2010

S1.E1 ∙ Come Together

Tue, Nov 09, 2010

Archaeologist and historian Richard Miles explores the origins of one of the most profound innovations in our human story - civilisation. Starting in Uruk, the 'mother of all cities', in southern Iraq, he travels to Syria, Egypt, Anatolia and Greece, exploring the challenges posed by this experiment in a new way of being human.

7.6 /10

S1.E2 ∙ The Age of Iron

Tue, Nov 16, 2010

The program looks at the survivors and losers of the Bronze Age collapse and the civilizations which emerged in the Age of Iron.

7.8 /10

S1.E3 ∙ The Greek Thing

Tue, Nov 23, 2010

The program explores the blossoming of Greek art, philosophy and culture in the 5th century B.C. and contrasts it with its political discord, social injustice and endless war.

7.3 /10

S1.E4 ∙ Return of the King

Tue, Nov 30, 2010

Richard Miles traces Alexander the Great's battle-scarred route through Turkey, Syria and Lebanon to Egypt and ultimately to the western Punjab, Pakistan, where he discovers fascinating traces of a city where Greek west and Buddhist east were united in an intriguing new way. It was Alexander's successors, the Hellenistic Kings, who had to make sense of the legacy of this legendary adventurer. By knuckling down to the hard graft of politics, taxation and public works, they created something far more enduring than a mere legend - they built a civilization.

7 /10

S1.E5 ∙ Republic of Virtue

Tue, Dec 07, 2010

How did an insignificant cluster of Latin hill villages on the edge of the civilised world become the greatest empire the world has known? Archaeologist and historian Richard Miles examines the phenomenon of the Roman Republic, from its fratricidal mythical beginnings, with the legend of Romulus and Remus, to the all too real violence of its end, dragged to destruction by war lords like Pompey the Great and Julius Caesar.

7.3 /10

S1.E6 ∙ City of Man, City of God

Tue, Dec 14, 2010

In the last of the series, Richard Miles examines the rise and fall of the Roman Empire. At the height of its power, the Roman Empire extended the benefits of its civilization to a 60 million citizens and subjects in a swathe of territory that extended from Hadrian's Wall to the banks of the Euphrates. But the material benefits of the 'good order' delivered by Roman rule provided its citizens and subjects with the security to ask profound questions about the meaning of life, questions that the pragmatic, polytheistic Roman belief system was ill-equipped to answer.

7.3 /10