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From Ancient Greece to the frozen North, rulers have always needed their elite troops – men trained to perfection, skilled with a devastating array of weaponry – men who will track down their leader’s enemies and kill them. All assassination teams faced one big problem: getting close enough to kill. No one in the ancient world had sniper rifles. As a result even the most formidable Japanese Ninjas got captured and tortured. This series brings some of the most dramatic tales of antiquity to life with a mixture of dramatic reconstruction, documentary filming and expert testimony. Each episode details the intricate complexity of the elite troops who performed the assassination missions and how they worked. It shows what they had to do to achieve elite status, how they could dress, and the weapons they got to use when they completed their first mission.
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E1Assassins
60 min
The true story of the Assassins. Originally a persecuted band of Ismailis, a Shi’ite Muslim sect, they found themselves vastly outnumbered by the Sunnis of medieval Persia. So they developed a special way of fighting back - killing their enemies’ leaders by using stealth, infiltration and their skills with a dagger (image shows an assassin receiving a dagger for his first mission in Persia). They would go on to murder the King of the Crusaders on the eve of his coronation.
E2Spartans
60 min
How the training of the Spartan 300 is bizarrely similar to that of today’s special forces. Here we see the distinctive Spartan helmet (pictured) protects them from spear thrusts and sword strikes. Within this battled hardened group of of warriors was an elite of the elite- the Krypteia – a secret death squad. The story goes that they set out to kill the invading Persian Emperor.
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The Sicarii
60 min
The specialist hit squads that wreaked havoc against the Roman invaders in Jerusalem. This deadly band of stealthy assassins would eventually be cornered in the mighty hilltop fortress of Masada. What happened next has horrified and fascinated the world ever since. Image shows the ruins at Masada with the Dead Sea in background.
