It is encouraging news to hear that ABC & HBO both will be presenting TV Projects about the Roman Empire.

However, I have some trepidations, since TV Executives don't seem to understand that "Truth IS Stranger than Fiction", and they can't seem to resist the temptation to "improve" on the truth, and in the process, "bastardize" history.

ABC's "Empire," could be shown as a mini-series or could become the first season of a longer series. It is expensive in any case, with a price tag ofabout $30 million.

HBO's (Time Warner) "Rome," will be a continuing series, and will tell the story through the eyes of two soldiers who fought with Julius Caesar.
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ABC, HBO Roads Lead to Ancient Rome TV Epics
Fri December 5, 2003 07:37 PM ET

By Peter Henderson LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Et tu, ABC? Two television networks are taking over from where William Shakespeare left off with projects about the rise and fall of the Roman Empire after Julius Caesar.

Walt Disney Co. broadcaster ABC said on Friday it planned to launch "Empire" in fall 2004, while cable network HBO had already slated its "Rome" to debut in 2005.

Caesar, who in Shakespeare's play named after him gasped "Et tu, Brute?" in surprise when he saw his friend Brutus among his assassins, was the first dictator of Rome and its most famous general.

ABC's "Empire" begins in 44 B.C., the year Caesar died, and tells the tale of the ascension of Octavius, Julius Caesar's nephew who becomes Augustus Caesar, battling Marc Antony. Octavius gets a little Hollywood help in the form of a gladiator named Tyrannus -- not part of textbook history -- who guards and befriends Octavius in the eight-episode project.

ABC has not decided how to package "Empire," which could be shown as a mini-series or could become the first season of a longer series. It is expensive in any case, with a price tag one industry put at about $30 million.

HBO's "Rome," produced with Britain's BBC, begins a bit earlier, in 51 B.C., as the victorious Caesar heads back to the empire's capital.

HBO is a unit of Time Warner Inc. "Rome," a continuing series, will tell the story of the fall of Julius and the rise of his nephew -- called Octavian, rather than Octavius, at HBO -- through the eyes of two soldiers who fought with Julius Caesar.

Neil Meron, one of the executive producers of ABC's "Empire," said ABC Entertainment Chairman Lloyd Braun came up with the idea of a Roman story, the seed of the "epic entertainment" in the works.

Meron said the projects at the networks might sound similar but would be probably be as distinct as different genre series. "How many lawyer shows are there, how many doctor shows are there, how many cop shows are there?" he said in a telephone interview.

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