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Macrinus
Marcus Opellius Macrinus (; – June 218) was Roman emperor from April 217 to June 218, reigning jointly with his young son Diadumenianus. As a member of the equestrian class, he became the first emperor who did not hail from the senatorial class and also the first emperor who never visited Rome during his reign. Before becoming emperor, Macrinus served under Emperor Caracalla as a praetorian prefect and dealt with Rome's civil affairs. He later conspired against Caracalla and had him murdered in a bid to protect his own life, succeeding him as emperor. Macrinus was proclaimed emperor of Rome by 11 April 217 while in the eastern provinces of the empire and was subsequently confirmed as such by the Senate; however, for the duration of his reign, he never had the opportunity to return to Rome. His predecessor's policies had left Rome's coffers empty and the empire at war with several kingdoms, including Parthia, Armenia and Dacia. As emperor, Macrinus first attempted to enac ...
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Battle Of Antioch (218)
The Battle of Antioch (8 June 218) was fought between the Roman army of the Emperor Macrinus and his rival Elagabalus, whose troops were commanded by General Gannys, probably a short distance from Antioch. Gannys' victory over Macrinus led to the downfall of the emperor and his replacement by Elagabalus. Macrinus' predecessor, Caracalla, was murdered by a disaffected soldier during a campaign against Parthia on 8 April 217. Macrinus himself may have had a hand in the murder of Caracalla. Within days of Caracalla's death, Macrinus was proclaimed emperor with the support of the army. At the time of his accession he inherited all of the problems that Caracalla had left for Rome—war against Parthia, threats from Armenia and Dacia, and extensive fiscal expenditures. Macrinus successfully concluded a peace with Parthia, but it came at considerable cost to Rome. Finally, his policies to reduce monetary expenditures only stoked discontent within the military. Caracalla's aunt, J ...
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Julia Maesa
Julia Maesa (7 May before 160 AD – AD) was a member of the Severan dynasty of the Roman Empire who was the grandmother of emperors Elagabalus and Severus Alexander, elder sister of empress Julia Domna, and mother of Julia Soaemias and Julia Mamaea. She wielded influence during the reigns of her grandsons as Augusta of the Empire from 218 to her death, especially on their elevation to emperors. Born in Emesa, Syria (modern day Homs), to an Arab family of priests of the deity Elagabalus, Maesa and her sister Domna were the daughters of Julius Bassianus. Through her sister's marriage, Maesa became sister-in-law to Septimius Severus and aunt of Caracalla and Geta, who all became emperors. She married fellow Syrian Julius Avitus, who was of consular rank. She bore him two daughters, Soaemias and Mamaea, who became mothers of Elagabalus and Severus Alexander, respectively. As one of the Severan dynasty's prominent women, Maesa sought to return to power after her sister's sui ...
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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. H ...
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Diadumenian
Diadumenian (; la, Marcus Opellius Antoninus Diadumenianus; 14September 208 – June 218) was the son of the Roman Emperor Macrinus, and served as his co-ruler for a brief time in 218. His mother was Nonia Celsa, whose name may be fictitious. Diadumenian became ''caesar'' in May 217, shortly after his father's accession to the imperial throne. Elagabalus, a relative of the recently deceased Emperor Caracalla, revolted in May of the following year, and Diadumenian was elevated to co-emperor. After Macrinus was defeated in the Battle of Antioch on 8 June 218, Diadumenian was sent to the court of Artabanus IV of Parthia to ensure his safety; however, he was captured and executed along the way. After his death and that of his father, the Senate declared both of them enemies of Rome and had their names struck from the records and their images destroyed. History Diadumenian was born on 14 September 208, named Marcus Opellius Diadumenianus, to Macrinus, the praetorian prefec ...
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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. T ...
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Nonia Celsa
Nonia Celsa is the name given by the ''Historia Augusta'' to the wife of Roman Emperor Macrinus (and presumed mother of his son and co-emperor Diadumenian), who ruled briefly in 217–218. The name is regarded as highly dubious by modern historians. Life The only evidence of her existence is a happy letter allegedly written by Macrinus to his wife after he became Emperor. The first line is as follows: "Opellius Macrinus to his wife Nonia Celsa. The good fortune to which we have attained, my dear wife, is incalculable." The letter can be found in the biography of Diadumenian, part of a collection called ''Historia Augusta''. Such "documents" are generally considered fabrications and the biographer(s) is also infamous for inventing people and names. Without further evidence even the existence of Nonia Celsa is highly dubious. The ''Historia Augusta'' also claims that her son Diadumenian got his name from his maternal grandfather, which prompted Anthony R. Birley to identify her p ...
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Praetorian Prefect
The praetorian prefect ( la, praefectus praetorio, el, ) was a high office in the Roman Empire. Originating as the commander of the Praetorian Guard, the office gradually acquired extensive legal and administrative functions, with its holders becoming the Emperor's chief aides. Under Constantine I, the office was much reduced in power and transformed into a purely civilian administrative post, while under his successors, territorially-defined praetorian prefectures emerged as the highest-level administrative division of the Empire. The prefects again functioned as the chief ministers of the state, with many laws addressed to them by name. In this role, praetorian prefects continued to be appointed by the Eastern Roman Empire (and the Ostrogothic Kingdom) until the reign of Heraclius in the 7th century AD, when wide-ranging reforms reduced their power and converted them to mere overseers of provincial administration. The last traces of the prefecture disappeared in the Byzantine ...
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Praetorian Prefect
The praetorian prefect ( la, praefectus praetorio, el, ) was a high office in the Roman Empire. Originating as the commander of the Praetorian Guard, the office gradually acquired extensive legal and administrative functions, with its holders becoming the Emperor's chief aides. Under Constantine I, the office was much reduced in power and transformed into a purely civilian administrative post, while under his successors, territorially-defined praetorian prefectures emerged as the highest-level administrative division of the Empire. The prefects again functioned as the chief ministers of the state, with many laws addressed to them by name. In this role, praetorian prefects continued to be appointed by the Eastern Roman Empire (and the Ostrogothic Kingdom) until the reign of Heraclius in the 7th century AD, when wide-ranging reforms reduced their power and converted them to mere overseers of provincial administration. The last traces of the prefecture disappeared in the Byzantine ...
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Parthian Empire
The Parthian Empire (), also known as the Arsacid Empire (), was a major Iranian political and cultural power in ancient Iran from 247 BC to 224 AD. Its latter name comes from its founder, Arsaces I, who led the Parni tribe in conquering the region of Parthia in Iran's northeast, then a satrapy (province) under Andragoras, who was rebelling against the Seleucid Empire. Mithridates I (r. c. 171–132 BC) greatly expanded the empire by seizing Media and Mesopotamia from the Seleucids. At its height, the Parthian Empire stretched from the northern reaches of the Euphrates, in what is now central-eastern Turkey, to present-day Afghanistan and western Pakistan. The empire, located on the Silk Road trade route between the Roman Empire in the Mediterranean Basin and the Han dynasty of China, became a center of trade and commerce. The Parthians largely adopted the art, architecture, religious beliefs, and royal insignia of their culturally heterogene ...
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Caesarea Mauretaniae
Caesarea in Mauretania (Latin: ''Caesarea Mauretaniae'', meaning "Caesarea of Mauretania") was a Roman colony in Roman-Berber North Africa. It was the capital of Mauretania Caesariensis and is now called Cherchell, in modern Algeria. In the present time Caesarea is used as a titular see for Catholic and Eastern Orthodox bishops. History Antiquity to third century AD Phoenicians from Carthage founded a settlement on the northern coast of Africa, 100 km west of the present-day city of Algiers at present Cherchell around 400 BC to serve as a trading station and named the city Iol or Jol. It became a part of the kingdom of Numidia under Jugurtha, who died in 104 BC and it became very significant to the Berber monarchy and generals of Numidia . The Berber Kings Bocchus I and Bocchus II lived there. During the 1st century BC, due to the city’s strategic location, new defences were built. The last Numidian king Juba II and his wife, the Ptolemaic princess Cleopatra Selene ...
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Praetorian Guard
The Praetorian Guard (Latin: ''cohortēs praetōriae'') was a unit of the Imperial Roman army that served as personal bodyguards and intelligence agents for the Roman emperors. During the Roman Republic, the Praetorian Guard were an escort for high-rank political officials ( senators and procurators) and were bodyguards for the senior officers of the Roman legions. In 27 BC, after Rome's transition from republic to empire, the first emperor of Rome, Augustus, designated the Praetorians as his personal security escort. For three centuries, the guards of the Roman emperor were also known for their palace intrigues, by which influence upon imperial politics the Praetorians could overthrow an emperor and then proclaim his successor as the new ''caesar'' of Rome. In AD 312, Constantine the Great disbanded the and destroyed their barracks at the Castra Praetoria. In the Roman Republic In the period of the Roman Republic (509–27 BC) the Praetorian Guard originated as bodyguard ...
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Mauretania Caesariensis
Mauretania Caesariensis (Latin for " Caesarean Mauretania") was a Roman province located in what is now Algeria in the Maghreb. The full name refers to its capital Caesarea Mauretaniae (modern Cherchell). The province had been part of the Kingdom of Mauretania and named for the Mauri people who lived there. Formerly an independent kingdom, and later a client state of Rome, it was annexed into the Empire formally during the reign of Claudius and divided into two provinces about 42 AD. A third province, named Mauretania Sitifensis, was later split off from the eastern portion during the reign of Diocletian in 293 AD. During and after the Fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century, most of the hinterland area was lost, first to the Vandal Kingdom and later to the Mauro-Roman Kingdom, with Roman administration limited to the capital of Caesarea. The land was reconquered by Rome during the reign of Justinian. This province was a part of Praetorian prefecture of Af ...
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