Tag: Rome

The Battle of Zama in the summer of 202 BC marked the end of the power of the great Hannibal Barca.With its greatest son, also Carthage should be at a virtual end. True, it should limp on for some time, but with its defeat at the end of the Second Punic War it no longer was a significant power.Zama ...

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...

The SenateComitia CuriataComitia CenturiataComitia TributaConcilium PlebisThe Senate had roughly 300 members. In the very early days of Roman history entry to the senate was by birth or rank. Later it was the consuls who nominated new members to the senate. Plebeians gained entry in the course of th...

Tiberius GracchusGaius Gracchus The brief emergence and demise of each of the brothers Gracchus (Tiberius in 133 BC, Gaius in 120 BC) onto the scene of Roman politics should send shock waves through the entire structure of the Roman state of such magnitude that their effects would be felt for genera...

In 218 B.C., Hannibal began the most daring military move in history, that of invading Rome by way of the Alps. But why did this African military genius decide to war against Rome? Before Hannibal's birth, the Romans ruled Italy, and the Carthaginians ruled Carthage in North Africa. The Carthaginian...

In 74 BC king Nicomedes of Bithynia died without heirs. Following the example of Attalus of Pergamum he left his kingdom to the Roman people. But with Sulla dead, king Mithridates of Pontus clearly felt his most fearsome enemy had vanished from the scene and revived his dreams of creating his own em...

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 ...

While Macedon and Carthage were being defeated for good, the Spanish tribes remained stubbornly defiant. Hash blows were dealt them by the consuls Lucullus and Galba in 151 and 150 BC and yet they could not be broken. In the south the Lusitanians found a brilliant leader in Viriathus, who in 142 BC...

Nestled in the scenic Bay of Naples in Italy, Pompeii and Mount Vesuvius stand as timeless witnesses to the dual forces of human history and nature's wrath. Join us on a captivating journey as we explore the archaeological wonders frozen in time by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD and the maj...

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...

After Caesar's great victory at Pharsalus, all was not yet won. The Pompeians still controlled the seas, Africa was in their hands and Juba of Numidia was siding with them. Caesar was not yet master of the empire. Therefore, at the first possible moment, Caesar had set out with a small force after P...

By July 47 BC Caesar was back in Rome, and was formally appointed dictator for the second time.In Spain the legions were in mutiny. And in Africa the Pompeians were scoring victories.He also found the legions in Campania in mutiny, demanding to be discharged. But what they really wanted was not a di...