The Roman Republic is mourning the death of its most senior priest,
the Pontifex Maximus.
It's a religious position of enormous prestige,
that also brings political authority and influence.
Now, the people of Rome must vote for their next Pontifex.
Candidates are expected to be senior politicians,
with established careers.
Two elder statesmen have put themselves forward.
But so too has a politician half their age...
..Julius Caesar.
- This is an outrageous move. It is
a blatant flouting of convention, it is arrogant, it is improper.
But the thing is, that Caesar doesn't really care for convention,
Caesar is a gambler. Throughout his life, he is always rolling the dice.
And I think it's actually pretty clear what Caesar wants
right from the beginning. He wants to be the greatest man in Rome.
- At the heart of the most powerful empire in the ancient world,
stands Rome.
For 500 years, it was ruled by elected government.
But in a little over a decade,
this republic was overthrown by the ambitions of one man.
- The story of Caesar is an incredibly enduring one.
The resonance of it is so powerful. It remains the most
thrilling, the most extraordinary political story in western history.
- Now, historians and experts who understand
the nature of political power will chart his rise...
- He's so smart. He just knows how to use his opportunities.
- ..and ask how an individual can bend a centuries-old political
system to breaking point.
- Julius Caesar is the most dangerous kind of demagogue.
- This is the story of how ambition turns to tyranny...
- He's a disgrace in every single way.
He's immoral, he's irreligious and he's a potential tyrant.
- ..and how a dictator is born.
- The awful lesson is that, in the end,
a populist can corrupt an entire state.
- For every other political system that values stability and justice
and liberty, that should be, at the very least, a wake-up call.
- Democracy has to be constantly fought for.
If we take it for granted, a new Caesar will come.
- The election of the new High Priest of Rome is imminent.
A surprise contender is 37-year-old Julius Caesar, a mid-ranking
politician in the government at the heart of Rome and its Empire.
- In 63 Caesar is, relatively speaking,
a junior magistrate.
In British terms, perhaps a kind of junior
member of the Cabinet, perhaps on the margins of the Cabinet.
Caesar is very cool, I think in almost every sense of the word.
He is very dandyish, he wears his toga in a distinctive way.
To stand out from the crowd, to set aside conventions,
he's making a statement about the kind of man,
the kind of politician that he wants to be.
- Caesar lives in a time when most countries are ruled by Kings.
Rome prides itself on being a Republic.
Here, elected representatives share power.
- Five centuries earlier, the Roman people had risen up
and expelled their King, a haughty tyrant, and brought
the monarchy to an end and the Republic was designed precisely
with the aim of ensuring that there would never be a King again.
And there's a kind of collective memory among the Roman people,
a deep-seated dread of tyranny.
- The basic principle of the Republic is that no individual can
dominate the system. It's a fundamental part of their rhetoric.
We just don't do monarchy.
- At the heart of the Republic is the Senate, the seat of Government
presided over by an elite body of wealthy, aristocratic men.
- They never call what they have "democracy", but they absolutely
have the principle of the freedom of the citizen to vote to rule his
country. His, of course, women have no vote, let alone poor slaves.
The Senate, not unlike our parliament,
is of several hundred people.
All members are from the aristocracy.
Senators are elected in very sharp and bitter competition
with each other...
..and Caesar has been making his way up the ladder.
- Caesar's ambition is to manoeuvre his way up the strict
hierarchy of the Senate.
The higher the rank, the fiercer the competition.
Right now, Caesar's a mid-ranking aedile.
The ultimate prize is the consulship,
a year-long post shared by two men.
- To make your way in politics in Rome brings you status,
and the key Roman word for that is "dignitas", your dignity.
Caesar says, repeatedly, that dignity was dearer to him
than life itself - "my reputation is everything".
- And so to win the Consulship, this is what dignitas is all about.
That is the kind of, the sweetest fulfilment for a Roman. I mean
this is why, basically, Caesar wants to be Pontifex Maximus,
it's not an end, it's a stepping stone to an end.
- Putting himself forward for the role High Priest is brazen,
but Caesar is willing to gamble.
Winning would fast-track his political career.
- To hold the most eminent of all the priesthoods is a very great thing
indeed. It marks you out as a figure of incredible authority.
It's absolutely not the kind of role that someone like Caesar,
a dandyish, slightly louche man, notorious as someone who,
who only has to see a woman to sleep with her, should be going for.
Only someone of supreme self-confidence, and a readiness
to play fast and loose with the rules, who actually enjoys tweaking
the tails of the conservative establishment, could do that.
- CROW CAWS
But Caesar can't do it alone.
He needs a backer to finance his campaign.
- Caesar is aristocratic, but by the standards of many
in the Senate, he's not particularly rich.
Not only is he not rich,
he's essentially mortgaged up to the hilt.
- Caesar's solution is to broker a dangerous alliance.
GROWLING
- If you want to borrow an enormous sum of money,
there's only one person you go to...
..and this is a figure who's notorious
as the richest man in the city.
A man called Crassus.
- Marcus Licinius Crassus, the wealthiest man in Rome.
He has a real estate empire, owns significant stretches
of the city and Crassus likes to have people in his debt.
He uses his money to develop,
consolidate and expand his network of support.
- Think of the figure of a Godfather,
a mafia boss, the most
intimidating, the most powerful.
Everyone sees Crassus as a kind of
rather menacing spider at the centre of a web that spreads everywhere.
- It can be very dangerous to be in Crassus' debt.
He can be, according to some ancient reports, pretty brutal.
Crassus sees in Caesar an extremely capable individual.
He knows that he has all the talent,
all the potential, to do extremely well in the Roman political game.
Caesar is a tremendously valuable asset
and one very much worth investing into.
- It's a gamble.
Caesar knows that by borrowing from Crassus there is
a risk that he will end up as a fly wrapped up in the web.
- The High Priest will be elected by a public vote.
Caesar plans to appeal to the ordinary people of Rome,
by exploiting their plight.
Rome is increasingly divided.
Over 100 years of violent conquest, it's grown from a small city
to a vast Empire, stretching across the Mediterranean.
And the spoils of war have brought a handful of men outrageous wealth.
- The scale of conquest is producing
enormous influx of money,
influx of slaves.
Rome is richer than it's ever been before.
And yet, the wealth of the wealthy in Rome,
the greater the poverty of the poor in Rome.
The people of Rome are half-starved, ill-housed.
There are hundreds of thousands of people who are not
sharing in the wealth that they can see.
And Caesar says, how do you win the support of the Roman people?
By being their friend, by being their supporter
and be recognised as someone who is on their side.
- In his current political position,
Caesar's in charge of public festivals and gladiatorial games.
It gives him a direct line to the impoverished masses.
- Games in Rome are entertainment, they're something to do
and they're free.
Not only do you get some way to escape the mundane
reality of your life, but also there's some really vital
food as part of that package as well.
Caesar makes a decision to spend a considerable
amount of money on the games that he throws.
He makes them bigger and better than those who have gone before him.
- Great tables groaning with food, supply with wine,
all kinds of dazzle, of spectacle.
- The accounts we have of Caesar's games suggests that he did
extraordinary things with gladiators in silver armour.
These kinds of things would be memorable.
- It's about branding, so that your name is on everybody's lips...
..and it's a kind of policy, I think,
that perhaps has echoes of the way that in Italy, Silvio Berlusconi,
say, would buy football teams or own TV channels.
It's a way of wooing potential voters by entertaining them.
- I don't think there's necessarily any evidence that Julius Caesar
really cares for the day-to-day welfare of the people of Rome.
Rather, his tactics are very successful for getting him
where he wants to go, politically.
- CROW CAWS
It's the day of the Pontifex Maximus vote.
All Caesar can do is hope his financial
and political gamble will pay off.
- Caesar is getting ready to leave his house to go and hear
the election result and there's a famous story told about this that
he kisses his mother goodbye, and he says to her, "Mother, either
"I come back as Pontifex Maximus, or I won't be coming back at all."
- He knows the stakes are that high...
..that he either wins, or he faces bankruptcy and political ruin.
- CROWS CAWING
- He's rolled the dice, he has wooed the voters,
he has convinced them he's their man. He has won, he wins the office.
It is a very key moment for Caesar. It lifts him up
out of this mass of aristocrats like him
and it gives him a kind of dignity that he hadn't previously had.
And now the path stretches ahead of him.
- High Priest of Rome and popular with the voting public, Caesar is
now a rising star in the Senate.
- Julius Caesar is very much in tune with how politics is developing.
Caesar recognises that the people are going to be an important
part of politics going forward.
- There are no political parties in Rome,
but politicians fall into two camps.
Caesar is a Populares,
a politician who believe decisions should be
placed in the hands of the people.
Populares stand in bitter opposition with the Optimates, who believe
government ought to rest solely in the hands of a conservative elite.
- Caesar absolutely hates the Optimates.
Optimus means the best, these are the best people and undoubtedly,
the Optimates in Rome think of themselves in those terms.
What Rome needs is not this mob rule,
this horrendous appeal to the unwashed masses.
- A Populares politician, on the other hand, thinks that the people
have been neglected in the bigger picture of Rome.
- Caesar's contempt for the conservatives in the Senate
is entirely genuine.
I think he feels that their perspective is old-fashioned,
it's hypocritical,
it ignores the needs of a people
in a great imperial capital.
- The population of Rome is in a really agitated condition.
Poverty of the masses can lead to revolution.
It's dynamite.
It can blow up at any moment.
- Caesar's brazen wooing of the people
has angered conservative Optimates...
..so when, just a few months later, a conspiracy to violently
overthrow the Senate comes to light, Caesar is dangerously exposed.
- In the same year as we get a new Pontifex Maximus,
we also have a conspiracy in Rome, known as the Catiline
conspiracy, and this rocks the political establishment.
A man named Lucius Sergius Catilina allies himself with those
who are disenfranchised, the poor in Rome, who do have
resentment against the Senate, and decides that actually
revolution and the overthrow of the Senate is the way forward.
- Catiline does a sort of organisation of the crowd,
and he can use that to, effectively, make a little army for himself.
It is a very, very frightening moment.
- Rumours begin to circulate that Caesar may have had
a hand in the plot.
- Caesar may be increasingly popular with the people but that, of
course, just means that his rivals in the Senate are watching him with
ever greater suspicion, and those who want to thwart his rise are,
therefore, unsurprisingly,
very, very keen to implicate him in the coup.
- The conspirators are betrayed before they can act.
Five senators, one a former consul, are arrested
and await their fate.
The current consuls want to send a clear message -
execute the conspirators without trial.
- I think what's actually scaring the Senate absolutely witless is
the prospect of the Roman masses
actually organising against them.
They're not really frightened of these conspirators.
They're frightened of the masses.
- The Senate debate what can
and should be done with the conspirators,
with speakers taking turns, according to their rank.
- The people who speak before Caesar are those who outrank him,
almost all of whom are Optimates. They state, let's put
Catiline and his fellow conspirators to death.
- They all say, "Yes, yes, we agree, we agree," and there is Caesar,
"What is your opinion, Gaius Julius?"
- Caesar knows that his enemies are trying to tar him
as someone who perhaps had been taking part in the conspiracy.
So by taking part in the debate, Caesar is repudiating that.
This is an opportunity for him to sway the Senate and he's not
going to let it go to waste and he does it very, very brilliantly.
- Caesar launches into a most moving speech,
and he says what these conspirators have done is the most
appalling crime, for which there should be no mercy,
but our ancestors have established laws.
If we start executing Roman citizens,
what will the Roman people make of it?
- He points out that it is against every law of the Roman state
to put to death fellow citizens.
- Therefore, ie, Caesar proposed that rather than execute them,
we hand them over and imprison them.
- This is something that is unheard of, the Romans don't have a
kind of prison system, so he's doing something radical,
thinking outside the box, but at the same time, and this is the
genius of it, he's casting himself as the defender of tradition.
- Everyone has said, "Oh, yes, we agree, they should be executed."
Now, they say, "Oh, Caesar's right. Of course,
"it's much better not to execute them and to have them imprisoned."
- Caesar appears to have swayed the Senate,
but the Optimates have one young senator yet to speak.
- Rising to his feet, a man who will become his nemesis,
a man called Cato.
- Cato and Caesar come from similar backgrounds,
but they're total polar opposites.
Caesar is known for his flamboyant fashion,
rickety finances, bribing electors.
Cato is somebody who represents the very most old-fashioned
ideal of a Roman gentleman.
Very, very austere, very simple, he actually walks around barefoot.
But above all, what he stands for is the old Roman constitution.
And he sees Caesar
a bit like you might today see Donald Trump, or Bolsonaro, as
a populist. In other words, somebody who claims to be speaking on behalf
of the people, but is, in fact, just using that as a way to destroy
the constitution and take power for themselves, and he's disgusted.
- He too knows how to speak powerfully, and he puts exactly
the opposite case, which is this is no time to show mercy, preserving
the Republic is the ultimate priority, these people are planning
to burn our houses, to rape our wives,
to end our civilisation.
This is the worst threat you could have, we must execute them now.
- One of the people that they are trying to decide what to do
with is an ex-consul. That's a very, very big deal.
And these are people from very powerful families, and Cato
is saying they are common criminals, they deserve the death penalty,
they deserve it more than anyone else because they are committing the
ultimate acts of treason in trying to destroy the Republic and I don't
care that this man's a consul, these are criminals, justice must be done.
- Cato is also convinced that Caesar is in on the plot.
But he has no proof.
- Cato is in full flow, the great conservative,
the man of dignity
and he looks round and he sees that Caesar has been given a message.
- And Cato, put off his speech, thinks What on earth is going on?!
And his first thought is, wait a second, this is a letter
from one of the conspirators and here's Caesar smirking at me.
- The letter has been sent by Cato's half-sister, Servilia.
- Caesar, who's having affairs with everybody else,
is also sleeping with Cato's sister.
- Caesar is dragging Cato down into a kind of dimension of
tawdry humiliation and smut
that is calculated to infuriate him.
- And this is the moment he gives an astonishing, blistering speech.
He takes no prisoners and says, "These people, these populists,
"you can't see it yet, but I promise you, these people pose an
"existential threat to the survival of the Republic and unless you
"act against them now, and by the way, I want to include Caesar in
"that, these people are ultimately going to
"bring the whole house crashing down."
- THEY APPLAUD
- The Senate swings right round behind Cato.
- CHEERING
- Caesar is obviously disappointed, I'm sure.
It confirms him in his contempt, both for the mass of his
conservative opponents and most specifically, of course, for Cato.
- Caesar, above all, is ambitious, he wants to become consul,
he wants to rule Rome.
Standing in his way is this infuriating man that he
despises, called Cato.
- This young man shouldn't be one of the leading figures, but somehow
his speech has established him as a man with enormous moral authority.
- This is the moment where he realises that he's standing for something
and that is, and I was a politician,
it's an incredibly powerful moment in a politician's life,
when you find a cause, and from then on,
the cause in Cato's life
is the cause of defending the Republic against tyranny.
- The time will come when historians of the age look at this
as a defining moment because the tension between Caesar and Cato is
clearly expressive of deep tensions within the fabric of the Republic.
- THEY CHEER AND APPLAUD
- Cato wins the day.
- The order is given, the conspirators will be put to death.
I suspect that the lesson that Caesar takes from the whole
Catilinarian debacle is that it's fine to play the Popularis,
that Caesar is brilliant at that,
but that ultimately just doing that is not enough.
He has to have allies in the Senate because if you push too hard
against them, people in the Senate still have the power, they have the
will to close ranks.
He too could end up with a noose around his neck.
- MYSTERIOUS WHISPERS
As Rome reels from the Catiline conspiracy, some Senators
demand extreme measures to guarantee their safety -
a military presence on the streets of Rome.
They call for Rome's greatest General to return
with his army from campaign in the East.
- Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus was born into a military family.
Pompey grew up on his father's military campaigns.
When he was young, his enemies call him the teenage butcher,
and he becomes the most powerful General in Rome.
- The Roman Empire has expanded so far
and fast, it's had to hand huge powers to men like Pompey
to command armies and govern territories
far beyond the reach of Rome.
Pompey has single-handedly conquered huge swathes of what is now
Turkey and Syria.
His reward - enormous wealth, popularity and prestige.
- Pompey, at this point in time,
is "the man".
He's the one.
Pompey has as much power,
if not more,
than the Senate.
The best modern equivalent is a warlord.
- Caesar sees in Pompey a kind of harbinger of the Republic's
future, because what Pompey has done with the scale of his conquests
is essentially to put the whole of the Republic in his shade.
Pompey is a disruptor,
and his return will set the kaleidoscope spinning and that
offers opportunity for someone with Caesar's abilities and talents.
- Caesar backs the call for Pompey's return.
But not all in the Senate agree.
For many Optimates,
the idea that one man should take charge of Rome is unthinkable.
- The Senate is extremely worried
about the power that Pompey has.
At their core,
they are very distrustful
of one man with too much power.
- But by supporting calls for Pompey's return,
Caesar's not just rankling his political opponents,
he's risking his alliance with his financial backer, Crassus.
- Marcus Lucinius Crassus
has good reason not to love Pompey.
- Crassus fought alongside Pompey against the slave rebellion
led by Spartacus.
Crassus secured the decisive victory,
but Pompey took the credit.
- There is a degree of bitterness on Crassus' part.
- Let's be clear, Crassus hates Pompey.
- Caesar pushes ahead.
The law prohibits armed soldiers from entering Rome,
so Caesar backs a new law that would allow Pompey to enter
the city with his troops.
Like all new bills, it must first be debated in the Senate.
If the majority agree, only then will it be presented
in the Forum, Rome's public square,
for the people to have their vote.
- Caesar, ever unconventional,
sees an opportunity here to play the Populares card again and so what he
does, he just bypasses the Senate, he takes the bill directly to the
Forum, which is obviously greeted with fury by conservatives in the
Senate. And particularly, of course, Caesar's great adversary, Cato.
- Cato walks out and sees, to his disgust,
that Caesar is trying to whip up a mob in favour of Pompey
and that Caesar has surrounded himself with gladiators,
and gladiators are basically hired ruffians.
Cato doesn't care, he walks absolutely alone,
straight up the steps, and tells Caesar
and the crowd that they should be ashamed of themselves.
- Cato does this nonsensical speech.
We don't need to put this much power into the hands of one man.
- Cato's fundamental point is the Republic should defend itself
through the constitution and asserts that the Senate will continue
to rule the country as it should.
- And bedlam breaks out.
- He's hit from every side.
The crowd throw stuff at him, the gladiators beat him up,
but he doesn't care.
Cato senses that by allowing himself to be beaten up, he's showing
the public what is happening to Rome...
..and he will wear those bruises as a source of pride
because what he's saying is, "Look at these people, look at how
"they battered me, look at the kind of leaders that you are going to let
"come into Rome. How can you possibly support a man
"who's done this to me?"
- Cato's tactic works.
- In the end, it's Cato and his followers
who have the better of the whole occasion.
For Caesar, obviously, infuriating.
- THUNDERCLAP
CROW CAWS
The Senate, horrified by Caesar's brazen use of violence,
have him immediately suspended.
And the public vote on the bill to recall Pompey is aborted.
- Caesar is staring down the barrel, potentially,
of the ruin of his career, having worked so hard.
But actually, what might seem a humiliation, a defeat, can be
turned around and this is something that Caesar does again
and again over the course of his career.
- Caesar uses his sway with the people
to show the Senate he won't bow down.
- Two days later, a crowd "spontaneously"
manifests itself outside Caesar's house.
People in the Senate fear that this is potentially an armed mob
that, before you can say it, will be marching on the Senate house.
It's very clear to all concerned that everyone has
a stake in deescalating this.
- Caesar stands down his angry mob.
The Senate decide it's better to keep him on side,
and allow him back.
- Caesar is always alert to new ways of doing politics,
and his use of intimidation and combining it with violence, is a
way to make things happen in Rome.
- From Cato's point of view
the Senate is being weak.
They're worried by his popularity, but they're also trying to convince
themselves they can somehow control him, and Cato is increasingly
convinced that the Senate must act against Caesar before it's too late.
- CROWS CAWING
Rome is in turmoil,
and Caesar's place in the Senate, precarious.
But his role as High Priest offers him a chance to regain trust
amongst his peers.
His household must host an important ritual
in honour of the goddess Bona Dea,
who looks after the safety of Rome.
- In the case of the Bona Dea, Caesar himself is not personally
in charge because the Bona Dea is a female-only ritual and so, on this
occasion, Caesar is going to have to rely on the women in his family.
- So on the scene, hosting this mysterious
and incredibly important party is Caesar's wife - Pompeia.
Caesar's mother Aurelia is part of the ceremony and there's no direct
evidence that Caesar's daughter Julia is present,
but it's impossible to imagine that she isn't,
given the importance of this ritual.
I suspect that Julia and Caesar are quite close.
Julia is, in a way, his most valuable possession,
she's his only legitimate heir.
Ultimately, she'll be there to make a very useful political
alliance for him through her own marriage.
I think Julia realises, at a very young age,
how important her own comportment as a woman of Caesar's family is.
Julia would've watched the older women in her life
and I think she would've seen that those women had their own
ways of exerting power, of swaying their husband,
of having some kind of clout within Rome.
- The ritual sacrifice is overseen by one the sacred
order of Priestesses,
the Vestal Virgins.
- Everybody who is anyone in Roman elite society,
who was also female, would be part of the ceremony.
So there's a lot of pressure on his household to perform this
ceremony right, to perform it well,
so that the gods that take care of Rome will be placated.
Suddenly, the word comes to Aurelia that a mysterious stranger
has entered, disguised as a harp player.
It turns out this is a man in drag trying to
sneak into the house of Caesar, as Pontifex Maximus.
- It's a serious violation.
The women go home,
and gossip about Caesar and his wife spreads like wildfire.
- I mean, there's no question,
this is a pretty serious setback for Caesar.
The man who had desecrated the rites of the Bona Dea by going into
Caesar's house had, it was said, this is the rumour that is buzzing
around Rome, had been conducting an affair with Caesar's wife.
This is not the kind of thing
that a Roman man wants to have said about him.
- If he can't control his women, if he can't control
his family, it would reflect very, very badly on the Pontifex Maximus.
- After the setbacks of the Catiline trial, and the failure
of the bill to recall Pompey,
this is a scandal that Caesar could do without.
To minimise the damage, he's willing to sacrifice his marriage.
- If there's one thing that Caesar hates, it's the idea that people
might be laughing at him, he doesn't want to seem a figure of ridicule.
So, what he does is brilliantly ruthless and brilliantly witty,
he proclaims that he is going to divorce his wife,
not because she had actually been conducting an affair,
but because, as he puts it, Caesar's wife must be above suspicion.
- There is no way that young Julia could've been
unaware of the trouble that this scandal causes for her family.
Julia fully recognises the responsibility that
falls on her shoulders, not just to be a good wife,
to be beyond suspicion in her own marriage,
but also to ensure that she's protecting the Julian family name.
Caesar's entire genetic future and some of his political
future are going to rest on little Julia's shoulders.
- Caesar's reputation has been damaged.
He needs to take back control.
Now, the conquering General Pompey has stood down his army,
and is due to return to Rome.
It offers Caesar a fresh chance for a powerful alliance.
Pompey's return to Rome is marked by a spectacular Triumphal
parade through the city's streets.
- In a Triumph, the commander parades,
right, literally on floats,
everything that screams,
"I am the conqueror".
Animals, captives, gold.
The people of Rome adore Pompey,
he is Rome's greatest success story.
- Pompey has more power than any citizen in the entire
history of the Republic has wielded.
- One of the spectators at the Triumph is Julius Caesar.
- Caesar, looking at him, sees in Pompey the face of the future,
that this is what it is to be great in what the Republic has become.
- Running through his head is,
"I want that."
- For Caesar, Pompey is the model of success.
But whilst everyone welcomes the wealth
he brings to Rome, many in the Senate are wary.
- There's a fear, always the fear, that the
conquering General may set himself up as the new tyrant of Rome.
- But Pompey has just one thing on his political agenda.
- The huge challenge that Pompey faces
when he comes back is to provide land for his veterans, the
legions who've been following him, this is what Pompey has promised.
- The demand for land by the veterans of the great campaigns is
persistent through time.
What they need is a plot of land to live off.
- Land means independence,
you're not dependent on granaries
in Rome for your little ration.
It means dignity.
Pompey is a man of integrity,
he gives his word,
you will have a farm. He is going to see that through.
- Pompey puts forward a bill to award land to his veterans,
but many Optimates, including Cato, are keen to cut him
down to size and reject it.
- Cato still sees Pompey as a danger to the Republic,
he's a billionaire celebrity, coming in and throwing his weight around.
It's vital to Cato that these big,
overweening men are marginalised.
- When he sees Pompey facing major difficulties in the Senate,
on the Roman political scene,
surely Crassus must be taking a good deal of pleasure?
- Caesar sees the astonishing spectacle that Pompey,
the conqueror of the gorgeous east, he's frustrated,
he doesn't know what to do, he's absolutely paralysed.
- Pompey realises that he's becoming an increasingly isolated figure
and that presents him, Pompey, with a very real strategic challenge,
how to get out of this...impasse.
- Pompey realises that
one way to win
over the opponents is through marriage.
Marriage was a tool for a Roman politician, everybody knew it.
- Pompey is probably the most eligible bachelor in Rome at this time.
He's known to be beloved by the ladies,
but also has a strange sense of sexual fidelity for a man.
He's not gadding about bed hopping, playing the field, like Caesar is.
- Pompey, this billionaire celebrity General, comes to Cato
and says he wants to marry his niece.
This is a big moment of decision for Cato
because if Cato allies himself with Pompey, there's a possibility
that through that compromise he can keep
Pompey on the side of the Republic against people like Julius Caesar.
But in the end, he won't compromise.
- Flat out...
Flat out rejects it.
- He's not prepared to sully his family by allying with Pompey.
He says, "I'm not going be outmanoeuvred
"by the bedroom of a girl."
- This is purely political.
Pompey feels like he has no control
over what is happening politically.
And Cato is thinking...
.."I've got him."
- Watching the great commander Pompey belittled by conservatives
in the Senate, Caesar sees an opportunity that could serve
both of their ambitions.
- Caesar recognises, in the problems that Pompey is facing,
massive opportunity.
What Pompey clearly needs is a consul who will be able to
force through the reforms and the laws that Pompey wants,
namely land granted to his veterans.
Who better to serve the great man than Caesar himself?
- Pompey needs Caesar,
Caesar needs Pompey.
Nothing was going to happen for either one of them,
unless they joined forces.
- Caesar knows the consulship election is imminent,
when the public will vote for two men to share
the most prestigious and powerful political
position in Rome.
With Pompey backing him, Caesar is certain
their combined popularity will win him the highest seat in the Senate.
- To be a consul, to be known by the Roman people as someone who
has served as a consul, this is the dream that every ambitious
citizen in the Republic nurtures.
- Caesar wins the election by a landslide.
- It's only a few years since he was facing the potential utter
ruin of his career. Had he failed to win
election for the Pontifex Maximus, he might have ended up a Catiline.
But now he's won the consulship, it is a great, great thing.
- But two consuls are elected,
and Caesar is expected to share power.
- The only consolation that Cato's got at this stage is that the
second consul is one of Cato's allies, but Cato must already be
beginning to suspect that he's maybe not the man to stand up to Caesar.
- Now he's consul, Caesar needs to make good on his promise to
Pompey, by proposing a bill to award land to his veterans.
Convention dictates that the Senate must debate it first,
and if the majority agree, it will be put to a public vote.
- It's at this point that Caesar's familiar nemesis,
Cato, stands up.
- Cato filibusters, it's something that's still done in
the House of Commons, it's something that's done a lot in the US Senate.
He speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks
and he speaks out the debate.
- It looks as though the bill has been defeated.
Caesar's defeat, however, turns out to be only a seeming defeat.
- Caesar knows conservatives in the Senate will do everything
they can to obstruct him.
So he decides to play Populares once again
and bypass the Senate entirely.
CHEERING
He takes the bill straight to the public Forum...
..for the people to have their vote.
- What Caesar does, and the echoes with Trump are obvious,
is that he moves out of the Senate, and he goes back to the people.
- He takes the bill into the Forum,
and there in the Forum, gangs of heavies, gangs of Caesar's
supporters, Pompey's veterans,
a very, very menacing atmosphere.
- He stands on the rostra,
and he basically whips up a mob to try to get through what he wants.
- Then Caesar brings out his celebrity support...
..Pompey the Great.
- It's absolutely political theatre.
The crowd goes crazy. Yay!
- The real jaw-drop is when Caesar reveals his second celebrity backer.
- And the people go...
..wait a minute. What is going on here?
- And that second celebrity backer
is Pompey's deadliest enemy,
Crassus.
- Crassus. Crassus, a disgusting billionaire who made his money in
the most unscrupulous fashion
has now allied himself with Caesar and Pompey.
- Crassus sees the opportunity to make himself central in Roman
politics by forging an alliance with two rather unlikely
but extremely effective partners.
- Cato and his supporters gaze in horror as they realise what
this means, that Caesar, somehow,
has brought together the two most powerful men in Rome.
- Three men, take it from the Latin, triumvirate.
Whether the Senate likes it or not, whether Cato likes it or not,
it doesn't matter, they are going to control Rome.
- It is Cato's nightmare coming to fruition.
- Cato had the power to nip this triumvirate before it was
even a twinkle in the three men's eyes.
All he had to do was agree to Pompey's marriage proposal.
Playing over and over in his head is,
"What in Jupiter's name have I done?"
- Caesar presents the land bill to the people,
but before they take their vote,
there is one voice of opposition.
- The second consul, the elected co-consul of Rome,
effectively the elected Prime Minister of Rome...
..steps forward onto the rostra
to try once more to argue against this bill.
- I mean, Caesar's not having any of that.
- CROWD GASPS AND SCREAMS
- Caesar's heavies pile in...
..they attack him, they beat him up.
- They pour a bucket of shit over the consul's head.
He's literally dripping in shit.
It's that moment, I think, when the shit is literally dripping from the
head of the elected leader of Rome,
Cato must sense that he's lost.
- Caesar just smiles, he laughs,
leaves his colleague to crawl off
and leave Rome to Caesar.
- Caesar will ensure Pompey's veterans get their land,
and that Crassus gets lucrative tax breaks.
For himself, he's lining up the command of Gaul,
now modern France, a vast unconquered province
that promises him even greater power and glory.
And he's securing this future with a marriage.
- Pompey, as we know, was rejected by Cato...
..but that's a blessing in disguise
because now,
he can accept Caesar's proposal
that he marry Julia.
- All these years, Caesar has been holding on to Julia
as his ace in the hole for maintaining
and creating political alliances and opportunities.
Caesar sees the perfect moment to play that card.
Pompey's marriage to Julia is absolutely essential to
Caesar's ambitions.
It's really this event that solidifies that alliance
as more than just political.
Both Pompey and Caesar are really putting their skin in the game
by committing to this relationship.
- Caesar has really been adopting a kind of two pronged strategy.
The first strategy is to accumulate honours,
so he's become Pontifex Maximus, he's become consul,
but it's that fusion of the traditional statesmanship
and a readiness to play fast and loose with the rules that marks
him out as someone, by the standards of the Republic, of menace.
He's won the highest political position in the land,
he is effectively the master of Rome,
but here is the question -
what next?
- Next time, Caesar seeks glory in Gaul...
..until events beyond his control
turn allies into enemies
and the future of Rome hangs in the balance.
It's the spring of 58 BC.
The people of Gaul face a new and grave threat.
GALLOPING HOOVES
BABY CRIES
HORSE NEIGHS
Julius Caesar has completed his year as consul of Rome
and set his sights on conquest.
In this foreign land, there are few rules to constrain him.
BABY CRIES
His army is carving its way through the country,
subduing or slaughtering its people.
No-one will stand in Caesar's way.
- Times are changing in the Roman world.
Generals with their own armies
are able to win unprecedented popularity, wealth, power,
and these warlords are able to put the entire Republic in their shadow.
Caesar understands this. He knows that only sweeping conquest
can make him the greatest man in Rome...
..and he will stop at nothing.
- BABY CRIES
SWORD PLUNGES, CRYING STOPS
- It's brutal,
it's punishing,
it's genocidal in scale...
..but the reward of glory would burnish Caesar's name forever
and put absolute rocket fuel into Caesar's political career.
- At the heart of the most powerful empire in the ancient world
stands Rome.
For 500 years, it was ruled by elected government.
But in a little over a decade,
this Republic was overthrown by the ambitions of one man.
- The story of Caesar is an incredibly enduring one.
The resonance of it's so powerful, it remains the most thrilling,
the most extraordinary political story in western history.
- Now historians and experts who understand
the nature of political power will chart his rise...
- He's so smart, he just knows how to use his opportunities.
- ..and ask how an individual can bend
a centuries-old political system to breaking point.
- Julius Caesar is the most dangerous kind of demagogue.
- This is the story of how ambition turns to tyranny...
- He's a disgrace in every single way. he's immoral,
he's irreligious, and he's a potential tyrant.
- ..and how a dictator is born.
- The awful lesson is that, in the end,
a populist can corrupt an entire state.
- For every other political system that values stability and justice
and liberty, that should be, at the very least, a wake-up call.
- Democracy has to be constantly fought for.
If we take it for granted, a new Caesar will come.
- For two years, Julius Caesar has waged war on the people of Gaul,
capturing territory, slaves, and bounty.
With his new-found wealth, he has enlarged his army
and made rich men of his supporters back in Rome.
- Caesar, throughout his political career,
has always been an opportunist,
but I think that opportunist is inadequate to convey the scale
of what Caesar is aiming at.
The idea of conquering the whole expanse of Gaul,
essentially what is now France, is stupefyingly ambitious.
- Gaul is a vast region,
stretching from Northern Italy to the English Channel.
Caesar is Governor of a narrow strip of Roman territory in the South.
From here, he's begun his quest to conquer more land for Rome,
and to subdue the Gaulish tribes.
- For the Romans, the Gaul is the essence of the barbarian.
It's the figure of their worst nightmare.
Caesar himself says of the people that they are the least
effeminate, the most masculine, the most dangerous
and yet, he's perfectly happy to take them on.
- Caesar believes he is the man
to bring all of Gaul under Roman control.
Beyond the wealth he's winning for Rome,
he's seeking not just fortune, but fame.
- Caesar cannot possibly win the kind of status that he wants
without a great feat of conquest, I think.
War is the great testing ground for Rome's leading men.
Caesar is pursuing the blaze of glory, so the defeat,
particularly of barbarians and of Gauls, I mean, this is
something that will make his name echo down the centuries.
- Caesar ensures news of his conquest reaches the people of Rome.
They delight in his success.
But the Senate, the body of men who govern Rome, is divided.
Caesar's opponents see his growing power as a threat,
but he still has allies.
His main backers are Rome's richest man, Crassus,
and its greatest General, Pompey,
now married to Caesar's daughter, Julia.
Caesar had persuaded Pompey and Crassus into a powerful alliance -
the Triumvirate.
They secured Caesar the top job in Rome, the consulship,
and the opportunity to conquer Gaul...
..leaving Crassus and Pompey
to take care of their shared interests in the Senate.
But now, fuelled by jealousy and resentment,
tensions are rising between Pompey and Crassus,
and they are losing their grip on Rome.
- Crassus still hates Pompey.
The Triumvirate looks like
it's kind of wobbly.
It's not sustainable, the way it's going.
- The risk for Caesar is that,
if the Triumvirate proves to be utterly broken,
then his capacity to hold his position in Rome is broken as well,
and that means that his enemies can start moving in for the kill.
- Caesar's main opponents in the Senate, the Optimates,
see him as a threat to the Republic,
and are desperate to find a way to cut him down.
Now they plan to prosecute him for his shocking
and violent behaviour during his year-long tenure as consul.
- Caesar's consulship sent ripples of shock through Rome.
He treated his fellow consul with a measure of violence,
so the consul ends up with a bucket of manure emptied over his head.
Caesar's enemies said absolutely explicitly we believe that
you should be prosecuted, you have behaved illegally.
- His opponents see him as a criminal, and they are determined,
in the long run, to prosecute him, to convict him,
to destroy him utterly, and this becomes stronger
and stronger, the more glory that Caesar wins for himself in Gaul.
- Leading the conservative charge to bring a prosecution
against Caesar is his long-standing enemy Cato.
- In the minds of people like Cato,
Caesar represents two very dangerous things.
He represents populism,
he's somebody who unashamedly tries to present himself as the people
against the elite, and he represents the danger of tyranny, he's somebody
trying to promote themselves at the expense of the constitution, which
stands for balance of power and no one person taking too much power.
Cato is going to try to do everything he can
within the Roman law to defeat Caesar.
- Caesar's ultimate nightmare, the one thing that could drag him down,
even after all he's achieved, is prosecution
because if you can prosecute someone and convict them,
then that person will have no choice but to go into exile.
You suffer a kind of political death, and that, for Caesar,
would be a fate worse than death.
- As long as Caesar is in Gaul,
his position as Governor grants him immunity from prosecution.
But the Senate still has the power to recall him.
In Rome, the Optimates ask the Senate to vote on removing
Caesar's governorship.
But with many senators sharing in the riches Caesar's sending back
to Rome, they fail to win the majority they need.
Caesar's command is safe,
but it's a warning.
He calls Pompey and Crassus
to an urgent meeting in the Northern Italian town of Lucca.
CROW CAWS
- For Caesar, it's absolutely essential
that the Triumvirate holds together.
The strains on the relationship between Pompey and Crassus
is a real threat to Caesar.
He can't come to Rome and knock their heads together,
so the conference in Lucca is crucially important in keeping
the triumviral show on the road.
- Caesar's plan is to persuade Pompey and Crassus to reunite
by promising them each something they desire.
- Pompey, at this point, is in a peculiar situation
because of his rapid rise to power.
On the back of military successes,
he is much loved by the people,
but deeply mistrusted by the Roman Senate.
He's always been on the outside looking in.
- While Pompey craves the kind of influence in the Senate
enjoyed by Crassus, Crassus is jealous of Pompey
and Caesar's military success.
- Crassus has a influential presence in the Senate, but he lacks,
at this point, the sort of major military undertaking
that will provide status that he feels entitled to.
Caesar is conquering Gaul, and there is, no doubt,
a sense of burning competition in Crassus' mind.
- In Rome, the annual election of the two consuls who lead the Senate
is imminent.
Caesars's plan is simple - use the collective might
of the Triumvirate to once again sway the voting public.
But this time, Pompey and Crassus would become co-consuls,
giving them the power to deliver what each of them wants.
- Pompey feels that, if he can be consul, the leading politician
and statesman in the city of Rome,
he will gain the respect of the Senate.
- And Crassus realises that the consulship
and provincial command, afterwards,
for a major military undertaking,
will bring the sort of outstanding status that he feels entitled to.
- What does Caesar want in return?
He wants an extension of his command, and he wants that, firstly
so that he can complete his conquest of Gaul, but also because the longer
he has his command, the longer he is immune to prosecution back in Rome.
- The meeting at Lucca is unprecedented.
Three men meeting secretly deciding the future of the
Roman Republic goes against the idea of a republican form of government.
- It's hard to think of any parallel in our democracy
to what happens at Lucca.
It's a convergence of rival Mafia bosses.
It's The Joker, The Riddler, The Penguin coming together
to carve up Gotham City.
- The Triumvirate agree to renew their alliance and combine their powers.
CROW CAWS
But for their plan to work,
Pompey and Crassus must win the consulship election.
- Roman consuls typically don't run as a ticket,
but when those two men start campaigning,
it becomes very clear that there is
a joint political operation unfolding.
- The news that the Triumvirate is once again
putting Rome in its shadow is greeted by its opponents
with simultaneous shock and horror.
- There is one man who will obviously stand against them.
Cato.
He's not senior enough or old enough himself to stand to be consul.
Instead, he gets his brother-in-law to run.
- When word reaches the Triumvirate
that the Optimates will stand against them,
Caesar deploys a political tactic he's used with some success before -
violence.
- Caesar ensures that men from his legions who are serving in Gaul
are able to go back to Rome to register their votes
to boost the backing for his triumviral partners.
Caesar's men, battle-hardened, unleash great bouts of thuggery
and intimidation onto the streets of Rome.
- Pompey and Crassus are prepared to resort to intimidation, to violence,
in the run-up to the election, including, indeed, on election day.
- It's the morning of the consulship vote.
Rome waits to discover whether the Optimates or the Triumvirate
will take charge.
Cato heads out to cast his vote.
- Predictably, by this stage,
because things are getting completely out of control...
..hired ruffians of Crassus and Pompey start beating Cato up.
And in the most incredible plethora of violence,
Cato effectively martyrs himself.
He allows himself to be beaten up because he wants people to see,
in every scar on his body,
the injustice and the horror that's happening in Rome.
- The Triumvirate's strategy proves effective.
Pompey and Crassus stand unopposed and win by a landslide.
- One of the perks of being consul in Rome
is that you have special chairs at the front of the Senate.
When they take those seats...
..it sends a very clear message...
..that the Republic is being controlled...
..by the Triumvirate.
- Once Pompey and Crassus have become consuls, you know,
they play their bit - they secure Caesar another five years in Gaul.
Caesar can know that everything that he has achieved
in bringing the Triumvirate back together again,
that it is absolutely paying off for him.
- Over the next year, Pompey, Crassus and Caesar carve up the Roman world.
Each takes control of a foreign province,
with the military might, wealth and prestige that brings.
Caesar keeps Gaul.
Crassus departs for Syria,
with plans to invade Rome's greatest rival -
the Parthian Empire, now modern Iran.
Pompey takes Spain, but will govern it from Rome,
allowing him command of an army
whilst remaining at the heart of the Senate.
- It's become clear that the partnership,
the three-headed monster, as a writer at the time calls it,
is achieving a degree of influence and power that is unprecedented
and that is against the spirit,
the, shall we say, deep-seated political culture of the Republic.
There's no question about that.
- With the Triumvirate firmly in control of Rome,
Caesar sets his sights on even greater glory.
- Caesar, as though to celebrate,
embarks on his most spectacular exploits yet.
He embarks on an expedition to Britain.
One historian compared it to man landing on the moon.
It is a land so savage and barbarous
that its inhabitants not only paint themselves blue,
but even most revoltingly of all, drink milk.
But there's no point in Caesar achieving great things
if his fellow citizens back in Rome are unaware of them.
- One of the most brilliant things that he does
is to write a work of literature in his reports.
Everyone in Rome is reading the Gallic War as it comes out.
"Have you read the latest episode?" So they're all really fascinated.
- The dispatches he sends back are read out to the people.
He tells them about the kinds of feats he is achieving,
and these are almost superhuman conquests
for the people back in Rome.
Caesar has gone beyond the limits of what they had known before.
- In fact, he signally fails to conquer Britain.
But he's such a good publicist, he manages to turn it into,
"Look, I actually sailed across the Channel
"and I frightened these woad-coloured barbarians witless."
So he can dress it up as more of a success than it was.
- Winston Churchill famously said that history would be kind to him
because he would write the history.
History, I think, has been kind to Caesar
by and large because Caesar definitely wrote the history.
- Determined not to let this failure hinder him,
Caesar accelerates his conquest of Gaul.
At the head of a now vast army,
and with the Senate under the Triumvirate's control,
Caesar revels in autonomy,
and his tactics become ever more brutal.
- It's claimed that Caesar slaughtered a million people in Gaul,
that he enslaved another million,
and this, to us, might seem a monstrous atrocity...
..but to the Romans, it's a demonstration of the capacity
for violence and force that upholds the dignitas of the Roman name.
- Conquest is in-built into the Roman psyche.
The Romans see themselves as descended from the God of War,
which is Mars.
And all through Rome's history, it really has been at war.
- Caesar, in conquering this remote and barbarous land,
feels he has no choice but to deploy extreme terror,
so those tribes who resist him are utterly annihilated.
Did he feel guilt about it?
I don't think so.
The Roman people had always thrilled to narratives of bloodshed,
and Caesar, in Gaul, is giving them the kind of stories that,
precisely because they are stained in blood,
are, in the opinion of the Roman people, all the more admirable...
..and Caesar feels himself very much the hero of this narrative.
- For his opponents in Rome,
Caesar off the leash in Gaul is terrifying.
Cato is lying in wait for any opportunity to take him down.
Finally, he sees his chance.
Caesar breaks a peace treaty,
and is said to slaughter over 400,000 men, women and children.
It's a sacrilegious contravention of Roman law.
Cato leads a heated attack against Caesar in the Senate.
- Cato tries to point out that Caesar is literally committing war crimes.
So Caesar is just a disgrace,
and Cato tries to demand the punishment for that war crime,
which is that Caesar should be handed over to the enemy,
but his demand is simply brushed aside.
Caesar is becoming so successful
that nobody now wants to stand with Cato against Caesar.
- Caesar really doesn't need to worry.
He knows that everything about his conquests
is boosting his status, is boosting his prestige.
- Cato is now in a horrifying position.
Caesar, this man he despises, is now becoming so successful
and popular that he's almost untouchable, whatever he does.
- By the end of 55 BC, Caesar is riding high.
The Roman people love him.
He's relishing glory in Gaul and his allies control the Senate.
Now news arrives that further secures his bond with Pompey.
It's been three years since Pompey married Caesar's only daughter,
Julia, and now she's pregnant with their first child.
- Julia's baby represents the possibility of a lasting alliance
between Pompey and Caesar.
Marriages in Rome come and go.
The divorce rate is actually pretty high.
But having a child, that's something that will bind two families together
in perpetuity.
As Julia's due date approaches, the entire Roman world is looking on.
But when Julia starts her labour, she suffers a great deal,
and she is in a great deal of physical pain.
- Julia dies in childbirth...
..and her baby dies a few days later.
- Pompey, I mean, he was besotted with Julia,
and so losing her must have been unbearable.
- In Gaul, Caesar is awaiting news of his grandchild's birth.
Instead, he receives notice of his daughter and her baby's death.
- She was his only child, and when Julia dies,
it's doubly a catastrophe for Caesar...
..both on the personal level, but also the political.
- It's conventional to say that Roman women...
..had no political power.
I think that loses the point.
Women like Julia had a lot of political power.
She was the link between Caesar and Pompey.
With her gone,
she's not there to mediate any differences between them.
- A crucial bond between the two greatest men in Rome
has been severed...
..and Caesar knows that the foundations of his power
are a good deal more unstable than they had been previously.
- A few short months later, Caesar receives a second devastating blow.
The invasion of Parthia by Crassus has ended in disaster.
- He took a huge risk, and he paid the ultimate price.
He is beheaded, and there are stories about melted gold
being poured down his throat by the Parthians in mockery
of his legendary wealth, but also in what could be seen
as a denunciation of Roman... of Roman greed.
- It's a catastrophic defeat for Rome.
He loses legions.
It's a massacre of Romans.
It's a dreadful humiliation.
And that, of course, affects the way that we see Crassus.
He really is a loser.
- The death of Crassus is an absolute disaster for Caesar.
The Triumvirate depends on it being an alliance of three men, not two.
An alliance of two men - much, much easier for it to fall apart.
- His death reshapes, quite literally overnight,
the political scene in Rome,
because now, well, you no longer have three great men.
We have these two extraordinary individuals, Pompey and Caesar...
..with no-one else in between.
No mediator, no buffer. It's them.
Are they going to co-exist or are they going to fight it out?
- For Caesar, the absolute priority is to reaffirm his relationship
with Pompey, to maintain his ability to continue as Governor in Gaul,
so Caesar does what Romans, aristocrats,
conventionally do when they want to forge an alliance - he looks around
for another female member of his family to marry off to Pompey.
- So he offers his great-niece.
And so Pompey says, "That's OK.
"Thanks for offering, but no."
And now Pompey finds himself in a position
where he can choose which way he goes.
He can move closer to the Optimates in the Senate,
and at the same time he knows that Caesar needs him.
This is what Pompey has always wanted.
All the balls are in his court now.
- Caesar can no longer absolutely rely on their alliance holding together.
If there are other people who can offer more than Caesar can,
then Pompey is absolutely in the market for accepting that.
- Caesar's position is certainly weakening...
..and it looks as though things may be going back in Cato's direction.
And it may be suddenly possible for a new world to emerge
in which Caesar will finally collapse.
- THUNDER
Crassus is gone...
CROW CAWS
..Caesar and Pompey's alliance hangs by a thread...
CROWS CAW
..and Caesar is no longer pulling the strings in Rome.
The Senate turns inward as men vie to reposition themselves.
Rome descends into chaos.
Violent gangs rule the streets.
And one man is making the most of it -
an errant senator called Clodius.
- He's a skunk.
There's nothing good about Clodius.
He's a manipulator, a sociopath, a psychopath.
Any path you can think of, Clodius is it.
- Clodius holds a powerful position in the Senate -
one of ten tribunes of the people.
Tribunes serve as a check on the Senate's authority
to protect the interests of ordinary Romans.
With special powers, tribunes can veto proposals
or bypass the Senate and take bills directly to the people.
By pushing through a law entitling every citizen to free grain,
Clodius has won huge popular support.
- Clodius essentially creates himself a private army.
- There are people who are grateful to Clodius because he is providing them
with bread, and they are ready to be recruited to his paramilitary gangs.
- Clodius uses his gangs to beat up anyone who stands in his way,
a trick he learned from Caesar himself.
- Clodius, for years, had served as Caesar's agent,
enforcing Caesar's interests in Rome, and Clodius learned
from Caesar that power can come directly from the people.
Clodius elevates this to a whole new level.
Political order in the streets of the capital
rapidly starts to collapse.
- The behaviour of Clodius makes Rome virtually impossible
to function properly.
It's become a dysfunctional city.
And he turns into a figure of terror for the Roman establishment.
- Desperate to regain control of Rome, some conservative senators
hire gladiators and thugs to fight back against Clodius.
Then, on a road outside Rome...
..Clodius is discovered in a ditch.
His body is carried back into the city
and taken to his wife, Fulvia.
- When the body comes, Fulvia receives it,
and she does not do what should properly be done.
For a proper Roman aristocratic funeral,
she should wash the body and dress it before displaying it publicly,
but she allows the crowd that has gathered to see his broken
and wounded body, his bloody clothes,
and she weeps in front of them.
Several of Clodius' allies address the crowd...
..and so Fulvia's weeping,
and these speeches drive the crowd into a rage.
- Rome is a powder keg.
It won't even take a spark.
It's going to be spontaneous combustion.
- A rumour spreads that Clodius has been murdered
by a prominent senator.
Fulvia leads an angry mob into the heart of Rome,
where they stage an impromptu funeral
right outside the Senate House.
- The unruly, angry mob break into the Senate House,
and in a rampage, they heap up benches and anything else
they could get their hands on that would burn,
and they heap it all up and they put Clodius on the top of the heap.
The choice to build Clodius' pyre out of items from the Senate House
is an indication of anger directed at the Senate.
Clodius' murderer is sort of the front man
for the conservative faction within the Senate,
and so populist anger will have been directed at the elite.
The pyre burns, and it burns so well
that it also burns down the Senate House,
which is truly symbolic of the state of the Republic in that moment.
The city is ungovernable, it is uncontrollable.
- The spectacle of the Senate House burning,
it's absolutely horrifying.
It's as terrifying as the spectacle of the Capitol
being invaded by an angry mob under Trump.
It marks the system - the Republic - not in any sense working any longer.
- For Cato, this was a moment of mounting horror,
a sense of all the standards collapsing,
and now we have the Senate House literally burnt to the ground,
mobs rampaging through the streets.
I mean, everything that he treasures about Rome
and the Republic is now in ruins or in flames.
- With violence consuming the city, senators need to act fast.
A military general could help them quell the unrest.
But even Cato knows that the only candidates
with enough popular support are Caesar or Pompey.
- The thing that worries Cato most at this moment
is that Caesar is going to be able to come back.
He sees Julius Caesar as the embodiment of the threat,
as an immoral man and a potential tyrant.
And so Cato decides, in increasing desperation, to do something
that he'd refused to do years earlier...
..which is to try to ally with Pompey,
and Cato has to gamble that Pompey is the lesser of the two evils.
- In times of crisis, the Senate have special powers at their disposal.
They could make Pompey what they call a Dictator -
an emergency office that gives one man sole control of Rome
for a strictly limited period.
But the Optimates hate the idea.
It goes against everything the Republic stands for.
So Pompey is offered a compromise.
- What they come up with is a sole consulship for Pompey.
Extraordinary means and extraordinary measures.
- Pompey's position as sole consul is a watershed moment.
This has never happened before.
Pompey is overjoyed.
"The Senate loves me."
- After months of turmoil in Rome,
Pompey's soldiers bring calm to the city streets.
Then Pompey relinquishes his power at the end of his term,
much to the approval of the Optimates.
In Gaul, Caesar is nearing the end of his term as Governor.
For years, this position has protected him
against his enemies in Rome.
- As his ten-year period of office starts to come towards its close,
the big question is what will his enemies do
once he is a private citizen,
in other words, once he is liable for prosecution.
- But Caesar has a plan.
Although he has opponents in the Senate,
he knows his success in Gaul has won him the love of the Roman people.
With the annual consulship election coming round again,
Caesar plans to stand, certain he will win the popular vote.
- This, of course, is crucial for Caesar's ambitions,
not just because it offers him the chance of a second consulship
but also because he will go straight from his governorship in Gaul
to becoming consul.
- Cato is now very concerned that Caesar,
flushed with his victories in Gaul,
will be able to get himself elected as consul
and by becoming consul, become immune to prosecution,
so Cato will not be able to get him for all his lawbreaking.
- For Caesar's enemies, there's a window of opportunity.
The Senate still have the power to terminate Caesar's governorship.
If they can be persuaded to recall him,
he could be forced to face trial
before he has a chance to win the consulship.
The idea divides the Senate.
- The Senate starts to split into two violently opposed factions -
the faction that supports Caesar, and those on the other side
who are absolutely determined to bring him down.
- Caught in the middle is Pompey.
He is forced to choose between his new-found favour with the Optimates
and his old alliance with Caesar.
- Trying desperately to reconcile these two irreconcilable blocks
is Pompey, who wants to be the friend of both blocks of men.
- Pompey decides that the approval of the Senate
is more important than his relationship with Caesar.
- Pompey stands with the Optimates, and backs the debate about
terminating Caesar's governorship in Gaul.
- For Caesar, the fact that Pompey decides to move against him
is a disastrous development...
..because Cato's faction now absolutely has
the wind in their sails.
This, of course, stirs up Caesar's deepest worry...
..that all his astonishing conquests will be as nothing.
He is staring down the barrel of political oblivion.
- On the 1st of March, 50 BC,
the debate over Caesar's governorship begins.
It will end with a vote.
The Optimates need a majority to recall Caesar to Rome.
But Caesar is prepared.
He's banking on a man he's bribed, another tribune of the people.
Caesar's man uses his power as a tribune to obstruct the debate.
- The tribune vetoes and vetoes and vetoes every proposal
that is put by the Senate to try and strip Caesar of his command.
- The tribune not only blocks the proposal
to revoke Caesar's governorship,
he has a counter-demand direct from Caesar.
- He puts a proposal to the Senate that if Caesar is stripped
of his command, then Pompey should be stripped of HIS command in Spain.
And this, of course, ups the stakes,
because it now means that Pompey's command as well is in play.
- Pompey isn't going to give up his army. Are you kidding?
His power lies in having an army at his command.
He is not going to give that up.
- Rome's two most powerful generals are now in a dangerous game
of brinkmanship.
If they cannot resolve their stand-off peacefully,
everyone fears where it might lead.
- The tension between Caesar and Pompey at this point is escalating
because of the back and forth they're having via the Senate.
The problem is, the Romans know very well the logical outcome
of this could be civil war.
- In a frantic bid to de-escalate,
the Senate again debates the proposal that both Caesar and Pompey
give up their armies,
and that Caesar be allowed to stand for the consulship.
For the Optimates,
this would mean abandoning their bid to prosecute him.
But even Caesar's opponents are eager to avert catastrophe.
- The vote was 370 for,
to 22 against,
and it's clearly because the Senate wants to avoid civil war.
- And it might appear at that point that peace is around the corner,
but, of course, Caesar's enemies aren't going to let that happen.
- Despite the overwhelming vote,
one of the current consuls is a die-hard Optimate.
Loathe to compromise with Caesar,
he uses his power as consul to do something reckless and radical.
- It's absolutely outrageous for a consul to ignore
the expressed will of the Senate,
but the Consuls are very powerful people.
They have imperium - the right to control military strength,
and in their determination to block Caesar,
the consul actually takes a sword to Pompey and says,
"Here, the command is yours and you must protect us from Caesar."
- This is a signal that he has been appointed
as Commander of Armed Forces
on behalf of the Senate.
- Pompey should refuse.
If he had his head screwed on, Pompey should refuse.
But the diabolical thing that the senators do
is to persuade Pompey that he's their hero
and that Caesar is the enemy.
- He accepts the sword...
..and this is then a declaration
that he is willing to take up arms...
..against Caesar.
- This raises the stakes once again.
Pompey now has the authority to bring Rome's legions down on Caesar.
- Pompey has both symbolically and literally
taken up the sword against him,
and so Caesar now has absolutely no illusions as to what he's facing.
But, you know, he makes one final gambit.
He sends a letter to the Senate.
- Caesar's letter is brought before the Senate
by one of his most loyal soldiers - a man called Mark Antony.
- Antony is one of those figures from antiquity
that gets almost nothing but bad press.
Antony is a womaniser and he's a drunkard.
What's easy to overlook is that Antony is interested in literature,
he's interested in art, he's one of the best educated men of his time,
which is why he's a terrific orator.
He joins Caesar's army as an officer,
and they've become friendly, they've become close,
all during the context of the Gallic War.
- Caesar has used his popularity to get Antony elected as a tribune.
His role is to protect the interests of the Roman people,
but Antony is really serving Caesar.
- When Mark Antony comes to the Senate with a letter from Caesar,
the Senate won't even let him read the letter out,
and they're simply putting their fingers in their ears
and saying, "La, la, la, la, la. We don't want to hear you, Caesar."
- But they're forced to hear it by Mark Antony...
..and the letter appears to be just another letter
which says, "Let's disarm, let's find a way toward peace."
But in addition to that sentiment, Antony will then go on to say,
speaking for Caesar, that if this is impossible,
if the Senate insists on being so aggressive,
then Caesar must defend his prestige,
he must protect the freedom of the Roman people.
They take it to mean that Caesar is threatening civil war.
- I think for Caesar, it's very clear.
Either his enemies in the Senate back down,
or else, with reluctance,
Caesar will have no choice but to defend Rome by marching on Rome.
- Some people believe that it's possible to compromise with Caesar
and avoid civil war.
But Cato thinks that Caesar is a fundamental threat
to the Republic and a stand must be taken,
so he pushes very, very hard for an aggressive response towards Caesar.
In the heart of all politics,
it doesn't matter whether you're dealing with Putin and Ukraine
or you're dealing with Hitler, the question is,
is compromise and peace possible with a tyrant,
or is trying to compromise just a form of appeasement?
It just encourages the other side.
- The Senate must now decide -
compromise with Caesar or confront him.
For Caesar's enemies, backing down is not an option,
so they bring a radical bill to the chamber.
- It's called the Ultimate Decree of the Senate,
which would make Caesar an outlaw of the state.
This is as far from compromise...
..as one can get.
We're talking about a decree that says you have permission to murder
Caesar if he crosses the boundary into Rome, with or without an army.
This is huge. It is absolutely huge.
- And it's effectively a declaration of war on Caesar.
- The Senate are persuaded that this is the Republic's last chance.
The emergency decree is passed.
- Antony is told in advance that if he interposes his veto
against the Senate's Ultimate Decree,
if he exercises his rights as a tribune,
he should be concerned for his personal safety.
And so he flees Rome because of the menace of the Senate.
He makes quite a show of disguising himself as a slave
so he won't be recognised, and he goes on to send Caesar in advance
the notice that he is in peril.
- The moment Caesar gets the news, he acts decisively,
he acts with his customary speed,
but, of course, to act he needs an army at his back.
But he knows exactly how to press their buttons.
He says to them that the insult that is being done to his tribune,
Mark Antony, this is an insult to his men too.
- The legions know the tribunes cannot be threatened,
they cannot be harmed.
- That's good propaganda for Caesar.
Turn against the tribunes of the Roman people,
you're turning against the Roman people.
- If you side with Julius Caesar...
..you side with freedom.
- On the 9th of January, 49 BC,
just north of the Rubicon - the river separating Gaul from Italy,
Caesar hosts a dinner.
- Caesar faces a choice.
He could lay down his command,
risk prosecution and the very strong possibility of exile,
or plunge Rome into a bloody civil war.
He has been pushed into a corner by his enemies.
We're told that he hesitates in a kind of...an anguish of indecision.
But in the end, he's a gambler...
..and, as he has done throughout his career,
he is ready to roll the dice.
On the 10th of January, he gives the command.
His legion crosses the Rubicon,
and the Roman Republic...
..collapses into civil war.
- Next time....
..Caesar triumphs in war...
..but as he takes ever more power for himself,
he leaves his enemies little choice.
For three years, Julius Caesar has been fighting a bloody civil war
for control of the Roman Republic,
against his former ally Pompey the Great.
But now, Pompey is dead.
And Caesar gives thanks to the gods for his victory.
He will soon return to Rome.
- At stake is how Rome is going to be governed from now on.
It's one thing to win,
but what's he going to do with his victory?
- Caesar has grand plans.
He wants to rule Rome's vast empire
and restore the city of his birth to greatness.
But, in less than two years,
Caesar will be dead...
..and the Roman Republic will lie in ruins.
At the heart of the most powerful empire in the ancient world
stands Rome.
For 500 years, it was ruled by elected government.
But, in a little over a decade,
this republic was overthrown by the ambitions of one man.
- The story of Caesar is an incredibly enduring one.
The resonance of it is so powerful.
It remains the most thrilling, the most extraordinary
political story in Western history.
- Now, historians and experts who understand the nature
of political power will chart his rise...
- He's so smart, he just knows how to use his opportunities.
- ..and ask how an individual can push a centuries-old
political system to breaking point.
- Julius Caesar is the most dangerous kind of demagogue.
- This is the story of how ambition turns to tyranny...
- He's a disgrace in every single way.
He's immoral, he's irreligious,
and he's a potential tyrant.
- ..and how a dictator is born.
- The awful lesson is that, in the end,
a populist can corrupt an entire state.
- For every other political system that values stability and justice,
and liberty, that should be, at the very least, a wake-up call.
- Democracy has to be constantly fought for.
If we take it for granted,
a new Caesar will come.
- Caesar is planning his victorious return to Rome.
To demonstrate his greatness,
he makes his defeated enemies an offer.
- As the man who is in the process of winning the civil war,
he could have murdered his enemies,
he could have launched a bloodbath.
But he doesn't.
He tries to win his defeated enemies over to him
by showing them mercy.
But mercy is something that a superior shows to an inferior,
a master can show a slave.
It broadcasts Caesar's magnanimity.
It also broadcasts Caesar's greatness.
- Caesar also knows he needs his erstwhile enemies on side.
Rome has been devastated by civil war.
To revive it, he'll need the support of republican senators
who have survived the war.
- If he can persuade his opponents to rally to his cause,
and to work for the good - both of Caesar and of the republic -
Caesar would be unchallenged as the ruler of Rome.
- The problem is that Caesar's enemies think that what
Caesar stands for is tyranny.
Total takeover of the system by one man,
backed by military strength.
Caesar doesn't see it that way at all.
Caesar says, "Of course you can be friends with me.
"I forgive you. Come on.
"We all have, at heart, the same cause,
"which is the Roman Republic, the good of Rome."
- But for Caesar,
one man matters above all others.
From the beginning of his career,
Cato has defended the republic
and obstructed Caesar's ambitions.
- Cato has seen, in Caesar,
corruption, the pride, the envy.
He was predicting from the very beginning that,
unless people moved against Caesar,
Caesar would try to turn himself into some kind of mini-emperor.
Cato is fighting for the domination of the Senate,
the old constitution.
He is fighting to preserve the dream of Rome.
- Caesar's army has defeated republican legions
led by Cato in North Africa.
And now, he has Cato cornered.
- If Caesar can get Cato to accept his mercy,
it will give him authority as the master of Rome,
the master of Rome's empire.
- Cato understands that Caesar will want to pardon him,
and he'll want to bring him in behind Caesar.
And that's necessary for Caesar,
because Cato is a very powerful politician.
Cato has to now make a decision.
And he probably could convince himself,
as many people convince themselves,
"Maybe I can do more good on the inside than the outside."
But for Cato, any compromise with a tyrant...
..is the destruction of the Roman Republic.
The idea of compromising with Caesar feels emotionally to him
as it might do for somebody in the 1930s being asked
to compromise with Hitler.
And, alone, he does something extraordinary.
He takes his sword...
..plunges it into his chest.
His son comes running in,
tries to beg him, get doctors.
And he must be in the most extreme and astonishing agony.
But Cato, looking into the eyes of his son,
reaches his hands into his bowels, into his guts,
and rips out his own entrails
and dies.
- Cato's suicide is a very deliberate and planned action,
with heavy symbolism and
absolute lack of compromise.
- Cato had always had a perhaps unique ability to get under Caesar's skin.
And, even with Cato dead, his ghost continues to haunt Caesar.
As a spirit in the underworld, Cato remains undefeated.
- Cato's death is the ultimate statement.
No real Roman should ever compromise with a man like Caesar.
No real Roman should ever accept the way this state is going.
And the message that he sends is,
"Shame. Shame on you."
- Cato is able to establish himself as a martyr,
and Caesar as a tyrant.
- Caesar finally returns to Rome,
where Cato's martyrdom threatens to reinvigorate republican opposition.
Caesar faces a battle to persuade everyone he's not a tyrant,
but the saviour Rome needs.
- The civil war has caused food shortages.
People are very hungry, and there is violence on the streets.
Rome is in a state of crisis,
it does need significant intervention,
and it does need people to take action immediately.
- When Caesar comes back, there are two great questions facing him.
One is, what can he do, as a man who is now wielding greater power
than any man has ever had before,
to solve the manifold crises that are facing Rome?
And the other, can the Republic be put back together again?
If it can't, then what should replace it?
- Since the start of the civil war,
the Senate has been barely functioning.
For centuries, it's been the heart of republican government,
founded on the principle that the people elect officials
who use their seat in the Senate to propose laws
that are put back to the Roman citizens for their vote.
Caesar must decide whether to revive the system or abandon it.
- Caesar wants to find a way of making the Roman state work.
- He has no choice but to get the Senate back up,
and he knows as well that the key to this is to get conservatives
who have opposed him on his side.
- Caesar needs his opponents to trust him.
To help persuade them,
he courts a young man held in high regard by republicans.
Marcus Junius Brutus.
- Brutus is the descendent of the founder of the Republic,
the man who expelled Rome's final king 500 years before.
And he led the people to swear
an oath that they would never again suffer one-man rule.
So, Brutus is the poster boy of the Roman Republic,
and those who are more conservative-minded
look up to Brutus.
But what's really fascinating is that he's also connected to Caesar.
Caesar's long-term lover and great friend is Brutus's mother.
And so, Caesar looks out for Brutus throughout his life.
There's even a rumour that, er, Brutus may actually be
Caesar's love child.
- With Brutus on his side, Caesar could win the legitimacy
he needs to get the Senate working for him.
He offers Brutus a powerful position -
the governorship of one of Rome's territories.
- Brutus isn't going to turn that down.
He still has reservations about what Caesar's up to,
but, like many of his generation, he wants to get to the top,
he wants great political prestige and power.
As soon as Brutus jumps onto Caesar's bandwagon,
he's got the authority and the cachet,
and he convinces other senators to accept Caesar's pardon
and to join him.
- Amongst the old guard that Brutus needs to persuade
are senior republican statesmen.
- Marcus Tullius Cicero is an orator, he's a lawyer,
he's the consummate politician.
He is political to his core,
and he stands for the Republic,
he stands for the senatorial system,
and he believes that this is the way in which Rome will thrive.
Although Cicero has high political principles, he's a realist.
He can see that the Senate has not given the leadership
that Rome needs, and he hopes that he can lead Caesar towards
being somebody who rebuilds the Republic.
Caesar has power, and maybe that power can be used for good.
- By the Autumn of 46 BC, Brutus has helped bring old
opponents like Cicero over to Caesar's side.
The Senate is reconvened...
..but Caesar has no intention of restoring its full authority.
- Caesar is the man who has been in the saddle for years and years.
His instincts are those of a military commander -
he gives orders, they're obeyed.
And so, it's unsurprising that he should find the requirements of
a republican system of government frustrating,
and I suspect also a little beneath him.
- Caesar promises he's restoring the Republic,
whilst also seeking a way to legitimately take
full command of the Senate.
- Caesar, by Roman standards -
and the Romans are an inherently conservative people -
is incredibly radical.
And yet, he looks back to the past, which is what Romans had
always done whenever they were faced with a crisis.
And in this lumber box of Rome's constitutional past,
there's an office called the dictatorship.
- The position of dictator had a very established place within
the Roman system of government, as an extraordinary power
in a period where Rome was in particular crisis.
- The Roman Republic is founded on the idea of power being shared.
Only in extreme crisis can the office of dictator give one man
temporary control of Rome.
- In an emergency, you should only be a dictator for
a maximum of six months.
You take Rome out of that emergency, and then hand power back.
- Now Caesar pushes the limits of constitutional propriety
even further - he demands that he be made dictator,
not for six months...
..not for a year...
..but ten years.
- The Senate reluctantly agree,
but on the condition they will review his position every year.
- Men like Brutus are willing to give Caesar these powers because
they think they're temporary.
But it's a huge gamble - it's expecting Caesar
not to be corrupted by power.
- Cicero is open to the idea that maybe Caesar is a necessary evil.
When a society is going through really great strains,
when the political system doesn't seem to be delivering for people,
then having a strong leader can be a very seductive idea.
- The Republic is in a state of ruin.
The predominant feeling in Rome is a kind of exhausted hope
that perhaps Caesar will be able to use these exceptional powers
to bring Rome back to life.
- So, Caesar is made a dictator.
And they give him the permission to sit between the consuls,
ie, superior to both of the consuls,
give him a special seat to sit on,
give him a throne.
- Using his newly-sanctioned authority,
Caesar expands the powers a dictator can hold.
He creates a new title for himself - the Prefect of Morals.
- Praefectus Morum - the man in charge of morals.
That's a really, really scary title.
But what's really important is that gives him a power
to get people in and out of the Senate.
- Caesar increases the size of the Senate
from 600 to 900 men.
Caesar loyalists now outnumber conservative opponents.
For centuries, the Republican system has given people
the right to vote for magistrates -
men who hold powerful roles in the Senate.
Now, Caesar decides he will appoint all of the magistrates himself.
- Caesar's new power - to choose the magistrates -
is a very serious abandonment of Republican tradition,
because it's precisely the power of the Roman people to choose,
each year, who are going to be its magistrates that gives
the Roman people its voice.
And Caesar, the Popularis,
Caesar, the man who believes in the power of the Roman people,
is now, paradoxically,
removing one of the central powers of the Roman people.
- In just a few months, Caesar centralises five centuries
of Republican powers in the office of dictator.
He takes control of Rome's laws, finances, armies,
and elected officials.
As long as he is dictator,
Caesar alone controls Rome.
- Caesar is taking power as his own personal possession
and handing it out as he wishes.
And that is a huge challenge to the whole concept of the Republic.
- You're talking about the suspension of all the normal rules of
how Roman political life works.
- For senators of a conservative inclination, Caesar's reforms
seem wanton vandalism.
But this is not how Caesar sees it.
Caesar is bringing in policies that are designed to heal Rome.
- Caesar uses his power to put other radical policies into action.
- Caesar has got a hell of a lot to do to deal with
all the problems that have been bubbling away,
and try to get Rome back on an even kilter.
Er, it's astonishing how much he could do so quickly.
- A lot of things aren't working,
and a lot of things need repair -
roads, infrastructure, aqueducts.
There are food shortages.
- But he's in a position now to ensure that the mass of
the Roman people will be fed.
He feels that he alone has the ability and the vision to solve
problems that his contemporaries had manifestly been unable to solve.
He sponsors the rebuilding and beautification of the Senate house.
He draws up plans to build the largest temple of the world
on the Campus Martius.
He even has an astonishing scheme to divert the very course of
the Tiber, as though he is a man so divine that, with his finger,
he can, you know, reorder the course of rivers.
Nothing is beyond the reach of Caesar to correct,
to regulate, to improve -
even the dimension of time.
The Roman calendar, by Caesar's lifetime,
is in a state of chaos.
It doesn't synchronise at all with the rhythms of the seasons,
the patterns of the years.
And so, amid all the many other things that Caesar is doing,
he orders a recalibration of the calendar.
- He gives us a calendar which we have continued to use
for the next two millennia!
- It probably seems like life is going to get better under Caesar.
He offers the people a little bit of stability,
an improvement to their day-to-day lives.
- Rome begins to prosper.
But Republican senators remain anxious that Caesar won't
willingly relinquish his power at the end of his term.
Their hands aren't completely tied.
Just as the Senate can grant him the dictatorship,
if enough turn against him,
they could vote to take it away.
Caesar wants to make it clear who holds the reigns.
He temporarily moves the base of power to his own villa,
20km outside Rome.
- What Caesar does, by taking power outside of Rome,
is demonstrating that, instead of power being where Rome is,
power is where Caesar is.
- Caesar decides to fill all influential positions in the Senate
with those loyal to him.
He summons Rome's elite to find out if they have a place in his plan.
- So, you have this extraordinary spectacle -
the great and the good of Rome effectively queueing
at Caesar's door.
- To ensure conservatives stay loyal,
Caesar meets a man they all look up to - Brutus.
- He sees Brutus as if he's a son who he's looked after,
cherished and promoted.
Now, Caesar promises Brutus fantastic things.
He's going to get a key appointment this year,
and this will all put him on track for a consulship
in the future, as well.
It's a really bittersweet moment for Brutus.
On the one hand, he is climbing that ladder of offices.
The consulship is in reach.
But at the same time, he doesn't like the fact that Caesar
is centralising all of this power around himself.
But in the end, he's able to shrug it off because,
at the moment, he's benefitting from the system.
- Another man Caesar wants at his side is his most loyal general,
Mark Antony.
- Antony has been Caesar's right-hand man throughout the civil war.
- Mark Antony is one of the
best-educated men of his time,
which is why he's a terrific orator,
as well as a talented, valorous general.
But he's also inclined to drink too much...
..had sex too often.
And these are vices that don't necessarily sit well with a man
who's a distinguished Roman noble.
But one of the reasons Caesar is able to succeed is that,
throughout his career, he has a talent for drawing people
into intimate associations with himself.
And so Caesar can exploit the talents of ambitious men
who are centred around him.
- Caesar promises Mark Antony the consulship.
- Caesar becomes the focus of attention for many
ambitious young men who see in Caesar an opportunity to become
either wealthy or powerful, or influential ahead of their time.
Caesar is it. He is how you participate in this new Republic.
- Caesar is convinced the men he's chosen will help him
maintain control of the Senate.
But there are many he simply overlooks.
- Seeing Caesar handing the power to his own underlings,
Cicero is sitting outside waiting.
This is definitely not the way that former consuls should be treated.
Caesar is not using his position for the public good.
He is using it to belittle somebody who had great respect in the Senate.
- Caesar ignores some of Rome's most senior statesmen...
..but he also offends some of its most ambitious men.
- Looking in on all of this is Cassius.
Cassius is 41, in his prime.
He is a successful soldier and a very skilled politician.
He comes from an elite Roman family
who've produced seven consuls in the last 100 years.
And he does go to Caesar asking for promotion.
He gets something, but not enough.
Cassius is not happy with Caesar personally,
and certainly not politically.
Everything now is increasingly going through Caesar himself.
- TOM HOLLAND: - There is, of course, a problem for Caesar.
Whereas before, people who were defeated in elections really
only had themselves to blame,
now it is possible for them to blame Caesar.
And this, of course, is storing up quite a reservoir of resentment.
- Back in Rome, senators who want a seat at Caesar's table
contrive ways to ingratiate themselves.
- Caesar's ability to choose the magistrates changes
the nature of political life.
And now, you've got to earn his favour.
So, the Senate dream up honour after honour, after honour,
give him a special wreath in gold leaf to put around his head.
But the more you honour Caesar,
the more invidious you make his position.
- While resentment towards Caesar festers,
he grows increasingly impatient with petty Roman politics.
And when a delegation approaches him with more honours,
he doesn't do what's expected of him.
- A whole body of senators go into Caesar's forum,
and there he is, enthroned, looking as grand as could be.
And there's the Senate saying,
"Caesar, we would like to honour you."
And Caesar doesn't stand up.
- In Rome, equals stand to greet each other.
It's as if he's saying, in plain view,
that the entire Senate is beneath him.
- The problem that both Caesar and the Senate face
is that Caesar's preponderance has made the traditional function
of the Senate, the role of the helmsmen guiding the ship of state,
essentially irrelevant.
Caesar is too impatient,
too unsubtle not to let his fellow senators know
that he knows this.
- For Cicero, if Caesar is willing to disregard the basic rules of
the Senate, in terms of how people treat each other,
then what does that mean for any other rules that
the Senate may have?
This is a shocking moment.
And Cicero gives up his hope in Caesar.
- It's a massive shock and must really irk men like Brutus.
He's still been holding out hope that Caesar is going
to restore the Republic.
But is Caesar going to restore authority to a Senate
that he doesn't seem to care much for any more?
- For some senators, Caesar's blatant disregard for the unwritten rules
is a step too far.
As a constitutional lawyer in Britain, I have spent many years
believing in the beauty of unwritten constitutions.
But they have their weakness, too.
If that constitution is really just a gentlemen's agreement,
what happens when one of them decide that everything's going
to change in their favour?
- Political process is dependent upon integrity and mutual respect.
If those rules break down,
it's very difficult to see the way forward for a democracy.
- If you believe in a system of government that is designed
to balance power,
you have a moral duty to defend it.
- As Caesar shows increasing disregard for republican conventions,
it's Cassius who dares to speak up.
- Cassius really does try to challenge Caesar openly,
in plain view.
- Rather perceptively, he says,
"All these honours are getting us into really dangerous territory.
"We are creating a monster here."
- Cassius is an idealist, and he does care about the Republican ideal.
But the more powerful Caesar becomes,
the more dangerous speaking out is for people like Cassius.
Cassius knows the tide is turning.
It's time to act but, of course, Cassius can't act alone.
He must suspect that people are feeling as he does,
but will they be as brave?
- What's happening is that the opposition to Caesar is
becoming more coherent.
It's crystallising -
crystallising around a number of people, a number of ideas.
- Whatever else he is, Caesar is not an idiot.
Of course he understands the resentments that are festering away
in the Senate.
He's a Roman - I mean, every Roman is aware that the resentment
of your fellow senators is part of the deal for greatness.
Is he afraid, though? Is he anxious?
Is he alarmed by this? I think not.
- Caesar has better things to do than indulge his detractors.
His ambitions reach beyond Rome.
Caesar plans to conquer the one great foe Rome has
so far failed to subdue.
The Parthian Empire.
It was in Parthia nine years earlier
that Caesar's old ally, Crassus, lost many Roman legions...
..and his own life.
Caesar believes he is the man to bring Parthia to heel.
- What Caesar has in mind is to launch the most formidable
and massive invasion the Romans have ever launched.
If Caesar is successful, he will return to Rome
the greatest conqueror in history.
- Caesar announces he'll leave for Parthia in three months' time...
..shortly after the middle of March -
known to the Romans as the Ides.
- He's always happiest at the head of an army
defeating visible foes.
The toughest foe of all is the foe you can't see,
is your old friends and your old enemies plotting together
and sinking a knife in your back.
- Before he leaves for Parthia,
Caesar uses supporters in the Senate to create him a role that will
consolidate his power indefinitely.
- They offer to make him dictator, not just for ten years
but perpetuous, forever.
Which means that, if he accepts,
no-one will ever be able to take his dictatorship away.
- It's a quite extraordinary thing - a really, really explicit
contravention of Roman customary practice.
The entire idea of the non-monarchical state is that
no-one has power in perpetuity.
- There is a moment when Caesar dooms himself.
It's when he accepts the office of dictator in perpetuity,
dictator for life.
Because, up until that moment,
it had been possible for other senators to envisage a time when
the normal rhythms of the Republic would be restored to them.
- Step by step, Caesar is being corrupted by this power he's got.
The moment he accepts the title "dictator for life",
the mask comes off.
He is not going to restore the Republic.
The Roman Republic, as the Romans have known it for so long,
is on the brink of collapse.
- Cassius saw this coming.
He said, "I told you so when he wanted to appoint the magistrates.
"I told you so when he wanted to be a dictator for six months,
"let alone ten years,
"and now, in perpetuity - I saw this coming."
- A month before Caesar's planned departure for Parthia,
a festival called Lupercalia gives him a chance to gauge
the people's appetite for the rule of one man.
Caesar presides over sacred rituals
that celebrate the King who founded Rome.
- The Lupercalia begins with a sacrifice performed by
the priests for this festival.
They sacrifice goats, and they sacrifice puppies.
And the chief priest is Mark Antony.
He has to smear blood on his body
and exhibit his sweaty masculinity to the people.
- The main spectacle takes place in front of a large crowd
in the public forum.
- Antony comes to Caesar, and he presents Caesar
with this diadem.
- Which is the symbol of kingship.
This is the kind of public drama that has been choreographed
by Caesar and Antony together.
- It's an incredibly bold manoeuvre.
- Some of our sources say this was a test.
That Caesar was trying to decide whether or not monarchy was going
to be a route that he could take going forward
in his political regime.
However, as Antony offers Caesar the diadem,
the crowd show their extreme displeasure.
And the response shows him, in no uncertain terms,
that the people do not want a king.
- And so, he very ostentatiously removes the diadem.
He tells Antony, "Take it away! Give it to Jupiter.
"For in Rome, there can be only the one king -
"Jupiter, King of the Gods."
- The Lupercalia is really the tipping point for Brutus.
His family history has been geared towards saving the Republic,
and not allowing any man to become the king.
Yet here is Antony offering Caesar a crown,
and Brutus is powerless to stop it.
He now realises that Caesar is the tyrant that Cato predicted
he'd become, and now, he's got to be stopped, whatever the cost.
- Later that same day, Caesar attends a ritual sacrifice
where the omens will reveal the mood of the gods.
- A part of the Lupercalia is a sacrifice to Jupiter,
which was overseen by a man named Spurinna,
the priest in charge of reading the entrails.
He's one of the people in Rome who performed a really important
function in reading the signs to determine whether the omens
were approved by the gods.
- Spurinna must be alert to whispers, to rumours of conspiracy.
He will have picked up the threat,
the danger that was closing in on Caesar.
- Spurinna can't say out loud to Caesar that he might be
causing political unrest,
but he does find a way to show him.
- Spurinna is consulting the entrails,
reaching around inside the slaughtered animal.
And he is looking for the heart of the bull...
..and there is no heart.
It's hard to imagine a more terrifying or ominous portent.
"Beware," Spurinna says, "of the Ides of March."
Why does Caesar ignore these warnings?
I mean, he absolutely could have acted on them.
But I think Caesar is convinced by a sense of his own destiny.
It is his authority, his rule that is preserving peace in Rome.
He thinks that no-one could possibly be so stupid as
to conspire against him.
- In the wake of the Lupercalia,
there's this real hotbed of discontent towards Caesar.
People are really now starting to see what Cato had seen all along.
- For the first time ever,
Cassius now sees ordinary people
expressing their revulsion for Caesar's ego.
Cassius needs to organise senatorial forces against Caesar.
He needs a figurehead.
He really needs Brutus.
- People, senators, are calling on Brutus to do something, to act.
We see graffiti plastered over Rome,
and it says things like, "Brutus, are you asleep?"
"Brutus, live up to your name."
He has to get himself into gear,
to free Rome from this new threat of a monarchy.
- Brutus will know that the tide is turning on Caesar.
This is the right moment.
Cassius will be able to persuade Brutus that his better interests
lie with the plotters.
- And they finally meet.
There's a big question in our sources about
who instigated the plot,
but the meeting of these two minds is crucial.
They can now test the waters.
What are they going to do about the problem of Caesar?
- As Caesar prepares to leave for Parthia,
Cassius and Brutus invite some of Rome's most influential men
to a dinner party.
- They can't ask questions like,
"What do you think we should do with Caesar?"
They use philosophical discourse.
- Abstract, hypothetical, even amusing discussions.
- To discuss what one should do in the case of a tyranny
over one's country.
- So, this is a conspiracy of conversations.
Cassius and Brutus manage to bring together some
long-standing enemies and sceptics of Caesar -
but also, it's possible to turn even friends and associates
of Caesar now.
His power grab is just so shameless and out of control.
- One of the things that they agree on quite quickly is that there aren't
really many options left.
Caesar has the entire Roman army at his beck and call,
and it seems the only option is to kill the tyrant.
- Brutus and Cassius succeed in recruiting more than
20 like-minded senators,
who agree to play their part in the tyrannicide.
- To succeed, they really have to convince everyone that
they're not just trying to take power for themselves,
but they're liberating Rome from tyrannical rule.
And, for this message to work, they can't just stab Caesar in
some street or some shady setting.
He has to be killed in the Senate.
- But Caesar is only due at the Senate once more
before he departs for Parthia.
That will be in the middle of the month -
the Ides of March.
Either the conspirators act then,
or it will be too late.
- The Ides of March, 44 BC,
is probably the day for which we have more information
than any other day in the whole of ancient history.
- Caesar is woken that morning by his wife, Calpurnia,
in a state of dread.
- Not only has Spurinna warned him about the Ides of March,
but also, his wife had a dream in which Caesar is assassinated.
- Leaving his house that morning,
it's his responsibility to preside over a sacrifice.
Spurinna is there officiating.
And Caesar smiles and says to Spurinna,
"Well, the Ides of March have arrived."
To which Spurinna responds, "They have arrived, Caesar,
"but they have not yet gone."
- So, these two things combined do have an effect on Caesar.
- He is asked by his wife, "Just stay for the Ides of March.
"Don't go to the Senate house."
And he is persuaded by this, and he decides he won't go.
- Word reaches Brutus and Cassius
that Caesar is not coming to the Senate after all.
The stakes are really high.
They've gambled everything on this being successful.
- The urgent necessity is to make Caesar come to
the meeting of the Senate.
The conspirators send one of their number -
the one they thought he would trust most -
Decimus, one of his loyal generals.
- Decimus has been with Caesar from the start.
He had served under Caesar as a military general,
and he'd been a lifelong supporter.
Yet, like Brutus and Cassius,
he was now feeling disenchanted by Caesar's regime.
- Decimus says to Caesar, "This is behaviour unbecoming of you.
"What am I supposed to go and tell the Senate?
"That you're scared of shadows?
"That you're obedient to a woman's importunities?
"This is not behaviour appropriate to Caesar."
Caesar's whole career had been built on courage,
on a readiness to confront risk.
And so, the idea that he, of all men, would start at shadows,
I think it's unthinkable.
And so Caesar is shamed, and he goes to the Senate.
- When Caesar finally leaves his house,
the plan kicks into action.
The conspirators have planned everything in detail,
and they know that they have to isolate Caesar from his supporters.
They need to stop anyone from springing to his defence,
and they need to make it clear that it's only Caesar's tyranny
that they are targeting.
That this isn't going to turn into a bloodbath of all of his supporters.
The one man that they need to prevent from being
at Caesar's side is Mark Antony.
- Antony is a big, strong, powerful man
who's devoted to Julius Caesar.
Antony is kept out of the Senate by way of conversation,
by way of dialogue.
- Caesar goes in as the most important person in Rome.
All kind of senators come up and start asking him for favours,
asking him questions.
- Cassius watches this.
He watches Caesar heading for his, well,
what is effectively his throne,
and sees before him the vindication of why this is necessary.
- As the first conspirator approaches Caesar,
Brutus must be in turmoil.
This is a man he's known his entire life, he has supported him.
In many respects, he's treated him like a son.
And yet, he also poses the greatest threat to the Republic
in its entire 500-year history.
- Caesar is approached by a particularly importunate senator
with a petition.
He pays attention to it...
..and suddenly, he's feeling a searing pain on his neck.
And he looks round, and he sees a man with a dagger.
It's dripping with blood - his blood - and he cries out,
"This is violence! What are you doing?"
There is an authentic tone of shock, of surprise.
- It's deeply shocking to see knives drawn in the Senate.
It's one of the most extraordinary historical moments.
- The blows continue to rain down on Caesar
because it has been agreed by the assassins that all of them must
dip their fingers in Caesar's blood,
all of them must inflict a wound.
The moment when Caesar irrevocably accepts his fate
and surrenders to it...
..is when he sees the face of the man who perhaps
he had most loved, most trusted.
Caesar says to Brutus,
"And you, my boy?"
- As Brutus looks upon the bloody corpse of Caesar,
he's hoping the Senate are going to rush to his side to
show that this was a tyrannicide, justly executed.
But actually, it's a pandemonium.
There's panic and everyone flees.
- As the liberators come out of the Senate house,
they're covered in blood - and understandably,
the people are quite confused about what's happened.
Brutus and Cassius think that they'll be paraded through
the streets as the liberators.
But the people are scared.
It throws Rome into a state of violence once again.
- Brutus and Cassius thought they were saving the Republic.
But all they really achieved was the creation of more chaos.
- The very chaos which Caesar had been trying desperately
to bring under control
is unleashed again.
- And Caesar's body is left there on the marble floor,
surrounded by his own blood.
I think the tragedy of the Roman Republic is that
its greatest man - the man who, in so many ways,
exemplified all its qualities to an absolute pitch of achievement -
those achievements brought the Roman Republic crashing down into rubble.
- Caesar had greatness in many ways.
He was a brilliant military leader, he was a great politician.
But ultimately, the power that he had taken unto himself
corrupted him.
- When Julius Caesar commenced his political career,
he could never have imagined that the Roman Republic
would come to an end.
And he certainly couldn't have imagined that he would be
the agent that brought that about.
And yet, that's what happened in a very short time.
What are the lessons for modern representational systems
that aren't nearly so old?
Could modern democracy collapse?
Perhaps we simply take our political norms for granted.
- There was a moment where the Roman Republic seemed the most
perfect political state on Earth.
Then it had got itself into trouble.
And this reminds us a bit of our own period.
From about 1989, democracy was on the rise.
The number of democracies in the world doubled.
And then, a period of deep, deep uncertainty began,
including the rise of populism.
And it's in that environment authoritarianisms rise,
that strong men come forward to challenge democracy.
- I think the Caesar story really is a wake-up call.
Democracy has to be constantly fought for.
If we take it for granted, a new Caesar will come.
- After 500 years,
the Roman Republic dies with Julius Caesar,
and Rome is plunged once more into civil war.
In the decades that follow,
it will be fought over by Brutus, Cassius,
Mark Anthony, and a boy -
named in Caesar's will as his heir,
Octavian.
Ultimately, Caesar's death marks the beginning of an era of emperors
that will endure for the next 500 years.
- We know that Romans were keen to imagine that people might talk
about them long into the future.
But, of course, 2,000 years on,
we're definitely still talking about Caesar.
And I'm sure that Caesar would be absolutely delighted to know
that his glory, his fame, endures into the present day.