Curated category
1st-century Roman emperors
- TiberiusTiberius Julius Caesar Augustus was born on the 16th of November 42 BC, and by the time he died on the 16th of March AD 37, he had ruled the Roman Empire for…
- VespasianVespasian was born on the 17th of November, 9 AD, in a village called Falacrinae, northeast of Rome, to a moneylender and debt collector.
- Year of the Four EmperorsThe Year of the Four Emperors began not with a coronation but with a whisper. In the winter of 67-68, a Roman official named Gaius Julius Vindex began…
- AugustusOn the 8th of May 44 BC, a teenager named Gaius Octavius accepted a dead man's will and, with it, the most dangerous inheritance in the Roman world.
- DomitianDomitian was assassinated on the 18th of September 96, stabbed seven times in a carefully staged attack by members of his own household.
- ClaudiusClaudius was born on the 1st of August 10 BC in Lugdunum, modern Lyon, making him the first Roman emperor born outside Italy.
- NeroNero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus died on the 9th of June AD 68 with a private secretary's hand helping him drive a blade home.
- CaligulaCaligula, the third Roman emperor, came to power in AD 37 at age 24, welcomed by a city delirious with relief. Tiberius, his grim predecessor, had spent his…
- TitusTitus Flavius Vespasianus was born on the 30th of December 39 AD, in the same world that would later watch him tear down one of its most sacred buildings.
- GalbaGalba put on a linen corset on the morning of the 15th of January AD 69, knowing it would offer little protection against so many swords.
- OthoMarcus Salvius Otho stabbed himself in the heart on the 16th of April 69 AD, one day after losing the Battle of Bedriacum. He was 36 years old.
- VitelliusVitellius ruled Rome for just eight months in AD 69, and his last words were spoken to soldiers who were about to kill him.
- TrajanTrajan was born Marcus Ulpius Traianus on the 18th of September in AD 53, in a modest Roman colony called Italica, in what is now the Andalusian province of…
- NervaNerva was almost 66 years old when the Roman Senate proclaimed him emperor on the 18th of September 96. He had spent a lifetime in imperial service and…