All language subtitles for Civilisations Rise and Fall.s01e02.Egypt

29th of August 30BC.

The Egyptian city of Alexandria.

A 17-year-old boy is running
through the streets,

pursued by assassins.

He was born to rule an empire

but his people will not help him.

His army has deserted him

and his mother
has taken her own life.

He does not know it yet

but this teenager will be
the last pharaoh of Ancient Egypt,

a 19-day reign
that will bring to an end

3,000 years of history.

Ancient Egypt...

..the Roman Empire...

..the Aztecs of Mexico...

..and the Samurai of Japan.

Four great civilisations,

each a pinnacle of human ingenuity
and achievement.

Each lasted for centuries.

Their people thought
they would endure forever...

..until, suddenly...

CANNON FIRE

..everything changed.

These civilisations faced challenges
that are all-too familiar today.

Climate catastrophe.

Pandemic.

War.

Challenges for which ancient
societies had few solutions.

But what if there was a place that
had the answers to what went wrong?

A place full of secrets and stories.

A repository of memory,
stretching back through time.

The British Museum, home to
more than eight million artefacts,

is a record of how
and why the greatest civilisations

rose to power
and then spectacularly fell.

Its treasures are the human traces
that survived disaster.

But might they also hold lessons
for our own future?

Every civilisation throughout
history has had an expiry date.

With great societies,
the seeds of their destruction

are sown within the society.
They're already there.

No civilisation ever thinks
it's going to fall,

but the question is,
what can we learn from the past?

By the 1st century BC,

Ancient Egypt has thrived
for three millennia.

Ancient Egypt is the jewel
in the crown of ancient history.

It's wealthy,

it's got 3,000 years
of the most spectacular history.

Its monumental buildings,
its phenomenal culture,

and it was the country
all others aspired to be.

It had it all.

Egypt is advanced architecturally.

They built amazing temples and,
of course, the pyramids.

And on top of that,
there are huge advances

in writing and in medicine as well.

The natural resources of this land
have allowed the Egyptians

to build a vast
and powerful kingdom,

stretching from the Mediterranean,
deep into Africa.

The secret to Egypt's success
is its unique river -

the Nile.

The great bounty of the River Nile

allows Egypt to become the
bread basket of the ancient world,

because, each year,
when the rains fall in the summer,

up in the Ethiopian highlands,
it causes a great rush of water

down the Nile, and that causes
the river to flood its banks,

and it brings water
and nutrients to the fields.

It enables a super-abundance
of grain.

This is the currency that
the world economy depends upon,

and Egypt has this
in huge quantities.

Grain provides Egypt
with vast wealth and power,

making it the first nation state
in history.

It is led by a single,
all-powerful ruler -

the Pharaoh.

One jewel of the British Museum's
Egypt Collection...

..is a grand monument to the most
famous pharaoh of them all.

Ramses ruled Egypt during its prime,

when its empire spread far and wide,

unifying his diverse subjects
with a singular vision.

This is a surviving fragment
of a 23-foot statue

that struck awe and wonder
into all who saw it,

and played a vital role
in uniting his people behind him.

The eyes are slightly
tilted downwards,

so when you're looking up,

you've got this powerful feeling
that Ramses is looking down on you.

This really gives you a real sense
of majesty and dominance.

On Ramses' crown
is his royal symbol -

a deadly snake, the cobra.

It reveals the secret behind
the pharaoh's absolute power.

For the Egyptians,
you have a leader, who is the king,

but the Egyptian king is someone
who is not just a human.

When you see the cobra
on the forehead of anyone,

it means that they are divine.

The king, or the pharaoh,
was a sort of god on Earth.

He was supposed to enter
into a contract with the gods

and make sure the gods
were appeased,

and therefore he was both the ruler
as well as a deity,

and this gave him special privileges
and powers.

Egypt thrives when its people unite
behind their god king,

but this is a challenge for
the latest pharaohs.

A thousand years after Ramses II,

a new dynasty rules -

the Ptolemies.

COUGHING

The Ptolemies are, without doubt,

the most violent royal dynasty
that there's ever been.

The Ptolemies are not Egyptian
but Greek,

successors of Alexander the Great,
who conquered Egypt

and built one of the grandest cities
of the ancient world -

Alexandria.

To begin with, the Ptolemies
build a strong economy

and a thriving society.

But after 200 years,
there are signs that their riches

and successes
have gone to their heads.

This is a family that,
over several generations,

has been tearing itself apart,
vying for ultimate control of Egypt.

Like any situation where great
wealth or great power is at stake,

it is fertile breeding ground
for rivalry.

In the days of Ramses,

pharaohs represented permanence
and invincibility,

but under the Ptolemies,
chaos now reigns.

This is a sandstone stela -
a monument.

Traditionally,
the name of the ruling pharaoh

would be inscribed into the stone
in an oval symbol

called a cartouche.

But this stela is different.

We get in this period
examples of blank cartouches.

The cartouches usually contain
the pharaoh's name,

but in the records,
we find many hundreds of examples

of blank cartouches.

They've never been filled in.

The artist hasn't even tried
to fill it in.

The turnover of pharaohs
becomes so rapid

that the stonemasons
are reluctant to carve the name

of a specific Ptolemaic pharaoh
because, who knows, you know,

in five minutes' time,
this name might be no more

and we'd have to carve it out
and rewrite it.

Brothers have been at war
with brothers.

Husbands have been at war
with their wives.

One had his own son killed
and the body parts

sent to the boy's mother on the eve
of her birthday celebrations,

so this gives you a bit of a sense
of the kind of

blood-spattered nature
of the Ptolemaic royal family.

Dynasties are a pressure cooker

and the people who are
the top dynasty

tend to become corrupted by power.

We now have ample evidence
from neuroscience and psychology

that people's brains seem to change
once they get a hold of power.

This is a recipe for disaster.

It's 51BC,

and Pharaoh Ptolemy XII lies dying.

His reign has been dominated
by infighting.

He has squandered Egypt's wealth
and territory to preserve his power.

He is about to hand this poisoned
chalice to his successor.

Ptolemy has five kids,
and is looking to them

to pave the way

for the survival of the dynasty,

but that shows a chronic
lack of self-awareness

about dynastic politics
and the family that he has bred.

Of his five children,
his formidable 18-year-old daughter

seems the obvious choice
to succeed him.

Her name is Cleopatra.

I think it's fair to say
that Cleopatra

is very much her father's
favourite child.

She has a brilliant mind,
a great intellect.

She was a superb politician.

But she's also very, very ruthless.

She could manipulate those
around her quite brilliantly.

And that quality
of ruthless ambition

is something Ptolemy
has deliberately encouraged.

Great family dynasties, whether
you're talking about Murdoch,

the Hearst family, Rockefeller,

the means by which the
head of the dynasty keeps control

is by making sure they
all understand that, you know,

they can be up
but they can come down again.

In a sense,
he's encouraged division,

he's encouraged ambition.

He has created a readymade
battlefield that's going to explode.

Ptolemy does have a male heir,

also called Ptolemy,

but he's only 11
and too young to rule.

Their father insists that brother
and sister join forces

and become joint pharaohs
by marrying each other.

Of course, she does not want
to marry her brother.

Cleopatra is a headstrong
young woman

who was well-versed in statecraft,

so why would she
want to share the throne?

She was astute enough to know that
this was a power struggle

waiting to happen
and she wanted to nip it in the bud.

When her father dies,
Cleopatra makes her move.

But she inherits
a deeply divided society.

The Ptolemies have promoted
a Greek elite

and they expect a male ruler.

Egypt is a difficult country
to rule.

There are tensions
between the indigenous population

and the Greek settlers.

By this time, the Egyptians feel

that they are towards
the lower end of the hierarchy -

that the best jobs are actually
reserved for the Greek population.

We could see Egypt
as a kind of tinderbox.

She tries to
appease the Egyptian people.

Cleopatra knows
that the people's support

can be the tipping point

in her infighting with her brother.

Cleopatra believes if she
can get the Egyptians onside,

the Greeks will have to follow,

so she embarks on
an audacious campaign.

Pharaohs have always claimed
to be divine,

but Cleopatra takes it
one step further.

Cleopatra refers to herself
as a goddess.

The new Isis, or Isis personified.

The great mother goddess,

the bringer of fertility,
the bringer of wealth.

By Cleopatra's time,
Isis has absorbed all the powers

of all the collective goddesses
of Egypt,

so she is the ultimate deity.

She is pretty much everywhere.

She's on the walls of temples.

And with some of these statuettes
and figurines, these are often

put in domestic shrines, so people
could worship Isis at home.

Everybody literally loved Isis.

This is a stunning sculpture,

representing the nurturing aspect
of the mother goddess Isis.

She's gently raising her hand
towards her breast,

which means that she was about to
breast-feed her son.

Now, if we look closer to her hair,
that's probably my favourite bit.

She's wearing a vulture headdress,

and every single feather is
detailed in dark blue.

In Ancient Egypt, Isis is
the ultimate symbol of motherhood,

protection, magic,
but also of divine rulership.

By identifying herself with Isis,
Cleopatra is really saying

to the Egyptians,
"I am your living goddess.

"I will protect you
as Isis protects you.

"The tears of Isis give
you the Nile.

"I am Isis, I give you the Nile,
I give you life,

"I give you protection,
I give you fertility."

It was a very sensible
political ploy.

So when Cleopatra puts it out there
that she actually is a goddess,

part of you might think,
well, that's absurd

and it's just a piece of spin -
dare I say -

but actually, we quite like
the idea of thinking

there's somebody out there
that we can trust

to lead us in a certain direction.

She may be winning over
the Egyptian people

but Cleopatra also
needs allies with real power.

She looks to her forefathers
for inspiration.

Who did they turn to
to secure their crown?

The Rosetta Stone is so important
to us as Egyptologists

because, on this hunk of granite,
you have hieroglyphs,

Egyptian, demotic and
Greek written.

The Rosetta Stone -

a magical key that allowed
19th-century historians

to decode hieroglyphs
for the very first time.

But the Rosetta Stone is more
than just a translation device.

The words written on it explain

one of Cleopatra's
most important decisions.

When the Rosetta Stone was written,
there was an uprising,

and the Ptolemies were struggling
to maintain control.

And so the Rosetta Stone really
is a document that tells us

what the Ptolemies did to solve
this problem.

The Ptolemies really have to get
the Egyptian priests onside.

The priests are very influential
figures amongst

the native Egyptian population.

On the face of it, it's a simple
contract between

the priests of Egypt and
the royal family.

The early Ptolemies made a deal.

They gave priests tax breaks
and land.

In return, the priests decreed
that the Ptolemies were god kings

who must be faithfully followed.

Cleopatra strikes the same deal,

lavishly funding temples and
enriching the priests.

In return, they proclaim her
sole pharaoh,

and she rules unopposed
for 18 months.

But not everyone accepts
the new status quo.

While Cleopatra was winning the
hearts and minds of the Egyptians

and of the priests, she left one
thing out of the equation,

because her brother went off
and got the Greek elites

and the military on his side.

But Cleopatra and her brother,
Ptolemy XIII, are playing with fire.

The population, rather than being
unified by a single belief

in the pharaoh, is instead divided
upon multiple ethnic lines.

Different ethnic and ideological
groups can become fault lines

across the society.

This makes a society, by nature,
far more fragile.

Cleopatra has the loyalty of
the people

but Ptolemy has control of Egypt's
mighty army.

As his forces approach Alexandria,
Cleopatra flees the country.

But she will not accept defeat.

We're talking about Cleopatra here.

She was born to rule.

She was trained to rule,
she was a goddess and a queen,

so she was not going to let that
little snivelling brat take over.

And so she was going to come back
and fight for what was hers.

Desperate to reclaim her throne,
she takes a monumental gamble,

and turns to a superpower
even mightier than her own,

the unstoppable rising force
of Rome.

The Romans are probably the most
warlike society on Earth.

Its great deity is Mars,
the god of war.

Rome was stampeding its way across
the Mediterranean.

Their tactics are swift and bloody
and brutal.

That's what it was all about for
them, was to expand the idea

of Romanitas, being Roman,

and creating a civilised
world out of that.

It would be a very dangerous thing
for Cleopatra to get Rome on

her side, because, of course,
she has to be able to, A,

convince the Romans that she is
the right ruler,

and, B, hold Rome in check so that
they don't swallow her up.

There's a potential here for Rome,
as dangerous as it is,

to actually be the saviour
of Cleopatra.

But getting into bed with the devil
is a dangerous thing.

If fortune favours the bold,

this is Cleopatra's moment
to be fearless.

The legendary Roman general
Julius Caesar

is passing through Egypt on
a military campaign.

So she smuggles herself back into
the country, risking her own life,

in order to meet the man she hopes
will save her.

It is always challenging for
a woman to be a ruler,

or it has been in the past few
thousand years,

and this was obviously something
that Cleopatra had to struggle with.

I think the biggest problem was
getting military might

immediately behind her.

Cleopatra was very astute
politically,

and she knew that she could use
other gifts in her arsenal -

her charm, her wit, her humour,

her wealth and even her body.

I think that this is where all
of that charisma

of the woman comes out.

This kind of magic that she works,

in terms of conversation
and intellect.

Julius Caesar, he is smitten,

he is absolutely smitten with her.

I think it's a great meeting
of minds,

but also, there's a lot of sexual
energy in the room too.

Cleopatra had few options as to
what she could do

and this was indeed a gamble.

But nothing ventured,
nothing gained,

and the die is cast.

With Caesar's support, she now has
the might of Rome on her side.

But Cleopatra and her brother have
unleashed the dark forces

of division in Egypt.

Within a matter of weeks,
outright civil war breaks out.

This is very serious.

This is politics turning against
the people

and against the things they hold
most dear.

This infighting that happens among
the Ptolemies

does affect people's daily life.

People who had been living in
relative tolerance with one another,

suddenly they have to pick sides.

The violence boils over
into Alexandria,

as Cleopatra's forces set light to
her brother Ptolemy's ships.

A devastating fire sweeps across
the city,

destroying its treasures.

What's going through Cleopatra's
head as the Library of Alexandria,

that her ancestors built and that
was the pride of her city,

is in flames?

They had set the task for the first
librarian to collect

every book in the world.

Now thousands of books are burnt

and lots of poems are destroyed.

The irony, to a large extent,
is that what's at stake

isn't as great as that.

It's a sibling rivalry.

It's not worth the damage that's
taking place.

Alexandria never recovers.

This is a huge tragedy for Egypt
and indeed for humanity.

I think leaders often find it
difficult to separate out

their own interest and the national
interest, and they can persuade

themselves that the two are one
and the same thing.

And it leads to levels of brutality
and ruthlessness.

And I think once that happens,
it is dangerous.

The Romans proved too powerful
to Ptolemy XIII.

He is hopelessly outnumbered
and outflanked.

At the age of just 15, he drowns,
fleeing Caesar's troops.

Cleopatra's brother is gone.

Restored as pharaoh, Cleopatra must
now heal the divisions of civil war.

But family feuds and infighting have
ravaged Egypt's economy.

More than ever, she must rely on
the bounty of the Nile.

But seismic events 6,000 miles away

are about to plunge Egypt
deeper into chaos.

There is a large eruption in Alaska,
of all places,

in fact, the largest volcanic
eruption in the last 2,500 years

in the northern hemisphere.

So this is a very big eruption.

What we've learnt in the last couple
of years is that very large

volcanic eruptions can impact
the east African monsoon,

which drives the Nile flood that
hits Egypt every year.

Egypt is dependent on the annual
flood of the river,

and when that goes wrong -

when it's weak or there's no flood -

then things are really bad.

This climate disaster leads to
food shortages

and Egypt's grain exports
come to a halt.

Cleopatra has to resort to desperate
measures to keep her country afloat.

The Egyptian economy is in real
sharp decline at this point.

Cleopatra has to respond
economically as best she can.

Her extreme measures are revealed
in these coins

of father and daughter,

minted only 20 years apart.

The economic crises are coming
thick and fast.

And what do rulers throughout
history do when they're faced

with economic crisis?

Well, they devalue the currency,
they debase the coinage.

There are two coins.

One of Ptolemy XII.

The other of Cleopatra.

You can see significant changes
already in the silver content.

The coin of Ptolemy XII has about
90% silver content, it's larger.

The coin of Cleopatra is about 30%
silver content, and it's smaller.

It tells a really important story
of the drop-off

of the Ptolemaic economy between
Ptolemy XII and Cleopatra.

Within just 20 years,
the value of Egypt's currency

plummets by nearly 70%.

She is faced by a whole array of
issues which no ruler on Earth

could have solved.

To make matters worse, the floods
fail to return for almost ten years.

Food reserves are gone
and mass famine breaks out.

Cleopatra has to use all the
emergency stocks of grain

that the Egyptian Government hold,

and she depletes the treasury in
order to feed her people.

And really, the combination of
those things

essentially bankrupts Egypt.

Broken and starving, the people
lose trust in their pharaoh.

And there is evidence that
Cleopatra's subjects

place their faith elsewhere.

They turn in increasing numbers to
worshipping animal gods.

This is Sobek,

Egypt's god of fertility.

This crocodile mummy is fantastic.

Even though I've seen hundreds of
them, I still get a frisson,

because each one is different.

To see Sobek, we are actually in
the presence of the divine.

It's extraordinary for us to be able
to see a living god from Egypt,

2,000 plus years later.

It's about four metres plus long,

and it's very much blackened,

because it's got this resinous
black goo on it,

and what's really cool is,

on the back, there are babies that
are stuck to the back.

There were temples dedicated to
the crocodile god.

So, the young crocodiles were
brought in, put in the sacred pools.

They were given a very luxurious
lifestyle, and they were literally

treated like the gods that they were
assumed to be.

During the Ptolemaic era, the number
of animal mummies is mindboggling.

At one site, we have eight million
dogs, two million ibises,

You have hundreds
and thousands of baboons.

This upsurge is an indication that
things are not OK,

things are awry.

Like everyone else in this world,
when it is a time of crisis

and the rulers are not doing their
job, you turn to the gods.

The pharaoh who once promoted
herself

as the all-powerful goddess Isis

is losing her grip.

It's a very difficult moment
when a pharaoh fails,

because the pharaoh is the
incarnation of the gods.

Something has gone wrong in
the cosmic set-up of the world.

There are calls in the
south of Egypt

to break off from the rest of Egypt.

Certainly, the Ptolemaic dynasty
is hanging by a thread.

Time is running out for
the Ptolemies.

But unlike her male predecessors,

Cleopatra has an ace that only
she can play.

Nine months after Cleopatra and
Julius Caesar were first holed up

together in the royal palace,
she gives birth to a son.

He has the blood of Rome and the
blood of Egypt flowing in his veins,

and she thinks, "If I can unite the
military might of Rome with Egypt,

"this is an unstoppable force."

So she really thinks that this is,
you know, not the end of a dynasty

but the beginning of a great new
chapter in the Egyptian story.

On this sandstone monument,
Cleopatra proclaims that her son

will forge a new empire,

one that can feed its people and
restore its fortune.

A winged sun and a scarab beetle
represent the dawn

of a new golden age.

Gifts are offered to Egypt's
fertility gods,

including Sobek and Isis.

And Cleopatra's son is shown as
the new pharaoh.

He will be known by his Roman
nickname, Caesarion,

or Little Caesar.

This would be a startling new world.

Unparalleled, unmapped, uncharted,
unstoppable.

If the plan works, not only do
the problems of Egypt get solved...

..but Egypt regains a position
as a superpower.

For her strategy to work,
Cleopatra must get the Romans

to also embrace Caesarion as
their future leader.

But events outpace her.

In Rome, Julius Caesar is
brutally murdered

before he declares his heir.

The assassination of Julius Caesar
comes as a hammer blow to Cleopatra,

not only on the most
personal level -

I think she genuinely loved him -

but of course, it brought
a swift end

to her political ambitions as well.

All that came crashing down
in one foul day.

A lesser ruler might now
accept defeat,

but not Cleopatra.

After one of her sisters plots
against her,

Cleopatra uses the opportunity
to wipe out any possible opposition.

Power can be like a drug,
and once you're hooked on it,

very, very, very hard to give up,

because you can't really see life
beyond it.

Over the next three years, she
murders all her remaining siblings.

There's a sort of moral corruption
that power can do to people.

You certainly see it
having sometimes a very corrosive

psychological impact on people.

You're prepared to do anything,

anything to stay in power
and to meet your objectives,

up to and including killing people.

The Ptolemy line will continue,
but only on Cleopatra's terms.

She now needs to form
a new alliance with Rome,

so she looks to the men who take
Caesar's place.

Two candidates emerge.

Caesar's nephew, Octavian, takes
control of the western Roman world.

He sees himself as Caesar's
rightful heir,

so will never accept
Cleopatra's son.

But there's also the general who
takes control of Rome's

vast eastern territories,
Mark Antony.

And so, she casts her eye on
Mark Antony to do the kind of work

that she needed to be done.

Mark Antony was, to his core,
a squaddie.

You know, he was a rough Roman
soldier, heavy drinking,

heavy womanising, living for
pleasure, and living to fight.

She clearly recognised that Antony
was not a deep thinker,

that he was impulsive,
that he was easily persuaded.

He was open to flattery,
that's for sure.

And so she plays this brilliant
political game.

She knows what she wants, and she's
able to attract those to her side

to support her vision
of almost, like,

the takeover of the ancient world.

She was so magnetic in her charm,

her ability to understand what makes
the male ego tick,

to flatter them.

And that is a heady mix that no-one
could ever resist.

Mark Antony is besotted.

He abandons his Roman wife
and sets up home with Cleopatra,

throwing his weight behind her plan
for an Egypto-Roman empire,

ruled by the now 13-year-old
Caesarion.

This culminates in
a spectacular ceremony,

called the Donations of Alexandria.

This was not merely a coronation

but a politically provocative event

to strengthen their rule in
the east.

And there, in front of all of
the Alexandrians

and ambassadors from different
states around the Mediterranean,

Mark Antony doles out the lands of
the eastern Roman Empire

to Cleopatra and her heirs.

And he says that all of these lands
belongings to the east of Rome

will be, in perpetuity, inherited by
Cleopatra and Caesarion.

So there is a real possibility at
this moment that Cleopatra

and Caesarion could become
the rulers of a vast empire.

But when news of the ceremony
reaches Octavian,

Mark Anthony's rival back in Rome,

he is outraged.

He refuses to allow Roman lands to
be broken up and given away.

Antony and Cleopatra had so much
power at their disposal,

the only weapons Octavian had to
throw at them was to ridicule them.

Octavian starts a smear campaign
to destroy Cleopatra

and Antony's credibility
and turn all Romans against them.

Now, this fragmentary marble relief
is fascinating.

It shows Mark Antony and Cleopatra
engaged in what's euphemistically

called a sexual act on a boat.

It's a sort of symbol of how some
in the Roman world,

certainly Mark Antony's enemies,

saw how he was being manipulated
by this harlot queen of Egypt.

Octavian creates multiple pieces of
propaganda like this

to destroy Cleopatra's reputation

and play on fears that Egypt might
one day overshadow Rome.

Where her allure and beauty were
once part of Cleopatra's armoury

as a leader, now they are used to
attack her.

And so they're using this as
a sort of crowbar

to sort of prise apart the
two worlds.

And this relief really brings that
idea to the fore,

to use ridicule and misogyny to
undermine one's enemies.

Octavian's plan works,

and the Romans turn
against Mark Antony and Cleopatra.

But things have gone too far for her
to back down now.

There are times when it looks like
she has Egypt's

best interests at heart.

There are other times when her
decisions appear to suggest

that she's only really interested in
holding on to power.

This is absolutely an all-or-nothing
gamble for Cleopatra.

If she wins, she re-establishes
the Ptolemaic dynasty

in all its former glory.

If she loses,
well, all bets are off.

Octavian declares war

and his fleet sets sail.

On the 2nd of September 31 BC,

Cleopatra and Mark Antony face
Octavian in a legendary naval battle

off the coast of Greece, at Actium.

One extraordinary witness to what
happened that day still survives.

This fitting belongs to a boat
which participated

to the famous Battle of Actium,
in 31 BC.

It is made of leaded copper.

You can see it's highly corroded and
encrusted with sea creatures.

Emerging from the medallion at
the front of this prow

is this beautiful figure of Athena,

the goddess of strategy,
war and wisdom.

Now, this is the goddess you want
leading your fleet into battle.

Believing the gods are on her side,

Cleopatra has every reason to
be confident.

She has the numbers too.

Antony and Cleopatra's fleet of
ships, there were about 230 of them,

and there were about 150 Roman ships
in this.

So, on the face of it, the Egyptians
really outnumbered the Romans.

But Cleopatra makes an epic
miscalculation -

she lets her fleet be pushed back
towards the coast.

The Egyptian fleet was essentially
being hemmed in

and the Romans moved their fleet
closer and closer,

and essentially the Egyptians
were trapped.

They couldn't get out of it at all.

Octavian then unleashes burning
oil and tar.

An inferno breaks out across
the Egyptian navy.

Cleopatra and Mark Antony know
the game is up.

They make their escape,
abandoning their fleet,

including the ship this prow
once served.

It becomes a burnt, battered witness
to a monumental defeat.

Her navy decimated,
her treasury depleted

and her political legitimacy
shattered,

Cleopatra barricades herself
with Mark Antony

inside their royal quarters

while Octavian's triumphant army
marches into Egypt.

It all ends badly.

Antony knew that way in which Roman
traitors were treated,

and he knew that a spectacle of
death awaited him.

So he took his life to avoid
the dishonour

of a traitor's death in Rome.

He is taken to Cleopatra,
who weeps over his body

and then gives him a proper
decent burial.

But then she then realises, of
course, the only option would be

for Octavian to march her into Rome,
in chains, humiliated,

and she was not having any of it.

Cleopatra takes a venomous asp,

and lets it bite her.

This cobra, once the symbol of
unassailable Egyptian royal power,

in her hands,
becomes an instrument of death.

Even to the end, Cleopatra
is mistress of her own destiny.

Octavian instructs his forces

to hunt down Cleopatra's heir,
Caesarion.

The fate of Egypt now rests in the
hands of its 17-year-old pharaoh.

But who will come to his aid?

Decades of the most dysfunctional
family in world history

had caused a complete disconnect
with much of Egypt.

The Egyptians had been
through a lot,

in terms of civil wars and famines.

The people probably knew it was
the beginning of the end

for the Egypt they knew.

Lacking both military and
popular support,

Caesarion is abandoned to his fate.

He is murdered by Octavian's troops.

It is the last moment of
a 3,000-year-old empire

and the end of the Egyptian
pharaohs.

For three millennia, Egypt thrived,

united behind its mighty pharaoh.

But the dysfunctional dynasty
of the Ptolemies,

with their vicious infighting,

tore this
once-great civilisation apart.

Had the Ptolemies been less inclined
to just pursue short-term

power gains, Ancient Egyptian
pharaonic values

would still be alive and well today.

But I think the number of Ptolemies
who sought to just benefit

themselves, I think that's what
destabilised things, ultimately.

In their desperation to cling on to
power, at all costs,

the Ptolemies forgot what it was
to rule,

and left Egypt vulnerable and
fatally exposed.

Cleopatra, in the end,
was undermined by a perfect storm.

Warfare, Nile flood failure,
political instability,

Rome threatening her,

on top of which a shock of
a volcanic eruption.

And there are many people today
who, rightly, suggest

that we should be on the lookout
for a perfect storm event.

I think there's a lesson to learn
from Cleopatra's time

and what happened to her.

Countries can rise,

they can have a standing
and a reputation in the world

that is huge -

and it can go, and it can fall.

And I don't think we should ever
think that we're immune.

The Aztecs, one of the most
remarkable civilisations in history,

faces an unimaginable threat

as old world meets new,

and a ruthless leader struggles to
save his empire

from powerful, new enemies.