Authencity of "Rome" tv show?

[Gabeed]

b) they have a limited budget, not those billion zillion dollar budgets they get in hollywood. Of course they can't recreate huge battles with several dozen thousands of people. I like the battles in Rome because they show ancient battles for what they were: pure bloody slaughter.

I hear what you're saying, and, in fact, I said what you're saying. I don't care immensely about the nitpicked historical inaccuracies, but I do care if it looks good, as does just about everyone else. This is why we don't see tons of TV shows based around being historical epics--there's an obligation to show the grandeur of the age which a TV show budget is hard-pressed to meet. ROME did an amazing job overall with this, but its' battles were History Channel-esque in presentation, almost laughable in certain examples (such as the aforementioned Alexandria siege night scene). Maybe I've been spoiled by movies such as Gladiator and whatnot, but if you're going to attempt a historical tale with major battles in TV or in movies, you can't half-ass it. So while I appreciate that the producers managed to get an elephant for the aftermath of the battle against Cato and Scipio in North Africa, it and the mere dozen bodies around it pulled me from the immersion of the show.