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

Director:

Andrew Grieve

Writer:

Andrew Grieve (writer)

TV Series:

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

Original Air Date:

12 October 2006 (Season 1, Episode 4)

Genre:

Drama | History

Plot:

AD 66, following the death of Nero, Josephus is leads a Jewish Revolt and only General Vespasian has the strength and will to sort out the empire.

Plot Keywords:

Historical | Emperor | Roman Empire

Cast

Ed Stoppard	...	Josephus
Jonathan Coy	...	Florius
Jonathan Hyde	...	Hanan
Peter Firth	...	Vespasian
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Tom Espiner	...	Yaakov
Rod Hallett	...	Nicanor
Richard Harrington	...	Yohanon
Adam James	...	Titus
Danny Midwinter	...	Placidus

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)

The empire against local particularism:the virtues of integration or rather the costs trying to affirm distinct identities

This is the best of the episodes(the four) I have seen and the one that has the very able idea of integrating in the plot the life one the sources of those events, namely the historian Josephus who is the exact equivalent of the Greek Polybius another historian coming from a defeated civilization who has lived in Rome under aristocratic protection and wrote trying to convince his compatriots about the causes of Roman grandeur-Joshephus even luckier lived under imperial protection since his captor became Emperor. The brutality of the Romans is very well attested but also the futility of resistance from the part of Jewish zealots their internal strife and their mistake to assassinate their more moderate leadership who sought compromise with the Romans.One can not miss the modern equivalence with the USA against Islam for example. Nevertheless it is a good episode and the first of the four I have seen which presents the conflict of Rome against a foreign enemy as opposed to the other three which deal with Romano-roman strifes or civil wars. It is the most interesting as far as the depiction of military tactics is considered and very fine on the dilemmas of the vanquished. I think it is overestimating the threat that Judea posed to Roman Hegemony which was not much as I know from documentaries and books. But how can one know for sure? A fine episode.