Rome - The Complete First Season

Start with the game, Rome, then go to Wikipedia to answer your many questions. When you have put it all in context, get the HBO video series, Rome, and see it all illustrated. Highly accurate and well researched, it will show you the way it was, the way it went wrong, and why the Roman Empire was crying out for the sort of reform that the Christian movement brought it.

The gaffs are few. The writing is excellent. The history is accurate. The presentation of social anthropology through the lives of Titus Pullo and Lucius Vorenus, like Rosencrantz and Gildenstern, is highly entertaining.

This series is unique and timeless in so many ways. The fact that it didn't attract a following sufficient for another season is disappointing but not surprising; people seem to equate Rome with epics, and while I like movies like Gladiator, I'd much rather see a drama rooted in the social and historical realities of the period. This series may be the first and last of that breed. No, it is not a scrutinizing, one hundred percent accurate portrait; you could not tell a story about ancient Rome relevant to the general viewer without making it just that, a story. But historical epics like Gladiator and Kingdom of Heaven give us rather dry characters who seem to be humanists dropped into a historical period. This is the story of characters driven by the realities of their time, who very much belong to the period. Add to this a brilliant cast and high production values, and this series will surely live forever.

I thought that THE SOPRANOS was going to be HBO's greatest show, but it started to become very tedious after the fourth season. Then ROME came along and in just 2 seasons, it made me forget entirely about THE SOPRANOS. This is just a brilliant show filled with great performances, great dialogue, great direction... but this is not your parents' Charlton Heston or Elizabeth Taylor epic. This is a brutal, gritty, vulgar, sexy and realistic portrayal of those who lived in these times as presented to our time.

Many deserve accolades for their work insofar as performances are concerned like Ciaran Hinds as the frighteningly human Julius Caesar, James Purefoy as the bawdy Marc Antony, the delicious Polly Walker as Atia, the radiant Kerry Condon as Octavia... but the real accolades go to Kevin McKidd and Ray Stevenson, as the proud but flawed Lucius Vorenus and the lusty, violent Titus Pullo, respectively. It is their relationship that is at the the core of this show, and as much as the political and emotional intrigue of the series is fascinating, I find myself longing for a show that was just about the relationship and adventures of Vorenus and Pullo. Their friendship has a very mismatched-buddy-cop chemistry, but in a form of entertainment that has exhausted that cliche, it really works between these two. They play off each other wonderfully, and individually, they're terrific. I can only hope that this show will, in the future, be as or more respected and revered as THE SOPRANOS.

Thanks HBO for cancelling this series years before it's time.

HBO didn't promote the show well enough. More money and effort should have been put behind it's promotion. The public can be slow and fail to recognize quality entertainment, but this show clearly would have appealed to a large audience of Americans that love violence, war, sex, and selfish, power hungry monsters. I found this realistic, vivid portrayal of Roman society fascinating even when certain historical events were altered or omitted. In terms of customs, social norms, life on the streets -"Rome" is highly recommended and unprecidented. The expensive sets were fantastic of coarse, but the real appeal for most viewers has to be the richly developed characters. There are times when the writing could have been better and more attention should have been paid to the complex political struggles that we witness unfold and less to soap opera melodrama. It is really too bad this unique series only lasted two seasons and most people don't even know what they missed.

I hardly ever watch tv and caught this exellent series by accident absolutely stunned by how good it was I look forward to watching every episode very graphic violence and sex might put off alot of people definately for a mature audience,that aside this was very well done