What causes cultures to decline and fall?
发布时间 2025-11-26 00:00:00 来源
Welcome to the History Extra Podcast, fascinating historical conversations from the makers of BBC History magazine. Why do cultures fall? Do the inhabitants of a civilisation in decline always know that it's happening, and were disease and invasion not the only factors to blame for the final days of the Aztec Empire? These are some of the questions tackled in the new BBC TV series Civilisations Rise and Fall, and I was joined by three of its experts, Luke Kemp, Caroline Dodd's Pennock and Islamisa, to learn more about these stories and why they're more complicated than we might at first expect. I kicked off by asking the three experts to introduce themselves, beginning with Luke.
欢迎收听《历史Extra播客》，由BBC历史杂志带来的精彩历史对话。为什么文明会衰落？一个文明在衰退时，其居民总是知道这个过程正在发生吗？疾病和入侵是否是导致阿兹特克帝国灭亡的唯一原因？这些问题在BBC新电视系列《文明的兴衰》中有所探讨。我邀请了该节目的三位专家——卢克·坎普、卡罗琳·多兹·佩诺克和伊斯拉米萨，来为我们讲解这些故事，以及为何它们比我们最初想象的要复杂。我首先请三位专家做自我介绍，从卢克开始。
I am Luke Kemp. I'm a research affiliate at the Centre for the Study of Extential Risk at the University of Cambridge. In short, my job is to think about the very worst case scenarios for the future, not just global societal collapse, but also potentially even things like human extinction. In a lot of my work, I've also tried to look not just to the future, but to the past. I'm Islamisa. I'm British Egyptian historian. I've written a history of the City of Alexandria, and I'm professor of Public Humanities at Birmingham City University. I'm Caroline Dodd's Pennock. I'm professor of International History at the University of Sheffield. I started as a historian of the Aztec Meshika people, and then more recently I've been working on Indigenous American travellers to Europe after 1492. Thank you all so much for being here.
我是卢克·坎普。我是剑桥大学存在风险研究中心的研究员。简单来说，我的工作是考虑未来最糟糕的情况，不仅包括全球社会的崩溃，还有可能涉及人类的灭绝。在我的许多研究中，我不仅关注未来，也回顾历史。
我是伊斯兰萨。我是英裔埃及历史学家。我写过亚历山大城的历史，并且是伯明翰城市大学公共人文学的教授。
我是卡罗琳·多兹·佩诺克。我是谢菲尔德大学的国际历史教授。我起初研究的是阿兹特克墨西哥人，最近的研究方向是1492年后前往欧洲的美洲土著旅行者。
非常感谢大家的到来。
We are here today to talk about the BBC's new series of civilizations, which is subtitled Rise and Fall. To kick us off, could I go to Luke first? What do we mean when we talk about a culture falling or collapsing? It's important to be clear this doesn't mean an ancient apocalypse. It doesn't mean the complete end to a social order, nor that everyone dies. Claps is a process with costs and benefits, winners and losers. And to me at least, claps is essentially about the breakdown of different types of power structures, when the state fails, we call it state failure or a state collapse. When the economy breaks down, we refer to it as an economic bust or an economic collapse. And when a population falls dramatically, we call it a population bust. When all these different power systems start to fall together, we often refer to it as a side eclipse. But of course it does vary across each individual case study.
我们今天在这里讨论BBC的新系列《文明》，它的副标题是《兴衰》。首先，我想请卢克发言。我们在谈论一个文化的衰落或崩溃时是什么意思呢？重要的是要明确，这并不意味着古代的世界末日，也不意味着社会秩序的完全终结，也不是所有人都消亡。崩溃是一个有利有弊的过程，有赢家也有输家。至少对我来说，崩溃本质上是不同类型的权力结构的瓦解。当一个国家的体制失败时，我们称之为国家失败或国家崩溃；当经济崩溃时，我们称之为经济衰退或经济崩溃；当人口急剧减少时，我们称之为人口减少。当这些不同的权力系统同时开始崩溃时，我们通常称之为文明的日食。当然，这在每一个个案研究中都会有所不同。
And to ask a question of all of you, I suppose, why do you think it's revealing to focus on collapse or fall? Why do you think the approach of this series is particularly revealing? One of the aims is always to use history to inform both an understanding where we are now. It also to understand that can we take lessons to better navigate the challenges we face today? One thing viewers will see is that many of the challenges faced by these past societies are reflected in our own things like competition, warfare, climate change, internal rebellion, inequality, poor leadership. These are all things that have happened throughout history and different societies had different ways of dealing with these to better and for worse. And it's only been looking at the track record, we can have a better understanding of how to think through our own future as well.
我想问问大家，为什么你们认为关注崩溃或衰亡是很有启发性的？你们为什么觉得这个系列的这种切入点特别有启发意义？其中一个目标一直是利用历史来帮助我们理解我们目前所处的位置。它还帮助我们理解是否可以从中汲取教训，以更好地应对今天的挑战？观众会看到，以往社会面临的许多挑战，如竞争、战争、气候变化、内部叛乱、不平等、领导不力等，也在我们社会中有所体现。这些问题贯穿历史，不同的社会以不同的方式应对，有些更好，有些更糟。只有通过回顾这些过往，我们才能更好地理解如何思考我们自己的未来。
And Caroline, what's your sense of this? I guess for me, I would sort of almost take a similar but opposite approach, which is to say that what's so interesting about this is how relatable it is. But it's more in terms of the people who experience this. So as a cultural historian, I come at this in terms of thinking about how these societies, which are often other, they're created as kind of especially the Aztec Moshika, who I study as these kind of barbarian past civilization, they actually faced very relatable challenges, very relatable problems. And also lived in incredibly sophisticated, complex ways that are not so very different to our own.
卡罗琳，你怎么看待这一点？对我来说，我可能会采取一种相似但相反的观点，我认为这件事如此有趣的地方在于它的可关联性。具体来说，是那些经历过这种事情的人。从一个文化历史学家的角度，我思考这些社会，尤其是我研究的阿兹特克和莫希卡文化，往往被视作野蛮的过去文明。然而，他们实际上面临着非常相似的挑战和问题。此外，他们的生活也非常复杂和精密，与我们现代社会并没有太大的不同。
Islam, what's your take on this? Well, we have these great civilizations who were all powerful, who'd made huge advances in so many different fields, who thought that they were the ultimate epoch that they were immovable, undefeatable. And they all fall, so to speak, for different reasons, which I think is fascinating. But there's also a lot of comparative points, despite them being in different parts of the world and during different eras, there are similarities in the sense that they didn't think they would fall. And I think there's a huge lesson in that. So for me, that's rising for transcends time and space. And that comparative approach is really interesting.
伊斯兰，你对此有何看法？我们曾经有过那些强大的文明，他们在许多不同领域取得了巨大的进步，认为自己是不可动摇、不可战胜的巅峰时代。然而，这些文明都因为不同的原因而衰落，我觉得这很让人着迷。但即便这些文明处于世界的不同地方和不同的时代之间，仍有许多相似之处，比如他们都不认为自己会衰落。我认为其中有一个重要的教训。因此，对我来说，这种崛起的过程超越了时间和空间。这种对比性的研究方法真的很有趣。
And I wanted to return to it later on in the discussion. Before we do that, I thought it was worth focusing in a little bit on some of the specific areas that the series covers. Islam, can I come to you first? Can you focus through the disastrous period the ancient Egypt faced, which the series focuses on? And if you think our view of it and its major players is unfair? Yeah, those are big questions. The series focuses on the tolamies and it's essentially the move or the end of the ferronic period. So we need to we wouldn't call it ancient Egypt, we'd call it the ferronic period when there was a ferro. And it's the end of that period and the move towards Roman rule.
我想在讨论中稍后再回到这个话题。在此之前，我认为值得先关注一下这个系列涵盖的一些具体领域。伊斯兰，我能先请你谈谈吗？你能否详细讲解一下古埃及所经历的那段灾难时期，这也是这个系列的重点内容？你是否认为我们对这段历史及其主要人物的看法不公平？这些确实是很大的问题。这个系列的重点是托勒密王朝的终结，实际上是法老时代的结束，也就是古埃及时期的终结，向罗马统治的转变。需要注意的是，我们不会称其为古埃及，而是称其为法老时期，因为当时有法老的存在。这是那个时代的结束，以及向罗马统治过渡的时期。
When we think that Egypt had a ferro since the fourth millennium BC and that the tolamies were in power from the fourth century BC and then moving to the first century BC. So to the time of the most famous Cleopatra, Cleopatra the seventh. So her ancestors, the tolamies had been ruling Egypt for about three centuries. And like I said, Egypt has had a ferro for about three millennia when it was unified around 3,100 BC. So it's the end of a very significant time in Egypt's history, the ferronic period, and it's a move towards that Roman period in terms of the second part of that question.
当我们想到埃及自公元前四千纪就有法老，而托勒密家族从公元前四世纪开始掌权，然后一直延续到公元前一世纪，也就是最著名的克娄巴特拉七世的时代。她的祖先托勒密家族在埃及统治了大约三百年。正如我之前说的，埃及自大约公元前3100年统一以来，就有了三千年的法老统治。因此，这是埃及历史上一个非常重要时期的结束——法老时代，并且在你提到的问题的第二部分中，这是向罗马时期的过渡。
The fact that the Romans were victorious against the tolamies and against Cleopatra in particular means that a lot of the sources that we have about that time and particularly about that figure of Cleopatra are extremely biased because they tried to show have somebody a woman and a foreign woman at that Egyptian woman could have caused such havoc to have their great warriors, to have their great leaders in Julius Caesar and Mark Antony. Plus the fact that the library of Alexandria was destroyed and that ancient or tolamic Alexandria is either underwater or under the ground means that we have very scarce sources if any from Cleopatra herself and her people about that period and about her and much of the writing came from Octavian who is the person who ultimately defeated her to become the first Roman Emperor.
罗马人在与托勒密王朝的战争中获胜，特别是在与克利奥帕特拉的斗争中取得的胜利，导致我们现存的许多关于那个时期，尤其是关于克利奥帕特拉的史料极具倾向性。这些史料试图说明，一个女人，尤其是一个外国女人——一个埃及女人——竟然能给伟大的战士们，以及像尤里乌斯·凯撒和马克·安东尼这样伟大的领导者，带来如此大的麻烦。此外，由于亚历山大图书馆的被毁，以及古代或托勒密王朝的亚历山大城要么被水淹没，要么埋在地下，这意味着我们几乎找不到来自克利奥帕特拉本人及其人民的史料。关于那个时期和她的很多记载都是出自于最终打败她并成为罗马首位皇帝的屋大维之手。
So is it the case then that some of our understanding of this period of history is still being refracted through propaganda from the time? I'd say the answer is yes, that much of what we know is from the Roman sources, either from Octavian or from texts that he commissioned and even later historians like Plutarch for example who really made Cleopatra's suicide quite famous through his writing and through whom even writers like Shakespeare use that as a source.
那么，是不是我们对这一历史时期的某些理解仍然受到当时宣传的影响呢？我认为答案是肯定的。我们所了解的很多信息都来源于罗马的史料，这些史料要么出自屋大维之手，要么是他委托撰写的。甚至后来的一些历史学家，比如普鲁塔克，也通过他的著作让克丽奥帕特拉的自杀变得广为人知，甚至像莎士比亚这样的作家也将其作为创作来源。
We do see that the propaganda from the Romans does continue through today and in some way, but I think it was coming in a way because the story of the fall of the ferronic Egypt or of the tolamies started much before Cleopatra. Her father was tolamy the 12th, they were mostly called tolamian Cleopatra. So she's Cleopatra the 7th, her father tolamy the 12th had been borrowing money from the Romans and actually using it to bribe Roman politicians.
我们确实看到，罗马的宣传一直延续到今天，并且以某种方式持续着。不过，我认为早在这之前就有了这样的故事，比如说关于古埃及的灭亡或托勒密王朝的故事。这些故事早在克娄巴特拉之前就已经开始了。克娄巴特拉的父亲是托勒密十二世，他们大多被称为托勒密王朝的克娄巴特拉。所以克娄巴特拉是第七代，她的父亲托勒密十二世曾向罗马人借钱，并实际用这些钱贿赂罗马的政客。
He'd sought Roman support. You know, in today's money, 10,000 talents, he paid to Rome is probably about 200 million pounds so that they could reinvade Alexandria for him. Her ancestors prior to that tolamy the 10th had borrowed money from the Romans and had put down really Egypt as collateral interestingly that if Egypt doesn't have a legitimate heir that the Romans could capitalize on that and Julius Caesar knew that. And so Cleopatra faced many challenges and Roman interference had already started when she took power in 51 BC. So there are longer term, more significant problems at work here rather than just simply this being the story of one person and their decisions.
他曾寻求罗马的支持。用今天的货币来算，他支付给罗马的10,000塔兰特，可能相当于2亿英镑，以便他们能重新入侵亚历山大城帮他。更早之前，她的祖先托勒密十世曾向罗马借钱，并以埃及为抵押。有趣的是，如果埃及没有合法继承人，罗马人可以利用这一点，尤利乌斯·凯撒对此心知肚明。因此，当克娄巴特拉在公元前51年掌权时，她面临许多挑战，而罗马的干预早已开始。所以，这里存在着更长期、更重大的问题，而不只是单单一个人的故事和他们的决定。
Yes, it's the story of cultures, this series shows, it's the story of dynasties, social systems, theologies. All of these things come together to create both the rise of a civilization and indeed the fall of a civilization. In the case of Cleopatra the 7th, we had factors like a reduced harvest. So there were economic factors hunger, civil unrest, inflation. So all sorts of issues controllable and uncontrollable, natural disasters or economic decisions that began the process or sped up the process of the fall.
是的，这个系列讲述了文化的故事，也涉及王朝、社会制度和神学的故事。这些因素共同促成了一个文明的崛起，当然也包括其衰落。以克娄巴特拉七世为例，当时出现了减产等因素。因此，有经济问题、饥饿、社会动荡和通货膨胀等各种可控和不可控的问题，以及自然灾害或经济决策，这些都开始或加速了衰落的进程。
And then we also have personal things like the sibling rivalry that's very much the center of the story of the tolamies that she did fight against her siblings and that she did choose to ally herself with Julius Caesar in the hope that their son, who's this fantastic or hardly believable. An algorithm of two huge names, Julius Caesar and Cleopatra, Siserian, Little Caesar, the chief placed her bets on him becoming heir to Rome, which didn't end up happening when Caesar was assassinated in 44 BC because he was followed by his great nephew Octavian and her plan was ultimately shattered.
然后，我们还有一些个人层面的事情，比如说兄弟姐妹之间的竞争，这在托勒密王朝的故事中是很重要的中心点。她确实与她的兄弟姐妹争斗，并选择与尤利乌斯·凯撒结盟，希望他们的儿子能成为罗马的继承人。这个儿子是令人难以置信的伟大人物，是尤利乌斯·凯撒和克利奥帕特拉这两个巨人名字的结合体，被称为小凯撒（Siserian）。她把希望寄托在他身上，希望他能成为罗马的继承人。然而，当凯撒在公元前44年被暗杀后，这一愿望并未实现，因为凯撒的继任者是他的侄孙屋大维，这使她的计划最终破灭。
It's really interesting to get into the history of some of these stories. Caroline, to come to you, what were the 16th century experiences of the Aztec Empire? And I suppose in what ways do you think there are a binder of how complex these stories can be?
深入了解这些故事背后的历史真的很有趣。卡罗琳，谈到你这边，16世纪的阿兹特克帝国经历了什么？我想知道你认为在什么方面可以体现出这些故事的复杂性？
Well, I suppose to take the second part of your question first. The complexity of these stories is really fascinating because actually our image of this period is filtered almost entirely through post invasion sources after the Spanish invade the Aztecs because one of the things that they do as soon as they arrive and conquer the city, is to instigate a huge destruction of this vast pictographic culture, this incredible legal records, religious records, political records, people have compared it to the conflagration of the Library of Alexandria. You have the destruction of an enormous body of knowledge. So again, we're reading these stories through classically the history is written by the victims. And so as a historian of the indigenous world, I'm pushing all the time to try and read the opposite.
嗯，我想先回答你问题的第二个部分。这些故事的复杂性非常吸引人，因为我们对这一时期的印象几乎完全是通过西班牙人入侵阿兹特克后留下的资料形成的。在他们抵达并征服这座城市后，他们立刻对庞大的象形文字文化、令人难以置信的法律记录、宗教记录和政治记录进行了大规模的破坏。有人将其比作亚历山大图书馆的大火，意味着大量知识的毁灭。因此，经典上我们是通过受害者撰写的历史来了解这些故事的。作为一名研究土著世界的历史学家，我一直在努力尝试反向阅读这些资料。
And so in some ways it's incredibly similar, but in others very different. This is not a society that actually is experiencing particular hunger most of the time or particular civil unrest. It's an enormous city that dominates over a huge empire. So at its largest, which is when the Spanish arrive in 1519, the Aztec Empire stretches across about 80,000 square miles, 200,000 square kilometers. Mostly in what's now Mexico, it's maybe five to six million vassal peoples in over 500 allied and subject cities. So what you have is this vast but not entirely stable empire that is ruled over by a city that even in modern times is incredibly sophisticated. You have relative gender egalitarianism in some ways compared to most societies of that period rich, artistic and poetic cultures, loving families, but also an enormous focus on being a successful war like culture.
从某些方面来看，这与现代社会非常相似，但在其他方面却截然不同。这不是一个经常经历饥饿或内乱的社会。这里是一座巨大的城市，统治着一个庞大的帝国。这个帝国在达到巅峰时——即1519年西班牙人到来之际，阿兹特克帝国的版图横跨约80,000平方英里，约200,000平方公里。主要位于现今的墨西哥境内，拥有约五到六百万的附庸人民，分布在500多个盟城和附属城市。因此，这个帝国规模巨大，但并非完全稳定，统治它的城市即便在现代也显示出极高的复杂性。与当时大多数社会相比，在某些方面表现出相对的性别平等，拥有丰富的艺术和诗歌文化、充满爱的家庭，但同时也极其注重成为一个成功的尚武文化。
That's how they see themselves a culture that can dominate this enormous empire. And do you think there's any aspects of this story that we should focus on much more than we do? I think that is the question that any indigenous historian would want to be asked because really, although we're talking about rise and fall here and very much it is one of the fastest collapses of an enormous empire that exists in history. I think one of the things that gets forgotten is the people that endure after the fall.
他们就是这样看待自己：一个能够主宰这个庞大帝国的文化。你认为在这个故事中，有哪些方面是我们应该更多关注的？我认为这是任何一位本土历史学家都会想被问到的问题，因为虽然我们谈论的是帝国的兴衰，而且这的确是历史上最快速崩溃的庞大帝国之一，但往往被遗忘的一点是：帝国灭亡后的幸存者。
So when we use words like collapse, it leads us to think that the entire thing simply fell to pieces and it almost plays into a really dangerous trope, which is the idea that indigenous civilizations disappeared that they don't exist anymore. A million people still speak the Aztec language of Nawat in Mexico today. Their descendants become part of the colonial infrastructure they intermarry with the Spanish. Much of their culture continues their society remains vibrant even in the face of devastating disease, warfare, enslavement. And so I know it kind of cuts against the point of the series a little bit, which is to look at that moment of rise and fall, but that continuity is what I would want to emphasize as an Aztec historian.
所以，当我们使用“崩溃”这样的词时，它会让我们以为整个事物完全破碎，这几乎迎合了一种非常危险的观念，即认为土著文明已经消失了，不再存在。然而，今天在墨西哥仍有一百万人讲阿兹特克语言——纳瓦特语。他们的后代成为殖民体系的一部分，与西班牙人通婚。他们的文化在许多方面得以延续，即便面临毁灭性的疾病、战争和奴役，他们的社会依然充满活力。因此，虽然这有点偏离此系列的主旨，即关注兴衰瞬间，但作为一名阿兹特克历史学家，我想强调的是其文化的延续性。
Luke, listening to this, obviously what we're talking about here is a range of complications and some parallels, but also a story that needs careful navigating. What's your sense of the extent to which we can draw parallels around the moments at which cultures start to decline? I believe we can when we think about collapse or even resilience, we tend to think about risk and risk is composed of four factors. The hazard vulnerability exposure and response. Your hazard is essentially the thing that causes damage. So this could be a tsunami or it could be an invader. Your vulnerability is the fact that you don't have the infrastructure for instance to withstand the tsunami.
卢克，听到这里，很显然我们在讨论一系列的复杂因素和一些相似之处，同时这也是一个需要小心处理的故事。你觉得我们在多大程度上可以把文化开始衰退的时刻进行类比？我认为可以，当我们考虑崩溃甚至复原时，我们倾向于思考风险，而风险由四个因素组成：危险、脆弱性、暴露和应对。你的危险基本上就是导致损害的事物，比如可能是海啸，也可能是入侵者。你的脆弱性则是指你没有足够的基础设施来抵御海啸，比如说。
You're vulnerable to being hit by the damages and cope by the hazard. The exposure of course that you actually stand in the path of the tsunami and the responses how you react can make it better or worse. And the case of every single one of these case studies, I have a range different vulnerabilities and hazards. Rome has both Germanic mercenaries operating inside of it. It also has genetic invaders on the outside as well. It faces yes, things like chromatic change, drought, disease, but it also has incredibly sclerotic set of institutions, a huge amount of wealth inequality and elite competition, particularly during the third century crisis.
你很容易受到损害的打击，并通过应对危险来度过难关。你确实暴露在风险之中，就像真正站在海啸路径上，而你的反应方式可以让情况变好或变糟。在每一个案例研究中，我都发现了一系列不同的脆弱性和危险。罗马内部有来自日耳曼的雇佣兵活动，外部也有基因上的入侵者。同时，它还面临气候变化、干旱、疾病等问题，但它也有极其僵化的制度、巨大的财富不平等和精英之间的竞争，尤其是在第三世纪危机期间。
Likewise, the stroke and eight has both common or peri in vain during 1853 and they also have a very rigid class structure. They have inflation economic hardship, appetite internally. It's never one thing. It's always a constellation of both internal vulnerability and external hazards coming together.
同样，在1853年击球和八人划船项目都出现了常见或周期性的徒劳无功，同时它们也有非常严格的阶级结构。他们还面临通货膨胀带来的经济困难和内部的需求问题。这从来不是单一因素造成的，总是内部脆弱性和外部风险共同作用的结果。
And two things on a pickup on here, which I think also run across all the case studies. Islam mentioned one, which is we often have a somewhat distorted view of many of these case studies. And we often have the often told from the victors and the invaders and quite frequently told from the powerful describe this as the 1% view of history that in general, we tend to have access to written documents that only come from essentially scribes working at the heart of kings or the rich.
在这里谈到的两点，我认为在所有案例研究中都适用。Islam提到一点，就是我们对许多案例研究的看法往往有些扭曲。我们通常听到的故事都是由胜利者、入侵者以及那些掌握权力的人讲述的，这可以被称为“1%的历史视角”。通常，我们能接触到的书面文献大多来自国王或富人身边的文书记录。
And likewise most tools architecture buildings, etc. That we have easy access to tend to do things like palces, cigarettes, pyramids, etc. And we have a lot less idea of what the average person is during these collapses. And I think one thing Caroline said here is very important, which is what the power structure often collapses or parts that do the people and the cultures usually endure.
同样地，大多数我们容易接触到的工具、建筑等，往往与宫殿、香烟、金字塔等类似。同时，我们对普通人在这些崩溃过程中做什么了解得要少得多。我认为Caroline在这里说的一点非常重要，那就是权力结构常常会崩溃或者分崩离析，而人们和文化通常都是持久存在的。
And we see this across every single one of the case studies, obviously in the case the Aztecs, even things like the taxation system are picked up by the invaders, for instance, and much the ability go on to basically serve under the new Spanish conquistadors. And it's not like the Germans take over and decide to change everything. They adopt Roman language, customs, taxation system, etc.
我们在每一个案例研究中都能看到这种现象。以阿兹特克人为例，即使是像税收制度这样的东西也被入侵者吸取利用，很多原居民得以在新西班牙征服者的统治下继续生存。而这和德国人接管后没有决定改变一切的情况类似，他们采用了罗马的语言、习俗、税收制度等。
So while we think about this as collapse, it's really about the collapse of power structure, not the entire civilization in terms of its people and culture. You mentioned there the built environment and artifacts and something I want to pick up a little bit is whether there's any objects or artifacts in the series or from these cultures that you'd like to highlight that particularly interesting or I suppose reflective of these wider themes.
虽然我们将这种情况视为崩溃，但实际上是指权力结构的崩溃，而不是整个文明在人口和文化方面的消亡。你提到了建筑环境和文物，这让我想到是否有任何在这系列或这些文化中值得强调的物品或文物，它们特别有趣，或反映了这些更广泛的主题。
Caroline, can I come to you first? Fascinatingly the objects do in fact reflect what Lukas saying, which is that we tend to get an elite point of view through these artifacts because certainly for the Aztec world what survives is what's rich and what's beautiful and often what's been passed down to us because this is a collaboration with the British Museum in the series.
卡罗琳，我能先请你分享一下吗？有趣的是，这些物品确实反映了卢卡斯所说的，我们通常通过这些文物获得精英视角。因为对于阿兹特克世界来说，能保存下来的往往是那些富贵和美丽的东西，这是因为在这个系列中我们与大英博物馆进行了合作。
So it's some of the great treasures of the museum that are being highlighted in civilisations in I've got a preview and it was just wonderful the way that they're being filmed. But it does again point us towards often elite peoples and points of view and there was one that I wanted to mention because it doesn't which is what's called the codex or bar which is also a tonalpo highly that's what the indigenous people will call it a book of days.
博物馆的一些珍贵珍品在“文明”展览中被重点展示。我看了预览，展现方式真是精彩。不过，这展览往往还是倾向于聚焦精英群体及其视角，但我想提到一个不一样的展品，那就是被称为“手稿”或“吧”，也是土著人称为“书日历”的“托纳尔波”。
And this is an incredible tiny beautifully inscribed book which uses the indigenous calendar and imagery alongside alphabetic and now what text to tell the histories of the Aztec people from before the invasion up until 1604 I think it is that it ends. And it's just wonderful for me because you see the ways in which people in the pre invasion and then in the invasion period and after are recording and rewriting their histories and making them meaningful in the present because the indigenous me so American peoples believed in a cyclical history where things would come round again and would be repeated.
这是一本文字精美的微型书，书中结合了土著历法和图像，以及字母文字，叙述了阿兹特克人从入侵前直到1604年的历史。对我来说，这本书非常奇妙，因为你可以看到这些人在入侵前、入侵期间及之后如何记录和重写他们的历史，并使之在当下有意义。这是因为美洲土著人民相信历史是循环的，事情会重演。
And so they highlight not just this happened in this day or this ruler but particular kind of exemplary moments and events and the codex is so wonderful for that you see the foundation of tenosh titlan you see the moments of invasion you see moments when people see their culture being revived and revitalised and continuing after the invasion and it's all through these incredible tiny drawings which we were lucky to see in the museum itself at the launch.
因此，它们不仅强调某一天或某位统治者发生的事件，还特别突出了一些典范的时刻和事件。手抄本在这方面非常出色，你可以看到特诺奇提特兰的建立、入侵的时刻，还有人们目睹自己的文化经过入侵后被复兴和振兴、持续发展的时刻。而这一切都通过一些精彩的微小图画展现出来，我们很幸运地在博物馆的发布会上亲眼看到了这些图像。
I had never seen it up close and it was really really wonderful. I'm going to offer a slight provocation actually which is that from an Egyptian perspective and it could be seen as slightly different we believe we have seven columns we call them of Egyptian identity and ferronic is just one of them.
我以前从未近距离看到过它，真是非常美妙。其实，我想稍微提出一个不同的看法，从埃及的角度来看，我们认为埃及的身份有七个支柱，而法老文化只是其中之一。
So we are ferronic, greco, roman, coptic, muslim, arab, african and mediterranean. And why do I say that because the rise and fall actually reminds me of a kind of it's a phrase we use with tragic heroes for example, rise and fall.
所以，我们是铁器时代的、希腊的、罗马的、科普特的、穆斯林的、阿拉伯的、非洲的，也是地中海的。为什么我要这么说呢？因为兴衰起伏让我想起了我们常用来形容悲剧英雄的一句话：兴起与衰落。
A tragic hero is neither fully good nor fully bad but a mixture of both and in many ways the rise and fall in the Egyptian context is neither fully good nor fully bad because Egypt adapts to roman ideas and ideals and the Roman becomes one of the Egyptian identities through the Egyptian context.
一个悲剧英雄既不是完全的好人，也不是完全的坏人，而是两者的混合体。在埃及的背景下，兴衰也是如此，既不完全是好的，也不完全是坏的，因为埃及接受了罗马的思想和观念，罗马元素也融入到了埃及的身份认同中。
Through its fascinating history and the Roman identity of Egypt gets an Egyptian touch to it. And so on that note I think cultures can adapt in the Malgameat not just to replace one another and so the item that comes to mind for me is Horus. Horus was such an important god he's the son of ISIS and a Cyrus and Cleopatra obviously saw herself as ISIS, championed herself as ISIS. So Horus was also cesarean in a way that the son of Caesar and Cleopatra. So Horus is a vital god and there's an item in the British Museum in which Horus is dressed as a Roman centurion. And so we see that the cultures in Malgameat but we also see that the Egyptian god survives Horus survives through every stage of Egyptian culture and Egyptian rule no matter who's there.
通过其迷人的历史，埃及的罗马身份获得了埃及化的色彩。在这个意义上，我认为文化可以在融合中适应彼此，而不仅仅是互相取代。我想到的例子是荷鲁斯。荷鲁斯是一个非常重要的神祇，他是伊西斯和奥西里斯的儿子，而克利奥帕特拉显然将自己视作伊西斯，自认为是伊西斯。因此，荷鲁斯在某种程度上也可以被认为是恺撒和克利奥帕特拉之子。所以荷鲁斯是一个重要的神祇。在大英博物馆中有一件文物，其中荷鲁斯被描绘成一名罗马百夫长。由此可见，不同文化在融合的过程中，埃及的神祇，尤其是荷鲁斯，无论埃及文化和统治经历了怎样的阶段，始终得以延续和存活下来。
And I think this item's fascinating because this vital Egyptian god looks Roman. I was just really interested because actually although the object I mentioned is completely different to what Islam says it in many ways reflects the same kind of thing which is that you have the indigenous culture adapting and yet maintaining itself through time. So one of the iconic images in the codex is of the foundation of Mexico of the city of Tunisia, which is the eagle on the cactus at the place which is now Mexico city and of course that's now on the Mexican flag. And so that image that history has evolved and maintained through time in a really similar way.
我觉得这个物品很有趣，因为这个重要的埃及神看起来像是罗马风格。我真正感兴趣的是，尽管这个物品与伊斯兰的观点完全不同，但在很多方面却反映了同样的现象：本土文化在不断适应中保持自己的特色。墨西哥城的建立是古抄本中的一个标志性图像，即仙人掌上的鹰，现在这个图像也出现在墨西哥国旗上。因此，这个图像和这段历史在时间的流逝中不断演变和延续，方式非常相似。
And actually what I wanted to be as you mentioned as well was there is the morrow head of Augustus in the program as well. And this is a plus ahead of Augustus which was actually made in Egypt and then found in Newvia. But in many ways it shows both the stretch of Rome. It is essentially the longest running large scale empire in all of Europe. No one gets even close to that size until Napoleon who only minutes to hold this empire together for roughly a decade. But it also shows how in many ways fragile that was when you actually pick up the head it has little bits of sand to it because it was buried eventually during the fall of Rome.
实际上，就像您提到的一样，我想说的是节目中还有一个奥古斯都的头像。这是一个由埃及制作，后来在努比亚发现的奥古斯都头像。这个头像在很多方面展示了罗马帝国的广阔。罗马是欧洲历史上持续时间最长的大规模帝国，在此之前没有哪个帝国在规模上能与之相提并论，直到拿破仑的崛起，但他也仅仅维持了大约十年的帝国。然而，这个头像也反映了罗马帝国在很多方面的脆弱性。当你真正拿起这个头像时，上面粘着一些细沙，因为它是在罗马帝国衰落期间被埋藏的。
And in many ways it just simply shows that people adapted that basically it's got rid of one emperor and adapted to a new form of living under non-Romanic rule. And it also I think has a much bigger story here as well. Rome, one of the reasons so many people went away from Rome, Rome is often seen as a pock-lipped story of the city goes from a million people to only 30,000 souls. And yet it's not like most of them died instead most of them leave because they get the cure and on eye which is basically the free provision of grain from Egypt, seven.
在许多方面，这简直说明了人们适应了新的生活方式：摆脱了一个皇帝，转而适应非罗马统治。这背后还有一个更大的故事。罗马被认为是一个衰落的城市，从拥有一百万人骤减到只有三万人。实际上，并不是大多数人都死去了，而是很多人由于没有了"粮食供给"，即从埃及免费的粮食供应后选择了离开。
So in many ways it was the loss of the bread basket of Egypt that really leads to the city of Rome becoming so depopulated. And Rome in many ways is like the Aztec empire that we're referring to. It's just one city dominating a far larger expansive territory. And the head is indicative of that. It's a place essentially piece of propaganda trying to valorize one particular ruler. Between us we've raised there quite a lot of complications I suppose and some challenges to the idea of a culture falling in inverted commas.
在许多方面，正是埃及粮仓的失去真正导致了罗马城的人口大幅减少。罗马在很多方面就像我们提到的阿兹特克帝国，它只是一个城市，统治着一个更为广阔的领土。而这个城市的中心标志着这一点，它本质上是一个宣传的地方，试图颂扬某一特定的统治者。我想我们在讨论中提出了许多复杂的问题和对“文化衰落”这一观念的挑战。
Do you think these stories are revealing of the fact that these cultures are fragile or that they're resilient or is there something about both of those themes to be said here Luke can I come to you? I think it shows that some things are much more resilient than others. When he came to the Aztec empire as Carolem mentioned the political apparatus falls apart very quickly and the same is true of Rome as well. In both cases other factors endure for a very long period of time. The language no other exists today. Latin transforms into all the Latin languages we know about Spanish, French, or Portuguese.
你认为这些故事揭示了这些文化的脆弱性还是韧性，或者两者都有所表现？卢克，我可以请你谈谈吗？我认为，这表明有些事物比其他事物更具韧性。当谈到阿兹特克帝国时，正如卡罗勒姆提到的，政治体系很快就崩溃了，罗马也是如此。但在这两种情况下，其他因素却能持续很长一段时间。例如，语言虽然不再以原始形式存在，但拉丁语演变成了我们熟知的西班牙语、法语和葡萄牙语等拉丁语言。
And in the case of Rome, the church actually grows in power after the fall of Rome. So some institutions and I think in general both local people and culture tend to be much more resilient than others. But what's usually more fragile here is the empire itself, the political power unit. And it's very important in most cases not to conflate too much the idea of civilization with the idea of empire. I do agree I think that it is very much the case that it's the dynasty or the ruling group rather than the culture itself which perhaps rises and falls.
在罗马的情况下，教会在罗马帝国崩溃后实际上变得更有权力。因此，有些机构，以及我认为总体上当地的人们和文化往往比其他东西更具韧性。但通常更脆弱的是帝国本身，即政治权力单位。在大多数情况下，不要过多地把文明和帝国的概念混为一谈是非常重要的。我确实同意，我认为通常是王朝或统治集团，而不是文化本身在兴衰。
And in the case of Tenochtitlan one of the differences to some of the other examples is that it is a relatively recently arrived ruling power. So they only arrive in the Valley of Mexico around 200 years before the Spanish arrive. They only come to power in the Valley of Mexico in the 1430s, so less than 100 years before the Spanish arrival. And actually for me there's a sense in which the arrival of the Spanish isn't that much of a transformation because what you have in that region is a negotiated power pyramid where people are constantly rising and falling.
在特诺奇蒂特兰的例子中，与其他一些例子不同的是，这里的统治势力相对较新。大约在西班牙人到来前的200年，他们才来到墨西哥谷地。而他们在1430年代才开始掌握墨西哥谷地的权力，也就是说这距离西班牙人到来不到100年。实际上，我认为西班牙人的到来并没有带来多大的改变，因为在那个地区，权力结构类似于一个不断变化的金字塔，人们总是在不断地兴起和衰落。
Different cities are rising to the top. So the Spanish actually only replicate almost what the Aztecs themselves had done 100 years earlier when they conquered the Teppinex of Kapotsalco, which is another city in the region and put themselves into the top spot. In that power pyramid and that's one of the weaknesses I suppose you could say of this region is that they're used to people coming in and taking over so they don't recognize the threat that the Spanish provide to their way of life and to their political structure because they don't understand the absolutist view that the Spanish have of religion and monarchy. They think this is simply another power player in the region you might choose to ally with them, you might choose to resist them, you might choose to negotiate with them and that's perhaps the era of mocked as you make at the start.
不同的城市正在崛起。因此，西班牙人实际上只是重演了阿兹特克人在100年前所做的事情：当时阿兹特克征服了同一地区的另一个城市，卡波查尔科的特皮内克人，并将自己推到了顶端。在这个权力金字塔中，这可能是这个地区的一个弱点，因为他们习惯了外来者的入侵和接管，所以他们未能意识到西班牙人对其生活方式和政治结构带来的威胁。西班牙人拥有对宗教和君主制度的绝对主义观点，而当地人对此并不理解。他们可能认为这只是地区内的另一个权力玩家，可以选择与之结盟、抵抗或谈判。这可能是在开始时所犯的错误。
So in some ways, although you might say that mocked as you and the dynasty, the Meshika dynasty fall, the pyramid, the structure remains quite similar for a period of time, at least until European invasion becomes so great that it fully establishes those. The establishes those kind of political structures and even then as Luke said, tribute structures, taxation structures, labor structures, a lot of those things continue actually a really fascinating example of this is if you go to the Rial Palacio, the Royal Palace in Madrid, there's two very interesting figures that flank the front door. They're entirely different guard compared to all the other statues and they're actually figures of at a wapper, the supper anchor, the last emperor of it, the Ingram Pia and Dr. Zuma.
在某种程度上，尽管你可能会说被嘲笑的你和王朝，墨西加王朝的倒塌，金字塔这个结构在一段时间内仍然相当相似，至少在欧洲人的入侵变得非常严重之前都保持如此。即便如此，正如卢克所说的，各种贡赋结构、税收结构、劳动力结构等许多东西仍在继续。一个非常有趣的例子是，如果你去马德里的皇家宫殿Rial Palacio，会发现大门旁边有两个非常有趣的人物雕像。与其他雕像相比，他们完全不同，实际上是印加帝国最后一位皇帝阿塔瓦尔帕和蒙特祖马的雕像。
And interestingly, from the point of view of the Spanish, they never see either the Ingram Pia or the Aztec Empire as having collapsed. They simply inherited both the empires and whoever takes on the crown of the West Indies also becomes the new emperor essentially the new king of both the Ingram and Aztec empires. So from the point of view of the Spanish, there's actually no claps here at all, there's no fool per se. It's just simply an exchange of empire we call and let him the Translarsia and Perae passing on of empire. And you might call it a sort of strategic decision on the part of the indigenous rulers to do this, but they actually play on that they quite quickly realize the way that the Spanish are perceiving this and they start making their own claims as the previous rulers, the previous empires to be recognized to be rewarded within the colonial system.
有趣的是，从西班牙人的角度来看，他们从未认为印加帝国或阿兹特克帝国已经崩溃。他们只是继承了这两个帝国，任何掌握西印度群岛王冠的人也成为了这两个帝国的新皇帝，实质上就是新国王。因此，在西班牙人看来，这里实际上并没有崩溃，也没有真正的失败，只是一个帝国的转移，可以称之为"拉丁美洲帝国的传承"。而且你可以说这是一种本土统治者的战略决策，他们很快意识到西班牙人是以这种方式看待的，于是开始以原先统治者的身份要求在殖民体系中被承认和获得奖励。
My book on savagels is about in part some of those indigenous people who come to Spain and promote themselves as the rightful heirs of the rulers of these lands and so the descendants of Atowalpa, for example, get huge amounts of money from the Spanish crown pensions in perpetuity. The descendants of Mockdizuma have tried in recent years to reassert their claims in court to millions and millions that they say they're owed having been promised a pension in perpetuity. They were not successful, but it's really fascinating. It seems like as with a lot of this discussion, the ideas of resilience or fragility are a matter of perspective. Do you think that shines with you as well?
我的书关于"野蛮人"的部分内容涉及一些来到西班牙并宣称自己是这些土地合法统治者继承人的土著人。例如，阿托瓦尔帕的后代从西班牙王室那里获得了巨额的永久性养老金。近年来，蒙特祖玛的后代试图在法庭上重申他们的权利，声称自己被承诺过永久性养老金，而对方欠他们数百万美元。他们没有成功，但这确实很有趣。似乎关于这些讨论，坚韧或脆弱的观念很大程度上取决于视角。你觉得这个观点也符合你的看法吗？
It's a challenge, which is with me as fragility being linked to certain systems and identity being a more enduring factor. In the case of Alexandria, my history of Alexandria, I write about a series of rises and falls, rise and fall and rise and fall, and yet something like an Alexandria identity is maintained. Egypt is an example of that. Egyptian identity remains very strong through today, the ferronica aspect of it, Roman aspect of it and so on. So I think identity to me is what sort of ever present and then the systems that come in, whether they're social or political systems, do create change, they are fragile, they fluctuate. But the tradition, for example, this identity brings remains at the fore and as we've said, can adapt and so on.
这是一个挑战，我认为脆弱性与某些系统相联系，而身份则是一个更持久的因素。在我写的有关亚历山大的历史中，我描述了一个接一个的兴衰起落。然而，像亚历山大这样的身份却得以保持。埃及就是一个例子。埃及人的身份直到今天仍然非常强烈，包括它的法老时期和罗马时期等。因此，我认为身份是一种始终存在的东西，而无论是社会系统还是政治系统都会带来变化，这些系统是脆弱的，易变的。但是，身份带来的传统则始终占据重要地位，并且正如我们所说的那样，可以进行适应等。
One thing to be briefly out there is what's resilient and fragile also depends on who you are and where you are. For instance, if you are in the city of Rome during its collapse, it does seem like a place of catastrophe. And likewise, if you're in Reuben Britain during withdrawal through Roman Empire, your entire life changes are in a single generation. You go from living potentially in a small market town where there's a currency, columns of Roman soldiers, bathhouses and people speaking Latin, to suddenly a world where very few people speak Latin, you know, look, I have a common currency, you don't see any Roman soldiers all. And the bathhouses and only structures are all falling into delapidation.
有一点需要简要说明的是，什么是具有弹性和脆弱性，这取决于你的身份和你所处的位置。比如，如果你是在罗马城衰落时在那里，可能会觉得那里是一片灾难。同样，如果你是在罗马帝国撤退时期的不列颠，你的整个生活在短短一代人内就发生了巨变。你可能从一个有货币流通、成排罗马士兵、浴场以及人们说拉丁语的小市场镇生活，突然进入一个很少有人说拉丁语的世界，没有通用货币，看不到罗马士兵，浴场和其他建筑全都在破败中。
And yet if you're a Spanish peasant, for instance, you might not really notice anything change apart from suddenly your tax collector rocks up less frequently and is speaking a Germanic town rather than Latin. So it's important to also remember that collapse varies across time and space as well. And I wouldn't want to make people think that the same is true, for example, for the people of Tarnished Atlanta. I've talked a lot about resilience and continuity, but the introduction of unfamiliar diseases to which they have no immunity, something we're all too familiar with now does produce absolutely devastating consequences in the Americas generally in central Mexico, particularly because it's so urbanized.
如果你是一个西班牙的农民，你可能并不会真正注意到什么变化，除了税收官员来得不那么频繁，而且他们讲的是德语而不是拉丁语。因此，我们也要记住，崩溃在时间和空间上是不同的。我不想让人们以为对于被称为“Tarnished Atlanta”的人们来说情况也是一样的。我谈了很多关于复原力和延续性的问题，但对于没有免疫力的人来说，陌生疾病的引入确实会在大美洲地区产生毁灭性的后果，尤其是在高度城市化的中墨地区，这一点我们现在都深有体会。
So the close proximity of people means that from the smallpox epidemic through epidemics of influenza and months and just one disease after another, you're talking about a population decimation of maybe 90% to 100 years after the invasion in central Mexico. It's absolutely astonishing levels of death and disease and anyone who survived presumably was disabled or very likely visually disfigured from the smallpox in some way. So you have a total transformation of society in some ways. There are changes to jobs every day, life systems. Certainly hierarchy is something that changes. So with the fall of one ruling dynasty for example, and the rise of another one, a hierarchy develops and changes.
因此，由于人们居住的密集性，从天花疫情到流感以及其他传染病的流行，仅在入侵后的一百年内，中墨地区的人口减少可能达到了90%。这是极其惊人的死亡和疾病水平，任何幸存者都可能因天花而残疾或面容受到损害。因此，社会在某些方面发生了彻底的转变。人们的工作和日常生活系统都发生了变化。等级制度肯定也发生了变化，比如一个统治王朝的衰落和另一个王朝的崛起，导致了等级制度的发展和变革。
One thing that's interesting to me in the Egyptian context is architecture that we see some architecture stay important, most obviously something like the pyramids that never lost their importance and endured. And then we have very obvious and purposeful erasure at other times, a good example of that is places of worship because they're usually on very sought after, bland in higher locations and so on. But we do have Egyptian temples that become Roman temples, that become churches, that become mosques, or we have a very purposeful erasure of architecture from a previous group. And I think that's a real tangible way of seeing change and seeing how one group can fall in people's eyes.
在埃及背景下，让我感兴趣的一点是建筑。有些建筑，例如金字塔，从未失去它们的重要性，并一直存在。而在其他时候，我们又能看到一些非常明显且有意的抹除行为。一个很好的例子是宗教场所，因为它们通常位于高地等非常抢手的地方。我们可以看到埃及神庙变成罗马神庙，再变成教堂，最后变成清真寺，或者某个团体故意抹去前人建筑的痕迹。我认为，这是一个真实可感的方式来观察变化，以及看到一个群体在世人眼中如何失去地位。
Yeah, this is a really interesting point that often the rise for one is the fall of another. Tollumake Egypt is in many ways also about the rise of the Roman Empire and the fall of the Arctic Empire is in many ways but the rise of the Spanish Empire. The fall of the Shogunate in many ways is about the rise of both colonial Europe in general but also the US in particular. In many ways what's happening across all these stories is about large changes in power structures and the knock on effects these have across people's lives, which of course can be devastating.
是的，这是一个非常有趣的观点，常常一个国家的崛起意味着另一个国家的衰落。托勒密王朝的埃及在许多方面标志着罗马帝国的崛起；同时，北极帝国的衰落在许多方面意味着西班牙帝国的崛起。幕府的倒台在许多方面既反映了整个欧洲殖民势力的崛起，也特别体现了美国的崛起。在这些历史事件中，发生的大多是权力结构的巨大变化，以及这些变化对人们生活的连锁效应，这些影响当然可能是毁灭性的。
The case of Tornochiklán is indicative of that. In some cases they don't have to necessarily be bad. One thing I'd like to talk about is a bit of surprises. After the fall of the West Roman Empire people seem to go to tour. So when you look at their skeletal records, the toller, those have less bone lesions, trauma in their bones and less holes in their teeth dental cavities. And that's not just simply because so many people died moved around that they had more resources afterwards. Like was the case of the Black Death. Even people on the outside of Empire were actually tollum.
托尔诺奇克兰的案例很能说明问题。有些情况下，事情并不一定不好。我想谈谈一些意想不到的事情。西罗马帝国灭亡后，人们似乎开始流浪旅行。当你查看他们的骨骼记录时，你会发现这些人普遍更高，并且骨骼上的病变、创伤和牙齿的蛀洞都较少。这不仅仅是因为大量人口死亡或迁移以致他们有了更多资源，类似于黑死病后的情况。甚至即便是帝国以外的人，他们的身材都比较高大。
The old trope of the muscle bound, the genetic barbarian is kind of true. They actually were tollum the no-towing counterparts. Often Empire just wasn't good for people and sometimes its fall could have some unexpected benefits. But again, we can't paint inly this with a single brush, it really does depend. But it's important to think about this in a broader context that rise can also be fall and sometimes fall is necessarily an entirely bad thing.
古老的刻板印象中，那些肌肉发达、基因粗犷的野蛮人形象，其实有点真实。他们确实是与驯服的统治者截然不同的一类人。帝国的统治往往对民众不利，有时帝国的衰落可能带来意想不到的好处。但是，我们不能用单一的视角看待这一切，因为情况确实因地而异。重要的是要从更广泛的背景去考虑这个问题：兴起也可能带来衰落，而衰落有时并不完全是坏事。
Before we start to wrap up some of the themes we've talked about today, are there any other identifiable signs or I suppose symptoms of the shifts we've been talking about that we've not mentioned so far? We haven't talked very much about something I know Luke is interested in which is inequality in places. I've heard Luke talk about income inequalities. And the Asda Campa is a really interesting case because it models itself as quite an egalitarian place. They go to a lot of effort, especially in Tenochtitlan, to argue that people are all doing their own role working towards a common goal.
在我们开始总结今天讨论的一些主题之前，是否还有其他明显的迹象或我猜想可以称作症状的变化是我们还未提及的？我们一直没有详细讨论一个我知道Luke感兴趣的话题，那就是不同地方的不平等。我听过Luke讲述收入不平等的问题。而Asda Campa是一个非常有趣的案例，因为它将自身塑造为一个相当平等的地方。他们付出了很多努力，特别是在特诺奇提特兰，来表明人们都在为了共同的目标而扮演着自己的角色。
And they do have systems of redistribution for example, but at the same time outside of the city itself you have vast inequalities. And that inequality does get greater as the Empire goes along and you have rulers who put in place greater systems of inequality where no walls take greater precedence over commoners for example. Now Tenochtitlan is difficult because the city doesn't collapse. Those inequalities aren't what suddenly create a fall. There's a huge external force, a pressure on the civilization. But arguably there's a lever there which enables the Spanish to more quickly, more effectively bring down the ruling dynasty because of disgruntlement, because of inequalities.
他们确实有再分配的系统，例如，一方面在城市内部有这样的系统，但在城市之外却存在巨大的不平等。而且，随着帝国的发展，这种不平等变得更加严重，一些统治者建立了更大的不平等体系，比如贵族的地位远远高于平民。而特诺奇蒂特兰（Tenochtitlan）的情况比较复杂，因为这座城市并没有因此崩溃。这些不平等并不是导致其突然倒下的直接原因。真正关键的是来自外部的巨大压力，对整个文明形成了冲击。然而，可以说这些不满和不平等为西班牙人提供了一种杠杆，使他们能够更快更有效地推翻统治王朝。
And actually because the Empire isn't as dominant as it seems. So we make the comparison of the Rome and the Goths for example within the Asda Campa we have groups like the Clash Collins who have never been conquered. And they at first resist the Spanish, but then they decide to ally with them and to use them as a tool against their old enemies, the Aztecs of Tenochtitlan. In fact, I would argue that you could really say, especially based on how many Clash Collins warriors there are tens of thousands of them where only hundreds of the Spanish you could argue that it's actually the Clash Collins who defeat the Aztecs and rise to the top of the power pyramid. And so in the long term, they become very much theordinate to the Spanish, but they themselves see it as a victory. They successfully assert their influence in the colonial period.
实际上，因为帝国并没有看起来那么强大。因此，我们可以将其与罗马和哥特人的关系作比较。例如，在阿斯达坎帕中，我们有像克拉什科林这样的群体，他们从未被征服过。他们最初反抗西班牙人，但后来决定与他们结盟，并利用他们作为对抗旧敌特诺奇提特兰的阿兹特克人的工具。事实上，我认为你可以认为，尤其是考虑到克拉什科林战士有成千上万，而西班牙人只有几百人，你可以说实际上是克拉什科林击败了阿兹特克人，并上升到权力的顶端。从长远来看，他们确实变得非常臣服于西班牙人，但他们自己将其视为一种胜利。他们在殖民时期成功地发挥了自己的影响力。
And so I think it's not just one person rising to the top often Luke mentioned the rise and fall, but there are an awful lot of different communities and people who are very often involved in these empires. And that's a big factor in how sustainable they are. Yeah, this is a wonderful point when you look at the way we often think about the fall of the Aztec empires often framed in Jared Diamond's guns, germs and still it's better. A bunch of plucky conquistals who arrive with superior weaponry and overfro in top of a very large empire very quickly. In reality, many indigenous people would have viewed this more as a popular rebellion, a successful one. And when Cortez arrives to the second seager to El Chalán, he's actually the head of an army of roughly a hundred thousand potentially more and almost all of them are indigenous allies, they're not Spanish.
我认为，通常不仅仅是一个人崛起到顶峰，正如Luke提到的，一个帝国的兴衰过程中，常常涉及许多不同的社区和人群。这对帝国的可持续性有很大影响。这是一个很有意思的观点，特别是考虑到我们常常以Jared Diamond所说的枪炮、病菌与钢铁的角度看待阿兹特克帝国的灭亡。通常被描述为一群拥有更先进武器的勇敢的征服者迅速推翻了庞大的帝国。然而，实际上，许多土著人民可能更把这看作是一次成功的民众反叛。当科尔特斯第二次进攻特诺奇蒂特兰时，他实际上带领着一支大约十万人的军队，而这支军队几乎全是土著联盟，而非西班牙人。
And the really telling thing here is that the areas that were more likely to rebel were the ones that were more heavily taxed and extracted from. We've obviously talked about some enormous themes today and case studies that we could do an entire episode on in their own right. And to draw things to a close, do you think there are lessons here from either exploring these stories or by knitting together some of these themes? Is I'm can I come to you first on this? I think there are always lessons from history and my most simple and important one here would be that every generation thinks that their moment is the ultimate epoch that we don't see beyond our importance. When I think of Egypt as a fascinating case study because of its longevity, I often say clear patria was closer in time to the invention of the iPhone than the pyramids being built.
这里真正有意义的是，那些更有可能反叛的地区往往是那些被征收税收和剥削更为严重的地方。显然，今天我们讨论了一些巨大的主题和案例研究，每一个都值得单独做一期节目。为了结束今天的讨论，你认为我们可以从这些故事中或者通过整合这些主题中得到什么教训吗？请让我先请教一下你的看法。我认为历史总是有教训值得学习的，而我在这里最简单和重要的一个教训就是：每一代人都认为他们的时代是终极的时刻，我们往往看不到自身之外的重要性。比如，我觉得埃及是一个引人入胜的案例研究，因为它的历史悠久。我常常说，克利奥帕特拉距离iPhone的发明，比她距离金字塔的建造更近。
So we're talking two and a half millennia between the pyramids and the tolamis coming to power. And then another two and a half millennia between the tolamis and us and so we'd be wise to think that things might be very different to the half millennia from now. For me, I think the most instructive thing about these stories is something about the stories themselves and who tells those stories. So we discussed the fact that these histories are known largely through post fall records to put it in the terms of the series, but actually what we see is rewriting and rewriting of this history. So the Aztecs arrive in the Valley of Mexico in 1325, but in the 1430s they destroy all of their records really deliberately and create a new history in which they are destined to rule over the Valley of Mexico in which they will be a great empire that stretches from sea to sea.
所以，我们谈论的是从金字塔到托勒密掌权之间的两千五百年。然后，从托勒密到我们之间又是两千五百年，所以我们应该明智地认为，从现在起的五百年后，情况可能会非常不同。对我来说，这些故事中最有启发性的是关于故事本身以及谁在讲述这些故事。我们讨论了这些历史大多是通过后期的记录而为人所知，但实际上我们看到的是历史的不断重写。举个例子，阿兹特克人在1325年进入墨西哥谷地，但在1430年代，他们故意摧毁了自己所有的记录，创造出一个新的历史，在这个历史中，他们注定要统治墨西哥谷地，并成为一个从海到海的伟大帝国。
And then in the 1520s the Spanish come and do almost exactly the same thing they destroy all the records and create a history in which they the plucky band of conquistadors are destined to rule over an empire that stretches across the globe. And actually that was a history that endured a really, really long time. And then it started to be picked apart by indigenous peoples and scholars and activists, knowledge keepers over the centuries and we were just starting to think about that in new ways. And now we're again having that history rewritten and we're seeing that struggle over who gets to tell history in the public space, who gets to control the media that tell the histories, who controls social media networks, news networks, who's going to tell the story of this.
在16世纪20年代，西班牙人来到这里，几乎照搬之前的模式，摧毁所有记录，并建立一种历史叙述，声称他们是一群富有冒险精神的征服者，注定要统治一个横跨全球的帝国。实际上，这种历史观延续了非常长的时间。随后，本地人民、学者、社会活动家和知识守护者开始逐渐质疑和反驳这种叙述。我们开始以新的方式思考这些问题。而现在，这段历史又一次被重新书写，我们正在目睹一场关于谁有权在公共空间叙述历史的争夺，谁能掌控讲述历史的媒体，包括社交媒体和新闻网络，谁将决定这段历史的讲述。
And so we're seeing this is the story of this moment of fragility that we're in right now, this moment when we're on the brink of environmental collapse, when there is war, when there is likely to be migration because of economic collapse, when we really are at a point, aren't we, it feels like a tipping point again. caused that, but I'm almost more interested in the other end, like who's going to tell that story and how will we remember it and who is going to control that narrative in the years to come? This is a vital point.
所以，我们看到的正是当前这个脆弱时刻的故事：我们正处在环境崩溃的边缘，战争频发，经济崩溃可能导致移民激增，我们真的处在一个转折点，不是吗？但我几乎更关心另一端：谁将来讲述这个故事？我们将如何记住这些？未来谁又将掌控这个叙事？这真是一个至关重要的问题。
Collapses often told as a story of Ryzenfall as we have that series titled. And yet in some ways you can think about this more as a story of Fallen Rise. As mentioned, the Fall of the Asterk Empire is ultimately about the Rise of the Spanish Empire. In many ways, the worst things to happen throughout history are less about the Fall of one particular dynasty or power structure, but much more about the expansion of certain empires, would be Rome or the Spanish.
崩溃的故事常常被称为“Ryzenfall”的故事，就像我们给那个系列起的标题一样。然而，从某种角度来看，你可以更把这看作是一个“Fallen Rise”（衰落的崛起）的故事。就像提到过的，阿斯特克帝国的衰落归根结底是西班牙帝国的崛起。在很多方面，历史上发生的最糟糕的事情与其说是一个特定王朝或权力结构的衰落，不如说更多是某些帝国的扩张，比如罗马或西班牙帝国。
And similarly, if we're looking at human height, then suddenly Rome looks more like a case study of once again, Fallen Rise. So I think that these different case studies, and by looking at claps and how it affects everyday people as well, it can really help us question what empire, civilization, etc, has meant for people across history, and also what it can mean for us today.
同样地，如果我们研究人类身高的问题，那么罗马突然之间看起来更像是一个“曾经衰落又崛起”的案例。因此，我认为，通过研究这些不同的案例，并观察这些变化如何影响普通人，我们可以真正去思考帝国、文明等在历史上对人们意味着什么，也可以探讨这些在今天对我们的意义。
And I think it also would be a bit of a warning of when you face so many different threats and Ryzen vulnerabilities, where it would be a climate change and Ryzen wealth inequality, things can often turn very quickly and in a way very unfathomably. In some of these case studies, it seems like the people at that time didn't really foresee that they were going through any kind of collapse type event.
我认为这也是一个警告，当你面临许多不同的威胁时，比如气候变化和日益增长的财富不平等，事情往往会迅速而又难以预料地发生变化。在一些这样的案例中，当时的人们似乎没有意识到他们正在经历某种崩溃事件。
It varies for once again, it does happen. That was me, Matt Elton, in conversation with Luke Kemp, Caroline Dodd's Panuk and Islamisa. Islam is professed to a public humanities at Birmingham City University. Caroline is professor of international history at the University of Sheffield, and Luke is research associate at the Centre for the Study of Exocential Risk at the University of Cambridge.
再次发生了这样的情况。这次是我，马特·埃尔顿，与卢克·坎普、卡罗琳·多兹·帕努克和伊斯拉米萨进行的对话。伊斯拉米萨是伯明翰城市大学公共人文学科的教授。卡罗琳是谢菲尔德大学国际历史学的教授，而卢克是剑桥大学存在风险研究中心的研究助理。
All three experts have contributed to the new BBC TV series, Civilisations, Ryzen 4, which launched here in the UK on Monday the 24th of November.
所有三位专家都参与了新的BBC电视系列节目《文明：Ryzen 4》的制作，该节目于11月24日星期一在英国首播。