Lays of Ancient Rome: As Sky Atlantic prepares to launch the ancient Rome drama DOMINA - some free shows/movies also set during the era

Writer Simon Burke (Fortitude, Strike Back, Zen etc) is a solid enough journeyman, but the 8-part series appears to smack at first glance of the increasingly dull Brit/Italian Euro-pudding Imperium series of TV movies (Augustus, Nero, Saint Peter, Pompeii and Augustine: the Decline of the Roman Empire) where star casting (of rapidly declining magnitude) couldn't make up for soapy storylines and gradually diminishing budgets.

Doesn't look to be another Rome (HBO/BBC, 2005-07), at least on the strength of the Domina trailer, but I could of course be wrong.

Habemus adhuc videre.

Domina star Kasia Smutniak may surprise - she is perhaps best known for the lame Travolta/Jonathan Rhys Myers action-thriller From Paris With Love, but her career mainly consists of Italian pictures.  

Ancient Rome appears back in vogue with Domina, Britannia and ITV's upcoming (TBC) Flavian sleuth Falco...(not a biopic of the 'Rock Me Amadeus' singer).

Presumably the mooted HBO/BBC remake of I Claudius has been abandoned (partly due to Game of Thrones), a shame as a new version with a decent budget, believable ageing (Jacobi as an elderly Claudius below) and better supporting actors (especially children) could introduce Robert Graves' classic to a new generation.

George Baker's performance as Tiberius in CLAVDIVS was the inspiration for GRR Martin's Stannis Baratheon (Stephen Dillane) in GoT.

And Rome was a (kind of) dry run for Thrones.

The best Roman drama series? perhaps Granada's neglected The Caesars (1968), featuring a superb performance from André Morell as the unfairly traduced Emperor Tiberius.

The entire, excellent series is free to view on YouTube:

ROMULUS (yet to be scheduled in the UK)

Well, I guess it's good to have a gimmick, but whether using proto, pre-classical Latin will draw the punters in is doubtful.

The reference apparently is Mel Gibson's Mayan chase movie Apocalypto (2007), which rattled along nicely, even for the subtitle-averse.

Presumably an attempt to appeal to those with GoT withdrawal symptoms (although season 8 pretty much did the trick for many viewers), but it's unlikely whether Romulus will inspire the same kind of devotion, but we shall see.

We're fortunate to be able to get an idea of what the show may look like, as director and series creator Matteo Rovere also helmed what we must assume is a prequel - 2019's Romulus & Remus: The First King:

If I remember my Roman history correctly, Romulus killed his brother Remus for a-leapin' over and mocking the rather low walls his sibling was building around the Palatine Hill in Rome.

Bit extreme, if you ask me.

The show couldn't have had better launch news as fortuitously, as what was possibly the actual Tomb of Romulus was discovered last year in the Roman Forum:

EXTRAS: MORE FREE ROMAN STUFF

ETC.

ETC.

For the liberi (kids); all episodes available.

FIN