Original subtitles

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

narrator: This week, on "Ancient Top 10"...

the city that worshipped death.

- The population would gather in the thousands,

and they would watch grisly ritual sacrifices.

narrator: A capital that took on

the power of the Roman Empire.

- The ancient city of Carthage was as big as Manhattan

and every bit as classy.

narrator: The eternal city that spawned

the greatest ancient civilization.

- Rome was truly one of the greatest metropolises

of the ancient world.

narrator: And a fortified metropolis

that withstood sieges for a thousand years.

- Constantinople was really the jewel of the East.

Everybody in that area wanted it.

Everybody in that area would do anything to get it.

narrator: The most amazing cities in the ancient world...

where will they be ranked on the only top ten list

thousands of years in the making?

[dramatic percussive music]

♪ ♪

narrator: Sprawling, powerful...

the beating heart of civilizations.

But what makes a great city?

Innovation...

monumental buildings...

epic engineering.

The more successful a city gets, the bigger it grows.

And some of the most magnificent cities

were built in ancient times.

This week's ancient top ten...

♪ ♪

The greatest ancient metropolises...

ranked according to their population size.

And straight in at number ten,

it's the ancient Egyptian capital...

[epic music]

Thebes.

♪ ♪

- Nearly 3,500 years ago,

Thebes was the largest city in the world.

Many of its awesome monuments are still standing today,

and that's why it's gotta make our top ten.

narrator: Ancient Egypt was one the greatest civilizations

of the ancient world.

[dramatic musical flourish]

It was the land of the Great Sphinx

and the mighty pyramids of Giza.

♪ ♪

And its capital was Thebes--

which is now Luxor city.

♪ ♪

- Thebes is unquestionably

one of the great cities of the ancient world.

It was massive, and we're talking massive

from about 2000 BC onwards.

For hundreds and hundreds of years,

this was the seat of power in ancient Egypt.

♪ ♪

narrator: By 1500 BC,

it had a population of 75,000,

the biggest in the world at the time.

Thebes was filled with soaring monuments

dedicated to its rulers, the pharaohs.

♪ ♪

Towering symbols of power, wealth and glory,

they cover over 36 square miles.

The most impressive--

Karnak, an enormous complex of temples

that is nearly a mile long.

- Karnak is the work of over 30 successive pharaohs

all trying to make their mark.

narrator: Inside is the Hypostyle hall...

♪ ♪

A vast forest of 134 towering columns...

♪ ♪

Some as tall as a six-story building.

♪ ♪

It's considered one of the greatest

architectural achievements of all time.

♪ ♪

Karnak is connected to the equally impressive

Luxor temple...

♪ ♪

By an avenue lined with sphinx statues,

totaling 2 miles in length.

The pharaohs portrayed themselves as gods

in images on walls all across Thebes.

- You have the great kings,

the pharaohs building their palaces, statues of themselves.

Amenhotep III for example,

he not only built his great palace there,

but he built an artificial lake that was 1.5 square miles.

♪ ♪

Ramesses II built a statue of himself 62 feet high.

So the egos of the pharaohs were embedded

in this great metropolis of Thebes.

narrator: And not only in life, this continued in death.

On the Western outskirts of the ancient city

were a whole host of incredible mortuary temples

like Medinet Habu...

[intense music]

And Deir el-Bahari,

built to honor dead rulers.

♪ ♪

But a few miles further outside the city limits

was an even more elaborate dedication

to the dead pharaohs--

a collection of 63 underground burial tombs

filled with riches

called the Valley of the Kings.

[exciting music]

Past pharaohs had been buried in grand pyramids,

but their tombs had been plundered.

The Valley of the Kings was designed

to keep the pharaohs' belongings safe

so they could use them in the afterlife.

♪ ♪

Sadly though, they, too, fell victim to grave robbers,

and their riches were pillaged.

♪ ♪

- The Valley of the Kings is full of empty tombs,

and we'll never know what incredible treasure

they once held.

It's ironic that the smallest tomb discovered

was full of gold,

and the name of that pharaoh, now synonymous with treasure--

Tutankhamun.

♪ ♪

narrator: A vision of power and prosperity,

just like the other legends of this magnificent city.

[intense music]

After nearly 2,000 years of glory,

Thebes eventually declined in power

as later pharaohs moved the capital to different cities

and Egypt fell into economic difficulties.

But its epic monuments live on as a reminder of its greatness.

[exciting music]

Across the Atlantic was another ancient city

founded on the legacy of its dead.

But this was built not on the tombs of its rulers

but from the bones of its people.

At number nine...

[epic music]

It's the Aztec city of Teotihuacan.

[intense percussive music]

- Teotihuacan was the biggest city in the Americas,

of course until New York arrived.

It had a population of possibly 200,000 people.

narrator: Located about 30 miles north

of present-day Mexico City,

it was believed to be a sacred place by the Aztecs.

♪ ♪

The name they gave it, Teotihuacan,

means "birthplace of the Gods."

♪ ♪

The city has a mysterious history,

as the culture had no written language.

We don't know exactly when it was founded,

and it may be that it was already in ruins

by the time the Aztecs arrived and populated it.

Teotihuacan is famed for having pyramids that rival Egypt's.

♪ ♪

This is the magnificent Pyramid of the Sun,

the third largest pyramid in the world.

- The Pyramid of the Sun at Teotihuacan

is absolutely massive.

It's 760 feet wide at its base,

which is the same width as the Great Pyramid in Egypt.

♪ ♪

- Standing before this pyramid, you're just amazed

that something so enormous

was built nearly 2,000 years ago

and by a culture we still know so little about!

narrator: But we do know

that the pyramids hide a dark secret.

- During certain calendrical rites,

the population would gather in the thousands

and they would watch grisly sacrificial rituals

of children.

And we find the evidence bones of these children

at the foundations of the temples and the pyramids.

narrator: And it wasn't just children

who were sacrificed.

Excavations of the Pyramid of the Moon,

the second largest temple on the site,

have discovered the bodies of adults too.

♪ ♪

Victims were often from other tribes,

hunted like prey.

The chase ended not in a kill...

[men grunting, yelling]

But a living offering of blood to the gods.

The pyramids were where the gods received it.

[yelling in native language]

It was priests who led the gruesome ritual,

armed with a knife, its blade made out of obsidian.

narrator: Obsidian is a volcanic glass so sharp

it can produce a cutting edge

that is superior to a steel scalpel,

and it is still used by some surgeons today.

[crowd yelling]

While the sacrificial victim was still alive,

the priest would plunge the knife into his abdomen,

rip open a hole the size of his hand,

reach in, and grab the still-beating heart.

♪ ♪

He would then hold it up to show it to the gods.

The offering of blood and sacrificial rituals

were part of everyday life.

Death wasn't feared. It was embraced.

♪ ♪

- At Teotihuacan, you can see this fascinating

and everlasting relationship with the dead,

with people burying their ancestors' remains

in the foundations and the doorways of their own homes.

♪ ♪

narrator: The city was eventually burned,

possibly in an uprising of the lower-class citizens.

[intense music]

The legend of this mighty metropolis never dies...

built on Aztec religion, ritual,

and most of all...blood.

[epic music]

And Teotihuacan was not the only place

to get hearts racing.

Coming up,

a lush biblical city that was scandalized by sin.

♪ ♪

And which metropolis will be number one?

[intense percussive music]

♪ ♪

narrator: We're back with the countdown

of the greatest ancient metropolises,

ranked by the size of their population.

At number eight, we're off to a city

that grew to biblical proportions...

[epic music]

Babylon.

♪ ♪

- Babylon was the first great metropolis

of the ancient world,

and it reached its peak nearly 4,000 years ago.

narrator: Babylon was located in what is now Iraq.

Tactically placed between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers,

it is credited with being

one of the birthplaces of civilization.

♪ ♪

- Babylon. Just the name suggests grandeur.

But in 2300 BC,

Babylon was just a small city in the Akkadian Empire.

It was about 300 years to 400 years later

that it became the seat of the great Babylonian Empire.

[dramatic music]

narrator: Babylon was written about in the Bible

and was the first city in history

to exceed a population of over 200,000 people.

It reached its great strength

under the so-called mad king Nebuchadnezzar.

He rebuilt its temples and the great royal palace

and carried out work on its extraordinary city walls

which were an impressive 56 miles long.

- Most ancient cities had walls,

but Babylon was so rich and wealthy

it's believed its walls were encrusted with precious stones.

Inside the city walls was another famous structure,

the Ziggurat.

[intense music]

It's thought to be the Tower of Babel from the Bible,

and it gave the Babylonians a reputation of sin.

♪ ♪

It's claimed they angered God

by daring to build a tower high enough to reach heaven.

Referring to its impressive height,

the Bible describes it as having "its top in the sky."

- The Tower of Babel must have been amazing,

but there was something even more jaw-dropping in the city--

the Hanging Gardens of Babylon,

one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world.

♪ ♪

- Imagine an artificial mountain covered in huge trees,

shrubs, and vines,

kept lush, green, and fresh.

♪ ♪

narrator: A pioneering irrigation system

transformed the garden's dry, sandy soil.

It took water from a lake at the bottom,

up 80 feet to the top.

♪ ♪

Historians think a pump resembling the Archimedes Screw

may have been used to do this.

♪ ♪

- Babylon became this huge artificial creation

in the great gardens and the lush orchards,

and all of these things were achieved

by immense hydraulic engineering,

a feat unprecedented in the ancient world.

narrator: After nearly 2,000 years of splendor,

the city was conquered by the leader of the Macedonians,

Alexander the Great, in 331 BC.

Over the next century, the city was gradually emptied

and its former glory was lost...

but it has never been forgotten.

[dramatic musical flourish]

But greatness isn't always built out of bricks.

Our next city gave the world one of the greatest gifts ever.

At number seven...

[epic music]

It's Athens,

the birthplace of democracy.

- The population of Athens was 250,000.

This was a city that had a remarkable impact

on both the ancient and the modern worlds.

narrator: The Greek city of Athens

was a vibrant, cultured place.

♪ ♪

Great thinkers like Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle

turned it into a center of learning.

And it was here

that one of the most influential ideas in history

was conceived--democracy.

- Democracy is one of the greatest ideas

we have from ancient times.

It all started in Athens.

♪ ♪

narrator: Athens was ruled exclusively by an aristocracy.

But after a period of civil unrest,

a new system was formed.

Around the 5th century BC,

male citizens were given the right to vote.

It was the beginnings of a democratic society.

narrator: Under democratic rule, the city flourished.

And the most famous achievement--

Athens' iconic building... the Parthenon.

[exciting music]

Standing on the Acropolis,

a rocky hill which looked out over the city,

it was an architectural work of art.

- The Parthenon in Athens

is the only temple ever built entirely from marble.

30,000 tons of it,

and cut from a hillside 10 miles away.

Now, that's pretty amazing.

[uplifting music]

narrator: Built in just eight or nine years,

it's 228 feet long...

♪ ♪

Made out of approximately 13,400 blocks.

♪ ♪

Just these columns weigh up to 200 tons each.

♪ ♪

Carving the vertical grooves down each of them

was likely to have cost as much as the quarrying,

carrying, and assembly of the marble combined.

narrator: The Parthenon was breathtaking,

but it could afford to be

because it wasn't paid for by the Athenians

but by protection money

demanded from their allied city-states.

- The Parthenon cost 30 million drachma to build.

It's hard to calculate how much that is today,

but possibly about $1.5 billion.

[dramatic musical sting]

narrator: A huge sum,

but the value of what it represents is priceless.

It's seen as a symbol of democracy,

Athens' great gift to the world.

Just like Babylon, Athens was conquered by the Macedonians.

However, it continued to flourish

until the 2nd century BC

when it fell to the expanding Roman Empire.

But the impact it had on our world is huge.

[intense music]

Coming up...

the capital of an empire so powerful

it almost sailed away with control of the Mediterranean...

[crowd roars] And...

an ancient stronghold city

that was nearly burned to the ground by its own people.

[intense percussive music]

[intense music]

narrator: This is "Ancient Top 10's" list

of the greatest cities of the ancient world...

♪ ♪

Ranked according to the size of their populations.

And with a massive 700,000 people,

we've reached number six...

[epic music]

It's Carthage.

♪ ♪

- The ancient city of Carthage on the coast of North Africa

was as big as Manhattan and every bit as classy.

And for that reason, it deserves to be in our top ten.

narrator: Carthage, in what is now Tunisia,

was founded in the 9th century BC

by a mighty seafaring nation called the Phoenicians.

- We think of the ancient Mediterranean world

at this time and we think of the Greeks and the Romans,

but there was a third great power,

and this was the empire of Carthage.

[waves rush, seagulls call]

narrator: The Phoenicians were famous maritime traders

who grew Carthage from a small port.

- 700,000 people lived there at its height.

That's bigger than Detroit, bigger than Boston,

bigger than Washington-- this is huge!

narrator: In less than 100 years,

Carthage became the richest city in the Mediterranean.

- The Carthaginians had six-story apartment blocks

all over the city,

and water was pumped into the kitchens and bathrooms.

[hammers clink] [waves splash]

- The jewel in Carthage's crown was its harbor.

It attracted trade and intellectuals

from right across the ancient world,

from beyond the Mediterranean.

It really was the place to be.

♪ ♪

narrator: The harbor was home

to the ancient world's most formidable navy--

220 warships...

an intimidating presence to the rival across the sea

who had eyes on Carthage-- Rome.

- Rome versus Carthage.

One civilization on the rise to becoming great.

The other, an established powerhouse

in the ancient world.

Bound to clash, but neither giving up

until the other has been reduced to ashes.

narrator: It became an epic feud,

played out over three wars known as the Punic Wars,

lasting more than 100 years.

The first was mainly about control of Sicily,

and Carthage suffered humiliating losses.

♪ ♪

The second Punic war was dominated

by the legendary Carthaginian general Hannibal.

♪ ♪

He ravaged Italy with his army of war elephants

after leading a daring assault through the Alps...

[elephants trumpeting]

And he took the Romans to the brink of defeat

in the bloody Battle of Cannae.

[men shouting]

But the third war was to be the end of Carthage.

The city came under siege from the Romans

and fell in 146 BC when they burnt it to the ground,

ending 700 years of Carthaginian rule.

♪ ♪

However, they rebuilt it as a Roman city

and took it to new heights.

It was under Roman rule that it reached its peak population.

[exciting music]

Just as the Romans transformed Carthage,

they took our next metropolis from an ancient Greek colony

to the most powerful city in Europe.

[intense music]

In at number five,

with a population size of between 750,000

to a million people...

[epic music]

It's Constantinople.

♪ ♪

- Constantinople was called the New Rome,

or the second Rome, and for a thousand years

it was the biggest and most exciting city on Earth.

♪ ♪

narrator: It was founded in 324 AD

by Emperor Constantine the Great and named after him.

♪ ♪

The Roman Empire had grown so large

that its historic capital, Rome,

was too far from its frontiers.

♪ ♪

So Constantine stripped it of its powers

and established Constantinople

as the new capital of the empire.

♪ ♪

- Constantinople, which today we know as Istanbul

in modern-day Turkey, was really the jewel of the East,

the gateway to the east

and the seat of power for Eastern Christendom.

[intense music]

♪ ♪

narrator: Constantinople's location on the Bosphorus,

a narrow stretch of water dividing Europe and Asia,

made it a prominent trading post

and strongpoint between the East and West.

In the new capital,

the state-sponsored religion, Christianity, flourished.

- Constantinople was a Christian city,

so it banned gladiatorial games,

but it replaced these

with an absolute passion for chariot racing.

[hard rock music]

narrator: The greatest racing stadium in the world

was built here-- the hippodrome.

Tiered seating could fit up to 100,000 spectators

watching eight chariots, powered by four horses each,

competing for glory.

The teams wore different colors

and represented the political parties within the state.

- There were these competing factions in the city:

the reds, the blues, the greens, and the whites,

and passions ran really high.

I mean, these were like the kind of big football teams

of their day.

In fact, passions ran so high

that at one point the competing teams

actually generated a riot in the city,

the great Nica riot,

which nearly burnt Constantinople to the ground.

narrator: The riots claimed 30,000 lives

and destroyed half the city.

[dramatic musical flourish]

But its reconstruction gave us some of its finest buildings,

including one of the greatest cathedrals ever.

- The Hagia Sofia changed the history of architecture--

the largest cathedral in the world for over a thousand years.

[inspiring music]

♪ ♪

The Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world,

took six years to build.

The Capitol in DC,

just the dome alone, it took 11 years to build.

So it's even more impressive when we look back

at the Hagia Sophia.

It took five years to build the entire structure

with ancient technology. Amazing.

narrator: Constantinople didn't rely on God

to keep their city safe.

It had some of the greatest defenses

in the ancient world...

♪ ♪

And it took something explosive to eventually bring them down.

It's coming up... on "Ancient Top 10."

[intense percussive music]

narrator: In this countdown

of the top ten greatest ancient metropolises,

we've started at number ten

with the astonishing monuments of Thebes in ancient Egypt.

At number nine was the city of death, Teotihuacan...

and number eight was the biblical city of Babylon.

Number seven saw us visit the birthplace of democracy,

Athens...

while number six was the maritime powerhouse Carthage.

But now we're at number five and we're in Constantinople,

which ousted Rome as capital of the Roman Empire

in the 4th century AD.

The city itself was a prime target

for the Empire's many enemies.

- Everybody in that area wanted it.

Everybody in that area would do anything to get it.

narrator: Constantinople's enemies knew

that the best way to take the city

would be with siege warfare.

In order for the population to survive sieges,

they needed a secure source of water.

So they built cisterns, or reservoirs,

to store a fresh supply from springs outside the city.

One of the biggest was the Basilica Cistern.

It was an immense chamber of 336 marble columns,

covering more than 96,000 square feet...

sunk underground, right in the heart of the metropolis.

It still exists today.

- The amazing thing about Constantinople

is that this was a city that was built to last.

It had a whole cistern of water supplies underneath it.

It was a city that was planned,

and so it didn't just survive-- it thrived.

narrator: And the city's exterior defenses

were the best around.

- The defense systems of Constantinople

comprised of a double wall up to 200 feet high

and 12 feet thick,

making it the strongest wall in the ancient world.

[exciting music]

narrator: In front of this was a moat stretching 60 feet wide.

♪ ♪

And more than 400 towers, bastions, and gates

gave the wall extra strength.

♪ ♪

Constantinople survived 17 sieges over 1,000 years.

It was only the advent of gunpowder siege cannons

that overwhelmed them.

Also used as a bombard, it was used by the Turk army

when they invaded the city in 1453.

It was more powerful than anything seen before--

40,000 pounds of bronze,

needing 400 men and 60 oxen to move it.

[exciting music]

The chamber would be packed with gunpowder,

enough to fire a 30-inch, 1,500-pound stone ball

more than a mile.

This reconstruction shows its devastating effect.

[exciting music]

♪ ♪

Constantinople's walls didn't stand a chance...

[boom]

♪ ♪

And in 1458, the city fell.

The Turks re-named it Istanbul...

♪ ♪

And it is still a bustling metropolis,

adorned with reminders of its ancient Roman past.

[percussive music]

A thousand miles east of Constantinople,

the great Arab leader al-Mansur

decided to build a city of his own.

Rising out of the plains, it grew into

most populous city in the world.

At number four...

[epic music]

It's Baghdad.

- This was once a glorious city,

center of a great civilization,

and a beacon of knowledge and culture.

Baghdad, a thousand years ago, was one of the biggest

and most magnificent ancient metropolises.

narrator: Baghdad was founded on the Tigris River,

in what is now Iraq, in the 760s AD.

[exciting music]

It was a strategic location,

chosen by al-Mansur

for its importance in global trading routes.

- Baghdad was a purpose-built city,

and it went from being quite a modest place

to, at its height, a city where 900,000 people lived.

And that is quite an extraordinary number

for the time.

narrator: It was nicknamed the 'round city'

because they created it in a unique, circular design.

And it was one of the greatest construction projects

in the Islamic world.

Baghdad emerged in a period known as

the Islamic Golden Age.

In the 8th to the 13th centuries,

great cultural, economic, and intellectual growth took place.

♪ ♪

Baghdad's House of Wisdom led the way

in technological and scientific development.

- Baghdad wanted to be

the globe's new intellectual center.

The House of Wisdom was there,

where all the biggest and best ideas from both east and west

were gathered in.

♪ ♪

And if you actually translated a book there,

then you were given that book's weight in gold as payment.

♪ ♪

narrator: The translated texts preserved ancient knowledge

and passed it on to the next generation.

This earned Baghdad the reputation of being

the "center of the world" for its academic studies.

♪ ♪

- In that part of the world at that time,

all roads led to Baghdad,

a center of science, culture, and technology.

narrator: Sadly, ancient Baghdad

was destroyed by the Mongols in 1258.

It was said that they threw so many manuscripts

into the Tigris, its waters ran black with ink.

Thousands of years' worth of knowledge was lost.

We are left wondering what the world could have been like

if the knowledge of Baghdad hadn't been destroyed.

Coming up...

Asia's greatest metropolis,

home to the largest palace ever built...

and the shining light of Egypt,

a city home to one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world.

[intense percussive music]

[exciting music]

narrator: This is "Ancient Top 10's" countdown

of the greatest ancient metropolises.

At number three is a city that gave the world

something more precious than gold.

[epic music]

It's the ancient Chinese capital of Xi'an.

♪ ♪

- The Chinese city of Xi'an

is bigger than anything on our list so far.

It had over a million inhabitants--it was massive.

And for centuries it was booming.

[percussive music]

- The site of Xi'an in ancient China

was an unbelievably important metropolis.

I mean, there were a million inhabitants, 4,000 palaces.

One of the most extraordinary places in the ancient world.

narrator: Xi'an, in the center of China,

was the country's capital for hundreds of years,

and its rulers demanded to live in style.

One of the most magnificent structures in the city

was the huge Weiyang Palace.

♪ ♪

- The scale of the buildings was incredible.

The Weiyang Palace, meaning "the endless palace,"

covered 2 square miles.

That's 11 times the size of the Vatican,

making it the largest palace ever built.

♪ ♪

- The palace had 40 halls,

the largest of which was big enough

to fit the White House inside.

narrator: Sadly, the palace was burnt to the ground,

and we are left wondering as to its splendor.

Xi'an could fund the building of colossal projects like this,

thanks to the world's oldest trade route,

which connected to this bustling capital.

- Xi'an was at the center of the business

that made China fabulously rich--

the silk trade.

And, boy, did it make them a lot of money.

[crowd chatter]

narrator: Xi'an was the starting point

of the Silk Road,

a famous network of trading routes to eastern Europe.

Silk was exported all the way to Rome, 5,000 miles away,

and considered more precious than gold.

Xi'an boomed.

There was building on an immense scale.

[dramatic music]

Sadly, most of Xi'an has been lost to time

as it fell into decline around 900 AD.

But its status as a metropolis has lived on,

and today it is home to 8 million people.

♪ ♪

Next on our list was the ultimate Egyptian city,

a bustling center of knowledge

founded by the greatest general of the ancient world.

At number two...

[epic music]

It's Alexandria.

- The great ancient city of Alexandria.

This was one of the great centers of learning

in the entire planet.

narrator: Lying on the coast of the Mediterranean in Egypt,

Alexandria was founded

by the legendary Greek military commander Alexander the Great

after he invaded Egypt in 331 BC.

He wanted to spread Greek culture throughout his empire,

and his new city was to be at the very heart of it.

- Egypt was an ultimate prize for Alexander the Great,

and when he managed to take the region,

he put a jewel in that crown,

and that jewel was the city of Alexandria.

[percussive music]

narrator: Alexander left Egypt

only a few months after the city's formation

and never returned.

♪ ♪

But his city continued to prosper.

♪ ♪

Designed in a grid system just like modern-day Manhattan,

in just over a hundred years,

it became the largest city in the world at the time.

It's been said that the city became so grand

that 1/3 of it was covered

in extravagant monuments and palaces.

- This was a place where there was street lighting.

Some of the streets were 30 meters wide,

and it was filled with some of the greatest treasures

from the known world.

narrator: Alexandria attracted the greatest scholars.

Greek expertise, influenced by the ancient Egyptian heritage,

produced stunning results.

♪ ♪

Such as the mighty Pharos,

the lighthouse of Alexandria

and one of the original Seven Wonders of the World.

At over 400 feet high,

the Pharos was one of the tallest man-made structures

and was famous around the world.

- So much so, the word pharos in many languages

still means lighthouse.

♪ ♪

narrator: It's another example

of the engineering excellence of the city.

[dramatic music]

- The most important thing about this place

was that this was the center of all the knowledge on earth.

Everything that was written down

was stored in the great Library of Alexandria.

It was like a kind of living internet of its day.

♪ ♪

narrator: The Library at Alexandria

was the largest in the world.

Its purpose was to collect and preserve

all the world's wisdom, and it attracted the brightest minds--

Philo of Byzantium, Ctesibius, Archimedes.

- In the great Library, there were 550,000 volumes,

and if you read a new one every day,

you would be sitting in that library for over 1,500 years.

narrator: Scientists studying at the Library

made discoveries the modern world didn't catch up with

for over a thousand years.

- Mathematicians in ancient Alexandria

were calculating the circumference of the earth

in the 300-200 BC range.

This is unbelievable!

♪ ♪

narrator: Tragically, many of the texts

were destroyed by fire.

It's thought that this may have happened in 48 BC,

when the Romans conquered the city.

So much ancient knowledge, lost to history.

[epic music]

Alexandria's influence over the ancient world

was surpassed only by one other city.

Coming up is "Ancient Top 10's"

greatest ancient metropolis.

It's our number one!

[intense percussive music]

♪ ♪

narrator: This is "Ancient Top 10's" countdown

of the greatest metropolises of the ancient world.

With iconic buildings, innovation,

and mind-blowing technology,

many cities were centuries ahead of their time.

At number ten was the monumental city of Thebes

in ancient Egypt.

Number nine was the greatest of the Americas--Teotihuacan.

At number eight was the legendary city of Babylon.

At number seven, history-making Athens.

Number six, that great Mediterranean power, Carthage.

At number five, the magnificent Constantinople.

Number four was the historic Baghdad...

and number three, the capital of ancient China, Xi'an.

Our number two was the great center of learning, Alexandria.

But now it's time for the greatest--

the number one ancient metropolis,

the biggest city in the world until modern times...

[epic music]

Rome.

- Rome was truly one of the greatest metropolises

of the ancient world.

People from all over the empire would flock to that city.

narrator: Lying in central Italy

in the heart of the Mediterranean

and Roman civilization...

at its peak, Rome attracted a population

of somewhere between 1 and 1 1/2 million people.

- When you got your Roman citizenship,

it didn't matter what color your skin was

or what language you spoke.

You were considered Roman.

And so naturally lots of people from different backgrounds

moved into Rome, making it the most culturally diverse hub

we would probably see up until modern times.

♪ ♪

narrator: The people were seduced by its glamour

and cutting-edge engineering and construction

that was way ahead of its time.

The population boomed. [crowd cheering]

- Ancient Rome had three times more people

per square mile than modern-day New York.

And you thought New York city was a busy place.

Try shopping on main street, ancient Rome.

narrator: And shop they did.

This is Trajan's Market.

2,000 years ago it had over 150 stores

under one roof spread over six stories.

- Trajan's Market is the first

multi-functioning shopping mall.

You've got offices, you've got shops.

You could pretty much get anything

from all over the Empire.

Think of it like a Macy's with an emporium rolled into one.

[intense music]

narrator: If a day out shopping wasn't enough entertainment,

ancient Romans could also head

to the city's most iconic building...

the Colosseum...

the largest amphitheater ever built,

and a model for all modern-day sports arenas.

Up to 80,000 people flocked there

to watch brutal gladiatorial games,

public executions,

and animal hunts.

- The Colosseum, the Arena of Death.

A million animals slaughtered,

500,000 people murdered

in the name of entertainment!

[crowd cheering]

♪ ♪

narrator: As well as entertaining the masses,

the city provided for their basic needs.

With a population as big as Rome's,

it was vital to have a controlled water source.

Rome solved this problem by using a series of aqueducts.

- 11 aqueducts totaling more than 300 miles in length.

That's 183 Golden Gate Bridges.

[inspiring music]

- In total, over 300 million gallons of water

flowed into Rome each day.

That's more per person than modern day New York City.

narrator: Water was fundamental to city life.

It supplied 144 public toilets,

1,300 fountains, and 900 Roman baths.

[epic music]

narrator: The Roman Empire's engineering genius

allowed Rome to grow and prosper

more than any other city had.

♪ ♪

- How are humans so successful on planet Earth?

The real reason is, we can manipulate

everything around us to our benefit.

The Romans did that with incredible engineering

and because of it, they literally conquered the world.

narrator: This timeless metropolis

was the center of power in the world for over 1,000 years.

The ancient Romans named it the Eternal City

because they believed it would go on forever.

[epic music]

The greatest of all ancient cities--

its impact on history can't be matched.

[triumphant music]

The cities of the ancient world

have left great tales in history and archaeology

to amaze us.

And they left a legacy of surviving architecture

to remind us that it's not just our modern cities

than can truly be amazing.

They were the blueprints for the thriving metropolises

of the world today, full of incredible engineering

that has meant they have never been forgotten.