Original subtitles

[music playing]

\h\hNARRATOR: In the late fourth century,

endless barbarian attacks \h\h\hpoisoned the Empire

with suspicion and hatred for \hits own immigrant soldiers.

\h\h\h\h\hThe half-barbarian half-Roman generals Stilicho

\h\his not the last to be sacrificed, a bloody death

\h\hforeshadowing the fate of an empire on the brink

of collapse.

\h\hNow, in the fifth century, over 500 years after the death

of Julius Caesar, the Roman \h\hEmpire is ravaged by war

and is quickly losing land \hto its foreign invaders.

\h\h\h\hIn the midst of this chaos, three Roman generals

\hcompete for the power of emperor.

But through treachery, betrayal, and murder,

\h\honly one, the barbarian-born Ricimer, gains control of Rome.

He is the puppet master.

\h\h\h\hIn 455 AD, the ancient city of Rome,

once a pinnacle of civilization, is sacked by a violent tribe

of vandal barbarians.

\hVandals have come from North Africa

\h\hto the capital of the Roman world, as it used to be anyway.

\h\h\h\hThe Romans are shocked and terrified

that barbarians could come to their ancient cultural center

\h\h\h\hand literally take anything that they wanted.

NARRATOR: After centuries of \hendless barbarian attacks,

Rome has lost control of the Mediterranean.

Desperate, the Empire offers up its last and greatest treasure,

the land itself.

In exchange for peace, Rome \h\hgrants its fertile soil

to the barbarian tribes.

\hThe problem is that they had no choice.

\h\h\h\hAnd so the Romans just negotiated with them and said,

OK.

You’re here.

We can’t get you out.

We’ll give you this territory.

And Romans just gave it away.

\hNARRATOR: The Empire has been officially divided between East

and West for over 75 years.

But while the East \hremains strong,

the West has lost most of its \hterritory to the barbarians.

\hAs it barters away its land, the Empire

\hreceives barbarian soldiers in return.

But the plan only backfires.

\h\hThe emperors made a deal with the devil, so to speak,

\hbecause when the emperors gave land to the barbarians,

they were giving away whatever \h\h\htax revenues might come

to the Imperial Treasury \h\h\hfrom those lands.

The more you gave away, \h\hthe poorer you got.

\h\h\hThe poorer you got, as Roman emperor, the more land

you needed to give away.

And it was a deadly downward \h\hspiral for the strength

of the Roman Empire.

NARRATOR: The Empire has always depended

on foreign mercenaries.

\h\h\h\hYet in the fifth century, the Roman army

\h\his almost entirely of barbarian descent.

The former enemies \h\hare now peers.

Barbarians once the \h\hslaves of Romans

are now often their superiors.

\h\h\h\hAll these men are saying, hey, my parents

\h\h\h\hmay have been a barbarian, but I’m not.

I’m a general in the Roman army.

And they’re competing for the honor attached to leadership.

\hNARRATOR: Age-old ethnic tensions divide the army,

pitting soldier against soldier, Roman against barbarian.

But in 456 AD, one ambitious general

\h\h\h\h\his determined to maintain order, though he

himself is a barbarian.

His name is Ricimer.

\h\h\h\h\hRicimer’s career followed a path that was--

was quite normal for \hbarbarian nobles.

\hHe was from a minor branch of the Gothic royal family.

He had no real prospect of winning power in his home

society.

\hAnd so he sought service as an officer in the Roman army,

where he did very well for himself.

NARRATOR: Now, Ricimer devises a plan to gain even more power

in the Western Empire.

\h\h\hHe will lead his army against Rome’s greatest foe,

the Vandals.

\h\h\h\hRICHARD BURGESS (VOICEOVER): The problem

\h\h\h\h\his, to all intents and purposes, there is no such thing

as the Roman army at this time.

\h\h\hA commander, whoever he happens to be, sees a threat,

then has to raise the \harmy however he can.

If he has money, then move that army to the location,

and fight.

\h\hNARRATOR: Ricimer marches to Agrigentum,

\hin modern-day Sicily, to confront the Vandal forces

\h\h\hsailing from their stronghold of Carthage.

\hIn Sicily, the Vandal warriors come down hard

on Ricimer and his army.

The Vandals know their enemy \hand they know the terrain.

\h\hSicily and southern Italy were like the Vandals’ ATM.

Every spring, they’d \hget in their ships

and row over and make a very violent withdrawal

and then go home.

And the Roman security cameras couldn’t do anything about it.

NARRATOR: Ricimer \hleads his troops

\h\h\hagainst the great onslaught of barbarians.

Yet despite his own \hmilitary training,

\h\h\h\hhis army of mercenary soldiers is at a disadvantage.

\h\h\hThe Roman army, by the middle of the fifth century,

\his no longer the army that it had been a hundred years

before.

\hFor one thing, it’s considerably smaller.

For another, it’s \hless well-armed.

And it’s certainly less disciplined.

Consequently, there just doesn’t seem to be any--

\h\h\hthere’s no evidence that there was any kind of training

or tactics or whatever.

\h\h\hIt’s simply this great whack of Germans

\h\his then sent off against that great whack of Germans.

And they just keep killing one another, until it either gets

\hdark or somebody gives up or somebody runs away

\hor, you know, whatever-- whatever the case may be.

\h\hNARRATOR: Though skill and discipline of Roman formation

\hhas been lost for decades, the Vandals

are unable to break \h\h\hRicimer’s men.

\h\h\hThe Roman army claims victory, not for the Empire,

but for their great leader.

The battle-weary Ricimer \h\hreturns home a hero.

But he’s not the only general \hseeking his fame and fortune

in Rome.

\h\hTwo old friends from his youth are equally ambitious,

Majorian and Aegidius.

\hRicimer, Majorian, and-- and Aegidius had all, effectively,

been fellow junior officers.

And their careers had marched \h\h\h\hin step with one ano--

with one another over the years.

NARRATOR: But, now it is their innate differences

that stir conflict below the surface.

\hThe three men reflect the great ethnic divide

hindering the Empire.

\h\h\hI think one of the sources of the obvious personal tension

\h\hbetween Aegidius, Ricimer, and Majorian

really lies in their origins.

Aegidius is from Gaul.

Majorian is from Italy.

\h\hAnd Ricimer is a barbarian who wants to live as a Roman.

NARRATOR: And Ricimer’s out to prove that he has as much

\hright to a piece of the Empire as any other Roman.

But the competition for \habsolute power in Rome

is not limited to Ricimer, or Majoriam, and Aegidius.

They must now swear allegiance \h\hto a new emperor, Avitus,

\h\h\hwhose tenuous claim to the throne

rests only on his formidable \h\h\h\hbarbarian entourage.

\hIt’s quite clear that Avitus’ regime rested on a foundation

\hof Gothic military support and that the Gothic king was

Avitus’ most influential \h\h\hand, in some ways,

absolutely indispensable backer.

NARRATOR: With his Gothic bodyguards,

Avitus is untouchable.

Ricimer and his friends can do nothing but take their orders

\hand wait, while the old figurehead enjoys

\h\h\h\hthe luxury of power, neglecting the true problems

of the Empire.

\h\hIn North Africa, Rome’s grain supply

\h\hhas been seized by the barbarian Vandals.

\h\h\hNorth Africa was the breadbasket of the Empire,

producing grain, the staple \h\hof most people’s diets,

and olive oil, equally important for the fat in people’s diets

and for a million other uses.

\hNARRATOR: Without the precious grain,

\hfamine grips what’s left of the Empire’s provinces.

In Rome, the poor must steal \hwhat they can to survive.

Gone are the security and comfort of Rome’s heyday,

\h\hreplaced now by despair and turmoil.

\hRICHARD BURGESS (VOICEOVER): So everything is topsy turvy.

There’s no stability.

\hThere’s-- there’s no sort of knowledge of what’s gonna

happen in the future.

Everything is uncertain.

NARRATOR: The situation at the Imperial Palace soon declines

as well.

Angry and impatient, Emperor \hAvitus’ Visigoth soldiers

demand payment for \htheir services.

Avitus is desperate.

\hRoman emperors couldn’t pay the barbarian troops

that they needed in cash, because the Roman Empire’s

\hrevenues were so greatly decreased.

\h\hSo when Roman emperors were bartering for military support,

they were dealing in the only \hgood currency they had left.

So Avitus has to strip the bronze off of the temples,

in order to pay the guys who came down to Gaul with him,

all the-- the Gothic-- the Gothic army and-- and his

Gothic entourage.

NARRATOR: But by selling \hthe treasures of Rome,

Avitus only saves himself.

\h\h\h\h\hHe leaves Italy in the poorhouse, hungry and hopeless.

The Romans riot in the streets, demanding that Avitus banish

his Gothic troops from Rome.

MICHAEL KULIKOWSKI (VOICEOVER): Avitus is not popular.

\hAnd he’s not popular with the Italian army.

\hAnd he’s not popular with the Italian general Ricimer.

\hNARRATOR: In the public’s outrage,

Ricimer and Majorian see an opportunity.

\h\hTHOMAS R. MARTIN (VOICEOVER): Avitus

was in a desperate situation.

And when the barbarian Roman \hcommander Ricimer decided

\hthat Avitus was a losing proposition,

Avitus had no choice \h\hexcept to flee.

\hNARRATOR: The emperor may flee the chaos of the crowd,

\h\hbut escaping the ambitions of Ricimer

will prove to be more difficult.

In the fifth century, Rome is overrun by barbarians.

\h\h\hThree old friends, the generals Ricimer, Majorian,

\h\h\hand Aegidius, maneuvere to attain absolute power in what’s

left of the Western Empire.

But first they must subdue its \hincompetent emperor, Avitus.

\h\h\hChased out of Rome, Avitus flees over the Alps

and westward into his \h\hNative Gaul, where

he gathers Visigothic supporters before returning to Italy.

With the support of \hhis fellow Gauls,

Avitus hopes to easily \h\hregain the throne.

But back on Italian soil, \h\h\hRicimer and Majorian

and are waiting for him.

The ambush is brutal.

\h\h\hThese battles are up close and personal,

because you have to be able to kill them from up that close.

So there’s pushing.

There’s shoving.

There’s running back.

\h\h\h\hThere are dead bodies to climb over.

There are injured men yelling.

NARRATOR: In the bloodbath, the army of Avitus is annihilated.

But in a surprising \h\h\hturn, Ricimer

\h\hspares the emperor’s life on the battlefield.

\h\h\hAvitus is made bishop in a church in the same Italian city

where he is defeated.

THOMAS R. MARTIN (VOICEOVER): Why

was Avitus fetus, the deposed \hemperor, made into a bishop?

\h\hSo that he would no longer have any military connections

or any military power.

And so that Ricimer, who deposed him, could say,

\h\h\hI didn’t slaughter a legitimate Roman emperor.

I allowed him to follow a religious vocation, which

he had always wanted to do.

NARRATOR: This is the public story.

But in the shadows, Ricimer \h\hsends a secret assassin,

\h\hhis old friend Majorian, to silence Avitus for good.

\hFor Ricimer, holy exile isn’t enough.

He must have total victory.

Italian Romans wanted to protect what they

saw as their own interests.

With the deposition and then \h\hstrangulation of Avitus,

\hthe emperor from Gaul was out of the picture.

And now, Romans, in Italy, could hope that they would go back

\h\h\hto the future and that Italy, the source of Rome’s

original greatness, would once again be

the source of the Roman \h\hEmpire’s salvation.

NARRATOR: With the emperor Avitus Venus finally gone,

Italy celebrates.

\hBut the mastermind behind Avitus’ death

has no plans of proclaiming \hhimself as a replacement.

\h\hRicimer himself would’ve realized that he could never

survive as emperor.

\h\h\h\h\h\hIt would’ve been unacceptable for a barbarian

\h\h\hof-- a barbarian warlord with, indeed,

\hroyal connections to barbarian royal houses

to assume the Roman throne.

No barbarian leader really contemplated it seriously.

NARRATOR: Instead, Ricimer names a man he thinks he can control,

his best friend.

THOMAS R. MARTIN (VOICEOVER): Majorian, the man whom Ricimer

decided to make emperor instead of himself, was an Italian.

Ricimer had gauged the \hsense of especially

the Roman upper class in Italy.

The Roman upper class in Italy \h\hwanted an Italian emperor.

\h\hRicimer decided he’d be the power behind the throne

and make Majorian, that good Italian,

into the Roman emperor.

\h\h\hLike the Wizard of Oz, however, behind the curtain,

\hRicimer was going to pull the strings, or so Ricimer thought.

\h\h\h\hNARRATOR: With the new regime, the three old friends

enjoy the spoils of power.

Ricimer is named Master \hof Soldiers in Italy.

\h\h\hAnd Aegidius is sent on assignment to his native Gaul.

\h\h\hRICHARD BURGESS (VOICEOVER): Aegidius

is reasonably successful.

\hWe have a number of sources that say very positive things

about him, both as a commander \h\h\h\hand as an individual.

So he seems to have \h\hbeen-- he seems

\h\h\h\hto have been very charismatic and successful

military commander.

NARRATOR: Aegidius as secures \h\h\hhis army’s camp in Gaul

near the city of Soissons.

But with the Francs \h\h\hto the North,

the Visigoths to the West, and \hthe Burgundians to the East,

he is trapped in a sea of barbarians.

Under constant attack from \htheir barbarian enemies,

\hAegidius and his army rise to the occasion, determined

\hto defend Roman Gaul at all costs.

\hAegidius was a Roman from Gaul,

from France, who had \hextensive military

and diplomatic experience.

And the Roman hope was that \hhe could prevent further,

especially Gothic, incursions in Gaul

and protect what, admittedly, \h\h\h\h\h\hsmall part of Gaul

was still part of the Roman Empire.

NARRATOR: The endless barbarian assaults take their toll

\h\hon his already diminished forces.

But Awgidius refuses \h\hto admit defeat.

\h\h\h\hAt this stage, Aegidius in the 450s,

there’s still hope, perhaps.

And he clings on to this view and tries and hopes

for a restoration \hof Roman power.

NARRATOR: With Aegidius in Gaul, Ricimer expects

to wield full power in Italy.

But Majorian has other plants.

What Ricimer discovers is that \hMajorian has every intention

of being an active \h\hRoman emperor,

\hrather than the figurehead that he was intended to be.

He tried very hard to push \hRicimer into the shadows

and into the sidelines.

And he tried to take command \hof major military ventures

on his own.

\h\hGEOFFREY GREATREX (VOICEOVER): Majorian,

is an emperor who was, clearly, very dynamic, who is also

very efficient.

And he he’s also aware \hof the deficiencies

\hof the empire, which he is determined to rectify.

\h\hMajorian devises a grand campaign against the Vandal

\h\hking Gaiseric, leaving Ricimer on the sidelines.

This, Ricimer will not allow.

The alliance between Ricimer, \h\h\h\hMajorian, and Aegidius

\h\h\hyields success when Majorian is made emperor.

And Aegidius gains victories in Gual.

But Ricimer’s power \has the mastermind

is threatened when Majorian \h\hstrikes out on his own,

launching an expedition against Rome’s greatest

enemy, the Vandals.

Majorian leads his troops across the Alps into Gaul and South

\h\hinto Hispania, to prepare a Naval attack

against the Vandals \h\hof North Africa.

Majorian commissions carpenters to build the strongest, fastest

ships, hoping to overpower the great fleet of the Vandal king

Gaiseric.

\h\h\hMajorian wanted to drive the Vandals from North Africa,

to restore the Roman Empire’s most important source of food

and revenue.

\hNARRATOR: Camped near the Mediterranean coast,

Majorian takes every precaution for his important and expensive

mission.

\h\h\hTHOMAS S. BURNS (VOICEOVER): Majorian

is, by all the evidence \h\h\hwe have, careful.

He sends scouting forces across the Straits of Gibraltar.

Test the waters, if you will, of local support for landing,

because it’s gonna be \ha landing operation.

This is not exactly \h\hD-day, but it’s

\h\hgoing to be, by lay Roman standards, a very significant

Naval action here.

\h\hNARRATOR: But in the night, disaster strikes.

\h\h\hDespite all of Majorian’s efforts,

Gaiseric’s men set the \hRoman fleet ablaze.

Once again, the Vandals prove to be too much for the Romans.

\h\hRICHARD BURGESS (VOICEOVER): They cannot defeat the Vandals.

A lot-- lots of thingss-- \h\h\hthey just collapse,

before they even--

before they even really \hstart, in some cases.

The expedition had really collapsed halfway through.

\h\hAnd the Romans, up to that point, were winning.

\h\h\hMICHAEL KULIKOWSKI (VOICEOVER): If Majorian

had been able to conquer Africa, it’s quite clear that he would

have been unchallengeable.

\h\h\hBut as it was, the mission was a disaster.

The invasion was a disaster.

\h\h\h\hThe fleet that had been collected to carry the soldiers

across the Mediterranean was burned in the harbor, where

it was being mustered.

\hNARRATOR: Majorian returns to Italy, dejected, his great plan

to recapture North \hAfrica, ruined.

\h\h\hThis is a humiliating act, in part of Majorian.

The way Roman concepts of \hpower and honor worked,

\hthis emperor, the last one who really had the capacity

\hto lead men into battle and thereby achieve the--

the image of manliness, \h\h\h\h\his humiliated.

NARRATOR: Along the same \h\hwooded road to Rome,

a troop of soldiers rides to intercept the emperor.

\h\h\hIt is the Honor Guard of Majorian’s old friend Ricimer.

\h\h\hRICHARD BURGESS (VOICEOVER): Majorian

was the first military emperor \h\hthat Rome had had in years

and years and years.

But with the failure of \hthe Vandal expedition,

Ricimer, for some \hreason or other,

decided to get rid of him.

\hThere may have been other things going on.

Majorian may have blamed the failure on Ricimer.

Ricimer may have blamed the failure on Majorian.

We have no idea.

NARRATOR: Fifth-century writer, John of Antioch.

JOHN OF ANTIOCH (VOICEOVER): \h\hRicimer and his soldiers

\h\harrested him, stripped him of his purple robe and crown,

beat him, and beheaded him.

Thus ended Majorian’s life.

NARRATOR: A messenger carrying \h\hnews of Majorian’s murder

\hmakes his way slowly to the far-off Roman outpost

of Soissons, Gaul, where \hAegidius is stationed.

It is very bad news \h\hfor the general.

\h\h\h\hThe only response that Aegidius is likely to have had

\his that he and Majorian and Ricimer were buddies.

\h\h\hThey had served together for decades.

What does this make him?

\h\hI mean, his-- his legitimacy was his appointment by Majorian,

\h\h\h\hwho has now been discredited and killed.

I think his future is very uncertain.

MICHAEL KULIKOWSKI (VOICEOVER): With Majorian dead,

Aegidius no longer \h\hsees any point

\h\h\h\hin continuing to cooperate with Ricimer.

\h\hAnd so Aegidius simply breaks away.

He refuses to recognize Ricimer and Ricimer’s new government

and effectively rules his bit of Gaul as an independent kingdom.

NARRATOR: Aegidius must \hprepare his soldiers.

Declaring independence \h\h\h\h\hfrom Ricimer

is akin to declaring war.

Rejecting Ricimer’s \h\h\hrule in Italy,

\hAegidius as considers his kingdom of Soissons

the last vestige of \hthe Roman Empire.

\h\h\h\h\h\hThere’s no evidence that they’re

\h\h\hresponding to orders from Ricimer

or anyone else in Italy.

They’re on their own.

\h\h\hThey’re-- they’re completely independent.

So the fabric of the empire is \hnow broken down into pieces.

NARRATOR: In Rome, Ricimer prepares for war as well.

But first, he must find a new \h\hemperor to do his bidding.

This time, there is no dispute.

The man he chooses is no more than a puppet, Libius Severus.

RICHARD BURGESS (VOICEOVER): No one wants to be emperor.

\h\hIt’s not a job that anyone needs.

\hThe only person who needs an emperor is the generalissimo.

\hHe’s the guy who needs the emperor.

Nobody else needs one.

So Ricimer’s there and \hhe needs an empire.

So he’s the one who appoints the successor to Marjorian, Liius

Severus.

\h\h\hNARRATOR: With the new Emperor Severus by his side,

Ricimer can do as he pleases.

And nothing will please him more than getting rid of Aegidius

once and for all.

\h\h\h\hIn the fifth century, Emperor Marjorian and his two

\h\h\hold friends, Ricimer and Aegidius, share power in Rome.

But when Ricimer has Marjorian \h\h\h\hand brutally murdered

and appoints a new puppet as emperor,

\hAegidius has no choice but to remain in his native Gaul

and prepare for war.

\h\h\h\hAfter such a personal betrayal, Aegidius and his men

\h\hare ready to do battle with Ricimer.

The power alliance between \h\hthe three old friends

has been hijacked.

And Aegidius is left \h\hout in the cold.

\h\h\hMaybe he thought he had a understanding that he was

\ha co-player in this game, that there were two generals

\h\h\hin charge here, Ricimer and Aegidius.

Aegidius found out \hthat he wasn’t--

he wasn’t regarded as a player.

He wasn’t consulted.

And he lost the third part of the triangle.

Now, he’s on his own.

\hNARRATOR: But Ricimer is already making plans

to block Aegidius’ impending attack.

\h\hWith the new emperor, Severus, under his thumb,

Ricimer makes a deal with Rome’s one time enemy, the Goths.

\h\hTHOMAS R. MARTIN (VOICEOVER): Ricimer

saw this is a really serious \hthreat, Aegidius’ proposed

invasion of Italy.

So Ricimer did the smart thing.

He made an alliance \h\hwith the Goths,

who were in Aegidius’ rear.

Goths, Aegidius, Italy.

Because Ricimer knew if the \h\hGoths could put pressure

\hon Aegidius from the back, Aegidius

couldn’t come to Italy.

\h\h\hAnd that’s, in fact, what happened.

\hNARRATOR: Just as he has always done,

Ricimer commissions someone \helse to do his dirty work.

\h\hEmperor Severus proves to be the perfect puppet for Ricimer,

\h\h\hhappy to allow the war against Aegidius to unfold.

As Aegidius moves his troops \h\h\hsouth from his kingdom

\hin Soissons, Gaul, he is attacked by Ricimer’s army

\h\hof Goths outside the city of Orleans.

\h\h\h\h\hTHOMAS R. MARTIN (VOICEOVER): These battles

\hbegin with both sides roaring each other, like at the kickoff

of a football game.

There was an actual word for it.

It starts out with a low growl.

\h\hAnd then, all the soldiers, eventually,

\h\hare just yelling at the top of their lungs.

Then, you throw missiles \h\h\hat the other side.

\h\hNARRATOR: With such a powerful barbarian enemy,

Aegidius and his troops are hard-pressed to gain

the advantage on the battlefield.

The barbarians were especially good at running at full speed

\h\hand using throwing axes, which were very

sharp, with a heavy head, and \heither shattering the shield

of the men opposing them, or if you were really lucky, hitting

them with the ax.

\h\hNARRATOR: But while the goths are soldiers for hire,

\hAegidius fights for the survival of Rome.

Finally, he claims victory.

But the losses are great.

In the field hospitals of Gaul, Aegidius and his men

recover from the Gothic attack.

But he knows there will be more.

GEOFFREY GREATREX (VOICEOVER): \hAegidius has his hands full,

essentially.

These deals that Ricimer cuts with kingdoms in his vicinity,

\hobviously mean that he has to deal with these.

These are going to \hbe his priority.

\h\hHe’s going to be busy in Gual and not

\hbe able to detach any forces to invade Italy.

\hHe just simply doesn’t have the resources to deal with it.

NARRATOR: Desperate to vanquish Ricimer’s forces in Rome,

he turns to an unlikely \h\h\h\hsource for help.

Aegidius sends a messenger south to Rome’s most menacing enemy,

\hGaiseric, who, as king of the Vandals,

had taken North Africa, the \hbreadbasket of the empire,

over 20 years earlier.

\hHe sends an envoy to try to strike a deal.

\h\h\hAnd Aegidius must have been very worried about how

\h\h\hthis deal would be perceived if it got out

to be public knowledge.

\h\h\h\hOn the one hand, people could see, well,

if we can reach a real deal with the Vandals,

\h\h\hthen we have a real bright future.

\hBut on the other hand, what will we

\hhave to give up to deal with these people who’ve taken away

\h\h\hthe most precious, the richest, part of our empire?

NARRATOR: After traveling through Gaul and Hispania,

Aegidius’ convoy finally \hreaches North Africa.

\h\h\hIn the Vandal camp, the messenger

delivers Aegidius’ plea.

\hGEOFFREY GREATREX (VOICEOVER): It looks as though Aegidius may

\hhave sought to establish some sort of relations with Gaiseric

in North Africa, from \h\hthe point of view

that they both have \h\ha common enemy.

That is Ricimer in Italy.

And therefore, Ricimer could be caught between Gual and North

\h\hAfrica, a potentially a very dangerous position for Ricimer.

\h\hNARRATOR: The barbarian king Gaiseric could be the last best

hope for the Empire’s survival.

\h\h\hSurrounded by barbarians in Gaul,

Aegidius is unable to drive \h\hhis army against Ricimer

and the puppet emperor Severus.

\h\hWith nowhere else to turn, Aegidius sends a plea for aid

to the Vandal king Gaiseric.

In Soissons, thousands of miles away from the Vandal kingdom

in North Africa, Aegidius can only wait for a reply.

\hWe don’t know for sure, but I think it’s likely

that Aegidius’ envoy reached the Vandals

\h\h\hand that perhaps a deal was in the making.

We really can’t say.

\hNARRATOR: Aegidius has run out of time.

Assassins sent by Ricimer make certain he will never

\h\hfulfill his dreams of a restored Empire.

It seemed this mission serious \h\henough and perhaps that it

\h\h\hwas-- it seemed possible that is was going to succeed,

which led Aegidius’ enemies to finally find a way to undo it

\hby treachery, because they couldn’t take him in direct

battle on the field of combat.

NARRATOR: With Aegidius \h\h\h\hout of the way,

Ricimer’s hunger for power only increases

\h\h\hand his thirst for blood cut short the life

of his puppet emperor Severus.

Ricimer makes and unmakes, through violence, a series

\hof emperors, trying to find that front man who would allow

\hRicimer to really be the power, without developing

ambitions of his own.

The problem for Ricimer was \hthat when he put a puppet

on the Roman throne, that puppet didn’t want to remain a puppet.

\hNARRATOR: But now, total power is his.

Ricimer’s ambition and blood lust seem to know no limits.

\h\hFor two years, Ricimer rules Rome without naming an emperor.

And the Barbarian Vandals continue to ravage Italy.

\hAny alliance they might have had with the murdered Aegidius

\his now as dead as the general himself.

\hAs Ricimer sits on his impotent throne,

\hthey take the empire away, piece by piece.

MICHAEL KULIKOWSKI (VOICEOVER): When the Western Empire starts

\h\h\h\hto disintegrate, it disintegrates very rapidly.

In a sense, the Roman Empire \h\h\hdoesn’t actually fall.

It simply splinters away, until the title of emperor

becomes meaningless.

NARRATOR: Ricimer’s continued \hfailure against the Vandals

only makes matters worse.

\hAs the Vandals strike against the Eastern empire’s coastline,

\h\h\h\h\h\hits capital of Constantinople is finally

\h\h\h\hforced to move against Ricimer, before it’s too late.

\h\h\h\hFrom within his protected palace walls,

the Eastern emperor, Leo, devises a plan

\h\h\h\hto save the troubled Western Empire from Ricimer

and the Barbarian invaders.

\h\h\h\hIt is at this point that Leo realizes that he

has to stop the Vandals.

\hAnd so what he does is he sends Anthemius.

\h\hNow, Anthemius was the son-in-law

of previous Eastern emperor.

\h\hAnd he actually had a better claim to the throne

than Leo did.

So Leo’s kind of killing two \hbirds with one stone here.

He gets rid of a potential \h\hopponent, as it were,

and he provides an emperor for the West, a competent emperor

for the West.

\hNARRATOR: And Leo has plans for Anthemius’ family as well.

\h\h\hHe sends them all from their home in Constantinople

westward to Ricimer’s \h\h\hpalace in Rome.

\h\hAnthemius’ young daughter, Olympia, is offered to Ricimer

in marriage, in an attempt \hto subdue the ambitions

of the bloodstained general, \h\hwhile Anthemius assumes

the throne of the \hWestern Empire.

\h\hIt seems as though the Western government

had nothing against this.

And Ricimer, who was, as it \hwere, the effective ruler

\h\hof Italy, welcomed him there and married

his daughter called Olympia.

So it looks as though everything was set for a good beginning

\h\hand things might have gone very well.

\h\h\hNARRATOR: Ricimer’s assumption that Anthemius

\h\h\h\hwill serve simply as another puppet emperor soon

proves false.

\h\hRICHARD BURGESS (VOICEOVER): The real problem was Anthemius.

Anthemius was sent by the East.

Anthemius was acting \h\hlike an emperor.

And it wasn’t always--

he wasn’t always doing \hwhat Ricimer wanted.

NARRATOR: In 468 AD, with Anthemius now maintaining

control in the West, the \hEastern emperor, Leo,

\h\h\h\hfinances a large scale expedition against the Vandals

in Sicily.

\h\hThere is no example of the East helping the West

\h\hmilitarily, unless their own interests were involved.

And almost always, it involved the Vandals,

because the Vandals had this giant port.

They had a fleet.

\h\h\hAnd of course, this is what-- this

\h\h\h\his what prompted the big expedition in 468, because they

were now actually able to attack the East anywhere.

NARRATOR: But Ricimer cannot \h\htolerate Anthemius, who,

backed by the Eastern Empire, \h\h\hdiminishes his own hold

on power.

\h\hAnd the tradition in the West, by this point,

\h\h\h\hwas that the emperors were merely

\h\hfigureheads, that Ricimer made the important decisions,

made emperors and removed \h\h\hthem, and conducted

\h\hmilitary operations himself, whereas Anthemius was perfectly

capable of doing this himself.

NARRATOR: Filled with jealousy, Ricimer sabotages the attack,

assassinating Rome’s \h\hown commanders,

leaving the Empire’s \hforces vulnerable.

RICHARD BURGESS (VOICEOVER): The whole thing falls apart.

\h\h\h\h\hAnd then, the-- unfortunately, the fleet,

\h\hwhich is headed by Leo’s brother-in-law,

it falls apart as well.

The ships are burned.

\hEverything is a complete disaster.

NARRATOR: After the Empire’s \hcrushing defeat in Sicily,

\h\hRicimer spends months gathering troops in Milan,

before launching a full scale \hattack on Anthemius in Rome.

\hRICHARD BURGESS (VOICEOVER): So Ricimer brings in the army.

And they besiege Anthemius and Rome for nine months,

until, eventually, Rome falls.

\hAnd meanwhile, while the siege is going on,

Leo has had envoys sent to him from the West saying,

all hell is breaking loose.

It’s Civil War.

Do something.

NARRATOR: But there’s no time to save Rome from Ricimer’s wrath.

And all Anthemius \hcan do is flee.

\hIn a familiar scene, the deposed Anthemius

seeks sanctuary in a church.

Well, we know that the--

\hthe-- the besiegers broke in to Rome, early in July of 472,

and that Anthemius’ followers scattered.

Anthemius disguised himself as a beggar

and was caught probably at \hthe shrine of the martyr

Chrysogonus.

\hNARRATOR: But this time, Ricimer hires no assassin

to silence his emperor.

On the steps of the \h\hChristian altar,

\h\h\hhe personally sees to the sacrifice of his latest victim,

Anthemius.

RICHARD BURGESS (VOICEOVER): \h\h\h\h\h\hHe was executed.

\h\h\hI assume it was cutting his head off.

That’s the normal way it’s done.

Chances are they probably \hstuck his head on a pike

and paraded it around.

\hNARRATOR: Ricimer plays true to form.

Once again, with blood and steel,

he carves out his place in Rome, leaving only corpses

\h\h\h\hin his wake, bodies as lifeless as the empire itself.

\h\h\hAgain without an emperor, Rome succumbs

to anarchy and violence.

\hBarbarians meet little resistance

as they raid the towns of Italy.

\h\hThey go out and they sort of rape, loot, and plunder, attack

\h\h\hcities and whatever else, and then come back.

\hAnd this is what people have to face, every year.

\h\h\h\hSo it-- it’s-- there’s no stability.

NARRATOR: Ricimer does nothing as the empire self-destructs.

\h\hHe cares only for himself, as always garnering his power

from the Empire’s weakness.

\h\h\h\h\h\hTHOMAS S. BURNS (VOICEOVER): So now, there’s

a peculiar circumstance here.

\h\hWe don’t seem to need a real emperor.

\h\hAnd it’s hard to find a role that’s clearly cut out

for the commanding officer \h\hof the Western armies.

One could really question why we have an imperial government

at all.

\h\hThis society is slipping out of the structural system

that we had identified with the Roman Empire.

NARRATOR: Ricimer is a man who has built his career and power

\hon the countless dead bodies of his enemies, both barbarian

and Roman.

\h\hNow, he is alone, master of an empire, in name only.

In such turbulent times, even the details of Ricimer’s death

are fragmented.

Priscus, the only source, tells us

\h\hthat he died of vomiting copious quantities of blood.

[non-english].

And that’s it.

\hSo we have no idea whether it was an ulcer or cancer or what.

With the sources, \hwe have no idea.

\hNARRATOR: When the puppet master dies,

the Western Empire \h\hdies with him.

By now, barbarian leaders, \hwhether they were Goths

or something else, really had the money and the men

\hto decide the fate of the Roman Empire.

And that is exactly what \hhappened in the years

after the death of Ricimer.

NARRATOR: Ricimer’s struggle to dominate

\h\hbrought nothing but ruin to the Empire he hoped to control.

\h\h\hYet in his absence, its future grows even more bleak.