Skip to content
Curated playlist

1st-century BC Romans

  • Lucius Varius RufusWhen Virgil died, Lucius Varius Rufus helped prepare the unfinished Aeneid for readers.
  • Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (son of Pompey)Pompey the Great's eldest son was killed weeks after his army shattered at Munda. Gnaeus had fought Caesar for years.
  • TiberiusMobs shouted "To the Tiber with Tiberius" when Rome's second emperor died.
  • HoraceHorace, the Roman poet, said he ran from the Battle of Philippi in 42 BC without his shield.
  • VirgilVirgil wanted his unfinished Aeneid burned, but Augustus overruled him. The emperor ordered two executors to publish it.
  • CatullusCatullus's poems nearly vanished, then turned up in one manuscript in Verona in 1305.
  • LivyA man from Cadiz once traveled to Rome and back just to meet the historian Livy. Livy never held public office.
  • Gaius Cassius LonginusCassius died believing he had lost a battle his side had actually won. Brutus had beaten Octavian's camp at Philippi.
  • GalbaRoman emperor Galba refused to pay the Praetorian Guard, and it cost him his life.
  • Gaius Julius HyginusGaius Julius Hyginus, once owned by Augustus, ran Rome's Palatine library and died poor.
  • Dionysius of HalicarnassusDionysius of Halicarnassus argued that the Romans were descended from Greeks.
  • GermanicusRomans began mourning Germanicus before the Senate ordered it. He died in Antioch in AD 19, aged thirty-three.
  • Nero Claudius DrususAncient sources say a ghostly woman warned Drusus back from the Elbe in 9 BC. He died within weeks.
  • Cato the YoungerCato the Younger tore open his own wound rather than accept Caesar's pardon. He died at Utica in April 46 BC.
  • SallustSent to calm mutinous soldiers in 47 BC, the Roman politician Sallust barely got out alive.
  • Quintus Caecilius Metellus NumidicusMetellus Numidicus was the only Roman senator to refuse an oath to a new land law. He paid the fine and resigned.
  • SpartacusSpartacus, a Thracian gladiator who lived from about 103 BC to 71 BC, launched a revolt against Rome with little more than kitchen utensils. In 73 BC around seventy gladiators broke out of a training school near Capua. Rome barely noticed…
  • VitruviusIn January 2026, diggers in Fano, Italy, found the lost basilica of Vitruvius. It is the only building confirmed as his.
  • CatilineCatiline lost three tries at the Roman consulship, then led an army against Rome.

Queue