Reading up Reissanance everyday-drama novellas from Spain/Italy in the 1600s/1700s but being placed into the Roman Empire would actually yield a similar society and behaviour than anything made from Hollywood.

Romance and picaresque dramas weren't that dissimilar to love epics from the Classical times. And ofc treasonry, backstabbings, and the like would be the same today, 300 years ago and millenia ago.

The townsfolk shouting and laughing against a poor dude being burned down between logs wouldn't be that different to similar peasants reacting in the same way to slaves fighting at the Circus.