- For over a century, the Roman Coliseum has hosted the most grueling and bloddy

games in human history, fought and won by the Roman Gladiator.

HOST v.: to provide the space and other things necessary for a special event.

GRUELING adj.: extremely tiring and difficult, and demanding great effort and determintation.

- At the end of the second century, the Roman people witness a game like no other.

WITNESS v.: to see something happen, especially an accident or crime.

- For the first time in history a Roman Emperor will fight to the death.
- All hail Commodus, Emperor of Rome!
- Commodus’s reign will mark the beggining of the fall of the greatest civilization on
Earth.

REIGN n.: the period of time when king or queen rules a country.

- But his story begins more than a decade earlier

- By the end of the second century, there’s no civilization as massive or as powerful as
the Roman Empire.
- Almost one of the five people on Earth lives within the Empire’s boundaries and is on
the rule of one of the most powerful men on the planet, the Roman Emperor Marco
Aurelius.

WITHIN prep. Adv.: inside or not further than an area or period of time.

- For more than a decade, Aurelius has waged war to defend the Empire’s reach.

WAGE v.: to fight a war or organize a serie of activities in order to achieve something.

REACH: the limit within which someone can achieve something.

- And he reigns over a territory that spans thounsands of miles.

SPIN v.: to move quickly, or to move quickly in a vehicle.

- From Western Europe to the Middle East, through parts of Africa and the entire
Mediterranean.
- Marcus Aureluis was considered really one of the most successful Emperors.
- He was not just Emperor, but he was a distinguished philosopher.
- He was a student of Epictetus, who was the leading of Stoic philosopher of the day,
and he was a gifted philosophical writer in his own right.

LEADING adj.: very important or most important.

GIFTED: adj.: having special ability in a particular subject or ability

- His meditaions are still read today.

- Over the last century, Rome has been built into one of the most advanced cities in the
ancient world.
- And, under Aurelius’s reign, it’s given rise to a modern era.
- The Roman Empire in the second century was a formidable global superpower.
- The y had the most proficient military forces.

PROFICIENT adj.: skilled and experienced

 - They ruled the most civilized array of people.

ARRAY n.: a large group of people or things, especially one that is atracctive or causes
admiration or has been positioned in a particular way.

- There was anything that you wanted by Roman standars, you could find in their
empire.
- And what kept this empire together was a incredible efficent array of infrastructure.
- Anceint Rome during this this time was the greatest empire that the world had ever
known.
- It was responsible for enormous advances in technology such as the system of Roman
roads or the aqueducts that supplied water.

SUCH det.: used before a noun or noun phrase to add emphasis.

- The city of Rome itself had reached one million people.

- So it was the first large-scale urban metropolis.
- Marcus Aurelius rules over 50 million people within the boundaries of the Roman
Empire.
- And no one lives better than his son: Commodus.
- The problem that was ushered in by Marcus Aurelius, when instead of doing what his
predecessors had done, and adopting a person who was qualified, by temperament,
and upbringing, and training to serve as Emperor, instead wanted his son to succed
him.

USHER v.: to show someone where they should go, or to make someone go where you want
them to go.

UPBRINGING n.: the way in which you treated and educated when young, especially by your
parents, especially in relation to the effect that this has on how you beahve and make moral
decisions .

- Commodus was the the first Emperor who was ever born to a sitting emperor
- Growing up the son of an emperor, as someone who was raised from birth to succed
his father, we have to imagine that Commodus’s ego had no place to go.
- Knowing that he would have this role, that this had planted some seed in his mind that
he was, in some sense, extraordinary.

SEED n.: a small, round or oval object produced by a plant and from which, when it is planted,
a new plant can grow.

- Do you kwon what time it is? Early. I’m sending you to Germania. What? Why?
Because all you do here is drink and play with whores. But there´s a war. It’ll teach you
discipline. I’m not going anywhere. It’s already been decided. Your father’s expecting
you.

WHORE n.: a female prostitute.

- When you think about Commodus, who had more, personally, and more, historically,
going for him than any other human being previous in the history of human existence..
I mean, in fact, no Roman Emperor for 80 years had had a son.
 - However, one would be very, very hard pressed to find a less intellectually, less
energic, less motivated person with that type of responsibility in the whole of human
history.
- Against his will, Commodus has been called to Germania.

WILL n.: what someone wants to happen.

- Ordered to train under his father to become the next Emperor.

- Hundreds of miles from Rome, along the borders of the Empire, massive armies of
Germanic tribes are invading Roman territory.
- And the Roman military has been called to the front lines.
- With one of the strongest ground and naval forces in the world, the Roman military is
made up of hundreds of thounsands of highly trained soldiers, equipped with the
latest weaponry, and prepared to defend the Empire’s borders at all costs.

WEAPONRY n.: weapons in general.

- There was the problem of Rome’s neighbors.

- Both to the east, and to the north.
- The Parthians to the east and Germanic tribes to the north, which were a threat.

THREAT n.: a suggestion that something unpleasant or violent will happen, especially if a
particular action or order is not followed.

- Romans had been fighting Germans, at this point, for 250 years.
- And the border on the Danube had always been a problem.
- And in fact, as it turns out, always would be a problem.
- The Roman army was the most formidable fighting machine that the ancient world had
seen.
- The basis for their success was less their capacity for killing, and more their capacity
for entrenchment.

ENTRENCHMENT n.: the procces by which ideas become fixed and cannot be changed.

- It was a capacity for digging fortresses, for fashioning all the infrastructure of a frontier
force, that served to ensure that the Roman frontiers were essentially guarded and
held secure.

DIG v.: to break up and move soil using a tool, a machine or your hands.

FASHION v.: to make something using your hands.

ENSURE v.: to make something certain to happen.

GUARDED adj.: careful not to give too much information or show how you really feel.

HELD adj: kept and maintained.