Ancient

Philip had transformed Macedon into the dominant power of Greece, defeating Athens and Thebes at Chaeronea in 338 BCE and forming ...

Ephialtes led the radical democratic faction in Athens after the Persian Wars. Against conservative resistance he carried measures...

Tiberius Gracchus, tribune of the plebs, pushed an agrarian law to redistribute public land to landless citizens, alarming great l...

Gaius Gracchus, younger brother of Tiberius, served as tribune in 123 and 122 BCE and pushed a wider program: grain laws, colonies...

Caesar had conquered Gaul, defeated Pompey in the civil war, and concentrated power in himself as dictator perpetuo, king in all b...

Marcus Tullius Cicero, the greatest orator of his age, had defended the Republic against Catiline and attacked Antony in the feroc...

Gaius Caesar Germanicus, called Caligula from a childhood nickname, ruled from 37 CE with extravagance and terror; ancient sources...

Commodus, son of the philosopher emperor Marcus Aurelius, ruled from 180 CE with growing autocracy and spectacle, fighting as a gl...

Pertinax, a respected elder general and city prefect, was proclaimed emperor after the assassination of Commodus and immediately a...

Aurelian, a Balkan soldier emperor, in five years reunified the fractured Roman Empire, defeating Palmyra under Zenobia and recove...

Domitian, son of Vespasian and brother of Titus, ruled Rome from 81 CE with increasing autocracy, styling himself master and god a...

Caracalla became sole emperor after having his brother and co-ruler Geta killed in 211, followed by a purge of thousands of suppor...