It's been like that for centuries. Some scholars have even questioned whether or not it existed at all.

Most art historians don't go that far, but traditionally Roman art has presented them with a problem: how much of it is original?

Everybody knows that the Romans were splendid soldiers and engineers, but when it came to art didn't they simply plunder and imitate?

Roman artists were copycats in debt to the Etruscans, the Egyptians, and - most of all - the ancient Greeks. Right?

Well, that's how the story of art in the ancient world is often told. But I believe that this hoary old idea is a myth - and debunking this myth was the starting point for Treasures of Ancient Rome, my new three-part series on BBC Four.

I can understand why some people are lukewarm about the art of ancient Rome. It probably has something to do with the fact that pinning down what 'Roman art' means proves surprisingly tricky.

We all agree that aqueducts and amphitheatres look Roman - but the art of Rome changed dramatically over time.

Art during the Republic was hard-bitten, wrinkled, business-like and tough - think of all the busts that have survived of gnarled and weather-beaten Roman patricians.

After Augustus, in the early Empire, art became much more elegant and classical emphasising the divinity of the emperor and harking back to the triumphantly naturalistic forms of ancient Greece.

And in the late Empire as the classical Greek tradition was challenged and far-flung provinces offered new sources of inspiration, Roman art changed again.

It became gradually more abstract favouring symbolism, geometric shapes and pattern over the illusionistic representation of reality - sowing the seeds for the early medieval and Byzantine styles that would follow.

The art of Rome became the art of the Roman world - and that world was enormous: a vast multicultural super-state stretching all the way from Spain to the Euphrates.

I hope we reflect this in the series by travelling to museums and sites beyond Rome: as well as Pompeii, Naples, Ravenna, Venice, Paris and St Petersburg, we visited Libya where we spent several thrilling days examining extraordinary antiquities many of which were neglected under Gaddafi.

So 'Roman art' is a catchall term to describe artefacts produced across the Mediterranean world over many centuries.

By its very nature therefore Roman art is eclectic, cosmopolitan and diverse - even more so given Rome's policy of assimilating rather than subjugating the cities and people that she conquered.

As a result Roman art is much more surprising and influential than you might think.

Yes Roman artists designed big, bombastic monuments decorated with historical reliefs - but they were also capable of exquisite delicacy.

What we consider minor decorative arts, the Romans thought of as major artistic achievements.

Some of my favourite treasures in the series aren't sculptures at all but beautiful glassware and breathtaking cameo gems.

Roman artists also excelled in silverware, wall paintings, mosaics, carved sarcophagi, and luxury ivory goods.

Anyone who believes that Roman art is the stuff of boring marble busts should think again.

Okay the Romans may not have invented the classical tradition. But - just as they defeated the skilful seafaring Carthaginians by copying and then bettering the design of their ships - so the Romans marshalled the various battalions of art history that they had inherited from the Greeks, before training them up, making them more efficient and marching them out onto the battlefields of culture.

And we can still see the triumphant impact made by ancient Roman artists today.

Alastair Sooke is the presenter of Treasures Of Ancient Rome.

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

Our towns and cities are full of civic statuary that we routinely ignore - in part, admittedly, because so much of it is stiff and lifeless, or bound up with propaganda, extolling the virtues of a wealthy and powerful individual or the state.

But I believe that the triumphs of our sculpture occupy the zenith of British art - up there with paintings by great artists such as Blake and Hogarth, Turner and Constable.

It saddens me that sculptors such as Flaxman, Chantrey and Alfred Gilbert (who designed Eros in Piccadilly Circus) have been largely forgotten.

So if there is an underlying subtext to Romancing The Stone, it is this: to restore British sculpture to its rightful place, playing a central role in the evolving drama of the nation's art.

I felt thrilled to be working with such a talented team - I don't know about you, but I think that some of the shots of the works themselves, captured by the director Mark Halliley and the cameraman Ian Salvage, are nothing short of magnificent.

For instance, the footage, from the second episode, of Flaxman's marble The Fury of Athamas, at Ickworth House in Suffolk, transforms the sculpture from an embarrassingly overblown, youthful aberration, as it is occasionally characterised in the textbooks, to a defiant tour de force, challenging an august tradition of sculpture stretching all the way back to the Laocoon of ancient Rome.

Flaxman's early masterpiece features in the trail for the series that can be seen across the BBC at the moment - accompanied by some simply beautiful, haunting music by Erik Satie.

We filmed the series last summer. We were blessed with the weather - and a relaxed and sunny feeling graced the close-knit group working day-to-day on the three films, even in moments of potential crisis.

To begin with, Kim got me to hack at a slab of granite, in order to feel the difference.

There was a horrific, heart-in-my-mouth moment, which you can see in the first film, when I gave the chisel an almighty cack-handed thump with a mallet, forcing it to slip and graze Kim's fingers.

I was terrified I'd chopped them off.

But - thank God - Kim just gave me a big grin, assuring me that he's always accidentally savaging his fingers with heavy-duty tools, and carried on.

Kim came along to the launch of the series at the Royal Academy; when I shook his hand, I couldn't help checking that it was intact (thankfully, it is).

I like to think that Kim's cheery, happy-go-lucky attitude reflected the mood of all of us working on the series. I hope you are enjoying the programmes as much as we all enjoyed making them.

Alastair Sooke is presenter of Romancing The Stone: The Golden Ages Of British Sculpture.

As deputy art critic at the Daily Telegraph, Alastair has written this article about the series.

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.