Portal:Ancient Rome

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Introduction

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In historiography, ancient Rome is Roman civilization from the founding of the city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD, encompassing the Roman Kingdom, Roman Republic and Roman Empire until the fall of the western empire. The term is sometimes used to refer only to the kingdom and republic periods, excluding the subsequent empire.

The civilization began as an Italic settlement in the Italian peninsula, dating from the 8th century BC, that grew into the city of Rome and which subsequently gave its name to the empire over which it ruled and to the widespread civilisation the empire developed. The Roman empire expanded to become one of the largest empires in the ancient world, though still ruled from the city, with an estimated 50 to 90 million inhabitants (roughly 20% of the world's population) and covering 5.0 million square kilometres at its height in AD 117.

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Selected general articles

  • Gold coin from Dacia, minted by Coson, depicting a consul and two lictors


    A lictor (possibly from Latin: ligare, "to bind") was a Roman civil servant who was a bodyguard to magistrates who held imperium. Lictors were used since the Roman Kingdom, and according to Roman historian Livy, the custom may have originated earlier, in the Etruscan civilization. Read more...
  • Denarius of Marcus Aurelius.

    Roman currency for most of Roman history consisted of gold, silver, bronze, orichalcum and copper coinage. (See: Roman metallurgy) From its introduction to the Republic, during the third century BC, well into Imperial times, Roman currency saw many changes in form, denomination, and composition. A persistent feature was the inflationary debasement and replacement of coins over the centuries. Notable examples of this followed the reforms of Diocletian. This trend continued into Byzantine times. Read more...
  • Strabo as depicted in a 16th-century engraving

    Strabo (/ˈstreɪboʊ/; Greek: Στράβων Strábōn; 64 or 63 BC – c. AD 24) was a Greek geographer, philosopher, and historian who lived in Asia Minor during the transitional period of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire. Read more...
  • Page from an incunable of Valerius Maximus, Facta et dicta memorabilia, printed in red and black by Peter Schöffer (Mainz, 1471)

    Valerius Maximus (/vəˈlɪəriəs ˈmæksɪməs/) was a Latin writer and author of a collection of historical anecdotes : Factorum ac dictorum memorabilium libri IX ("nine books of memorable deeds and sayings", also known as De factis dictisque memorabilibus or Facta et dicta memorabilia)
    Factorum ac dictorum memorabilium libri IX. He worked during the reign of Tiberius (14 AD to 37 AD). Read more...
  • Retrato de Julio César (26724093101).jpg

    Gaius Julius Caesar (/ˈsiːzər/; Latin pronunciation: [ˈɡaː.i.ʊs ˈjuː.li.ʊs ˈkae̯.sar]; 12 or 13 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC), known by his nomen and cognomen Julius Caesar, was a Roman politician and military general who played a critical role in the events that led to the demise of the Roman Republic and the rise of the Roman Empire. He is also known as an author of Latin prose.

    In 60 BC, Caesar, Crassus and Pompey formed the First Triumvirate, a political alliance that dominated Roman politics for several years. Their attempts to amass power as Populares were opposed by the Optimates within the Roman Senate, among them Cato the Younger with the frequent support of Cicero. Caesar rose to become one of the most powerful politicians in the Roman Republic through a number of his accomplishments, notably his victories in the Gallic Wars, completed by 51 BC. During this time, Caesar became the first Roman general to cross both the Channel and the Rhine, when he built a bridge across the Rhine and crossed the Channel to invade Britain. Caesar's wars extended Rome's territory to the English Channel and the Rhine. These achievements granted him unmatched military power and threatened to eclipse the standing of Pompey, who had realigned himself with the Senate after the death of Crassus in 53 BC. With the Gallic Wars concluded, the Senate ordered Caesar to step down from his military command and return to Rome. Leaving his command in Gaul meant losing his immunity from being charged as a criminal for waging unsanctioned wars. As a result, Caesar found himself with no other options but to cross the Rubicon with the 13th Legion, leaving his province and illegally entering Roman Italy under arms. Civil war resulted, and Caesar's victory in the war put him in an unrivalled position of power and influence. Read more...
  • Roman generals were often career statesmen, remembered by history for reasons other than their service in the Roman Army. This page encompasses men whom history remembers for their accomplishments commanding Roman armies on land and sea. Read more...
  • Julius Nepos Tremissis.jpg

    In historiography, the Western Roman Empire refers to the western provinces of the Roman Empire at any time during which they were administered by a separate independent Imperial court; in particular, this term is used to describe the period from 395 to 476, where there were separate coequal courts dividing the governance of the empire in the Western and the Eastern provinces, with a distinct imperial succession in the separate courts. The terms Western Roman Empire and Eastern Roman Empire are modern descriptions that describe political entities that were de facto independent; contemporary Romans did not consider the Empire to have been split into two separate empires but viewed it as a single polity governed by two separate imperial courts as an administrative expediency. The Western Roman Empire collapsed in 476, and the Western imperial court was formally dissolved in 480. The Eastern imperial court survived until 1453.

    Though the Empire had seen periods with more than one Emperor ruling jointly before, the view that it was impossible for a single emperor to govern the entire Empire was institutionalised to reforms to Roman law by emperor Diocletian following the disastrous civil wars and disintegrations of the Crisis of the Third Century. He introduced the system of the tetrarchy in 286 CE, with two separate senior emperors titled Augustus, one in the East and one in the West, each with an appointed Caesar (junior emperor and designated successor). Though the tetrarchic system would collapse in a matter of years, the East–West administrative division would endure in one form or another over the coming centuries. As such, the Western Roman Empire would exist intermittently in several periods between the 3rd and 5th centuries. Some emperors, such as Constantine I and Theodosius I, governed as sole Augustus across the Roman Empire. On the death of Theodosius I in 395, he divided the empire between his two sons, with Honorius as his successor in the West, governing from Mediolanum, and Arcadius as his successor in the East, governing from Constantinople. Read more...
  • Heraclius 613-616.jpg

    The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire and Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul, which had been founded as Byzantium). It survived the fragmentation and fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD and continued to exist for an additional thousand years until it fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. During most of its existence, the empire was the most powerful economic, cultural, and military force in Europe. Both "Byzantine Empire" and "Eastern Roman Empire" are historiographical terms created after the end of the realm; its citizens continued to refer to their empire simply as the Roman Empire (Greek: Βασιλεία Ῥωμαίων, tr. Basileia Rhōmaiōn; Latin: Imperium Romanum), or Romania (Ῥωμανία), and to themselves as "Romans".

    Several signal events from the 4th to 6th centuries mark the period of transition during which the Roman Empire's Greek East and Latin West divided. Constantine I (r. 324–337) reorganised the empire, made Constantinople the new capital, and legalised Christianity. Under Theodosius I (r. 379–395), Christianity became the Empire's official state religion and other religious practices were proscribed. Finally, under the reign of Heraclius (r. 610–641), the Empire's military and administration were restructured and adopted Greek for official use instead of Latin. Thus, although the Roman state continued and its traditions were maintained, modern historians distinguish Byzantium from ancient Rome insofar as it was centred on Constantinople, oriented towards Greek rather than Latin culture, and characterised by Orthodox Christianity. Read more...
  • The Roman expansion in Italy: citizenship was collectively awarded to all Italic tribes (socii) during and after the Social War by the Lex Julia, Lex Plautia Papiria and Lex Pompeia. All of Cisalpine Gaul received full citizenship in 49 BC by the Lex Roscia.

    Citizenship in ancient Rome (Latin: civitas) was a privileged political and legal status afforded to free individuals with respect to laws, property, and governance.
    • A male Roman citizen enjoyed a wide range of privileges and protections defined in detail by the Roman state. A citizen could, under certain exceptional circumstances, be deprived of his citizenship.
    • Roman women had a limited form of citizenship. Though held in high regard they were not allowed to vote or stand for civil or public office. The rich might participate in public life by funding building projects or sponsoring religious ceremonies and other events. Women had the right to own property, to engage in business, and to obtain a divorce, but their legal rights varied over time. Marriages were an important form of political alliance during the Republic.
    • Client state citizens and allies (socii) of Rome could receive a limited form of Roman citizenship such as the Latin Right. Such citizens could not vote or be elected in Roman elections.
    • Slaves were considered property and lacked legal personhood. Over time, they acquired a few protections under Roman law. Some slaves were freed by manumission for services rendered, or through a testamentary provision when their master died. Once free, they faced few barriers, beyond normal social snobbery, to participating in Roman society. The principle that a person could become a citizen by law rather than birth was enshrined in Roman mythology; when Romulus defeated the Sabines in battle, he promised the war captives that were in Rome they could become citizens.
    • Freedmen were former slaves who had gained their freedom. They were not automatically given citizenship and lacked some privileges such as running for executive magistracies. The children of freedmen and women were born as free citizens; for example, the father of the poet Horace was a freedman.
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  • The Populares (/ˌpɒpjʊˈlɛəriːz, -jə-, -ˈleɪriːz/; Latin: populares, "favouring the people", singular popularis) were a grouping in the late Roman Republic which favoured the cause of the plebeians (the commoners).

    Concerned for the urban poor, the Populares supported laws regarding the provision of a grain dole for the poor by the state at a subsidized price. As such, they wanted reforms which helped the poor, particularly redistributing land for the poor to farm and debt relief. At times, the Populares also supported the extension of Roman citizenship to Rome's Italic allies. Read more...
  • The structural history of the Roman military concerns the major transformations in the organization and constitution of ancient Rome's armed forces, "the most effective and long-lived military institution known to history." From its origins around 800 BC to its final dissolution in AD 476 with the demise of the Western Roman Empire, Rome's military organization underwent substantial structural change. At the highest level of structure, the forces were split into the Roman army and the Roman navy, although these two branches were less distinct than in many modern national defense forces. Within the top levels of both army and navy, structural changes occurred as a result of both positive military reform and organic structural evolution. These changes can be divided into four distinct phases.

    ;Phase I: The army was derived from obligatory annual military service levied on the citizenry, as part of their duty to the state. During this period, the Roman army would wage seasonal campaigns against largely local adversaries. Read more...
  • Porphire Sophiste, in a French 16th-century engraving

    Porphyry of Tyre (/ˈpɔːrfɪri/; Greek: Πορφύριος, Porphýrios; Arabic: فرفوريوس‎, Furfūriyūs; c. 234 – c. 305 AD) was a Neoplatonic philosopher who was born in Tyre, in the Roman Empire. He edited and published the Enneads, the only collection of the work of his teacher Plotinus. His commentary on Euclid's Elements was used as a source by Pappus of Alexandria.

    He also wrote many works himself on a wide variety of topics. His Isagoge, or Introduction, is an introduction to logic and philosophy, and in the Latin and Arabic translations it was the standard textbook on logic throughout the Middle Ages. In addition, through several of his works, most notably Philosophy from Oracles and Against the Christians, which was banned by emperor Constantine the Great, he was involved in a controversy with a number of early Christians. Read more...
  • The history of Roman Law can be divided into three systems of procedure: that of legis actiones, the formulary system, and cognitio extra ordinem. The periods in which these systems were in use overlapped one another and did not have definitive breaks, but it can be stated that the legis actio system prevailed from the time of the XII Tables (c. 450 BC) until about the end of the 2nd century BC, that the formulary procedure was primarily used from the last century of the Republic until the end of the classical period (c. AD 200), and that of cognitio extra ordinem was in use in post-classical times. Read more...
  • Nero, Sestertius with countermark "X" of Legio X Gemina.

    Obv: Laureate bust right.

    Rev: Nero riding horse right, holding spear, DECVRSIO in exergue; S C across fields.

    This is a list of Roman legions, including key facts about each legion, primarily focusing on the Principate (early Empire, 27 BC – 284 AD) legions, for which there exists substantial literary, epigraphic and archaeological evidence.

    When Augustus became sole ruler in 31 BC, he disbanded about half of the over 50 legions then in existence. The remaining 28 legions became the core of the early Imperial army of the Principate (27 BC – 284 AD), most lasting over three centuries. Augustus and his immediate successors transformed legions into permanent units, staffed by entirely career soldiers on standard 25-year terms. Read more...
  • In the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire, the Latin word castrum (plural castra) was a building, or plot of land, used as a fortified military camp.

    Castrum was the term used for different sizes of camps including a large legionary fortress, smaller auxiliary forts, temporary encampments, and "marching" forts. The diminutive form castellum was used for fortlets, typically occupied by a detachment of a cohort or a century. Read more...
  • Castel Gandolfo.jpg

    The Roman Kingdom, also referred to as the Roman monarchy, or the regal period of ancient Rome, was the earliest period of Roman history, when the city and its territory were ruled by kings.

    Little is certain about the kingdom's history, as no records and few inscriptions from the time of the kings survive, and the accounts of this period written during the Republic and Empire are thought to be based on oral tradition. According to these legends, the Roman Kingdom began with the city's founding circa 753 BC, with settlements around the Palatine Hill along the river Tiber, and ended with the overthrow of the kings and the establishment of the Republic circa 509 BC. Read more...
  • Lord Vestey, Master of the Horse (UK), riding to the Queen's Birthday Parade, 2009

    The Master of the Horse was (and in some cases, still is) a position of varying importance in several European nations. Read more...
  • Bust of Gaius Iulius Caesar in Naples.jpg

    Demographically, the Roman Empire was a premodern state. There was a high infant mortality, low marriage age, and high fertility within marriage. According to A.H.M. Jones (Later Roman Empire, 1954, vol. II, p. 1041) "The death rate was uniformly high at all ages from ten, below which we have no reliable data"..."the infant and child death rate would have been very much greater than for adults. The female death rate was substantially higher than the male, especially in the child-bearing years. Thus in Africa, of 100 boys of ten 85 survived to 22, 74 to 32, 58 to 42, 47 to 52 and 36 to 62. For girls the corresponding percentages were 73, 54, 47, 39 and 28." These figures correspond to those arrived at by Bruce Frier in Bruce W. "Demography", in Alan K. Bowman, Peter Garnsey, and Dominic Rathbone, eds., The Cambridge Ancient History XI: The High Empire, A.D. 70–192, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 827–54. Of those still alive at age 10, half would die by the age of 50 according to the African statistics cited by Jones, ibid. Roman women could expect to bear on average 6 to 9 children.. Life expectancy was in the mid-twenties. Of those who reached the age of 22 52% of men reached 52 and 39% of women reached the age of 52. The population curve was heavy at the bottom: the median age of the population of 0 million was 25 more or less. This has importance when considering the numbers of men eligible for military service from age 18 to 45 - on the face of it they were 20 percent plus (there were more males than females) of the population, 15 million(?), but the minimum height of 165cm (5 Roman feet, 7 inches) for rank and file new legionary recruits and the even greater one for elite units eliminated half of them; unfit for service more, and 2.0 million had to be subtracted because they were slaves who were seldom pressed into service except in extreme emergencies leaving 5 million fit for service (of 13 million free men 18-45), i.e. 1 in 10 of qualified men had to be in the armed forces if these numbered 500,000. The pressure was partly relieved by enlisting men from outside the Empire (the so-called 'barbarians') to fill up the ranks which needed 40,000 recruits a year (half of whom had died before the end of their 20 and 25-year enlistments). These taken from a relatively small pool of voluntary and eligible recruits, 2.5 million, between the ages of 18-32.

    At its peak, after the Antonine Plague of the 160s CE, it had a population of about 60–70 million and a population density of about 16 persons per square kilometer spread evenly. However, the populations tended to be gathered in river valleys and areas suitable for cultivation; and in 2000 towns and cities. In contrast to the European societies of the classical and medieval periods, Rome had unusually high urbanization rates. During the 2nd century CE, the city of Rome had more than one million inhabitants. No Western city would have as many again until the 19th century. Read more...
  • A Roman street in Pompeii


    Roman roads (Latin: viae Romanae IPA: [ˈwjjae̯ ˈrɔːmaːnae̯]; singular: via Romana IPA: [ˈwjja rɔːˈmaːna]; meaning "Roman way") were physical infrastructure vital to the maintenance and development of the Roman state, and were built from about 300 BC through the expansion and consolidation of the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire. They provided efficient means for the overland movement of armies, officials, and civilians, and the inland carriage of official communications and trade goods. Roman roads were of several kinds, ranging from small local roads to broad, long-distance highways built to connect cities, major towns and military bases. These major roads were often stone-paved and metaled, cambered for drainage, and were flanked by footpaths, bridleways and drainage ditches. They were laid along accurately surveyed courses, and some were cut through hills, or conducted over rivers and ravines on bridgework. Sections could be supported over marshy ground on rafted or piled foundations.

    At the peak of Rome's development, no fewer than 29 great military highways radiated from the capital, and the late Empire's 113 provinces were interconnected by 372 great roads. The whole comprised more than 400,000 kilometres (250,000 miles) of roads, of which over 80,500 kilometres (50,000 mi) were stone-paved. In Gaul alone, no less than 21,000 kilometres (13,000 mi) of roadways are said to have been improved, and in Britain at least 4,000 kilometres (2,500 mi). The courses (and sometimes the surfaces) of many Roman roads survived for millennia; some are overlaid by modern roads. Read more...
  • Probable depiction of Q. Aurelius Symmachus from an ivory diptych depicting his apotheosis.

    Quintus Aurelius Symmachus /ˈsɪməkəs/ [needs Latin IPA] (c. 345 – 402) was a Roman statesman, orator, and man of letters. He held the offices of governor of proconsular Africa in 373, urban prefect of Rome in 384 and 385, and consul in 391. Symmachus sought to preserve the traditional religions of Rome at a time when the aristocracy was converting to Christianity, and led an unsuccessful delegation of protest against Gratian, when he ordered the Altar of Victory removed from the curia, the principal meeting place of the Roman Senate in the Forum Romanum. Two years later he made a famous appeal to Gratian's successor, Valentinian II, in a dispatch that was rebutted by Ambrose, the bishop of Milan. Symmachus's career was temporarily derailed when he supported the short-lived usurper Magnus Maximus, but he was rehabilitated and three years later appointed consul. Much of his writing has survived: nine books of letters; a collection of Relationes or official dispatches; and fragments of various orations. Read more...
  • Diodoro siculo - storico di Agira.jpg

    Diodorus Siculus (/ˌdaɪəˈdɔːrəs ˈsɪkjʊləs/; Greek: Διόδωρος Σικελιώτης Diodoros Sikeliotes) (fl. 1st century BC) or Diodorus of Sicily was a Greek historian. He is known for writing the monumental universal history Bibliotheca historica, much of which survives, between 60 and 30 BC. It is arranged in three parts. The first covers mythic history up to the destruction of Troy, arranged geographically, describing regions around the world from Egypt, India and Arabia to Greece and Europe. The second covers the Trojan War to the death of Alexander the Great. The third covers the period to about 60 BC. Bibliotheca, meaning 'library', acknowledges that he was drawing on the work of many other authors. Read more...
  • Appian of Alexandria (/ˈæpiən/; Greek: Ἀππιανὸς Ἀλεξανδρεύς Appianòs Alexandreús; Latin: Appianus Alexandrinus; c. 95 – c. AD 165) was a Greek historian with Roman citizenship who flourished during the reigns of Emperors of Rome Trajan, Hadrian, and Antoninus Pius.

    He was born c. 95 in Alexandria. After holding the chief offices in the province of Aegyptus (Egypt), he went to Rome c. 120, where he practised as an advocate, pleading cases before the emperors (probably as advocatus fisci). It was in 147 at the earliest that he was appointed to the office of procurator, probably in Egypt, on the recommendation of his friend Marcus Cornelius Fronto, a well-known litterateur. Because the position of procurator was open only to members of the equestrian order (the "knightly" class), his possession of this office tells us about Appian's family background. Read more...
  • A general outline of Roman London in late antiquity, with the modern banks of the Thames. Discovered roads drawn as double lines; conjectural roads, single lines.

    Londinium was a settlement established on the current site of the City of London around AD 43. Its bridge over the River Thames turned the city into a road nexus and major port, serving as a major commercial centre in Roman Britain until its abandonment during the 5th century.

    Following its foundation in the mid-1st century, early Londinium occupied the relatively small area of 1.4 km2 (0.5 sq mi), roughly equivalent to the size of present-day Hyde Park, with a fortified garrison on one of its hills. In the year 60 or 61, the rebellion of the Iceni under Boudica forced the garrison to abandon the settlement, which was then razed. Following the Iceni's defeat at the Battle of Watling Street, the city was rebuilt as a planned Roman town and recovered within about a decade. During the later decades of the 1st century, Londinium expanded rapidly, becoming Great Britain's largest city. By the turn of the century, Londinium had grown to about 60,000 people, almost certainly replacing Camulodunum (Colchester) as the provincial capital and by the 2nd century, Londinium was at its height. Its forum and basilica were one of the largest structures north of the Alps when the Emperor Hadrian visited Londinium in 122. Excavations have discovered evidence of a major fire that destroyed most of the city shortly thereafter, but the city was again rebuilt. By the second half of the 2nd century, Londinium appears to have shrunk in both size and population. Read more...
  • A mosaic depicting a banquet during a hunting trip from the Late Roman Villa Romana del Casale in Sicily


    Ancient Roman cuisine changed over the long duration of the ancient Roman civilization. Dietary habits were affected by the influence of Greek culture, the political changes from kingdom to republic to empire, and the empire's enormous expansion, which exposed Romans to many new provincial culinary habits and cooking methods.

    In the beginning, dietary differences between Roman social classes were not very great, but disparities developed with the empire's growth. Read more...
  • Roman Empire under Augustus (31 BC – AD 14). Yellow: 31BC. Dark Green 31–19 BC, Light Green 19–9 BC, Pale Green 9–6 BC. Mauve: Client states

    In Ancient Rome, a province (Latin: provincia, pl. provinciae) was the basic and, until the Tetrarchy (from 293 AD), the largest territorial and administrative unit of the empire's territorial possessions outside Italy. The word province in Modern English has its origins in the Latin term used by the Romans.

    Provinces were generally governed by politicians of senatorial rank, usually former consuls or former praetors. A later exception was the province of Egypt, incorporated by Augustus after the death of Cleopatra; it was ruled by a governor of only equestrian rank, perhaps as a discouragement to senatorial ambition. This exception was unique, but not contrary to Roman law, as Egypt was considered Augustus' personal property, following the tradition of the kings of the earlier Hellenistic period. Read more...
  • Boethius teaching his students
    (initial in a 1385 Italian manuscript of the Consolation of Philosophy.)

    Anicius Manlius Severinus Boëthius, commonly called Boethius (/boʊˈiːθiəs/; also Boetius /-ʃəs/; c. 477–524 AD), was a Roman senator, consul, magister officiorum, and philosopher of the early 6th century. He was born about a year after Odoacer deposed the last Roman Emperor and declared himself King of Italy, and entered public service under Ostrogothic King Theodoric the Great, who later imprisoned and executed him in 524 on charges of conspiracy to overthrow him. While jailed, Boethius composed his Consolation of Philosophy, a philosophical treatise on fortune, death, and other issues, which became one of the most popular and influential works of the Middle Ages. As the author of numerous handbooks and translator of Aristotle, he became the main intermediary between the Antiquity and following centuries. Read more...
  • Map-Romance Language World.svg

    The Romance languages (also called Romanic languages or Neo-Latin languages) are the modern languages that evolved from Vulgar Latin between the third and eighth centuries and that form a subgroup of the Italic languages within the Indo-European language family.

    Today, around 800 million people are native speakers worldwide, mainly in Europe, Africa, and the Americas, but also elsewhere. Additionally, the major Romance languages have many non-native speakers and are in widespread use as lingua francas. This is especially the case for French, which is in widespread use throughout Central and West Africa, Madagascar, Mauritius, and the Maghreb. Read more...
  • Early 16th century publication edited by Beatus Rhenanus

    Marcus Velleius Paterculus (c. 19 BC – c. AD 31), also known as Velleius (/vɛˈliːəs, -ˈleɪəs/), was a Roman historian. His History (Latin: Historiae), written in a highly rhetorical style, covered the period from the end of the Trojan War to the death of Livia in AD 29, but is most useful for the period from the death of Julius Caesar in 44 BC. to the death of Augustus in 14 AD. Although Velleius's praenomen is given as Marcus by Priscian, some modern scholars identify him with Gaius Velleius Paterculus, whose name occurs in an inscription on a north African milestone (C.I.L. VIII.10, 311). Read more...
  • The Constitution of the Roman Empire was an unwritten set of guidelines and principles passed down mainly through precedent. After the fall of the Roman Republic, the constitutional balance of power shifted from the Roman Senate to the Roman Emperor. Beginning with the first emperor, Augustus, the emperor and the senate were theoretically two co-equal branches of government. In practice, however, the actual authority of the imperial Senate was negligible, as the emperor held the true power of the state. During the reign of the second emperor, Tiberius, many of the powers that had been held by the Roman assemblies were transferred to the Senate.

    The powers of an emperor existed by virtue of his legal standing. The two most significant components to an emperor's power were the "tribunician powers" Latin: tribunicia potestas and the proconsular imperium, or the power to command. The tribunician powers gave the emperor authority over Rome itself and the civil government, while the proconsular powers gave him authority over the provinces and the army. While these distinctions were clearly defined during the early empire, eventually they were lost, and the emperor's powers became less constitutional and more monarchical. The traditional magistracies that survived the fall of the republic were the Consulship, Praetorship, Plebeian Tribunate, Aedileship, Quaestorship, and Military Tribunate. Any individual of the senatorial class could run for one of these offices. If an individual was not of the senatorial class, he could run for one of these offices if he was allowed to run by the emperor, or otherwise, he could be appointed to one of these offices by the emperor. Read more...
  • A Roman governor was an official either elected or appointed to be the chief administrator of Roman law throughout one or more of the many provinces constituting the Roman Empire. A Roman governor is also known as a propraetor or proconsul.

    The generic term in Roman legal language was Rector provinciae, regardless of the specific titles, which also reflect the province's intrinsic and strategic status, and corresponding differences in authority. Read more...
  • The patricians (from Latin: patricius) were originally a group of ruling class families in ancient Rome. The distinction was highly significant in the early Republic, but its relevance waned after the Conflict of the Orders (494 BC to 287 BC), and by the time of the late Republic and Empire, membership in the patriciate was of only nominal significance.

    After the Western Empire fell, it remained a high honorary title in the Byzantine Empire. Medieval patrician classes were once again formally defined groups of leading burgess families in many medieval Italian republics, such as Venice and Genoa, and subsequently "patrician" became a vague term used for aristocrats and the higher bourgeoisie in many countries. Read more...
  • A reconstruction of a Roman hand abacus, made by the RGZ Museum in Mainz, 1977. The original is bronze and is held by the Bibliothèque nationale de France, in Paris. This example is, confusingly, missing many counter beads.

    The Ancient Romans developed the Roman hand abacus, a portable, but less capable, base-10 version of earlier abacuses like those used by the Greeks and Babylonians. It was the first portable calculating device for engineers, merchants and presumably tax collectors. It greatly reduced the time needed to perform the basic operations of arithmetic using Roman numerals.

    As Karl Menninger says on page 315 of his book, "For more extensive and complicated calculations, such as those involved in Roman land surveys, there was, in addition to the hand abacus, a true reckoning board with unattached counters or pebbles. The Etruscan cameo and the Greek predecessors, such as the Salamis Tablet and the Darius Vase, give us a good idea of what it must have been like, although no actual specimens of the true Roman counting board are known to be extant. But language, the most reliable and conservative guardian of a past culture, has come to our rescue once more. Above all, it has preserved the fact of the unattached counters so faithfully that we can discern this more clearly than if we possessed an actual counting board. What the Greeks called psephoi, the Romans called calculi. The Latin word calx means 'pebble' or 'gravel stone'; calculi are thus little stones (used as counters)." Read more...
  • Roman Republican currency refers to the gold and silver Coinage struck by the various magistrates of the Roman Republic, to be used as legal tender. In modern times, the abbreviation RRC, "Roman Republican Coinage" originally the name of a reference work on the topic by Michael H. Crawford, has come to be used as an identifying tag for coins assigned a number in that work, such as RRC 367.

    Coins came late to the Republic compared with the rest of the Mediterranean, especially Greece and Asia Minor where coins were invented in the 7th century BC. The currency of central Italy was influenced by its natural resources, with bronze being abundant (the Etruscans were famous metal workers in bronze and iron) and silver ore being scarce. The coinage of the Roman Republic started with a few silver coins apparently devised for trade with the Greek colonies in Southern Italy, and heavy cast bronze pieces for use in Central Italy. Read more...
  • Representation of a sitting of the Roman Senate: Cicero attacks Catilina, from a 19th-century fresco

    Auctoritas is a Latin word which is the origin of English "authority". While historically its use in English was restricted to discussions of the political history of Rome, the beginning of phenomenological philosophy in the 20th century expanded the use of the word.[citation needed]
    In ancient Rome, Auctoritas referred to the general level of prestige a person had in Roman society, and, as a consequence, his clout, influence, and ability to rally support around his will. Auctoritas was not merely political, however; it had a numinous content and symbolized the mysterious "power of command" of heroic Roman figures. Read more...
  • Julius Caesar


    The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to ancient Rome:

    Ancient Rome – former civilization that thrived on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to become one of the largest empires in the ancient world. Read more...
  • The Roman Empire in 117 AD

    Vulgar Latin or Sermo Vulgaris ("common speech"), also Colloquial Latin, or Common Romance (particularly in the late stage), was a range of non-standard sociolects of Latin (as opposed to Classical Latin, the standard and literary version of the language) spoken in the Mediterranean region during and after the classical period of the Roman Empire. It is from Vulgar Latin that the Romance languages developed; the best known are the national languages Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian, and French. Works written in Latin during classical times and the earlier Middle Ages used prescribed Classical Latin rather than Vulgar Latin, with very few exceptions (most notably sections of Gaius Petronius' Satyricon), thus Vulgar Latin had no official orthography of its own. In Renaissance Latin, Vulgar Latin was called vulgare Latinum or Latinum vulgare.

    By its nature Vulgar Latin varied greatly by region and by time period, though several major divisions can be seen. Vulgar Latin dialects began to significantly diverge from Classical Latin by the third century during the classical period of the Roman Empire. Nevertheless, throughout the sixth century the most widely spoken dialects were still similar to and mostly mutually intelligible with Classical Latin.

    The verb system [...] seems to have remained virtually intact throughout the fifth century [...] the transformation of the language, from structures we call Latin into structures we call Romance, lasted from the third or fourth century until the eighth, "So its history came to an end – or to put it another way, the language becomes a "dead" language – when it stops functioning in this way and is no longer anybody's natural mother tongue," In Gaul from the mid-eighth century many people were not able to understand even the most straightforward religious texts read to them in Latin. In Italy the first signs that people were aware of the difference between the everyday language they spoke and the written form is in the mid-tenth century. The period of most rapid change occurred from the second half of the seventh century. Until then the spoken and written form (though with many vulgar features) were regarded as one language.

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  • A dictator was a magistrate of the Roman Republic, entrusted with the full authority of the state to deal with a military emergency or to undertake a specific duty. All other magistrates were subordinate to his imperium, and the right of the plebeian tribunes to veto his actions or of the people to appeal from them was extremely limited. However, in order to prevent the dictatorship from threatening the state itself, severe limitations were placed upon its powers: a dictator could only act within his intended sphere of authority; and he was obliged to resign his office once his appointed task had been accomplished, or at the expiration of six months. Dictators were frequently appointed from the earliest period of the Republic down to the Second Punic War, but the magistracy then went into abeyance for over a century, until it was revived in a significantly modified form, first by Sulla, and then by Julius Caesar. The office was formally abolished after the death of Caesar, and not revived under the Empire. Read more...
  • The site of the former Circus Maximus in modern-day Rome

    The Roman circus (from Latin, "circle") was a large open-air venue used for public events in the ancient Roman Empire. The circuses were similar to the ancient Greek hippodromes, although circuses served varying purposes and differed in design and construction. Along with theatres and amphitheatres, Circuses were one of the main entertainment sites of the time. Circuses were venues for chariot races, horse races, and performances that commemorated important events of the empire were performed there.

    According to Edward Gibbon, in Chapter XXXI of his work The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, the Roman people, at the start of the 5th century: Read more...
  • Monument to Ausonius in Milan.


    Decimus or Decimius Magnus Ausonius (/ɔːˈsoʊniəs/; c. 310 – c. 395) was a Roman poet and teacher of rhetoric from Burdigala in Aquitaine, modern Bordeaux, France. For a time he was tutor to the future emperor Gratian, who afterwards bestowed the consulship on him. His best-known poems are Mosella, a description of the river Moselle, and Ephemeris, an account of a typical day in his life. His many other verses show his concern for his family, friends, teachers, and circle of well-to-do acquaintances and his delight in the technical handling of meter. Read more...
  • Emperor Augustus served as the first Roman emperor. His Principate ended republican rule in Rome and began Pax Romana.

    The Roman emperors were rulers of the Roman Empire, wielding power over its citizens and military. The empire was developed as the Roman Republic invaded and occupied most of Europe and portions of northern Africa and western Asia. Under the republic, regions of the empire were ruled by provincial governors answerable to and authorised by the "Senate and People of Rome". Rome and its senate were ruled by a variety of magistrates – of whom the consuls were the most powerful. The republic ended, and the emperors were created, when these magistrates became legally and practically subservient to one citizen with power over all other magistrates. Augustus, the first emperor, was careful to maintain the façade of republican rule, taking no specific title for his position and calling the concentration of magisterial power princeps senatus (the first man of the senate). This style of government that lasted for 300 years is thus called the Principate. The modern word 'emperor' derives from the title imperator, which was granted by an army to a successful general; during the initial phase of the empire, it still had to be earned by the princeps. The term emperor is a modern construction, used when describing rulers of the Roman Empire because it emphasises the strong links between the ruler and the army (on whose support the ruler's power depended), and does not discriminate between the personal styles of rule and titles in different phases of the Empire.

    In the late 3rd century, after the Crisis of the Third Century, Diocletian formalised and embellished the recent manner of imperial rule, establishing the so-called Dominate period of the Roman Empire. This was characterised by the explicit increase of authority in the person of the Emperor, and the use of the style Dominus Noster ("Our Lord"). The rise of powerful Barbarian tribes along the borders of the empire and the challenge they posed to defense of far-flung borders and unstable imperial succession led Diocletian to experiment with sharing imperial titles and responsibilities among several individuals - a partial reversion to pre-Augustian Roman traditions. For nearly two centuries thereafter there was often more than one emperor at a time, frequently dividing the administration of the vast territories between them. As Henry Moss warned, "Yet it is important to remember that in the eyes of contemporaries the Empire was still one and indivisible. It is false to the ideas of this time to speak of 'the Eastern and Western Empire'; the two halves of Empire were thought of as 'the Eastern, or Western parts' (partes orientis vel occidentis.)" However, after the death of Theodosius I in 395, the split became firmly entrenched (see: the Western Roman Empire and the Eastern Roman Empire). The last pretense of such division was formally ended by Zeno after the death of Julius Nepos in 480. For the remaining thousand years of the Eastern Roman Empire there would only ever be one legitimate senior emperor, ruling from Constantinople and maintaining claim to the increasingly unstable territories in the west. After 480, multiple claims to be the imperial title of Augustus (or Basileus for Greek speakers) necessarily meant civil war, although the experiment with designating junior emperors (known as Caesars), usually to indicate the intended successor, occasionally reappeared. Read more...
  • Venice – The Tetrarchs 03.jpg

    The term "tetrarchy" (from the Greek: τετραρχία, tetrarchia, "leadership of four [people]") describes any form of government where power is divided among four individuals, but in modern usage usually refers to the system instituted by Roman Emperor Diocletian in 293, marking the end of the Crisis of the Third Century and the recovery of the Roman Empire. This tetrarchy lasted until c. 313, when mutually destructive conflict eliminated most of the claimants to power, leaving Constantine in control of the western half of the empire, and Licinius in control of the eastern half. Read more...
  • Stele des Polybios.jpg

    Polybius (/pəˈlɪbiəs/; Greek: Πολύβιος, Polýbios; c. 200 – c. 118 BC) was a Greek historian of the Hellenistic period noted for his work The Histories, which covered the period of 264–146 BC in detail. The work describes the rise of the Roman Republic to the status of dominance in the ancient Mediterranean world and includes his eyewitness account of the Sack of Carthage in 146 BC.

    Polybius is important for his analysis of the mixed constitution or the separation of powers in government, which was influential on Montesquieu's The Spirit of the Laws and the framers of the United States Constitution. Read more...
  • Titus Livius Patavinus

    Titus Livius Patavinus (/ˈlɪviəs/; Classical Latin: [ˈtɪ.tʊs ˈliː.wi.ʊs]; 64 or 59 BC – AD 12 or 17) – often rendered as Titus Livy, or simply Livy (/ˈlɪvi/), in English language sources – was a Roman historian. He wrote a monumental history of Rome and the Roman people – Ab Urbe Condita Libri (Books from the Foundation of the City) – covering the period from the earliest legends of Rome before the traditional foundation in 753 BC through the reign of Augustus in Livy's own lifetime. He was on familiar terms with members of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, advising Augustus's grandnephew, the future emperor Claudius, as a young man not long before 14 AD in a letter to take up the writing of history. Read more...
  • Frontispiece to a 1706 Latin edition of the Attic Nights (fr) by Jakob Gronovius

    Aulus Gellius (c. 125 – after 180 AD) was a Latin author and grammarian, who was probably born and certainly brought up in Rome. He was educated in Athens, after which he returned to Rome. He is famous for his Attic Nights, a commonplace book, or compilation of notes on grammar, philosophy, history, antiquarianism, and other subjects, preserving fragments of the works of many authors who might otherwise be unknown today. Read more...
  • Auguste Jean Baptiste Vinchon, Propertius and Cynthia at Tivoli


    Sextus Propertius was a Latin elegiac poet of the Augustan age. He was born around 50–45 BC in Assisium and died shortly after 15 BC.

    Propertius' surviving work comprises four books of Elegies (Elegiae). He was a friend of the poets Gallus and Virgil and, with them, had as his patron Maecenas and, through Maecenas, the emperor Augustus. Although Propertius was not as renowned in his own time as other Latin elegists, he is today regarded by scholars as a major poet. Read more...
  • The plebs were, in ancient Rome, the general body of free Roman citizens who were not patricians, as determined by the census. The precise origins of the group and the term are unclear, though it may be that they began as a limited political movement in opposition to the elite (patricians) which became more widely applied. Read more...
  • The practices of Ancient Roman finance, while originally rooted in Greek models, evolved in the second century BCE with the expansion of Roman monetization. Roman elites engaged in private lending for various purposes, and various banking models arose to serve different lending needs. Read more...
  • A triumvirate (Latin: triumvirātus) is a political regime ruled or dominated by three powerful individuals known as triumvirs (Latin: triumviri). The arrangement can be formal or informal. Though the three are notionally equal, this is rarely the case in reality. The term can also be used to describe a state with three different military leaders who all claim to be the sole leader.

    In the context of the Soviet Union and Russia, the term troika (Russian for "group of three") is used for "triumvirate". Another synonym is triarchy. Read more...
  • Ammianus Marcellinus (born c. 330, died c. 391 – 400) was a Roman soldier and historian who wrote the penultimate major historical account surviving from antiquity (preceding Procopius). His work, known as the Res Gestae, chronicled in Latin the history of Rome from the accession of the Emperor Nerva in 96 to the death of Valens at the Battle of Adrianople in 378, although only the sections covering the period 353–378 survive. Read more...
  • A 16th-century painting by Sandro Botticelli, depicting the rape of Lucretia and the subsequent uprising.

    The overthrow of the Roman monarchy, a political revolution in ancient Rome, took place around 509 BC and resulted in the expulsion of the last king of Rome, Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, and the establishment of the Roman Republic.

    The semi-legendary Roman histories
    tell that while the king was away on campaign, his son Sextus Tarquinius raped a noblewoman, Lucretia. Afterwards she revealed the offence to various Roman noblemen, and then committed suicide. The Roman noblemen, led by Lucius Junius Brutus, obtained the support of the Roman aristocracy and the people to expel the king and his family and to institute a republic. The Roman army supported Brutus, and the king went into exile. Despite a number of attempts by Lucius Tarquinius Superbus to reinstate the monarchy, the citizens established a republic and thereafter elected two consuls annually to rule the city. Read more...

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