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00:02On the banks of the river Tiber, according to legend, a city was founded in 753 BC, Rome.
00:10For a thousand years it ruled the Western world.
00:14The Romans created an infrastructure capable of sustaining a vast empire and mass production,
00:21centuries before the Industrial Revolution.
00:26In this programme, we're going to examine how the Romans managed to do so much, so long ago.
00:32Here at my base in Britain, I'll be trying out some of the extraordinary achievements of ancient Rome
00:37with master craftsman Marty Johnson.
00:40A little bit more, a little bit more.
00:43And I've sent reporter Armani Zane to Italy to explore the birthplace of the empire
00:50and to discover the archaeological evidence for some of Rome's spectacular history.
01:19Rome was the epicentre of the ancient world.
01:23Her empire stretched from the Sahara Desert to Scotland, from Syria to Spain.
01:30To conquer and hold on to these far-flung lands,
01:33the Romans built up the best organised fighting force in the ancient world.
01:38A professional, salaried army, carrying with it the civilising mission of Rome.
01:49MUSIC PLAYS
01:54Armani is in Rome with enthusiasts who've come from all over the world
01:58to celebrate the founding of the city and the might of the Roman army.
02:06The attention to detail was there at every level,
02:09from the deployment of the massive legions right down to the individual soldiers,
02:14each one a well-equipped fighting machine.
02:18This helmet fits really snugly and would have saved a lot of skulls from being crushed.
02:22The upper body armour, the Lorica,
02:25would have protected the soldier without restricting his ability to move.
02:28This is Simon from the 2nd Augusta Legion, and he's an optio,
02:32which means that he's a rank above your bog-standard soldier.
02:34This is the gladius, the short stabbing sword.
02:38It's used in conjunction with a shield called a scutum.
02:40The shield is used to defend while the sword is used to attack.
02:45And your sandals, they're made of leather, right?
02:48They are, they're real leather, and they have studs underneath,
02:51which is ideal for marching on off to road.
02:55They needed sturdy sandals.
02:57As part of their training,
02:58Roman soldiers did one 18-mile route march every month,
03:02a sure way to keep the men fit.
03:06Then there was the drill.
03:08Constant repetition meant that Roman soldiers automatically did in battle
03:11what they'd learnt during training.
03:12It was rare for a soldier to panic or flee.
03:15This is one of the things that made the Roman army
03:17such an effective military machine.
03:22Of course, there was always the fear of what might happen to you
03:25if you didn't obey orders.
03:27Discipline was legendary,
03:29and a sentry could be clubbed or stoned to death
03:31simply for falling asleep on guard duty.
03:33But the Romans also came up with more inventive punishments.
03:39Perhaps the most gruesome was decimation.
03:42For some serious offences, every tenth man in the cohort,
03:46randomly chosen, was executed by his comrades.
03:50It's where our word decimate comes from.
03:55The efficiency of the soldiers was matched by that of their weapons.
04:00These reliefs on Trajan's Column in Rome
04:03show one of the most effective, the arch-strut catapult.
04:07It was used by the Emperor Trajan
04:09in a critical campaign against the barbarian hordes
04:12in what is now Romania.
04:15Alan Wilkins here designs Roman field artillery.
04:18You haven't actually been around since the 1st century AD.
04:20Not quite.
04:20No.
04:21And this is the catapulta,
04:23which essentially they inherited from the Greeks.
04:25Yes.
04:25Almost unchanged.
04:26What's the pulling power of this?
04:29About a tonne.
04:30About a tonne.
04:31So this is about 20 times more powerful than an ordinary bow.
04:37That means pull back the arms.
04:39Many weapons like this one were based on Greek designs,
04:42but the Romans made them even more lethal.
04:45Put the arrow in.
04:50Shoot!
04:53Fantastic shot.
04:54Right in the chest.
04:56If that hits you, like that in the chest,
04:58would it kill you outright?
04:59Oh, yes.
04:59It'll rupture all your internal organs.
05:01A shockwave is tremendous going right through the body.
05:05But the wooden frame was easily damaged
05:07and it also made the weapon difficult to aim.
05:18But this is the new Roman improvement.
05:21The Manu Ballista was made of metal,
05:24more portable than the wooden catapulta
05:26and easier to repair.
05:28Even the bolts were more lethal.
05:30These are wooden flights instead of the old leather ones.
05:33Right.
05:34And these are muscle rippers.
05:36Put the arrow in.
05:38Removing the central strut gave a clear view of an approaching enemy.
05:44But bolts weren't much good against stone walls,
05:46which is why they came up with the honour gun.
05:51It has a kick like a wild ass.
05:54At full size, this beast could have thrown stones of 26 kilograms.
05:59A sustained attack would easily have destroyed fortifications.
06:03Looking bad.
06:04Yes.
06:09So there you are.
06:10There are three good reasons why the Roman army was so victorious.
06:16The Romans had to march their army around the empire quickly and easily
06:20and they had to keep those legions supplied,
06:23which meant they had to build really good roads.
06:28And their road building was magnificent.
06:30They built 370 separate roads
06:33with a total length of something like 50,000 miles.
06:37That's all the way around the world, twice.
06:42And, of course, nearly all the roads led to Rome.
06:48The traffic here in Rome is overwhelming.
06:51But even in ancient times, it was so bad
06:53that they had to put up stop signs and create one-way streets.
06:57Julius Caesar even banned wheeled vehicles from the city during the day.
07:00Maybe I should just take a trip out of the city.
07:03Ciao.
07:07I'm heading for the Appian Way, Rome's oldest road,
07:10and a place, I'm told, is still thick with antiquity.
07:21The Appian Way was built in 312 BC
07:25and connected Rome with Capua.
07:27It was later extended further south to Brindisi.
07:35In just 200 years,
07:37the Appian Way became Rome's main route to her eastern empire
07:41and was named after the man who built it,
07:44Appius Claudius Caicus.
07:46He was a man of many talents,
07:49soldier, statesman, legal expert and writer.
07:53The road became known as Regina Viarum,
07:57the Queen of Roads.
08:04Today, you might come here for a quiet stroll.
08:072,000 years ago, it was a busy highway
08:09used by soldiers, traders and functionaries
08:13of the imperial administration.
08:15The one thing you can't miss,
08:17and the Romans were famous for it,
08:18is just how straight this road is.
08:20And you can still see the ruts made by centuries of cart and chariot traffic.
08:25Now, the surface of the road is made of blocks of basalt
08:28that would have fitted together smoothly when it was first laid.
08:31It's extraordinary how durable they are,
08:33considering they've been in use for thousands of years.
08:40The infrastructure of the empire was so important
08:43that they put as much effort into building roads
08:46as they did into building temples.
08:49Many roads today still follow the old Roman ones,
08:53which take the most direct route from one city to the next.
08:59And it isn't just in Italy that their roads have lasted.
09:02Even today, the imprint of Roman roads
09:04is obvious all over the British landscape.
09:10Now, we're going to build a bit of Roman road.
09:12Here we are.
09:13We've cheated a bit with a machine to start it off.
09:16So, Chris, can you take it away?
09:18From now on, we're going to do it the Roman way.
09:20What we've done is to build, first, two ditches.
09:24Each of these ditches is two foot wide,
09:26and that was for drainage,
09:28and we put all the earth in the middle.
09:30We need to break up the clods of earth
09:32and make a camber,
09:34so rain will drain off into those ditches.
09:48Now, what we need to do is start the metalling
09:51to make a hard surface.
09:52And, of course, we don't use metal.
09:54What we use is stone, stuff like this.
09:56They might have used iron slag or concrete,
09:58but usually just rough stones.
10:01It's no surprise that Roman roads have lasted so long.
10:04They tackled them with the same thoroughness
10:06as any other engineering project.
10:21Finally, we spread gravel on top to make a smooth and compact surface.
10:28So that's really good.
10:30It's a little bit soft at the moment.
10:32It needs to be trodden down by a few thousand legionaries
10:35with their hobnail sandals and, of course, a few carts.
10:39And although gravel looks a bit soft,
10:41once it's been compressed into that layer of stones underneath,
10:44it'll form a hard, almost waterproof surface.
10:47Now, the roads varied a bit round the empire.
10:49Sometimes they had curb stones.
10:51Sometimes, coming into cities, they actually put flagstones on
10:54so it looked really smart and grand.
10:56But this is your average cross-country route.
11:00Shoulder arms.
11:01Ready, quick, march.
11:04Sit, sit, sit, sit, sit, sit, sit.
11:11They say that a soldier marches on his stomach
11:13and the Roman stomach was mainly full of bread.
11:17It was their staple food.
11:19They needed tonnes of it.
11:20At the height of the empire, the city of Rome
11:22had around half a million inhabitants.
11:24Most didn't have their own ovens,
11:26so they must have relied on vast central bakeries.
11:34Here I am in a pizza restaurant.
11:36This is really hard work.
11:38And unlike Paolo here, I'm no expert.
11:40Now, the Romans didn't have pizzas.
11:42There weren't any tomatoes for a start.
11:44But they did enjoy a soft loaf as much as we do.
11:47Kneading gives the bread a lighter and finer texture.
11:50Can you imagine kneading enough dough
11:52to feed half a million people or more?
11:54It really would have helped if the Romans had something
11:56to do the work for them.
11:57Well, they did.
11:58I think I'm going to leave this to the experts
12:00and go and find out about the Roman baking process.
12:05Come and start.
12:06On the other side of town,
12:08there's something that contains clues
12:09as to how they were able to produce bread
12:11on such a large scale.
12:20This curious monument is a tomb of a baker called Eurystiches.
12:24There's his name.
12:25And there's the word for baker.
12:28Now, judging by the size of this monument,
12:30he must have made some serious money making bread.
12:35The frieze along the top shows the various stages
12:38of bread making in ancient Rome.
12:40From donkey-powered grinding and kneading machines
12:43to making lobes with the dough.
12:48The round holes on this tomb have mystified scholars for years.
12:52Were they flour bins or ovens?
12:54Or more recently, it's been suggested
12:56that they're mechanical kneading machines.
12:58If so, then the fact that so many of them
13:00are stacked one on top of the other
13:02suggests how important this device was.
13:06Now, I've been doing my research
13:07and I've found somewhere where we can see the real thing.
13:15This is Ostia, Rome's former port,
13:17at the mouth of the river Tiber.
13:19So much of it has survived
13:21that you can almost imagine the busy, bustling town
13:24it must have once been.
13:31This is what I've come to see,
13:32one of the large bakeries.
13:34Here are the mills for grinding grain.
13:36There's loads of them, production on a big scale.
13:39They were driven around by donkeys
13:41and you can even see their hoof marks
13:42on some of the stones.
13:45Now, if you come through here...
13:50..these are the remains
13:51of the mechanical kneading machines.
13:53The stone parts of the kneading machines have survived,
13:56but the working parts inside were made of wood
13:59and they haven't.
14:00So, using archaeological evidence from other sites,
14:03we've made our own small-scale kneading machine.
14:07In the pots, there are holes in the side
14:09with pegs sticking in.
14:11OK.
14:13And then, what we think they put inside
14:15is some paddles.
14:17Yeah.
14:17And then, if you're the sort of...
14:19OK, I'm the pegs.
14:20..the pegs, as this rotates...
14:22..slots between the pegs like that...
14:24And squadges the dough through.
14:26And squadges and squishes the dough
14:27and mixes everything up and kneads the dough.
14:29I've got my own version of that
14:31and I've put holes in my paddles
14:33because I think the three paddles like that,
14:35which is the sort of the classical interpretation,
14:37isn't enough.
14:38So, this is my version of it.
14:39So, you think that'll be better?
14:40I think this'll be better and frustrating.
14:41Well, in which case, I think we ought to try them out.
14:52You can see where the modern food mixer comes from.
14:56In fact, Marty's modified paddle
14:59doesn't seem to make any difference.
15:04And it's certainly working.
15:06I mean, if you look at this, I've now got...
15:09This is now a proper look.
15:10This is now elastic dough.
15:12You can see that it's squidgy.
15:14It's doing pretty good, isn't it?
15:15That's really nice.
15:16That's really nice, yes.
15:17It's really stretchy.
15:22I would have bought another five minutes of this
15:24and it'll be ready to go in the oven.
15:27This is hard work.
15:29No wonder the Romans used animals.
15:32Are there any donkeys out there?
15:39So, mass production of bread
15:41was a key to feeding the vast population of Roman cities.
15:49Ensuring that his people were well-fed
15:51was one way for an emperor to boost his popularity.
15:56The other was to keep them entertained.
15:59To give them, according to one writer,
16:01panem et kirkenseis, bread and circuses.
16:06And we're not talking about clowns.
16:12Emperors, terrified of unrest among the urban masses,
16:16hoped that lavish spectacle would distract them.
16:19Chariot races and gladiator fights
16:21were as popular as football is today.
16:29I'm in a bar in the heart of Rome,
16:31where the home teams are playing.
16:33And the atmosphere is electric.
16:35So far, it's won all, and it could go either way.
16:38Games in ancient Rome aroused as many passions
16:40as they do today.
16:49Gladiators were the Roman equivalent
16:51of today's footballers, celebrities in their own right,
16:54and held in equally high regard.
16:57But the place best known
16:59for its lavish gladiatorial spectacles
17:01is here, the Coliseum.
17:09The Coliseum is at the very heart of Rome.
17:12Built by the emperor Vespasian
17:14and inaugurated in 80 AD,
17:17it was the greatest amphitheatre ever seen
17:19and a marvel of Roman engineering.
17:24It was where gladiators would fight to the death,
17:27where men overpowered animals
17:29or were killed themselves.
17:33The animals, and the more exotic the better,
17:36were brought to Rome from all over the empire.
17:39During the opening games,
17:415,000 were killed in just one day.
17:47The spectators enjoyed watching the gladiators die
17:50as much as they enjoyed seeing the animals killed.
17:59The Roman attitude towards gladiators was ambivalent.
18:03They were often criminals or prisoners of war,
18:06yet they had huge popular and sexual appeal.
18:10According to Graffiti and Pompeii,
18:13the gladiator was the man the girls sigh for.
18:20But even more spectacular for the average Roman
18:23must have been a day at the races.
18:26This is the Circus Maximus,
18:28where the Romans held their chariot races.
18:29It was the biggest and oldest arena in Rome.
18:35There were four separate teams in ancient Rome,
18:38each with its own colour.
18:40Rivalry between them and their fans was fierce,
18:42and huge sums were spent acquiring the best charioteers.
18:47In its heyday,
18:48this place could seat over a quarter of a million people.
18:51You can just imagine the atmosphere of a crowd that size
18:54cheering its favourite chariot driver on.
19:01Each charioteer would have four horses.
19:04Controlling them at full gallop was no mean feat,
19:07especially when you had to do seven treacherous laps.
19:15Successful charioteers became celebrities,
19:18but life expectancy was low.
19:20Crashes were frequent,
19:22especially at the turning posts,
19:23the metai,
19:24where the chariots made their 180-degree turn.
19:37Just like in sports today,
19:39the ancient Roman games and races were so popular
19:42that a whole industry of souvenir merchandise
19:44developed around them.
19:47Such as this glass beaker,
19:49which celebrates the achievements of the most famous charioteers.
19:54The Romans really revolutionised the way we use glass.
19:58They transformed it from a luxury to an everyday item.
20:03That's because, as with so many other things,
20:05the Romans learnt how to mass produce it.
20:08So, it became cheaper and more widely available.
20:13And, what's more,
20:15they learnt how to make colourless, transparent glass like this.
20:18And so, it improved the look of their favourite tipple, wine.
20:24The Romans could do all this because of glass blowing.
20:28The technique was discovered in the 1st century BC,
20:31probably in Syria.
20:33And once the Romans had perfected the art,
20:35they were able to produce souvenirs
20:37like the so-called circus beaker.
20:40This reproduction is based on fragments in the Colchester Museum.
20:45The detail is truly amazing.
20:49There are four horses and the driver,
20:51he's called Hyrax.
20:53And it actually says Hyrax-va, meaning go, Hyrax!
20:57And here is Eutychus, and this means the lucky one.
21:01But actually, he clearly wasn't the lucky one,
21:02because if you look at Olympia,
21:04you can see that he is holding up a laurel wreath.
21:06So, he actually won this race.
21:08Down at the bottom, there are animals,
21:10because they also held animal hunts in the same arena.
21:15So, this was the most magnificent piece of tourist tat, Roman style.
21:21Now, in his workshop,
21:23Mark Taylor is going to show how Roman glassblowers
21:26would have made the beaker.
21:29So, you've got a big chunk of molten glass on there.
21:31This is just a hollow tube, yes?
21:33That's right, this is just a blowing iron.
21:37Wow, so now you're...
21:39I'm marvering the glass,
21:41both to centre it on the iron,
21:44and to...
21:46cool down the surface.
21:48Right.
21:49And I'll continue that process with the pad of paper.
21:52Is that newspaper?
21:54Yes, that's right.
21:54Wet?
21:55Wet.
21:55Yeah, and the glass rise on the steam that's produced.
22:00Hang on a sec, you blow and then stick your thumb over the end?
22:02Yeah, that's a technique called thumbing out.
22:08And it's the quick and easy way to start the bubble off.
22:11It's a bit like when you're starting to blow up a brand new balloon.
22:14And the first bit is really difficult.
22:15Right.
22:16So now you're blowing continuously.
22:18That's right, I'm just enlarging the bubble.
22:20And I'll just flatten the sides a little bit.
22:23Now I have to reheat this, so...
22:26Just soften it up a bit.
22:27That's right, so that the glass will expand into the mould
22:30when I blow the glass into the mould.
22:34OK.
22:35Right.
22:36Right, it's ready now.
22:40OK.
22:47Oh, that's wonderfully simple.
22:49There you go.
22:50Oh, fantastic.
22:51That is amazing.
22:52The process takes just a few minutes.
22:55It's easy to imagine how the Romans changed glassmaking
22:58from a craft into an industry.
23:06Glass soon moved away from being purely decorative
23:09to being functional.
23:11Sheets of glass were used to keep the heat in.
23:14And one place they used it extensively
23:16was in their bathhouses.
23:26There's nothing the Romans loved better than bathing.
23:29I'm an ostia to talk to Janet Delane
23:31about how the Roman bathhouse worked.
23:39So these are the forum baths?
23:41Yes, these are the grandest, most spectacular baths
23:44that Ostia has to offer.
23:46We have five rooms altogether,
23:49all different sorts of temperatures,
23:50from a room where you can take a sun bath
23:53to dry, sweating rooms,
23:56different types of dry saunas,
23:57and then, finally, you have the heated pools,
24:00which is where you wash off.
24:07So this is one of the heated rooms.
24:09Wow, this is massive.
24:10And those are the windows?
24:12Yeah.
24:12Given that we need as much sunlight in these rooms
24:15to help with the heating,
24:16the windows are obviously enormous,
24:18but that also creates problems,
24:20as we know in Britain,
24:21from the loss of heat as well as the gain.
24:24So the Romans invented double glazing.
24:28It's incredible to think
24:30that the Romans came up with double glazing
24:322,000 years ago.
24:34The clues here are the two lines of notches
24:36that held metal frames,
24:38which supported the two sheets of glass.
24:40The space between them provided insulation.
24:46The whole bathhouse was heated by a clever network of channels,
24:50carrying hot air under the floors
24:52and through the hollow tiles in the walls.
24:55You can still feel the air.
24:56Yes, absolutely.
24:57The draft is still coming under the floor.
25:00So this room isn't a bath, and it's more like a sauna?
25:03Yeah, absolutely.
25:05Sometimes, like here at Bath,
25:07they'd use naturally hot springs.
25:10More often, the fires that heated the air
25:13also heated the water,
25:14which circulated around the baths.
25:16Their heat exchange system,
25:18which exploited a simple principle of physics,
25:21allowed hot water to circulate without a pump.
25:24The Romans called their heat exchange system
25:28Testudines alveolorum,
25:29means tortoise-shaped tank,
25:31because it was the shape of a tortoise
25:32underneath the bath.
25:33And we've got one rigged up.
25:35What's this thing, Marty?
25:36Well, this is for your bathing pleasure.
25:37It's not very much like a tortoise.
25:39It's not.
25:39It's a jerry can over a fire.
25:41Right.
25:41The fire's heating the water in the jerry can,
25:43and the jerry can is plumbed into this bath
25:45with two sets of pipes.
25:47The water gets hot in the jerry can.
25:48It rises, it comes through the pipes at the top,
25:52flows into the bath.
25:53As it cools, it drops,
25:54sinks down through the pipes at the bottom,
25:56and goes back in,
25:57and you get a nice circulation going through.
26:01It doesn't feel too bad.
26:02So what's the temperature actually like?
26:03Well, the temperature at the bottom
26:06is about 33 degrees.
26:09That is Celsius, so it's not freezing.
26:11Good.
26:12And the water that's coming in
26:14is coming in at...
26:15Oh, that's quite good.
26:17It's over 40.
26:17Tid over blood heat.
26:19Right, excellent.
26:20OK.
26:20What I need to do is...
26:21Marty thinks that a drop of blue dye in the jerry can
26:23should help us see how the bath water circulates.
26:27Not a sign of it.
26:29Give me a chance.
26:30No blue in sight.
26:32The great thing about this system, you see,
26:34is because the fire's separated from the bath,
26:37it won't burn your bum.
26:38Oh, well, I agree, that's a good thing.
26:40See, blue dye...
26:40Oh, hey, hey, there is blue dye coming out.
26:45And you can see it's going all the way along the surface.
26:47Yep, moving along the surface and dropping down.
26:49So that proves that convection works.
26:51Hang on a sec.
26:52Would you like to just turn away?
26:54Point the other way.
26:55Yeah, and you.
26:57Oh, that's very pleasant.
27:00The Romans didn't just use their baths for getting clean.
27:03They went there to socialise.
27:04The men would go in the evening
27:06and they would wash, but they would chat,
27:08they would play games,
27:09and, of course, they'd have a drink or two.
27:11Thanks very much.
27:12That's the right sort of stuff, bubbly.
27:14Hmm.
27:15That's actually warmer than the bath.
27:18Hmm.
27:27Roman baths needed one other obvious resource,
27:30a good supply of water.
27:31When local springs couldn't supply enough,
27:34the Romans rose to the challenge
27:36and brought water from wherever they could find it.
27:39In fact, managing to supply water to all their citizens
27:43was a key to the success of the expanding empire.
27:53This is a Trevi fountain,
27:55one of the city's most famous.
27:57It was built in the 18th century,
27:59but did you know it's supplied by a 2,000-year-old aqueduct?
28:02With its bathhouses and public fountains,
28:05water was fundamental to the Roman way of life.
28:07And when it came to water supply,
28:09the Romans were centuries ahead of their time.
28:14The Romans also had fountains.
28:16They must have loved displaying their water
28:18at a time when most southern European towns
28:21would have been very short of it.
28:30By the 3rd century AD,
28:33Rome had 11 aqueducts,
28:35each carrying water from a natural spring or river,
28:38often a long way away.
28:39Many reached Rome on great arcades across the plains.
28:44Roman historian Pliny described them
28:47as the greatest wonder the world has ever seen.
28:53The Roman aqueducts were some of the finest examples
28:56of their engineering skill, and they thought so too.
28:58There was a chap called Sextus Julius Frontinus,
29:01who became water commissioner for Rome in AD 97.
29:05And he wrote in his book De Aqueductu Urbis Romae,
29:09I asked you,
29:10just compare the vast monuments of this vital aqueduct network
29:14with those useless pyramids,
29:16or the good-for-nothing tourist attractions of the Greeks.
29:24One of the key things about building a good aqueduct
29:27is to get your gradient right,
29:29the slope of the channel.
29:30If it's too shallow,
29:32you get terrible deposits building up,
29:34and the water will never flow properly.
29:36If it's too steep,
29:37then the water comes sloshing down,
29:39and it'll erode it all away.
29:41And if you have changes in gradient like that,
29:43it'll come sloshing down here,
29:45and then you'll get a little build-up,
29:46and it'll slosh over the sides,
29:48and it doesn't work very well.
29:49So the Romans like to keep a good, steady gradient all the way along,
29:53anywhere between about 1 in 50 and 1 in 1,000,
29:55if they had a long way to go.
29:57We've built our own aqueduct to see how it works,
30:00especially crossing a deep valley.
30:02We're using wine instead of water because it shows up better.
30:06So, Marty, what sort of gradient have you got?
30:08Well, we chose a gradient of 1 in 50 the whole way down.
30:11All the way down?
30:11All the way down to the bottom.
30:12So we get a nice, quick flow of wine.
30:14So you get a nice, quick wine flow down.
30:16You've chosen a steepish gradient, basically.
30:17Yeah.
30:19Right, hang on a sec.
30:21There's a gap.
30:22It's not going to jump, you know.
30:23No, it's not going to jump.
30:24This is what they called an inverted siphon.
30:26The Romans were quite keen on these
30:27because when they were building an aqueduct
30:29and they had a huge chasm to sort of get across,
30:32a big valley that was too big to put a bridge across,
30:34what you would do is build one of these, right?
30:38You had a header tank here...
30:39OK.
30:40..so that the wine, in your case, builds up here,
30:42comes down here, flows along here, goes up here...
30:45It's got to go uphill here?
30:47Yes.
30:47Well, even wine doesn't flow uphill.
30:48No, but it does when you...
30:50So long as you maintain the gradient
30:52so that this tank up here, this header tank,
30:54is higher slightly than this receiving tank here.
30:57So it's got the pressure to push the wine up.
30:59Exactly.
31:01Well, it's beginning.
31:04It's trickling down here.
31:06Oh, it's gone over the joint.
31:09It's certainly running at a reasonable speed
31:11in your 1 in 50 gradient.
31:13It's flowing quite quick.
31:14Going well.
31:15Now!
31:16Now the inverted siphon.
31:18It's going down.
31:19There's a lot of bubbling.
31:21It's going down.
31:22It's coming up again.
31:23It's coming up the other side.
31:24It's flowing uphill.
31:25Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
31:27Fantastic!
31:31The Romans actually built a whole lot of their aqueducts underground.
31:36Partly to keep them clean,
31:38so that, you know, dead animals wouldn't fall in
31:40and birds wouldn't poo in it.
31:41And partly to keep them safe,
31:42so they wouldn't be attacked by enemies and poisoned.
31:47It's coming!
31:48It's working!
31:49We've got wine at this end.
31:59There was also a hidden half to Rome's water system,
32:03where the overflow from fountains and baths disappeared.
32:06The sewers.
32:12The city's oldest sewer was the Cloaca Maxima,
32:16the Great Sewer,
32:17which dates back to the 7th century BC.
32:20It was built to drain the marshy land
32:22on which the Forum now stands.
32:37Sewers were primarily built for drainage,
32:40even though they also flushed away waste.
32:45These are some toilets in Ostia.
32:46They're just across the road from the bathhouse
32:48and would have been flushed with the water used in the baths.
32:51Now, as you can see, Roman public toilets were,
32:54well, very public.
32:56This room had about 22 toilets,
32:59but there were others that could seat up to 100.
33:01The Romans didn't have toilet paper,
33:03so they would have used one of these.
33:04Oh!
33:05A sponge on a stick.
33:07There would have been water running along these drains,
33:09so you dip your sponge like this,
33:12and then...
33:13Oh, I don't need to show you the rest.
33:15When you finished your business,
33:16you'd walk along here,
33:18and then you'd wash your hands,
33:20and then you'd leave the toilet through the door.
33:24This toilet even had a revolving door.
33:26You can still see the marks on the marble.
33:29I think I'll wait till I get back to my hotel.
33:50There's also a practical use for running water
33:52to generate power.
33:54There's evidence from all over the Roman Empire
33:57of water wheels being used to grind grain.
34:01In fact, at Barbigal in France,
34:03they had 16 water wheels
34:06cascading down the hillside,
34:08driving 16 mills.
34:09It was the ancient equivalent of a factory.
34:11But there's recent, quite tantalising evidence
34:14that they didn't just use water power to grind grain,
34:17they also used it to cut through stone.
34:27Solid stone was the bedrock
34:29of the Roman construction industry,
34:31particularly travertine.
34:32It's strong, looks good,
34:34and was the stone of choice
34:35for major imperial monuments,
34:37where cost wasn't an issue.
34:46Some of the largest travertine deposits in the world
34:49are found here at Tivoli,
34:51just 20 miles from Rome.
34:55This quarry is actually the site
34:57of an ancient Roman one,
34:59but it's still very active today.
35:06Once the blocks have been removed
35:07from the quarry face,
35:08they're broken up using a chisel and mallet,
35:11in much the same way as the Romans did.
35:19So when they were cutting expensive stone,
35:21which they couldn't afford to waste,
35:23like marble,
35:24Roman stonemasons preferred saws.
35:26With saws, there was less risk of wastage,
35:29and saws also allowed them to cut thin panels of veneer.
35:38Marble veneer was used to decorate buildings.
35:40It was the economical way of making something look grand.
35:47The marble was set in cement and applied in slabs,
35:50or as mosaics.
35:56Today, the blocks are cut into slabs
35:59by powerful mechanised saws.
36:00The friction is so great
36:02that the saws have to be continually cooled by water.
36:20In Roman times,
36:22workmen would cut stone with hand saws.
36:25They even had multiple saws
36:27for cutting several sheets of veneer at the same time.
36:31Of course, it would have made their jobs a lot easier
36:34if they had one of these.
36:35Well, recent archaeological evidence suggests
36:38that in the late Roman Empire,
36:40technology did exist to cut stone mechanically.
36:46Historians have long puzzled over a reference in a poem
36:49written by the 4th century poet Orsonius.
36:52In it, he refers to a river
36:54turning millstones with a rapid whirling motion
36:57and drawing the screeching saws
36:59through smooth white stone.
37:04In the year 2000, archaeologists took a closer look
37:08at a 6th century Roman site in Jordan.
37:11While there was evidence of a water channel and water wheel,
37:14there was no sign of any grinding of grain.
37:17But they did find two partly cut stones
37:20with parallel saw cuts.
37:22And there were four saw cuts, about a centimetre apart,
37:26absolutely parallel,
37:28and to exactly the same depth.
37:30You simply couldn't cut them as accurately as that by hand.
37:34They must have been doing it with a machine.
37:37While archaeologists have made drawings
37:39of what the water-powered saw might have looked like,
37:41no-one has actually built one,
37:43until now.
37:46Marty, tell me about your machine.
37:48Right, well, this is it.
37:49This is the saw here.
37:50Sorry, this is the saw?
37:51This is the saw.
37:52OK, let me lift it up so you can see.
37:54This is the saw.
37:54It's enormous!
37:55It is, rather, but then it's got a cut through stone.
37:58Oh, yeah, OK.
37:58Or at least breeze blocks here.
37:59So you've got your blades here, four of them.
38:01There are four blades.
38:02Just like the Romans had.
38:03Just like the Romans had.
38:04About a centimetre each apart.
38:05There are two problems here.
38:07First of all, the water wheel goes round and round,
38:09and you want your saw blade to go back and forth.
38:11Yes.
38:12And secondly, we haven't got any running water.
38:14Well, exactly, I can explain that.
38:15If you follow me down this way.
38:16Right.
38:17To the working end of it.
38:19Well, the water power is here.
38:21That's me.
38:21Right, right.
38:21So I'll be winding this round.
38:23The rotary motion gets converted into horizontal motion here.
38:28This is a crank.
38:28So as you go round, this will go backwards and forward.
38:31Right.
38:31And that's then transferred to the saw,
38:32and the saw will slide back and forth and cut the blocking off.
38:35You don't really know it was like this, do you?
38:37This is...
38:37We don't.
38:37This is entirely sort of speculative.
38:39Right.
38:40Experimental archaeology.
38:41It is experimental, in more ways than one.
38:42Do you really think you can cut through a breeze block?
38:44Yes, we can.
38:45Well, it's a lot softer than marble, isn't it?
38:46It is a lot softer.
38:47Okay, well, get winding.
38:58Well, it is...
38:59It's beginning to go.
39:00Quite hard work.
39:01Well, go on.
39:01Faster, faster.
39:03It is beginning.
39:03You're a millimetre or two down.
39:06And now that I've started, I can speed up enough.
39:08I think this is going to take you an hour or two to get through that.
39:10I think it will, and this is the softest breeze blocks you can get.
39:14So you can imagine what this would be like if this was hard limestone or even marble.
39:18You'd be here for weeks, and you'd need kind of a water wheel up to here, you know,
39:24and a huge head of water coming down.
39:26I really think that what we ought to do is to face the whole of this castle with breeze block
39:33veneer.
39:33That'll be nice.
39:34So I reckon if this is going to take an hour, that'll take about a couple of years to do
39:39that.
39:39A couple of years.
39:39So get grinding, William.
39:41Faster, Marty, faster.
39:42Faster.
39:45Out she comes.
39:50Look at that.
39:52Fantastic.
39:53Four beautiful, absolutely regular cuts.
39:58We're going to get some really nice breeze block veneer out of this.
40:08Just like the water-powered saw, ancient Rome sometimes throws up mysteries that are really
40:13quite hard to unravel.
40:15For centuries, there have been tales of amazing boats owned by Caligula, one of the most despotic
40:21of the emperors in the first century AD.
40:26Apparently, he'd built these boats with extraordinary luxury.
40:29They'd had bathhouses, there were banqueting halls, all decorated in the finest woods.
40:35It was clearly too fantastic to be true.
40:38And yet, in the early 20th century, these boats were found.
40:43And not only were they as amazing as the stories, but they were miracles of naval engineering,
40:48with some technological innovations all of their own.
40:57This is Lake Nemi, a volcanic crater 20 miles south of Rome.
41:01Here in ancient times, the Romans worshipped Diana, goddess of the hunt.
41:06The lake became known as the Speculum Dianae, Diana's mirror, because on summer nights,
41:11the moon is reflected magically in its centre.
41:18For many hundreds of years, this lake held a mystery.
41:22While local fishermen knew there were two Roman ships at its bottom, little else was known
41:28about them.
41:29Every attempt to raise them had failed.
41:32Their secrets, it seemed, would always remain hidden.
41:37That is, until the late 1920s, when the project found a champion in Benito Mussolini, Italy's
41:44then leader.
41:47The lake was drained, and what emerged exceeded all expectations.
41:52Two massive galleys, both measuring over 70 metres.
41:56They were bigger and more technologically advanced than any ship before the 16th century.
42:11They were pleasure craft, with temples on board, either to Diana or Isis, the great Egyptian
42:18lunar goddess, worshipped by Caligula.
42:22He was a living god, or so he thought, and would often converse with the moon.
42:27When the ships were recovered, Mussolini built this monumental museum to house them.
42:35They attracted visitors from all around the world, but after spending nearly 1900 years
42:41underwater, they would last just 16 years out of it.
42:46On the night of May the 30th, 1944, retreating Nazi troops set fire to the museum, reducing
42:54the Nemi ships to ashes.
42:57The emptiness in here really emphasises what's missing, but they've reconstructed parts of
43:02the boat, and some of the artefacts survived the fire.
43:16The boats here now are just scaled-down models, but the real boats filled the entire hall.
43:27Decorated with marble, mosaics and statues, the ships were luxurious beyond belief.
43:33They even had heated baths on board, and some of the original plumbing still survives.
43:41Just look at these pipes.
43:43They would have carried hot and cold water for the baths, and we can tell that they're
43:47Caligula's, because he's got his name on them, Caesarus Augustus Germanicus.
43:55Now, the ships are huge, but what I'm interested in is something small, but very significant.
44:01This is a reconstruction of what they found, a wooden platform with ball bearings.
44:07For centuries, people thought that Leonardo da Vinci invented ball bearings in the 15th century.
44:14But now, amazingly, it seems that the ancient Romans were there first.
44:19Martys built models to show why ball bearings might have evolved.
44:24It's all to do with rotating surfaces and friction.
44:28This is just a circle of wood, sitting on another circle of wood.
44:31So it's wood on wood.
44:32And that'll turn, pretty much.
44:33That I can turn easily enough, but if I load it, you're a load of trouble, Adam.
44:37Hop on.
44:37Thanks.
44:38OK.
44:41Pathetic.
44:42Yeah, but maybe about half an inch.
44:43If you lubricated it, it'd be fine, wouldn't it?
44:45Yes, and I have the wherewithal to do that.
44:48Alex, give us a hand, would you?
44:52Ah, delicious.
44:54That ought to sort it.
44:55No trouble at all.
44:57Right.
44:58OK, thank you very much, Alex.
44:59Back to the washing.
45:00Yes.
45:01Now, if I pop that on there now, that's nicely lubricated now.
45:06So, do you want to jump back on there now?
45:09And now I'll give it a try.
45:11Yeah, you see?
45:12Easy.
45:14Like a disaster.
45:15All right, all right, all right.
45:16Yeah, clearly that's not good enough, is it?
45:18No.
45:18So, what was their solution?
45:19Well, what they came up with is something that is incredibly significant for just about
45:23every sort of modern mechanical device, and that is the bearing, the ball bearing.
45:30Right.
45:30Well, in this case, these are trunnion-mounted bearings, and basically all they are, there's
45:36several of them going round there like that, is a ball with a hole drilled in it with a
45:39bar in, held in place here, so that the ball's free to rotate.
45:43So, it's not resting on the wood.
45:44It's not resting on the wood.
45:45It's completely free to rotate, and then, if I now pop that back down.
45:51So, the balls are turning round and taking the weight.
45:54The balls are turning around, they take all the weight, and it just makes it so much easier.
45:58And that's because rolling friction is much less than sliding friction always, isn't it?
46:01Exactly, exactly, yes.
46:02And therefore, these are going to turn more easily.
46:03But, can you turn me on, then?
46:05Yeah, sure, jump on.
46:07You're not going to make me dizzy, are you?
46:08Well, no, I hope not.
46:10Are you ready?
46:11I'm a bit cautious here, yes.
46:12Here we go.
46:14Look, and I can turn you with one hand, easy-peasy.
46:17So, Caligula really was the master of spin.
46:20All right, all right, I've had enough of that.
46:22Yes, great.
46:22But, now, hang on a sec, Marty, what's that peg over there?
46:25Ah, well, this is where it comes down to the question of what they were used for.
46:29Yeah.
46:29These little cutouts here, these are here because the bit they found, the sort of, the remains
46:34they found is sort of a chunk like that.
46:36Right.
46:36Has got these cutouts in it.
46:38Right.
46:39We think the whole thing, when you construct it like this, starts to look like a big cog,
46:42a big gear.
46:43So, how does it work?
46:44Well, if I pop that on there like that, I've made a second cog.
46:50And now, it just rotates nice and easily.
46:55And what I suspect is that whatever was rotating, hidden underneath, was a slave...
47:00Winding away.
47:01Winding away.
47:02Exactly.
47:03I think that's absolutely brilliant.
47:05So, that may have been the very first use of ball bearings.
47:09And now, of course, they're everywhere, even in my favourite form of transport.
47:13No, no, not that.
47:14No, no, not that.
47:16It's the bicycle.
47:17There are ball bearings in the wheels.
47:20There are ball bearings in the steering mechanism.
47:22There are ball bearings in the pedals and in the crank case.
47:27Absolutely everywhere.
47:30Yet another example of Roman ingenuity.
47:44Imperial Rome became immensely wealthy on the profits of her empire, and prosperity led to a construction boom.
47:52With so many buildings going up, the eternal city must have looked like an eternal building site.
47:59The Roman building industry was bigger in scale and organisation than anything before it.
48:05This is the great temple, the Pantheon, the best preserved Roman building anywhere.
48:11It survived for 2,000 years, yet took less than 10 years to construct.
48:21Just take a look at these columns.
48:23They're 12 metres high and weigh 50 tonnes.
48:27They're solid granite and come all the way from quarries in Upper Egypt.
48:30It's incredible they were able to transport them to Rome in one piece, let alone erect them.
48:35And look at the lintels up the top.
48:37They're marble and come from Greece.
48:39They weighed 30 tonnes and had to be lifted to a height of 15 metres.
48:45The Colosseum, standing at 44 metres, is even taller than the Pantheon, a remarkable example of Roman engineering.
48:56Suppose you're building the Colosseum, which was built by the end of the 1st century AD, and probably by a
49:01chap called Quintus Heterius.
49:03Now, this is a bit of the Colosseum, and we want to get these paving slabs up there as part
49:08of the next level.
49:09Now, on Quintus' family tomb, there's a picture of a crane, the sort of thing they really use to get
49:15those things up.
49:17And it's an A-frame.
49:20It's called an A-frame because it looks like a giant letter A.
49:26But it's only timber, it's not very heavy, and so it's not very difficult either to get it up or
49:31indeed to move it around the countryside.
49:34Now, you can see that the pulley there is exactly above the weight we want to lift, so that's now
49:41in the right position.
49:42Now, Marty, suppose this was not just some paving slabs but a great block of stone.
49:46You can't just tie a rope to it, can you?
49:48No, not at all.
49:49OK, so how are you going to do it?
49:51Right, what we're going to use is a cunning ancient invention called the Lewis Bolt.
49:56Imagine this is my block of stone, and you can sort of see through it.
49:59You cut a groove in it, a slot, that's fatter at the bottom than it is at the top, and
50:03then you take a bunch of wedges, which between them are fatter at the bottom than they are at the
50:08top.
50:08So if you pull onto that one, what I can do is I can slot that one into there, that
50:13one into there like that, and then that one should just slide neatly in the top like that.
50:19In a solid block, you wouldn't need a frame, just the right-shaped hole.
50:23And now I take a bar, slide that through all the holes that I've drilled in, and that will come
50:31out.
50:31Oh, that's fantastic, because it's wider there than it is here, and you're completely stuck.
50:34It locks it in.
50:35How much do these weigh?
50:36Well, each one of these is about 45 kilos.
50:38There's about 10 or 15 kilos there.
50:40So we're something over 100 kilos.
50:41Over 100 kilos.
50:42It'd be very difficult, impossible for one bloke to lift that up.
50:45It would be completely impossible, yeah.
50:45And pretty hard for two.
50:47Start winding, chaps.
50:53On the Quintus family tomb, the picture shows this being powered by five men in a treadmill.
51:02Unfortunately, we've only got two blokes here, so there wasn't much point in building a treadmill,
51:06and we've given them a simple capsule windlass here, and they're just winding it.
51:10You seem to be doing that incredibly easily.
51:12It's not much work, to be honest, because we've got sort of mechanical advantage.
51:15Very good mechanical advantage.
51:19Right, you're above the level.
51:21You need to go up a bit more, I think, so that when you lower, you'll go a little bit
51:24more,
51:25a little bit more.
51:26Okay, I reckon that's high enough.
51:28Okay.
51:28Now, can you lock it off there?
51:29Okay.
51:30Oh, that's very cunning.
51:32So when you've got the bars in there, it can't move.
51:34It's stuck now.
51:34And now you don't need to hold it.
51:36Indeed.
51:36So the thing is taking the weight.
51:38So what do you do next?
51:39Right, well, there's a pulley attached to these two ropes here.
51:42Yep.
51:42And if we loosen off one of those ropes, we can gradually lower, tip the whole A-frame forward,
51:48and hopefully that'll land on top of that front there.
51:55Okay, lower, steadily, steadily, steadily.
51:59It's moving forward nicely.
52:02Steadily, a little bit further.
52:04Steady.
52:05Yeah!
52:06Well, that is absolutely brilliant.
52:08Full marks to the A-frame, or as the Romans called it, the Reccanum.
52:14While the cranes speeded up the creation of their great monuments,
52:17it was a new building material that completely revolutionised the Roman construction industry.
52:24It allowed them to build bigger and higher than ever before.
52:28Towns like Ostia, Rome's former port, with its five-storey apartment blocks,
52:33would not have been possible without it.
52:37That material was concrete.
52:40Here they faced it with bricks.
52:46Here's the brick facing, and here's the Roman concrete.
52:50But the most spectacular example of their use of this new material has to be in the Pantheon.
52:57Its dome is made entirely of concrete.
53:01The dome is one of the largest in the world.
53:04In fact, nothing larger was built until the 20th century, 1800 years later.
53:15From the outside, it's a magnificent piece of architecture,
53:19but it's from the inside that you can really appreciate the full splendour of the dome.
53:34The inside diameter is almost 44 metres.
53:38That's half the length of a football pitch.
53:41The concrete in the dome has no steel reinforcements,
53:44something that wouldn't be attempted today.
53:52The dome is a perfect hemisphere.
53:55In fact, one of the features of the building is that it could accommodate a perfect sphere.
53:59That means that if this ball was big enough, it would fit snugly into this building.
54:04Its top touching the top of the dome, and its bottom touching the ground.
54:13The dome contains 5,000 tonnes of concrete.
54:18How on earth did they build it?
54:24To find out, we're going to build our own Pantheon.
54:30When they were building, the Romans would have used a hemispherical wooden structure
54:34to support the setting concrete.
54:38We're going to use this plastic ball.
54:42Now, the Romans were very cunning, because they used a special lightweight concrete.
54:46Let me show you this.
54:47Here is a normal concrete paving slab, and it weighs 43 kilograms.
54:53It's an absolute brute to pick up and carry about.
54:56And here is a lightweight one, the same size, and that weighs 20,
55:00and I can do it with one hand.
55:01Very considerable difference.
55:03And the difference lies in the aggregate.
55:05Now, there are two components to concrete.
55:08There's the cement and the aggregate.
55:10The cement we use is Portland cement.
55:13Here it is.
55:15And that comes in sacks, conveniently.
55:17And the aggregates can be anything from gravel to rocks, even sand.
55:22And this is that lightweight aggregate.
55:24The Romans actually used pumice stone, the stuff that comes out of Vesuvius with all those bubbles in it.
55:29It's wonderfully light.
55:30So, on their Pantheon, what they did was to use stone at the bottom and then bricks.
55:36And for the top third of the dome, they used this lightweight aggregate of pumice.
55:41They also had much thicker walls at the bottom and much thinner concrete on top, again, to save weight.
55:47And, Chris, I think that's what you're going to do, isn't it?
55:49That's exactly right, yeah.
55:50We've got about eight inches thickness at the bottom.
55:52Yeah.
55:52And by the time it gets to the top, it's probably going to be about two.
55:55So, you're going to make it thinner at the top.
55:56How are you actually going to build it?
55:58We're going to form a ring around the bottom to start with,
56:01and then we start again, another ring on top of that, and another ring, and another ring until we get
56:05to the top.
56:05And then leave it?
56:07Leave it all night and set.
56:08Then we deflate the ball.
56:09How heavy is this concrete going to be?
56:11Probably about two tonnes.
56:13Then how are you going to deflate the ball under two tonnes of concrete?
56:15We've got a sneaky access hatch here.
56:17Ah.
56:17I can get in and pull a plug, which will let the air out of the ball.
56:20And then the whole thing will collapse?
56:21The ball will collapse.
56:23And the concrete?
56:24The dome will stay in its perfect place.
56:45And here we are, our very own Pantheon.
56:48It's survived the night, and it looks in really good nick.
56:51All the way round, no holes, nothing.
56:54It's perfect.
56:55Now, do you dare let that air out?
57:13Fantastic.
57:14OK, let's have a look in there.
57:17Wow.
57:18Wow.
57:20That is amazing.
57:21You can actually see the layers.
57:23Look, here, and there, and there.
57:28That is really beautiful.
57:30When we cut open our dome,
57:32it was clear just how efficient and elegant the roof shape is.
57:36At this scale, I'm impressed.
57:38At 44 metres in diameter,
57:40I'm truly stunned at the Roman achievement.
57:46And that sums up the Roman Empire.
57:51They thought big,
57:53from their colossal buildings
57:55to the thousands of miles of roads.
57:58They also had the vital skills of engineering and organisation
58:02to make sure that the expanding empire
58:04never ran short of food or water.
58:09They left an extraordinary legacy
58:11that forms the basis of much of our technology today.
58:22To receive a free Open University leaflet,
58:25which accompanies this series,
58:26and details of Open University programmes,
58:29telephone 0870 900 0352,
58:32or go to bbc.co.uk slash history.
58:37Next time, I'll be exploring
58:39some of the extraordinary and world-changing ideas
58:41that have emerged from the Indian subcontinent.
58:44I'll find out how the first plastic surgery
58:47was performed two and a half thousand years ago,
58:49and how India developed
58:51some terrifying battlefield weapons.
58:53Yes.
58:54Yes.