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Herodian
Herodian or Herodianus ( el, Ἡρωδιανός) of Syria, sometimes referred to as "Herodian of Antioch" (c. 170 – c. 240), was a minor Roman civil servant who wrote a colourful history in Greek titled ''History of the Empire from the Death of Marcus'' (τῆς μετὰ Μάρκον βασιλείας ἱστορία) in eight books covering the years 180 to 238. His work is not entirely reliable although his less biased account of Elagabalus is more useful than that of Cassius Dio. Herodian himself may have been a Syrian (perhaps from Antioch) who appears to have lived for a considerable period of time in Rome, but possibly without holding any public office. From his extant work, we gather that he was still living at an advanced age during the reign of Gordianus III, who ascended the throne in 238. Beyond this, nothing is known of his life. Herodian writes (1.1.3; 2.15.7) that the events described in his history occurred during his lifetime. Photius (Codex 99) gives an out ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aelius Herodianus
Aelius Herodianus ( grc-gre, Αἴλιος Ἡρωδιανός) or Herodian (fl. 2nd century CE) was one of the most celebrated grammarians of Greco-Roman antiquity. He is usually known as Herodian except when there is a danger of confusion with the historian also named Herodian. Herodian was the son of Apollonius Dyscolus and was born in Alexandria. From there he seems to have moved to Rome, where he gained the favour of the emperor Marcus Aurelius, to whom he dedicated a work on prosody. Works Herodian was held in very high esteem by subsequent grammarians; Priscian describes him as ''maximus auctor artis grammaticae'' ("the greatest creator of grammatical art"). He wrote many works, but they are mostly fragmentary and it is very difficult to compile an accurate list of them. In numerous instances it is impossible to tell whether the titles given by writers who quote from his works are distinct treatises, or only portions of larger works. In addition, there are ongoing debate ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maximinus Thrax
Gaius Julius Verus Maximinus "Thrax" ("the Thracian"; – 238) was Roman emperor from 235 to 238. His father was an accountant in the governor's office and sprang from ancestors who were Carpi (a Dacian tribe), a people whom Diocletian would eventually drive from their ancient abode (in Dacia) and transfer to Pannonia. Maximinus was the commander of the Legio IV ''Italica'' when Severus Alexander was assassinated by his own troops in 235. The Pannonian army then elected Maximinus emperor. In 238 (which came to be known as the Year of the Six Emperors), a senatorial revolt broke out, leading to the successive proclamation of Gordian I, Gordian II, Pupienus, Balbinus and Gordian III as emperors in opposition to Maximinus. Maximinus advanced on Rome to put down the revolt, but was halted at Aquileia, where he was assassinated by disaffected elements of the Legio II ''Parthica''. Maximinus is described by several ancient sources, though none are contemporary except H ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Elagabalus
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (born Sextus Varius Avitus Bassianus, 204 – 11/12 March 222), better known by his nickname "Elagabalus" (, ), was Roman emperor from 218 to 222, while he was still a teenager. His short reign was conspicuous for sex scandals and religious controversy. A close relative to the Severan dynasty, he came from a prominent Arab family in Emesa ( Homs), Syria, where since his early youth he served as head priest of the sun god Elagabal. After the death of his cousin, the emperor Caracalla, Elagabalus was raised to the principate at 14 years of age in an army revolt instigated by his grandmother Julia Maesa against Caracalla's short-lived successor, Macrinus. He only posthumously became known by the Latinised name of his god. Later historians suggest Elagabalus showed a disregard for Roman religious traditions and sexual taboos. He replaced the traditional head of the Roman pantheon, Jupiter, with the deity Elagabal, of whom he had been high priest. He ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Severus Alexander
Marcus Aurelius Severus Alexander (1 October 208 – 21/22 March 235) was a Roman emperor, who reigned from 222 until 235. He was the last emperor from the Severan dynasty. He succeeded his slain cousin Elagabalus in 222. Alexander himself was eventually assassinated, and his death marked the beginning of the events of the Crisis of the Third Century, which included nearly fifty years of civil war, foreign invasion, and the collapse of the monetary economy. Alexander was the heir to his cousin, the 18-year-old Emperor Elagabalus. The latter had been murdered along with his mother Julia Soaemias by his own guards, who, as a mark of contempt, had their remains cast into the Tiber river. Alexander and his cousin were both grandsons of Julia Maesa, the sister of empress Julia Domna, who had arranged for Elagabalus's acclamation as emperor by the Third Gallic Legion. Alexander's 13-year reign was the longest reign of a sole emperor since Antoninus Pius. He was also the second-young ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Caracalla
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (born Lucius Septimius Bassianus, 4 April 188 – 8 April 217), better known by his nickname "Caracalla" () was Roman emperor from 198 to 217. He was a member of the Severan dynasty, the elder son of Emperor Septimius Severus and Empress Julia Domna. Proclaimed co-ruler by his father in 198, he reigned jointly with his brother Geta, co-emperor from 209, after their father's death in 211. His brother was murdered by the Praetorian Guard later that year, under orders from Caracalla himself, who then reigned afterwards as sole ruler of the Roman Empire. Caracalla found administration to be mundane, leaving those responsibilities to his mother. Caracalla's reign featured domestic instability and external invasions by the Germanic peoples. Caracalla's reign became notable for the Antonine Constitution ( la, Constitutio Antoniniana), also known as the Edict of Caracalla, which granted Roman citizenship to all free men throughout the Roman Empire. Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Commodus
Commodus (; 31 August 161 – 31 December 192) was a Roman emperor who ruled from 177 to 192. He served jointly with his father Marcus Aurelius from 176 until the latter's death in 180, and thereafter he reigned alone until his assassination. His reign is commonly thought of as marking the end of a golden period of peace in the history of the Roman Empire, known as the Pax Romana. Commodus accompanied his father during the Marcomannic Wars in 172, and on a tour of the Eastern provinces in 176. Later that year he became the youngest emperor and consul up to that point, at the age of 15. During his solo reign, the Roman Empire enjoyed reduced military conflict compared with the reign of Marcus Aurelius. Intrigues and conspiracies abounded, leading Commodus to revert to an increasingly dictatorial style of leadership, culminating in his creating a deific personality cult, with his performing as a gladiator in the Colosseum. Throughout his reign, Commodus entrusted the management ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (Latin: áːɾkus̠ auɾέːli.us̠ antɔ́ːni.us̠ English: ; 26 April 121 – 17 March 180) was Roman emperor from 161 to 180 AD and a Stoic philosopher. He was the last of the rulers known as the Five Good Emperors (a term coined some 13 centuries later by Niccolò Machiavelli), and the last emperor of the Pax Romana, an age of relative peace and stability for the Roman Empire lasting from 27 BC to 180 AD. He served as Roman consul in 140, 145, and 161. Marcus Aurelius was born during the reign of Hadrian to the emperor's nephew, the praetor Marcus Annius Verus, and the heiress Domitia Calvilla. His father died when he was three, and his mother and grandfather raised him. After Hadrian's adoptive son, Aelius Caesar, died in 138, the emperor adopted Marcus's uncle Antoninus Pius as his new heir. In turn, Antoninus adopted Marcus and Lucius, the son of Aelius. Hadrian died that year, and Antoninus became emperor. Now heir to the throne, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Septimius Severus
Lucius Septimius Severus (; 11 April 145 – 4 February 211) was Roman emperor from 193 to 211. He was born in Leptis Magna (present-day Al-Khums, Libya) in the Roman province of Africa (Roman province), Africa. As a young man he advanced through cursus honorum, the customary succession of offices under the reigns of Marcus Aurelius and Commodus. Severus seized power after the death of the emperor Pertinax in 193 during the Year of the Five Emperors. After deposing and killing the incumbent emperor Didius Julianus, Severus fought his rival claimants, the Roman generals Pescennius Niger and Clodius Albinus. Niger was defeated in 194 at the Battle of Issus (194), Battle of Issus in Roman Cilicia, Cilicia. Later that year Severus waged a short punitive campaign beyond the eastern frontier, annexing the Osroene, Kingdom of Osroene as a new province. Severus defeated Albinus three years later at the Battle of Lugdunum in Roman Gaul, Gaul. Following the consolidation of his rule over ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Roman Syria
Roman Syria was an early Roman province annexed to the Roman Republic in 64 BC by Pompey in the Third Mithridatic War following the defeat of King of Armenia Tigranes the Great. Following the partition of the Herodian Kingdom of Judea into tetrarchies in 6 AD, it was gradually absorbed into Roman provinces, with Roman Syria annexing Iturea and Trachonitis. Provincia Syria Syria was annexed to the Roman Republic in 64 BC, when Pompey the Great had the Seleucid king Antiochus XIII Asiaticus executed and deposed his successor Philip II Philoromaeus. Pompey appointed Marcus Aemilius Scaurus to the post of Proconsul of Syria. Following the fall of the Roman Republic and its transformation into the Roman Empire, Syria became a Roman imperial province, governed by a Legate. During the early empire, the Roman army in Syria accounted for three legions with auxiliaries who defended the border with Parthia. In 6 AD Emperor Augustus deposed the ethnarch Herod Archelaus and united J ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Atticism
Atticism (meaning "favouring Attica", the region of Athens in Greece) was a rhetorical movement that began in the first quarter of the 1st century BC; it may also refer to the wordings and phrasings typical of this movement, in contrast with various contemporary forms of Koine Ancient Greek language, Greek (both literary and vulgar), which continued to evolve in directions guided by the common usages of Hellenistic Greece, Hellenistic Greek. Atticism was portrayed as a return to Classical methods after what was perceived as the pretentious style of the Hellenistic period, Hellenistic, Sophist rhetoric and called for a return to the approaches of the Attic orators. Although the plainer language of Atticism eventually became as belabored and ornate as the perorations it sought to replace, its original simplicity meant that it remained universally comprehensible throughout the Greek world. This helped maintain vital cultural links across the Mediterranean and beyond. Admired and popul ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Balbinus
Decimus Caelius Calvinus Balbinus (died 238 AD) was Roman emperor with Pupienus for three months in 238, the Year of the Six Emperors. Origins and career Not much is known about Balbinus before his elevation to emperor. It has been conjectured that he descended from Publius Coelius Balbinus Vibullius Pius, the consul ordinarius of 137, and wife Aquilia. If this were true, he was also related to the family of Q. Pompeius Falco, which supplied many politicians of consular rank throughout the 3rd century, and to the 1st-century politician, engineer and author Julius Frontinus. He was born around 178. He was a patrician from birth, and was the son (either by birth or adoption) of Caelius Calvinus, who was legate of Cappadocia in 184. He was one of the Salii priests of Mars. According to Herodian he had governed provinces, but the list of seven provinces given in the unreliable ''Historia Augusta'', as well as the statement that Balbinus had been both Proconsul of Asia and of Af ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Year Of The Six Emperors
The Year of the Six Emperors was the year AD 238, during which six men made claims to be Roman Emperor, emperors of Rome. This was an early symptom of what historians now call the Crisis of the Third Century, also known as Military Anarchy or the Imperial Crisis (AD 235–284), a period in which the Roman Empire nearly collapsed under the combined pressures of foreign invasions and Human migration, migrations into the Roman territory, civil wars, bagaudae, peasant rebellions, political instability (with multiple Roman usurper, usurpers competing for power), Roman reliance on (and growing influence of) foreign mercenaries known as foederati and commanders nominally working for Rome (but increasingly independent), the devastating social and economic effects of the Plague of Cyprian, plague, debasement of Roman currency, currency, and economic collapse, economic depression. The crisis ended with the ascension of Diocletian and his implementation of reforms in 284. History Maximinu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
