In 327 Constantine was about 55 years old. By the standards of the day the emperor was an old man. But he had many reasons to be quite content. The Roman Empire had been united again under his rule and the introduction a couple of years back of a new…
During the Roman Republic the Senate had been, from time to time, the most powerful body of the state. During the Principate its power had been greatly reduced, while during the Dominate and the reign of the emperor Diocletianus the Senate had become a marginal factor at best. Constantine more…
The new emperor Carus – the name means ‘beloved’ – sent his eldest son Carinus to Gaul and took his youngest son Numerianus with him on a campaign in the East against the Persians. It seems likely that Probus had already been planning an offensive against Rome’s eastern nemesis, but…
There can be no doubt that Marcus Aurelius Probus was a very successful general. According to Aurelius Victor, he “was almost a second Hannibal because of his great knowledge of warfare and his versatile training of the soldiers and his toughening of the young recruits”.[1] For most of his reign,…
Marcus Claudius Tacitus may have been an old man, but he still had a lot of energy left. He immediately punished some of the soldiers involved in the death of his predecessor Aurelianus. Mucapor was tortured to death, but some of the conspirators apparently managed to get away, for they…
Still in 271, while en route to the East to confront Zenobia, Aurelianus campaigned against marauding tribes that had once again broken through the Danube border. The not-so reliable Historia Augusta mentions campaigns in Illyricum (a generic term for the Balkans) and Thrace and even claims that the emperor fought…
Marcus Aurelius Claudius was in his fifties when he became Augustus. According to Aurelius Victor, the dying Gallienus had named Claudius – who was at Ticinum (Pavia) at the time of the murder – his successor. This is not impossible, although it is a lot more likely that he was…
Publius Licinius Egnatius Gallienus Augustus was now sole ruler of the vast Roman Empire, or rather: the sole legitimate ruler. Most western provinces were in the hands of Postumus, ruler of the ‘Gallic Empire’, while Gallienus soon had to deal with usurpers and rebels in the eastern provinces as well.…
When he marched on Rome in 253, Aemilianus had taken away many troops from the Danube border. Valerianus had done the same when he marched on the Eternal City with the legions from the Rhine the same year. As a result, these borders were weakly defended and the Germanic and…
Soon after accepting the purple, the new emperor Trebonianus Gallus made a deal with the invading Goths. They were allowed to leave Roman territory with all their loot and prisoners and were even granted an annual tribute. It was a humiliating agreement, but what was worse was that, instead of…
After defeating Philippus Arabs at Verona in September of 249, Gaius Messius Quintus Decius had become the new ruler of the vast Roman Empire. The new emperor built the thermae Decianae or Baths of Decius on the Aventine Hill in Rome and was possibly also responsible for construction of the…
The Grand Ludovisi Sarcophagus was found in 1621 near the Porta Tiburtina, one of the eastern gates of the city of Rome. It was named after Cardinal Ludovico Ludovisi (1595-1632), who was an avid collector of antiquities. The sarcophagus can be dated to around 250-260, so it is a little…
Although the Roman army had already been transformed from a conscript army into a professional fighting force during the Late Republic, we must credit Augustus with the creation of a professional standing army. In the year 6, he established the aerarium militare, the military treasury from which the soldiers were…