Rome's Lost Empire, BBC One, review Just when you thought television had had its fill of Ancient Rome, along come two more BBC documentaries. On BBC Four, Simon Sebag Montefiore has started a three-part series exploring the central role of religion in the city. While on BBC One yesterday, Dan Snow's Rome's Lost Empire harnessed satellite technology to understand more about Roman military might. Snow's adventures certainly lived up to their mainstream billing. In tandem with Dr Sarah Parcak, an archaeologist from Alabama State university who'd recently discovered thousands of sites in Egypt using satellite imagery, they set off to repeat her success with Roman remains. They didn't have much luck in Romania, where the thick forest meant that they had to use an aircraft firing laser beams, but the other sites yielded remarkable discoveries. Near Petra in Jordan, the satellites revealed that the now barren countryside had flourished under the Romans, the comfortable farmers happy to swap occupation for security. In Tunis, they found a frontier system which explained how Rome managed to defend its vast granary. And in Portus, once the great harbour of Rome, they discovered not only a new canal (straight, of course, like the roads), but also an amphitheatre and a lighthouse, one of the wonders of the ancient world, sought by archaeologist for centuries. The excitement as Snow and Dr Parcak, armed only with their handheld computers, swooped on another hoary expert to share their findings was contagious - like Indiana Jones and the Last iPad. Computer imagery helped you imagine that you were looking at an ancient lighthouse, not a car scrapyard near an airport. Snow was an excellent presenter, although somewhat prone to cliché. Arabia. Exotic. Sophisticated. A land of adventure. And opportunity," he intoned, as if fronting an advertisement for an Airlines. There were also signs that he might have been watching too much Top Gear for he has adopted Jeremy Clarkson's irritating pauses. "After working all night, Sarah has found... nothing," he declared, somewhat melodramatically. No matter. It was impossible not to agree with Dr Parcak's conclusion that this was an exciting time to be an archaeologist. And, inevitably, you were left wondering about the buildings we take for granted today: the Big Bens, the Windsor Castles. Who might discover them in two millennia? And how?