 a patchwork of you know, tribes like the. 0:22:13.570 --> 0:22:18.090 Ikenai, famously led by Boudica or Bodhesia exactly, yes, who 0:22:18.130 --> 0:22:20.050 gave the Romans quite a quite a scare. 0:22:20.130 --> 0:22:23.210 Yeah, well, I live in Norwich, so Boudica is a 0:22:23.210 --> 0:22:25.330 big figure for us. The Aquin I were our local 0:22:25.570 --> 0:22:29.690 tribe and they burnt Colchester to the ground, something I 0:22:29.730 --> 0:22:31.330 think that they've never quite forgiven us for. 0:22:32.010 --> 0:22:35.490 So, I mean, this is an unruly place. It takes, 0:22:35.530 --> 0:22:38.970 as you mentioned, a big army to keep the peace. 0:22:39.290 --> 0:22:41.370 You also need a strong man. You need a strong 0:22:41.570 --> 0:22:46.450 governor or strong generals to command that army. And we 0:22:46.490 --> 0:22:50.050 mentioned Magnus Maximus at the beginning of the conversation. But 0:22:50.050 --> 0:22:52.650 Magnus Maximus wasn't the first of these these strong men. 0:22:52.770 --> 0:22:55.130 So tell us about Clodius Albinus, because he seems very 0:22:55.330 --> 0:22:57.810 I'd not heard of him before reading your book, and 0:22:57.850 --> 0:22:59.370 he's a very intriguing figure. 0:22:59.530 --> 0:23:03.130 Yeah, he's a remarkable guy who's born in North Africa 0:23:03.610 --> 0:23:06.650 and is a classic Roman statesman who's you know, flown 0:23:06.690 --> 0:23:10.530 into Britain to rule over these rulely people as a Roman. 0:23:11.570 --> 0:23:13.930 He is therefore in charge of one of the largest 0:23:14.050 --> 0:23:17.610 armies in the Empire, which you know is necessary to 0:23:17.650 --> 0:23:21.170 defend Britain from all the threats it faces, but also 0:23:21.410 --> 0:23:25.970 provides an irresistible temptation to anyone who leads it. 0:23:26.050 --> 0:23:29.730 Was he militarily successful, Yeah, absolutely, he's a good governor, 0:23:31.210 --> 0:23:33.570 but the Empire is going through a period of political 0:23:33.650 --> 0:23:34.890 upheaval and turmoil. 0:23:35.490 --> 0:23:37.770 This is during the reign of the Emperor Commodace, who's 0:23:37.850 --> 0:23:40.930 memorably played by Juaquin Phoenix in the movie Gladiator. 0:23:41.330 --> 0:23:44.010 Yes, it's a terrible, terrible human being in the movie, 0:23:44.130 --> 0:23:47.730 and it sounds like perhaps not much better in real life. 0:23:47.770 --> 0:23:49.650 Well, actually, if you can believe it, I think the 0:23:49.810 --> 0:23:52.570 movie had to dial down some of the insanity of Commodus. 0:23:52.850 --> 0:23:56.370 Commodus was fascinated with gladiators and with the idea of 0:23:56.450 --> 0:23:59.090 himself as a gladiator, and he would actually go into 0:23:59.090 --> 0:24:03.050 the arena himself to kill animals like ostriches and giraffes 0:24:03.090 --> 0:24:06.290 and you know, exotic animals of this kind. He wants 0:24:06.490 --> 0:24:09.290 cut off the head of an ostrich and when to 0:24:09.330 --> 0:24:12.970 the stands where the senators were sitting and shouted up 0:24:12.970 --> 0:24:16.010 to them, you will be next. That's not cool, No, 0:24:17.050 --> 0:24:22.770 it's certainly not. It's a larger than life character who's violent, mad, tyrannical, 0:24:23.330 --> 0:24:26.450 you name it. But Commodist dies in one ninety two AD, 0:24:26.970 --> 0:24:30.570 and suddenly the empire is up for grabs, and essentially 0:24:30.570 --> 0:24:34.650 the two contestants who emerge as the last people standing 0:24:34.650 --> 0:24:36.530 from a period of chaos that's called the Year of 0:24:36.570 --> 0:24:41.730 the Five Emperors are Clodius Albinus in Britain and the 0:24:41.730 --> 0:24:45.210 emperor Septimius Severus. These two come together at the Battle 0:24:45.210 --> 0:24:48.930 of Lugdanum in one ninety five and it's an enormous 0:24:48.930 --> 0:24:52.770 battle that takes place over two days, and Clodius Albinus 0:24:52.850 --> 0:24:56.330 is finally defeated when he realizes he's going to lose. 0:24:56.370 --> 0:24:59.650 He runs himself through with his dagger and the emperors 0:24:59.650 --> 0:25:03.770 Septimis Severus tramples him with his horse. This is tragic 0:25:03.850 --> 0:25:07.850 for Albinus personally, but for Roman Britain. His departure was 0:25:07.890 --> 0:25:09.450 also a disaster. 0:25:09.370 --> 0:25:13.970 Because he basically took the entire army to fight Septimius 0:25:14.530 --> 0:25:17.290 and left Britain without an army, which sounds like it 0:25:17.370 --> 0:25:20.650 might be an opportunity, but turns out that the opportunity 0:25:20.690 --> 0:25:21.650 for the wrong kind of people. 0:25:21.850 --> 0:25:23.330 Well that's right. I mean, if you're going to try 0:25:23.330 --> 0:25:25.570