All language subtitles for The Treasures of Ancient Rome 1of3 Warts n All_Subtitles01.ENG

I'm setting out to debunk a myth.

A myth that's persisted
for far too long.

We all think we know
what the Romans were about.

Impressive monuments,
a bit like the one behind me.

Pont du Gard aqueduct
in southern France,

which was built more
than 2,000 years ago.

You can see it's an expression
of engineering genius.

A harmonious symbol, if you like,

of the Romans' mastery
over the natural world.

But when it came to art,
so the story goes,

the Romans didn't have a clue.

The thing is, the whole idea about
the Romans' artistic incompetence

is a myth.

To say that the Romans
"didn't do art" is just nonsense.

Over the centuries,
the Romans transformed art,

and defined the way
we view the ancient world.

The history of Roman art may be
the stuff of marble statues,

but it's anything but set in stone.

Every year exciting discoveries
are made that offer fresh insights

into the artistic achievements
of ancient Rome.

God, that really is special.

'In this series, we'll unlock
the secrets of Roman art.'

That was a sort of glimpse for me
of what it must be like

to actually discover some of these
ancient Roman treasures.

'We'll show the ingenious
techniques they used.

'It's a journey that will take us
from the heart of Rome,

'to the furthest
corners of the empire.'

But our story begins
with the rise of Rome.

We'll reveal 10 works of art

which chart the city's transition

from a pugilistic republic
to an empire...

..and discover how,
in forging their identity,

the Romans invented
a new form of art -

warts and all realism.

You cannot fathom
the nature of ancient Rome

until you understand
the history of Roman art.

I first fell in love
with Roman art as a student

at the Courtauld Institute
in London.

It always puzzled me that people
could be so sniffy

about the art of ancient Rome.

It's high time we pruned back all
the prejudices and misconceptions.

Roman art's always had
a bit of an image problem.

The thing is, the Romans only had
themselves to blame.

Because although in most fields
they were massive self-publicists,

when it came to the visual arts,
they had an inferiority complex

the size of...well,
the size of the Coliseum.

There's a character in Virgil's
great epic Roman national poem,

The Aeneid, who says,
"Let others fashion from bronze

"lifelike breathing images and
invoke living faces from marble."

"But Romans, never forget
that government is your medium."

For 500 years, Rome was a republic

governed by an aristocratic senate,
and a popular assembly.

And nowhere is its tough-minded,
expansive spirit

more visible than in its art.

Traditionally, the history of Rome
begins in 753 BC,

and it all centres upon
a charming tale

concerning a wolf with
rather maternal instincts

and two twin boys,
Romulus and Remus.

Now, Romulus ended up
killing his brother Remus,

but we won't get into that.

The thing is, the image of
the wolf suckling the two boys

can be seen almost
everywhere you go in Rome.

So, in fact, here she is.

There's Romulus
and Remus underneath,

reaching up towards
the teats of the wolf.

How much? 4 euros 15.

Grazie.

So if anything really
encapsulates Rome,

it's that wolf with the twin boys.

It's my first treasure
of ancient Rome,

but it's got a guilty secret.

The Capitoline wolf,

not only a symbol of Rome's
fierce and independent spirit,

but long been considered
the foundation stone of Roman art.

The boys themselves,

well, we know that they date
from the 15th Century.

But according to the art historian
JJ Winckelmann,

who, during the 18th Century,

actually invented the entire
discipline of art history,

the she-wolf dates from
the 5th Century BC

and is typical of Etruscan art,
confirming the whole prejudice

that the Romans had to borrow
or steal sophisticated art

of their Northern neighbours
in Etruria.

The thing is, recent research
has thrown up a whole storm

about the age of the she-wolf,
and it turns out

that she may not be quite as ancient
as we've been led to believe.

To settle the argument,

the art buffs turn
to the science boffins

at the University of Salento
in Brindisi,

who use the last
radiocarbon dating technology

to discover when the wolf was cast.

Organic samples were taken
from the inside of the statue.

These contain a radioactive isotope
called Carbon-14,

which can be accurately dated
using a particle accelerator.

The results would have had
Winckelmann spinning in his grave.

The Romans are just going to have to
get used to the fact that

their beloved wolf is 1,500 years
younger than they thought.

You know, the whole controversy
that surrounds the Capitoline wolf

is, in a sense, emblematic
of Roman art as a whole,

because we think we know everything
there is to know about it,

we think that there's nothing
left to say, but there is, clearly.

If even the Etruscan Capitoline wolf
isn't actually Etruscan,

then what icons of Roman art
can we really trust?

Well, in fact, there is
a more trustworthy work

of early Roman art
in this very museum.

A bronze head that suggests the
Romans weren't a race of dreamers

in thrall to myth and legend,
but down-to-earth hardmen,

concerned with tough realities
like war and business

and the push and pull
of political compromise.

It's thought to date from
the early Republic,

and probably depicts
a leading statesman.

This is one of the most venerable
of all Roman busts.

It's called the Capitoline Brutus,
because it was originally named,

when it was discovered
in the 16th century,

after L. Junius Brutus,

who was the first
consul of the Republic,

but whoever created this bust

seems to have really summoned
the spirit of his age,

and that points to a degree of
sophistication that, I think,

people often overlook when
they think about Roman art.

It feels like it's the embodiment,

the concentration of that
acquisitive Roman spirit

that marched out from Rome
and conquered,

eventually, the Mediterranean world.

That gaze is terrifying. So fierce.

The Romans had always been
a race of warriors,

and the story of the Republic
is a litany

of one conquest after another.

By the third century BC,

they'd subjugated first
the Italian peninsula,

then Carthage, Greece and beyond.

As Rome's generals
romped round the Med,

sacking cities willy-nilly,

they brought home
beautiful works of art,

like these stunning
Hellenistic Greek statues.

It was the age of plunder, and
it earnt the Romans a reputation

as the art equivalent of simple
thieves and common plagiarists.

Of course, the truth
is much more complex.

The Romans subtly adapted
the Hellenistic tradition

their forefathers
had stolen or copied,

infusing it with a distinctive
spirit of their own.

Above all, they relished the
lifelike modelling

of Hellenistic art, like
this seated boxer's broken nose,

scarred face and cauliflower ears.

And upon this foundation,

they constructed their first
great contribution

to the history of Western art.

I've come to one of Rome's
most spectacular museums,

the Centrale Montemartini,
to see how it happened.

This chap's known as
the Barberini Togatus,

and I don't think you'd really
call him a treasure of Ancient Rome.

Aside from anything else,
this head, although it's ancient,

actually belonged to an entirely
different statue.

But these two heads on this
sculpture are original,

and they allude to the importance
of ancestor worship

within noble Roman families.

He's proudly displaying his lineage,

and it's thought that these busts -
just like this -

were used in various ritual contexts
in the ancient world,

sometimes at
funerals for Roman aristocrats.

And this is an important statue
because it reveals

one of the sources for
a very profound innovation
within Roman art,

which is known as the veristic
or true-to-life portrait,

the warts and all famous portrait
busts that the Romans did so well.

Greek art was exquisite and refined,

but seen by the Romans as
a bit soft and effeminate.

They thought of themselves
as barbarians in comparison,

but they were proud
of their martial nature,

and they needed a more grounded,
less OTT, style of art

to express their warrior identity.

So Roman realism is down-to-earth.

It embodies the Republican
values of gravitas,

dignitas and integritas.

The wrinkles in the busts can be
read like the lines of a CV.

Each crease proclaims
experience and wisdom.

These men were at pains
to depict themselves

as trustworthy people
of flesh and blood.

And what's brilliant is that,
2,000 years later,

we know what the people
in the history books look like.

This bust of Cicero,
a leading statesman and orator,

celebrates the wisdom of old age
in his wrinkles and jowls.

Even the legendary Julius Caesar
is no film star,

with his receding hair
and lined face.

And his great rival,
Pompey the Great,

looks more like a portly farmer
than a leader of legions.

My favourite veristic bust
is housed today

at the Hermitage Museum
in St Petersburg.

Just around this corner here

is one of the out-and-out stars
of the Hermitage collection.

It's a bronze bust of an anonymous
Roman by an anonymous sculptor,

and it's remarkable
for a number of reasons,

not least because it's a very rare
example of a work in bronze

that's actually survived
from antiquity.

Just look at all of this subtle,
supple modelling of all the forms,

all of the intricate locks of hair
of the Roman's beard.

We do know that Romans often
wore beards and went unshaven

during periods of mourning,
and you can just tell

that here is a figure
afflicted in grief.

It's recording the loss
of a loved one.

It's so harrowing, the way that
sorrow's just stamped into his face.

You can see everything
from the sunken cheeks,

these dramatic lines that are going
down from his nose to his mouth,

the actual downcast
turn of those lips.

There's so much humanity
in this one bust,

and I think of it as almost
like the definition of melancholy.

This guy could be the Hamlet
of the ancient world, if you like,

with that limitless sadness,
that mournful expression.

One man with a passion for the
warts and all style of the Romans

is the British sculptor
Antony Gormley,

who's curating an exhibition
of his own here at the Hermitage.

For me, there's no question that

the greatest gift that classical art
from Rome gave was the portrait,

and I think the kind
of psychological insight,

and that sense of - I don't know,
it's like Freud before Freud -

and we should look at this chap,
because here is Balbin.

So he was emperor, 238 AD.

So he's sort of fairly late on.

Anyway, there's something absolutely
exquisite and so insightful

about the way that this
mouth has been carved,

that slight lowering of
the left-hand side of his mouth.

But then, just look at his eyes.

He is an emperor,
but he's no longer in control.

And there's this...I mean,
really scared look on his face.

He knows that his days are numbered.

I just think that Roman art
reached its highest perfection

in the ability to interrogate
the inner workings of the mind

through an understanding of
physiognomy and portraiture,

and I think they raised
portraiture to heights

that actually were never
reached again, in my view.

During the Republic,
a sophisticated art world emerged

for the first time in history.

To keep up with this new
and insatiable demand,

the Romans started quarrying marble

in the Apennine mountains
near Carrara in Tuscany.

The historian Pliny claimed that
the marble here was purer

and whiter than
anything from Greece.

and whiter than
anything from Greece.

For anyone who likes sculpture,
this is a proper pilgrimage.

This is like returning
to the source,

because this is the place
that Michelangelo came

to get the stone
to make his famous Pieta.

So this is the source.
This is the mother lode.

MAN SPEAKS ITALIAN
I love this guy.

My guides are quarry owner
Franco Barattini

and sculptor Marcello Giorgi.

So this is the top of the mountain?

Yeah.

That is extraordinary.

And what's so special about the rock
that comes out of the ground here?

It's the transparency. So...

You can see some of the brightness
which comes out already,

and that's before it's been polished
up to become really like snow.

I would like that very much.

Sculpting in marble requires
a huge amount of skill.

Good sculptors were in demand
in ancient Rome,

but in terms of status,
they were jobbing artisans,

so few star names
have come down to us.

Sculptor Massimo Gelenni is making
a copy of a Roman bust

using a hammer and chisel,
just as the Romans would have done.

Aha! Hi, Massimo.

Massimo. Hello, hi.
Alistair. Alistair.

And I recognise this fellow.
It's Marcus Tullius Cicero.

That's pretty good!

It looks like it's soft.

Yeah, sure, sure.

Like, er...the skin's warm.

Which is significant
with a bust like this,

because what you can see
are lots of the realistic details.

The character of the face.

Crow's feet by the eyes,
the lines across the forehead,

the wrinkles,

the slightly jowly,
fatter cheeks.

All of these details
are very realistic,

typical of the busts of that period.

Thanks! You can work now
with the scalpello.

Well now I feel inspired,
now I have the Pietrasanta hat.

So, um...I place it up...

No! No! OK.

No, down here, right?

He got genuinely worried.
So, down here.

That's rubbish, I'm not
getting any purchase.

Put the hat back on.

Modern sculptors, like their
Renaissance predecessors,

prize the luminescence
of Carrara marble.

But for the Romans,
this wasn't enough.

It had to be as real as possible.

The latest scientific techniques

suggest that the ancient world
many not have been

as monochromatic
as most of us imagine.

This is a very rare thing.

When she was excavated,

traces of colour survived,

especially on the skin tones.

When you say traces of colour,

you're saying that these patches
are remnants of paint,

that this would have been
painted in antiquity?

Fully painted. Completely painted?
Completely painted.

How do you know?

Well, we studied
the surviving pigments,

which includes a pigment
called Egyptian Blue,

which was basically
only used in antiquity.

Especially mixed in the skin tones.

If you, for example,
mix white and pink,

you don't really get
a realistic skin tone.

You need to add something
blueish or greenish,

very, very small amounts
to make it more real,

more lifelike.

So all of these blotches here
is a piece of Egyptian blue

that has survived
from the Roman era?

That's really quite beautiful,

that's like the spirit
of the Roman statue,

which has somehow
been preserved. Yes.

So I have a question for you.

What is the point of sculpting
in such an expensive material

if you're then going
to slather it with paint?

Well, you make it
even more beautiful,

and paint is translucent,

so the quality of the marble

would have shown
through the paint layers.

So revelation number one
is that this head was definitively

covered with paint,
realistic pigment,

creating a lifelike impression
of a person or goddess,

in the Roman world.

Can we extrapolate from that
to make revelation number two,

and say that all the Roman marbles

that we encounter in galleries
around the world

would have been painted
in a similar fashion?

It is definitely a possibility.

Perhaps some sculptures
would have been fully painted

including the skin tones.

Some others, only details
might have been painted.

This example was definitely
fully painted.

She would have been painted
to look like a real person.

I've always been fascinated
by the strange and wonderful alchemy

that goes into creating a lifelike
impression in marble or bronze.

I've been told it's
a process of self-discovery.

My guru is sculpture
Marcello Georgi,

who's making a bronze bust of me.

Step one - he reproduces me in wax.

You're using the techniques that
the Roman artists would have used?

Yes, yes. In fact, this is
more or less the same technique,

the same way used in Roma.

Obviously the Romans
didn't have gas burners,

but they had to warm up the wax,

and you make it pliable
in your hands.

They probably use also different
kind of wax, natural wax from bees.

Beeswax? Yeah, sure.

And these will be
the thickness of the bronze.

So, the important point
to understand

is that in the finished
bronze portrait,

the bronze corresponds to the wax?

Yes. This is a weird experience.

Strange for you,
to see your face...?

Appearing. Appearing, yes.

How's that? Is that similar?

I must admit,
I'm a little bit apprehensive

that Marcello may be creating
Frankenstein's monster.

They don't look pretty,
but the tubes are needed

to let molten bronze
flow into my head.

Next I'm entombed in a special
mixture of clay and plaster.

From there, it's into the oven,
where my wax alter ego melts away.

All that will be left is
a negative impression of me.

Five days later,
I'm taken out of the oven,

and buried in a sand pit.

Molten bronze heated
to more than 1,000 degrees

is poured into the cavity
left by the wax.

This gives the process its name,
the lost wax technique.

12 hours later, and it's time to see
what lies within the clay womb.

It's a bit of a rough birth.

Time will tell how my bronze
doppelganger scrubs up.

This is it, underneath this green
scarf on the plinth. Yeah.

That's my head under there.

Yeah. OK, let's see it.

I show you? Yep.

Are you ready? Yeah, I'm ready.

Oooh!

What do you think?

God, it's weird.
I mean, I...it's...I tell you,

I think it's really uncanny
seeing yourself,

because in a way, you associate
things like this

with people who are dead.

I tell you what I really think,
as well, is that Roman busts

looked much older.

And I think this looks
a little young, really.

It sort of feels like
I should be a bit older

before someone's made a bust.

It's your portrait,
so it's totally different.

I think the Romans' portrait
is still nowadays

the most important example
of realistic portrait.

I love the fact that this was
something that the Romans did

that was new. Here was this idea
that they had a style, realism,

the warts and all,
the kind of unvarnished truth.

Sort of saying,
"You can read in my face

"all of my experiences
over the years."

They were the men who made
the Roman Empire what it was.

I'm not convinced this chap would
have created the Roman Empire,

but I think it's beautiful,
and thank you very much

for spending two months
of your life, poor you,

having to sculpt my head!

Thank you. You're welcome.

The Romans' love of realism
quickly evolved

beyond the portrait bust.

If that was their
greatest artistic innovation,

then running it a close second

was the documentary-style
historical relief.

The so-called altar
of Domitius Ahenobarbus

is considered one
of the most celebrated,

crucial monuments
of the Roman republic,

in part because it lies
right at the beginning

of a quintessential Roman tradition,

the historical relief commemorating
real events that took place.

So what we have here, if you like,

is the blueprint
for later Roman art.

This is one of
the essential chromosomes

in the genetic code
of Roman art history.

And the event depicted
is a census that was taken

by the consuls of the citizens
of Rome, usually every five years.

So at the left, you see young men
being enrolled into the Roman army.

And in the centre, you have
what was called the suovetaurilia -

I think I've got that right -

or the sacrificial killing
of a bull, a ram and a pig...

..in honour of the God Mars,
who you can see here,

wearing a helmet and his cuirass.

And then on the other side,
you have the man

presiding over the whole ceremony,
the censor himself,

with a veil, a crown of laurel...

..and what's specially distinctive
about this relief,

as well as the realism
of the subject matter,

is the style with which
it's been made,

because the carving
is really factual,

it's down to earth, it's sober.

It feels quite blunt.
In places it's awkward,

but it does have an honesty,
a sincerity, a straightforwardness,

a kind of pragmatism that feels
perfectly suited

to the spirit of the Republic.

Historical reliefs open a window
onto the everyday lives
of Rome's citizens.

And my next treasure celebrates
not a senator or a general,

but a baker.

This big old block of crumbling
brickwork and masonry

is essentially one gigantic
chunk of bourgeois self-promotion.

Because it's a tomb,

and it says, "This is the monument
of Marcus Vergilius Eurysaces."

And on the other side it tells us
what he did. He was a baker,

he was a contractor,
he was a public servant.

And I imagine him as quite a plump
and pleased-with-himself man,

because he's managed to bag himself
this important spot here

at this intersection of various busy
thoroughfares heading into the city.

And for those Romans who were
illiterate, in fact most of them,

he wanted to tell them how well
he'd done in the frieze at the top.

What we see is not
a mythological scene,

which you might expect on a tomb.

Instead, we see something
resolutely realistic.

It shows us life
in one of his bakeries.

There are various workers,
they're sifting grain,

they're kneading dough, they're
cutting the dough up into loaves.

They're putting it into an oven.

The interesting thing as well
about the style of the frieze,

is that some people call it plebeian
art. It's art of the people.

People who aren't really interested
in highfalutin nonsense.

They're interested in realities,
everyday business.

Eurysaces was clearly
a brilliant businessman,

and he made damn sure
that we know it.

The Roman republic left behind
a form of historical art,

which transports us
back to their world.

I'm heading out of Rome now,

I'm heading south along
the ancient Appian Way,

the Roman road, towards probably
the greatest archaeological site

ever discovered.

There, we can see the republic
at its height,

around the turn
of the first century BC...

..when the visual culture
of the Roman world

reached undreamt-of opulence
and complexity,

and art touched the everyday lives
of Roman citizens of every class.

I'm just having to slow down,

because this is incredibly bumpy
bit of the Appian Way!

I have a feeling
that the car's suspension

is maybe going to give up.

So wish me luck!

The Bay of Naples
is 120 miles south of Rome.

It was a fashionable resort
for wealthy Romans,

where they built luxurious seaside
villas and lived la dolce vita.

EXPLOSIVE ERUPTION

But that all changed
when a rather famous volcano

called Vesuvius erupted and buried
the nearby town of Pompeii

in scalding volcanic dust
and debris.

When excavations began
here in the 18th century,

they unearthed a really rich

and complex visual culture
here in Pompeii,

which was just a mere
provincial backwater

in comparison with
the metropolis of Rome.

So ultimately, that Vesuvian tragedy
testifies to the quality,

the variety and the obsessions
of Roman art.

What makes Pompeii so special

is that fragile and exquisite
works of art have been preserved

in almost perfect condition.

Nowhere else can you enjoy
such vibrant mosaics

and wonderful paintings.

Artistic disciplines in which
Republican Romans truly excelled.

So this is one of the grandest
residences in Pompeii.

It's known as the House Of The Faun,
named after this sculpture.

This is a beautiful piece.

I think it sets the tone
for the entire house,

which was clearly, as you
look around, extremely opulent.

Frescos, pattern mosaic floors.

I mean, this could be
a piece of '60s op art.

This is a wonderful
geometric extravaganza.

Complete with dog.
And you can see over here,

there's another mosaic of doves.
There were loads of them.

It was a real display
of aesthetic connoisseurship.

The real piece de resistance
of the decoration of this villa

is just over here.

It's not the real thing, the real
thing has long since been removed.

It's really quite an epic piece.

An enormous mosaic presenting a
dramatic, tumultuous battle scene,

starring the Macedonian hero
Alexander the Great,

charging in and defeating his enemy,
the King of the Persians, Darius,

in a battle from the 330s BC.

CRIES OF BATTLE

And this is the original.
And you can see at once

that rather than displaying
it on the floor,

they've presented it on a wall,
which is an interesting thing to do,

because you can revel in the mastery
with which this Roman artefact

has been made.

You see, when you get up close,
you suddenly realise

just what an epic undertaking
making this piece actually was.

This is a genuine masterpiece
of the mosaicist art.

Just see how small the bits of rock
and the bits of stone,

known as tesserae, are,
that construct the wider image.

There are estimates that say
for every square centimetre,

there are 15 odd pieces of stone,

and that would mean that the entire
mosaic would have

between possibly
two-and-a-half million

to maybe five-and-a-half million
of these bits of stone

to construct the entire image.

It's really mind-boggling,

and the overall design
is really compelling

as a piece of just
narrative history.

BATTLE CRIES

The mosaic brilliantly captures

the dramatic, visceral
hurly-burly of battle.

You can see Alexander
forging in from the left,

and compositionally there's
this long spear which pierces

straight through a Persian,
who's collapsing on horseback.

And Darius, the King
of the Persians
who's fleeing on his chariot,

reaches out to lament the fact that
his comrade has just been speared

by Alexander.

Some of the bits that I love
are, for example,

here there's a soldier who's fallen.

And you can see on the interior
of the shield,

there's a reflection
of this soldier's face.

So this isn't someone
looking out of the image,

it's a reflection of this soldier
looking back.

This is playing with depth,

in a way that suggested a true
degree of sophistication.

And I love these horses
leading the chariots,

these one, two, three, four
black demented horses,

with their eyes wide open,
full of anxiety, full of fear.

So lamentable.

They have a kind of jangled madness,
a ferocity,

which reminds me of a painting
like Picasso's Guernica,

and this was created
millennia beforehand.

Just to think that if it wasn't
for the eruption of that volcano,

this magnificent image, breathtaking
as it is, with all of its power,

wouldn't exist for us, and our
culture, Western civilisation,

would be all the poorer as a result.

Pompeii offers a kind of
through-the-keyhole experience.

This ruined villa
on the edge of the town

is a mysterious Neverland,
with a very special treasure

that brings together myth, fantasy

and the unique customs
of Roman life.

It's a bit of a maze, isn't it?

So it goes on and on, but...

Finally!

This is the chamber, for which
this villa is so famous.

God, it's bizarre.
You come in here...

and you're transported
into this really mythical realm.

What you see is one continuous
frieze that extends

all the way around the room,
on all four walls.

And you walk into the middle,
and you become a part of the action,

you're immersed by this painting,
enfolded by it.

There are 28 figures on the frieze,

and some of them are recognisably
human. They're woman, Roman women.

Here's a Roman matron, for example.

Here are also some women,
perhaps a slave girl,

maybe this girl's a priestess.
But along with them...

..you have these figures from myth.
So here's Silenus, playing a lyre.

And then you have Bacchus
and Ariadne.

This really disturbing
demon woman...

with wings,

who seems to be whipping
some poor lady

as part of a kind of rite
and initiation.

The whole area, the aura of this
is just suffused

with something very enigmatic.

Because no-one really knows
what this painting is about.

There are lots of different
theories.

In fact, a lot of it hinges
on this lady over here.

Someone tending her hair,

a kind of Cupid-like winged figure

from myth, holding up a mirror
to see her reflection.

And perhaps she, maybe with
some of the other women,

is about to be initiated into some
cult associated with Dionysus.

Maybe this is about a kind
of ritual, a rite of passage,

an initiation into sexual maturity,
if you like.

But the fact that I can't quite
understand what exactly it means

doesn't detract, if anything
it adds, it enhances...

..that elusive quality about it,
which is really tantalising

for your imagination.

What's incredible
is that this fresco

is just one among many
uncovered at Pompeii.

'I've come to the National
Archaeological Museum in Naples

'with painter Leo Stevenson,

'to examine the technical virtuosity
of his Roman forebears.'

..the amount of painting
that survived.

The quantity and sometimes
the quality is staggering.

It just blows your mind.

I mean, an image like this,
I think is quite typical.

I mean, what can we see?
This is a Europa figure from myth

being carried away by Zeus, the
chief god, in the form of a bull.

It's got enormous testicles!

Um, yes I've noticed that.
But my eye is drawn to the drapery.

I mean, this is an artist working
in the technique of fresco.

You paint into a special kind
of wet plaster, a lime plaster.

The pigments get drawn in,

so it works quite quickly
and efficiently.

When you're actually painting the
image, you are against the clock.

Over the course of time,
chemically it turns to stone.

That's why so many of these
amazing paintings survive,

because they are literally stone, and
the pigment is bound in the surface.

What I think is quite fantastic here

is you get a sense,
not just of these individuals,

sort of almost like paintings
on a wall,

but the whole room
would have been decorated,

everything saturated with colour,
imagery, design.

Yes, but what's astonishing
about a museum like this is you see

a huge range of subject matter,
as well as quality.

You have historical, mythological,
you have still lives. Portraiture.

Seascapes, landscapes.
Everything is here.

It's almost the whole panoply
of subject matter that we know

from later times.
But it existed then.

One of the things
that interests me,

I've noticed that an awful lot
of these images,

they're surrounded
by black or brown borders.

I think that represents frames.

Because what we're looking at
is a picture of a picture.

Now we know that they had panel
paintings, much as later ages had.

Individual pictures,
you hung on a wall.

These pictures would have been
staggeringly good.

You imagine the best art

that was produced in the centre
of the spider's web in Rome itself.

Serious money,
serious high-status people.

The kind of art they would've had.

Leo chooses to recreate a panel
painting from a fresco at Pompeii,

showing a resplendent villa
in the shadow of Vesuvius.

So this is all the gear.

This is all the gear.
This is the important thing.

It's an egg. It's an egg. An egg.

Basically, egg yolk is used to bind
the paint onto the surface.

When it dries, it lasts
for a very, very long time,

as we know from the paintings
that survived.

Now, the trick is to just take
the yolk out without the white...

..so it's just the yolk itself.

Now, that's the binder.
We now need to make the paint.

So if we pour a little bit
of the egg yolk in here...

And if we take a colour,

say, for instance,
this beautiful, um, Egyptian blue...

See, that's quite a rich
gorgeous blue. Mm-hm.

I'm also going to add
a little bit of white.

This white is actually
a very refined chalk.

So effectively, that is your paint.

Wow.

That is my impression of that.

And you stuck throughout here
to using the Roman technique of...

Yes, this is all done
in tempera paint.

This is what they would have done.

If you compare and contrast,
what have you done to take us

beyond the wall painting to
the postulated original panel?

Well, I've mainly concentrated
on using a greater subtlety

of colour, and of tone.

Now, by tone, I mean the range
from the lightest light

to the darkest dark
and all the shades in-between.

The background, I've compressed
the tones so they're much closer

together, so that makes it a sort
of a recession space, so effectively

the strongest, darkest tones are
in the foreground with the building.

That's very impressive. Thank you.

However much I admire
the Romans' desire
to document their lives in art,

there are times
when it goes a little far.

If you're prudish, you might want
to go and make a cup of tea.

So if you were one of the men
who lived in Pompeii,

you might pop out your villa
and you have to go on a few errands,

buy a loaf of bread, maybe drink
some wine in one of the bars.

Perhaps you might even have time
to fit in a visit,

maybe quite a quick one,
to one of Pompeii's 35 brothels.

That was one for every 71 men
who lived in the town.

And just to help you find your way,

there were these very useful
street signs.

There's another one up here.

I think you follow the direction of
the, well, art historians call it

an ithyphallic penis.

So, come and have a look. It's not
really the height of romance.

It's quite basic.

You'd hand over a few coins.
And to get you in the mood,

there were these frescos
of people having sex.

Now, well, that's...
That's an intriguing one.

But this is the thing
about Roman art, you come in,

and of course today, for us, these
images induce all sorts of smirks

and lots of titters. "Oh, look!"
It's all very smutty.

And this is clearly pornographic.

The thing about Roman art, though,
is that there are images like this

throughout every genre,
every location.

You can find pictures of people
shagging, people having sex.

And for centuries,
it's been hidden away.

People try to neatly tidy up
Roman art

and suggest that images like this
were only found in brothels

or bars.

It's not strictly true.
You could find erotica,

even if it was considered erotica,
we don't know,

all over the Roman world.

Exploring Pompeii, I'm overwhelmed
by the sheer volume of art.

Today we prize individual paintings
and sculptures,

but when it came to art, the Romans
wanted everything at once.

Aesthetic overload defined the
splendid look of the late republic.

It's almost as if this warrior race,

who were forever expanding
their territorial frontiers,

were just as keen on conquering
space in a visual sense as well.

By the first century BC,
Roman art had come of age.

But at the same time,
the republic was collapsing.

As Rome grew, power was concentrated
in the hands of generals

like Julius Caesar and Pompey
the Great, who went to war

with each other.

BATTLE CRIES

This civil strife culminated in
the epoch-changing Battle Of Actium,

off the coast of Western Greece.

The victor was Octavian,

Caesar's 31-year-old adopted son.

Following his spectacular victory
at Actium,

Octavian found himself all
of a sudden the sole ruler
of the Mediterranean world.

And it wasn't long before the senate
bestowed upon him a new title,

Augustus.

His metamorphosis into becoming
the first emperor of Rome

was under way.

And in order to help him
implement that shift

from republic to empire,
Augustus and his court

had to precision-engineer
a whole new concept of Roman art.

It was an artistic revolution based
upon the image of Augustus himself.

Around 200 portraits of him survive.

Augustus appears
in many different guises,

but they all have
something in common.

The first emperor is handsome,
young, and wart-free.

Before Augustus, Roman portraiture
was primarily about commemoration,

about presenting individuals
in a realistic fashion.

But this offered something
completely new.

Because in opposition
to the whole veristic tradition
of Roman portraiture,

this offers a vision of someone
really glamorous, not grizzled.

Charismatic rather than choleric.

He looks eternal,
rather than earthly.

And Augustus was so pleased
with his new portrait type,

that he kept it, unaltered,
until he died, aged 76, in AD 14.

So in a sense, this head is
the Roman equivalent of Botox.

It's removing unwanted lines
and wrinkles,

because by the time of Augustus,
old age was so last century.

That was the public face
of the first emperor.

But in private,
Augustus sanctioned a look

which, to those in the know,
conveyed a very different message.

This is the really beautiful
Blacas Cameo,

which is a portrait of Augustus
that was painstakingly carved

out of this special stone
called sardonyx,

which consists of three
differently coloured layers.

And there's something
about this particular example,

with its really smooth polish,
lustrous forms,

that proclaims a majestic
refinement.

But unlike the bronze head, which
would've been seen by the masses,

this projects a message

that was only really fit
for Augustus' court.

Because whoever made it presents
Augustus almost as a god.

He's got this special kind of cape
known as an aegis,

which was associated
with the goddess Minerva.

And we know that
back in the republic,

the Romans of course were famously
mistrustful of monarchs.

And here, Augustus couldn't really
look much more kingly if he tried.

So in public, he always said
he was the first among equals,

he paid lip service to the power
of the senators.

But in private, in art like this,
he transmitted the truth,

a different message, one that
paved the way for the future

when the emperors would be
regarded as gods.

Augustus realised that Rome
wasn't ready yet for god emperors.

He understood the psyche
of the people,

and was playing a clever,
even cynical game.

In fact, he was secretly
killing off the republic,

at the same time as paving the way
for his vision of the Roman empire.

And art played a leading role
in this deception.

Nowhere can this be better seen

than in one of ancient Rome's
greatest artistic treasures.

I've never actually visited
the Ara Pacis Augusti

or the Altar Of Augustan Peace
before in the flesh, as it were.

I've read a lot about it,

but it really is
quite a magnificent monument,

work of art, really.

It was inaugurated in 13 BC,
it was dedicated in 9 BC,

and this structure in the middle of
the enclosure is the altar itself.

Monument to peace, and you can see
up above, there's a simple frieze

of animals being led
to the sacrifice,
where they'd be slaughtered.

These big, thick swags of garlands

of fruit and natural produce.

This sense of teeming abundance
is a big theme of the Ara Pacis.

In a sense, it was a real
great piece of propaganda.

The political message is emblazoned

on the outside of the monument
for all to see.

Up above, you see this
and it really looks quite stunning.

You see this big procession.

It's a frieze which shows Roman
officials, consuls, magistrates

and, crucially, the imperial family.

That figure there is Augustus,
very damaged,

half his body's been
crunched away by time.

You've got the empress, Livia.

You have Livia's son,
the future emperor Tiberius.

It's almost as though the sculptures
of the Ara Pacis

were trying to suggest that
here was a new dynasty

that could potentially rule Rome
for eternity,

which is really emblematised
by another panel

which you can see
just around the corner here.

You have this wonderful
scrolling foliage down below

that looks like this very elegant
kind of calligraphy.

But up above, you have this panel,

which in a sense is the poetic
masterpiece of the Ara Pacis.

At the centre, you have a woman
and her identification...

People are unsure who she might be.

She could be Pax, peace.
She could be Venus,

a personification of Italia, or
Tellus, this kind of Earth goddess.

In the background behind, you can
see these wonderful swaying ears

of corn and wheat and poppies.

It's just a vision of a wonderful
paradise here on Earth,

a golden age, and it's promising
all of Augustus' subjects

that this is what life will be like
in the future.

You can forget about
all of the turmoil

and all of the chaos
of the republic.

From now on, this is the new
Augustan era of peace

and harmony and abundance.

It proved to be the perfect look
for a new society,

as Augustus turned Rome
from a city of brick

into a metropolis of marble,

and transformed the republic
into an empire.

In the next episode,
pleasure palaces,

unbridled debauchery,

blood lust,

triumphal might...

..and the most beautiful boy
in the world.

It's art and the age
of the emperors.

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