Ancient Rome: The Rise and Fall of an Empire

A profound useful didactic tool. This is the basic virtue of this series , proposing a new, fresh perspective about ancient Rome. The second good point - the viewer becomes, episode by episode part of project. The serie do not gives answers but premises of them. It do not propose verdicts but the basic pieces for own conclusion. And, no doubts, it does that in well , inspired and precise way. So, just remarkable.

My wife and I bought the DVD because we couldn't find anything for this price and we had to spend a voucher. But the series was over our expectations! Hollywood made a lot of historically unauthentic movies with a lot of monumental scenes,and unrealistic characters (e.g. Gladiator) so I was a bit suspicious, but the good old BBC quality can't make you disappointed. The sets and costumes are perfect however the storyline and the characters are in focus. Battle scenes were smartly made to keep the budget lower. I was glad to see Gracchus, the Jewish rebels and Constantine besides Nero and Caesar. The quality is very even throughout the episodes, I found only Rebellion a bit worse. The theme itself (based upon Flavius's book) was not too popular with screenwriters and the fact that they made an attempt at it is OK, though the plot of this episode doesn't really have a point as a drama. And nor Flavius, nor the zealots, neither Titus, nor Vespasianus were real heroes. The writers couldn't really grasp their personalities. After all, it's a must see for every lover of historical movies!

"Rome" is a costume, period drama from BBC television that explores the life of ancient Roman dictators. The most memorable being that of emperor Nero, played by actor Michael Sheen. Sheen's portrayal of the demented dictator paints a disturbing portrait of a psychopath. I wasn't able to tear myself away from the screen.

This series is of interest only for the few brief and historically accurate voice overs in each episode. The rest is terribly written and acted drivel, highly romanticized with very little relation to known events. Take for instance the episode about Constantine. An undue prominence is given to Constantine's sister Constantia and her arranged marriage to Licinius. This is written in an extremely melodramatic way and Constantia has very modern attitudes to marriage. After a lot more melodrama and inaccurate events, Constantine is seen to arranged the murder of Licinius to take place at the exact moment he is reciting the Nicean creed, an effect lifted from the Godfather.

Earlier I had seen ROME series, so my mind was not ready to see this series as I though it will be more or less alike. But this series is great and mind blowing. You feel that these events are happening at the real place. Also the war tactics looks very real. I highly recommend this series for those who are not aware of ROME history and are interested to know it. In 6 hours you will be taken to the journey from the story of Caesar till the fall of Rome. It is the story of Love, Betrayal, Greed, Sacrifice, War and what not. Costumes and location makes us feel as if we are in that age. Nice acting by the actors. Special thing about this series (1) it depicts real characters and real events, (2) It is based on accounts of writers from the ancient world and (3) has been written with the advice of modern historians.