On top of being generally regarded as a tyrannical and cruel emperor, Caracalla wasn’t all that effective in other aspects of his rule. He put into effect an edict which declared all free inhabitants of the Empire to be official citizens... so he could collect taxes from a wider base of...
If similar phenomena abound in the Roman Empire, it is because of the increased mobility that the Empire made possible: the involuntary mobility of captives and slaves; the individual mobility of the trader and the artisan; the planned mobility of colonisation; the institutionalised mobility of th...
with tears in his eyes, he told them that it was time for him to resign and pass on the responsibilities of Empire to someone younger and stronger. He had also decided
Fall of the Roman Empire in painting:Portrait of the Four Tetrarchs, dating from the 4th century, produced in Asia Minor, today on a corner of Saint Mark’s in Venice, next to the Porta della Carta. Wikimedia Commons (public domain). Between 235 CE and 285 CE, there were more than19...
Growth from Republic to Empire (Wikimedia Commons) The greatest, most long-lasting changes to the Roman army occurred around 107 B.C. under what has come to be called the Marian Reforms. Gaius Marius was a pro-Plebeian statesmen and successful general who served seven terms as consul of Rom...
The 18th-century French philosopherVoltaireonce said: “The Holy Roman Empire was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire.” The Holy Roman Empire was a limited elective monarchy composed of hundreds of kingdoms, principalities, duchies, counties, prince-bishoprics, and Free Imperial Cities in ce...
Gladiators were the rock stars of the Roman Empire. But what was gladiator combat like? How did the slaves of the arena fight and survive over centuries worth ...
Western Roman Empire / Wikimedia Commons Today we’re going to go west, and we’re going to look at Roman architecture in a variety of places, including–and some beautiful places–including the south of France: a series of cities–and I’ll point those out to you in a moment–in the...
By PHGCOM [CC-BY-SA-3.0 or GFDL], via Wikimedia CommonsThe primary reason for the infamy surrounding her is her relation with her son. A female on the throne of the Empire was unthinkable to many of its citizens. When the army declared Constantine as the ruler of the Byzantine Empire,...
wikimedia commons; bernd haynold/wikimedia commons save save by david malakoff, * science *now turns out the early romans were wild about orchids. a careful study of ancient artifacts in italy has pushed back the earliest documented appearance of the showy and highly symbolic flowers in western...