Tag: Rome

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...

The Latin words res publica which mean 'commonwealth' or 'state' is the source of today's term 'republic'.Rome was never a democracy as we would understand it today, nor as the Greeks understood it. For Roman society and the power within it was firmly divided by class.Most obviously, there was a div...

As in any large society with growing sophistication and complexity there arises the need for ever more governmental offices to oversee and regulate aspects of life.In the Roman Republic the following offices were created in order to deal with the expanding demands on government. Consul (Head of Sta...

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...

In 91 BC the moderate members of the senate allied themselves with Livius Drusus (the son of that Drusus who had been used to undermine Gaius Gracchus' popularity in 122 BC) and aided him in his election campaign. If the honesty of the father is open to doubt, that of the son is not. As tribune he p...

Caesar's early LifeCaesar goes into ExileCaesar returns from ExileCaesar in SpainCaesar allies with Pompey and CrassusThe First TriumvirateCaesar becomes Governor of GaulCaesar defeats the HelvetiansCaesar defeats the GermansCaesar defeats the NerviiCaesar launches Attacks on Germany and BritainGaul...

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 the treaty of 348 BC Carthage had undertaken to respect all Latin territory and coast towns as a Roman sphere of influence, and granted to Roman traders admission to the ports of her dominions of Africa, Sardinia and Sicily, as well as of Carthage itself. So too were Roman ships of war to enjoy a...

The eclipse of the Roman Empire in the West (c. 395-500) and the German migrations Invasions in the early 5th century The barbarian invasions. After the death of Theodosius the Western empire was governed by young Honorius. Stilicho, an experienced statesman and general, was charged with assisting...

The Carthaginians had not lost everything, though they had been driven out of waters where they had collided with Greeks and increasingly with Italian traders also. There were two paths still open to them. their original exploitation of Africa, both the mountainous north and the oases and caravan r...

Ancient History Sourcebook:Suetonius: De Vita Caesarum--Divus Claudius, c. 110 CE. Translated by J. C. Rolfe. [Arkenberg Introduction]. Rolfe's annotations appear in brackets with no attribution; mine are noted. I have also replaced modern place names, as used by Rolfe, with those in use by the Roma ...

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