The childbirth scene where Caesonia (Helen Mirren) gives birth, was an actual childbirth, which was filmed in three takes using three different pregnant women extras and later edited together. Extras assisting the births were real doctors, who said they were indeed equipped with all the modern tools they would need to ensure safety for the women and babies despite in full ancient Roman clothing.
Dame Helen Mirren described this movie as "an irresistible mix of art and genitals". Although many actors would regret their involvement with the film, Mirren has remained proud of her role as "the most promiscuous woman in all of Rome", as she believed European Cinema was reaching a benchmark in sex positivity and "it was the time to do nudity". She was, however, taken aback with the film's hardcore footage.
At the time, this movie was the most expensive independent movie ever made. To this day, it remains the most expensive and highest grossing adult film ever made.
Director Tinto Brass originally wanted to cast actual criminals in conditional sentence as the Roman Senators and ugly women in the sex scenes to shock the viewers. The result was producer Bob Guccione firing Brass.
Many years after the film's release, original negatives of the film have been recovered, which were sneaked out of Italy during production and contained over 90 hours worth of never before seen footage. In 2020, it was announced that a 40th anniversary version was in the making, produced by author and historian Thomas Negovan, which would be much closer to Gore Vidal's original script. Rather than using the new footage to expand certain scenes, the entire film was recut from scratch, creating a unique version while not leaving a single frame of the theatrical version in the film. During the process, visual effects were used to replace and expand the cheap sets and backgrounds, and AI technology was used to restore dialogue performances that were plagued with background noises. A great care has also been taken to select alternate footage of certain scenes to change their tone completely, and to replace the rather campy performances of the actors with ones that honoured their talents. Originally planned for a limited theatrical release in late 2020, this cut later premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2023.