In 25 AD, Judah Ben-Hur, a Jew in ancient Judea, opposes the occupying Roman empire. Falsely accused by a Roman childhood friend-turned-overlord of trying to kill the Roman governor, he is put into slavery and his mother and sister are taken away as prisoners.
The rebellious Thracian Spartacus, born and raised a slave, is sold to Gladiator trainer Batiatus. After weeks of being trained to kill for the arena, Spartacus turns on his owners and leads the other slaves in rebellion. As the rebels move from town to town, their numbers swell as escaped slaves join their ranks. Under the leadership of Spartacus, they make their way to southern Italy, where they will cross the sea and return to their homes.
After fierce Roman commander Marcus Vinicius becomes infatuated with beautiful Christian hostage Lygia, he begins to question the tyrannical leadership of the despotic emperor Nero.
The assassination of the would be ruler of Rome at the hands of Brutus and company has tragic consequences for the idealist and the republic.
Glaucus, a demobilized centurion returns home to Pompeii to find his father murdered by a gang of black-hooded Christian robbers that terrorizes the city and he decides to investigate the matter while the nearby volcano threatens to erupt.
A falsely accused nobleman survives years of slavery to take vengeance on his best friend who betrayed him.
The story picks up at the point where "The Robe" ends, following the martyrdom of Diana and Marcellus. Christ's robe is conveyed to Peter for safe-keeping, but the emperor Caligula wants it back to benefit from its powers. Marcellus' former slave Demetrius seeks to prevent this, and catches the eye of Messalina, wife to Caligula's uncle Claudius. Messalina tempts Demetrius, he winds up fighting in the arena, and wavers in his faith.
In the year 180 A.D. Germanic tribes are about to invade the Roman empire from the north. In the midst of this crisis ailing emperor Marcus Aurelius has to make a decission about his successor between his son Commodus, who is obsessed by power, and the loyal general Gaius Livius.
Titus Andronicus returns from the wars and sees his sons and daughters taken from him, one by one. Shakespeare's goriest and earliest tragedy.
The perversion behind imperial Rome, the epic story of Rome's mad Emporer. All the details of his cruel, bizarre reign are revealed right here: His unholy sexual passion for his sister, his marriage to Rome's most infamous prostitute, his fiendishly inventive means of disposing those who would oppose him, and more.
The construction of great temple dedicated to the goddess Aphrodite, followed by new and high taxes and the arrival of a plague, create discontent in the population, and threatens the love between a sculptor and a slave.
Determined to hold on to the throne, Cleopatra seduces the Roman emperor Julius Caesar. When Caesar is murdered, she redirects her attentions to his general, Marc Antony, who vows to take power—but Caesar’s successor has other plans.
The Colosseum is often depicted as a bloody stadium of gladiators with violence and murder! Is it all in the Colosseum? In fact, the 'Colosseum' in Roman times was a thorough political stage in which the emperor was able to show off the power of the emperor and to meet and communicate directly with the citizens. The emperor was a political space that was not an original one that gained the support of the Roman people and the people were actively exchanging their demands. The fact that even the Roman emperor, who was a symbol of absolute power, did politics through communication with the Roman people would be a valuable lesson for us to live in modern society beyond 2000 years.
Marcellus is a tribune in the time of Christ. He is in charge of the group that is assigned to crucify Jesus. Drunk, he wins Jesus' homespun robe after the crucifixion. He is tormented by nightmares and delusions after the event. Hoping to find a way to live with what he has done, and still not believing in Jesus, he returns to Palestine to try and learn what he can of the man he killed.
Who invented time, who invented the clock? Why 1 hour, why 60 minutes, why 60 seconds? Since prehistoric times, man has sought to measure time, to organize social and religious life, to plan food supply... Today we can surf the Internet, geolocate, pay by credit card… All our daily lives depend on time and the synchronization of clocks. The history of the invention of time and of the ways and instruments to measure it is a long story…
Twenty year-old Julius Caesar flees Rome for his life during the reign of Sulla but through skill and ambition rises four decades later to become Rome's supreme dictator.
The great King of Dacia, Decebal (Decebalus), is disposed to make the ultimate sacrifice in order to keep the integrity of his people. His own son, Cotyso, is given to the god Zamolxis to the dismay of the King and his daughter Meda. Septimius Severus, a young Roman devoted to his adopted country, must make the choice between his blood origins and the culture he was introduced to.
After the death of Emperor Constantine in Rome, the persecutions of the Christians threaten the centurion Marco forced to become a gladiator.
At the time of Nero, the Empire is at the height of its power, but Rome, where a million inhabitants live, is afraid of its enemies, of foreigners, of barbarians. Rome is afraid of the Tyrant and of its own power. And all these fears seem to crystallize in that of fire, more than anything else feared in this megalopolis that so often catches fire. In 64 A.D. the most terrible fire that the city has ever known broke out. It is said that it was set on the orders of Nero, in order to overwhelm the Christians who were accused of it. The watchmen, Celer and Theseus, intervene at the risk of their lives. This fictional documentary tells the story of the adventures of these two "firemen" in Rome during the Empire. An astonishing journey through time, the story of the life of men: customs, family, lifestyle, politics, education, leisure.
With the help of a team of experts and the latest in 3-D scanning technology, Alexander Armstrong, along with Dr Michael Scott, explores the hidden underground treasures that made Rome the powerhouse of the ancient world.