Roman Empire News
Lost Roman Town with 8,000-Seat Amphitheater Mapped in Austria
Surveys at Stein in Lower Austria reveal a planned Roman settlement and an amphitheater estimated for 8,000 people. Its identification as Claudivium remains uncertain.
Roman Empire Anecdotes
How a Roman Emperor Answered His Mail
Roman emperors received petitions, reports, legal questions and requests from across the Empire. Here is how that imperial correspondence actually worked.
Roman Empire Historical Facts
What Made the Ancient Romans Laugh?
Roman laughter could mock emperors, expose fools, ward off evil, reverse social roles, and turn myth into spectacle. What made Romans laugh was rarely simple – and not always harmless.
Roman Empire Anecdotes
The Most Dangerous Place in Rome? Beside the Emperor
Near the emperor, influence could bring honours, wealth, office, and command – but it also exposed courtiers, freedmen, jurists, relatives, and guards to suspicion, rivalry, and sudden violence.
Roman Empire Historical Facts
Vitellius: The Emperor Rome Raised – and Destroyed
Vitellius is remembered as Rome’s glutton emperor. Yet beneath the hostile portraits of civil war lies a more complicated ruler – one whose brief reign reveals as much about historical narrative as about power itself.
Roman Empire Anecdotes
If You Were Overweight in Ancient Rome, You Were Judged
From tyrants mocked for their bellies to scholars ridiculed for vanishing thinness, Roman writers turned body size into moral theatre. Fatness and emaciation were never neutral traits, but visible signs of luxury, weakness, discipline, or decline.
Roman Empire Historical Facts
The Ancient Blueprint Behind Every Modern Stadium
What survives now is only the emptiness of a vast space, yet it carries the weight of a city’s anticipation and the memory of its most restless hours.
Roman Empire Historical Facts
Aelian: The Roman Who Wrote in Greek
Aelian, the Roman who wrote in Greek, turned away from the noise of empire to preserve its memory in prose. His Varia Historia and On the Nature of Animals gather fragments of wisdom and wonder, binding moral reflection to the art of remembrance.
Roman Empire News
How Assassinations Lit Rome’s Civil Wars: What Can Roman History Teach Us
Political murder rarely restores an old order; in Rome it rewired incentives, putting armies, money and short-term bargains above process. From Caesar’s Ides to the auction of 193, assassinations taught Romans to price power—and to expect violence to decide it.
Roman Empire Anecdotes
Rethinking Lucius Verus through Sources and Historiography
Lucius Verus is often overshadowed by his co-emperοr, Marcus Aurelius, but his rich in contrast and character biography deserves a deep dive.
Roman Empire Anecdotes
The Art of Poison in the Roman Empire
Poison in Rome was more than murder—it was myth, medicine, and metaphor. From household betrayals to imperial plots, it blurred the line between cure and crime.
Roman Empire Anecdotes
Septimius Severus: Founder, Fighter, and Father of a New Rome
From the sands of Africa to the edge of Britain, Septimius Severus rose as an emperor forged by ambition and war. Neither Rome-born nor Senate-chosen, he remade the Empire in his image—provincial, militarized, and enduring.
Roman Empire Historical Facts
The Divine Chaos of Elagabalus: Rome’s Most Unconventional Emperor
A boy-emperor draped in silk and scandal, Elagabalus shook the Roman world with rituals, rumors, and rebellion. His brief reign remains one of the Empire’s most controversial and enigmatic chapters.
Roman Empire Historical Facts
Who were the Praetorian Guard, Rome’s Elite Bodyguards?
Beyond their role as imperial bodyguards, the Praetorian Guard operated as an elite security force, enforcing state authority through surveillance, arrests, and executions.
Roman Empire Historical Facts
The Colosseum: Rome's Arena of "Panis et Spectacula"
Towering over the heart of Rome, the Colosseum stands as a monumental proof to the ambition, engineering mastery, and brutal spectacles of the Roman Empire.
Roman Empire Anecdotes
The Quiet Power of Antoninus Pius: Stability and Prosperity
In the vast tapestry of Roman history, where emperors often rose to fame through conquests or fell from grace amidst scandal, Antoninus Pius stands out as a unique figure.