Through both personal and political conflicts, the film tells the story of emperor Diocletian's rise to power and his complicated place in ancient Rome's court politics.

After the death of Octavian, the rebel populations of Illyria and Pannonia pose a grave threat to the Roman Empire. Tribune Marcus Ventidius is sent to subdue the uprising and, after a bitter battle, captures Pannonian chief Magdus together with a number of women hostages. These include Magdus's own daughter Helen, betrothed to cruel Illyrian warrior Batone who has killed many Romans. Julia, daughter of the Roman governor Messala, is in love with Tribune Marcus and, jealous of his sympathy for the barbarian girl, plots an escape by Helen and her father. Pursuing the fugitives, Marcus crosses a mountain pass where Batone has laid a trap.

The rebellious Thracian Spartacus, born and raised a slave, is sold to Gladiator trainer Batiatus. After weeks of being trained to kill for the arena, Spartacus turns on his owners and leads the other slaves in rebellion. As the rebels move from town to town, their numbers swell as escaped slaves join their ranks. Under the leadership of Spartacus, they make their way to southern Italy, where they will cross the sea and return to their homes.

In ancient Judea, a Jewish aristocrat opposing Roman occupation of his homeland reunites with his childhood friend, now a Roman commander — setting in motion a saga of betrayal, adventure, tragedy, revenge, and faith.

Augustus is reputed to have been a violent, adventurous, power-hungry and unscrupulous warlord. Yet as founder of the Roman Empire, he ushered in a period of peace and prosperity. Drawing on the analysis of several historians, this documentary traces an extraordinary destiny: posthumously adopted by his great-uncle Julius Caesar, Octavian, the future Augustus, accepted an inheritance fraught with consequences. Having made his own empire prosper, he wrote his political will at the age of 76, without naming an heir. How was the succession of this childless strategist organized?

After fierce Roman commander Marcus Vinicius becomes infatuated with beautiful Christian hostage Lygia, he begins to question the tyrannical leadership of the despotic emperor Nero.

Young Cabiria is kidnapped by pirates and sold as a slave in Carthage. Just as she's to be sacrificed to Moloch, Cabiria is rescued by Fulvius Axilla, a good-hearted Roman spy, and his powerful slave, Maciste. The trio are broken up as Cabiria is entrusted to a woman of noble birth. With Cabiria's fate unknown, Maciste punished for his heroism, and Fulvius sent away to fight for Rome, is there any hope of our heroes reuniting?

Treacherous Roman senator Lucius Quintilius plans a secret journey into Thrace to recover a legendary treasure. He is accompanied by his daughter Livia posing as a Christian slave girl, his cruel henchman Commodio, and Terenzius, an ex-gladiator and Nero look-alike who fools the local Thracians into believing he is the real Emperor. But Lucius's plans are thwarted by Spartacus and his band of rebels who succeed in capturing the treasure for Thrace. When news arrives from Rome that the real Nero has died, local Roman governor Consul Metellus joins forces with Spartacus to defeat the traitors.

The story of the Arthurian legend, based on the 'Sarmatian hypothesis' which contends that the legend has a historical nucleus in the Sarmatian heavy cavalry troops stationed in Britain, and that the Roman-British military commander, Lucius Artorius Castus is the historical person behind the legend.

After the death of the paranoid emperor Tiberius, Caligula, his heir, seizes power and plunges the empire into a bloody spiral of madness and depravity.

In the year 180 A.D. Germanic tribes are about to invade the Roman empire from the north. In the midst of this crisis ailing emperor Marcus Aurelius has to make a decision about his successor between his son Commodus, who is obsessed by power, and the loyal general Gaius Livius.

The aging Zhao embarks on his final and greatest campaign, a road to adventure that will crown his name in glory for all time.