The Roman Empire in the First Century

Even though Everything Most of Us Ever Needed to Know About the Early Roman Empire We Learned from I Claudius (with the added bonus of seeing John Hurt as Caligula not only lip-smack his septuagenarian grandmother Livia but also simultaneously cop a feel of her breast), this 3-plus hour special from the PBS-aired Empires series offers a solid historical/cultural survey of life during the days of wine and togas, rounded out with the occasional tidbit of juicy scandal. Narrated by Sigourney Weaver, the story actually begins before the first century A.D., with the ascension of Julius Caesar's adopted nephew Octavian to the throne as the Emperor Augustus in 27 B.C. Ushering in a period of relative tranquility and infrastructure building (long before "infrastructure" was even a word) known as the Pax Romana, Octavian also steadily transferred power from the Senate to himself, setting the stage for the future constant battles between republic and autocratic forms of government. Intertwined with the history of the Roman empire's expansion and contraction under the not-so-holy Roman emperors Octavian, Tiberius, Caligula (one of antiquity's most infamous loose screws), Claudius, Vespasian, and Trajan, are socio-cultural portraits of other famous figures, such as the poet Ovid (whose rather ribald writings on such various topics as simultaneous orgasm eventually landed him a one-way ticket out of Rome), the orator Seneca (whose query "what makes life worth living except sex, wine and baths?" sounds wonderfully rhetorical), Saul (later the apostle Paul), and the statesmen Pliny (both elder and younger). Interviews with scholars are combined with nicely lensed on-location footage and dramatic recreations, making for a winning balance that is both pleasing to the eye and mind. Recommended. Also newly available in the Empires series: Queen Victoria's Empire. Aud: H, C, P. (R. Pitman)