Tony Robinson's Romans
television series

Tony Robinson's Romans is a four-part television documentary series created by Tony Robinson about the Roman Empire. It debuted on Channel 4 on 20 September 2003, and aired through 11 October 2003.
This documentary programme is three hours in length, consists of four episodes and makes extensive use of research. The first two episodes portray the life of the Dictator Julius Caesar, while the remaining two episodes are portraits of Emperor Caligula and Emperor Nero. Tony Robinson depicts Caligula from a different perspective than what is normally associated with the "mad emperor", by using various sources that examines his childhood in order to portray him in a better light. The final episode examines Nero in a similar manner.
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The subject matters to the arts & letters register because the source frames it as television series. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7362777. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2003.
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This entry incorporates text from “Tony Robinson's Romans” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.