Roman Empire on NF

[WillBrink]

Not a new show, but new to me. I have been wanting to further my knowledge of Roman time and leaders, etc, and this is a historical fictionalized drama/documentary. It Chronicles three of the most famous leaders of the Roman Civilization. I learned a fair amount I didn't know, like Julius Caesar apparently had epilepsy, or that the month of July is named after him, and so forth, and IMDB gives it a 7.0/10 which I'd say accurate. They took some artistic license no doubt in minor areas to make it seem more compelling, but they important big picture stuff is accurate. Fight and battle scenes and visuals are not bad, but the limited budget is obvious. I doubt anyone well-read on this era would learn much, but I found it interesting and educational and gave me some ideas and additional areas/topics of interest to follow up on. I find myself more interested in Greek and Roman times lately. B

[SteyrAUG]

I thought it was a good series. You'd probably like the HBO series Rome, it's not exactly a docudrama but the presentation of daily values and Roman culture were amazingly accurate.

[WillBrink]

I thought it was a good series. You'd probably like the HBO series Rome, it's not exactly a docudrama but the presentation of daily values and Roman culture were amazingly accurate.

HBO Rome was great. One of best of the HBO series I thought.

[SteyrAUG]

HBO Rome was great. One of best of the HBO series I thought.

Agreed. If you ever get the DVD set, watch it with the feature "All Roads Lead To Rome", rather than simply subtitles it explains in greater details many of the features depicted in the series.

[HKGuns]

Rome was flipping outstanding. I own it and it may just be time to watch it again.

The acting, characters and historic context were really quite well done.

I have the Blue Ray set and the bonus content, as you state, is excellent as well.

[utahjeepr]

I absolutely love Roman history. In many ways they were products of their time, but very advanced in others.

The fall of Rome set human civilization back more than 1000 years.

[Averageman]

I absolutely love Roman history. In many ways they were products of their time, but very advanced in others.

The fall of Rome set human civilization back more than 1000 years.

I heard a story, that I cannot confirm about the fall of Rome.
I was told the Church sent an Emissary out to the Barbarians and they began to negotiate, in the end the Church was given 24 hours to empty the Libraries in Rome. The Church then took contol over Western Civilization for the next several thousand years.

[utahjeepr]

So much knowledge and advancement was lost that it is astounding. Especially in engineering and construction technology, but other sciences and fields as well.

Hell, the Romans had figured out that lead pipe was bad for your health, though they didn't understand why.

[Averageman]

So much knowledge and advancement was lost that it is astounding. Especially in engineering and construction technology, but other sciences and fields as well.

Hell, the Romans had figured out that lead pipe was bad for your health, though they didn't understand why.

Well, some of it was moved to Spain, most of it Navagational stuff from the ancient era's. See how that turned out?

[SteyrAUG]

I heard a story, that I cannot confirm about the fall of Rome.
I was told the Church sent an Emissary out to the Barbarians and they began to negotiate, in the end the Church was given 24 hours to empty the Libraries in Rome. The Church then took contol over Western Civilization for the next several thousand years.

Actually the biggest single factor in the fall of Rome was the church. You can't swap out the basic foundation of a civilization and expect it to sustain itself. After becoming a christian state, Rome fell in a very short time.

Now certainly the Caligula's and the Nero's were no big help, and regardless of if it was an empire or a republic it had it's problems. But when the essential beliefs of most people are cast aside and replaced with new and foreign beliefs and values, nothing as massive as the Roman empire could have been sustained because what is the reason for the sacrifice of those who sustained it?

Obviously things could have been worse, had the Persian been the prevailing empire western civilization might never have existed at all. And undoubtedly christianity brought a massive "civilizing" element to the west that was necessary to move humanity forward even at the cost of the dark ages. It is also likely that Rome had to fall for something better to come even if the renaissance was a long time coming.

And ironically the church, and even islamic scholars, would become the caretakers of much of that ancient knowledge. But all through the times of the ancient greeks, the romans, the dark ages and the new world discoveries...we have always been limited by our own lack of understanding. That we understood as much as we did, when we did...was actually pretty impressive.