Ancient Rome: The Rise and Fall of an Empire

2006

Seasons & Episodes

  • 1

7.9| 0h30m| TV-14| en
Synopsis

Turning points in ancient Roman history and some of the Empire's greatest stories are brought to life in this drama documentary series.

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Reviews

AniInterview Sorry, this movie sucks
Ogosmith Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.
Ava-Grace Willis Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.
Benas Mcloughlin Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.
cricketkellyc "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.
Nikhil Gujar 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.
abbo450 In recent years there has been two dramas to depict roman life, this and the much more glamorous Rome. There are positives and negatives to both. This is much better in terms of the mechanics of the events that happened. In Rebellion we get to see why the Jews rebelled, how the general's family was important and the motivations behind all the character's decisions. In Rome i would expect, the characters would say "there's a rebellion in Judea... bye." In Ancient, we also get to see some much more interesting characters that i didn't know about, not only the emperors, but Alaric King of the Goths, Tiberius Graccus and the rival emperors of Constantine. So at this point Ancient is miles ahead.But now Rome claws back. This gives a much better picture of Roman society. There is no mention of what the common people of Rome were feeling at the time of these events, where i'm sure Rome would address that. Also it is much better cast, written and acted. Aside from Michael Sheen (nero) there is no stand out actor in Ancient. Whereas, all of Rome's characters are superb. All perfectly cast and how the writers truly knew how to portray these people. Anient, is kind of lacking in that department (trevor in Eastendersas Antony?) So which is better? It depends on what you're looking for. if you are looking for a "soap" of Rome where society is portrayed, and where there is plenty of X rated action go for Rome. If you're more interested in what happened in a brief general view that doesn't really care if there script came from a 5 year old, go for Ancient. And that's what I'm interested in.
george karpouzas Having by now seen all six episodes of the series on DVD I have formed an idea of this series which I saw simultaneously with HBO's Rome. The other production was more lavish, richer, more violent and much more sexually explicit. It also followed the fortunes of totally fictitious yet plausible characters along a much more restricted time-span, that is from the battle of Alesia till the assassination of Caesar(season 1).Sexually voracious and incredibly scheming women were interwoven with battle scenes, senatorial machinations, low-life thugs, powerful patrons and loyal soldiers. Nothing of this sort in the present series-a narrator's voice existed and the focus was on certain historical heavy-weights whose acts were interpreted in the light of modern real-politic, and the main events of their lives rendered as received by established historical sources or at least by established historical myths.This series focused on the life-stories of few characters whose final fate and posthumous reputation the narrator described at the end of each episode.The focus was on political and military events and not on personal motivation, feuds and loves except on the case that they had a net historical result-example:the marriage of Licinius and Constantia, Constantine's sister.The series Rome is much more glamorous and sex and violence than history on the grand scale as the present series. I suspect that Romans in their everyday lives experienced history in the former manner than in the latter one.Both series were a joy.