Curated playlist
1st century BC in the Roman Republic
- Donations of AlexandriaThe Donations of Alexandria took place in the autumn of 34 BC. Mark Antony and Cleopatra VII called the entire city to the gymnasium of Alexandria to witness a distribution of kingdoms. Seated before the crowd on golden thrones, dressed as…
- Constitutional reforms of AugustusThe constitutional reforms of Augustus reshaped the Roman world without anyone quite noticing a republic had ended. Between 30 BC and 2 BC, the man who would become Rome's first emperor dismantled centuries of republican governance and…
- Bellum SiculumOn the 15th of March 44 BC, Julius Caesar lay dead on the floor of the Senate House. His assassination triggered a chain reaction that placed Sextus Pompey's name on a proscription list created by Lepidus, Mark Antony, and Octavian. Those…
- Roman–Gallic warsAround 390 BC, a Gallic chieftain named Brennus led his warriors, the Senones, on a march that ended inside the city of Rome itself. They had already smashed a Roman army at the Battle of the Allia. They walked through the city gates…
- First TriumvirateThe First Triumvirate became visible to Rome in a single dramatic moment in 59 BC. Standing before the people, Caesar summoned Pompey and Crassus to declare their backing for his land bill. Pompey's answer was direct: he would provide a…
- Sulla's civil warSulla's civil war tore the Roman Republic apart in the years 83 to 82 BC, a conflict that would end not merely with one side defeated but with one man seizing the highest office in the state. The victorious general Lucius Cornelius Sulla…
- Assassination of Julius CaesarOn the 15th of March, 44 BC, Julius Caesar walked into the Senate House of Pompey and never walked out. He was stabbed 23 times by a group of senators who numbered around 60. They called themselves liberators, and they believed they were…
- Gallic WarsThe Gallic Wars were fought between 58 and 50 BC, and the man at their center claimed to have killed over a million Gauls while losing almost none of his own. That man was Julius Caesar. The number is a lie. Modern historians read his…
- Battle of ActiumThe Battle of Actium, fought on the 2nd of September 31 BC, decided who would rule the known world. On one side sat Octavian, heir to Julius Caesar's name and fortune. On the other stood Mark Antony, Caesar's greatest general, sailing…
- War of ActiumThe War of Actium ended the Roman Republic, and it began with a will. Octavian had illegally seized the document from the Temple of Vesta, and when he read its contents aloud to the Roman Senate, the room went silent. Mark Antony had left…
- Cantabrian WarsThe Cantabrian Wars began in 29 BC, the last stand of the last independent Celtic nations of Hispania against the full weight of the Roman Empire. For two centuries, Rome had been grinding its way across the Iberian Peninsula. By the time…
- Crisis of the Roman RepublicThe Crisis of the Roman Republic began in the blood of a tribune. In 133 BC, Tiberius Gracchus was assassinated by the then-pontifex maximus Scipio Nasica, acting not in any official capacity but as a private citizen, against the explicit…
- Second TriumvirateThe Second Triumvirate was born on the 27th of November 43 BC, when three men divided the Roman world between them and gave themselves powers no Roman had legally held before. Mark Antony, Lepidus, and Octavian could issue binding edicts,…
- Battle of CarrhaeMarcus Licinius Crassus, Pompeius Magnus, and Julius Caesar met in Ravenna during March 56 BC to reaffirm their political alliance. The three men agreed to marshal resources for the upcoming elections of 55 BC. Their goal was a second…
- Catilinarian conspiracyThe Catilinarian conspiracy nearly tore the Roman republic apart in 63 BC, when a failed politician named Lucius Sergius Catilina decided that if the voters would not give him the consulship, he would simply take it by force. Catiline had…
- Sulla's proscriptionSulla's proscription started not with a formal decree but with a failure. On the 2nd of November 82 BC, Lucius Cornelius Sulla called the Roman Senate to meet at the Temple of Bellona. Next door, in the villa publica, Samnite prisoners…