"Ancient Rome: The Rise and Fall of an Empire" Nero (2006)

User Rating:

7.2/10   

Director:

Nick Murphy

Writer:

Nick Murphy (writer)

TV Series:

"Ancient Rome: The Rise and Fall of an Empire" (2006)

Original Air Date:

21 September 2006 (Season 1, Episode 1)

Genre:

Drama | History

Plot:

The life of emperor Nero was as schizophrenic as his reputation is mad. In the first half, his refined...

Plot Keywords:

Roman Empire | Emperor

Cast

Michael Sheen	...	Emperor "Nero" Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus
James Wilby	...	Ofonius Tigellinus
Michael Maloney	...	Senator Natalis
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Trevor Cooper	...	Senator Scaevinus
David de Keyser	...	Cluvius
Hugh Dickinson	...	Seneca
Alex Lowe	...	Milichus
Catherine McCormack	...	Poppaea Sabina
Stewart Permutt	...	Fop
Ben Pullen	...	Rufus
Hugh Ross	...	Senator Piso

Series Cast

These people are regular cast members. Were they in this episode?

Hugh Dixon	...	Seneca
Philip Jackson	...	Jovius

Runtime:

59 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Company:

British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)

Quotes:

Nero: I'm a god, you see? Must be. Must be. I steal and destroy and nothing happens. I kill people. I killed people. I killed her and nothing happened. How can that be? If I'm not a god how can that be?

7

Emperor Nero is one of the Roman emperors with a "mad" reputation not the only one with such a reputation in Julio-Claudian line. This episode which decides to begin the series with his life-story instead of linear sequence of events, is interesting and in the beginning paints a sympathetic picture of the Emperor which starts darkening mainly after he bloodily wreaks vengeance to a group of wealthy senators who attempted to overthrow and assassinate him. Then the Emperor becomes a caricature something between a super-gangster and a sexual pervert. Difficult to believe that such men existed but having in mind movies made about modern equivalents such as Idi Amin for example one may believe that such things happened- after all the series is based on ancient sources -I imagine Souetonius in the present case.I am an agnostic as far as the possibility for us moderns to recreate the Roman past based on ancient sources and I have stated my belief in a message in the I Claudius debating space. People that accuse the series for inaccuracy about the lives of personalities dead two thousand years ago are overestimating their knowledge since facts can not be established about periods much closer to our own.I found the combination of documentary narration and fiction very attractive and could not overlook the hint about the deviousness of the senators which is a recurrent theme in the series.