Ancient Rome: The Rise and Fall of an Empire : Season 1

Julius Caesar's rise to power, from his military success to his decision to return home and seize power from his old ally Pompey.

The life of emperor Nero was as schizophrenic as his reputation is mad. In the first half, his refined upbringing allows him to preside over a brilliant cultural height, symbolized by the Domus Aurea ('golden house'), his unprecedented palace. After the great fire of Rome, which he probably didn't order, his plans to rebuild the capital, completely redesigned, a huge urbanization even by modern standards, ran into such exorbitant costs that taxes even raised extremely couldn't finance it, so he

In the spring of 66 AD, target-failure by the tax collectors in the province of Iudea makes the Roman garrison turn on them and even the Temple in Jerusalem- a bloody revolt then ousts the governor, installing an independent regime headed by Hanan Ben-Hanan. After a 30,000 strong army was defeated and the whole 12th legion wiped out, emperor Nero, who fears the unprecedentedly serious rebellion may spread throughout the empire, sends upon the retired veteran general Vespasian, who was banished f

Since the young Tiberius Gracchus assisted his famous father and namesakes funeral pile, he is destined for even greater fame. The final victory in Rome's 120 year long Punic wars against Carthage, its greatest ever Mediterranean rival, brings him immense glory and the rich unseen wealth, but almost nothing trickles down to the destitute, who keep flocking to the city's squalid quarters; the rich patricians yest removing the military threat of Carthage also removes the best control on them. He l

Emperors Diocletian's 'Tetrarchy', a hierarchic system of four emperors, fails as they soon fight each-other. Autumn 321, co-emperor Constantines army prepares north of Rome to defeat his tyrannical western rival Maxentius. Clerk Lactantius, whose writings are the major source for this film, tries to convince Constantine to put his faith in the secretive slave religion, Christianity; something in the sky, perhaps a striking meteorite, is taken as a divine sign; he adopts the PX-emblem -crossing

Under emperor Honorius Rome was still the nominal, eponymous capital, but his seat of government was the palace in Ravenna, an Adriatic port closer to the borders under constant threat as irresistible attacks from the east by nomadic peoples like the Huns caused a chain-reaction of westward migrations, forcing people like the Goths (who lived by the Black Sea) to invade the Roman imperial territory. Stilicho had allowed them to live there, but after his disgrace and execution on the instigation