Rome: Rise and Fall of an Empire

Simpleminded look at a complicated time in our history. But worse than that, the episodes are full of conjecture...bad conjecture at that. One of the worst documentaries I've seen. Anyone interested in Roman history is far better served by the BBC.

I feel the other 2 reviews are excellent but I want to make a short point about this documentary,

This documentary focuses on the chronological order of the empires Fall, it has 1 episode on the Roman republic days with the problems of northern Gallic tribes, and than it jumps to Caesar and than jumps again to the empire and than the documentaries main point is what happens during the empires days.

It explains the decay of the empire really well and I cant criticize it for leaving out so many cool facts, the this is already 13 hours long.

8/10, really well made, focuses well on the empire side of Rome and its decay,

I really felt sad when it got to the end.

Rome Rise and Fall of an Empire is a great summary of the whole Roman history in 13 episodes. In more details, this mini-series show us how the empire we all know came to being and why it fell at the end. To see the civilization who is the basics for our own who it worked was a big experience for me. As it is visible from my summary, this was my very first documentary about the Roman Empire and it open my eyes to its greatness and flaws, which ironically mirrored our own. I am Greek and here the idea about religion is that it is flawless, perfect and the people who killed Jesus were horrible and in our history books it is even worse, for real. The Romans are showed as the enemy of Christianity and when they converted they became better.Are you mental me? So you can see why this series had a lasting impression on me. With out this I may have not become a history buff and be in the end ME. But I digress all in all it is a good documentary series and you should definitely watch it.You will after remember it with happiness.

The series uses less than 13 hours to discuss over 600 years of history, of course none of it is going to be in depth. Still, I enjoyed parts that dealt with figures usually glossed over, Stilicho for example. I also enjoyed the talking heads and the insights that they provide. I found myself researching certain topics so I could get a little more information about the era.

My biggest complaint is that much of the series seemed redundant and boring. As another reviewer has mentioned, the series focuses too much on the military history (and really the battles seemed to be the same ones played over and over) and less on the economic and social history.

The series is decent but not great.