Ancient Worlds

Archaeologist and historian Richard Miles explores the roots of civilisation in the first episode of a series that runs from the creation of the first cities in Mesopotamia some 6,000 years ago, to the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. Starting in Uruk, the `mother of all cities', in southern Iraq, Richard travels to Syria, Egypt, Anatolia and Greece, tracing the birth and development of technology and culture.

Richard looks at the winners and losers of the great Bronze Age collapse, and the new powers that emerged in the harder-edged Age of Iron.

Richard Miles explores the power and the paradox of the `Greek Thing' - a blossoming in art, philosophy and science that went hand-in-hand with political discord, social injustice and endless war. He paints a fascinating picture of the internal and external pressures that fuelled this unique political and social experiment, one that would pioneer many of the political systems that we still live with today.

Richard Miles traces the battle-scarred career of Alexander the Great, from Greece through Turkey, Syria and Lebanon to Egypt and ultimately Pakistan, where he discovers fascinating traces of a city in which Greek west and Buddhist east were united in an intriguing new way. However it would be Alexander's successors, the Hellenistic Kings, who had to make sense of the legacy of this charismatic adventurer.

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.

Richard Miles examines the rise and fall of the Roman Empire. 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 Roman belief system was ill-equipped to answer. Christianity grew to fill the spiritual vacuum, and the City of Man was eclipsed the City of God.