Televising Ancient Rome in the Twenty-First Century

Ever since HBO-BBC’s Rome burst onto screens in 2005, Rome has appeared on television screens in a variety of dramatic productions. These utilise many of the elements of ancient Rome that were familiar to audiences from big screen epic movies, but adapt them for a television genre, in a manner that is characteristic of the the second millennium, playing on older tropes and merging them with new formats. Where do such tropes come from and how have they been developed over time specifically on the