Ancient Worlds
An Ancient society is examined, but not just from a historical point of view. The researchers try to present and approach it as if they lived in that Classical or earlier culture, religion etcetera.
- 2010-2010
- 1 season
- Documentary
An Ancient society is examined, but not just from a historical point of view. The researchers try to present and approach it as if they lived in that Classical or earlier culture, religion etcetera.
Season 1 Episode Guide
6 Episodes 2010
Episode 1
Come Together
58 mins
Archaeologist and historian Richard Miles explores the origins of one of the most profound innovations in our human story - civilisation. Starting in Uruk, the 'mother of all cities', in southern Iraq, he travels to Syria, Egypt, Anatolia and Greece, exploring the challenges posed by this experiment in a new way of being human.
Episode 2
The Age of Iron
60 mins
The program looks at the survivors and losers of the Bronze Age collapse and the civilizations which emerged in the Age of Iron.
Episode 3
The Greek Thing
60 mins
The program explores the blossoming of Greek art, philosophy and culture in the 5th century B.C. and contrasts it with its political discord, social injustice and endless war.
Episode 4
Return of the King
58 mins
Richard Miles traces Alexander the Great's battle-scarred route through Turkey, Syria and Lebanon to Egypt and ultimately to the western Punjab, Pakistan, where he discovers fascinating traces of a city where Greek west and Buddhist east were united in an intriguing new way. It was Alexander's successors, the Hellenistic Kings, who had to make sense of the legacy of this legendary adventurer. By knuckling down to the hard graft of politics, taxation and public works, they created something far more enduring than a mere legend - they built a civilization.
Episode 5
Republic of Virtue
59 mins
How did an insignificant cluster of Latin hill villages on the edge of the civilised world become the greatest empire the world has known? Archaeologist and historian Richard Miles examines the phenomenon of the Roman Republic, from its fratricidal mythical beginnings, with the legend of Romulus and Remus, to the all too real violence of its end, dragged to destruction by war lords like Pompey the Great and Julius Caesar.
Episode 6
City of Man, City of God
59 mins
In the last of the series, Richard Miles examines the rise and fall of the Roman Empire. At the height of its power, the Roman Empire extended the benefits of its civilization to a 60 million citizens and subjects in a swathe of territory that extended from Hadrian's Wall to the banks of the Euphrates. But the material benefits of the 'good order' delivered by Roman rule provided its citizens and subjects with the security to ask profound questions about the meaning of life, questions that the pragmatic, polytheistic Roman belief system was ill-equipped to answer.