Season 19 · Episode 5

Ulisse - The pleasure of discovery: Il mondo di Ben Hur

Ben Hur, the blockbuster film of 1959, winner of 11 Oscars. Alberto Angela makes us relive the story of the famous charioteer and the city of Rome in the first century AD, accompanying spectators to the places that saw the events told by the film, starting from the central place of the chariot competitions: the Circus Maximus, a structure immense, of which today only the large esplanade is visible. Ben Hur is a fictional character, the result of the creativity of an American novelist. Alberto Angela, however, tells of an equally famous character who actually existed: the charioteer Scorpo, a much loved arena star, the greatest champion of the Flavian era, remembered several times by the poet Marziale.