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.

Cheese Hoven This series is of interest only for the few brief and historically accurate voice overs in each episode. The rest is terribly written and acted drivel, highly romanticized with very little relation to known events. Take for instance the episode about Constantine. An undue prominence is given to Constantine's sister Constantia and her arranged marriage to Licinius. This is written in an extremely melodramatic way and Constantia has very modern attitudes to marriage. After a lot more melodrama and inaccurate events, Constantine is seen to arranged the murder of Licinius to take place at the exact moment he is reciting the Nicean creed, an effect lifted from the Godfather.

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.

crayonzero (Edited)It was frankly overall pretty awful.But their was a couple of decent episodes with some merit that I watched with actual enjoyment, the Vespasian and Titus one (Rebellion) it was decently acted and portrayed with nice little battle scenes and had some respect for actual historical fact. Also the (Revolution) episode about Tiberius Gracchus was watchable (despite the obvious lack of his historically vital younger brother Gaius). However, as to the other 4 'episodes', they are for the most part awfully acted, full of garbage characterizations, the scripts are repetitive and weak, the characters vacuous and the show is teaming with inaccuracies and anachronistic behaviour.Both J.Caesar and Nero are total charades of their actual characters, Caesar, for example, comes across as a creepy effeminate thug who I wouldn't follow into a bar for a free pint never mind against the Roman Republic. I was not keen on Sean Pertwees characterisation of him, he portrayed him as neurotic, unhinged and desperately brutal, (what the hell was the decimation scene all about? this is not historical, Caesar did not decimate a legion), they omitted a LOT of his character and missed out on the charm, clemency and his famous dignitas. It is a shame as I really like Pertwee as an actor otherwise. Ciaran Hines as Caesar (from hbos ROME) was much closer to the mark.Nero did not kick his wife to death in front of anyone. After coming home drunk, by himself, an argument started up and in the midst of this he lashed out at her and she miscarried and died. He was grief stricken for the rest of his life, he had just lost his beloved Wife and only HEIR. He also did NOT castrate a slave in public to look like his dead wife, (there is a scandalous report of a private (unseen) castration, 'make him a woman' my hole!). He was a thug and he was brutal, but he was not a camp psychopath. Much of this series has dredged the gossip and vicious rumours of the Ancient world without for one minute questioning the source. And all the while they discount any other dissenting Ancient voice in order to make this show as shocking as they can. I believe the prime time slot on bbc1 is to blame for this, the dumbing down of dialog and ham-fisted characterizations, in order to appeal to the 'talent show'/soap opera loving crowd, because a soap opera is what many of the episodes resemble.Essentially I was really disappointed with it, after all that it promised. Plain terrible at times, the only thing going for 4 of the episodes was the decent looking battle set pieces but even these are all show and don't even try to keep your interest beyond the start of the battles.And they said it would be historically sound? peh. :(If you haven't seen this series, fear not, you missed little. (just go and watch the Rebellion and Revolution episodes on youtube and ignore the rest).On a episode rating I would give: Rebellion:8 Revolution:7 Caesar:4 Constantine:4 Nero:3 Fall:5