All language subtitles for Lost.Worlds.S01E04.Athens-Ancient.Supercity.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DDP2.0.H.264-BurCyg_track3_[eng]

[music playing]

NARRATOR: Greece,
fifth century BC,

over the course of three
decades, led by one man, a city

and its people
rise to greatness.

This is Athens, the
birthplace of democracy.

But it is Pericles's city.

EDITH HALL: Pericles
decided that the best

way to leave an indelible
mark on posterity

was to completely alter
the skyline and appearance

at the center of
his city, Athens.

NARRATOR: Pericles builds
impregnable fortifications,

the first senate house, a
complex network of pipes

to supply his people
with fresh water.

He builds the most powerful
navy in the ancient world,

and he builds temples.

One, the Parthenon,
will be hailed

by many as the most perfect
building ever completed.

I think he did have a vision
for what Athens should be,

and he seemed to follow that
vision for most of his life.

NARRATOR: After 2,500 years,
we can show this vision again,

recreate this lost world
as Pericles saw it,

the greatest city on Earth.

[theme music]

In the fifth century BC, from
the hundreds of competing

states that make
up ancient Greece,

one man leads his
city to greatness.

The city is Athens, and Pericles
is not a king or prince,

but an elected man.

His power comes from the people
and from his own single-minded

vision.

EDITH HALL: The story goes
that when Pericles's mother was

eight months pregnant with him,
she knew that she was going

to have an extraordinary
son who was destined

for greatness because she had
a dream that she gave birth

to a lion.

And for the ancient
Greeks, the lion

was always a symbol
of leadership.

To be a successful politician
and statesman in Greece,

he needed to be a
military leader,

and he needed to be an effective
speaker of the assembly.

And he was clearly
both of those.

Pericles not only
contributed to Athens

becoming a leading power, I
think he was the main creator

of that power.

NARRATOR: Pericles wants to
send out a message to the world

that Athens is supreme, the
capital of a new empire.

He will deliver this
message by building.

What he intends is the
most costly and ambitious

construction campaign
undertaken in the western world.

He needs to fund it.

In what some will see as
an act of blatant theft,

he raids the Greek treasury.

Money which should
have been used

to defend all the
city-states in the region

is diverted to the
glorification of his own city,

and work begins
on the Parthenon.

Built to honor the
goddess Athena,

it will become the
most imitated building

in history, an inspiration
to engineers and architects.

It will take eight years to
build, cost the equivalent

of $100 million, and
use a staggering 20,000

tons of the finest marble.

EDITH HALL: The Parthenon is
arguably the most influential

building in world history.

You cannot go into any city
in North America or Europe,

or indeed most of the world,
without finding a 19th century

bank facade, parliamentary
building facade,

or law court building that
isn't in some way influenced

by the Parthenon.

STEPHEN V. TRACEY: The Parthenon
is a very special building

because of the visual
impact it has on you.

When you go up
there, it's, first

of all, huge, solid marble.

There's not a
straight line in it

so that it has a lightness
and a sense of movement.

When you stand on the
Acropolis and look at it,

it seems almost to float.

NARRATOR: The image of the
Parthenon is familiar to us,

but 25 centuries of war,
weather, and history

have reduced this building to
a shadow of what it once was.

Engineer Ed McCann and
architect Manolis Korres

have set themselves the task of
deciphering exactly how it came

to be built, what it looked
like during Athens's golden age.

Pericles men cut marble
for the Parthenon

from the nearby
mountain of Penteli.

The team restoring
the temple today

get their marble from
the very same place.

What seems laborious, even with
the aid of modern technology,

would have taken months
in Pericles's time.

First, the marble was chiseled
by hand from the parent rock.

It was examined for
faults, and then

the business of
transportation began.

EDITH HALL: It was
a 10-mile journey,

and they brought 20,000
tons of marble blocks

with just teams of
oxen and rollers,

this incredibly long journey all
the way up the steep Acropolis

to get it there.

This is an astonishing feat.

It would have been an
astonishing feat today

with proper cars and so on.

NARRATOR: The most difficult
part of the journey

was the last part, getting the
marble up a 302-foot slope.

Ed McCann has discovered
the ingenious technique

that the masons
used for lifting.

ED MCCANN: They had a very
cunning system for getting

the rocks up to the top.

And what they did was they
had a cart on one side

with a rock on it.

And up the top on
the other side,

they have another car full of
stone with a big rope going

round and over
giant pulley wheel.

And then they set up the
donkeys and the people all

pulling down.

And so they pull down
and lift the rock up,

and then at the top,
they're able to unload it.

And then they bring
the horses up here.

They put a rock on that
side, and they bring it

back up and down like that.

So it's a counterbalance system.

NARRATOR: The size
of the challenge

becomes even more impressive
when Ed and Manolis calculate

the weight of the marble.

The individual blocks were vast.

ED MCCANN: So they
had eight cranes

dotted around the Parthenon,
and these were timber cranes.

And they lifted these pieces
up into the construction.

And the biggest piece
was 13 tons, so about--

Yes, the biggest eight
pieces weighed 13 tons each.

NARRATOR: The cranes were
immensely strong, capable

of hoisting a 13-ton column.

They were also very
simple in design.

Two wooden beams were
connected by an iron bracket,

and ropes were passed through
a pulley block at one end.

200 men were employed
on the site itself,

but around the city thousands
more, labored to support

them, masons, molders, founders,
rope makers, transporters.

EDITH HALL: Manolis, are
these the original pick holes?

MANOLIS KORRES: Exactly.

Second stage after bringing
the stone from the quarry.

It is one of the
preliminary stages.

ED MCCANN: The last time someone
put their finger in there might

have been 2,500 years ago--

Exactly.

Exactly.

ED MCCANN: --with a pick.

NARRATOR: Once it was in
place, the most skilled masons

carved the marble.

Ed McCann wants to understand
how they worked by trying it

for himself.

ED MCCANN: The key principle
that underlies working

the stone is working from
doing rough cuts with the stone

through gradually getting
finer and finer stone cuts,

and that's reflected in
the tools that they used.

So the tool that they
used for rough cutting

was this double pick.

It's difficult to lift,
and it's difficult to aim.

I'm reliably informed that if
you were any good with this,

I could move 200 kilos--

that's about twice
as much as I weigh--

in an hour's work
with one of these.

Now, as you got into
the stone and you needed

to get finer and
finer, you needed

to use ever smaller tools.

And I can put them exactly onto
the bit of stone I want to hit

to the nearest millimeter.

It's much, much easier to
use, and I can't really

go too far wrong.

But of course, I don't get
very much off with this.

It would take me two
weeks chiseling away,

basically reducing
the marble to dust,

before I'd move 200 kilograms.

NARRATOR: Once the columns
and drums had been finished,

they needed to be
fitted together.

ED MCCANN: So this is where
the original stones were

put together, and
these were iron clamps.

MANOLIS KORRES: Exactly.

The clamp is missing,
but you see the band

of the original construction.

ED MCCANN: And this would have
been underneath so you wouldn't

have seen.
MANOLIS KORRES: Yes, always.

ED MCCANN: So it was underneath
the bottom of the column

MANOLIS KORRES: Yes
exactly hidden by the next.

NARRATOR: Today,
damage from pollution

means that the Parthenon
needs extensive restoration.

As Ed McCann hunts for clues
about how the stones were

originally put together
all those centuries ago,

he gets exclusive access to
the work that's being done now.

ED MCCANN: This is the
modern restoration work

that is going on.

And although it's
different to what

they did in Periclean times,
there are some similarities.

I mean, first of all, the column
drums themselves are the same,

and they're lifted
up, in this case,

by a great, big iron
and steel crane.

In those days, it would
have been a timber one.

And you can see in the
middle there a little metal

spigot sticking up.

Nowadays, it's made
out of titanium.

But in Periclean times,
that would have been wood.

And that's what
helps you to center

these things so when you
lower it in with a crane,

there's a little hole.

And you line them
up, and then you

know you're exactly centered up.

NARRATOR: Each
wall, each column,

is evidence of
extraordinary skill.

The stones are
perfectly positioned

and seamlessly joined.

You see one of the
best preserved joints

in the Parthenon because this
column was never destroyed

by any event like
bombardment or earthquake.

You couldn't get a piece
of paper in there, could you?

NARRATOR: The outer
structure required

46 of these 13-ton columns.

The result was a building
of unparalleled grandeur.

Today, it is impressive.

But as it stood in
Pericles's time,

it would have been breathtaking,
not just the exterior,

but the interior, which
has long since vanished.

Our investigators will now
concentrate on that interior

and try to reveal it
as its builders first

saw because the Parthenon
once held the most

spectacular statues ever made.

What Pericles builds on the
Acropolis is, in its time,

revolutionary.

It is at the center
of his program

to reform, remodel his city.

This program is
startlingly ambitious.

It is also hugely successful.

Pericles will change his
world and help define ours.

EDITH HALL: Pericles managed
to get his dream to come true,

which was to build all
these beautiful temples

on the Acropolis and to
have his name on our lips

2,500 years later.

NARRATOR: And it appears
that in his lifetime

these buildings were even
more impressive, even more

beautiful.

Ancient writers describe the
Parthenon's interior with awe.

What they talk about
is no longer here.

In 1687, the Venetian army
bombarded the city of Athens.

The center of the temple was
destroyed by a huge explosion.

Now, Ed McCann and Manolis
Korres hunt among the ruins

to decipher what clues are left.

They want to understand what
the Parthenon looked like when

it was first built.

ED MCCANN: This is where a
Venetian cannon ball smashed

into the column, bang.

And the lines of stress fly out,
and a big chunk of the marble

falls off.

And they're all over here.

We see one there, one there.

I've noticed that you've
got some Greek vandals

because that's
graffiti, isn't it?

MANOLIS KORRES: Yes, it is.

Yes, one of the 230
graffitis in the Parthenon,

many of them of
historical value.

They're pertaining to
people thanking god

for being saved in the sea
after voyage back to Athens

and so on.

A Greek sailor would
have gone out in his ship.

And if he'd had a
successful voyage--

Exactly, yes.

--he would have come back to
the Parthenon, climbed up here,

and scribbled something
on the wall saying,

thank you very much, God.

Yes, exactly.

Yes.

Fantastic.

NARRATOR: Amongst the
graffiti and the bomb

damage they spot other markings,
traces of pigment that suggests

this whole structure once
looked radically different.

The conventional picture
of a Greek temple

is one of clean,
white stone, but it

appears that the Parthenon
was once covered in color.

ED MCCANN: So the
Parthenon was actually

painted when it was new?

Yes, it was painted.

It was a principle in
ancient architecture

to cover the buildings
with paint, even in marble.

NARRATOR: We can now recreate
what it looked like, gleaming

white columns were topped with
gables of blue, red, and gold.

In fact, no other Greek temple
was as intricately colored

as this one.

In addition to the painting,
there were stunning sculptures.

There were 92 statues.

One Pericles carved
into the marble

was almost 520-feet long, and
the sculptures that adorned

the gables were colossal.

STEPHEN V. TRACEY: And I think
the Parthenon is remarkable

because if you look
at these sculptures,

and we can, these days,
see them from behind

and see that they're beautifully
sculpted in the round.

Yet once upon a building,
they could never be seen.

and It's hard to explain
that except perhaps the pride

of the artists, the sense that
they were doing this in honor

of the gods and perhaps in
honor of the city, pride

of workmanship.

NARRATOR: Pericles intends that
anyone entering the building

will be intimidated.

This is not just a
place of worship,

it houses the state treasury
and also the ultimate symbol

of the city, an enormous statue
of the patron goddess, Athena.

Engineer Ed McCann has been
trying to find the place where

the statue, long since
destroyed, once stood.

ED MCCANN: Manolis is a
bit embarrassed to tell me

where the statue
was because it's

right underneath that rather
horrible crane is where Athena

used to stand in all her glory.

Will you put Athena back
as part of the restoration?

It's impossible because the
whole thing was destroyed,

completely destroyed, during the
fire in the third century AD.

NARRATOR: Records suggests that
the statue was 30-feet tall.

It was clad in gold and ivory.

And because it was
inside the building,

it could only be seen
from close quarters.

Any onlooker would feel dwarfed.

EDITH HALL: This statue was
virtually unprecedented.

Pericles had it put on a
plinth that was five foot tall

so that when you went in, all
you could see was her feet.

And then you gradually lifted
your gaze up, and up, and up,

and up 40 more feet
until you finally

came to her beautiful
face, her helmet

with these horses springing
out of it towards the gods.

The statue of Athena in Athens
completely altered the history

of temple statuary
in the ancient world,

and therefore probably of
Christian statuary as well.

NARRATOR: And the design
of the temple's exterior

has proved still
more influential.

Throughout the 2,500
years since it was built,

engineers all over the world
tried to copy the Parthenon,

but they never bettered it.

Ed McCann unlocks its secrets.

ED MCCANN: One of the
more famous stories

about the Parthenon is how
although it's very rectangular

building when you
look at it, actually,

there aren't any straight
lines in it at all,

and that the people who built it
built it all with gentle curves

going upwards to counterbalance
an optical effect that when you

look at straight
lines from distance,

they don't appear
to be straight.

And so everything's curved.

And to show that,
what we've done here

is we've taken one of the main
steps here on the Parthenon,

and we've put a string
going from corner to corner.

And here I am in the
middle of the Parthenon,

we can see that there's maybe
four or five inches here of sag

relative to the top of the step.

What that means is that the
step is four inches higher here

than it is on the corners.

And this happens all
over the Parthenon.

NARRATOR: It is now possible
to bring together decades

of research, and using the
latest graphic modeling

techniques, rebuild
the Parthenon.

Eight columns at the
front, eight at the back,

a row of 15 on either side.

Traveling through the temple,
you'd pass through a porch

into the 100-foot-long
sanctuary of Athena

into the Treasury at the back
and out through another porch

made with six columns.

EDITH HALL: The Romans regarded
the miracles of the Acropolis

as the models for many
of their buildings.

And of course, they
then affected enormously

the sort of buildings that
went up during the European

Renaissance.

So even if it's via Rome,
the Parthenon's influence

always lives on in architecture.

NARRATOR: This
one building alone

would have been enough to
guarantee Pericles's place

in history, but he will do more.

He is bringing a radical,
fundamental change to Athens.

A new set of buildings will
transform the whole city

and its people.

Pericles will build democracy.

High on the Acropolis throughout
Pericles's time in government,

the Parthenon stands as
testament to Athens status.

It is a superpower.

STEPHEN V. TRACEY: Athens
showed her dominance

over the rest of
the Greek world,

mainly, through, I think,
Pericles's building program.

NARRATOR: But his plans
aren't just about showing off

to the wider world.

Pericles intends to reshape the
lives of ordinary Athenians.

The focus of his
building work shifts

from the religious
sanctuaries to the city below.

Like modern day Athens, it
is a busy center of trade.

At its heart, is the Agora.

JOHN M. CAMP: The Agora
is extremely important.

It's a marketplace.

It's a political center.

It's a social center.

It's, basically, the middle
of town in all respects.

NARRATOR: Today, the
Agora lies in ruins.

It has, in the past, been
attacked by barbarian invaders

and built on by
private home owners.

It is abandoned.

But it is possible to
recreate what it looked

like in Pericles's time
when these 30 acres were

the center of the most
advanced civilization on Earth.

John Camp is a world authority
on the building of the Agora.

He spent more than three
decades trying to piece together

what it looked like.

Within this one plot were
busy streets, a collection

of temples, a marketplace, and
the first ever senate house.

JOHN M. CAMP: The Agora,
in Periclean times,

would've been quite impressive.

It would have been
lined with stoas, which

are big, long columnated
buildings in which you could

take shelter from the
sun or from the rain,

depending on the weather.

And it will have
been full of people.

NARRATOR: Yet another
stunning temple

was built here very
different from the Parthenon.

Called the Hephaisteion, it was
dedicated to the craftsmen who

made Pericles's
vision a reality.

By making this gesture, Pericles
was acknowledging the root

of his power--

it lay in the backing he
received from his people.

JOHN M. CAMP: It's one of
the best preserved temples

in antiquity, so
it's a little hard

to see how it goes together.

When you come down here, you can
see pieces of its virtual twin,

which was set up down
in the lower square.

And from this, you can see that
the building is made pretty

much all of marble.

No mortar was used.

The individual pieces were
held together with iron clamps,

such as the one you see
here, and iron dowels.

And you can still
see the piece of iron

and a little bit of the lead
used to hold it in place

along with the pry hole used
to get the next big block

in place.

This here is a step
block, and everything

above here in that
direction would

have been the second step.

So all these marks
would have been covered.

NARRATOR: The Hephaisteion
stood on the edge of the Agora.

But at its center stood
the council chamber.

To build it, workers
leveled ground,

created artificial terraces,
and built into the rock.

The building techniques
used were tried and tested,

but what happened inside the
building was revolutionary.

This building was the
birthplace of democracy.

These walls here are all
that remain of the old council

chamber built in about 500 BC.

It was a very simple building
with mud-brick walls,

columnar facade to the south,
and a bunch of wooden seats

for the councilors to sit on.

NARRATOR: A
rectangular antechamber

led to a large main hall.

At its center, a timber roof
was supported by five columns.

JOHN M. CAMP: 500 Athenians
would be allotted every year,

not elected, just picked out of
a hat to serve as the senators.

NARRATOR: The form of democracy
they used was very simple.

The council would
present the people

with issues for discussion,
litigation, taxation,

or whether to go to war,
then the actual decisions

were made by the people.

They cast their votes
by dropping a pebble

into a terracotta pot.

The council chamber can be
compared to the US Senate

but instead of allowing career
politicians to dominate,

it was expected that at
some point in his life,

every Athenian
citizen would serve.

STEPHEN V. TRACEY:
Most democracies today

are representative democracies.

Athens was a direct democracy.

We can compare it as a
working system of government

to something like a New England
town meeting where everybody

in the town goes to the
meeting, and the decisions

are made by everyone.

NARRATOR: Pericles's
Athenians also developed

a way of preventing any
one individual from gaining

too much power.

JOHN M. CAMP: Ostracism is
something we don't use anymore.

It was kind of a reverse
election where the Athenians

had the opportunity once a year
to vote somebody out of office.

And the way they did it was
by writing the name of the man

they thought was a
threat to the democracy

on a piece of pottery.

The Greek word for
that is an ostracon.

So it was essentially
being exiled for 10 years

by vote of little
bits of pottery.

NARRATOR: One day, a
politician might be enormously

popular with the people.

The next, his assets
could be frozen,

and he might be banished from
the country for 10 years.

It's striking to note that is a
punishment that Pericles never

faced, despite dominating
politics in Athens for more

than three decades.

His power came from the
support of the people.

And the humble homes
of private individuals

lay nearby right alongside the
mighty buildings and temples

of the state.

JOHN M. CAMP: We're at the
remains of a fairly typical

Athenian house, with
this wall here going back

in that direction there.

That area is the open courtyard.

They're very simple.

They're very modest.

NARRATOR: The walls
of these houses

were made out of mud-brick
or field stones reinforced

with wood lined with clay.

Once finished, the walls
were painted in white, black,

yellow, or red.

The floors were made out of
simple packed clay with perhaps

a mosaic pattern.

Houses were built
to face inwards

toward a central
courtyard, and each citizen

was expected to connect his
own home to the city's water

supply.

Hundreds of years before
the great building projects

of Rome, Pericles's
Athenians developed and built

a highly advanced
sewage and water system.

John Camp found what was left
of it beneath these ruins.

JOHN M. CAMP: Clean water is
essential for the well-being

of the city, of course, and both
Pericles and other statesmen

concerned themselves a lot with
making sure the Athenians had

enough.

But you see here a
group of pipelines that

have been excavated,
many of them

used to bring good, fresh water
into the city, many others used

to carry the wastewater away.

And literally hundreds of
meters have been found criss

crossing the Agora.

NARRATOR: Sections were short,
three to four feet long,

because they were made
on a potter's wheel.

Around two inches
thick, they were

made with a special lip at one
end to ensure a watertight fit.

When a length of
pipette been laid,

the engineers would
test for leaks

by pouring through
water stained with ash.

Traveling in shallow
trenches beneath the Agora,

these pipes carried water from
numerous wells and mountain

springs.

Pulling all these elements
together-- the temples,

the houses, the marketplaces,
the civic buildings,

and this highly-innovative
sanitation system--

it's plain to see that
Athens was a model city.

Under Pericles, it thrived.

The challenge lay in
maintaining the success.

As Athens grew in
wealth and power,

it drew the jealousy
of its neighbors.

Pericles had to
prepare for the day

when the city would
come under attack.

The city of Athens
undergoes a transformation.

With their backing,
Pericles leads his people

for more than three decades.

EDITH HALL: Every year,
for over 30 years,

he was re-elected head
of the board of generals.

Every year he was
elected like that.

He never, ever, ever failed
to get that position.

NARRATOR: As Athens
booms, this military side

of Pericles's authority
becomes more and more vital.

Tension mounts with Sparta, the
only serious rival to the power

that Athens holds in Greece.

Pericles realizes that he
needs to prepare his city

for the possibility
that war will come.

Athens existing defenses
guard a large wedge

of land bounded by
a pair of long walls

and two miles of shore.

It becomes clear that
should Spartans attack,

this is simply too
great a line to defend.

The Athenian forces would be
overstretched and vulnerable.

Though Athens is
five miles inland,

Pericles knows that the sea
is where its power lies.

Greece is mountainous.

Overland travel is difficult.
Most of the city's trade

happens with the island
states of the Aegean,

so Pericles focuses
his attention

on protecting the route
to the port at Piraeus.

He builds a third wall running
straight to the harbor.

This wall creates a
defensible corridor.

Though narrow, it means
that whatever happens,

Athens is connected to the sea.

Even by modern
standards, this would

be a major public
building project.

Like the construction
of a freeway,

the building of the wall forces
its way through private houses

and farms.

It crosses rivers.

It divides communities
and separates people

from their land.

But Pericles, the disruption
is a price worth paying.

Athens has to be ready to fight.

Today, nothing remains
of Pericles's wall,

but this fortification at
Aigosthena is very similar.

It provides investigators
with the best clues

to what Athens's long walls
would have looked like.

STEPHEN V. TRACEY: The wall that
that he built would have been

of smaller stones
than this, I imagine,

for four meters or so, 12 feet.

And then above that,
mud-brick for another,

say, three or four meters.

NARRATOR: Two external stone
faces were filled with rubble.

Above the foundation lay
low stone called sockel.

On top of that,
there was mud-brick.

The walls were about 16-feet
wide and 30-feet high.

They were 8 and 1/2 miles long.

It was Pericles's intention
that they would be unbreachable.

The key to that lay in
the way they were manned.

Weapons expert Mike Loades
has been investigating

the way Pericles
policed these defenses.

He would rely on
a rapid reaction

force of mounted troops
to travel up and down

their length.

MIKE LOADES: The Athenians
recruited 300 cavalry.

Now, that's a fascinating
direct link between Pericles's

long walls and cavalry.

This was the start
of Greek cavalry.

NARRATOR: Mounted troops
were a major innovation

in ancient Greek warfare.

MIKE LOADES: Cavalry can
patrol along the walls.

Cavalry can be shot
out from postern gates

at a moment's notice to go
to the moment of trouble.

And cavalry can
patrol the countryside

to protect that
agricultural infrastructure.

NARRATOR: Postern gates were
located at regular intervals

along the walls.

High towers and ramparts offered
another level of security.

MIKE LOADES: The Athenian police
and watchmen were recruited

from Scythian arches.

The Scythians were this people
from north of the Black Sea.

And they had these wonderful,
strong, powerful recurve bows

made of horn and sinew.

It's got a range of
about 250, 300 yards.

So anybody trying to lay any
sort of siege work out there,

these archers are going
to be picking them off.

And they would stand no chance.

NARRATOR: It wasn't just arrows
that attackers had to fear.

Pericles also stationed
men armed with slingshots

along the walls.

They were effectively
the snipers of their day.

MIKE LOADES: And their
slingshot was cast in lead,

so it has weight.

It's aerodynamically
shaped like a bullet.

This would kill a man.

And in fact, this
is a copy of one

that's in the British Museum,
an original Greek slingshot.

And it says the words DEXA,
which means take that.

It's a wonderful millennia-old
bit of soldiers wit.

And you simply place the sling
in the basket and hurl it.

NARRATOR: Built before the
development of siege warfare,

these walls were never
breached in Pericles's time.

No army had the technical
or logistical skill

to bring them down.

It meant that Pericles
could confidently

try to seize the advantage.

He could take his
country to war.

STEPHEN V. TRACEY: The
war began because there

were two main cities in
Greece, Athens and Sparta.

Both were ambitious to be the
leaders of the Greek world,

and it was a case of two
big kids on the block.

And there was only room for
one, so war was inevitable.

NARRATOR: The
Golden Age of Athens

was about to come
to a dramatic end.

Pericles plans to
gamble everything

he has built, everything
his people have worked

for on the strength
of his mighty navy.

We will uncover the lost
world of the Greek war ship.

431 BC, as Pericles predicts,
the forces of Sparta

invade Athenian territory, and
Pericles responds in a way that

shocks his own people.

Having strengthened the
city's fortifications,

he now puts all
his faith in them.

He orders the people
of the countryside

to abandon their
homes and take refuge

behind the walls of Athens.

Many see it as cowardice.

And so the Athenians watch
as 60,000 Spartans rampage

and destroy.

Pericles reasoning is that the
Spartan army is too strong.

To take them on on
land would be to lose.

Instead, he will carry
the battle to the sea.

Passing troops down the
narrow, protected corridor that

links Athens to the
harbor at Piraeus,

he will attack
Sparta using a fleet

of highly-advanced, deadly
warships, his triremes.

BORIS RANKOV: Certainly, we can
say that Athens had the best

navy in the Mediterranean
in the fifth century BC.

One reason for this was because
Athens income from empire

allowed her to pay her crews
to train longer and harder

than anybody else's crews.

NARRATOR: No
archaeologist has ever

found remains of a trireme, but
our investigators have pieced

together the story
of what must have

been an awesome feat of marine
and military engineering.

The tri in trireme refers
to the key innovation

that set these ships apart.

Three banks of oars,
one on top of another,

gave it massive power.

BORIS RANKOV: Earlier
oared warships

had rows at two
different levels.

By adding a third
level of rowers,

you got half as much power again
within the same length of hull.

So it made the ships faster
and more maneuverable.

NARRATOR: From ancient drawings
of the triremes, the designer's

intention is clear--

they wanted to use this
extra power to brutal effect.

Boris Rankov believes that
the front of each ship

was reinforced to make a ram.

BORIS RANKOV: The
ram was essentially

a projection at
the bow of a ship

and sheathed in bronze
with cutting edges on,

and this was used to
ram into other ships

and knock holes in their hulls.

NARRATOR: So the trireme was
basically a guided missile.

The idea was that it would
penetrate the hull of an enemy

ship, cause maximum
damage, and then move off.

Success was dependent on
the skill of the person

at the helm.

To work effectively,
the ram had to impact

at a speed of 10 knots.

And if it was too
late or too early,

the triremes vulnerable
sides would be exposed.

Boris Rankov believes that
the ships must have been built

from an extremely light wood.

BORIS RANKOV: Flat out, they
could probably manage something

between 9 and 10 knots.

A ship of 50 tons with
200 men on board traveling

at nearly 10 knots is
really quite impressive.

NARRATOR: Only by investigating
the remains of ancient boat

houses can experts estimate
the size of triremes.

They may have been as
much as 120-feet long.

Boris's reconstructions
make it clear

that their deployment required
a massive amount of muscle,

170 men in three files, each man
wielding an oar up to 13-feet

long.

Pericles fleet was vast.

Accounts from the beginning
of the war with Sparta

suggests that he had 300
ships at his disposal.

With around 200
sailors per ship,

that's a navy of 60,000 men.

And there were other
people onboard each ship,

each one also transported
soldiers called hoplites.

Disembarking at
strategic locations

deep in Spartan territory, they
would have quickly done damage

to their enemy,
then sailed away.

Weapons expert Mike Loades
reveals the kind of tactic

the hoplites used in battle.

BORIS RANKOV: He would have
vast phalanxes hoplites.

Infantry armed with
a spear and a shield

would charge each other, meeting
with an explosive energy,

shoving, and
pushing, and jabbing,

and stabbing their spears
deep into the enemy ranks.

It was a war of attrition.

Imagine that behind Richard,
there are 600 hoplites

eight to 12 rows deep.

Now, the first
two or three ranks

are going to be able to
reach with their spears

into the enemy lines.

But behind that the men
are muscle and weight.

NARRATOR: With these
highly-skilled troops

and the power of the
triremes behind them,

it appears that Pericles has the
means to snatch a quick victory

over the Spartans, but
that victory doesn't come.

The Spartans invade and
attack the walls of Athens

five times in 10 years.

Each time, they are forced to
pull back, but keep returning.

Gradually, the
Athenians are worn down.

And then Pericles's people
come under attack in a way

that they could never have
foreseen because their ships,

their greatest strength, return
from foreign ports carrying

disease.

Thousands of people are
crowded behind the city walls.

And in these cramped conditions,
an unnamed plague wreaks havoc.

A quarter of the
population dies.

EDITH HALL: The Athenians, for
the first time in 50 years,

lost all hope.

The number of them
that died seems

to have been extraordinary.

The physical suffering
that went on,

people didn't die for
a week or 10 days.

Bits of their bodies
rotted and fell off.

They coughed their lungs up.

They were covered in
disgusting rashes.

And there was probably an
absolutely appalling smell

of putrefying corpses on top
of the smell of the foul water

which had happened because
so many people confined

within the long
walls and the sewage.

NARRATOR: Pericles
did not escape.

The man who had
built the Parthenon,

nursed democracy through its
infancy, fortified his city

and led it for decades
with vision and daring

was as vulnerable
as anyone else.

He died.

No one has ever been able to
put a name to the disease which

caused so much destruction,
but recent findings

suggest that all these
people were probably

killed by typhoid.

GORDON DOUGAN: Typhoid can
be a very nasty disease.

It could cause rising fever.

You can become
unconscious, delirious.

You can get perforation of the
bowel, blood uncontrollably

coming out of your intestines.

EDITH HALL: When Pericles
died in the plague,

it left a huge hole in
Athenian political life.

This left a power vacuum that
all kinds of probably less

able people strove to fill.

NARRATOR: Athens was physically
and psychologically beaten.

Finally, in 404 BC, after
vicious internal fighting

and a series of
military disasters,

the city was forced to
surrender to the Spartans.

Though the defenses
that Pericles built

had never been
overcome, his city

was humbled by its
bitterest enemy.

It had taken 30 years to build.

Within one generation, it was
brought low by war and disease.

And yet this doesn't detract
from what Pericles achieved.

The city he built
set a blueprint

for western civilization.

Its influence can still be felt.
Its legacy does not diminish.

[music playing]