Original subtitles

[music playing]

\h\hNARRATOR: Ethnic tensions continue to divide the already

\h\h\h\hravaged empire as the barbarian-born General Ricimer

claws his way to the throne.

Hungry for power, \hhe kills anyone

\h\h\h\hwho stands in his way, including his closest friends.

\h\hNow Roman control of the empire’s once great

\hWestern provinces is swept away by a storm of barbarian

warlords and kings.

Out of the chaos, \hone Roman leader

rises up determined to restore \h\h\hRome to its glory days.

But in his path stands a fierce barbarian warrior prince.

\hFor the empire, the clash of their swords

is the beginning of the end.

[men shouting]

By the fifth century \hAD, after hundreds

of years of constant warfare, \h\h\hthe Western Roman Empire

\h\his a mere shadow of its former self.

\hTHOMAS MARTIN: The empire was into full-blown crisis.

\h\hThere was increasing pressure from barbarians

outside the empire who wanted \h\h\hto come into the empire.

\hAnd above all, there was the tremendous financial pressure.

The empire wasn’t generating the revenues that allowed it

to keep its military \h\h\h\hforce strong

and its infrastructure repaired.

NARRATOR: Without a well-armed military,

\hRome is powerless against one of the largest barbarian forces

the empire has ever seen, the Huns, led

by their ferocious \h\hleader Attila.

[horse neighs]

\h\h\h\h\h5th century chronicler Callinicus

recounts their savagery.

CALLINICUS (VOICEOVER): \h\h\h\h\hThe barbarian

Huns became so great that more than 100 cities were captured.

\h\hAnd there were so many murders and bloodlettings

that the dead could \h\hnot be counted.

\h\h\hNARRATOR: The Huns, a nomadic tribe from the East,

lay waste to what little \his left of the empire.

KELLY DEVRIES: The fact is that there is no state in the West.

The West has dissolved.

The West has fallen apart.

\h\hThere are so many different entities, so

many different armies, so many different powers that

\hare vying for control, but there’s no control.

NARRATOR: Though the eastern \hcapital of Constantinople

\h\his able to survive the Hunnic invasions,

the weaker Western empire feels the brunt of their expansion

and is forced to cede the \hRoman region of Pannonia

to Attila the Hun.

[bell ringing]

\h\hIn the empire’s former territories,

Romans must now answer to their barbarian rulers, the Huns.

\h\h\h\hTHOMAS MARTIN: Romans and barbarians

can identify each other \hby the way they speak,

\hby the way they dress, by the way they smell, by the way they

wear their hair.

\h\h\hEven though by this time, Romans and barbarians are really

used to each other, I think it’s fair to say

\hthat ethnic tensions have never gone away.

NARRATOR: But one Roman moves \hthrough the troubled society

with ease and finds opportunity in Attila’s new regime.

His name is Flavius Orestes.

\h\h\hOrestes was a Roman who had grown up in territory dominated

by the Huns, but he got a high position

at the court of Attila.

\h\hNARRATOR: The empire may be falling down around him,

\hbut it’s his Roman heritage that makes

\h\h\h\hOrestes and the other Pannonians valuable to Attila.

RICHARD BURGESS: They’re Roman because they talk like Romans.

They walk like Romans.

And there is still the cultural, the social.

\hEverything that makes up what a person is and does

is still Roman, and that \hgoes on for centuries.

NARRATOR: Able to \hread and write,

the cultured Orestes stands out among Attila’s many barbarian

allies.

Orestes is soon made secretary \h\h\h\hin the ruler’s court.

\h\hTHOMAS MARTIN: Orestes got to see how Attila had

\h\h\ha real political vision trying to merge

the Huns with the Romans through marriage and political alliance

\h\hto come up with a new empire there in the North.

[shouting]

\h\h\hNARRATOR: Having daily contact with Attila the Hun,

Orestes experiences firsthand \h\hjust how brutal barbarian

justice can be.

His Roman sensibilities \h\hare easily offended.

\hTHOMAS MARTIN: I think it is fair to say that there is what

\hwe would call ethnic tension between barbarians and Romans.

They faced a problem similar to the problem that we face today.

These different peoples from different cultures

need to work together.

In important ways, they want \hto become like each other.

But there’s tension \h\h\hbetween them.

[crowd shouting]

NARRATOR: Though Orestes is repulsed by the barbarians’

\h\hblood sacrifice of their enemies, in Attila’s power,

Orestes finds the ambition \h\h\hfor something more.

THOMAS MARTIN: Orestes, when he served in the court of Attila,

was able to see how this leader was organizing a nation out

of nothing.

And I think Orestes above all would have learned that there

was a real possibility of seeing a new kind of Roman world,

one led by a king that melded barbarian and Roman strengths

to restore the glory \h\hof Rome the way

it had been at the time of \hthe founders, the kings.

[shouts]

\hNARRATOR: Orestes may be ruled by barbarians,

but he will always be Roman and always think of himself

and his people as superior.

He longs to return the once \hgreat empire to its Roman

roots.

In 453 AD, Attila’s reign comes to an unexpected end

\hon his wedding night, soon bringing about the collapse

\hof the mighty Huns and their barbarian allies.

His bride finds him dead of a broken blood vessel

and, terrified of being accused of killing him,

spends the entire night \h\hnext to the corpse.

\h\h\hSixth century historian Jordanes.

\h\h\hJORDANES (VOICEOVER): He fell, not by wound or by foe,

nor by treachery, but happy in his joy and without pain.

NARRATOR: But the Hun’s demise cannot save Rome.

The power vacuum that results \honly allows more barbarians

\hto descend upon the fading Western empire.

In the following years, Rome’s \hcities fall into disrepair.

\h\h\hHunger prevails, and beggars fill the streets.

\h\h\hOrestes wanders, no longer a man of influence.

\hHe seeks his fortune in a land struggling to survive.

GEOFFREY GREATREX: The infrastructure

seems to have crumbled in some cases fairly quickly.

It varied from one region to another.

Aqueducts, it’s true, sort of \hperhaps fall into disrepair.

And the quality of pottery \h\hperhaps in some places

diminishes.

\hIt’s all getting a bit more hectic.

The street plans begin to change.

The regular features break down.

\hNARRATOR: It is a time of diminished hope and starving

children.

The details of Orestes’s travels are lost to us,

but as a true Roman, he refuses to believe that the empire is

beyond saving, that the humanity and civilization at its core

cannot be brought back.

He sets his sights on one day making his way

to the city of Rome.

\h\hKELLY DEVRIES: The fact is that Rome fell physically far

earlier than it fell \h\hpsychologically.

\h\hThe idea that Rome could fall was difficult for many

to accept.

And many didn’t accept it.

They believed as long as there was an emperor on the throne,

there was a Rome.

As long as there were walls around the city,

there was a Rome.

As long as there was somebody \hwho believed a Rome existed,

the empire in fact existed.

\h\h\hNARRATOR: In the mid fifth century, after years

\h\hof constant pressure from barbarian attacks,

Rome is forced into a treaty with a powerful tribe called

\hthe Burgundians, granting them valuable Roman land in exchange

for military service.

\hOriginally from Scandinavia, like many Germanic barbarians,

the Burgundians are allowed to settle in southern Gaul.

\hThese territories on the periphery of Italy

are the first to go.

RICHARD BURGESS: It’s just very slowly little bits and pieces

are given away.

\hIn a way, it’s kind of like if you think about your body.

\h\hIf you’re out in the cold, your body

\h\his programmed to make sure that your brain and your sort

\hof heart and whatever survive no matter what.

So your fingers go first, your \htoes, your feet, your hands.

\h\hAnd it’s very much like the Roman Empire.

\hNARRATOR: In return for these land grants,

the Burgundians must supply the empire with mercenary soldiers.

\h\hBut this treaty only furthers Rome’s plight.

\h\hTHOMAS MARTIN: When they give land to the barbarians,

since land is a great source, \hperhaps the principal source

of revenue, the more land they give away,

the less money they \h\hhave coming in.

The less money they \h\hhave coming in,

the more land they have to give away in order to keep barbarian

support to keep the army strong.

\h\h\hSo it really is a vicious spiral that leads more and more

to a financial crisis.

NARRATOR: The Burgundians’ \h\h\hleader, Gundobad, is

the son of a mighty chieftain.

\h\hBut as the empire grows weaker and more

\h\h\h\hdesperate for his tribe’s many mercenaries,

\h\h\hhe is a powerful force in Rome as well.

\hIn the empire’s capital, Gundobad

\h\h\h\his made the master of soldiers, but he controls more

than the army.

He also chooses Rome’s \hemperor, Glycerius.

EDWARD WATTS: It’s a choice made by Gundobad, because Gundobad

\h\hthought that he was a loyal figure.

But it’s clear that Glycerius \h\hmust rule at the pleasure

of Gundobad, and he must rely \hupon the support of Gundobad

to do this effectively.

NARRATOR: The emperor’s \h\h\hgreat throne room

\h\his filled with more barbarians than Romans.

EDWARD WATTS: The Western \hRoman army at this point

\h\h\h\h\his overwhelmingly barbarian, if not entirely.

It seems likely that \h\hthere were still

native Roman forces in there.

\h\hBut when we do hear of this army,

\h\hit’s an army that contains Turks and Germans and a range

of other non-Romans.

NARRATOR: In charge of Glycerius’s barbarian

mercenaries is a barbarian \hwarrior named Odovacer.

’

Odovacer found a position \hin the imperial guard,

\hclose to the center of power, surely because he

\hhad a demonstrated military competence and real leadership

ability.

NARRATOR: This is the Rome \hthat Orestes encounters

when he finally arrives after decades of travel.

Upon first meeting Odovacer, \hhe cannot know how deeply

the empire has changed since its glory days.

EDWARD WATTS: The power \hof the Western Empire

is certainly gone in the 470s, but I think it’s probably not

\h\hclear to everybody that this is a doomed enterprise.

\hIt does seem potentially to be just a momentary weakness.

\hAnd had the course of things gone differently,

perhaps it could have recovered.

NARRATOR: Orestes’ diplomatic \h\h\h\h\hexperience earns him

a high position in the Imperial Army.

But he is surprised to find Odovacer, a lowly barbarian,

holding equal standing.

THOMAS MARTIN: They obviously \hwere both highly ambitious.

They’d survived really \htough circumstances.

Orestes has succeeded at the \hcourt of the bloodthirsty

Attila the Hun.

Odovacer had been a \hmilitary commander

\hand had brought himself literally later from rags

to riches at Rome.

I think their ambitions as well as their special competencies

would have put them on the track to compete with each other.

NARRATOR: Both have their own \hvisions of empire, one Roman

and one barbarian.

After spending years in the \h\hcourt of Attila the Hun,

the Roman Orestes is made a \hgeneral in the Roman army.

But in Italy, he encounters an \hempire that’s disintegrating

and hardly Roman.

Its power resides not in \hits emperor Glycerius,

but in the barbarian generals \hOdovacer and the Burgundian

chieftain Gundobad.

In the past, Rome had integrated its barbarian mercenaries

in the army to ensure that they never gained too much power.

\h\h\h\h\hBut what happens in the fifth century is that they stay

as Germanic groups.

They get to keep their own clothing, their own food,

their own culture, their own \hadministrative structure,

their political structure, their military structure.

And it’s bizarre.

But they aren’t Romanized.

\hNARRATOR: And now Gundobad’s warriors

\hhold the same rank as their Roman peers

\h\h\h\h\h\hand Emperor Glycerius’s Roman army.

GEOFFREY GREATREX: The army \h\hat Glycerius’s disposal

\h\hor rather basically that Gundobad has at his disposal

\hwould be a mixed formation no doubt

comprising Burgundians, but \hmany other various groups

\h\has well that together form as it were the army in Italy.

In the case of the Roman army, there

seems to have definitely \hbeen tensions at times

between barbarians \hwho are serving

\hand Romans who are serving and Romans who felt that because it

was the Roman army that their leadership capabilities should

\h\hbe recognized, whereas barbarians

\h\h\h\hshould be disqualified because they were barbarians.

\hNARRATOR: The once unified power of the Roman military

\h\h\his lost as violence explodes within its ranks,

dividing the army \hagainst itself.

\hGeneral Orestes, once so skilled at diplomacy,

soon finds that even he is powerless against it.

As Rome suffers greater \hlosses against tribes

like the Visigoths and \hGaul, Roman soldiers

must question the allegiance \hof their barbarian allies.

GEOFFREY GREATREX: I think everybody

had their own interest \h\h\h\hat this point.

\h\h\h\h\hThings become somewhat fragmented and diffused so that

\h\hwhat we’re dealing with is a group of people whose interests

\hare no longer united even among the Romans themselves.

NARRATOR: Chaos reigns on the \hbattlefield when the army no

longer fights for the empire, \h\hbut every man for himself.

When the enfeebled Western \h\h\hempire can no longer

keep its enemies from sacking \hthe Mediterranean coastline,

the stronger Eastern empire \h\hbased in Constantinople

finally steps in.

In the imperial palace, the \haging Eastern emperor Leo

enjoys the security of his heavily fortified capital.

KELLY DEVRIES: The reality \h\h\hof the Roman Empire

\hin the mid fifth century was that there was a distinct East

and West.

The reality was also that \hthe East was prosperous,

and the West was not.

NARRATOR: Blaming Glycerius \h\h\h\hfor Rome’s failures,

Leo hopes to extend \h\h\hhis own reach

by appointing a new Western \h\h\hemperor, Julius Nepos.

EDWARD WATTS: The thinking about why Nepos was chosen

to go to the West revolves \h\h\haround the position

that Nepos had at court.

\hHe was a very well-placed person, related by marriage

to the emperor Leo.

\h\h\h\hHe was a figure who was suitable for leading an invasion

to Italy.

\h\hNARRATOR: In 474 AD, Nepos assembles an army

\h\h\hand leads his troops away from Constantinople,

bound for Italy.

\hThe East is going to look to reassert its influence

in the West and find a candidate who could depose Glycerius.

Its reaction is not \ha surprising one.

NARRATOR: As a newly \happointed emperor,

\hNepos has a great deal to prove and even more to lose

if he fails in bringing the Western empire back

from the barbarians.

As Nepos’s army sailed \hfrom Constantinople,

the Western emperor Glycerius \h\hmust prepare his own army

to counter the attack in Rome.

\h\hBut when Glycerius orders Orestes and Odovacer to ready

their troops for battle, he encounters firsthand

\h\hthe problem of barbarian loyalty.

\hGundobad and his Burgundian troops

desert him in his hour of need.

RICHARD BURGESS: What happens \h\his that Gundobad abandons

\h\hhis position to go back and become king of the Burgundians,

which is clearly a lot \hmore fun than being

the generalissimo of Glycerius.

EDWARD WATTS: The army, because it’s not a Roman army in terms

of its native background, \h\hhas a different agenda

and a different set of desires than perhaps a citizen militia

would.

NARRATOR: Without his \hBurgundian support,

even the armies of Odovacer and Orestes cannot save Glycerius

from the invading \hforces of Nepos.

\hAs Nepos draws near Rome, Glycerius and his commanders

ride out, not for battle, \hbut to plead for mercy.

THOMAS MARTIN: And so Glycerius found himself in a situation

where he really couldn’t expect military support

either from hired barbarians \hor from his local troops.

So when the Eastern empire \hsent Nepos to take over,

\h\h\hGlycerius made the only rational decision.

He surrendered without a fight.

NARRATOR: Nepos, having come to Italy to violently unseat

Glycerius, now spares \hthe emperor’s life.

\hTHOMAS MARTIN: Nepos wanted the appearance of legitimacy,

\h\hthat he would become emperor with the backing of the Eastern

\h\h\hemperor and the approval and agreement

of the Western emperor, who \hwould step down because he

\hrecognized that Nepos was the better man for the job.

\h\h\hNARRATOR: He orders Glycerius be made a bishop

\hand sends him into exile far from Rome.

In June, 474 AD, when Nepos is crowned Western emperor,

\h\h\hhe is lauded by Orestes and Odovacer.

\h\h\hBeing equally ambitious, both men

\h\htransfer their loyalty to their new leader immediately.

KELLY DEVRIES: Orestes \h\h\hbeing Roman also

\h\h\hhas an idea that there is still a Rome.

And he can still protect Rome.

In the case of Odovacer, there \h\hseems to be a recognition

that there is no more Rome.

\h\h\hAnd so how it plays out is you’ve got two very capable man

at the very moment in time when a decision is made whether Rome

will cease to exist.

NARRATOR: Nepos promotes \h\h\hthe Roman Orestes

\hand the barbarian Odovacer to the highest posts in his court,

giving them unmatched \h\h\h\hpower in Rome.

KELLY DEVRIES: Elevating Orestes and Odovacer at the same time,

giving them kind of equal power or at least equal recognition,

he’s kind of prepared \h\h\hhis own demise.

In both of these characters, he’s

\helevated individuals who are of strong will

and of great capabilities.

\h\hNARRATOR: But the court politics in Rome

\hare quickly overshadowed by relentless Visigoth invasions

\h\h\h\hagainst the last remaining Western Roman

territory of Gaul.

\hAt the height of the Roman Empire,

this region now known \has Provence, France,

was a prosperous community.

But throughout the \h470s, its people

are subject to constant raids \hfrom the Visigoth barbarians

and their king, Euric.

\hTHOMAS MARTIN: The very ambitious Visigothic king,

\h\h\h\hwho was a real expansionist, decided

that he was going to attack this area there in southern France

that wasn’t under his control.

By this time, the \hVisigoths really

did have an overwhelming force.

And so it was simply part \hof the process by which

\hRoman territory in Gaul was constantly shrinking until it

\h\hwas reduced to just a tiny slice along the coast of what

is today southern France.

\hNARRATOR: The bloodthirsty Visigoth warriors lay waste

\h\h\h\hto the villages of Provence, showing no mercy

to the helpless Roman citizens.

\hThe Eastern emperor Leo sends Julius Nepos to Rome

as the new Western emperor.

Nepos is counting on his two \hcommanders, the barbarian

Odovacer and the Roman Orestes.

\h\h\hBut even with their support, the Roman empire

is in terrible jeopardy.

\hBarbarian Visigoths invade southern Gaul,

\h\h\hforcing the meager Roman legion stationed on the border

into battle.

\h\h\hThe imperial soldiers, under-armed and unprepared,

are no match for the Visigoths.

EDWARD WATTS: The Goths \hseem better organized.

Their kingship seems \h\hto be stronger.

They seem to be able to \hmobilize more forces.

And the forces seem to be better able to deal with whatever

eventualities occur in warfare.

NARRATOR: The fighting is brutal, the carnage

overwhelming.

Something must be done.

\hThough the Roman commander Orestes

\his inexperienced in battle, Emperor Nepos

sends him from Rome to Gaul with orders

to drive the barbarians out.

\hGEOFFREY GREATREX: He is to be the new commander-in-chief

in Gaul.

\h\hNow, the thing is, you can ask yourself,

is this such a great honor \hor such a great position

\h\h\h\hto be given, given that there’s very little that’s left

to be controlled in Gaul?

It seems like an honor.

But perhaps it was actually \h\ha way of sidelining him.

We don’t know.

NARRATOR: But in his camp \h\hon the Italian border,

\hthe former diplomat Orestes tries his hand

\h\h\hat military strategy, hoping to sideline Odovacer

and the new emperor \h\h\hNepos instead.

\hHe offers a deal to his mostly barbarian soldiers.

If they march with him against Emperor Nepos,

\h\h\hhe will grant them valuable land in Italy.

\hTHOMAS MARTIN: We know that Orestes turned against Nepos,

\hthat instead of following the emperor’s instructions,

\h\hhe decided to try to seize power for himself.

\h\hWhy did Orestes turn against Nepos?

\h\hI think Orestes had a vision of restoring Rome.

[men shouting]

\hNARRATOR: Abandoning Gaul to the Visigoths,

Orestes leads his army from their camp in northern Italy

back towards Rome.

\hBut when Emperor Nepos learns of the invasion,

he flees to Ravenna.

\h\hIn August of 475 AD, Orestes marches into Ravenna and orders

his troops to scour the city \hin search of the emperor.

The barbarian soldiers \h\h\hgo on a rampage,

terrorizing the citizens and destroying property.

\hTHOMAS MARTIN: I can only imagine that Orestes either

thought that Nepos was selling out the Roman

Empire to the barbarians \hor that Orestes simply

had this overwhelming ambition to capture the Roman Empire’s

leadership for himself.

NARRATOR: But even under \h\hthe threat of death,

\h\h\hno one reveals the emperor’s hiding place.

Emperor Nepos is forced to \hsecretly escape the city

according to 6th century \h\hhistorian Jordanes.

\hJORDANES (VOICEOVER): Nepos fled to Dalmatia,

\h\h\hand, deprived of his power, he languished there

as a private citizen \h\hin the same city

where the exiled emperor \h\h\hGlycerius recently

became bishop.

Soon Nepos is on his way out.

\hHe’s exiled and will continue to be exiled,

\hcalling himself emperor until 480.

In fact, some historians give him sympathy as the last Roman

emperor.

But he’s long since ceased \hto exist as an emperor.

NARRATOR: With Nepos gone and the barbarian soldiers

\h\h\hunder his thumb, Orestes believes he can restore order

\h\h\h\hto an empire engulfed in anarchy.

In a surprising turn, Orestes \h\h\hdoes not take the throne

himself, but instead names his young son,

Romulus Augustulus, emperor.

THOMAS MARTIN: Orestes decided \hthat he, with his childhood

\h\hhaving grown up among barbarians and his service

at the Hunnic court, that maybe the Italian elite wouldn’t want

him, Orestes as the emperor, \h\h\hbut they would accept

\h\h\hthis pure Italian Romulus as their leader

because it would appeal to their sense of tradition,

\hno matter how empty in terms of power that feeling was now.

NARRATOR: The boy will remain \h\hin the well-protected city

of Ravenna.

EDWARD WATTS: He was protected \h\h\h\hby Paulus, his uncle.

\h\h\hRomulus is still an adolescent and had not yet

\hcome to full maturity, hence his name Augustulus, or Little

Augustus.

\h\h\hNARRATOR: Young Romulus is merely a puppet for his father.

\hIt is Orestes who will rule the empire, finally edging out

\hhis rival Odovacer to become the most powerful man in Rome.

\h\hSwollen with pride, Orestes ignores his debt

to the barbarian soldiers.

But after holding up their end \hof the deal helping Orestes

unseat Nepos, they demand \h\htheir payment of land.

\hRICHARD BURGESS: These guys want to get settled on Italy,

on Italian territory, on the \hland of Italian senators.

And Orestes is enough of a Roman to know that this isn’t going

to fly.

And so he says no.

\h\hTHOMAS MARTIN: Orestes couldn’t pay the soldiers.

\h\h\h\hFor the soldiers, the purpose of having an employer

was to pay them.

And so when Orestes, the power behind the throne with his son

on it, can’t come up with the money

that they want or can’t \hcome up with the land

\h\h\hthey demand, then there’s only one answer.

Get rid of that emperor and get somebody else who can get us

what we want.

\hNARRATOR: With the help of his guards,

\hOrestes is able to flee the chaos,

\hbut he underestimates the power of the barbarian army

now bent on revenge.

\h\h\hAfter years of competing for power

\h\hwith his barbarian co-commander Odovacer,

\hthe Roman Orestes gains the advantage,

crowning his own 12-year-old \h\h\hson as puppet emperor.

\h\hBut tensions rise as the barbarian army goes unpaid.

When the barbarian soldiers are denied what Orestes has

\h\h\h\h\h\hpromised them, settlement land in Italy,

they turn to his greatest rival for help, Odovacer.

THOMAS MARTIN: So the soldiers \h\hmade a perfectly rational

\h\hdecision to go to somebody else, in this case, Odovacer,

\h\h\hwho they thought had a better chance of satisfying

their demand.

\h\h\hOdovacer was a barbarian, and they

could expect that he wouldn’t \h\hhave nearly as many qualms

\h\habout giving them land or money or whatever they needed

regardless of where it came from in order to make them happy.

\h\h\h\hNARRATOR: The soldiers make Odovacer

an offer he can’t refuse.

RICHARD BURGESS: So \hthey turn to him,

\h\hand they say, well, if you can get us this land,

we’ll make you king.

How does that sound?

Whoo!

That sounds all right.

So off they go.

And he seems to be a leader \h\h\hof this sort of ragtag

\hbag of Germanic peoples in this supposedly Roman army.

NARRATOR: Together they \hset out to bring down

all Roman power in the empire.

Odovacer will now taste the revenge

\hhe seeks against Orestes who dared

to usurp his power in Rome.

They immediately begin to raid the cities of Italy.

\h\hThe narration that we have of this talks

\h\h\h\habout days and days of plundering, the wealthy being

stripped of all of their money.

\hNARRATOR: After risking their lives for the sake of an empire

they can’t even call their own, the barbarian soldiers feel

the time has come for Rome to pay in blood what they cannot

pay in money and land.

\h\hKELLY DEVRIES: Pretend you’re a soldier for them.

Pretend that you have to live on the meager wages

that you’ve got.

And now you’d miss a payday.

One payday, you may be able to make it.

\hTwo, three, four paydays in a row, you’re starving.

\hAre you going to have much allegiance to the army that

has let you starve?

\h\h\hNARRATOR: Now answering to no one,

Odovacer relishes \hthe opportunity

to finally assert his dominance over Italy and Orestes.

KELLY DEVRIES: What we’re \h\h\htalking about in 476

is not a war per se.

There’s no great battles.

There’s no sieges.

\h\h\h\hYou’ve got starving soldiers seeking to survive.

\hAnd in order to survive, they will

do whatever it takes to do so.

\hBecause they are trained to fight,

they will put down anyone \h\h\hwho encounters them.

Riots and rampages and sackings and rapings take place.

\h\h\hNARRATOR: With Odovacer closing in,

\hOrestes leaves his son, the young emperor Romulus,

in Ravenna under the care of the boy’s uncle Paulus

\h\hwhile Orestes escapes to Ticinium in northern Italy.

EDWARD WATTS: Orestes is forced to seek refuge from Odovacer

and his troops in Ticinium, \h\h\hwhich is modern Pavia.

\h\hWe’re told by a text that the bishop of Pavia

\h\h\h\hgives Orestes sanctuary in the city.

\hNARRATOR: But even the House of God cannot protect him from

the barbarian forces.

\hOrestes is forced to flee as Odovacer

and his men ravage the church, \h\hdesperate to root him out.

\hEDWARD WATTS: The bishop had his collection of alms stolen.

\h\h\hAll of the money he collected to help the poor

was stolen by Odovacer’s forces.

They also burned buildings \h\hincluding the church.

NARRATOR: As the church \h\h\hgoes up in flames,

\hso do Orestes’ visions of the empire’s rebirth.

Odovacer does not care about \hthe perpetuation of Rome.

\hIn fact, it’s a realization to him

\h\hvery early on that Rome no longer exists.

But what role does he play?

What power can he hold?

NARRATOR: Orestes and his \hguards escape Ticinium,

hoping to buy enough \h\htime to prepare

\h\h\h\hfor the certain face-off with Odovacer.

\h\hOnce they were peers in the emperor’s court.

Now they are locked \h\h\hin a struggle

for their very survival.

[horse neighs]

KELLY DEVRIES: Both are very \hproud of the position they

hold, and neither are \hwilling to recognize

the other has any power at all.

\h\h\hNow, in that case, of course, a clash is imminent.

NARRATOR: Orestes and \hhis army get as far

as Placentia, modern-day \h\h\h\hPiacenza, Italy,

before they are finally \hconfronted by Odovacer

on the battlefield.

[shouting]

\h\h\h\hNARRATOR: The inexperienced Orestes

has little chance against the savagery of Odovacer barbarian

troops.

\h\hTHOMAS MARTIN: It would have been loud,

chaotic, bloody, violent, dusty, which is why morale even more

than training, when push came to shove,

was at the heart of who was going to win

and who was going to lose.

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

There are injured men yelling.

There are people loosing their bowels from fear.

[men shouting]

[music playing]

\hThere was something still symbolic about the empire

\h\h\has if the last few gasps of imperial power

could be hung onto by someone who felt that the empire could

be restored by them.

They thought the empire \h\h\hwas still existent

or that they could \hsave the empire.

We know as historians now that they cannot.

NARRATOR: No matter how foolish, Orestes

refuses to admit defeat.

When the Roman general Orestes \h\hbreaks his promise of land

to his barbarian troops, they \h\hlaunch a full-scale revolt

\hled by Orestes’ rival the barbarian general Odovacer.

Now fighting on a battlefield \h\h\h\hnear Placentia, Italy,

the two adversaries \hvie for supremacy

\hjust as they once did in the emperor’s throne room in Rome.

\h\h\hKELLY DEVRIES: Odovacer and Orestes

are the two most important \hindividuals in the West.

On their shoulders lie \hthe future of Rome.

And one has to agree \h\hwith the other.

There has to be some \h\hcompromise made.

If not, there will be violence.

And that’s in fact what happens.

NARRATOR: It’s a brutal \h\hfight to the death.

And in the battle’s end, just as in the empire’s, the Roman

\h\hfinally succumbs to the mightier barbarian.

\h\hWe don’t know exactly what happened when Odovacer caught

up with Orestes, but my suspicion

\h\h\his that it was a quick and brutal end.

There was not going to be \hany elaborate ceremony.

\h\hThere was not going to be any elaborate funeral.

Orestes was to disappear.

I’m sure his execution was swift, silent, and total.

\hNARRATOR: Victorious, Odovacer and his troops

march to Ravenna to address the only unfinished business

left, the young son of Orestes, the last Western Roman emperor.

The 12-year-old emperor Romulus Augustulus and his uncle Paulus

\h\hare unaware of Orestes’ death and

unprepared for the murderous \h\hassault of Odovacer men.

\h\h\h\hEDWARD WATTS: When Odovacer comes to Ravenna,

\hRomulus is not able to put up much of a fight.

But Paulus, who was charged \h\hwith protecting Romulus,

\h\h\hmanages to do this and tries to protect his nephew.

\h\hOdovacer’s forces then kill Paulus and move against the boy

emperor Romulus Augustulus.

\h\hNARRATOR: Terrified, the boy flees the sounds of his uncle’s

murder.

The last Roman emperor, trapped like a bewildered animal,

cannot hide from the \hbarbarian’s blade.

There is no escape.

EDWARD WATTS: Romulus is a mere figurehead,

and so there’s no reason in essence for Odovacer

to do anything to him.

NARRATOR: But the \hruthless warrior

makes a surprising choice.

He spares the boy’s life, \hsending him into exile.

\h\h\h\h\h\hBy saving his life, Odovacer can show his clemency

\h\hand can show to the Romans that he can behave in the way

that a just sovereign \h\h\hought to behave.

\hNARRATOR: In the summer of 476 AD,

Odovacer becomes Italy’s \hfirst barbarian ruler.

Odovacer is now king.

Now, he’s not king of Italy.

\hHe’s not king of the Roman Empire.

He’s just king of these guys, \h\h\hthis little motley band,

\h\hwhatever it was, making up the Roman army at this point.

\hNARRATOR: Odovacer is king, not emperor, because the Roman

Empire is officially dead just over 500 years after its birth

in 27 BC.

THOMAS MARTIN: It really is the end

of a Roman emperor in the West.

\hNow there’s going to be a king in the West.

There’s still a Roman \hemperor in the East.

But the East has no effective \h\h\h\hcontrol over the West.

In a real political \h\h\hsense, things

have changed fundamentally.

NARRATOR: News of Rome’s \h\hfall travels quickly

to the new Eastern emperor \hZeno in Constantinople.

\hThe messengers arrive bearing the news the Eastern empire has

dreaded for years.

They carry the last vestige \h\h\h\hof the boy emperor’s

imperial office.

EDWARD WATTS: The last thing \hthat Odovacer has Romulus

Augustulus do before he formally steps down from the Roman

throne is send an envoy on behalf of the Senate

\hand the emperor conveying the ornaments of imperial authority

\h\hto Constantinople with the word that no emperor is needed

in the West.

NARRATOR: With a barbarian \hking lording over Italy,

the remaining symbols of Roman \hpower are no longer needed.

\h\h\hTHOMAS MARTIN: We know that Odovacer very publicly

proclaimed he was not going \h\hto wear the purple robes

\hand the golden crown that signified a Roman

emperor at the time.

\hHe was going to leave those aside.

Odovacer was something new.

\hHe was a king in the West, not an emperor.

The robes and the crowns and \hthe jewels of emperorship

now belonged to the \h\hEastern emperor.

\hNARRATOR: But in his hands, they no longer

signify power and prestige, \h\h\honly failure and loss.

Back in Italy, the families \hof the barbarian soldiers

\hare now finally granted the land they fought for.

\h\h\h\hThe West now lies completely in their hands.

It’s clear Odovacer \hdid uphold what

he had agreed to his soldiers.

He kept his promise.

\hHe gave them what was due to them and was a man of his word

to those supporting him.

\h\hNARRATOR: For the empire, invasions of women, children,

\h\h\hand homesteads proved more powerful than those of warriors

and siege machines.

THOMAS MARTIN: Rome became \hstrong in the beginning

because it took in outsiders.

\h\h\hThat is to say it encouraged immigration.

\hBut in the end, when the barbarians came in numbers

and wanted to be part \hof the Roman Empire,

\h\hfor complicated reasons, the Romans

were unable to take \hthem in in the way

that they had done before.

This failure to make immigration a positive source of strength

really was one of the principal reasons for the undoing

of the Roman Empire.

\hNARRATOR: But despite the fall of the empire,

\h\hin remote places like monasteries and libraries,

the great knowledge \h\h\hand ingenuity

born of Roman civilization \h\h\h\h\his miraculously

salvaged and saved.

\h\hTHOMAS MARTIN: The idea of Rome endured,

because in those pockets \hwhere there was still

an emphasis on learning and education and books,

\h\hit was Romanness and the classics of Roman literature

and culture that were seen as the foundation

of a civilized life.

GEOFFREY GREATREX: \hThe Roman Empire

\hhas bequeathed a huge amount to us certainly in the West--

so many institutions, \hso much terminology,

the very languages that we speak that are so marked by Roman

influence.

It’s all around us.

We simply cannot escape the Roman legacy however hard we

may try.

And that’s why it matters.

NARRATOR: From democracy \hto empire to its fall,

\h\h\hRome has inspired the Western world as we know it.

\h\hIts civilization survived centuries of war, persecution,

corruption, and plague, \h\honly to die quietly,

slowly at the hands of one barbarian soldier.

KELLY DEVRIES: There \h\his a romanticism

\hto caring about the fall of Rome,

caring about the Roman \h\hEmpire as a whole.

\h\h\h\hIt certainly was a very important part of the formation

of the modern world.

Let’s face it.

It hasn’t been around \h\h\hfor 1,500 years.

Why should we care any longer?

I think the answer \his very simple.

\h\h\hWe should care because in Rome lay

all of the wonderful aspects of humanity

and all of the terrible \h\haspects of humanity.

And if we study those, if we understand them,

perhaps we can repeat the good \hones and not repeat the bad.

[men shouting]

[music playing]