About

For several centuries, immediately after the time of Christ, the people of Britain found themselves if not the slaves then certainly the servants of one of the mightiest empires the world has ever seen - the empire of Rome.

In this three-part series every phase in the long history of Roman Britain will be looked at. We will chart the way in which the Roman conquerors interacted with the native inhabitants of the land they called ‘Britannia’ and find out who gained most from the Roman occupation - us or them?

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The Oscar-winning film Gladiator brought to life an astonishing alien world, where men fought one another to death for the pleasure of the mob and a gladiator destroyed the emperor of Rome.

The historical truth is even more surprising.

We see how the real Emperor Commodus was even crazier than the Hollywood version. He committed incest, worshipped gladiators, and loved killing, and all his obsessions came with a body count.

We even reveal the bathroom where he met his humiliating end

We uncover for the first time how real gladiators fought and died, and it’s nothing like they show in the movies.

It’s a tale of blood, death, sex and violence, and it’s the real story of Gladiator.

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Dramatic new revelations about the life and death of the Roman Gladiator. Featuring exclusive access to Europe’s most the recent and sensational excavation of a major gladiatorial graveyard.

More than 50 bodies have been unearthed, telling the story of the superstar slaves who thrilled the Roman world with their fighting prowess, the Ultimate Fighting Champions of their age.

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In major cities around the world today, skyscrapers loom overhead, taxis honk their horns and street vendors peddle their wares. But below lies city upon city — each with its fascinating and unknown history.

What are the underground layers of the most populated cities on earth?

And how did (and do) engineers build layer upon layer up to today's city streets? This series will reveal the technological marvels that allowed the construction of one city upon another — literally.

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The Roman arena with its cruel and bloody games remains one of the greatest mysteries of the Ancient World.

For over 500 years, lethal gladiatorial contests, staged to entertain the Empire’s privileged classes, dominated Roman society. Wild beast hunts, reconstructed battles fought with deadly weapons and mass executions of prisoners were an integral part of these increasingly lavish ‘spectacles’.

Colosseum – Rome’s Arena of Death reveals the truth about the events that took place inside the arena in a way never attempted before on television.Why was the spectacle of death so important to Roman society?

Why did the Romans go to such lengths to construct special buildings to display those spectacles in, and how did those buildings really work? And what was it like to be the star of such a spectacle, a gladiator?

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For 1,900 years the secret of Rome’s missing Ninth legion has been shrouded in mystery, its ultimate fate argued over by generations of historians. We reveal how the loss of the Ninth legion was a truly catastrophic event: the devastating news was suppressed by Hadrian to safeguard his reign in a classic conspiracy cover up.

It was the first in a chain reaction of disasters which forced Rome to halt expansion and to create the only two massive frontier walls ever built in the Roman Empire. Written sources and a raft of new archaeology show how and where the Ninth met its end in the tribal badlands of northern Britain.

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