Eight Days That Made Rome

I loved the series and learnt a lot from it and thoroughly enjoyed the series. whilst its not perfect neither am i and i would like to see the previous reviewer do better.

Bettany Hughes is very engaging and she really nailed it unpacking the history of Rome and Roman society.

It is - occasionally - a decent enough series, but Miss Hughes' constant moralizing is extremely tiresome. She makes the mistake way too many contemporary historians and commentators are prone to: applying rather decadent and degenerate "modern" Western standards to other societies, cultures, and time periods. At one point she even goes so far to say: "I know that we shouldn't judge ancient societies from a 21st century point of view." Apparently, she has little sense of irony or her own bigotry. Also, way too much time is spent with rather silly reenactments instead of actual scientific analysis and archeological evidence.

Keeps reminding of how "violent", corrupted and degenerated roman society was, apparently forgetting that you cannot apply today's metric to a civilization of 2k years ago. Why bother mentioning Rome's contribution to civilize Europe, between wn one massacre and the other?

A fairly superficial coverage of significant events in Roman history.. I don't think I learnt anything new at all, and I thought the dramatisations a bit simplistic, and quite unnecessary. I also though it a mistake to have the presenter dressed so as to emphasise her ample cleavage. Bring back Mary Beard - she makes the most mundane of Roman things interesting and exciting.