Ancient Rome: The Rise and Fall of an Empire [DVD]

Very good series. Rome explained in its various stages.

Ancient Rome is a fabulous series. It is a great series and it is good to have it on DVD.. The first episode concerns the story of Caesar who brought revolution to Rome. The series begins with the end of the wars with the Gauls where Caesar is surrounded at the Battle of Alesia but soon gains victory with a brilliant counterattack.Caesar vows to get rid of the corrupt rulers of Rome, which leads to civil war. Caesar captures Rome forcing his opposition Pompey to withdraw. Caesar then takes funds from the treasury to fund his campaigns, which include fighting opposition in Spain. Meanwhile Pompey amasses a huge army in Greece, which helps him force Caesar to retreat inland. However Caesar is once again victorious and overturns the Republic and makes himself the first emperor only to be assassinated by rival's four years later.Episode two is about Nero who witnesses the great fire of Rome and tries to re build it in Marble and stone. This is at great expense that threatens to bankrupt Rome. Amongst other things Nero robs the temples and this turns many in the senate against him. This includes the Pisonian conspiracy to assassinate Nero that is averted. But later after the biggest arts festival in Roman history, kicking his wife to death, a tour of the empire and a lack of money, Nero is sentenced to death by the senate.. Episode three concerns the Jewish rebellions. Titus and Vespasian lead the legions against the rebels. Vespasian becomes the new emperor after Nero. And Titus massacres the rebels.The fourth episode features Tiberius who is defeated in a battle with rebels in Spain. He negotiates a peace treaty that the senate refuses to ratify. But he is a hero with the people and he takes his proposed land reforms to the Peoples Assembly. There he vetoes everything in response to Octavius who has vetoed his proposed land reforms. Octavius is deposed and then spreads rumours that Tiberius wants to be King which results in the murder of Tiberius.Episode five tells the Christian Rome with the story of tyrant Maxentius who consults the old gods and Lactantius who tries to convince Constantine to convert to Christianity. During battle Maxentius is drowned in the Tiber and afterwards Constantine victoriously rides into Rome with the Christian symbol. Constantine rejects the pagan gods and gets his sister Constantia to marry the eastern emperor Licinius who turns against him along with the senate. A holy war develops but Constantine wins and forms an empire under one Christian God at the council of Nicea.The final episode six takes us to the 5th century and the fall of the empire. The Roman Empire is under attack from barbarians. The Goths sweep through Italy to lay siege to Rome and Emperor Honorius agrees to the demands. But when the Goths withdraw he breaks the agreement. This leads to conflict of interest between many Roman figures and the sack of Rome.The series is well produced with good acting and direction. Everything looks good and the effects and sets are also impressive.The DVD set is excellent and this is generally a very interesting product.

First off, let me state that some of the episodes on here rank among the best docudramas ever. In fact, if you take out the narrator and make them a bit longer they'd make great Made-for-TV Movies. The problem is that the quality of the episodes are horribly inconsistent. Since their is such a variation in quality it is necessary to review the episodes separately. I'd prefer to list them in chronological order since that makes more sense, but the bad ones and the good ones are so distinctly grouped in the broadcast order that it seems more logical to list them that way. Nonetheless, I'll be putting dates next to them so you can see the order that they SHOULD go in.Caesar (52-48 BC)It's not surprising that this should be unimpressive given that the HBO series  Rome  came out at around the same time and covered the same character with more time, a better budget, better sets, and better actors. Still, it didn't have to be this bad. This is basically a hatchet job on Caesar. That's not necessarily a bad thing since HBO did much the same thing. But there were two important differences. First, they made Caesar believably cold-blooded. You can see the man thinking his secret thoughts and plotting, yet when he's in front of his troops his persona is much different. Second, they at least made him interesting. This Caesar is a dandy with seemingly no understanding of other people. In fact, his introduction has him in his tent having his body hair pulled out and his face pampered while his soldiers are outside dying. Needless to say the real Caesar would never have done this, and more importantly it seems unbelievable that anyone would follow a man who let them die because his massage session wasn't finished. This is a terrible performance for one of the greatest generals the world has ever seen (something that they keep saying during narration, but fail to demonstrate). I don't blame the actor so much as the script. He's playing it pretty much as written. Caesar is gay and loves close, physical contact with his commanders. Caesar is pouty and accuses Mark Antony of being about to betray him for no reason. Caesar is reserved and doesn't come out of his tent except to decimate his soldiers and take credit. How else can he play it but as an effeminate, pampered gay man?The other characters aren't much better. In fact, they're pretty forgettable. The only one that really stuck out was Marcellus and that was only because he was the same guy who played Cato in HBO's Rome. This is made extra weird because most of his scenes are WITH Cato. Frankly, he makes a better Cato than Marcellus. It seems unbelievable to have him as a money-loving luxurious Senator when you've seen him as a ascetic opinionated statesman. I prefer to think of that as a compliment to his performance as Cato rather than an insult of his performance in this. Everyone's motivations are simplified, which is to be expected in a docudrama, but this is done to the point of absurdity. Caesar never states anything like a reason why he should be allowed back into Rome, when even Rome made clear that he had damn good reasons to fear being prosecuted. From the very beginning he tells everyone he meets that he's going to take over the Republic when he returns. That the Republic has many failings is alluded to, but they never expand on exactly what Caesar was going to do that would fix them. The senators convincing Pompey that he must fight has a similar lack of subtlety. It's all about money. Caesar must be defeated immediately, not because he's a deadly threat to Republican ideals or because they fear Pompey's growing power, but because it's costing the senators money to stay on campaign. In every action there is a clear right and wrong side, and you know what it is the second you see it. The narration makes things even worse because the characters often state things that were just said by the narrator. Overall, a complete failure.They list Mary Beard (a very respected Classicist) as the adviser in this episode. I can only assume that they ignored most of her advice because it's not evident on film. In fact, all of these episodes have famous scholars listed as advisers. I can only assume that they got them for publicity and that they weren't very heavily involved. Even the accurate ones don't betray much evidence of academic involvement. Of course, she did say something on her blog about going to watch them film it on location. An opportunity to go around Roman sets and see people dressed in period costumes might well be worth letting them tack your name onto a show like this. I think I'd have done the same, especially for the chance to fool around with some of the excellent props.Nero (54-68 AD)One of the most distinctive aspects of the first two is how they introduce the characters. They have them running around or something and then they suddenly freeze frame and put their name next to them. This feels like a very modern interposition. This is the kind of thing that you would expect to see in a music video, not a docudrama. You can tell it wasn't planned too, since the still images are often horrifically blurred. The reason that I bring this up now is because it is used far better on this episode than the last one. This episode starts with a bang, obviously intentionally. It's a lowlife part of Rome with a bunch of people walking around and a street corner musician making fun of the emperor. Then one of the men pulls his hood off and it's Nero himself (identified by text), in a really cheap looking wig. For shock value it works quite well. The only problem is that it never shows up again later. Why was he out trolling around the city in that getup? Why did he start a fight? Why was he laughing maniacally while getting beat up? These are all questions that you should be asking yourself after seeing this clip, and they'll never be answered. Unless you consider 'he's nuts' to be an answer. Essentially the most interesting scene in the movie comes in the beginning and it's never explained or alluded to later.This episode follows the whole 'Nero was nuts' theory. It's been done to death and it would be nice to see them give a different take on the man, but as it goes it is a fun story. It is also the perfect opportunity for an actor to ham it up. They got Michael Sheen for Nero, probably the best actor in this and just before his career really took off. If you're looking for a subtle and restrained performance, then this isn't your day. But be honest, who'd want to see a subtle and restrained Nero? The man embodied excess in all its forms. And Sheen goes for it putting all his crazy on display. That said, this does take a more nuanced view of Nero than a lot of other fictional takes. Nero is vindicated of the accusations of fiddling while Rome burned. He's shown to be desperate to help and willing to use his own houses to help. In fact, that's the beginning of his madness. He goes so overboard trying to rebuild Rome that he convinces himself he's a god.This episode would seem to be the signature one of the series. They put more obvious money into it than the others with a few nice vistas of Nero's building projects and an entirely pointless gladiatorial bout. I'm not kidding when I say it's pointless. It's a dialogue scene and anything that they had to say there could have been said in a room somewhere without it making a damn bit of difference. It is a fun episode, though again it suffers from the cheesy and oversimplified situations of the last one. Subtlety is not the strength of this show. Nero would seem to fit perfectly. There are a few pacing issues, and the supporting characters aren't great (again to insert my historical prejudice, I hate Seneca. The guy was even more of a hypocrite than most philosophers, yet he comes off as a wise old man. Probably won't bother anyone else) except for Tigellinus. I like how they make the man seem almost noble as he goes around killing people for their money. After all, he is loyal to his emperor until even he can see that the man is utterly off his nut. So overall, an ok episode. It would have been far less interesting if it wasn't for Michael Sheen's manic performance, and frankly it could have used a bit more of that.Rebellion (66-70 AD)Here's where things start getting good. These next two feel like they were done by different people, and they probably were. The stories are less sensationalized and they let the actions speak for themselves a bit more. No more radical lunatics and gay dilettantes. This one focuses on the Jewish Rebellion beginning under the reign of Nero. The main characters are the future emperors Vespasian and Titus, and the Jewish historian Josephus. The real Josephus was a bit of a snake which can make the simplistic good guy-ness of this Josephus a bit annoying, but if you haven't read his works you're probably not going to be aware of how slimy he is. I didn't care much for him (at least part of that was the acting) but others might, although he's about as Jewish as the Queen is. Even if you don't like him this story focuses more on the Romans than the Jews. Seeing them attempt to portray Vespasian as he was is very nice. The guy was basically a country boy without much refinement. Him and Titus are also refreshingly less black and white than Josephus is. The acting is nothing impressive, but its certainly competent and Vespasian and his son come off both well and fairly accurately. The battle scenes are pretty good for the budget and it's nice to see these events on film regardless of scale. It was an interesting time no doubt about it.If you're interested in this period you should also check out the TV Miniseries  Masada . It covers the events right after this and is extremely entertaining. Also, it had Peter O'Toole, which is never a bad thing.Revolution (133 BC)This one focuses on a lesser known moment in Roman history: the tribunate of Tiberius Gracchus. Gracchus was a reformer who wanted to help the poor, limit the land owned by senators, and increase his own power in the process. Tiberius was the first of the radical tribunes who bypassed the Senate in his efforts, which led to popular politicians courting the common people, and eventually to the fall of the Republic. So it's really hard to overstate the importance of this moment in Roman history. I think that this was my favorite of the bunch. It was paced well, had some good performances, and was from an era never shown before. Particular praise goes out to James D'Arcy who gives a wonderful performance in the lead. His Tiberius manages to be both idealistic and ambitious and not a little reckless. You see why this man would be a danger to the entrenched nobility. This episode is pretty much a one-man show but it features good supporting performances by David Warner, Geraldine James and Tom Bell, who I've never heard of but does a great job as Nasica, whose every look is ominous. He looks like a snake. I've never seen a more suspiciously evil looking person. There is enough dialogue in this episode that the voice over narration is almost unnecessary except for the beginning and end. In fact, it shows up only sporadically throughout and seems to be a measure of the quality of these episodes that the best ones have the least narration.The best thing about this episode is that the main character is quite a complicated one. The question of whether he's an idealist doing what he does for the benefit of the people or an ambitious politician furthering his own ends is never made clear. While it does seem to land more on the side of idealist it makes quite clear that he is not unaware of the benefits to be gained from his actions. While the leaders of the Senate are portrayed as mere stock villains, considering their actions it seems completely justified. They overreacted badly and brought down violence and unrest upon themselves. David Warner as the extremely conflicted father-in-law Senator is the exception. He wants much of what Tiberius wants but he refuses to go to the extremes that Tiberius is willing to. The only real problem with this episode is that they cut out Tiberius' brother completely. Gaius Gracchus did the same thing a decade later, with even more success. While they don't have to portray that, it seems sad that Tiberius is presented as being an only child. They should at least have acknowledged that he had a brother. It would have tied up the ending rather better since one of the main themes is ambition and the desire to live up to and improve on the accomplishments of your family. What better way to show that than to see his brother trying to live up to his ideals?Constantine (312-325 AD)The best thing that can be said about these next two episodes is that they recreate the props and sets superbly. There are very few movies that take place in this time (I can't think of any except  Agora  and a cheap  peplum  from the '60s) and so it's very nice to see these costumes being lived in. The appearance of Rome and the army changed drastically from the Republic and early Empire which what is always being shown on screen. The clothing became more ornate and the armor just... different. It actually looks a lot more medieval than Roman at times. So if nothing else, it is wonderful to see this world recreated for once. Pretty accurately too, although the budget means that some of the ornate costumes look cheaper than they should. This episode has some great battle scenes too. We get to see the Battle of the Milvian Bridge on screen. Even though the number of extras is pretty low (and they tend to reuse marching scenes from previous episodes), they get some good use out of them.This episode isn't too bad. Apart from the usual docudrama problems it works fairly well. It's about Constantine the Great, the first Christian emperor. As such it deals with a lot of religious issues that are of necessity simplified. Constantine often gets a bad rap nowadays. I think that it's probably more to do with what he represents than who he was. He wasn't really any better or worse than any of his fellow emperors but people expect men with Christian ideals to live up to them more and those who aren't religious dislike him for making Christianity the dominant religion in Europe. This episode falls into that trap too, giving a great deal of fuss over Constantine's killing of his rival emperors and their children. True, one of them was his nephew but plenty of Emperors felt the need to wipe out their close relatives due to the threat they posed. Constantine killed his own son for that matter, though they don't cover that in here. On the whole though, it's actually a fairly sympathetic portrayal of Constantine. He's portrayed as power-hungry and untrustworthy but that's emperors for you. You don't get to be the most powerful man in Rome by being a nice guy. He certainly comes off no worse than his rivals, only smarter. He is portrayed as being sincerely religious and generally moody and reserved. I'm not sure I'd consider that accurate in either particular, but it does give him some personality. This episode pays a lot of attention to the women in his life too. Not sure why they chose Constantine for that but it doesn't work too badly. I do wish that they'd chosen an actor who looked a little bit more like Constantine though. He has one of the most recognizable heads of all the Roman Emperors, but they didn't even match his haircut. The performance is fine. Constantine seems utterly inscrutable which is probably a good thing in an emperor.The Fall of Rome (410 AD)This episode is literally about the fall of Rome. Not the fall of the empire mind you. That continued on for another 60 years in the west and thousand in the east. This is the sack of Rome by the Goth Alaric. A major event in Roman history which I'm quite sure has never been filmed before. This is really what the series should be doing, exploring the bits of Roman history that no one else covers. The best episodes are the ones that aren't retreading the tired old emperors and generals.I'm not sure why, but after three episodes they bring the freeze-frame introductions again. Maybe the same crew was involved. They make Alaric out to be far too nice. Somehow having nice-guy Romans is politically incorrect, but nice-guy barbarians are just fine. The situation has been simplified almost beyond recognition. The real Alaric was an amoral general who was out for himself. The men surrounding him were all soldiers. He was not king of all the Goths, he was king of one group of Goths. A very successful king, but king of a sub-group nonetheless. They weren't simple farmers and families out looking for land. Certainly he wanted land to live on, but they were warriors and they were expected to fight in exchange for it. And Alaric and Stilicho weren't all chummy like they're shown here. Stilicho led several campaigns against Alaric in an effort to drive him off Roman lands. When he did offer him land it wasn't a benign gesture. It was an exchange for military service. Alaric would serve Stilicho and Stilicho would pay them by settling them on land. Also, the uprising against the barbarians wasn't just some mindless, bigoted gesture against foreigners (although it was stupid), it was a reaction about the number of barbarians being used in the army. Currently about 1/3 of the Western army was barbarian, a dangerous situation when Rome needed to use its army to defend itself against those very people. At any rate, they capture his reluctance to sack Rome and his failed negotiations with Honorius just right. Basically, all the facts are right, they've just got the context wrong.It's still a fairly entertaining episode. And it is always nice to see the barbarian invasions onscreen. The only other time I've seen that is in  Attila . It just seems like it could have done more.So there you have it. Some really good episodes, some really bad episodes, some depressingly mediocre ones. The good ones are really good, and the bad ones really bad. As you can no doubt tell I have a passion for Roman history that falls outside of the repeatedly presented period. As such I would definitely recommend getting this since the bad episodes were ones I didn't care that much about anyway. If your primary interest in this is that time period, I can recommend better,  Rome  for a start, but those of you who want to see the earlier Republic or the later Empire should definitely check this out. Someday someone should do a series that has one episode from every century of Rome's existence, just so that you can trace the changes in time as Rome evolved and grew. I'd definitely pay to see that.

Brilliantly done

'Ancient Rome' is an enjoyable docu-drama for most people to view...It would help if one already had some knowledge of the Caesar's for example, or the development of the Empire in size and strength to its demise. The material is 'fresh' and has a grainy grittiness that is not seen in previous dramas of ancient Rome. This makes it seem much more authentic. The battle scenes were very authentic too... Alas, there is too little of it. The topics chosen and the context can be confusing I'm certain for someone who does not have a grasp of the fundamentals. Giants in Ancient Rome such as the Antony-Cleopatra liason ; the 'father of modern Europe', the Emperor Augustus; and the the triumverates are missing... If one buys it together with the tv adaptation of the Graves' novel, 'I-Claudius.', then one can understand the entire epic saga a bit better. I suppose if someone with deeper pockets perhaps, ie: Hollywood might have a go,but then you would be sure to loose the historical accuracy and texture I mentioned before.[ASIN:BOOOBGPH7E I,Claudius [Complete BBC series, uncut] 1976] [DVD]

Reader Digest où Rome ne commence qu’avec César .Oui, le titre est «  chute d’un Empire » mais précèdé de «  Ancient Rome »Et ce qui précède l’Empire explique bien des choses. Dommage!

Enjoyable documentary-drama to pass the time, but in my opinion lacking in the history department.Watching alot of history on youtube channels with is alot better then this in term of historical accuracy and the amount of knowledge on them

Really great show. Reminds me of a not so violent or explicit time jumping HBO Rome. It's region locked and will not work on most things in North America but there are ways around this foolish lock companies have. So it is worth getting and watching.

Excelente dramatización en seis documentales de la BBC: las campañas de César contra Pompeyo, Nerón, Vespasiano, Tiberio Graco, Constantino y el saqueo de Roma por el godo Alarico. El inglés es pausado y se deja entender. Dispone de subtítulos en inglés que facilitan la comprensión.

We had to switch the region on one of our devices to watch it but my husband loved it.