Révoltes barbares

As an ex-high school Ancient History teacher, I thought this series took a very one-eyed view of Rome and, as others have pointed out, gets a few of the "facts" wrong. It depicted the Romans as the bad guys and the barbarians as the good guys (and girls). The ancient world was a pretty brutal place no matter where you were.

Think back to the "What have the Romans ever done for us?" scene in Monty Python's Life of Brian where the troupe satirically reels off a long list of the good things the Romans had done. A lot of uprisings did not have popular support, as many thought Rome offered an OK deal, or at least a better deal than they were getting.

Rather than a one-sided narrative, this series would have been a lot better with some historical objectivity in the mix.

The "drama" part of this docudrama is surprisingly excellent. The dialogue, acting, costumes, and special effects blew me away. However, I can't for the life of me figure out why they decided to have CEOs, random politicians, and Civil Rights activists interrupt great scenes with useless comments. The professors and archeologists sometimes have insightful comments, but everyone else is laughable. Would be interested to see an edit of this series where all of that stuff is removed, because it really could stand on its own.

It represents only the invitation and the first step to discover enemies of the Rome, to see stories and heroes and to explore mechanismes of ilitary actions and political decisions. Far to be perfect, it is just a docudrama.Decent in all senses.

Please, do not call this history. This is just a epic-romantic fictional drama. The fight of good against evil. An idealistic quest for freedom... Nothing to do with real history. Not only they get all the facts mixed up, when not entirely wrong, the worst is the "analysis" by the "experts". They really sound like 7-year-olds talking about the last Disney cartoon. They do not understand the politics at all, how an empire is built. I gave it 6 for the effort and, because as a work of fiction, it deserves some recognition.

A documentary series on the rebel leaders who stood up to the Roman Empire, with varying degrees of success. Through narration, expert opinion and dramatized scenes we see the histories of Hannibal, Viriathus, Spartacus, Boudica, Arminius, Fritigern, Alaric, Geiseric and Attila the Hun and their struggles for independence from Rome.

An interesting period of history, with colourful subjects, well told. Well dramatized too - not just basic battle scenes as many military history series seem to consist of, but decent dialogue and human drama, in addition to some great action scenes. Many well known actors and actresses too.

On the downside, the dramatization sometimes takes precedence over historical accuracy. Also, the experts that are wheeled out feel very staged, speech-filled, preachy and superfluous. For example, why on earth do you need Jesse Jackson for a series about the Roman Empire? The experts are largely just padding.