Customer Reviews

The History Channel Presents Julius Caesar's Rome

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I am a real Roman Empire History buff and was jazzed at the idea of a new video documentary on the topic. There are two discs. The first includes the Julius Caesar bio and the story of Antony and Cleopatra. They aren't bad despite the fact the latter is given a bit of "hollywood treatment". I guess it's the History Channel getting ready for prime time. It's the second disk I have a problem with. It uses the programs from the Discovery Channel Documentary distributed by Questar Video afew years ago. That's four of the six programs in the set. So if you own the Questar set, like I do, you already have these programs. The History Channel set gives no indication of the prior packaging under Questar. That's a bit deceptive in my opinion. Be warned!!

This History Channel production, narrated by Joe Montagna, is copyright 2005 and was first broadcast on the History Channel during the Fall 2005 sweeps.

This production is not intended to be a scholarly treatise on the Rise & Fall of the Roman Empire. It is an entertaining introduction to a very BIG topic that is complex in both its depth and breadth. The History Channel production is fairly historically accurate in terms of the topics it covers, and does not appear to have egregious errors, which certainly cannot be said for the Questar Production, Rome: Power & Glory.

The two other reviews for this product appear to be confusing this History Channel / A&E Television Network production with Rome: Power & Glory from Questar that was narrated by Peter Coyote and broadcast on The Learning Channel in 1997.

This two disk set is (in my view) in reverse order. The basic outline of Roman history is found on disk two, and that's a good place to start, particularly parents who buy this for their children to watch. The first disk has an episode on Julius Caesar -- what appears to be one of the old A&E Biography broadcasts -- and an episode on Anthony and Cleo.

This set has the virtue of portraying Cleo pretty accurately, and that's refreshing. There have been recent attempts to transform ancient female despots into modern feminist icons, and in the case of Cleopatra it has been especially inaccurate, misguided, and wrongheaded. Cleopatra was set on her throne, and kept there, by Roman power, and by her involvement with the losing side in the Roman civil war she lost everything. About the only criticism I have is that Cleopatra is mentioned a little too often.

The choice of Joe Mantegna as the narrator was excellent, although he persistently pronounced "consul" as "council", and tetrarchy as "tet-tree-archee". Mantegna did a great job otherwise. Of course, his performance was tempered somewhat by the script.

The script misuses the term "codependent" by claiming that the Emperor Claudius was "codependent" on drinking and gambling. Codependence is a condition existing between two people. At one point came the line, "Augustus may have invented the term dysfunctional family" (no, he didn't).

The script has some specious references to modern politics, such as referring to the Augustus-era morals laws as a "family values plan", and refers to Roman armies as "soldiers of fortune". There's an obnoxious reference to the Emperor Constantine having been "backed by his Christian Coalition". One of the British talking heads refers to the Emperor Justinian's wife Theodora as "the Nancy Reagan" of his "administration", and speaks of "the Oval Office of the Eastern empire". Nancy Reagan wasn't "the power behind the throne", but I suppose that interpretation persists in the UK because of the long reign by their own figurehead queen.

The same talking head gives a free pass to Nero, who was a vicious murderer and incompetent egomaniac -- just as he is generally portrayed. Other aristocrats are heaped with abuse by the same guy. That was just silly, and should have been edited out. When the only good thing that can be said about Nero is that he had his own mother (Caligula's sister, and ex-wife of her own uncle) executed, that should tell you all you need to know about him.

Based on an anecdote, it is claimed that the Emperor Justinian owed the final 50 years of rule to Theodora, who purportedly convinced him to stand and fight (and slaughter thousands) in the denouement of the infamous chariot race riots in Constantinople. I regard this as more politically correct nonsense, appearing as it does among other such rubbish. Also in this category is the claim that adulterous women sent into exile were being singled out for being dangerous. That's only true in the context of venereal diseases. Women who were poisoners (and therefore dangerous) often wound up executed, not exiled.

Other oddities include the term "Imperial Roman Empire", which is used to set up the use of "Imperial Roman Republic". While that suggests that the empire preceded the emperor, which is correct, it would make more sense to just come right out and say that, and then drop these silly terms. There's a wacky reference to "27 fatal blows" to Caesar. There's a claim that "Julius" was Caesar's first name (it was Gaius).

The republic never fell in the first place -- over time, the senate became more representative of the people as the demographics of the empire changed due to conquests of everything from Scotland to Arabia. This change led to resentment by the aristocracy, which owed its position to having been born. The emperor is analogous to, and the root of, the US presidency; the Roman state's separation of powers arose through trial and error (and civil war, and other mayhem) but there wasn't a time when the senate vanished. Adherence to the view that the senate before Julius Caesar was somehow a democratic institution is obnoxiously elitist. And clinging like a dingleberry to the nobility of a group of senators who -- in the Senate chamber -- stabbed to death a legally appointed chief executive is even worse.

If anything, Julius Caesar was too lenient. No mention is made of the patrician plundering and land-stealing from soldiers who were out serving in Roman armies -- the very origin of the practice and popularity of land grants for the veterans. No mention is made of earlier politicians, the Gracchi, who were killed or ostracized for objecting to this and other aristocratic misconduct and crimes.

Roman expansion came about in response to early barbarian invasions, including a Gallic invasion in which Rome itself was sacked, and to wars by and with neighboring city-states which controlled all the smaller towns in their small empires. The Punic wars resulted from conflicts over colonial holdings with which Carthage tried to control trade. Carthage had earlier forced out fellow Phoenician city-states, as well as the Greeks.

In the finale, Islam is grouped with Judaism and Christianity as part of the legacy of the Roman Empire. Rabbinical Judaism rose to greater importance because the Romans destroyed the Temple; Christianity is an outgrowth of Judaism; Islam was and is the enemy of both, and indeed of all other religions and political systems (particularly democracy) and became one of the influences which led to the final destruction of the remnant of the Eastern Roman empire by the Turks. Claiming otherwise as this script does is ridiculous.

Still, with these provisos, worth buying.

The largest portion of this DVD set consists of four 45 minute episodes of "The Great Empire Rome" which was produced by A&E and presented by Joe Mantegna, all of which were on TV a few years ago. I would rate this series as slightly better than Rome Power and Glory becuase it relies pretty heavily on interviews with a number of British classical scholars who add a lot of interesting and authoritative commentary to Mantegna's dry recitation of the historical facts. It also includes an A&E Biography of Julius Caesar as well as a 90 minute piece on Caesar and Cleopatra which is pretty low budget but otherwise is well done. It's worth the money if you are already interested in the subject matter.

The DVD itself was alright. It wasn't terribly entertaining and did not have many dramatized action sequences (or actually ANY that I can remember) So it was pretty much a few talking heads throwing in their 2 cents on Julius. They quote some ancient sources such as Plutarch and Suetonius as well. While commenting they have shots of Rome and Roman things and whatnot. I found it somewhat strange at the amount of negative commentary on Julius Caesar. They often call him a tyrant (which he pretty much was, BUT in Roman times a tyrant did not have the negative conotation that is does today) They talk about Julius' ambition and his self serving desires. They go to the extent of blaming Julius for the fall of the republic (from which of course the empire rose, and eventually crumbled) Simply put, if the republic was healthy and the senate strong, Julius would never have become dictator of Rome. Had he not done it someone else would have.
The second disc I like a little better, Though it did not talk much about Julius. IT went into some detail about Octavian Augustus Caesar and how he got his start and the "golden age" that followed his reign. All-in-all, I learned very little from this disc that I didn't already know. BUT I have also taken a class on the subject and read up on it. If you don't know much about Rome it is not a bad place to start, but it isn't the most entertaining piece I have seen from the history channel, and I would disagree with some of the views and commentaries as well.

I purchased this DVD in order to have some videos on ancient Rome to show to my high school Latin classes, for which I am the teacher.

First off, there are 5 hours worth of video, with segments covering the Roman Republic, Empire, notable figures such as Julius Caesar and Marc Antony, etc. So it's a good value for the price.

The facts in videos themselves are accurate and well elaborated. Visual aids are accordingly approriate.

Also, delicate topics such as sex or violence are tastefully and scholastically presented.

I had sat through less than half an hour of the main DVD, not counting the Questar one, when I noticed a major inaccuracy.

While Rome may have been generally more inclusive than other ancient empires, it did NOT offer Roman citizenship to "nearly all inhabitants" until the time of Diocletian, 250-350 years after the time of the Caesars. Rome didn't even give citizenship to all residents of the Italian peninsula until after the time of the first DVD's coverage.

Also, what's with Joe Mantegna? Sometimes he pronounces "consul" correctly, at other times it sounds like "council."

And, its coverage is surprisingly thin. No mention of the battle of the Teutoberg Forest, ranked by military and general historians as one of the 15-20 world-changing battles of history? A Germany, or at least a western Germany, controlled by Rome, if only for a century or so, would have made a major difference in history.

Of course, given the Kennedy assassination conspiracy fiasco program that The History Channel produced recently, maybe one shouldn't be so surprised by this after all.

This DVD set is far better than what some reviewers led me to believe specially when compared to "Rome: Power & Glory" set.

Let me explain why should one own this video:

- It visually communicates the history of the entire Ancient Roman civilization and in a typical History Channel's highly digestable fashion of populistic presentation of history subjects.(i.e. "Popular Science" for History)
It very nicely outlines the sequence of events that led to Roman Republic, ascension into an Empire and to an eventual decline.

- It is broken up into logical episodes that allow for viewing over time. Material is long so it would be hard for many to watch it one sitting.

- Events are presented through reanactments, real footages of the locations, statues or objects, and through explanations by historians
(and some citations from Roman writers or philosophers).

Issues to keep in mind:

- This is not a PBS documentary (like marvelous PBS "The Greeks" from "Empires" PBS series). Do not expect scholary, highly intelectual presentation and the elegance that I expect to see from PBS.

- DVDs are unfortunatelly reversed. DVD 2 gives you a historical overview of the Ancient Rome where DVD 1 covers the biographies. I absolutely recommend watching DVD 2 first.

- I could live without some re-enactments


In summary, if you are interested in educating your family, friends or generally non-well initiated students to Ancient Rome this is a very good DVD. If you are scholar looking from some high quality video material you may need to look further - this one is too populistic.

I do absolutely recommend this video over Rome: Power & Glory.

This documentary is scandalously bad.

There is little to no detail about the events, people, and time period presented. Furthermore, the detail that is presented is very debatable in its accuracy. All too often, the lascivious and lurid accounts of Roman Historians are taken at face value. Perhaps this makes for nice drama, but it makes for shoddy scholarship, and poor education.

I was hoping to get insight into Caesar the man, and the tumultuous time period in which he lived. However, I was sadly dissapointed. I would give this hunk of Hollywood garbage one star if not for its one redeeming factor: being on location. At least I got to see what Rome looks like.

For anyone who has only a passing knowledge of the period, I would watch this documentary with five pounds of salt on hand. Do not, I repeat, do not take anything the narrator or 'scholars' say at face value.

It is a shame, because the period of Late Republican Rome is one of the most well documented periods in classical history. To ignore 95% of the source material in favor of the lurid 5% is criminal.

To think, this is how younger people are learning about Roman History!!!

Amazon shows that this DVD has closed caprions. It does not. I have received many DVDs Amazon states has closed captions that do not- hearing impaired people be warned.

My family (we are history buffs) thought that the DVD was not well made, boring, and therefore never completed watching it. So I would have to say it was a waste of money.