Curated playlist
3rd-century Romans
- IrenaeusWhy did a bishop in Gaul insist on exactly four gospels? Irenaeus is the earliest witness to that claim.
- TertullianTertullian distrusted philosophy yet gave Latin Christianity its word "trinity."
- Cassius DioCassius Dio's Roman History is one of only three written Roman sources on Boudica's revolt.
- EusebiusMany lost ancient books survive only because Eusebius of Caesarea quoted them. Some fragments exist nowhere else.
- Saint GeorgeHow did a soldier who left almost no historical trace become Saint George?
- Clement of AlexandriaClement of Alexandria argued that Greek philosophy prepared the way for the Gospel.
- Saint SebastianSaint Sebastian, a Christian martyr of the 3rd century, is described in one old account as a man the archers shot at until he was "as full of arrows as an urchin is full of pricks". The image is so vivid that it has outlasted almost…
- LactantiusLactantius, a North African writer, ended up tutoring the son of the Roman emperor Constantine.
- HerodianHerodian, a Roman historian, was probably just a minor civil servant. Yet he left a rare eyewitness account.
- PapinianUnder a 426 CE law, the jurist Papinian's view won when four other famous Roman legal writers disagreed.
- Saint ValentineIn the Basilica of Santa Maria in Cosmedin in Rome, a skull crowned with flowers is displayed as the alleged head of Saint Valentine. That single word, alleged, captures the puzzle of this saint. Saint Valentine was a Roman Christian of…