Tag: Rome

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...

Romans believed religion was very important. They believed that gods were responsible for putting them on Earth and controlling their lives. How did Romans practice religion? There were two parts of Roman religion, household religion and the state religion. Household religion included worshipping go...

Lucius Aurelius Commodus on 31 August AD 161 at Lanuvium, roughly 14 miles south-east of Rome.Of the fourteen children of Marcus Aurelius and Faustina the Younger, Commodus was the tenth. He was born one of twins, though his twin brother died when he was only four years old. He was given the Commodu...

In 55 BC Crassus had, during his consulship, in the aftermath of the conference at Luca, managed to secure himself the governorship of Syria. Phenomenally rich and renowned for greed, people saw this as yet another example of his appetite for money. The east was rich, and a governor of Syria could h...

Publius Aelius Hadrianus, called Hadrian, was Roman emperor from AD 117 until 138. He regarded his 20-year reign as a golden age of peace and prosperity, comparable to that of his great predecessor Augustus more than 100 years earlier (see Augustus). Monuments to Hadrian's reign are the Tivoli villa...