Curated playlist
Murdered Roman emperors
- GallienusGallienus ruled Rome for fifteen years, the longest reign in half a century, and spent nearly every one of those years fighting. He fought Germanic tribes on the Rhine, Persian-backed usurpers in the East, breakaway generals in Gaul, and a…
- Julius NeposJulius Nepos died on the 9th of May 480, murdered at his villa near Salona by two members of his own retinue. He had not ruled Italy in nearly five years. Yet the Eastern Roman Empire still called him emperor. The coins minted in Italy…
- DomitianDomitian was assassinated on the 18th of September 96, stabbed seven times in a carefully staged attack by members of his own household. His chamberlain had recruited a steward named Stephanus, who spent several days feigning an arm injury…
- ClaudiusClaudius was born on the 1st of August 10 BC in Lugdunum, modern Lyon, making him the first Roman emperor born outside Italy. He came into the world with a limp, a stammer, and a tremor, physical signs that his own mother Antonia Minor…
- 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 final years in paranoid seclusion on the island of Capri, presiding over a reign…
- Maximinus ThraxMaximinus Thrax became Roman emperor in 235 without ever having sat in the Senate, without ever having governed a province, and without any of the social credentials Rome's ruling class considered essential. He rose from what ancient…
- 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. He had been emperor for just seven months. Within hours, soldiers he had refused to pay would hack…
- AurelianAurelian earned a title that no Roman emperor had ever held before: Restitutor Orbis, Restorer of the World. He was born around 214, the son of a tenant farmer in the borderlands of Moesia Superior, and he died in 275 with an empire…
- MaxentiusRome itself recognized Maxentius as emperor. Every other emperor in the empire refused to. He ruled from 306 to 312, holding the ancient capital while the rest of the empire called him a usurper. The man who finally defeated him spent…
- Severus AlexanderSeverus Alexander was born on the 1st of October 208 in Arca Caesarea, Phoenicia, and by the age of thirteen he was ruling the Roman Empire alone. His predecessor, the emperor Elagabalus, had been killed by his own guards, and the bodies…