Whilst Emperor Aurelian only ruled for five years as leader of the Roman world, his importance to its history is immense. Born in relative obscurity, somewhere in the Balkans (possibly near modern Sofia) in September 215, to a peasant family, Aurelian was in some ways a typical “soldier emperor” of the third century. However, unlike …
Lucius Septimus Severus was the 13th emperor of the Roman Empire (from 193 to 211 AD), and quite uniquely, was its first ruler who hailed from Africa. More specifically, he was born in the Romanized city of Lepcis Magna, in modern-day Libya, in 145 AD from a family with a long history in local, as …
Lucius Aurelius Commodus Antoninus Augustus, commonly known more briefly as Commodus, was the 18th emperor of the Roman empire and the last of the widely praised “Nerva-Antonine Dynasty”. He was, however, instrumental in the downfall and demise of that dynasty and is remembered in sharp contrast to his close predecessors. Indeed, his image and identity …
Augustus Caesar was the first emperor of the Roman Empire and is famous not only for that fact but also because of the impressive groundwork he laid for all future emperors. Beyond this, he was also a very capable administrator of the Roman state, learning much from his advisors like Marcus Agrippa, as well as …
The Roman Empire was the most dominant force in the Mediterranean region for close to a millennium, and it even carried on in the East in the form of the Byzantine Empire, long after the fall of Rome in the west. According to myth, that famous city of Rome was founded in 753 BC and …
Like the Magna Carta, the US Constitution, or the Rights of Man, the Twelve Tables are rightly considered one of the foundational bits of legislation for Western law and legal practice. Spawned from a class conflict that was raging in Republican Rome, they outlined the rights of every citizen of the ancient state. What Were …