Tag: Roman Empire

The Punic Wars is the generally used term for the lengthy conflict between the two main centres of power in the western Mediterranean, Rome and Carthage. Carthage was originally a Phoenician colony. The Latin name for a Phoenician is 'Poenus' which leads to our English adjective 'Punic'. Carthage Th...

In 74 BC Marcus Antonius, father of the famous Mark Antony, had been given special powers to suppress the large-scale piracy in the Mediterranean. But his attempts had ended in dismal failure. After Antonius' death, the consul Quintus Metellus was set upon the same task in 69 BC. Matters indeed did ...

Ancient History Sourcebook:Suetonius: De Vita Caesarum--Domitianus, c. 110 C.E. I. DOMITIAN was born on the ninth day before the Kalends of November of the year when his father was Consul-elect and was about to enter on the office in the following month [October 24, 51 C.E.], in a street of the sixt...

After the violent death of Tiberius Gracchus, the Gracchus family wasn't finished yet.Gaius Gracchus, a flamboyant and powerful public speaker, was to be a far more formidable political force than his brother. The legacy of Tiberius Gracchus, the agrarian law, was being applied in a manner which cre...

b. Sept. 15?, AD 53, Italica, Baetica [now in Spain]d. Aug. 8/9, 117, Selinus, Cilicia [now in Turkey] Latin IN FULL CAESAR DIVI NERVAE FILIUS NERVA TRAIANUS OPTIMUS AUGUSTUS, also called ( 9798) CAESAR NERVA TRAIANUS GERMANICUS, ORIGINAL NAME MARCUS ULPIUS TRAIANUS, Roman emperor (AD 98-117), the f...

In 133 BC king Attalus III of Pergamum died without heirs. The dynasty had been loyal to Rome through all the shifting policies of the last seventy years. And Attalus, dying, bequeathed his kingdom to the Roman people, if only to solve the problem of succession. His only demand was that Pergamum an...

by Plutarch Marcus Crassus, whose father had borne the office of a censor, andreceived the honor of a triumph, was educated in a little housetogether with his two brothers, who both married in their parents'lifetime; they kept but one table amongst them; all which,perhaps, was not the least reason o ...

Meanwhile the party in Rome most hostile toward him was straining itself to the utmost to effect his ruin between the termination of his present appointment and his entry into a new post. Caesar would be secure from attack if he passed straight from his position of proconsul of Gaul and Illyricum i...

In the west the recuperation of Carthage since the Second Punic War had given amazing proof of her vitality. With Hannibal in exile, his political opponents were in power, seeking to gain good relations with Rome, rather than displaying Hannibal's open hostility. But roman friendship was hard to gai...

Augustus (63 BC- AD 14), first emperor of Rome (27 BC-AD 14), who restored unity and orderly government to the realm after nearly a century of civil wars. He presided over an era of peace, prosperity, and cultural achievement known as the Augustan Age.The Divine Augustus Augustus was born Sept. 23, ...

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In 88 BC the activities of king Mithridates of Pontus called for urgent action. The king had invaded the province of Asia and massacred 80'000 Roman and Italian citizens. Sulla, as elected consul and as the man who had won the Social War, expected the command, but Marius wanted it, too. The senate a...