Curated playlist
Provinces of the Roman Empire
- Pannonia SuperiorPannonia Superior took shape in 103 AD, when Rome divided the older province of Pannonia into separate territories, with Carnuntum installed as its capital. The land it covered now lies scattered across five modern countries: Hungary,…
- Illyricum (Roman province)Illyricum was a Roman province created by Augustus in 27 BC to anchor the northeastern Adriatic frontier. It was a vast, rugged territory stretching from the River Drin in modern northern Albania all the way to the Pannonian Plain,…
- Judaea (Roman province)Judaea, as a Roman province, existed for roughly 129 years, from 6 AD to 135 AD, and during that span it became the site of events that would reshape the ancient world. A census triggered a rebellion. A prefect ordered a crucifixion that…
- PannoniaPannonia stretched along the Danube's western bank, the Roman province Augustus once described in his own account. He wrote: 'Through Tiberius Nero, then my stepson and legate, I brought under Roman authority the Pannonian peoples, which…
- RaetiaRaetia was a province of the Roman Empire carved from the heart of the Alps, and Augustus himself had a preference for its wine above any other in the empire. That single detail tells you something about this mountain territory: it was not…
- Syria PalaestinaSyria Palaestina was a Roman province born from an act of political erasure. In the aftermath of the Bar Kokhba revolt of 132-136 AD, the Roman authorities did something they had never done before and would never do again: they stripped a…
- Cappadocia (Roman province)Cappadocia, the rugged highland plateau of central-eastern Anatolia, spent centuries as a prize fought over by empires before becoming one of Rome's most strategically vital eastern provinces. In 17 AD, Emperor Tiberius summoned the aging…
- Roman EgyptRoman Egypt was, for more than six centuries, one of the most strategically prized territories on earth. From 30 BC to AD 642, Rome ruled almost all of modern-day Egypt as the imperial province of Aegyptus, and the sheer wealth that flowed…
- Africa (Roman province)Africa, the Roman province, was said to feed the entire Roman populace for eight months of the year. Egypt supplied the remaining four months of grain. The land in question ran along the northern edge of the continent that still carries…
- Sicilia (Roman province)Sicilia was the first province ever acquired by the Roman Republic, and the story of how Rome came to own it begins not with a grand strategy but with a band of mercenaries who had seized a city and didn't know where to turn. In 241 BC,…
- Danubian provincesA panel from Trajan's Column depicts shipping on the Danube, showing ports on the Adriatic Sea that provided access to these provinces. The region spans the middle and lower Danube basins, extending into the Eastern Alps and Dinarides. It…