The rise of the Roman Empire can be traced back to Italy of the eighth century BCE. This was a period of cultural change, when the simple way of life of the peoples of central Italy was beginning to be affected by new influences from the eastern Mediterranean. The Second Punic War (218 to 201 BC) was the second of three wars fought between Carthage and Rome, the two main powers of the western Mediterranean in the 3rd century BC. For 17 years the two states struggled for supremacy, primarily in Italy and Iberia, but also on the islands of Sicily and Sardinia and, towards the end of the war, in North Africa. After immense materiel and human losses on both sides the Carthaginians were defeated. Macedonia, Syracuse and several Numidian kingdoms were drawn into the fighting, and Iberian and Gallic forces fought on both sides. There were three main military theatres during the war: Italy, where Hannibal defeated the Roman legions repeatedly, with occasional subsidiary campaigns in Sicily, Sardinia and Greece; Iberia, where Hasdrubal, a younger brother of Hannibal, defended the Carthaginian colonial cities with mixed success before moving into Italy; and Africa, where Rome finally won the war.
The First Punic War had ended in a Roman victory in 241 BC after 23 years and enormous losses on both sides. After the war Carthage expanded its holdings in Iberia where in 219 BC a Carthaginian army under Hannibal besieged, captured and sacked the pro-Roman city of Saguntum. In early 218 BC Rome declared war on Carthage, beginning the Second Punic War. Later that year, Hannibal surprised the Romans by marching his army overland from Iberia, through Gaul and over the Alps to Cisalpine Gaul (modern northern Italy). Reinforced by Gallic allies he obtained crushing victories over the Romans at the battles of Trebia (218) and Lake Trasimene (217). Moving to southern Italy in 216 Hannibal defeated the Romans again at the battle of Cannae, where he annihilated the largest army the Romans had ever assembled. After the death or capture of more than 120,000 Roman troops in less than three years, many of Rome's Italian allies, notably Capua, defected to Carthage, giving Hannibal control over much of southern Italy. As Syracuse and Macedonia joined the Carthaginian side after Cannae, the conflict spread. Between 215 and 210 BC the Carthaginians attempted to capture Roman-held Sicily and Sardinia, but were unsuccessful. The Romans took drastic steps to raise new legions: enrolling slaves, criminals and those who did not meet the usual property qualification; this vastly increased the number of men they had under arms. For the next decade the war in southern Italy continued, with Roman armies slowly recapturing most of the Italian cities that had joined Carthage.
The Romans established a lodgement in north-east Iberia in 218 BC; the Carthaginians repeatedly attempted and failed to reduce it.
The First Punic War had ended in a Roman victory in 241 BC after 23 years and enormous losses on both sides. After the war Carthage expanded its holdings in Iberia where in 219 BC a Carthaginian army under Hannibal besieged, captured and sacked the pro-Roman city of Saguntum. In early 218 BC Rome declared war on Carthage, beginning the Second Punic War. Later that year, Hannibal surprised the Romans by marching his army overland from Iberia, through Gaul and over the Alps to Cisalpine Gaul (modern northern Italy). Reinforced by Gallic allies he obtained crushing victories over the Romans at the battles of Trebia (218) and Lake Trasimene (217). Moving to southern Italy in 216 Hannibal defeated the Romans again at the battle of Cannae, where he annihilated the largest army the Romans had ever assembled. After the death or capture of more than 120,000 Roman troops in less than three years, many of Rome's Italian allies, notably Capua, defected to Carthage, giving Hannibal control over much of southern Italy. As Syracuse and Macedonia joined the Carthaginian side after Cannae, the conflict spread. Between 215 and 210 BC the Carthaginians attempted to capture Roman-held Sicily and Sardinia, but were unsuccessful. The Romans took drastic steps to raise new legions: enrolling slaves, criminals and those who did not meet the usual property qualification; this vastly increased the number of men they had under arms. For the next decade the war in southern Italy continued, with Roman armies slowly recapturing most of the Italian cities that had joined Carthage.
The Romans established a lodgement in north-east Iberia in 218 BC; the Carthaginians repeatedly attempted and failed to reduce it.
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LearningTranscript
00:00 [music]
00:02 From Rome, the Eternal Empire.
00:04 [music]
00:12 The Great Mongolian Empire.
00:14 [music]
00:22 The British Empire, where the sun never set.
00:25 [music]
00:31 To the US, superpower of the 20th century.
00:35 [music]
00:39 What made these nations great?
00:42 [music]
00:46 And does intolerance help you? No.
00:49 It weakens you, it loses your strength.
00:53 When a country such as the Mongols, or the Romans, or the British
00:58 based their system upon many different nationalities, many different religions, they succeeded.
01:04 [music]
01:06 You've got to want to be a superpower.
01:08 You've got to believe that you can be.
01:11 You've got to believe that you should be.
01:13 [music]
01:20 What is the nature of leadership that enables the rise to great power status?
01:25 [music]
01:30 It's no use if you have bad leadership or stupid leadership, then you waste away your assets, right?
01:36 [music]
01:38 Power is the ability to get the things you want.
01:41 And you can do it three ways.
01:43 You can do it by coercion, or by payment, or by attraction.
01:52 It doesn't feel that it needs to rule the world.
01:55 What it needs to do is maintain the peace and prosperity of its own subjects.
01:59 [music]
02:03 We begin a journey that spans over 2,500 years
02:07 to discover the secret behind global hegemony.
02:10 [music]
02:15 [music]
02:20 [music]
02:25 [music]
02:30 [music]
02:35 [music]
02:40 [music]
02:45 [music]
02:50 [music]
02:55 [music]
02:59 August 2, 216 BC.
03:03 The Cannae Plains in central Italy were strewn with the bodies of Roman soldiers.
03:08 [music]
03:15 The one day of battle had resulted in the loss of 80,000 men and one-third of its senate.
03:22 [music]
03:28 And worst of all, there was now nothing standing between the enemy and its conquest of Rome.
03:34 [music]
03:38 The biggest army they have ever raised has gone.
03:41 It's not just been beaten, it has gone.
03:43 The total losses in battle in the previous two years were close to 100,000 men.
03:50 No state in the history of the ancient world
03:53 had suffered losses that high in that short a period of time.
03:58 [music]
04:00 The man who brought Rome to the brink of collapse,
04:03 Hannibal, the greatest general Carthage had ever seen.
04:09 Hannibal was an extraordinary person and he grew up with one aim,
04:12 and that was to destroy Rome.
04:14 There is the legend that as a boy he took Hannibal into a temple,
04:18 into a sacred place, and made the boy swear an oath never to be a friend to the Romans,
04:24 and then raised him as a soldier and raised him to hate Rome.
04:27 [music]
04:36 Rome went to the brink of collapse in 216 BC.
04:42 There was no greater defeat in its history.
04:46 Living 2,200 years after the battle, we know it didn't bring on Rome's demise.
04:53 Anyone who has read a history book knows this as a fact.
04:57 In fact, the ultimate loser was Hannibal, the greatest strategist of antiquity.
05:03 However, there are things the history books still haven't told us.
05:07 How did Rome recover from such a crushing defeat
05:13 that would have demolished any other nation?
05:16 Why did Hannibal, victorious in all his former battles,
05:20 fail in his final war with Rome?
05:23 [music]
05:48 [wind]
05:58 Carthage, the homeland of Hannibal, was located in present-day Tunisia.
06:03 [wind]
06:12 It was once a North African hegemon which controlled the Mediterranean Sea.
06:16 [wind]
06:19 [music]
06:28 This naval control, along with the territory of Sicily, was lost to Rome,
06:33 and the Carthaginians wanted revenge.
06:35 [music]
06:45 Hannibal's father is one of the men who most of all says that,
06:49 "Look, Carthage should be strong again."
06:51 And the fact that he goes to Spain and he creates this new powerful province,
06:56 builds up a big army that they train and prepare,
06:59 and then his son-in-law takes over when he dies.
07:02 Hannibal takes over, so it is a family thing.
07:04 There is something very personal for all of his family, the Barca family,
07:09 that they must avenge themselves on Rome.
07:13 So I think Hannibal is raised with this sense that it is his destiny, his duty.
07:18 [music]
07:22 In 219 BC, Hannibal begins the Second Punic War with a siege on Sagentum, an ally of Rome.
07:30 [music]
07:33 The attack on its ally leads to Rome's decision to send reinforcements.
07:37 [music]
07:43 The Romans thought that Hannibal was likely to keep expanding into Spain,
07:47 as can be seen from their dispatching of troops to Spain.
07:52 It seemed Hannibal had no other choice.
07:55 [music]
08:00 The Mediterranean Sea was already under Roman control.
08:05 If his troops were to attack Rome by sea, the Roman navy would annihilate them.
08:10 [music]
08:20 The only other land attached to Italy was the Alps.
08:25 It was impossible to cross the Alps with a large army.
08:29 The path was only used by shepherds.
08:34 They just didn't think Hannibal would come to Italy,
08:37 because that's not how the Carthaginians had acted in the past.
08:41 It may simply be that the presumption was that this was going to be a war,
08:45 either in Spain, since the starting point of the war is Sagentum,
08:50 which is still some way from the Pyrenees in southern Spain.
08:55 However, Hannibal was like no other.
09:00 [music]
09:05 His daring plan was to cross the Alps in freezing winter.
09:10 [music]
09:19 With a force of 50,000 men and 37 elephants,
09:22 he led a campaign against the Gauls through the south of France and finally across the Alps.
09:28 [music]
09:55 In November of 218 BC, Hannibal's army reached the north of Italy.
10:01 [music]
10:06 A war which no one other than Hannibal had anticipated
10:10 was about to take place in the heart of Rome.
10:14 [music]
10:22 However, the Alpine crossing had taken a huge toll on Hannibal's forces as well.
10:27 [music]
10:30 His army of 50,000 men had been reduced to just 26,000.
10:34 [music]
10:44 As the weather turns against him, it becomes very snowy, very difficult.
10:49 Some men die of frostbite, of exposure.
10:52 Some of the animals, you have not just the men with the army,
10:55 and he loses most of his army by the time he gets there.
11:00 [music]
11:04 On the other hand, the Roman army awaiting Hannibal in Italy had 750,000 men.
11:10 Moreover, they were Roman soldiers, famous for their discipline and prowess in battle.
11:16 26,000 against 750,000.
11:20 Was Hannibal a madman leading his men to certain destruction?
11:24 [music]
11:28 Of course, Hannibal was no madman, but the greatest strategist of antiquity.
11:32 Hannibal had done a thorough analysis of war history.
11:36 His greatest role model was King Alexander,
11:39 who conquered the one million strong Persian army with just 36,000 men.
11:44 [music]
11:47 To understand Hannibal's strategy, we have to first understand
11:51 that Rome was not a single unified entity.
11:55 [music]
11:59 Rome in the 3rd century BC was a network of city-states, with Rome as its leader.
12:04 [music]
12:08 In the alliance were Latin cities similar to Rome,
12:11 and Greek cities with completely different origins.
12:14 [music]
12:17 There were even some Gauls, who were considered as barbarians back in those days.
12:22 [music]
12:24 They had been enemies at war with Rome just 20 to 30 years before.
12:28 [music]
12:33 A similar structure could be found in ancient Greece,
12:37 with an alliance of city-states, led by Athens.
12:42 Numerous city-states in the region took Athens as their alliance leader.
12:47 [music]
13:04 The same was true for Persia, the largest ancient empire.
13:08 [music]
13:11 Under the Persian hegemony were the Medians, the Egyptians,
13:16 Babylonians, Assyrians, Judeans, Venetians,
13:23 and Greeks coexisting in peace.
13:28 Thus the empire was not a cohesive unit.
13:32 In fact, it crumbled with surprising fragility with the loss of one major battle.
13:38 [music]
13:41 This was how King Alexander with his 36,000 men was able to defeat the 1 million strong Persian army.
13:49 [music]
13:59 King Alexander captured a resounding victory over Darius III in the Battle of Issus,
14:05 his first face-off against Persia.
14:08 [music]
14:19 This turned the Phoenicians, Egyptians, and Ionians over to his side.
14:24 [music]
14:33 When Darius III lost once again in Gagamela, the Mesopotamian region opened its doors to Alexander.
14:40 [music]
14:45 Persia was now isolated.
14:48 It was only a matter of time before it fell apart.
14:52 Hannibal came to Italy, but he saw it as Rome as a conqueror,
14:58 and then lots of other places who were Italian but weren't Roman.
15:02 And in his mind it was, well, why should you fight and you should die for Rome?
15:07 They are the conquerors, you are part of their empire, why stay with them?
15:13 And it's thinking the same way that Alexander could think when he came to Persia.
15:17 Hannibal's essential strategy was that of both quick victories and the presumption
15:22 that many of Rome's Gallic and Italian allies would almost immediately give up on Rome and join with Hannibal,
15:30 reversing that manpower imbalance and therefore making it essentially impossible for Rome to resist.
15:37 Hannibal wanted to recreate in Italy what Alexander had done in Persia.
15:47 If Hannibal could secure a firm victory over Rome, its allies would naturally fall behind Carthage lead.
15:57 If this was followed by one or two more victories, the Roman alliance would be dissolved
16:02 and Hannibal could take Rome easily.
16:07 The first battle took place in the Cisalpine Gaul, Rome's latest conquest.
16:26 Cisalpine Gaul, located in present day northern Italy, used to be occupied by Gauls.
16:33 In the second half of the third century, the Romans had begun to expand into the Po Valley.
16:45 They founded a couple of colonies up there and they had begun to take away the land of these Celtic tribes,
16:51 which had caused enormous antagonism and that they would want to avenge their defeat.
16:56 They would really want to drive the Romans out of the Po Valley and keep their land as it had been.
17:02 Rome sent its troops immediately to protect its control over the region.
17:13 However, it suffered a huge defeat in the Battle of the Trebia, the first battle between Hannibal and Rome.
17:21 The Roman army was nearly annihilated while Hannibal's troops had suffered minimal damages.
17:27 The same thing that took place in Persia after the Battle of Issus took place in the Cisalpine Gaul region.
17:37 The Gauls immediately renounced Rome and joined Hannibal's command.
17:42 In a single sweep, Hannibal's troops had increased to 50,000.
17:46 Hannibal's plan was to show mercy to all of Rome's allies in order to break apart the Roman alliance.
17:55 Hannibal declared, "My enemy is not the Roman alliance. Rome is my enemy.
18:05 I will set you free immediately. I won't even ask for money. Leave Rome and join Hannibal.
18:12 Hannibal will promise that nation its freedom, independence and safety."
18:19 Rome had lost hegemony over Gallia.
18:25 The second major battle against Hannibal's advancing army was about to begin.
18:32 The Battle of Lake Trasimene
18:37 The Battle of Lake Trasimene was yet another huge defeat for the Roman army.
18:42 Even the Roman consul, one of Rome's most powerful men, was killed in battle.
18:48 The basic outline that he had of using troops in different ways to sort of take advantage of what he knew the Romans were going to do
18:58 and put the Romans at a physical or psychological disadvantage.
19:01 And that understanding of the psychology of battle is one thing that is, I think, really very original with Hannibal.
19:08 The only other general, I think, we can see who had that ability to understand, to plan around the way men would react on the battlefield
19:17 was Alexander the Great, whose campaigns Hannibal had studied.
19:20 The Battle of Lake Trasimene
19:26 Hannibal, who had defeated the Roman army once again, continued his campaign.
19:31 This time, he chose to go around Rome and move into the south of Italy.
19:40 He had conquered the Gauls and Latins.
19:43 Now it was time to show the Greeks the might of Carthage.
19:47 Southern Italy was swept up in the merciless violence that Hannibal unleashed.
19:53 Hannibal pillaged and destroyed his way through Rome's allies in southern Italy.
19:57 And if the Romans won't fight him, then what he wants to do is march through their lands, burn their farmhouses, burn their villages, steal their cattle, eat their crops.
20:11 And that shows everybody that the Romans are weak.
20:14 It's like somebody coming into your house or your garden and stealing what they want, breaking anything they want.
20:21 It doesn't mean you'll starve, but it's humiliating.
20:24 Rome was also determined to put in everything it had this time.
20:30 Having elected the hawkish Varro as council, an order was given out for full mobilization.
20:36 The army consisted of 80,000 foot soldiers and 7,000 cavalrymen.
20:42 Among them were 80 senators, showing how determined Rome was to win.
20:47 [music]
20:57 Well, Varro was told to fight with Hannibal.
21:00 That was why he was elected.
21:03 But he really didn't have a choice in the matter.
21:07 He fought the battle at Cannae because that was the Roman strategy of the year, and that was what the two consuls had been told they needed to do.
21:16 They agreed they were going to do it.
21:18 [music]
21:21 In August of 216 BC, the two armies finally came head to head in Cannae.
21:27 The Persian Empire had collapsed after just two battles, Issus and Gaugomila.
21:33 Rome had already suffered two huge defeats.
21:37 It had not collapsed yet, but a third defeat would throw its fate into question.
21:45 Rome, just like Hannibal, was in for a fight to the death.
21:48 140,000 men had gathered in the plains of Cannae.
21:55 The largest number of troops ever gathered in the Italian peninsula.
22:00 This was the final battle that Hannibal had been waiting for.
22:05 Morning of August 2nd came around.
22:09 The Roman army set itself up in the right bank of the Ophidus River.
22:15 [music]
22:17 The Roman strategy was a head-on collision riding on its superior manpower.
22:25 Its 80,000 men, who outnumbered the Carthage army two to one, were concentrated in one area to charge at the enemy with brute force.
22:34 Hannibal's men also began to align themselves.
22:41 [music]
22:43 In contrast to the Romans, Hannibal's army took on a long, linear formation.
22:50 [music]
22:53 What was unique in Hannibal's battle formation was the way that he deployed his Celtic infantrymen in the center.
23:06 And he didn't line the army up straight.
23:10 What he did was he had the Celtic troops out in front of it.
23:13 And what this did was act like a magnet for the front of the Roman army.
23:17 Because what he wanted to do was to draw the Roman army in close.
23:21 So they're advancing on a wide front, but they see this group out here.
23:26 And so it's inevitable that they begin to press together.
23:30 Which is what Hannibal wanted.
23:32 Because he wanted them fighting without the proper intervals, which he knew would make them much more effective.
23:37 And so by putting the Gauls out that way, he drew the Romans further in, which gave his own cavalry better room to operate.
23:45 It was an absolutely brilliant plan.
23:47 [music]
23:49 The first row, made of Gallic troops, was backed up by heavily elite Carthaginian soldiers.
23:54 But they are completely separate from other Carthaginian armies.
24:00 They are Hannibal's army.
24:03 And they are all very good soldiers, and they are like a very good sports team.
24:07 That have practiced so well, they work together, and they trust each other.
24:12 [music]
24:14 This was not the only plan Hannibal had made.
24:17 He had yet another strategy, taken from King Alexander of Visle.
24:24 [music]
24:27 In order to go against the formidable Rome, Hannibal had analyzed the strategies of King Alexander.
24:35 He found out the secret behind Alexander's success against the Persian army.
24:41 That was the cavalry.
24:43 [music]
24:49 They do. The trick that Hannibal and Alexander both displays,
24:55 is that they use cavalry, but they use them with great care.
24:58 Because their army consists of very good cavalry, but also very good infantry.
25:03 It's a very well-balanced force. It's a coordinated force.
25:07 A force that supports each bit, is part of the team, is important.
25:13 And separately, they might be weak, but all together, they are far, far stronger than they would be.
25:22 It's the sort of army they have, and that has been quite rare in history.
25:26 [music]
25:31 While Hannibal had only half the number of foot soldiers,
25:34 he had the upper hand when it came to cavalry.
25:38 [music]
25:43 He had 10,000 horsemen as compared to the 7,000 in the Roman army.
25:49 Moreover, his cavalry were from nomadic tribes,
25:52 and so were far more powerful warriors than the Roman cavalry.
25:56 Hannibal placed his cavalry on the two ends of the linear formation.
26:00 With Alexander the Great, you have the famous Macedonian pikemen.
26:05 They go forward and they pin the enemy. They're pressuring him.
26:09 And then Alexander sees the weak spot and goes straight at the head of his cavalry right at that point.
26:14 Hannibal tends to use his cavalry to surround the Romans,
26:18 which is much smaller than the big Persian forces.
26:20 Hannibal understood the importance of the use of space on the battlefield.
26:24 This was a crucial aspect of his thinking,
26:28 and he needed more space for his cavalry to operate in,
26:32 and that's what this formation enabled him to do.
26:36 [music]
26:41 The battle began.
26:45 The Centralized Roman army clashed with Hannibal's first row of troops.
26:49 [music]
26:55 Hannibal's army began to retreat under the fire of Rome's fierce central attack.
27:01 [music]
27:05 "Draw the Romans onto me. Make them come into a fight quickly."
27:09 Which the Romans do. The Romans think, "Well, this is exactly what we want. Let's go forward."
27:14 [music]
27:16 However, the battle between the cavalry took an unexpected turn for the Romans.
27:21 [music]
27:31 Hannibal's cavalry, superior in numbers and skill, began to drive out the Romans.
27:37 [music]
27:46 The fight between the foot soldiers also began to take a turn for the worse.
27:51 [music]
27:53 As Hannibal's army retreated, the linear formation turned into a pocket surrounding the Roman army.
27:59 Elite Carthaginian soldiers appeared on their left and right.
28:04 The Roman army found itself under attack from three directions.
28:07 [music]
28:10 In the meantime, the Roman infantry keeps on going forward, but it's a mob. It's a crowd.
28:15 It's surging forward like people coming out of a football ground.
28:18 You know, those tens of thousands where you can't move and you're just going forward.
28:23 As they're doing that, Hannibal hits them on either side with his best men, his Libyans,
28:28 who are now equipped just like the Romans themselves, captured Roman equipment,
28:33 and they're like the jaws of a vice. They hit them on either side and stopped the Romans dead.
28:37 A crowd that stopped moving doesn't know what to do.
28:40 [music]
28:42 This was not the end. Hannibal's cavalry, which had already defeated the Roman cavalry, had returned.
28:49 It blocked the Roman army from the rear and began to attack.
28:53 The Roman army was completely surrounded, fighting a hopeless battle.
28:59 [music]
29:05 But those Romans aren't going to die easily.
29:08 And what follows is hours of slaughter, done face to face.
29:13 And you have to go face to face and kill each and every one of those Romans.
29:17 Those 50,000 men who die mostly die in the hours that follow.
29:22 [music]
29:34 It was the most crushing defeat in the history of Rome.
29:38 Over 50,000 men were killed.
29:41 Most of the 80 senators who took part in the battle were slain.
29:45 Rome had lost a third of its senators in just one day.
29:51 Among the fallen were some of Rome's most powerful men, including the council of Aemilius and former council Servilius.
29:59 [music]
30:01 Hannibal's path to Rome was now wide open.
30:05 [music]
30:09 Hannibal was certain that the Roman alliance would be stirring as a result of the resounding victory.
30:15 [music]
30:20 Hannibal divided his captives into Roman soldiers and soldiers from Rome's allies.
30:25 The Roman soldiers were slaughtered without fail.
30:29 [music]
30:31 Those from Rome's allies, however, were sent back to their homeland without even a request for ransom.
30:38 Hannibal had decided to wait for the Roman alliance to collapse.
30:43 Hannibal's brother Mago went to Carthage to report the victory at Cannae.
30:49 He laid the gold rings taken from the fallen Romans, which piled into a heap in the middle of the floor.
30:56 [music]
31:07 The Carthaginian senate was filled with cheers.
31:11 [music]
31:15 It took just two battles, the Issus and Gaugumilia, to fall Persia, the world's first empire.
31:21 This was because its allies all chose to secede from the Union.
31:26 Rome had been defeated thrice.
31:30 Everyone expected its allies to leave.
31:34 [music]
31:42 It was not considered betrayal for smaller states to leave an alliance.
31:46 It was a necessary choice to ensure their survival.
31:50 When the leader was shown to be weak, the allies left without hesitation.
31:56 The empire crumbled like a castle of cards.
32:00 It was now Rome's turn to fall.
32:05 The Battle of Trebia, Lake Trezimene, and Cannae, it had lost three times to Hannibal.
32:11 The course of history seemed to point to Rome's demise.
32:15 The leader of the alliance seemed too weak to protect its allies.
32:20 [music]
32:27 Hannibal toured southern Italy, waiting for the allies to secede from the alliance.
32:33 [music]
32:38 However, things did not go as he had hoped.
32:41 [music]
32:45 Rome's allies did not forsake Rome.
32:49 [music]
32:51 Even though some cities such as Capua in the Italian south turned against Rome, the majority of them remained strong.
32:58 They even fought to the death to protect Rome.
33:02 [music]
33:04 What was it that Rome had done?
33:07 Could it have been some kind of sorcery?
33:10 [music]
33:15 The secret was in Roman citizenship.
33:19 [music]
33:24 The roots of Rome lay in the infamous rape of the Sabine women, in which Roman men kidnapped Sabine women as wives.
33:31 This legendary incident became the subject of many famous paintings.
33:36 It is how the western tradition of grooms carrying their brides into the house began.
33:41 However, much less is known about what took place afterwards.
33:46 [music]
33:48 After the abduction of the Sabine women, the Sabines declared war on the Romans.
33:53 This was inevitable, after all, these were their own daughters.
33:57 [music]
34:04 However, the Romans emerged victorious after a series of four battles.
34:08 [music]
34:12 However, the victorious Romans accepted the defeated Sabines as Roman citizens.
34:18 Nobles became members of the Roman Senate.
34:22 The throne was taken jointly by the leaders of the two tribes.
34:26 Even from the very start, Rome had accepted its conquest as citizens on equal footing.
34:33 The Julius family of Julius Caesar and the Claudius family, which ruled Rome from Augustus' reign,
34:39 were also from tribes which had been conquered by Rome.
34:43 [silence]
34:48 And then, let me just give you one other example where the Romans are really very different from everybody else.
34:54 It's the treatment of slaves.
34:58 Here's your cook, here's your gardener, here's your janitor, here's your nanny for your kids, babysitter.
35:04 They usually got freedom after ten years.
35:08 And then they, both men and women, and here's what happens, that's the really interesting part.
35:14 Then they become what's called freed men or freed women.
35:18 They're not citizens, but guess what? Their children are.
35:23 There's an automatic system in Rome for incorporating new people into the Roman DNA, in the Roman bloodstream.
35:34 And that's unprecedented, and I think it made Rome as effective and long-lasting.
35:41 It's not that the origin of the individual is an issue, or their culture, or their background, or their religion.
35:50 None of that is the consideration. The consideration is simply, what have you done in relation to Rome?
35:55 [silence]
35:57 In this way, Rome is similar to the present-day superpower, the United States.
36:02 [music]
36:06 The US is the most multiracial country in the world,
36:10 where people from all over the world coexist in a melting pot of cultures.
36:15 The racial composition of the US is truly diverse, with whites, blacks, Asians, and Hispanics from Central and Southern America.
36:25 [music]
36:28 But they are all Americans, with American citizenship.
36:32 [music]
36:39 Rome was the same.
36:43 Among its allies were Latins, such as the Sabines,
36:46 [music]
36:48 along with Greeks, like the Tarentums and Regios.
36:52 [music]
36:54 There were even barbaric Gauls, who were also given Roman citizenship.
37:00 [music]
37:02 They were very much incorporated in the Roman system,
37:07 and they saw themselves as part of this great power.
37:11 You're a small town, for instance, with 10,000 people,
37:15 but you know that through your alliance with Rome, you're part of a world power.
37:19 And cities are encouraged, this is something they're proud of.
37:23 Here's where it may come from.
37:25 The Romans always believed, from the very start,
37:28 that they had a dual origin, in terms of, call it ethnics or race.
37:34 Who is one of their ancestors? That's Aeneas.
37:37 That's Virgil's Aeneid, the national epic.
37:40 He is from Troy.
37:42 So he is the one that says, "Yeah, this is our Asiatic ancestor."
37:46 And then you have the one that is named after Rome, that is Romulus.
37:51 And he is from Italy, he is native.
37:54 But you always have that mix.
37:56 See, they always considered themselves a mixed nation.
37:59 And this is why they're so open to other cultures.
38:03 You know, coming in.
38:04 The last tribe that remained fighting against Roman hegemony was the Samnites.
38:11 The Samnites were a powerful hilltop tribe that defeated the Romans in many battles,
38:20 in a war that lasted 40 years.
38:23 A 40-year-long war would have driven a permanent wedge of hatred between the two nations.
38:32 However, Rome chose to give the Samnites citizenship as well, after finally completing its conquest.
38:38 In fact, it didn't stop at just citizenship.
38:43 In 263 BC, when Rome was at war with Carthage,
38:49 Aurelius Crassus was elected as a council of Rome.
38:54 He was not born a Roman.
38:57 He was a commoner from the Samnium tribe.
39:01 He had gained Roman citizenship and become Rome's top military commander.
39:07 It was only 20 years after the Samnites had surrendered.
39:12 Such tolerance was not found anywhere else in the ancient world.
39:18 The uniqueness of Rome is made even clearer when compared to Athens,
39:22 which was Rome's predecessor as hegemon of the Aegean and Mediterranean seas.
39:28 AGEAN SEA
39:30 As leader of the Delian League, Athens had control over the Aegean Sea
39:35 and was acting as a de facto empire in the region.
39:38 However, its citizenship policy was very different from Rome's.
39:56 Citizenship was given to babies, only if both parents were citizens.
40:02 People from other cities and those who had one Athenian parent were excluded from citizenship.
40:10 Even the son of the great statesman Pericles,
40:14 who established the Golden Age of Athens, was not allowed citizenship.
40:18 This was because he was born to a second wife who was not Athenian.
40:23 ATHENIAN CITIZENS
40:26 So when Athenians included other Greek islands into their growing empire,
40:32 they did not even open them a route to citizenship.
40:38 So that means that those other polis, city-states,
40:47 they basically felt like second-class citizens, which they were,
40:52 but they did not feel as cooperative as in the Roman case,
40:58 because there was no route for them to become one of us.
41:01 SPARTA
41:04 Sparta, Athens' greatest rival, was even more exclusionist when it came to citizenship.
41:09 In the early days, Sparta divided its land into 9,000 plots,
41:15 granting citizenship only to the 9,000 with land.
41:19 In later generations, citizenship was granted only to those with both parents who were citizens.
41:24 Foreigners were not welcome.
41:28 Plato was a great admirer of Sparta when he ruled the Republic,
41:36 but keep in mind, he did not move there, so there are limits.
41:40 It's not a magnet for people to move in there and participate in all the opportunities.
41:48 So they are very, they kind of stick to themselves. They are very limited.
41:52 In contrast to Rome, the number of Spartan citizens kept dwindling.
41:59 In 480 BC, at the height of its power, Sparta had 8,000 citizens.
42:07 By 371 BC, just 100 years later, this number had dwindled to about 1,000.
42:17 As strong, legendary warriors as they were, they could not remain powerful with just 1,000 citizens.
42:23 Thus Persia, Athens, and Sparta, which were unable to accept foreigners into their midst,
42:34 fell as soon as they suffered defeat in major battle.
42:38 Their allies left them for a more powerful hegemon.
42:42 Rome was different.
42:45 Rome was not a ruler that they were serving temporarily.
42:48 They were citizens of Rome.
42:51 Rome was their motherland.
42:55 Let's now return to Hannibal.
43:13 Hannibal now faced a quandary.
43:15 His entire campaign, wrought through the bitter cold of the Alps, was about to go to naught.
43:22 Alexander's strategy, which had worked so brilliantly in Persia, had failed Hannibal in Italy.
43:36 Rome had now changed its strategy, learning from their mistakes at Cannae.
43:40 Fabius, long-time proponent of a drawn-out strategy, was appointed as dictator, the highest wartime commander.
43:52 Fabius, long-time proponent of a drawn-out strategy, was appointed as dictator, the highest wartime commander.
44:20 Fabius is unique in Roman history because he says, "No, I'm not going to do that for my glory.
44:26 What I'm going to do is the best thing for the state, and I'm going to keep the army safe, and I'm going to weaken Hannibal.
44:32 And in the end, we'll be strong enough to beat him, or his army will just wither and it will all die."
44:37 With the Mediterranean Sea under Rome's control, it was impossible to obtain support from Carthage.
44:47 Over the course of ten years, Carthage had only been able to send a single batch of reinforcements.
44:53 Hannibal had no choice but to continue fighting in the Italian south with his dwindling troops.
45:01 The Second Punic War
45:05 The Second Punic War entered into a stage of lull after Cannae.
45:22 Even with repeated losses, the Roman alliance remained intact.
45:28 The great strategist of antiquity was now at a loss.
45:31 Once he realized it was impossible to dissolve the Roman alliance, Hannibal must have fallen into despair.
45:39 It had become impossible for Hannibal to end the war.
45:43 Only Rome had the power to end it.
45:47 Finally, a great general who could bring the war to an end was born in Rome.
45:57 His name was Scipio.
46:00 "He trains his army, then he's very aggressive. He always surprises the enemy.
46:15 He's learnt from the enemy. He starts to see, well, Hannibal has always outwitted us.
46:19 He's always done what we least expect. So how about I do that back to the Carthaginians?
46:25 He then defeats Hannibal's brother and then the other Carthaginian commanders in Spain,
46:30 almost doing what Hannibal had done at Cannae.
46:33 He weakens his centre, makes his wings strong and he envelops them.
46:37 His army becomes as good and then better than Hannibal's own."
46:42 In the summer of 216 BC, the final battle began in Zama, south-western Carthage.
46:53 Scipio vanquished Hannibal using Hannibal's own strategy.
46:56 Although Zama was Hannibal's only defeat, he ended up losing the war.
47:03 "And in the battle of Zama, he fights like Hannibal does and Hannibal doesn't have an answer
47:10 because he's lost all the advantages and it becomes a slogging match,
47:15 but Scipio wins because he's got the better army."
47:22 With the defeat of Carthage, the Mediterranean Sea was completely Rome's for the taking.
47:27 Rome could finally begin its imperial ascent.
47:32 The Hannibalic War had been Rome's greatest crisis,
47:37 but it became Rome's first step towards its rise as a global empire.
47:42 Rome's first step towards its rise as a global empire
47:45 "All of this was possible because Rome had a powerful social structure
47:57 which could not be destroyed by a few lost battles.
48:01 The power of its social structure came from the power to assimilate,
48:08 even the conquered, the power of Roman citizenship."
48:12 On April 14, 193 BC, Septimius Severus became the new emperor of Rome.
48:23 He was the first emperor from northern Africa.
48:27 In fact, he was from Carthage, the homeland of Hannibal.
48:33 Rome was a nation which could accept the son of a former enemy
48:37 even one that had driven it to the brink of collapse as its emperor.
48:41 At the time, two-thirds of the senate were made up of people from outside of Rome.
48:50 The Battle of Carthage
48:55 The Battle of Carthage
49:00 The Battle of Carthage
49:04 The Battle of Carthage
49:09 The Battle of Carthage
49:15 The Battle of Carthage
49:21 The Battle of Carthage
49:28 The Battle of Carthage
49:33 The Battle of Carthage
49:39 The Battle of Carthage
49:47 (upbeat music)