Ancient Rome: the Rise and Fall of an Empire

[Mithras]

I liked it. As I've said before, I am used to absolute rubbish offered up as Roman or Greek history on TV or in the movies. Any move in the right direction is a good move, and I think that Constantine's episode scores highly on several counts. Mainly - this era has never (to my knowledge) been filmed before. So that's a first. 30 years ago, we would have seen Constantine's soldiers wearing segmentatat and carrying gladii and rectangular shields. Not in this TV show: dished oval shields, Intercisa-style helmets, long hamatas (a few with doubling though..), spatha, dracos, long sleeved tunics with orbiculli and clavii (often in strange places, but there nonetheless).

So - a million miles better than anything that has gone before. Having a plumbata in there was beyond my expectation! I was certainly expecting LIcinius to come in with cataphracts, and see Constantine's men beat them down with hammers and clubs, but it was not to be.

I don't know much about the history/politics of that exact period, unfortunately. But I think I imagined Constantine as a bald-headed bruiser, a deep-voiced, swaggering arse-kicker of a man, a REAL man who had sworn by the sun god. But changed his views because the situation dictated it. Pragmatic, political, militaristic, ruthless.

The BBC actor did not come across that way to me. More effete and flighty.

But, for the masses - a great step forward!!!!!!!!!!!

EDIT: Also, did you notice the way the emperors were referred to as 'majesty' Another period touch.