Civilisations: Rise And Fall | Preview (BBC Two)

A new iteration of the epic series Civilisations, building on the success of the original and its 2018 reincarnation.

This time, with the help of experts and museum curators, we’ll unpack the story of how art and artefacts left behind by great civilisations can explain how powerful societies in the ancient world suddenly collapsed. From war, to dictatorship, to climate change and pandemic, Civilisations: Rise and Fall (w/t) sets out how the forces that brought about the end of civilisations in the ancient world still threaten us today.

Episode 1: At the turn of the fifth century, the Roman world faces its greatest crisis in 800 years: the sack of Rome in 410 AD. This seismic event marks the beginning of the end for the Western Roman Empire.

In 395 AD, the child emperor Honorius inherits a vast but fragile empire. Guided by General Stilicho, he must control a fractured system plagued by rebellion, economic decline and elite corruption. Gothic peoples, having been recruited by the Roman state but subsequently mistreated, now march against Rome, led by their commander Alaric.

Episode 2: A look at the rise and fall of one of history’s most bloodstained dynasties, the Ptolemies, the last pharaohs of Egypt.

The 3,000-year-old civilisation of ancient Egypt faces disaster as civil war between Queen Cleopatra and her brother, a famine caused by the failure of the Nile's flood cycle and the increasing dominance of Rome threaten its survival. Will Cleopatra become the last of the pharaohs?

Episode 3: At its height, the Aztec civilisation is a vast and well-organised society, ruled by Emperor Moctezuma II and centred on the spectacular island city of Tenochtitlan, containing around 100,000 people.

But in 1519, the arrival of an avaricious band of Spanish conquistadors, led by Hernan Cortes, becomes one of the most fateful moments in world history, as the fault lines in the Aztec world are exposed.

Episode 4: A look at the dramatic collision between Japan’s samurai class and the industrialised west in the mid-19th century, explored through the characters of US naval commander Commodore Matthew Perry, eager to establish a US-Japan trade route; the shogun, the Japanese ruler, aiming to keep his grip on power; and the samurai Saigo Takamori, a Japanese warrior and reformer dedicated to protecting Japan’s independence.

Civilisations: Rise And Fall begins Monday 24th November on BBC Two.