Curated playlist
1st-century Romans
- Tiberius GemellusSoldiers handed Tiberius Gemellus a sword and had to guide it themselves. Caligula had ordered his cousin to die.
- LivyA man from Cadiz once traveled to Rome and back just to meet the historian Livy. Livy never held public office.
- JuvenalJuvenal never mentions exile in his Satires, yet every surviving biography says he was exiled.
- AugustusAt nineteen, Augustus accepted a dead man's will and took Julius Caesar's name.
- JosephusJosephus told the Roman general who captured him that he would become emperor.
- Pliny the ElderPliny the Elder sailed toward Mount Vesuvius's eruption to rescue a stranded friend.
- PtolemyOne critic called the ancient astronomer Ptolemy "the most successful fraud in the history of science".
- PetroniusCharged with treason, Petronius opened his veins, bound them up, then reopened them while talking with friends.
- MartialMartial, a Roman poet, mocked landlords who set fires for insurance money.
- Seneca the YoungerThe Roman philosopher Seneca survived bleeding and poison, then died from steam in a warm bath.
- PersiusThe Roman poet Persius left fewer than seven hundred lines, yet they became a medieval favorite.
- Pontius PilatePontius Pilate is the only person, apart from Jesus and Mary, whose name is spoken aloud in the Christian creeds. The Nicene Creed says that Jesus was crucified under Pontius Pilate, suffered death and was buried. The Apostles Creed uses…
- Andrew the ApostleAndrew the Apostle was one of the Twelve chosen by Jesus, yet his most visible legacy is a pattern of color. The white diagonal cross on a blue field that flies over Scotland carries his name. The same cross sits inside the Union Flag, on…
- HadrianWhen Antinous drowned in the Nile, Emperor Hadrian wept, and then founded a city in his honor.
- SuetoniusPliny the Younger asked Emperor Trajan for a tax break on behalf of the historian Suetonius.
- QuintilianIn 1416, the scholar Poggio Bracciolini found a complete copy of a lost Roman masterpiece in the Abbey of Saint Gall. It was the work of Quintilian, a teacher of public speaking whose full name was Marcus Fabius Quintilianus. Poggio found…
- Gaius Julius HyginusGaius Julius Hyginus, once owned by Augustus, ran Rome's Palatine library and died poor.
- Pliny the YoungerPliny the Younger, then 17 or 18, watched Vesuvius erupt in 79 AD while his uncle died in the cloud.
- PlutarchPlutarch watched the emperor Nero compete at the games at Delphi. He later served as a priest of Apollo there.
- BritannicusEmperor Claudius's son Britannicus was poisoned at a dinner before turning fourteen.
- LucanNero rewarded the poet Lucan with honors, then banned his poetry. Lucan's epic turned openly against the emperor.
- Vibia SabinaDid Emperor Hadrian treat his wife Sabina like a slave, or hold her in respect? Ancient writers disagreed.
- FrontinusFrontinus began fixing Rome's water supply by ordering maps of every aqueduct. They showed pipes tapped by thieves.
- Naevius Sutorius MacroTacitus says Macro ordered the old emperor Tiberius smothered under a huge heap of clothes.