New York September 2004.
The race for the White House was reaching a dramatic climax.
The candidates were neck and neck in the polls.
Both were now desperate to seize any advantage over the other.
President Bush was heading for his paryt's convention
at Madison Square Garden.
This was effectively his last opportunity to get ahead.
His advisors knew that everything depended on how he was presented.
They needed an iconic image to convince the American electorate
that he was their man -
and that would mean exploiting the power of art.
Well, although they didn't know it
the techniques that they turned to weren't of the modern day.
The methods they would use had been invented thousands of years ago
because the political power of art was discovered by kings
and emperors in the ancient world.
It was these leaders who first used
imagery to manipulate their subjects.
And today our modern politicians are exploiting those same visual strategies.
This is the story of how those ancient leaders created techniques
of visual persuasion so powerful they've still got a hold on us today.
Inside Madison Square Garden,
the delegates eagerly awaited the high point of the convention -
the president's speech.
His advisors knew they needed something memorable, dramatic.
They decided to exploit the most potent political images of his presidency,
his presence at ground zero.
Among the ruins of the World Trade Centre he'd looked strong and commanding,
and yet he still appeared caring and warm.
These were the pictures that defined his presidency.
If his advisors could only tap into the power of these iconic images,
they'd give their man a huge advantage.
With just twelve hours to go they ordered the original stage
to be ripped out and a brand new one built in its place.
What they came up with was a modern masterpiece.
The president's team drew on a set of visual techniques
that leaders have been using for thousands of years.
He walked to the stage alone,
a commanding leader confident and in control.
The set was simple but dominated by the symbols of his power.
He was raised slightly above the crowd but still stood amongst them,
and they ensured that the cameras captured the conviction on his face.
The effect was electrifying -
here was a man who was strong but caring a powerful leader close to his people,
the compassionate head of a family at war.
His advisors had succeeded.
The scene recreated those iconic images so familiar to every American
and the strategy worked -
George Bush shot ahead in the polls
and he stayed ahead until the election was won.
But why did it work?
How do politicians use images to persuade us,
often without us even knowing it?
The only way of understanding this is to uncover
how these powerful visual techniques were invented
by leaders thousands of years ago.
There was a time when our ancestors lived in small communities;
leaders were the heads of families or clans.
Everyone knew them.
They had little need of any artistic devices to communicate their power.
So what happened? How did imagery come to be used as a political tool?
Well, it's a process that happens at different times
in various parts of the world, but in one of those parts - Britain -
archaeologists believe that they've recently hit upon
the time and the place.
It's new light on one of the countries oldest
and best-known monuments - Stonehenge.
This is the biggest prehistoric monument in Europe.
Something extraordinary must have happened here
for a structure of this size to be built
by people living in small isolated communities.
This was one of the great mysteries of the ancient world.
Now, through our understanding of the persuasive power of art,
we may have found an answer.
It all began with the chance discovery of a burial site near Stonehenge.
Archaeologists expected to find a roman burial ground,
common in this part of the world.
What none of them knew at the time was that they had stumbled into one of
the most momentous archaeological discoveries ever made in Britain.
We knew straight away that the grave wasn't Roman
because it had a kind of pottery in it that dates
to the beginning of the bronze age,
so it was almost two thousand years older that the Roman graves,
so we knew we had something very different.
Andrew Fitzpatrick and his team had uncovered the skeleton
of a man dating back nearly four thousand,
five hundred years and, next to it, dozens of objects.
It was the sheer scale of the find that suggested
this was no ordinary grave and no ordinary man.
It's normal in a burial of this age to find just one or two objects,
and we would have called a grave maybe with ten things in it rich.
But as the numbers mounted and mounted it was clear
that this grave was of exceptional importance,
and as the numbers got to almost a hundred,
we realised it was the richest grave notjust in Britain
but in continental Europe as well.
On examination of the objects revealed further surprises.
There were a number of fine objects designed for personal display,
like a stone belt buckle,
a wrist guard used by an archer and some tiny copper knives.
But in amongst all of these there was something very special -
two identical pieces of gold.
As they examined these more closely
they realised they were in fact ornaments,
probably hair clasps, and both beautifully crafted.
They may not look very much now -
tiny with just a very simple pattern round the edge -
but at the time when these were created and worn,
that's nearly four and a half thousand years ago,
these were probably the greatest treasures
that anyone possessed in the British lsles.
For the first time gold had been melted
and shaped and then transformed into an ornament.
This was a new kind of art and the first of its kind in Britain.
The big question then was who's was it.
Archaeologists needed to examine the skeleton in more detail,
and what they discovered was that
this man was not from the Stonehenge area-
he'd come from central Europe.
He was a foreigner who'd made an epic journey to get to Britain.
It's a journey without compare of this time,
and across the sea he would only have had a dug-out canoe or a coracle.
It's a long and very dangerous journey.
How was it that a stranger from hundreds of miles away
had come to be buried with all the trappings
of a great and revered leader?
People would have known him as an exotic and an important person,
he had something that nobody else had
and he had the skills to transform raw metal
into these finished objects.
He had knowledge and he had power.
It was the gold -
so exquisite and rare that had created the image of a leader.
These would have been like the crown jewels,
strictly reserved for a leader of great importance, art fit for a king.
Just imagine how he would once have appeared to his subjects.
Our king would have looked magnificent.
Dressed in a splendid leather tunic;
his body and face lit up by shiny metals never before seen.
The people who lived around Stonehenge would have worn nothing
but simple animal skins.
This man's appearance alone must have mesmerised them.
What this individual had discovered was something
that we today take for granted.
Art as personal adornment enhances your status,
it lifts you above your peers.
And our king was the first leader in Britain to exploit
what would become a universal human trait.
And it's something that leaders from the time of Stonehenge
to the present day have exploited -
the adornments of office enhance your power.
This power of art may now finally explain
how such a colossal monument came to be built.
It must have taken a leader of great power to organise
the hundreds of people needed for such an undertaking.
Our foreigner arrived with his gold
around the time that Stonehenge was built.
And it's likely that it was he who organised its construction.
What's more, he may well have intended
Stonehenge as the ultimate symbol of his power.
If our king did indeed
build this, the most impressive prehistoric temple in Europe,
then adornment had played a crucial role in his achievement.
Art had become a political tool. It was the dawn of a new era.
And it wasn'tjust in ancient Britain.
In other parts of the world, from Egypt to Mesopotamia,
leaders were also discovering the power of art.
Kings competed to wear ever more dazzling adornments
and to build ever more fabulous structures.
The images had a magical effect on those who saw them.
But there was a catch.
Kingdoms were growing in size,
but the bigger they became the harder it was
for leaders to communicate their power.
Their due subjects simply couldn't see them.
Around five hundred BC,
this problem was particularly acute for one king above all.
He'd taken control of a kingdom so large it was the world's first empire.
He needed to find a new way to impose his power across all
of this vast territory.
He was Darius the Great,
the king of the Persians and his capital was Persepolis.
Persepolis is in lran, one of the wonders of the ancient world.
Two thousand five hundred years ago
it stood at the heart of Darius' vast empire,
an empire that stretched thousands of miles
from the Mediterranean in the west to India in the east.
From here, Darius ruled over millions
of people across more than twenty nations.
He carved the names of the most far-flung nations
on a block of solid gold and buried it under Persepolis for posterity.
But how on earth could he rule over so many diverse peoples?
Darius came up with a plan - a new kind of political leadership,
which he outlined in a series of inscriptions.
Their message was radical.
Rather than war and brutality, Darius offered peace and co-operation.
In a war between two nations I intervene to protect the weak.
I am justice and have been asked by god to promote happiness.
Well, it's visionary stuff.
The challenge to Darius, however,
was how to communicate this to everyone else.
His empire was one in which very few people could read,
also one in which there were dozens of different languages.
So how was he going to spread the word?
Darius' brainwave was the beginning of nothing less
than an artistic revolution.
The walls of Persepolis are covered with awe-inspiring images.
But there was something unusual about them -
these stone reliefs aren'tjust from one artistic style,
but combine elements from all over the empire.
The most spectacular reliefs of all are those decorating
the staircase that leads to the great hall of Darius.
Once a year Darius would invite ambassadors
from every nation within his empire to join him here,
and as they arrived,
all the ambassadors passed up this staircase
for their audience with the king.
So this was their approach to one of
the most imposing monuments in the ancient world.
The ambassadors' eyes would have been drawn to these figures -
the conquered peoples of the empire.
All are shown in their national costumes bringing tributes to the king.
No scenes of war and retribution - they're happy to honour Darius.
So Darius had found an inspired solution to his problem -
a way of communicating his political vision through art,
the international language of images.
The ambassadors would have left here
and travelled home with one message clearly etched in their mind -
that King Darius valued and respected them.
A new benevolent political era had dawned.
The ambassadors would have grasped Darius' message,
but of course there were still millions of ordinary subjects across his empire
who had never glimpsed the vision of peace and prosperity inside the palace.
So how could he communicate this message to them?
Once again Darius found his solution in art.
Towering above the desertjust off the main highway
to Persepolis is a huge political billboard,
and carved on it for all the passers-
by to see is Darius' vision of his new leadership style.
It looks very impressive but it's rather weathered
now not easy to make out the details. Let's get closer.
Well, that's better.
Two hundred feet above the desert face to face with the tomb of Darius.
There's a lengthy inscription describing his benevolent rule,
but it's the depiction of Darius himself that's so intriguing.
There's one thing that you can see from up here
which you just couldn't spot from down below -
it's that Darius is carrying a bow.
The bowman would have been an image familiar to all Persians.
They'd have known precisely what it meant,
which is why Darius chose it as the symbol of his kingship.
To the Persians, the archer was symbolic notjust of military prowess,
but of wisdom, leadership.
The good archer had a sense of balance and control,
qualities that were central to the concept
of kingship developed by Darius.
Darius the archer - there you have it, the first ever political logo.
And having invented the political logo, Darius went one better -
he discovered a new way to communicate it to his subjects.
Leaders throughout history would profit from his genius.
Darius had unified a disparate Empire, one of the world's great civilisations.
For a hundred and fifty years after his death his successors continued
to use his logo and to build on his achievements.
But it was destined not to last,
because someone on the western fringes
of the empire had his sights on Persepolis.
He was Alexander the Great.
Alexander was a brilliant military strategist.
In just a few short years,
he defeated the Persian armies and captured the city.
But that was just the start of his ambitions.
Alexander wanted much more than simply to conquer,
he needed a way of uniting the Persian Empire behind him.
But how, as a foreign invader,
would he ever win the hearts and minds of his new subjects?
Alexander understood the power of the visual techniques used by Darius.
But he had to come up with an image all of his own.
Archaeologists had always known how Alexander had won the war,
but what still remained a mystery was how he had planned to win the peace.
Where did his image come from?
The image he would use to win hearts and minds?
The obvious place to start the search was where he had planned his campaign -
his homeland, Macedonia.
Macedonia is now part of modern Greece,
but back in the fourth century BC it was an independent kingdom
with a war-like reputation.
The problem for the archaeologists was
that little remained of Alexander's palaces -
they'd already been destroyed.
So they turned to the royal tombs underground.
Here again it was a similar story of destruction.
Tomb after tomb was discovered
but each one had already been ransacked by raiders.
Then, in 1978, a team of Greek archaeologists
at last found one that was intact.
It was one of the great archaeological discoveries of our time.
They came across a tunnel leading deep underground.
It revealed the face of a tomb - still intact.
The moment the tomb opened it was like dream
I had no idea of the significance of our discovery,
it was just a miracle.
They had discovered the secret tomb of Philip of Macedon,
Alexander's father.
Its walls were still covered with the traces of
magnificent paintings and what awaited them
inside was a huge treasure trove.
The centrepiece was a gold sarcophagus with the symbol of the Macedonian king.
He was surrounded by incredible riches, the riches of a king.
They showed he was a man of exquisite taste.
These are really the most beautiful objects
of their kind we have ever discovered.
These were rich trappings but perhaps what you'd expect from a great dynasty -
lots of gold - what light did it shed upon
the secrets of Alexander's success?
Well then, amid the dust and debris on the tomb floor
the archaeologists picked up something
which at first sight looked rather inconspicuous.
It was a delicately crafted ivory carving.
As they dug deeper they found more.
They were tiny fragments, most less than an inch long.
Pieced together, hey formed a hunting scene.
But as they examined them more closely one of the faces stood out.
This was the face that would appear on busts
and paintings for hundreds of years throughout the Mediterranean.
Now suddenly a face emerged of someone we recognised.
It was the face of a real person;
we had discovered the image of the man who was at the centre of ultimate power.
They were looking at the face of Alexander the Great,
and this was the earliest image of him ever discovered.
It was also the first life-like representation of a king.
Up until now kings had been portrayed
by characters depictions created to a formula.
But this marked the moment of another artistic revolution -
the birth of the political portrait.
As a portrait it really captures his political power and strength,
it marks the very moment a new artistic ideal was born.
But the most significant aspect
of this little ivory head was when it was made.
It was placed in this tomb -
that means that it was made before Philip died
and before Alexander became king.
In other words, archaeologists realised
for the first time that Alexander's image had been designed
for him before he fought a single battle against the Persians.
Between them, Philip and Alexander had already come up with a winning image -
an image to take on the world.
But how exactly would Alexander exploit the power of this image
and portray himself as a leader strong enough to unite an empire?
The answer to that was found buried under tons of larva
at the foot of a volcano -
the volcano that buried the Roman town of Pompeii - Mount Vesuvius.
The Romans loved Greek art and in one of the villas in Pompeii was a mosaic -
the copy of an original Macedonian painting from Alexander's time.
It's now in the archaeological museum of Naples.
The mosaic depicts a famous battle in
which Alexander finally defeated the Persian armies.
This is Alexander charging full tilt into the thick of the battle.
His eyes are fixed on his mortal enemy, the Persian king.
Alexander is shown in the heat of action,
leading his troops, spear in hand.
He wears no helmet, his hair flying back, a fearless hero leading from the front.
And the impact of this image is even greater
when you look across to the other side of the mosaic.
Look at the face of the great Persian king.
It's a study of panic and fear.
He can't get away quick enough.
And so the whole of this political poster offers us a clear choice -
do you go for the brave heart or the coward,
the hero or the villain?
It's a collision of values in which Alexander is pre-destined for victory.
Alexander had discovered he could use his portrait
to persuade his new subjects that he was invincible.
It was an image to inspire admiration and respect.
Here was a man who could unite the empire
and was worthy of replacing the king of Persia himself.
While Darius had discovered the power of the logo,
Alexander had gone one better
and replaced this image with that of the face.
No king before him had exploited
a charismatic portrait of his face in that way.
Today, the power of the human face may seem obvious.
How can it be such a powerful tool in the hands of politicians?
For the answer we have to turn to modern science.
We asked a psychologist to design an experiment to test,
which is the more effective image - the logo or the face?
What he came up with was an election.
He began by inventing two different political candidates.
One was publicised using my face.
The other fictional candidate was publicised using a logo.
Both had identical manifestos. Their message - arts for all.
The question now was - would the face or the logo
have more appeal?
Promoters of these two images then descended on the students
of imperial College London.
At the end of the campaign, the vote was held.
Identical candidates, identical manifestos -
distinguished only by their two very different images.
Which would win the - face or the logo.
Well, of the hundred voters,
foryt opted for the logo but sixty went for the face.
The experiment confirms what Alexander had instinctively understood-
humans have evolved to be influenced by what they see in a face.
So effective was his discovery
that throughout his rule he continued to refine it.
Hundreds of statues were made of his heroic physical presence.
Alexander may have had the perfect image,
but it was useless unless he could get it circulated
to the people who mattered most - his new subjects.
Today we take it for granted
just how easy it is to distribute an image-
at the press of a button you can send a picture
to vast numbers of people almost anywhere in the world.
But for Alexander of course things weren't so simple.
He needed to find a way of giving his subjects
a daily reminder of who was in charge.
His solution was quite literally
to put his face in the palm of their hands.
This is what he came up with, a face on a coin.
He established thiryt mints producing thousands
of these throughout his empire and on each one it
had a head closely resembling his own.
Alexander had found a powerful way to spread his image throughout the empire.
For generations, Alexander's successors would produce coins
with his face on them.
Any association with Alexander would also give them authority.
It was a brilliant idea and one which leaders ever
since have used as a daily reminder to us all of who's in charge.
And of course the power of the human face continues
to shape our political landscape today.
By Alexander's time, leaders in the ancient world
understood just how susceptible the human mind was
to the persuasive power of art and they'd used images
to promote themselves and their message.
But there's a more ruthless type of leader in the modern world,
who aims to wield the power of images in another way.
It's something more ambitious than just self-promotion,
something far darker,
much more sinister.
It's the power to persuade us to think
what they want us to think and to see things the way they do,
and even to deceive us.
So how did art go from being a tool of
political promotion to being an instrument of mass deception?
To find out we need to discoverjust how
and why imagery was first used to tell a political lie.
That weapon was invented here in Rome.
Foryt years before the birth of Christ ancient Rome was
on the point of collapse.
For decades a civil war had divided the city.
And the city was split not just politically but culturally too,
a split that manifested itself even in people's appearance.
It seems hard to imagine today,
but it was as if you could tell everyone's
political allegiance simply by seeing how they were dressed.
It would be as if today Rome were divided into two camps,
each with their own distinctive uniforms.
Suppose one group dressed in an old-fashioned and conservative way.
They were the republicans.
They believed that the great traditional Roman families
should rule Rome as they had for centuries.
They dressed in traditional and austere clothes.
And suppose the other group were more like today's trendies -
although it seems strange this group were monarchists.
They wanted to replace the traditional families
with a powerful and ostentatious king.
They wore more flamboyant clothes to parade these exotic sympathies.
These two groups were locked in a struggle
for the control of ancient Rome.
Neither side was prepared to compromise.
It looked like the two tribes would be forever divided.
That was until a new contender appeared on the scene.
He was young and he had no great political
or military experience,
but he was wise to the political potential of images.
He would unite Rome not by the force of an army but by the power of art.
His name - Octavian, or, as he would become known, Augustus.
Augustus came from the Monarchist camp.
Although half of Rome supported him,
the Republicans remained deeply suspicious.
To win them over, Augustus needed to persuade
the Republicans he posed no threat to the power of the traditional families.
He had a problem. This was his image -
the typical trendy big-haired look that the Monarchists favoured
and the Republicans hated.
To get their support Augustus would need to reinvent himself.
This is what his artists and sculptors came up with -
something far more humble - hair flattened,
the face more gentle and mature. All a lot less threatening.
This was the look that Augustus finally approved - frowning,
serious, humble, a man of the people,
a look that was calculated not to antagonise the Republicans.
And having created this image, Augustus had it copied.
Hundreds and hundreds of copies went out all around the empire.
His strategy began to work.
The empire Prospered, and with it his own power and fame.
But Rome itself remained tense.
The Republicans were still suspicious
that he was accumulating power for his own personal ends,
and they believed he had plans to sweep
the traditional ruling families aside and grab all the power for himself.
Augustus feared assassination. To win over his enemies,
he needed to come up with an image that would persuade
the Republicans once and for all.
This is the Vatican City -
not only the centre of the Catholic Church,
but also home to one of the greatest collections
of Roman art anywhere in the world.
And within that collection,
one piece is outstanding as the most complete example of how Augustus
used art as a political tool.
It was a very subtle work of art,
something that would eventually help bring peace to Rome.
But its success would have sinister consequences.
And here he is. I think even if you knew nothing
about Augustus you'd instinctively recognise
this as a powerful image of authority.
It's this image that would finally win over the Republicans,
for here Augustus meets their fears head-on.
While it shows him as a powerful general,
there's much more to it that that.
Although he's wearing a military breastplate,
there's no actual suggestion that he's ready for action.
If this were just a military statue,
the outstretched arm would be brandishing a spear.
But here it's more like a gesture of statesmanlike command.
You'd expect military boots on the feet, but here they're bare -
more like a sign of humility than power.
This is the ultimate in political art, something in it for everyone,
of whatever political persuasion.
With this statue, Augustus found a way of
making military power attractive to those who feared it most - the Republicans..
But that wasn't all.
Emblazoned across the centre of his breastplate was
a scene that was designed to quell any lingering doubts.
The images are of Augustus accepting the surrender
of Rome's sworn enemy the Parthians It was his greatest triumph,
and the gods are shown looking on with approval.
The message is clear -
Augustus was simply fulfilling the will of the gods.
And now the war that had divided Rome was over.
So the statue offers emphatic reassurance.
Augustus is strong but he's not threatening,
he's the leader who guarantees his people a new golden age,
it's the Pax Augusta -
the Augustan peace, and even the gods approved.
Augustus had achieved his greatest ambition.
He'd unified the two camps of Rome.
And he'd done it using the power of art.
One story tells how, as an old man in his seventies,
Augustus took a boatjourney out of Rome,
it was to be the last trip of his life.
On his way he was spotted by a group of foreign traders
who spontaneously burst into applause and cheered their leader.
They shouted out that it was to him that they owed their lives,
their freedom and their prosperity.
Augustus was overwhelmed.
To him it came like final proof that he'd succeeded,
he was the unifier of Rome and the saviour of his people.
Augustus was the hero sent by the gods to save Rome.
It did seem like the beginning of a new golden age.
But all of this was built on a lie - the people had been duped.
While portraying himself as a peacemaker,
Augustus was eradicating all opposition.
While preaching humility,
he and his family lived and behave like corrupt royalty.
And while boasting that he was handing back power to the people,
Augustus was a king in all but name -
in reality, he had founded a system of dictatorship
that would last for four hundred years.
Augustus had used images to manipulate people
into believing one thing when in fact the very opposite was true.