When Rome Ruled

Best Documentary on Ancient Rome I've Seen
I am fascinated by ancient Rome and I am also a longtime documentary buff, so when I accidentally came across this set of discs on Amazon at a reasonable price I bought it without hesitation. I expected that a series with National Geographic's name on it would be a cut above and I wasn't disappointed. After all, it was they who first introduced me as a child to the ancient world in articles about Abu Simbel and the Bayeaux Tapestry.
This is a very good six part 270 minute documentary and I would recommend it to anyone who has an interest in this subject, or who just likes good, entertaining and informative documentaries. They have done a good job of walking a line between making a lively and entertaining TV show about the Roman world, and an intelligent treatment about this amazing civilization that informs so much of the modern western world. When I saw titles like "The Real Caligula" and "Secrets of the Gladiators" I thought it might be just a rehash of series like "Rome: Power...

Veni, Vidi, Vici
`When Rome Ruled' is a 3 disc set with 2 episodes on each. They include; Secrets of the Gladiators, the Real Caligula, Doomsday Pompeii, Killing Caesar, Birth of Rome, and Ancient Superpower. Each has English subtitles.

The first, Secrets of Rome is more about the coliseum and some little known facts, such as, Rome was one of the last cities to build a stone structure to house their games because they didn't trust their citizens to gather in large groups, also how the coliseum would have been filled with water. On the other hand, they tell about the wonderful emergency evacuation system, but never even hint at how it would have worked.

Doomsday Pompeii purports itself to be the never before told story of the common people, which is a bit of an exaggeration.
Birth of Rome is also a slight misnomer, it really tells how Caesar constructed many of Rome `s structures (the city was already built) and how the city was controlled by Caesar Augustus after Caesar is...

Incomplete
FYI, this DVD contains 6 parts plus a bonus part. The original National Geographic special, and the DVDs sold on its website, contains 8 parts. This version is missing two episodes. I was not aware of this and will be returning it. I took one star off for the omission. I've viewed parts of this series on the National Geographic channel, however, and it is great and deserves the other stars.

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