Great empires are not maintained by timidity. Tacitus
They have pillaged the world. When the land has nothing left for men who ravage everything, they scour the sea. If an enemy is rich, they are greedy; if he is poor, they crave glory. Neither East nor West can sate their appetite. They are the only people on earth to covet wealth and poverty with equal craving. They plunder, they butcher, they ravish, and call it by the lying name of ‘empire’. They make a desert and call it ‘peace’. Tacitus
How did the Romans manage to defy gravity and make millions of litres of water flow uphill over mountains? How did the ancient Egyptians carve massive granite obelisks thousands of years before the Washington monument was built? And why would the Roman army build their own mountain? Monuments more colossal than our own … The ancient world was far from primitive. Ancient Impossible: Moving Mountains s1e1, H2 2016
The Romans completed the wall around Masada in just a few days. But what they didn’t realise was how well stocked the rebels were. ibid.
Roman engineers kept the water moving through hills and valleys maintaining a steady gradient of less than one per cent. An astounding feat … uphill: the inverted syphon. ibid.
Roman arenas, engineering triumphs, built to house gladiators fighting to their deaths. Ancient Impossible: Roman Empire s1e8
The Romans also created a mobile and deadly armoured weapon likened to the tank. ibid.
The Alps: Northern Italy 218 B.C. The decline of the Roman empire begins at 15,000 feet on some of the world’s most unforgiving terrain. 50,000 barbarian warriors from across the ancient world have united against a single enemy. Barbarians Rising I: Resistance, History 2016
Rome forced Carthage to sign a crippling peace treaty in an attempt to break its enemy. ibid.
Hannibal waits nearly two decades for a chance of revenge. ibid.
Rome believes the mountains are an impenetrable fortress. ibid.
The result is slaughter on an unprecedented scale ... 70,000 men. ibid.
The Barbarians of western Hispania are under siege as Rome invades their homeland, seeking revenge for their part in Hannibal’s war. Barbarians Rising II: Battlefront
The Republic now occupies more than 100,000 square miles of Barbarian territory in Hispania. Roman roads begin to cut across the landscape. ibid.
Viriathus, a shepherd, decides to make a stand. ibid.
The larger Rome grows the more enemies it brings on the inside. A vast Barbarian army waiting for a leader to rise. Barbarians Rising III: Rebellion
Spartacus and a group of sixty Barbarian slaves seize the opportunity to escape. ibid.
The greatest threat to Roman supremacy in a century. ibid.
The Republic is now locked in a non-stop battle for supremacy on multiple fronts ... a handful of men fight for control. Barbarians Rising IV: Bloodline
Augustus succeeds where Caesar fails and perfects the art of empire building ... Augustus doubles the size of the empire during his reign. ibid.
Arminius is uniting the Germanic tribes under one leader for the first time. ibid.
Arminius: the Empire loses nearly all of its 20,000 men. Barbarians Rising V: Birthright
For the first time in nearly 300 years the Barbarians are shifting the balance of power against Rome. ibid.
Arminius is murdered in 21 A.D. by allies who feared he had grown too powerful. ibid.
When Rome invades [Britannia] again in 43 A.D. it makes a foothold in the south-east. Emperor Claudius sends 40,000 troops to take the island. ibid.
Boudica sets out to amass an army. ibid.
‘The eradication of the Druids was absolutely catostropic for the people of Britain … a true apocalypse for them.’ Barbarians Rising VI: Revenge, Steve Kershaw
‘We’ve had tens of thousands of dead and three cities in flames.’ ibid.
‘The Goths were a Germanic tribe who had moved into what is now Romania; they were a settled agricultural society but they were ruled by a powerful warrior elite who were famous for their physical strength, their courage and their skill.’ ibid. Patrick Morris O’Connor
‘The Huns are a new phenomena and they appear at the end of the fourth century.’ ibid. Peter Heather
By 394 A.D. most of the soldiers serving in the Roman armies are Barbarian mercenaries, among them the Goths. Barbarians Rising VII: Backlash
They are not Roman and the empire sees them as expendable. ibid.
100,000 Goths live inside the empire. Alaric intends to unite them all under one leader. ibid.
Alaric’s Goth horde storms across the Eastern empire, raiding cities and claiming territory that once belonged to Barbarian tribes. The Goths are carving out a homeless by reversing Roman expansion. ibid.
In exchange, Alaric and his men agree to help defend the Empire against the Huns. ibid.
The city [Rome] is heavily fortified … Alaric and his vast Barbarian army descend on Rome. ibid.
The sack of Rome is Alaric’s greatest victory. ibid.
Rome’s enemies begin to move in for the kill. ibid.
The Goths in the West, Huns to the East, and in the South, the Vandals. ibid.
The Empire unites and assembles a combined assault force to cross the Mediterranean and invade Carthage. Barbarians Rising VIII: Ruin
Attila can now overtake a fortified city in a matter of days. ibid.
The Empire’s refusal to pay the tribute is a fatal error: Attila escalates his attacks bent on destruction. ibid.
The Hun army is already marching toward the Empire. Attila sends word to Emperor Valentinian revealing his sister’s deception, and demanding half the western empire as his wedding gift. ibid.
Romans and Goths unite to fight Attila’s mighty Huns. ibid.
Attila dies on his wedding night. His empire dies with him. ibid.
The Barbarians dismantle the once great Empire. ibid.
The Vandals arrive at the gates of Rome in 455 A.D. It takes the Vandals less than two weeks to defeat the City’s defences. ibid.
It was the greatest empire the world has ever known. Unmatched in its brutality, its genius, its lust for power. For centuries Rome ruled over a quarter of the people of the planet. Ancient Rome: The Rise and Fall of an Empire I: Caesar, BBC 2006
After eight years of war Caesar’s campaign in Gaul was reaching its climax … They faced nearly a quarter of a million Gauls. ibid.
He was also a powerful politician. ibid.
Pompey finally agreed to lead the Republic against Caesar. ibid.
49 B.C.: The unthinkable happened: Rome, the capital of the greatest empire the world had ever seen, was abandoned. ibid.
A full-scale rout of Pompey’s army. ibid.
Rome: In the age of the emperors. For a hundred years the same family dynasty has ruled the empire. Now it’s the turn of the famously eccentric Nero. An emperor who spent more time among his people than they realised. Ancient Rome: The Rise and Fall of an Empire II: Nero
When the most powerful man on Earth lost his mind and brought the empire to the brink of destruction. ibid.
Nero began the largest civil building programme in history. ibid.
Nero became the greatest patron of art in Roman history. ibid.
Nero’s assault on the temples of Rome was an act that would live in infamy. ibid.
Public performance and private debauchery. ibid.
Nero’s dream had sucked the wealth out of the empire. ibid.