Episode II: "Total War"
In 400 BC, Rome is 300 years old and has conquered its nearest neighbours, the Etruscans. The Republic is now a seemingly invincible city state, until a sudden and cataclysmic event turns everything on its head. Searching for evidence of this dramatic story, Larry Lamb begins his quest at the Termini Train Station in central Rome.
Larry discovers how Rome was attacked by the Gauls in the Battle of Allia during a war that was to last three years. The city survived, but only just, and the leaders resolved to never come so close to destruction again. Deciding that the best form of defence is attack, the Republic began a century of aggressive expansion. Soon, Roman control of Italy stretched all the way to the tip of its southern toe.
To find out what happened next, Larry heads to Erice, an ancient citadel on the beautiful island of Sicily. He discovers how Rome's expansion brought it into conflict with another great Mediterranean power – the Carthaginians.
Larry's journey continues to Tunisia, where the ancient ruins of Kerkouane reveal that the Carthaginians were every bit as formidable and sophisticated as the Romans. Larry learns how these two civilisations came to despise each other and how their rivalry soon spiralled into a bitter, brutal and protracted war, fought across the Mediterranean. He reveals how the Romans built a navy from scratch and took on the Carthaginians at sea and how the great Carthaginian general Hannibal responded by taking his army across the Alps and laying siege to Rome itself.
Finally, amongst the ancient ruins of Carthage in Tunisia, Larry sees for himself the chilling evidence of the Republic's act of genocide that finally ended one hundred years of conflict, and left Rome master of the Mediterranean.
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