Which Roman Emperor was allegedy killed by his wife, Aggripina, in AD54?
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Roman_Empire.txt Agrippina_the_Younger.txt Caligula.txt
Roman Empire Agrippina the Younger Caligula
The Roman Empire (; Koine and Medieval Greek: Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, tr. ) was the post-Roman Republic period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterized by government headed by emperors and large territorial holdings around the Mediterranean Sea in Europe, Africa and Asia. The city of Rome was the largest city in the world  BC AD, with Constantinople (New Rome) becoming the largest around 500 AD,  and the Empire's populace grew to an estimated 50 to 90 million inhabitants (roughly 20% of the world's population at the time).  The 500-year-old republic which preceded it was severely destabilized in a series of civil wars and political conflict, during which Julius Caesar was appointed as perpetual dictator and then assassinated in 44 BC. Civil wars and executions continued, culminating in the victory of Octavian, Caesar's adopted son, over Mark Antony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC and the annexation of Egypt. Octavian's power was then unassailable and in 27 BC the Roman Senate formally granted him overarching power and the new title Augustus, effectively marking the end of the Roman Republic.

The imperial successor to the republic lasted approximately 1400 years. The first two centuries of the empire's existence were a period of unprecedented political stability and prosperity known as the Pax Romana, or "Roman Peace". Following Octavian's victory, the size of the empire was dramatically increased. After the assassination of Caligula in 41, the senate briefly considered restoring the republic, but the Praetorian Guard proclaimed Claudius emperor instead. Under Claudius, the empire invaded Britannia, its first major expansion since Augustus. After Claudius' successor, Nero, committed suicide in 68, the empire suffered a period of brief civil wars, as well as a concurrent major rebellion in Judea, during which four different legionary generals were proclaimed emperor. Vespasian emerged triumphant in 69, establishing the Flavian dynasty, before being succeeded by his son Titus, who opened the Colosseum shortly after the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. His short reign was followed by the long reign of his brother Domitian, who was eventually assassinated. The senate then appointed the first of the Five Good Emperors. The empire reached its greatest extent under Trajan, the second in this line.

A period of increasing trouble and decline began with the reign of Commodus. Commodus' assassination in 192 triggered the Year of the Five Emperors, of which Septimius Severus emerged victorious. The assassination of Alexander Severus in 235 led to the Crisis of the Third Century in which 26 men were declared emperor by the Roman Senate over a fifty-year period. It was not until the reign of Diocletian that the empire was fully stabilized with the introduction of the Tetrarchy, which saw four emperors rule the empire at once. This arrangement was ultimately unsuccessful, leading to a civil war that was finally ended by Constantine I, who defeated his rivals and became the sole ruler of the empire. Constantine subsequently shifted the capital to Byzantium, which was renamed "Constantinople" in his honour. It remained the capital of the east until its demise. Constantine also adopted Christianity which later became the official state religion of the empire. This eastern part of the empire (known later as the "Byzantine Empire") remained one of the leading powers in the world alongside its arch-rival the Sassanid Empire, which had inherited a centuries-old Roman-Persian conflict from its predecessor the Parthians.    Following the death of Theodosius I, the last emperor to rule a united Roman Empire, the dominion of the empire was gradually eroded by abuses of power, civil wars, barbarian migrations and invasions, military reforms and economic depression. The Sack of Rome in 410 by the Visigoths and again in 455 by the Vandals accelerated the Western Empire's decay, while the deposition of the emperor, Romulus Augustulus, in 476 by Odoacer, is generally accepted to mark the end of the empire in the west. However, Augustulus was never recognized by his Eastern colleague, and separate rule in the Western part of the empire only ceased to exist upon the death of Julius Nepos, in 480. The Eastern Roman Empire endured for another millennium, eventually falling to the Ottoman Turks in 1453.

The Roman Empire was among the most powerful economic, cultural, political and military forces in the world of its time. It was the largest empire of the ancient history era, and one of the largest empires in world history. At its height under Trajan, it covered 5 million square kilometers, a territory composed of 48 nations in the 21st century.   It held sway over an estimated 70 million people, at that time 21% of the world's entire population. The longevity and vast extent of the empire ensured the lasting influence of Latin and Greek language, culture, religion, inventions, architecture, philosophy, law and forms of government on the empire's descendants. Throughout the European medieval period, attempts were even made to establish successors to the Roman Empire, including the Empire of Romania, a Crusader state, and the Holy Roman Empire. By means of European colonialism following the Renaissance, and their descendant states, Greco-Roman culture was exported on a worldwide scale, playing a crucial role in the development of the modern world.

History

Rome had begun expanding shortly after the founding of the republic in the 6th century BC, though it did not expand outside the Italian Peninsula until the 3rd century BC. Then, it was an "empire" long before it had an emperor.  The Roman Republic was not a nation-state in the modern sense, but a network of towns left to rule themselves (though with varying degrees of independence from the Roman Senate) and provinces administered by military commanders. It was ruled, not by emperors, but by annually elected magistrates (Roman Consuls above all) in conjunction with the senate.  For various reasons, the 1st century BC was a time of political and military upheaval, which ultimately led to rule by emperors.  The consuls' military power rested in the Roman legal concept of imperium, which literally means "command" (though typically in a military sense).  Occasionally, successful consuls were given the honorary title imperator (commander), and this is the origin of the word emperor (and empire) since this title (among others) was always bestowed to the early emperors upon their accession. 

Rome suffered a long series of internal conflicts, conspiracies and civil wars from the late second century BC onwards, while greatly extending its power beyond Italy. This was the period of the Crisis of the Roman Republic. Towards the end of this period, in 44 BC, Julius Caesar was briefly perpetual dictator before being assassinated. The faction of his assassins was driven from Rome and defeated at the Battle of Philippi in 42 BC by an army led by Mark Antony and Caesar's adopted son Octavian. Antony and Octavian's division of the Roman world between themselves did not last and Octavian's forces defeated those of Antony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC. In 27 BC the Senate and People of Rome made Octavian princeps ("first citizen") with proconsular imperium, thus beginning the Principate (the first epoch of Roman imperial history, usually dated from 27 BC to AD 284), and gave him the name "Augustus" ("the venerated"). Though the old constitutional machinery remained in place, Augustus came to predominate it.  Although the republic stood in name, contemporaries of Augustus knew it was just a veil and that Augustus had all meaningful authority in Rome.  Since his rule ended a century of civil wars, and began an unprecedented period of peace and prosperity, he was so loved that he came to hold the power of a monarch de facto if not de jure. During the years of his rule, a new constitutional order emerged (in part organically and in part by design), so that, upon his death, this new constitutional order operated as before when Tiberius was accepted as the new emperor. The 200 years that began with Augustus's rule is traditionally regarded as the Pax Romana ("Roman Peace"). During this period, the cohesion of the empire was furthered by a degree of social stability and economic prosperity that Rome had never before experienced. Uprisings in the provinces were infrequent, but put down "mercilessly and swiftly" when they occurred.  The sixty years of Jewish–Roman wars in the second half of the 1st century and the first half of the 2nd century were exceptional in their duration and violence. 

The success of Augustus in establishing principles of dynastic succession was limited by his outliving a number of talented potential heirs. The Julio-Claudian dynasty lasted for four more emperors — Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius and Nero — before it yielded in 69 AD to the strife-torn Year of Four Emperors, from which Vespasian emerged as victor. Vespasian became the founder of the brief Flavian dynasty, to be followed by the Nerva–Antonine dynasty which produced the "Five Good Emperors": Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and the philosophically-inclined Marcus Aurelius. In the view of the Greek historian Dio Cassius, a contemporary observer, the accession of the emperor Commodus in 180 AD marked the descent "from a kingdom of gold to one of rust and iron" —a famous comment which has led some historians, notably Edward Gibbon, to take Commodus' reign as the beginning of the decline of the Roman Empire.

In 212, during the reign of Caracalla, Roman citizenship was granted to all freeborn inhabitants of the empire. But despite this gesture of universality, the Severan dynasty was tumultuous — an emperor's reign was ended routinely by his murder or execution — and, following its collapse, the Roman Empire was engulfed by the Crisis of the Third Century, a period of invasions, civil strife, economic disorder, and plague.  In defining historical epochs, this crisis is sometimes viewed as marking the transition from Classical Antiquity to Late Antiquity. Aurelian (reigned 270–275) brought the empire back from the brink and stabilized it. Diocletian completed the work of fully restoring the empire, but declined the role of princeps and became the first emperor to be addressed regularly as domine, "master" or "lord".  This marked the end of the Principate, and the beginning of the Dominate. Diocletian's reign also brought the empire's most concerted effort against the perceived threat of Christianity, the "Great Persecution". The state of absolute monarchy that began with Diocletian endured until the fall of the Eastern Roman Empire in 1453. 

Diocletian divided the empire into four regions, each ruled by a separate emperor, the Tetrarchy.  Confident that he fixed the disorders that were plaguing Rome, he abdicated along with his co-emperor, and the Tetrarchy soon collapsed. Order was eventually restored by Constantine the Great, who became the first emperor to convert to Christianity, and who established Constantinople as the new capital of the eastern empire. During the decades of the Constantinian and Valentinian dynasties, the empire was divided along an east–west axis, with dual power centers in Constantinople and Rome. The reign of Julian, who attempted to restore Classical Roman and Hellenistic religion, only briefly interrupted the succession of Christian emperors. Theodosius I, the last emperor to rule over both East and West, died in 395 AD after making Christianity the official religion of the empire. 

The Western Roman Empire began to disintegrate in the early 5th century as Germanic migrations and invasions overwhelmed the capacity of the Empire to assimilate the migrants and fight off the invaders. The Romans were successful in fighting off all invaders, most famously Attila, though the empire had assimilated so many Germanic peoples of dubious loyalty to Rome that the empire started to dismember itself. Most chronologies place the end of the Western Roman Empire in 476, when Romulus Augustulus was forced to abdicate to the Germanic warlord Odoacer.  By placing himself under the rule of the Eastern Emperor, rather than naming himself Emperor (as other Germanic chiefs had done after deposing past emperors), Odoacer ended the Western Empire by ending the line of Western emperors.

The empire in the East — often known as the Byzantine Empire, but referred to in its time as the Roman Empire or by various other names — had a different fate. It survived for almost a millennium after the fall of its Western counterpart and became the most stable Christian realm during the Middle Ages. During the 6th century, Justinian I reconquered Northern Africa and Italy. But within a few years of Justinian's death, Byzantine possessions in Italy were greatly reduced by the Lombards who settled in the peninsula.   In the east, partially resulting from the destructive Plague of Justinian, the Romans were threatened by the rise of Islam, whose followers rapidly conquered the territories of Syria, Armenia and Egypt during the Byzantine-Arab Wars, and soon presented a direct threat to Constantinople.   In the following century, the Arabs also captured southern Italy and Sicily.  Slavic populations were also able to penetrate deep into the Balkans. 

The Romans, however, managed to stop further Islamic expansion into their lands during the 8th century and, beginning in the 9th century, reclaimed parts of the conquered lands.  In 1000 AD, the Eastern Empire was at its height: Basil II reconquered Bulgaria and Armenia, culture and trade flourished.  However, soon after the expansion was abruptly stopped in 1071 with the Byzantine defeat in the Battle of Manzikert. The aftermath of this important battle sent the empire into a protracted period of decline. Two decades of internal strife and Turkic invasions ultimately paved the way for Emperor Alexios I Komnenos to send a call for help to the Western European kingdoms in 1095.

The West responded with the Crusades, eventually resulting in the Sack of Constantinople by participants in the Fourth Crusade. The conquest of Constantinople in 1204 fragmented what remained of the Empire into successor states, the ultimate victor being that of Nicaea.  After the recapture of Constantinople by Imperial forces, the Empire was little more than a Greek state confined to the Aegean coast. The Roman Empire finally collapsed when Mehmed the Conqueror conquered Constantinople on 29 May 1453. 

Geography and demography

The Roman Empire was one of the largest in history, with contiguous territories throughout Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East.  The Latin phrase imperium sine fine ("empire without end" ) expressed the ideology that neither time nor space limited the Empire. In Vergil's epic poem the Aeneid, limitless empire is said to be granted to the Romans by their supreme deity Jupiter.  This claim of universal dominion was renewed and perpetuated when the Empire came under Christian rule in the 4th century. 

In reality, Roman expansion was mostly accomplished under the Republic, though parts of northern Europe were conquered in the 1st century AD, when Roman control in Europe, Africa and Asia was strengthened. During the reign of Augustus, a "global map of the known world" was displayed for the first time in public at Rome, coinciding with the composition of the most comprehensive work on political geography that survives from antiquity, the Geography of the Pontic Greek writer Strabo.  When Augustus died, the commemorative account of his achievements (Res Gestae) prominently featured the geographical cataloguing of peoples and places within the Empire.  Geography, the census, and the meticulous keeping of written records were central concerns of Roman Imperial administration. 

The Empire reached its largest expanse under Trajan (reigned 98–117),  encompassing an area of 5 million square kilometers that as of 2009 was divided among forty different modern countries.  The traditional population estimate of  inhabitants  accounted for between one-sixth and one-fourth of the world's total population  and made it the largest population of any unified political entity in the West until the mid-19th century.  Recent demographic studies have argued for a population peak ranging from  to more than .  Each of the three largest cities in the Empire—Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch— was almost twice the size of any European city at the beginning of the 17th century. 

As the historian Christopher Kelly has described it:

Trajan's successor Hadrian adopted a policy of maintaining rather than expanding the empire. Borders (fines) were marked, and the frontiers (limites) patrolled.  The most heavily fortified borders were the most unstable.  Hadrian's Wall, which separated the Roman world from what was perceived as an ever-present barbarian threat, is the primary surviving monument of this effort. 

Languages

The language of the Romans was Latin, which Virgil emphasizes as a source of Roman unity and tradition.  Until the time of Alexander Severus (reigned 222–235), the birth certificates and wills of Roman citizens had to be written in Latin.  Latin was the language of the law courts in the West and of the military throughout the Empire,  but was not imposed officially on peoples brought under Roman rule.  This policy contrasts with that of Alexander the Great, who aimed to impose Greek throughout his empire as the official language.  As a consequence of Alexander's conquests, koine Greek had become the shared language around the eastern Mediterranean and into Asia Minor.  The "linguistic frontier" dividing the Latin West and the Greek East passed through the Balkan peninsula. 

Romans who received an elite education studied Greek as a literary language, and most men of the governing classes could speak Greek.  The Julio-Claudian emperors encouraged high standards of correct Latin (Latinitas), a linguistic movement identified in modern terms as Classical Latin, and favoured Latin for conducting official business.  Claudius tried to limit the use of Greek, and on occasion revoked the citizenship of those who lacked Latin, but even in the Senate he drew on his own bilingualism in communicating with Greek-speaking ambassadors. Suetonius quotes him as referring to "our two languages". 

In the Eastern empire, laws and official documents were regularly translated into Greek from Latin.  The everyday interpenetration of the two languages is indicated by bilingual inscriptions, which sometimes even switch back and forth between Greek and Latin.  After all freeborn inhabitants of the empire were universally enfranchised in 212 AD, a great number of Roman citizens would have lacked Latin, though they were expected to acquire at least a token knowledge, and Latin remained a marker of "Romanness." 

Among other reforms, the emperor Diocletian (reigned 284–305) sought to renew the authority of Latin, and the Greek expression hē kratousa dialektos attests to the continuing status of Latin as "the language of power."  In the early 6th century, the emperor Justinian engaged in a quixotic effort to reassert the status of Latin as the language of law, even though in his time Latin no longer held any currency as a living language in the East. 

Local languages and linguistic legacy

References to interpreters indicate the continuing use of local languages other than Greek and Latin, particularly in Egypt, where Coptic predominated, and in military settings along the Rhine and Danube. Roman jurists also show a concern for local languages such as Punic, Gaulish, and Aramaic in assuring the correct understanding and application of laws and oaths.  In the province of Africa, Libyco-Berber and Punic were used in inscriptions and for legends on coins during the time of Tiberius (1st century AD). Libyco-Berber and Punic inscriptions appear on public buildings into the 2nd century, some bilingual with Latin.  In Syria, Palmyrene soldiers even used their dialect of Aramaic for inscriptions, in a striking exception to the rule that Latin was the language of the military. 

The Babatha Archive is a suggestive example of multilingualism in the Empire. These papyri, named for a Jewish woman in the province of Arabia and dating from 93 to 132 AD, mostly employ Aramaic, the local language, written in Greek characters with Semitic and Latin influences; a petition to the Roman governor, however, was written in Greek. 

The dominance of Latin among the literate elite may obscure the continuity of spoken languages, since all cultures within the Roman Empire were predominantly oral.  In the West, Latin, referred to in its spoken form as Vulgar Latin, gradually replaced Celtic and Italic languages that were related to it by a shared Indo-European origin. Commonalities in syntax and vocabulary facilitated the adoption of Latin. 

After the decentralization of political power in late antiquity, Latin developed locally into branches that became the Romance languages, such as Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian and Romanian, and a large number of minor languages and dialects. Today, more than 900 million people are native speakers worldwide.

As an international language of learning and literature, Latin itself continued as an active medium of expression for diplomacy and for intellectual developments identified with Renaissance humanism up to the 17th century, and for law and the Roman Catholic Church to the present. 

Although Greek continued as the language of the Byzantine Empire, linguistic distribution in the East was more complex. A Greek-speaking majority lived in the Greek peninsula and islands, western Anatolia, major cities, and some coastal areas.  Like Greek and Latin, the Thracian language was of Indo-European origin, as were several now-extinct languages in Anatolia attested by Imperial-era inscriptions.  Albanian is often seen as the descendant of Illyrian,  although this hypothesis has been challenged by some linguists, who maintain that it derives from Dacian or Thracian.  (Illyrian, Dacian, and Thracian, however, may have formed a subgroup or a Sprachbund; see Thraco-Illyrian.) Various Afroasiatic languages—primarily Coptic in Egypt, and Aramaic in Syria and Mesopotamia—were never replaced by Greek. The international use of Greek, however, was one factor enabling the spread of Christianity, as indicated for example by the use of Greek for the Epistles of Paul. 

Society

The Roman Empire was remarkably multicultural, with "a rather astonishing cohesive capacity" to create a sense of shared identity while encompassing diverse peoples within its political system over a long span of time.  The Roman attention to creating public monuments and communal spaces open to all—such as forums, amphitheaters, racetracks and baths—helped foster a sense of "Romanness". 

Roman society had multiple, overlapping social hierarchies that modern concepts of "class" in English may not represent accurately.  The two decades of civil war from which Augustus rose to sole power left traditional society in Rome in a state of confusion and upheaval,  but did not effect an immediate redistribution of wealth and social power. From the perspective of the lower classes, a peak was merely added to the social pyramid.  Personal relationships—patronage, friendship (amicitia), family, marriage—continued to influence the workings of politics and government, as they had in the Republic.  By the time of Nero, however, it was not unusual to find a former slave who was richer than a freeborn citizen, or an equestrian who exercised greater power than a senator. 

The blurring or diffusion of the Republic's more rigid hierarchies led to increased social mobility under the Empire,  both upward and downward, to an extent that exceeded that of all other well-documented ancient societies.  Women, freedmen, and slaves had opportunities to profit and exercise influence in ways previously less available to them.  Social life in the Empire, particularly for those whose personal resources were limited, was further fostered by a proliferation of voluntary associations and confraternities (collegia and sodalitates) formed for various purposes: professional and trade guilds, veterans' groups, religious sodalities, drinking and dining clubs,  performing arts troupes,  and burial societies. 

Infanticide has been recorded in the Roman Empire and may have been widespread. 

Legal status

According to the jurist Gaius, the essential distinction in the Roman "law of persons" was that all human beings were either free (liberi) or slaves (servi).  The legal status of free persons might be further defined by their citizenship. Most citizens held limited rights (such as the ius Latinum, "Latin right"), but were entitled to legal protections and privileges not enjoyed by those who lacked citizenship. Free people not considered citizens, but living within the Roman world, held status as peregrini, non-Romans.  In 212 AD, by means of the edict known as the Constitutio Antoniniana, the emperor Caracalla extended citizenship to all freeborn inhabitants of the empire. This legal egalitarianism would have required a far-reaching revision of existing laws that had distinguished between citizens and non-citizens. 

Women in Roman law

Freeborn Roman women were considered citizens throughout the Republic and Empire, but did not vote, hold political office, or serve in the military. A mother's citizen status determined that of her children, as indicated by the phrase ex duobus civibus Romanis natos ("children born of two Roman citizens").  A Roman woman kept her own family name (nomen) for life. Children most often took the father's name, but in the Imperial period sometimes made their mother's name part of theirs, or even used it instead. 

The archaic form of manus marriage in which the woman had been subject to her husband's authority was largely abandoned by the Imperial era, and a married woman retained ownership of any property she brought into the marriage. Technically she remained under her father's legal authority, even though she moved into her husband's home, but when her father died she became legally emancipated.  This arrangement was one of the factors in the degree of independence Roman women enjoyed relative to those of many other ancient cultures and up to the modern period:  although she had to answer to her father in legal matters, she was free of his direct scrutiny in her daily life,  and her husband had no legal power over her.  Although it was a point of pride to be a "one-man woman" (univira) who had married only once, there was little stigma attached to divorce, nor to speedy remarriage after the loss of a husband through death or divorce. 

Girls had equal inheritance rights with boys if their father died without leaving a will.  A Roman mother's right to own property and to dispose of it as she saw fit, including setting the terms of her own will, gave her enormous influence over her sons even when they were adults. 

As part of the Augustan programme to restore traditional morality and social order, moral legislation attempted to regulate the conduct of men and women as a means of promoting "family values". Adultery, which had been a private family matter under the Republic, was criminalized,  and defined broadly as an illicit sex act (stuprum) that occurred between a male citizen and a married woman, or between a married woman and any man other than her husband.  Childbearing was encouraged by the state: a woman who had given birth to three children was granted symbolic honours and greater legal freedom (the ius trium liberorum).

Because of their legal status as citizens and the degree to which they could become emancipated, women could own property, enter contracts, and engage in business,  including shipping, manufacturing, and lending money. Inscriptions throughout the Empire honour women as benefactors in funding public works, an indication they could acquire and dispose of considerable fortunes; for instance, the Arch of the Sergii was funded by Salvia Postuma, a female member of the family honoured, and the largest building in the forum at Pompeii was funded by Eumachia, a priestess of Venus. 

Slaves and the law

At the time of Augustus, as many as 35 percent of the people in Italy were slaves,  making Rome one of five historical "slave societies" in which slaves constituted at least a fifth of the population and played a major role in the economy.  Slavery was a complex institution that supported traditional Roman social structures as well as contributing economic utility.  In urban settings, slaves might be professionals such as teachers, physicians, chefs, and accountants, in addition to the majority of slaves who provided trained or unskilled labour in households or workplaces. Agriculture and industry, such as milling and mining, relied on the exploitation of slaves. Outside Italy, slaves made up on average an estimated 10 to 20 percent of the population, sparse in Roman Egypt but more concentrated in some Greek areas. Expanding Roman ownership of arable land and industries would have affected preexisting practices of slavery in the provinces.  Although the institution of slavery has often been regarded as waning in the 3rd and 4th centuries, it remained an integral part of Roman society until the 5th century. Slavery ceased gradually in the 6th and 7th centuries along with the decline of urban centres in the West and the disintegration of the complex Imperial economy that had created the demand for it. 

Laws pertaining to slavery were "extremely intricate".  Under Roman law, slaves were considered property and had no legal personhood. They could be subjected to forms of corporal punishment not normally exercised on citizens, sexual exploitation, torture, and summary execution. A slave could not as a matter of law be raped, since rape could be committed only against people who were free; a slave's rapist had to be prosecuted by the owner for property damage under the Aquilian Law.  Slaves had no right to the form of legal marriage called conubium, but their unions were sometimes recognized, and if both were freed they could marry.  Following the Servile Wars of the Republic, legislation under Augustus and his successors shows a driving concern for controlling the threat of rebellions through limiting the size of work groups, and for hunting down fugitive slaves. 

Technically, a slave could not own property,  but a slave who conducted business might be given access to an individual account or fund (peculium) that he could use as if it were his own. The terms of this account varied depending on the degree of trust and co-operation between owner and slave: a slave with an aptitude for business could be given considerable leeway to generate profit, and might be allowed to bequeath the peculium he managed to other slaves of his household.  Within a household or workplace, a hierarchy of slaves might exist, with one slave in effect acting as the master of other slaves. 

Over time slaves gained increased legal protection, including the right to file complaints against their masters. A bill of sale might contain a clause stipulating that the slave could not be employed for prostitution, as prostitutes in ancient Rome were often slaves.  The burgeoning trade in eunuch slaves in the late 1st century AD prompted legislation that prohibited the castration of a slave against his will "for lust or gain." 

Roman slavery was not based on race.   Slaves were drawn from all over Europe and the Mediterranean, including Gaul, Hispania, Germany, Britannia, the Balkans, Greece...  Generally slaves in Italy were indigenous Italians,  with a minority of foreigners (including both slaves and freedmen) born outside of Italy estimated at 5% of the total in the capital at its peak, where their number was largest. Those from outside of Europe were predominantly of Greek descent, while the Jewish ones never fully assimilated into Roman society, remaining an identifiable minority. These slaves (especially the foreigners) had higher mortality rates and lower birth rates than natives, and were sometimes even subjected to mass expulsions.
  The average recorded age at death for the slaves of the city of Rome was extraordinarily low: seventeen and a half years (17.2 for males; 17.9 for females). 

During the period of Republican expansionism when slavery had become pervasive, war captives were a main source of slaves. The range of ethnicities among slaves to some extent reflected that of the armies Rome defeated in war, and the conquest of Greece brought a number of highly skilled and educated slaves into Rome. Slaves were also traded in markets, and sometimes sold by pirates. Infant abandonment and self-enslavement among the poor were other sources.  Vernae, by contrast, were "homegrown" slaves born to female slaves within the urban household or on a country estate or farm. Although they had no special legal status, an owner who mistreated or failed to care for his vernae faced social disapproval, as they were considered part of his familia, the family household, and in some cases might actually be the children of free males in the family. 

Talented slaves with a knack for business might accumulate a large enough peculium to justify their freedom, or be manumitted for services rendered. Manumission had become frequent enough that in 2 BC a law (Lex Fufia Caninia) limited the number of slaves an owner was allowed to free in his will. 

Freedmen

Rome differed from Greek city-states in allowing freed slaves to become citizens. After manumission, a slave who had belonged to a Roman citizen enjoyed not only passive freedom from ownership, but active political freedom (libertas), including the right to vote.  A slave who had acquired libertas was a libertus ("freed person," feminine liberta) in relation to his former master, who then became his patron (patronus): the two parties continued to have customary and legal obligations to each other. As a social class generally, freed slaves were libertini, though later writers used the terms libertus and libertinus interchangeably. 

A libertinus was not entitled to hold public office or the highest state priesthoods, but he could play a priestly role in the cult of the emperor. He could not marry a woman from a family of senatorial rank, nor achieve legitimate senatorial rank himself, but during the early Empire, freedmen held key positions in the government bureaucracy, so much so that Hadrian limited their participation by law.  Any future children of a freedman would be born free, with full rights of citizenship.

The rise of successful freedmen—through either political influence in imperial service, or wealth—is a characteristic of early Imperial society. The prosperity of a high-achieving group of freedmen is attested by inscriptions throughout the Empire, and by their ownership of some of the most lavish houses at Pompeii, such as the House of the Vettii. The excesses of nouveau riche freedmen were satirized in the character of Trimalchio in the Satyricon by Petronius, who wrote in the time of Nero. Such individuals, while exceptional, are indicative of the upward social mobility possible in the Empire.

Census rank

The Latin word ordo (plural ordines) refers to a social distinction that is translated variously into English as "class, order, rank," none of which is exact. One purpose of the Roman census was to determine the ordo to which an individual belonged. The two highest ordines in Rome were the senatorial and equestrian. Outside Rome, the decurions, also known as curiales (Greek bouleutai), were the top governing ordo of an individual city.

"Senator" was not itself an elected office in ancient Rome; an individual gained admission to the Senate after he had been elected to and served at least one term as an executive magistrate. A senator also had to meet a minimum property requirement of 1 million sestertii, as determined by the census.  Nero made large gifts of money to a number of senators from old families who had become too impoverished to qualify. Not all men who qualified for the ordo senatorius chose to take a Senate seat, which required legal domicile at Rome. Emperors often filled vacancies in the 600-member body by appointment.  A senator's son belonged to the ordo senatorius, but he had to qualify on his own merits for admission to the Senate itself. A senator could be removed for violating moral standards: he was prohibited, for instance, from marrying a freedwoman or fighting in the arena. 

In the time of Nero, senators were still primarily from Rome and other parts of Italy, with some from the Iberian peninsula and southern France; men from the Greek-speaking provinces of the East began to be added under Vespasian.  The first senator from the most eastern province, Cappadocia, was admitted under Marcus Aurelius.  By the time of the Severan dynasty (193–235), Italians made up less than half the Senate.  During the 3rd century, domicile at Rome became impractical, and inscriptions attest to senators who were active in politics and munificence in their homeland (patria).

Senators had an aura of prestige and were the traditional governing class who rose through the cursus honorum, the political career track, but equestrians of the Empire often possessed greater wealth and political power. Membership in the equestrian order was based on property; in Rome's early days, equites or knights had been distinguished by their ability to serve as mounted warriors (the "public horse"), but cavalry service was a separate function in the Empire.  A census valuation of 400,000 sesterces and three generations of free birth qualified a man as an equestrian.  The census of 28 BC uncovered large numbers of men who qualified, and in 14 AD, a thousand equestrians were registered at Cadiz and Padua alone.  Equestrians rose through a military career track (tres militiae) to become highly placed prefects and procurators within the Imperial administration. 

The rise of provincial men to the senatorial and equestrian orders is an aspect of social mobility in the first three centuries of the Empire.  Roman aristocracy was based on competition, and unlike later European nobility, a Roman family could not maintain its position merely through hereditary succession or having title to lands.  Admission to the higher ordines brought distinction and privileges, but also a number of responsibilities. In antiquity, a city depended on its leading citizens to fund public works, events, and services (munera), rather than on tax revenues, which primarily supported the military. Maintaining one's rank required massive personal expenditures.  Decurions were so vital for the functioning of cities that in the later Empire, as the ranks of the town councils became depleted, those who had risen to the Senate were encouraged by the central government to give up their seats and return to their hometowns, in an effort to sustain civic life. 

In the later Empire, the dignitas ("worth, esteem") that attended on senatorial or equestrian rank was refined further with titles such as vir illustris, "illustrious man".  The appellation clarissimus (Greek lamprotatos) was used to designate the dignitas of certain senators and their immediate family, including women.  "Grades" of equestrian status proliferated. Those in Imperial service were ranked by pay grade (sexagenarius, 60,000 sesterces per annum; centenarius, 100,000; ducenarius, 200,000). The title eminentissimus, "most eminent" (Greek exochôtatos) was reserved for equestrians who had been Praetorian prefects. The higher equestrian officials in general were perfectissimi, "most distinguished" (Greek diasêmotatoi), the lower merely egregii, "outstanding" (Greek kratistos). 

Unequal justice

As the republican principle of citizens' equality under the law faded, the symbolic and social privileges of the upper classes led to an informal division of Roman society into those who had acquired greater honours (honestiores) and those who were humbler folk (humiliores). In general, honestiores were the members of the three higher "orders," along with certain military officers.  The granting of universal citizenship in 212 seems to have increased the competitive urge among the upper classes to have their superiority over other citizens affirmed, particularly within the justice system.  Sentencing depended on the judgment of the presiding official as to the relative "worth" (dignitas) of the defendant: an honestior could pay a fine when convicted of a crime for which an humilior might receive a scourging. 

Execution, which had been an infrequent legal penalty for free men under the Republic even in a capital case,  could be quick and relatively painless for the Imperial citizen considered "more honorable," while those deemed inferior might suffer the kinds of torture and prolonged death previously reserved for slaves, such as crucifixion and condemnation to the beasts as a spectacle in the arena.  In the early Empire, those who converted to Christianity could lose their standing as honestiores, especially if they declined to fulfill the religious aspects of their civic responsibilities, and thus became subject to punishments that created the conditions of martyrdom. 

Government and military

The three major elements of the Imperial Roman state were the central government, the military, and provincial government.  The military established control of a territory through war, but after a city or people was brought under treaty, the military mission turned to policing: protecting Roman citizens (after 212 AD, all freeborn inhabitants of the Empire), the agricultural fields that fed them, and religious sites.  Without modern instruments of either mass communication or mass destruction, the Romans lacked sufficient manpower or resources to impose their rule through force alone. Cooperation with local power elites was necessary to maintain order, collect information, and extract revenue. The Romans often exploited internal political divisions by supporting one faction over another: in the view of Plutarch, "it was discord between factions within cities that led to the loss of self-governance". 

Communities with demonstrated loyalty to Rome retained their own laws, could collect their own taxes locally, and in exceptional cases were exempt from Roman taxation. Legal privileges and relative independence were an incentive to remain in good standing with Rome.  Roman government was thus limited, but efficient in its use of the resources available to it. 

Central government

The dominance of the emperor was based on the consolidation of certain powers from several republican offices, including the inviolability of the tribunes of the people and the authority of the censors to manipulate the hierarchy of Roman society.  The emperor also made himself the central religious authority as Pontifex Maximus, and centralized the right to declare war, ratify treaties, and negotiate with foreign leaders.  While these functions were clearly defined during the Principate, the emperor's powers over time became less constitutional and more monarchical, culminating in the Dominate. 

The emperor was the ultimate authority in policy- and decision-making, but in the early Principate he was expected to be accessible to individuals from all walks of life, and to deal personally with official business and petitions. A bureaucracy formed around him only gradually.  The Julio-Claudian emperors relied on an informal body of advisors that included not only senators and equestrians, but trusted slaves and freedmen.  After Nero, the unofficial influence of the latter was regarded with suspicion, and the emperor's council (consilium) became subject to official appointment for the sake of greater transparency.  Though the senate took a lead in policy discussions until the end of the Antonine dynasty, equestrians played an increasingly important role in the consilium.  The women of the emperor's family often intervened directly in his decisions. Plotina exercised influence on both her husband Trajan and his successor Hadrian. Her influence was advertised by having her letters on official matters published, as a sign that the emperor was reasonable in his exercise of authority and listened to his people. 

Access to the emperor by others might be gained at the daily reception (salutatio), a development of the traditional homage a client paid to his patron; public banquets hosted at the palace; and religious ceremonies. The common people who lacked this access could manifest their general approval or displeasure as a group at the games held in large venues.  By the 4th century, as urban centres decayed, the Christian emperors became remote figureheads who issued general rulings, no longer responding to individual petitions. 

Although the senate could do little short of assassination and open rebellion to contravene the will of the emperor, it survived the Augustan restoration and the turbulent Year of Four Emperors to retain its symbolic political centrality during the Principate.  The senate legitimated the emperor's rule, and the emperor needed the experience of senators as legates (legati) to serve as generals, diplomats, and administrators.   A successful career required competence as an administrator and remaining in favour with the emperor, or over time perhaps multiple emperors. 

The practical source of an emperor's power and authority was the military. The legionaries were paid by the Imperial treasury, and swore an annual military oath of loyalty to the emperor (sacramentum).  The death of an emperor led to a crucial period of uncertainty and crisis.  Most emperors indicated their choice of successor, usually a close family member or adopted heir. The new emperor had to seek a swift acknowledgement of his status and authority to stabilize the political landscape. No emperor could hope to survive, much less to reign, without the allegiance and loyalty of the Praetorian Guard and of the legions. To secure their loyalty, several emperors paid the donativum, a monetary reward. In theory, the Senate was entitled to choose the new emperor, but did so mindful of acclamation by the army or Praetorians. 

Military

The soldiers of the Imperial Roman army were professionals who volunteered for 20 years of active duty and five as reserves. The transition to a professional military had begun during the late Republic, and was one of the many profound shifts away from republicanism, under which an army of conscripts had exercised their responsibilities as citizens in defending the homeland in a campaign against a specific threat. For Imperial Rome, the military was a full-time career in itself. 

The primary mission of the Roman military of the early empire was to preserve the Pax Romana.  The three major divisions of the military were:
* the garrison at Rome, which includes both the Praetorians and the vigiles who functioned as police and firefighters;
* the provincial army, comprising the Roman legions and the auxiliaries provided by the provinces (auxilia);
* the navy.

The pervasiveness of military garrisons throughout the Empire was a major influence in the process of cultural exchange and assimilation known as "Romanization," particularly in regard to politics, the economy, and religion.  Knowledge of the Roman military comes from a wide range of sources: Greek and Roman literary texts; coins with military themes; papyri preserving military documents; monuments such as Trajan's Column and triumphal arches, which feature artistic depictions of both fighting men and military machines; the archaeology of military burials, battle sites, and camps; and inscriptions, including military diplomas, epitaphs, and dedications. 

Through his military reforms, which included consolidating or disbanding units of questionable loyalty, Augustus changed and regularized the legion, down to the hobnail pattern on the soles of army boots.  A legion was organized into ten cohorts, each of which comprised six centuries, with a century further made up of ten squads (contubernia); the exact size of the Imperial legion, which is most likely to have been determined by logistics, has been estimated to range from 4,800 to 5,280. 

In AD 9, Germanic tribes wiped out three full legions in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest. This disastrous event reduced the number of the legions to 25. The total of the legions would later be increased again and for the next 300 years always be a little above or below 30.  The army had about 300,000 soldiers in the 1st century, and under 400,000 in the 2nd, "significantly smaller" than the collective armed forces of the territories it conquered. No more than 2 percent of adult males living in the Empire served in the Imperial army. 

Augustus also created the Praetorian Guard: nine cohorts, ostensibly to maintain the public peace, which were garrisoned in Italy. Better paid than the legionaries, the Praetorians served only sixteen years.Rome and Her Enemies published by Osprey, 2005, part 3: Early Empire 27BC–AD235, chapter 9: The Romans, section: Remuneration, p. 183; ISBN 978-1-84603-336-0

The auxilia were recruited from among the non-citizens. Organized in smaller units of roughly cohort strength, they were paid less than the legionaries, and after 25 years of service were rewarded with Roman citizenship, also extended to their sons. According to Tacitus  there were roughly as many auxiliaries as there were legionaries. The auxilia thus amounted to around 125,000 men, implying approximately 250 auxiliary regiments.  The Roman cavalry of the earliest Empire were primarily from Celtic,  Hispanic or Germanic areas. Several aspects of training and equipment, such as the four-horned saddle, derived from the Celts, as noted by Arrian and indicated by archaeology. 

The Roman navy (Latin: classis, "fleet") not only aided in the supply and transport of the legions, but also helped in the protection of the frontiers along the rivers Rhine and Danube. Another of its duties was the protection of the crucial maritime trade routes against the threat of pirates. It patrolled the whole of the Mediterranean, parts of the North Atlantic coasts, and the Black Sea. Nevertheless, the army was considered the senior and more prestigious branch. 

Provincial government

An annexed territory became a province in a three-step process: making a register of cities, taking a census of the population, and surveying the land.  Further government recordkeeping included births and deaths, real estate transactions, taxes, and juridical proceedings.  In the 1st and 2nd centuries, the central government sent out around 160 officials each year to govern outside Italy.  Among these officials were the "Roman governors", as they are called in English: either magistrates elected at Rome who in the name of the Roman people governed senatorial provinces; or governors, usually of equestrian rank, who held their imperium on behalf of the emperor in provinces excluded from senatorial control, most notably Roman Egypt.  A governor had to make himself accessible to the people he governed, but he could delegate various duties.  His staff, however, was minimal: his official attendants (apparitores), including lictors, heralds, messengers, scribes, and bodyguards; legates, both civil and military, usually of equestrian rank; and friends, ranging in age and experience, who accompanied him unofficially.

Other officials were appointed as supervisors of government finances. Separating fiscal responsibility from justice and administration was a reform of the Imperial era. Under the Republic, provincial governors and tax farmers could exploit local populations for personal gain more freely.  Equestrian procurators, whose authority was originally "extra-judicial and extra-constitutional," managed both state-owned property and the vast personal property of the emperor (res privata). Because Roman government officials were few in number, a provincial who needed help with a legal dispute or criminal case might seek out any Roman perceived to have some official capacity, such as a procurator or a military officer, including centurions down to the lowly stationarii or military police. 

Roman law

Roman courts held original jurisdiction over cases involving Roman citizens throughout the empire, but there were too few judicial functionaries to impose Roman law uniformly in the provinces. Most parts of the Eastern empire already had well-established law codes and juridical procedures.  In general, it was Roman policy to respect the mos regionis ("regional tradition" or "law of the land") and to regard local laws as a source of legal precedent and social stability.  The compatibility of Roman and local law was thought to reflect an underlying ius gentium, the "law of nations" or international law regarded as common and customary among all human communities.  If the particulars of provincial law conflicted with Roman law or custom, Roman courts heard appeals, and the emperor held final authority to render a decision. 

In the West, law had been administered on a highly localized or tribal basis, and private property rights may have been a novelty of the Roman era, particularly among Celtic peoples. Roman law facilitated the acquisition of wealth by a pro-Roman elite who found their new privileges as citizens to be advantageous.Garnsey and Saller, The Roman Empire, pp. 110–111. The extension of universal citizenship to all free inhabitants of the Empire in 212 required the uniform application of Roman law, replacing the local law codes that had applied to non-citizens. Diocletian's efforts to stabilize the Empire after the Crisis of the Third Century included two major compilations of law in four years, the Codex Gregorianus and the Codex Hermogenianus, to guide provincial administrators in setting consistent legal standards. 

The pervasive exercise of Roman law throughout Western Europe led to its enormous influence on the Western legal tradition, reflected by the continued use of Latin legal terminology in modern law.

Taxation

Taxation under the Empire amounted to about 5 percent of the Empire's gross product. The typical tax rate paid by individuals ranged from 2 to 5 percent.  The tax code was "bewildering" in its complicated system of direct and indirect taxes, some paid in cash and some in kind. Taxes might be specific to a province, or kinds of properties such as fisheries or salt evaporation ponds; they might be in effect for a limited time.  Tax collection was justified by the need to maintain the military,  and taxpayers sometimes got a refund if the army captured a surplus of booty.  In-kind taxes were accepted from less-monetized areas, particularly those who could supply grain or goods to army camps. 

The primary source of direct tax revenue was individuals, who paid a poll tax and a tax on their land, construed as a tax on its produce or productive capacity. Supplemental forms could be filed by those eligible for certain exemptions; for example, Egyptian farmers could register fields as fallow and tax-exempt depending on flood patterns of the Nile.  Tax obligations were determined by the census, which required each head of household to appear before the presiding official and provide a head count of his household, as well as an accounting of property he owned that was suitable for agriculture or habitation.

A major source of indirect-tax revenue was the portoria, customs and tolls on imports and exports, including among provinces. Special taxes were levied on the slave trade. Toward the end of his reign, Augustus instituted a 4 percent tax on the sale of slaves,  which Nero shifted from the purchaser to the dealers, who responded by raising their prices.  An owner who manumitted a slave paid a "freedom tax", calculated at 5 percent of value. 

An inheritance tax of 5 percent was assessed when Roman citizens above a certain net worth left property to anyone but members of their immediate family. Revenues from the estate tax and from a 1 percent sales tax on auctions went toward the veterans' pension fund (aerarium militare).

Low taxes helped the Roman aristocracy increase their wealth, which equalled or exceeded the revenues of the central government. An emperor sometimes replenished his treasury by confiscating the estates of the "super-rich", but in the later period, the resistance of the wealthy to paying taxes was one of the factors contributing to the collapse of the Empire.

Economy

Moses Finley was the chief proponent of the primitivist view that the Roman economy was "underdeveloped and underachieving," characterized by subsistence agriculture; urban centres that consumed more than they produced in terms of trade and industry; low-status artisans; slowly developing technology; and a "lack of economic rationality."  Current views are more complex. Territorial conquests permitted a large-scale reorganization of land use that resulted in agricultural surplus and specialization, particularly in north Africa.  Some cities were known for particular industries or commercial activities, and the scale of building in urban areas indicates a significant construction industry. Papyri preserve complex accounting methods that suggest elements of economic rationalism,  and the Empire was highly monetized.  Although the means of communication and transport were limited in antiquity, transportation in the 1st and 2nd centuries expanded greatly, and trade routes connected regional economies.  The supply contracts for the army, which pervaded every part of the Empire, drew on local suppliers near the base (castrum), throughout the province, and across provincial borders.  The Empire is perhaps best thought of as a network of regional economies, based on a form of "political capitalism" in which the state monitored and regulated commerce to assure its own revenues.  Economic growth, though not comparable to modern economies, was greater than that of most other societies prior to industrialization.

Socially, economic dynamism opened up one of the avenues of social mobility in the Roman Empire. Social advancement was thus not dependent solely on birth, patronage, good luck, or even extraordinary ability. Although aristocratic values permeated traditional elite society, a strong tendency toward plutocracy is indicated by the wealth requirements for census rank. Prestige could be obtained through investing one's wealth in ways that advertised it appropriately: grand country estates or townhouses, durable luxury items such as jewels and silverware, public entertainments, funerary monuments for family members or coworkers, and religious dedications such as altars.  Guilds (collegia) and corporations (corpora) provided support for individuals to succeed through networking, sharing sound business practices, and a willingness to work. 

Currency and banking

The early Empire was monetized to a near-universal extent, in the sense of using money as a way to express prices and debts.David Kessler and Peter Temin, "Money and Prices in the Early Roman Empire," in The Monetary Systems of the Greeks and Romans,  in The Monetary Systems of the Greeks and Romans (Oxford University Press, 2008), n.p. The sestertius (plural sestertii, English "sesterces", symbolized as HS) was the basic unit of reckoning value into the 4th century,  though the silver denarius, worth four sesterces, was used also for accounting beginning in the Severan dynasty.  The smallest coin commonly circulated was the bronze as (plural asses), one-fourth sestertius.  Bullion and ingots seem not to have counted as pecunia, "money," and were used only on the frontiers for transacting business or buying property. Romans in the 1st and 2nd centuries counted coins, rather than weighing them—an indication that the coin was valued on its face, not for its metal content. This tendency toward fiat money led eventually to the debasement of Roman coinage, with consequences in the later Empire.  The standardization of money throughout the Empire promoted trade and market integration.  The high amount of metal coinage in circulation increased the money supply for trading or saving. 

Rome had no central bank, and regulation of the banking system was minimal. Banks of classical antiquity typically kept less in reserves than the full total of customers' deposits. A typical bank had fairly limited capital, and often only one principal, though a bank might have as many as six to fifteen principals. Seneca assumes that anyone involved in commerce needs access to credit. 

A professional deposit banker (argentarius, coactor argentarius, or later nummularius) received and held deposits for a fixed or indefinite term, and lent money to third parties.  The senatorial elite were involved heavily in private lending, both as creditors and borrowers, making loans from their personal fortunes on the basis of social connections.  The holder of a debt could use it as a means of payment by transferring it to another party, without cash changing hands. Although it has sometimes been thought that ancient Rome lacked "paper" or documentary transactions, the system of banks throughout the Empire also permitted the exchange of very large sums without the physical transfer of coins, in part because of the risks of moving large amounts of cash, particularly by sea. Only one serious credit shortage is known to have occurred in the early Empire, a credit crisis in 33 AD that put a number of senators at risk; the central government rescued the market through a loan of 100 million HS  made by the emperor Tiberius to the banks (mensae).  Generally, available capital exceeded the amount needed by borrowers.  The central government itself did not borrow money, and without public debt had to fund deficits from cash reserves. 

Emperors of the Antonine and Severan dynasties overall debased the currency, particularly the denarius, under the pressures of meeting military payrolls.  Sudden inflation during the reign of Commodus damaged the credit market. In the mid-200s, the supply of specie contracted sharply.  Conditions during the Crisis of the Third Century—such as reductions in long-distance trade, disruption of mining operations, and the physical transfer of gold coinage outside the empire by invading enemies—greatly diminished the money supply and the banking sector by the year 300.  Although Roman coinage had long been fiat money or fiduciary currency, general economic anxieties came to a head under Aurelian, and bankers lost confidence in coins legitimately issued by the central government. Despite Diocletian's introduction of the gold solidus and monetary reforms, the credit market of the Empire never recovered its former robustness.

Mining and metallurgy

The main mining regions of the Empire were the  Iberian Peninsula (gold, silver, copper, tin, lead); Gaul (gold, silver, iron); Britain (mainly iron, lead, tin), the Danubian provinces (gold, iron); Macedonia and Thrace (gold, silver); and Asia Minor (gold, silver, iron, tin).  Intensive large-scale mining—of alluvial deposits, and by means of open-cast mining and underground mining—took place from the reign of Augustus up to the early 3rd century AD, when the instability of the Empire disrupted production. The gold mines of Dacia, for instance, were no longer available for Roman exploitation after the province was surrendered in 271. Mining seems to have resumed to some extent during the 4th century. 

Hydraulic mining, which Pliny referred to as ruina montium ("ruin of the mountains"), allowed base and precious metals to be extracted on a proto-industrial scale.  The total annual iron output is estimated at 82,500 tonnes.  Copper was produced at an annual rate of 15,000 t,  and lead at 80,000 t,  both production levels unmatched until the Industrial Revolution;  Hispania alone had a 40 percent share in world lead production.  The high lead output was a by-product of extensive silver mining which reached 200 t per annum.   At its peak around the mid-2nd century AD, the Roman silver stock is estimated at 10,000 t, five to ten times larger than the combined silver mass of medieval Europe and the Caliphate around 800 AD.  As an indication of the scale of Roman metal production, lead pollution in the Greenland ice sheet quadrupled over its prehistoric levels during the Imperial era, and dropped again thereafter. 

Transportation and communication

The Roman Empire completely encircled the Mediterranean, which they called "our sea" (mare nostrum).  Roman sailing vessels navigated the Mediterranean as well as the major rivers of the Empire, including the Guadalquivir, Ebro, Rhône, Rhine, Tiber and Nile.  Transport by water was preferred where possible, and moving commodities by land was more difficult.  Vehicles, wheels, and ships indicate the existence of a great number of skilled woodworkers. 

Land transport utilized the advanced system of Roman roads. The in-kind taxes paid by communities included the provision of personnel, animals, or vehicles for the cursus publicus, the state mail and transport service established by Augustus. Relay stations were located along the roads every seven to twelve Roman miles, and tended to grow into a village or trading post.  A mansio (plural mansiones) was a privately run service station franchised by the imperial bureaucracy for the cursus publicus. The support staff at such a facility included muleteers, secretaries, blacksmiths, cartwrights, a veterinarian, and a few military police and couriers. The distance between mansiones was determined by how far a wagon could travel in a day. Mules were the animal most often used for pulling carts, travelling about 4 mph.  As an example of the pace of communication, it took a messenger a minimum of nine days to travel to Rome from Mainz in the province of Germania Superior, even on a matter of urgency.  In addition to the mansiones, some taverns offered accommodations as well as food and drink; one recorded tab for a stay showed charges for wine, bread, mule feed, and the services of a prostitute. 

Trade and commodities

Roman provinces traded among themselves, but trade extended outside the frontiers to regions as far away as China and India.  The main commodity was grain.  Chinese trade was mostly conducted overland through middle men along the Silk Road; Indian trade, however, also occurred by sea from Egyptian ports on the Red Sea. Also traded were olive oil, various foodstuffs, garum (fish sauce), slaves, ore and manufactured metal objects, fibres and textiles, timber, pottery, glassware, marble, papyrus, spices and materia medica, ivory, pearls, and gemstones. 

Though most provinces were capable of producing wine, regional varietals were desirable and wine was a central item of trade. Shortages of vin ordinaire were rare.  The major suppliers for the city of Rome were the west coast of Italy, southern Gaul, the Tarraconensis region of Hispania, and Crete. Alexandria, the second-largest city, imported wine from Laodicea in Syria and the Aegean.  At the retail level, taverns or speciality wine shops (vinaria) sold wine by the jug for carryout and by the drink on premises, with price ranges reflecting quality. 

Labour and occupations

Inscriptions record 268 different occupations in the city of Rome, and 85 in Pompeii.  Professional associations or trade guilds (collegia) are attested for a wide range of occupations, including fishermen (piscatores), salt merchants (salinatores), olive oil dealers (olivarii), entertainers (scaenici), cattle dealers (pecuarii), goldsmiths (aurifices), teamsters (asinarii or muliones), and stonecutters (lapidarii).  These are sometimes quite specialized: one collegium at Rome was strictly limited to craftsmen who worked in ivory and citrus wood. 

Work performed by slaves falls into five general categories: domestic, with epitaphs recording at least 55 different household jobs; imperial or public service; urban crafts and services; agriculture; and mining.  Convicts provided much of the labour in the mines or quarries, where conditions were notoriously brutal.  In practice, there was little division of labour between slave and free,  and most workers were illiterate and without special skills.  The greatest number of common labourers were employed in agriculture: in the Italian system of industrial farming (latifundia), these may have been mostly slaves, but throughout the Empire, slave farm labour was probably less important than other forms of dependent labour by people who were technically not enslaved.

Textile and clothing production was a major source of employment. Both textiles and finished garments were traded among the peoples of the Empire, whose products were often named for them or a particular town, rather like a fashion "label".  Better ready-to-wear was exported by businessmen (negotiatores or mercatores) who were often well-to-do residents of the production centres.  Finished garments might be retailed by their sales agents, who travelled to potential customers, or by vestiarii, clothing dealers who were mostly freedmen; or they might be peddled by itinerant merchants. In Egypt, textile producers could run prosperous small businesses employing apprentices, free workers earning wages, and slaves.  The fullers (fullones) and dye workers (coloratores) had their own guilds.  Centonarii were guild workers who specialized in textile production and the recycling of old clothes into pieced goods. 

GDP and income distribution

Economic historians vary in their calculations of the gross domestic product of the Roman economy during the Principate.  In the sample years of 14, 100, and 150 AD, estimates of per capita GDP range from 166 to 380 HS. The GDP per capita of Italy is estimated as 40  to 66 percent  higher than in the rest of the Empire, due to tax transfers from the provinces and the concentration of elite income in the heartland.

In the Scheidel–Friesen economic model, the total annual income generated by the Empire is placed at nearly 20 billion HS, with about 5 percent extracted by central and local government. Households in the top 1.5 percent of income distribution captured about 20 percent of income. Another 20 percent went to about 10 percent of the population who can be characterized as a non-elite middle. The remaining "vast majority" produced more than half of the total income, but lived near subsistence. 

Architecture and engineering

The chief Roman contributions to architecture were the arch, vault and the dome. Even after more than 2,000 years some Roman structures still stand, due in part to sophisticated methods of making cements and concrete.   Roman roads are considered the most advanced roads built until the early 19th century. The system of roadways facilitated military policing, communications, and trade. The roads were resistant to floods and other environmental hazards. Even after the collapse of the central government, some roads remained usable for more than a thousand years.

Roman bridges were among the first large and lasting bridges, built from stone with the arch as the basic structure. Most utilized concrete as well. The largest Roman bridge was Trajan's bridge over the lower Danube, constructed by Apollodorus of Damascus, which remained for over a millennium the longest bridge to have been built both in terms of overall span and length.Encyclopaedia Britannica, [http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9008022/Apollodorus-Of-Damascus Apollodorus of Damascus], "Greek engineer and architect who worked primarily for the Roman emperor Trajan."George Sarton (1936), "The Unity and Diversity of the Mediterranean World", Osiris 2: 406–463 [430]

The Romans built many dams and reservoirs for water collection, such as the Subiaco Dams, two of which fed the Anio Novus, one of the largest aqueducts of Rome.  They built 72 dams just on the Iberian peninsula, and many more are known across the Empire, some still in use. Several earthen dams are known from Roman Britain, including a well-preserved example from Longovicium (Lanchester).

The Romans constructed numerous aqueducts. A surviving treatise by Frontinus, who served as curator aquarum (water commissioner) under Nerva, reflects the administrative importance placed on ensuring the water supply. Masonry channels carried water from distant springs and reservoirs along a precise gradient, using gravity alone. After the water passed through the aqueduct, it was collected in tanks and fed through pipes to public fountains, baths, toilets, or industrial sites.  The main aqueducts in the city of Rome were the Aqua Claudia and the Aqua Marcia.  The complex system built to supply Constantinople had its most distant supply drawn from over 120 km away along a sinuous route of more than 336 km.  Roman aqueducts were built to remarkably fine tolerance, and to a technological standard that was not to be equalled until modern times.  The Romans also made use of aqueducts in their extensive mining operations across the empire, at sites such as Las Medulas and Dolaucothi in South Wales. 

Insulated glazing (or "double glazing") was used in the construction of public baths. Elite housing in cooler climates might have hypocausts, a form of central heating. The Romans were the first culture to assemble all essential components of the much later steam engine, when Hero built the aeolipile. 

Daily life

City and country

In the ancient world, a city was viewed as a place that fostered civilization by being "properly designed, ordered, and adorned."  Augustus undertook a vast building program in Rome, supported public displays of art that expressed the new imperial ideology, and reorganized the city into neighbourhoods (vici) administered at the local level with police and firefighting services.  A focus of Augustan monumental architecture was the Campus Martius, an open area outside the city center that in early times had been devoted to equestrian sports and physical training for youth. The Altar of Augustan Peace (Ara Pacis Augustae) was located there, as was an obelisk imported from Egypt that formed the pointer (gnomon) of a horologium. With its public gardens, the Campus became one of the most attractive places in the city to visit. 

City planning and urban lifestyles had been influenced by the Greeks from an early period,  and in the eastern Empire, Roman rule accelerated and shaped the local development of cities that already had a strong Hellenistic character. Cities such as Athens, Aphrodisias, Ephesus and Gerasa altered some aspects of city planning and architecture to conform to imperial ideals, while also expressing their individual identity and regional preeminence.  In the areas of the western Empire inhabited by Celtic-speaking peoples, Rome encouraged the development of urban centres with stone temples, forums, monumental fountains, and amphitheatres, often on or near the sites of the preexisting walled settlements known as oppida.  Urbanization in Roman Africa expanded on Greek and Punic cities along the coast.

The network of cities throughout the Empire (coloniae, municipia, civitates or in Greek terms poleis) was a primary cohesive force during the Pax Romana.  Romans of the 1st and 2nd centuries AD were encouraged by imperial propaganda to "inculcate the habits of peacetime".  As the classicist Clifford Ando has noted:

Most of the cultural appurtenances popularly associated with imperial culture—public cult and its games and civic banquets, competitions for artists, speakers, and athletes, as well as the funding of the great majority of public buildings and public display of art—were financed by private individuals, whose expenditures in this regard helped to justify their economic power and legal and provincial privileges. 

Even the Christian polemicist Tertullian declared that the world of the late 2nd century was more orderly and well-cultivated than in earlier times: "Everywhere there are houses, everywhere people, everywhere the res publica, the commonwealth, everywhere life."  The decline of cities and civic life in the 4th century, when the wealthy classes were unable or disinclined to support public works, was one sign of the Empire's imminent dissolution. 

In the city of Rome, most people lived in multistory apartment buildings (insulae) that were often squalid firetraps. Public facilities—such as baths (thermae), toilets that were flushed with running water (latrinae), conveniently located basins or elaborate fountains (nymphea) delivering fresh water,  and large-scale entertainments such as chariot races and gladiator combat—were aimed primarily at the common people who lived in the insulae.  Similar facilities were constructed in cities throughout the Empire, and some of the best-preserved Roman structures are in Spain, southern France, and northern Africa.

The public baths served hygienic, social and cultural functions.  Bathing was the focus of daily socializing in the late afternoon before dinner.  Roman baths were distinguished by a series of rooms that offered communal bathing in three temperatures, with varying amenities that might include an exercise and weight-training room, sauna, exfoliation spa (where oils were massaged into the skin and scraped from the body with a strigil), ball court, or outdoor swimming pool.  Baths had hypocaust heating: the floors were suspended over hot-air channels that circulated warmth.  Mixed nude bathing was not unusual in the early Empire, though some baths may have offered separate facilities or hours for men and women. Public baths were a part of urban culture throughout the provinces, but in the late 4th century, individual tubs began to replace communal bathing.  Christians were advised to go to the baths for health and cleanliness, not pleasure,  but to avoid the games (ludi), which were part of religious festivals they considered "pagan". Tertullian says that otherwise Christians not only availed themselves of the baths, but participated fully in commerce and society. 

Rich families from Rome usually had two or more houses, a townhouse (domus, plural domūs) and at least one luxury home (villa) outside the city. The domus was a privately owned single-family house, and might be furnished with a private bath (balneum),  but it was not a place to retreat from public life.  Although some neighbourhoods of Rome show a higher concentration of well-to-do houses, the rich did not live in segregated enclaves. Their houses were meant to be visible and accessible. The atrium served as a reception hall in which the paterfamilias (head of household) met with clients every morning, from wealthy friends to poorer dependents who received charity.  It was also a center of family religious rites, containing a shrine and the images of family ancestors.  The houses were located on busy public roads, and ground-level spaces facing the street were often rented out as shops (tabernae).  In addition to a kitchen garden— windowboxes might substitute in the insulae—townhouses typically enclosed a peristyle garden that brought a tract of nature, made orderly, within walls. 

The villa by contrast was an escape from the bustle of the city, and in literature represents a lifestyle that balances the civilized pursuit of intellectual and artistic interests (otium) with an appreciation of nature and the agricultural cycle.   Ideally a villa commanded a view or vista, carefully framed by the architectural design.  It might be located on a working estate, or in a "resort town" situated on the seacoast, such as Pompeii and Herculaneum.

The programme of urban renewal under Augustus, and the growth of Rome's population to as many as 1 million people, was accompanied by a nostalgia for rural life expressed in the arts. Poetry praised the idealized lives of farmers and shepherds. The interiors of houses were often decorated with painted gardens, fountains, landscapes, vegetative ornament, and animals, especially birds and marine life, rendered accurately enough that modern scholars can sometimes identify them by species.  The Augustan poet Horace gently satirized the dichotomy of urban and rural values in his fable of the city mouse and the country mouse, which has often been retold as a children's story. 

On a more practical level, the central government took an active interest in supporting agriculture.  Producing food was the top priority of land use.  Larger farms (latifundia) achieved an economy of scale that sustained urban life and its more specialized division of labour. Small farmers benefited from the development of local markets in towns and trade centres. Agricultural techniques such as crop rotation and selective breeding were disseminated throughout the Empire, and new crops were introduced from one province to another, such as peas and cabbage to Britain. 

Maintaining an affordable food supply to the city of Rome had become a major political issue in the late Republic, when the state began to provide a grain dole (annona) to citizens who registered for it. About 200,000–250,000 adult males in Rome received the dole, amounting to about 33 kg. per month, for a per annum total of about 100,000 tons of wheat primarily from Sicily, north Africa, and Egypt.  The dole cost at least 15 percent of state revenues, but improved living conditions and family life among the lower classes,  and subsidized the rich by allowing workers to spend more of their earnings on the wine and olive oil produced on the estates of the landowning class.

The grain dole also had symbolic value: it affirmed both the emperor's position as universal benefactor, and the right of all citizens to share in "the fruits of conquest". The annona, public facilities, and spectacular entertainments mitigated the otherwise dreary living conditions of lower-class Romans, and kept social unrest in check. The satirist Juvenal, however, saw "bread and circuses" (panem et circenses) as emblematic of the loss of republican political liberty: 

The public has long since cast off its cares: the people that once bestowed commands, consulships, legions and all else, now meddles no more and longs eagerly for just two things: bread and circuses. 

Food and dining

Most apartments in Rome lacked kitchens, though a charcoal brazier could be used for rudimentary cookery.  Prepared food was sold at pubs and bars, inns, and food stalls (tabernae, cauponae, popinae, thermopolia).  Carryout and restaurant dining were for the lower classes; fine dining could be sought only at private dinner parties in  houses with a chef (archimagirus) and trained kitchen staff,  or at banquets hosted by social clubs (collegia). 

Most people would have consumed at least 70 percent of their daily calories in the form of cereals and legumes.  Puls (pottage) was considered the aboriginal food of the Romans.  The basic grain pottage could be elaborated with chopped vegetables, bits of meat, cheese, or herbs to produce dishes similar to polenta or risotto. 

Urban populations and the military preferred to consume their grain in the form of bread.  Mills and commercial ovens were usually combined in a bakery complex.  By the reign of Aurelian, the state had begun to distribute the annona as a daily ration of bread baked in state factories, and added olive oil, wine, and pork to the dole. 

The importance of a good diet to health was recognized by medical writers such as Galen (2nd century AD), whose treatises included one On Barley Soup. Views on nutrition were influenced by schools of thought such as humoral theory. 

Roman literature focuses on the dining habits of the upper classes,  for whom the evening meal (cena) had important social functions.  Guests were entertained in a finely decorated dining room (triclinium), often with a view of the peristyle garden. Diners lounged on couches, leaning on the left elbow. By the late Republic, if not earlier, women dined, reclined, and drank wine along with men. 

The most famous description of a Roman meal is probably Trimalchio's dinner party in the Satyricon, a fictional extravaganza that bears little resemblance to reality even among the most wealthy.  The poet Martial describes serving a more plausible dinner, beginning with the gustatio ("tasting" or "appetizer"), which was a composed salad of mallow leaves, lettuce, chopped leeks, mint, arugula, mackerel garnished with rue, sliced eggs, and marinated sow udder. The main course was succulent cuts of kid, beans, greens, a chicken, and leftover ham, followed by a dessert of fresh fruit and vintage wine.  The Latin expression for a full-course dinner was ab ovo usque mala, "from the egg to the apples," equivalent to the English "from soup to nuts." 

A book-length collection of Roman recipes is attributed to Apicius, a name for several figures in antiquity that became synonymous with "gourmet."  Roman "foodies" indulged in wild game, fowl such as peacock and flamingo, large fish (mullet was especially prized), and shellfish. Luxury ingredients were brought by the fleet from the far reaches of empire, from the Parthian frontier to the Straits of Gibraltar. 

Refined cuisine could be moralized as a sign of either civilized progress or decadent decline.  The early Imperial historian Tacitus contrasted the indulgent luxuries of the Roman table in his day with the simplicity of the Germanic diet of fresh wild meat, foraged fruit, and cheese, unadulterated by imported seasonings and elaborate sauces.  Most often, because of the importance of landowning in Roman culture, produce—cereals, legumes, vegetables, and fruit—was considered a more civilized form of food than meat. The Mediterranean staples of bread, wine, and oil were sacralized by Roman Christianity, while Germanic meat consumption became a mark of paganism,  as it might be the product of animal sacrifice.

Some philosophers and Christians resisted the demands of the body and the pleasures of food, and adopted fasting as an ideal.  Food became simpler in general as urban life in the West diminished, trade routes were disrupted,  and the rich retreated to the more limited self-sufficiency of their country estates.  As an urban lifestyle came to be associated with decadence, the Church formally discouraged gluttony, and hunting and pastoralism were seen as simple, virtuous ways of life. 

 

Recreation and spectacles

When Juvenal complained that the Roman people had exchanged their political liberty for "bread and circuses", he was referring to the state-provided grain dole and the circenses, events held in the entertainment venue called a circus in Latin. The largest such venue in Rome was the Circus Maximus, the setting of horse races, chariot races, the equestrian Troy Game, staged beast hunts (venationes), athletic contests, gladiator combat, and historical re-enactments. From earliest times, several religious festivals had featured games (ludi), primarily horse and chariot races (ludi circenses).  Although their entertainment value tended to overshadow ritual significance, the races remained part of archaic religious observances that pertained to agriculture, initiation, and the cycle of birth and death. 

Under Augustus, public entertainments were presented on 77 days of the year; by the reign of Marcus Aurelius, the number of days had expanded to 135.  Circus games were preceded by an elaborate parade (pompa circensis) that ended at the venue.  Competitive events were held also in smaller venues such as the amphitheatre, which became the characteristic Roman spectacle venue, and stadium. Greek-style athletics included footraces, boxing, wrestling, and the pancratium.  Aquatic displays, such as the mock sea battle (naumachia) and a form of "water ballet", were presented in engineered pools.  State-supported theatrical events (ludi scaenici) took place on temple steps or in grand stone theatres, or in the smaller enclosed theatre called an odeum. 

Circuses were the largest structure regularly built in the Roman world,  though the Greeks had their own architectural traditions for the similarly purposed hippodrome. The Flavian Amphitheatre, better known as the Colosseum, became the regular arena for blood sports in Rome after it opened in 80 AD.  The circus races continued to be held more frequently.  The Circus Maximus could seat around 150,000 spectators, and the Colosseum about 50,000 with standing room for about 10,000 more.  Many Roman amphitheatres, circuses and theatres built in cities outside Italy are visible as ruins today.  The local ruling elite were responsible for sponsoring spectacles and arena events, which both enhanced their status and drained their resources. 

The physical arrangement of the amphitheatre represented the order of Roman society: the emperor presiding in his opulent box; senators and equestrians watching from the advantageous seats reserved for them; women seated at a remove from the action; slaves given the worst places, and everybody else packed in-between.  The crowd could call for an outcome by booing or cheering, but the emperor had the final say. Spectacles could quickly become sites of social and political protest, and emperors sometimes had to deploy force to put down crowd unrest, most notoriously at the Nika riots in the year 532, when troops under Justinian slaughtered thousands. 

The chariot teams were known by the colours they wore, with the Blues and Greens the most popular. Fan loyalty was fierce and at times erupted into sports riots.  Racing was perilous, but charioteers were among the most celebrated and well-compensated athletes.  One star of the sport was Diocles, from Lusitania (present-day Portugal), who raced chariots for 24 years and had career earnings of 35 million sesterces.  Horses had their fans too, and were commemorated in art and inscriptions, sometimes by name.  The design of Roman circuses was developed to assure that no team had an unfair advantage and to minimize collisions (naufragia, "shipwrecks"),  which were nonetheless frequent and spectacularly satisfying to the crowd.  The races retained a magical aura through their early association with chthonic rituals: circus images were considered protective or lucky, curse tablets have been found buried at the site of racetracks, and charioteers were often suspected of sorcery.  Chariot racing continued into the Byzantine period under imperial sponsorship, but the decline of cities in the 6th and 7th centuries led to its eventual demise. 

The Romans thought gladiator contests had originated with funeral games and sacrifices in which select captive warriors were forced to fight to expiate the deaths of noble Romans.  Some of the earliest styles of gladiator fighting had ethnic designations such as "Thracian" or "Gallic".  The staged combats were considered munera, "services, offerings, benefactions", initially distinct from the festival games (ludi). 

Throughout his 40-year reign, Augustus presented eight gladiator shows in which a total of 10,000 men fought, as well as 26 staged beast hunts that resulted in the deaths of 3,500 animals.  To mark the opening of the Colosseum, the emperor Titus presented 100 days of arena events, with 3,000 gladiators competing on a single day.  Roman fascination with gladiators is indicated by how widely they are depicted on mosaics, wall paintings, lamps, and even graffiti drawings. 

Gladiators were trained combatants who might be slaves, convicts, or free volunteers.  Death was not a necessary or even desirable outcome in matches between these highly skilled fighters, whose training represented a costly and time-consuming investment.  By contrast, noxii were convicts sentenced to the arena with little or no training, often unarmed, and with no expectation of survival. Physical suffering and humiliation were considered appropriate retributive justice for the crimes they had committed.  These executions were sometimes staged or ritualized as re-enactments of myths, and amphitheatres were equipped with elaborate stage machinery to create special effects.  Tertullian considered deaths in the arena to be nothing more than a dressed-up form of human sacrifice. 

Modern scholars have found the pleasure Romans took in the "theater of life and death"  to be one of the more difficult aspects of their civilization to understand and explain.  The younger Pliny rationalized gladiator spectacles as good for the people, a way "to inspire them to face honourable wounds and despise death, by exhibiting love of glory and desire for victory even in the bodies of slaves and criminals".  Some Romans such as Seneca were critical of the brutal spectacles, but found virtue in the courage and dignity of the defeated fighter rather than in victory —an attitude that finds its fullest expression with the Christians martyred in the arena. Even martyr literature, however, offers "detailed, indeed luxuriant, descriptions of bodily suffering",  and became a popular genre at times indistinguishable from fiction. 

Personal training and play

In the plural, ludi almost always refers to the large-scale spectator games. The singular ludus, "play, game, sport, training," had a wide range of meanings such as "word play," "theatrical performance," "board game," "primary school," and even "gladiator training school" (as in Ludus Magnus, the largest such training camp at Rome). 

Activities for children and young people included hoop rolling and knucklebones (astragali or "jacks"). The sarcophagi of children often show them playing games. Girls had dolls, typically 15–16 cm tall with jointed limbs, made of materials such as wood, terracotta, and especially bone and ivory.  Ball games include trigon, which required dexterity, and harpastum, a rougher sport.  Pets appear often on children's memorials and in literature, including birds, dogs, cats, goats, sheep, rabbits and geese. 

After adolescence, most physical training for males was of a military nature. The Campus Martius originally was an exercise field where young men developed the skills of horsemanship and warfare. Hunting was also considered an appropriate pastime. According to Plutarch, conservative Romans disapproved of Greek-style athletics that promoted a fine body for its own sake, and condemned Nero's efforts to encourage gymnastic games in the Greek manner. 

Some women trained as gymnasts and dancers, and a rare few as female gladiators. The famous "bikini girls" mosaic shows young women engaging in apparatus routines that might be compared to rhythmic gymnastics.  Women in general were encouraged to maintain their health through activities such as playing ball, swimming, walking, reading aloud (as a breathing exercise), riding in vehicles, and travel. 

People of all ages played board games pitting two players against each other, including latrunculi ("Raiders"), a game of strategy in which opponents coordinated the movements and capture of multiple game pieces, and XII scripta ("Twelve Marks"), involving dice and arranging pieces on a grid of letters or words.  A game referred to as alea (dice) or tabula (the board), to which the emperor Claudius was notoriously addicted, may have been similar to backgammon, using a dice-cup (pyrgus).  Playing with dice as a form of gambling was disapproved of, but was a popular pastime during the December festival of the Saturnalia with its carnival, norms-overturned atmosphere.

Clothing

In a status-conscious society like that of the Romans, clothing and personal adornment gave immediate visual clues about the etiquette of interacting with the wearer.  Wearing the correct clothing was supposed to reflect a society in good order.  The toga was the distinctive national garment of the Roman male citizen, but it was heavy and impractical, worn mainly for conducting political business and religious rites, and for going to court.  Contrary to popular perception, the clothing Romans wore ordinarily was dark or colourful, and the most common male attire seen daily throughout the provinces would have been tunics, cloaks, and in some regions trousers.  The study of how Romans dressed in daily life is complicated by a lack of direct evidence, since portraiture may show the subject in clothing with symbolic value, and surviving textiles from the period are rare. 

The basic garment for all Romans, regardless of gender or wealth, was the simple sleeved tunic. The length differed by wearer: a man's reached mid-calf, but a soldier's was somewhat shorter; a woman's fell to her feet, and a child's to its knees.  The tunics of poor people and labouring slaves were made from coarse wool in natural, dull shades, with the length determined by the type of work they did. Finer tunics were made of lightweight wool or linen. A man who belonged to the senatorial or equestrian order wore a tunic with two purple stripes (clavi) woven vertically into the fabric: the wider the stripe, the higher the wearer's status. Other garments could be layered over the tunic.

The Imperial toga was a "vast expanse" of semi-circular white wool that could not be put on and draped correctly without assistance.  In his work on oratory, Quintilian describes in detail how the public speaker ought to orchestrate his gestures in relation to his toga.  In art, the toga is shown with the long end dipping between the feet, a deep curved fold in front, and a bulbous flap at the midsection.  The drapery became more intricate and structured over time, with the cloth forming a tight roll across the chest in later periods.  The toga praetexta, with a purple or purplish-red stripe representing inviolability, was worn by children who had not come of age, curule magistrates, and state priests.  Only the emperor could wear an all-purple toga (toga picta). 

In the 2nd century, emperors and men of status are often portrayed wearing the pallium, an originally Greek mantle (himation) folded tightly around the body. Women are also portrayed in the pallium. Tertullian considered the pallium an appropriate garment both for Christians, in contrast to the toga, and for educated people, since it was associated with philosophers.  By the 4th century, the toga had been more or less replaced by the pallium as a garment that embodied social unity. 

Roman clothing styles changed over time, though not as rapidly as fashions today.  In the Dominate, clothing worn by both soldiers and government bureaucrats became highly decorated, with woven or embroidered stripes (clavi) and circular roundels (orbiculi) applied to tunics and cloaks. These decorative elements consisted of geometrical patterns, stylised plant motifs, and in more elaborate examples, human or animal figures.  The use of silk increased, and courtiers of the later Empire wore elaborate silk robes. The militarization of Roman society, and the waning of cultural life based on urban ideals, affected habits of dress: heavy military-style belts were worn by bureaucrats as well as soldiers, and the toga was abandoned. 

The arts

People visiting or living in Rome or the cities throughout the Empire would have seen art in a range of styles and media on a daily basis. Public or official art—including sculpture, monuments such as victory columns or triumphal arches, and the iconography on coins—is often analysed for its historical significance or as an expression of imperial ideology.  At Imperial public baths, a person of humble means could view wall paintings, mosaics, statues, and interior decoration often of high quality.  In the private sphere, objects made for religious dedications, funerary commemoration, domestic use, and commerce can show varying degrees of aesthetic quality and artistic skill.  A wealthy person might advertise his appreciation of culture through painting, sculpture, and decorative arts at his home—though some efforts strike modern viewers and some ancient connoisseurs as strenuous rather than tasteful.  Greek art had a profound influence on the Roman tradition, and some of the most famous examples of Greek statues are known only from Roman Imperial versions and the occasional description in a Greek or Latin literary source. 

Despite the high value placed on works of art, even famous artists were of low social status among the Greeks and Romans, who regarded artists, artisans, and craftsmen alike as manual labourers. At the same time, the level of skill required to produce quality work was recognized, and even considered a divine gift. 

Portraiture

Portraiture, which survives mainly in the medium of sculpture, was the most copious form of imperial art. Portraits during the Augustan period utilize youthful and classical proportions, evolving later into a mixture of realism and idealism.  Republican portraits had been characterized by a "warts and all" verism, but as early as the 2nd century BC, the Greek convention of heroic nudity was adopted sometimes for portraying conquering generals.  Imperial portrait sculptures may model the head as mature, even craggy, atop a nude or seminude body that is smooth and youthful with perfect musculature; a portrait head might even be added to a body created for another purpose.  Clothed in the toga or military regalia, the body communicates rank or sphere of activity, not the characteristics of the individual. 

Women of the emperor's family were often depicted dressed as goddesses or divine personifications such as Pax ("Peace"). Portraiture in painting is represented primarily by the Fayum mummy portraits, which evoke Egyptian and Roman traditions of commemorating the dead with the realistic painting techniques of the Empire. Marble portrait sculpture would have been painted, and while traces of paint have only rarely survived the centuries, the Fayum portraits indicate why ancient literary sources marvelled at how lifelike artistic representations could be. 

Sculpture

Examples of Roman sculpture survive abundantly, though often in damaged or fragmentary condition, including freestanding statues and statuettes in marble, bronze and terracotta, and reliefs from public buildings, temples, and monuments such as the Ara Pacis, Trajan's Column, and the Arch of Titus. Niches in amphitheatres such as the Colosseum were originally filled with statues,  and no formal garden was complete without statuary. 

Temples housed the cult images of deities, often by famed sculptors.  The religiosity of the Romans encouraged the production of decorated altars, small representations of deities for the household shrine or votive offerings, and other pieces for dedicating at temples. Divine and mythological figures were also given secular, humorous, and even obscene depictions. 

Sarcophagi

Elaborately carved marble and limestone sarcophagi are characteristic of the 2nd to the 4th centuries  with at least 10,000 examples surviving.  Although mythological scenes have been most widely studied,  sarcophagus relief has been called the "richest single source of Roman iconography,"  and may also depict the deceased's occupation or life course, military scenes, and other subject matter. The same workshops produced sarcophagi with Jewish or Christian imagery. 

Painting

Much of what is known of Roman painting is based on the interior decoration of private homes, particularly as preserved at Pompeii and Herculaneum by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD. In addition to decorative borders and panels with geometric or vegetative motifs, wall painting depicts scenes from mythology and the theatre, landscapes and gardens, recreation and spectacles, work and everyday life, and frank pornography. Birds, animals, and marine life are often depicted with careful attention to realistic detail. 

A unique source for Jewish figurative painting under the Empire is the Dura-Europos synagogue, dubbed "the Pompeii of the Syrian Desert,"  buried and preserved in the mid-3rd century after the city was destroyed by Persians. 

Mosaic

Mosaics are among the most enduring of Roman decorative arts, and are found on the surfaces of floors and other architectural features such as walls, vaulted ceilings, and columns. The most common form is the tessellated mosaic, formed from uniform pieces (tesserae) of materials such as stone and glass.  Mosaics were usually crafted on site, but sometimes assembled and shipped as ready-made panels. A mosaic workshop was led by the master artist (pictor) who worked with two grades of assistants. 

Figurative mosaics share many themes with painting, and in some cases portray subject matter in almost identical compositions. Although geometric patterns and mythological scenes occur throughout the Empire, regional preferences also find expression. In North Africa, a particularly rich source of mosaics, homeowners often chose scenes of life on their estates, hunting, agriculture, and local wildlife. Plentiful and major examples of Roman mosaics come also from present-day Turkey, Italy, southern France, Spain, and Portugal. More than 300 Antioch mosaics from the 3rd century are known. 

Opus sectile is a related technique in which flat stone, usually coloured marble, is cut precisely into shapes from which geometric or figurative patterns are formed. This more difficult technique was highly prized, and became especially popular for luxury surfaces in the 4th century, an abundant example of which is the Basilica of Junius Bassus. 

Decorative arts

Decorative arts for luxury consumers included fine pottery, silver and bronze vessels and implements, and glassware. The manufacture of pottery in a wide range of quality was important to trade and employment, as were the glass and metalworking industries. Imports stimulated new regional centres of production. Southern Gaul became a leading producer of the finer red-gloss pottery (terra sigillata) that was a major item of trade in 1st-century Europe.  Glassblowing was regarded by the Romans as originating in Syria in the 1st century BC, and by the 3rd century Egypt and the Rhineland had become noted for fine glass. 

File:Skyphos Boscoreale Louvre Bj2367.jpg|Silver cup, from the Boscoreale treasure (early 1st century AD)
File:Nova-Zagora-history-museum-lamps-1-2century.jpg|Figural bronze oil lamps from Nova Zagora in Roman-era Bulgaria (1st–2nd century)
File:Céramique sigillée Metz 100109 2.jpg|Finely decorated Gallo-Roman terra sigillata bowl
File:Boucles d'oreilles 3ème siècle Musée de Laon 030208.jpg|Gold earrings with gemstones, 3rd century
File:Roman diatretglas.jpg|Glass cage cup from the Rhineland, latter 4th century

Performing arts

In Roman tradition, borrowed from the Greeks, literary theatre was performed by all-male troupes that used face masks with exaggerated facial expressions that allowed audiences to "see" how a character was feeling. Such masks were occasionally also specific to a particular role, and an actor could then play multiple roles merely by switching masks. Female roles were played by men in drag (travesti). Roman literary theater tradition is particularly well represented in Latin literature by the tragedies of Seneca. The circumstances under which Seneca's tragedies were performed are however unclear; scholarly conjectures range from minimally staged readings to full production pageants. More popular than literary theatre was the genre-defying mimus theater, which featured scripted scenarios with free improvisation, risqué language and jokes, sex scenes, action sequences, and political satire, along with dance numbers, juggling, acrobatics, tightrope walking, striptease, and dancing bears.  Unlike literary theater, mimus was played without masks, and encouraged stylistic realism in acting. Female roles were performed by women, not by men.  Mimus was related to the genre called pantomimus, an early form of story ballet that contained no spoken dialogue. Pantomimus combined expressive dancing, instrumental music and a sung libretto, often mythological, that could be either tragic or comic. 

Although sometimes regarded as foreign elements in Roman culture, music and dance had existed in Rome from earliest times.  Music was customary at funerals, and the tibia (Greek aulos), a woodwind instrument, was played at sacrifices to ward off ill influences.  Song (carmen) was an integral part of almost every social occasion.  The Secular Ode of Horace, commissioned by Augustus, was performed publicly in 17 BC by a mixed children's choir. Music was thought to reflect the orderliness of the cosmos, and was associated particularly with mathematics and knowledge. 

Various woodwinds and "brass" instruments were played, as were stringed instruments such as the cithara, and percussion.  The cornu, a long tubular metal wind instrument that curved around the musician's body, was used for military signals and on parade.  These instruments are found in parts of the Empire where they did not originate, and indicate that music was among the aspects of Roman culture that spread throughout the provinces. Instruments are widely depicted in Roman art. 

The hydraulic pipe organ (hydraulis) was "one of the most significant technical and musical achievements of antiquity",  and accompanied gladiator games and events in the amphitheatre, as well as stage performances. It was among the instruments that the emperor Nero played.

Although certain forms of dance were disapproved of at times as non-Roman or unmanly, dancing was embedded in religious rituals of archaic Rome, such as those of the dancing armed Salian priests and of the Arval Brothers, priesthoods which underwent a revival during the Principate.  Ecstatic dancing was a feature of the international mystery religions, particularly the cult of Cybele as practised by her eunuch priests the Galli  and of Isis. In the secular realm, dancing girls from Syria and Cadiz were extremely popular. 

Like gladiators, entertainers were infames in the eyes of the law, little better than slaves even if they were technically free. "Stars", however, could enjoy considerable wealth and celebrity, and mingled socially and often sexually with the upper classes, including emperors.  Performers supported each other by forming guilds, and several memorials for members of the theatre community survive.  Theatre and dance were often condemned by Christian polemicists in the later Empire,  and Christians who integrated dance traditions and music into their worship practices were regarded by the Church Fathers as shockingly "pagan."  St. Augustine is supposed to have said that bringing clowns, actors, and dancers into a house was like inviting in a gang of unclean spirits. 

Literacy, books, and education

Estimates of the average literacy rate in the Empire range from 5 to 30 percent or higher, depending in part on the definition of "literacy".  The Roman obsession with documents and public inscriptions indicates the high value placed on the written word.  The Imperial bureaucracy was so dependent on writing that the Babylonian Talmud declared "if all seas were ink, all reeds were pen, all skies parchment, and all men scribes, they would be unable to set down the full scope of the Roman government's concerns."  Laws and edicts were posted in writing as well as read out. Illiterate Roman subjects would have someone such as a government scribe (scriba) read or write their official documents for them.  Public art and religious ceremonies were ways to communicate imperial ideology regardless of ability to read.  Although the Romans were not a "People of the Book", they had an extensive priestly archive, and inscriptions appear throughout the Empire in connection with statues and small votives dedicated by ordinary people to divinities, as well as on binding tablets and other "magic spells", with hundreds of examples collected in the Greek Magical Papyri.  The military produced a vast amount of written reports and service records,  and literacy in the army was "strikingly high".  Urban graffiti, which include literary quotations, and low-quality inscriptions with misspellings and solecisms indicate casual literacy among non-elites.  In addition, numeracy was necessary for any form of commerce.  Slaves were numerate and literate in significant numbers, and some were highly educated. 

Books were expensive, since each copy had to be written out individually on a roll of papyrus (volumen) by scribes who had apprenticed to the trade.  The codex—a book with pages bound to a spine—was still a novelty in the time of the poet Martial (1st century AD),  but by the end of the 3rd century was replacing the volumen  and was the regular form for books with Christian content.  Commercial production of books had been established by the late Republic,  and by the 1st century AD certain neighbourhoods of Rome were known for their bookshops (tabernae librariae), which were found also in Western provincial cities such as Lugdunum (present-day Lyon, France).  The quality of editing varied wildly, and some ancient authors complain about error-ridden copies,  as well as plagiarism or forgery, since there was no copyright law.  A skilled slave copyist (servus litteratus) could be valued as highly as 100,000 sesterces. 

Collectors amassed personal libraries,  such as that of the Villa of the Papyri in Herculaneum, and a fine library was part of the cultivated leisure (otium) associated with the villa lifestyle.  Significant collections might attract "in-house" scholars; Lucian mocked mercenary Greek intellectuals who attached themselves to philistine Roman patrons.  An individual benefactor might endow a community with a library: Pliny the Younger gave the city of Comum a library valued at 1 million sesterces, along with another 100,000 to maintain it.  Imperial libraries housed in state buildings were open to users as a privilege on a limited basis, and represented a literary canon from which disreputable writers could be excluded.  Books considered subversive might be publicly burned,  and Domitian crucified copyists for reproducing works deemed treasonous. 

Literary texts were often shared aloud at meals or with reading groups.  Scholars such as Pliny the Elder engaged in "multitasking" by having works read aloud to them while they dined, bathed or travelled, times during which they might also dictate drafts or notes to their secretaries.  The multivolume Attic Nights of Aulus Gellius is an extended exploration of how Romans constructed their literary culture.  The reading public expanded from the 1st through the 3rd century, and while those who read for pleasure remained a minority, they were no longer confined to a sophisticated ruling elite, reflecting the social fluidity of the Empire as a whole and giving rise to "consumer literature" meant for entertainment.  Illustrated books, including erotica, were popular, but are poorly represented by extant fragments. 

Primary education

Traditional Roman education was moral and practical. Stories about great men and women, or cautionary tales about individual failures, were meant to instill Roman values (mores maiorum). Parents and family members were expected to act as role models, and parents who worked for a living passed their skills on to their children, who might also enter apprenticeships for more advanced training in crafts or trades.  Formal education was available only to children from families who could pay for it, and the lack of state intervention in access to education contributed to the low rate of literacy. 

Young children were attended by a pedagogus, or less frequently a female pedagoga, usually a Greek slave or former slave.  The pedagogue kept the child safe, taught self-discipline and public behaviour, attended class and helped with tutoring.  The emperor Julian recalled his pedagogue Mardonius, a eunuch slave who reared him from the age of 7 to 15, with affection and gratitude.  Usually, however, pedagogues received little respect. 

Primary education in reading, writing, and arithmetic might take place at home for privileged children whose parents hired or bought a teacher.   Others attended a school that was "public," though not state-supported, organized by an individual schoolmaster (ludimagister) who accepted fees from multiple parents.  Vernae (homeborn slave children) might share in home- or public-schooling.  Schools became more numerous during the Empire, and increased the opportunities for children to acquire an education.  School could be held regularly in a rented space, or in any available public niche, even outdoors. Boys and girls received primary education generally from ages 7 to 12, but classes were not segregated by grade or age.  For the socially ambitious, bilingual education in Greek as well as Latin was a must.

Quintilian provides the most extensive theory of primary education in Latin literature. According to Quintilian, each child has in-born ingenium, a talent for learning or linguistic intelligence that is ready to be cultivated and sharpened, as evidenced by the young child's ability to memorize and imitate.  The child incapable of learning was rare.  To Quintilian, ingenium represented a potential best realized in the social setting of school, and he argued against homeschooling. He also recognized the importance of play in child development,  and disapproved of corporal punishment because it discouraged love of learning—in contrast to the practice in most Roman primary schools of routinely striking children with a cane (ferula) or birch rod for being slow or disruptive. 

Secondary education

At the age of 14, upperclass males made their rite of passage into adulthood, and began to learn leadership roles in political, religious, and military life through mentoring from a senior member of their family or a family friend.  Higher education was provided by grammatici or rhetores.  The grammaticus or "grammarian" taught mainly Greek and Latin literature, with history, geography, philosophy or mathematics treated as explications of the text.   With the rise of Augustus, contemporary Latin authors such as Vergil and Livy also became part of the curriculum.  The rhetor was a teacher of oratory or public speaking. The art of speaking (ars dicendi) was highly prized as a marker of social and intellectual superiority, and eloquentia ("speaking ability, eloquence") was considered the "glue" of a civilized society.  Rhetoric was not so much a body of knowledge (though it required a command of references to the literary canon ) as it was a mode of expression and decorum that distinguished those who held social power.   The ancient model of rhetorical training—"restraint, coolness under pressure, modesty, and good humour" —endured into the 18th century as a Western educational ideal. 

In Latin, illiteratus (Greek agrammatos) could mean both "unable to read and write" and "lacking in cultural awareness or sophistication."  Higher education promoted career advancement, particularly for an equestrian in Imperial service: "eloquence and learning were considered marks of a well-bred man and worthy of reward".  The poet Horace, for instance, was given a top-notch education by his father, a prosperous former slave. 

Urban elites throughout the Empire shared a literary culture embued with Greek educational ideals (paideia).  Hellenistic cities sponsored schools of higher learning as an expression of cultural achievement.  Young men from Rome who wished to pursue the highest levels of education often went abroad to study rhetoric and philosophy, mostly to one of several Greek schools in Athens. The curriculum in the East was more likely to include music and physical training along with literacy and numeracy.  On the Hellenistic model, Vespasian endowed chairs of grammar, Latin and Greek rhetoric, and philosophy at Rome, and gave teachers special exemptions from taxes and legal penalties, though primary schoolmasters did not receive these benefits. Quintilian held the first chair of grammar.  In the eastern empire, Berytus (present-day Beirut) was unusual in offering a Latin education, and became famous for its school of Roman law.  The cultural movement known as the Second Sophistic (1st–3rd century AD) promoted the assimilation of Greek and Roman social, educational, and aesthetic values, and the Greek proclivities for which Nero had been criticized were regarded from the time of Hadrian onward as integral to Imperial culture. 

Educated women

Literate women ranged from cultured aristocrats to girls trained to be calligraphers and scribes.  The "girlfriends" addressed in Augustan love poetry, although fictional, represent an ideal that a desirable woman should be educated, well-versed in the arts, and independent to a frustrating degree.  Education seems to have been standard for daughters of the senatorial and equestrian orders during the Empire. A highly educated wife was an asset for the socially ambitious household, but one that Martial regards as an unnecessary luxury. 

The woman who achieved the greatest prominence in the ancient world for her learning was Hypatia of Alexandria, who educated young men in mathematics, philosophy, and astronomy, and advised the Roman prefect of Egypt on politics. Her influence put her into conflict with the bishop of Alexandria, Cyril, who may have been implicated in her violent death in 415 at the hands of a Christian mob. 

Decline of literacy

Literacy began to decline, perhaps dramatically, during the socio-political Crisis of the Third Century.  Although the Church Fathers were well-educated, they regarded Classical literature as dangerous, if valuable, and reconstrued it through moralizing and allegorical readings. Julian, the only emperor after the conversion of Constantine to reject Christianity, banned Christians from teaching the Classical curriculum, on the grounds that they might corrupt the minds of youth. 

While the book roll had emphasized the continuity of the text, the codex format encouraged a "piecemeal" approach to reading by means of citation, fragmented interpretation, and the extraction of maxims.  In the 5th and 6th centuries, reading became rarer even for those within the Church hierarchy. 

Literature

In the traditional literary canon, literature under Augustus, along with that of the late Republic, has been viewed as the "Golden Age" of Latin literature, embodying the classical ideals of "unity of the whole, the proportion of the parts, and the careful articulation of an apparently seamless composition."  The three most influential Classical Latin poets—Vergil, Horace, and Ovid—belong to this period. Vergil wrote the Aeneid, creating a national epic for Rome in the manner of the Homeric epics of Greece. Horace perfected the use of Greek lyric meters in Latin verse. Ovid's erotic poetry was enormously popular, but ran afoul of the Augustan moral programme; it was one of the ostensible causes for which the emperor exiled him to Tomis (present-day Constanța, Romania), where he remained to the end of his life. Ovid's Metamorphoses was a continuous poem of fifteen books weaving together Greco-Roman mythology from the creation of the universe to the deification of Julius Caesar. Ovid's versions of Greek myths became one of the primary sources of later classical mythology, and his work was so influential in the Middle Ages that the 12th and 13th centuries have been called the "Age of Ovid." 

The principal Latin prose author of the Augustan age is the historian Livy, whose account of Rome's founding and early history became the most familiar version in modern-era literature. Vitruvius's book De Architectura, the only complete work on architecture to survive from antiquity, also belongs to this period.

Latin writers were immersed in the Greek literary tradition, and adapted its forms and much of its content, but Romans regarded satire as a genre in which they surpassed the Greeks. Horace wrote verse satires before fashioning himself as an Augustan court poet, and the early Principate also produced the satirists Persius and Juvenal. The poetry of Juvenal offers a lively curmudgeon's perspective on urban society.

The period from the mid-1st century through the mid-2nd century has conventionally been called the "Silver Age" of Latin literature. Under Nero, disillusioned writers reacted to Augustanism.  The three leading writers—Seneca the philosopher, dramatist, and tutor of Nero; Lucan, his nephew, who turned Caesar's civil war into an epic poem; and the novelist Petronius (Satyricon)—all committed suicide after incurring the emperor's displeasure. Seneca and Lucan were from Hispania, as was the later epigrammatist and keen social observer Martial, who expressed his pride in his Celtiberian heritage.  Martial and the epic poet Statius, whose poetry collection Silvae had a far-reaching influence on Renaissance literature,  wrote during the reign of Domitian.

The so-called "Silver Age" produced several distinguished writers, including the encyclopedist Pliny the Elder; his nephew, known as Pliny the Younger; and the historian Tacitus. The Natural History of the elder Pliny, who died during disaster relief efforts in the wake of the eruption of Vesuvius, is a vast collection on flora and fauna, gems and minerals, climate, medicine, freaks of nature, works of art, and antiquarian lore. Tacitus's reputation as a literary artist matches or exceeds his value as a historian;  his stylistic experimentation produced "one of the most powerful of Latin prose styles."  The Twelve Caesars by his contemporary Suetonius is one of the primary sources for imperial biography.

Among Imperial historians who wrote in Greek are Dionysius of Halicarnassus, the Jewish historian Josephus, and the senator Cassius Dio. Other major Greek authors of the Empire include the biographer and antiquarian Plutarch, the geographer Strabo, and the rhetorician and satirist Lucian. Popular Greek romance novels were part of the development of long-form fiction works, represented in Latin by the Satyricon of Petronius and The Golden Ass of Apuleius.

From the 2nd to the 4th centuries, the Christian authors who would become the Latin Church Fathers were in active dialogue with the Classical tradition, within which they had been educated. Tertullian, a convert to Christianity from Roman Africa, was the contemporary of Apuleius and one of the earliest prose authors to establish a distinctly Christian voice. After the conversion of Constantine, Latin literature is dominated by the Christian perspective.  When the orator Symmachus argued for the preservation of Rome's religious traditions, he was effectively opposed by Ambrose, the bishop of Milan and future saint—a debate preserved by their missives. 

In the late 4th century, Jerome produced the Latin translation of the Bible that became authoritative as the Vulgate. Augustine, another of the Church Fathers from the province of Africa, has been called "one of the most influential writers of western culture", and his Confessions is sometimes considered the first autobiography of Western literature. In The City of God against the Pagans, Augustine builds a vision of an eternal, spiritual Rome, a new imperium sine fine that will outlast the collapsing Empire.

In contrast to the unity of Classical Latin, the literary aesthetic of late antiquity has a tessellated quality that has been compared to the mosaics characteristic of the period.  A continuing interest in the religious traditions of Rome prior to Christian dominion is found into the 5th century, with the Saturnalia of Macrobius and The Marriage of Philology and Mercury of Martianus Capella. Prominent Latin poets of late antiquity include Ausonius, Prudentius, Claudian, and Sidonius. Ausonius (d. ca. 394), the Bordelaise tutor of the emperor Gratian, was at least nominally a Christian, though throughout his occasionally obscene mixed-genre poems, he retains a literary interest in the Greco-Roman gods and even druidism. The imperial panegyrist Claudian (d. 404) was a vir illustris who appears never to have converted.  Prudentius (d. ca. 413), born in Hispania Tarraconensis and a fervent Christian, was thoroughly versed in the poets of the Classical tradition,  and transforms their vision of poetry as a monument of immortality into an expression of the poet's quest for eternal life culminating in Christian salvation.  Sidonius (d. 486), a native of Lugdunum, was a Roman senator and bishop of Clermont who cultivated a traditional villa lifestyle as he watched the Western empire succumb to barbarian incursions. His poetry and collected letters offer a unique view of life in late Roman Gaul from the perspective of a man who "survived the end of his world". 

Religion

Religion in the Roman Empire encompassed the practices and beliefs the Romans regarded as their own, as well as the many cults imported to Rome or practised by peoples throughout the provinces. The Romans thought of themselves as highly religious, and attributed their success as a world power to their collective piety (pietas) in maintaining good relations with the gods (pax deorum). The archaic religion believed to have been handed down from the earliest kings of Rome was the foundation of the mos maiorum, "the way of the ancestors" or "tradition", viewed as central to Roman identity.  There was no principle analogous to "separation of church and state". The priesthoods of the state religion were filled from the same social pool of men who held public office, and in the Imperial era, the Pontifex Maximus was the emperor.

Roman religion was practical and contractual, based on the principle of do ut des, "I give that you might give." Religion depended on knowledge and the correct practice of prayer, ritual, and sacrifice, not on faith or dogma, although Latin literature preserves learned speculation on the nature of the divine and its relation to human affairs. For ordinary Romans, religion was a part of daily life.  Each home had a household shrine at which prayers and libations to the family's domestic deities were offered. Neighborhood shrines and sacred places such as springs and groves dotted the city. Apuleius (2nd century) described the everyday quality of religion in observing how people who passed a cult place might make a vow or a fruit offering, or merely sit for a while.  The Roman calendar was structured around religious observances. In the Imperial era, as many as 135 days of the year were devoted to religious festivals and games (ludi).  Women, slaves, and children all participated in a range of religious activities.

In the wake of the Republic's collapse, state religion had adapted to support the new regime of the emperors. As the first Roman emperor, Augustus justified the novelty of one-man rule with a vast program of religious revivalism and reform. Public vows formerly made for the security of the republic now were directed at the wellbeing of the emperor. So-called "emperor worship" expanded on a grand scale the traditional Roman veneration of the ancestral dead and of the Genius, the divine tutelary of every individual. Upon death, an emperor could be made a state divinity (divus) by vote of the Senate. Imperial cult, influenced by Hellenistic ruler cult, became one of the major ways Rome advertised its presence in the provinces and cultivated shared cultural identity and loyalty throughout the Empire. Cultural precedent in the Eastern provinces facilitated a rapid dissemination of Imperial cult, extending as far as the Augustan military settlement at Najran, in present-day Saudi Arabia.  Rejection of the state religion became tantamount to treason against the emperor. This was the context for Rome's conflict with Christianity, which Romans variously regarded as a form of atheism and novel superstitio.

The Romans are known for the great number of deities they honoured, a capacity that earned the mockery of early Christian polemicists.  As the Romans extended their dominance throughout the Mediterranean world, their policy in general was to absorb the deities and cults of other peoples rather than try to eradicate them.  One way that Rome promoted stability among diverse peoples was by supporting their religious heritage, building temples to local deities that framed their theology within the hierarchy of Roman religion. Inscriptions throughout the Empire record the side-by-side worship of local and Roman deities, including dedications made by Romans to local gods.  By the height of the Empire, numerous cults of pseudo-foreign gods (Roman reinventions of foreign gods) were cultivated at Rome and in the provinces, among them cults of Cybele, Isis, Epona, and of solar gods such as Mithras and Sol Invictus, found as far north as Roman Britain.  Because Romans had never been obligated to cultivate one god or one cult only, religious tolerance was not an issue in the sense that it is for competing monotheistic systems. 

Mystery religions, which offered initiates salvation in the afterlife, were a matter of personal choice for an individual, practised in addition to carrying on one's family rites and participating in public religion. The mysteries, however, involved exclusive oaths and secrecy, conditions that conservative Romans viewed with suspicion as characteristic of "magic", conspiracy (coniuratio), and subversive activity. Sporadic and sometimes brutal attempts were made to suppress religionists who seemed to threaten traditional morality and unity. In Gaul, the power of the druids was checked, first by forbidding Roman citizens to belong to the order, and then by banning druidism altogether. At the same time, however, Celtic traditions were reinterpreted (interpretatio romana) within the context of Imperial theology, and a new Gallo-Roman religion coalesced, with its capital at the Sanctuary of the Three Gauls in Lugdunum (present-day Lyon, France). The sanctuary established precedent for Western cult as a form of Roman-provincial identity. 

The monotheistic rigour of Judaism posed difficulties for Roman policy that led at times to compromise and the granting of special exemptions. Tertullian noted that the Jewish religion, unlike that of the Christians, was considered a religio licita, "legitimate religion." Wars between the Romans and the Jews occurred when conflict, political as well as religious, became intractable. When Caligula wanted to place a golden statue of his deified self in the Temple in Jerusalem, the potential sacrilege and likely war were prevented only by his timely death.  The Siege of Jerusalem in 70 AD led to the sacking of the temple and the dispersal of Jewish political power (see Jewish diaspora).

Christianity emerged in Roman Judea as a Jewish religious sect in the 1st century AD. The religion gradually spread out of Jerusalem, initially establishing major bases in first Antioch, then Alexandria, and over time throughout the Empire as well as beyond. Imperially authorized persecutions were limited and sporadic, with martyrdoms occurring most often under the authority of local officials. 

The first persecution by an emperor occurred under Nero, and was confined to the city of Rome. Tacitus reports that after the Great Fire of Rome in AD 64, some among the population held Nero responsible and that the emperor attempted to deflect blame onto the Christians.  After Nero, a major persecution occurred under the emperor Domitian   and a persecution in 177 took place at Lugdunum, the Gallo-Roman religious capital. A surviving letter from Pliny the Younger, governor of Bythinia, to the emperor Trajan describes his persecution and executions of Christians.  The Decian persecution of 246–251 was a serious threat to the Church, but ultimately strengthened Christian defiance.  Diocletian undertook what was to be the most severe persecution of Christians, lasting from 303 to 311.

In the early 4th century, Constantine I became the first emperor to convert to Christianity. During the rest of the fourth century Christianity became the dominant religion of the Empire. The emperor Julian made a short-lived attempt to revive traditional and Hellenistic religion and to affirm the special status of Judaism, but in 380 (Edict of Thessalonica), under Theodosius I Christianity became the official state church of the Roman Empire, to the exclusion of all others. From the 2nd century onward, the Church Fathers had begun to condemn the diverse religions practised throughout the Empire collectively as "pagan."  Pleas for religious tolerance from traditionalists such as the senator Symmachus (d. 402) were rejected, and Christian monotheism became a feature of Imperial domination. Christian heretics as well as non-Christians were subject to exclusion from public life or persecution, but Rome's original religious hierarchy and many aspects of its ritual influenced Christian forms,  and many pre-Christian beliefs and practices survived in Christian festivals and local traditions.

Political legacy

Several states claimed to be the Roman Empire's successors after the fall of the Western Roman Empire. The Holy Roman Empire, an attempt to resurrect the Empire in the West, was established in 800 when Pope Leo III crowned Frankish King Charlemagne as Roman Emperor on Christmas Day, though the empire and the imperial office did not become formalized for some decades. After the fall of Constantinople, the Russian Tsardom, as inheritor of the Byzantine Empire's Orthodox Christian tradition, counted itself the Third Rome (Constantinople having been the second). These concepts are known as Translatio imperii. 

When the Ottomans, who based their state on the Byzantine model, took Constantinople in 1453, Mehmed II established his capital there and claimed to sit on the throne of the Roman Empire.  He even went so far as to launch an invasion of Italy with the purpose of re-uniting the Empire and invited European artists to his capital, including Gentile Bellini. 

In the medieval West, "Roman" came to mean the church and the Pope of Rome. The Greek form Romaioi remained attached to the Greek-speaking Christian population of the Eastern Roman Empire, and is still used by Greeks in addition to their common appellation. 

The Roman Empire's territorial legacy of controlling the Italian peninsula would serve as an influence to Italian nationalism and the unification of Italy (Risorgimento) in 1861. 

In the United States, the founders were educated in the classical tradition,  and used classical models for landmarks and buildings in Washington, D.C., to avoid the feudal and religious connotations of European architecture such as castles and cathedrals.   In forming their theory of the mixed constitution, the founders looked to Athenian democracy and Roman republicanism for models, but regarded the Roman emperor as a figure of tyranny.  They nonetheless adopted Roman Imperial forms such as the dome, as represented by the US Capitol and numerous state capitol buildings, to express classical ideals through architecture.  Thomas Jefferson saw the Empire as a negative political lesson, but was a chief proponent of its architectural models. Jefferson's design for the Virginia State Capitol, for instance, is modelled directly from the Maison Carrée, a Gallo-Roman temple built under Augustus.  The renovations of the National Mall at the beginning of the 20th century have been viewed as expressing a more overt imperialist kinship with Rome.Wood, The Idea of America, pp. 228–330; Jackson Lears, Rebirth of a Nation: The Making of Modern America, 1877–1920 (HarperCollins, 2009), pp. 277–278; Frederick Gutheim and Antoinette J. Lee, Worthy of the Nation: Washington, DC, from L'Enfant to the National Capital Planning Committee (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006), 2nd ed.), pp. 137, 152. Julia Agrippina, most commonly referred to as Agrippina Minor or Agrippina the Younger, and after AD 50 known as Julia Augusta Agrippina (Minor; Latin for the "younger";  7 November 15 – 19/23 March 59), was a Roman Empress and one of the more prominent women in the Julio-Claudian dynasty. She was a great-granddaughter of the Emperor Augustus, great-niece and adoptive granddaughter of the Emperor Tiberius, sister of the Emperor Caligula, niece and fourth wife of the Emperor Claudius, and mother of the Emperor Nero.

Agrippina the Younger has been described by ancient sources and modern scholars as ruthless, ambitious, violent, and domineering. She was a beautiful and reputable woman and according to Pliny the Elder, she had a double canine in her upper right jaw, a sign of good fortune. Many ancient historians accuse Agrippina of poisoning Emperor Claudius, though accounts vary.Tacitus, Annals XII.66; Cassius Dio, Roman History LXI.34; Suetonius, The Lives of Twelve Caesars, Life of Claudius 44; Josephus is less sure, Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews XX.8.1

Family

Agrippina was the first daughter and fourth living child of Agrippina the Elder and Germanicus. She had three elder brothers, Nero Caesar, Drusus Caesar and the future Emperor Caligula, and two younger sisters, Julia Drusilla and Julia Livilla. Agrippina's two elder brothers and her mother were victims of the intrigues of the Praetorian Prefect Lucius Aelius Sejanus.

She was the namesake of her mother. Agrippina the Elder was remembered as a modest and heroic matron, who was the second daughter and fourth child of Julia the Elder and the statesman Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa. The father of Julia the Elder was the Emperor Augustus, and Julia was his only natural child from his second marriage to Scribonia, who had close blood relations with Pompey the Great and Lucius Cornelius Sulla. Maternally, Agrippina descended directly from Augustus.

Germanicus, Agrippina's father, was a very popular general and politician. His mother was Antonia Minor and his father was the general Nero Claudius Drusus. He was Antonia Minor's first child. Germanicus had two younger siblings; a sister, named Livilla, and a brother, the future Emperor Claudius. Claudius was Agrippina's paternal uncle and third husband.

Antonia Minor was a daughter to Octavia the Younger by her second marriage to triumvir Mark Antony, and Octavia was the second eldest sister and full-blooded sister of Augustus. Germanicus' father, Drusus the Elder, was the second son of the Empress Livia Drusilla by her first marriage to praetor Tiberius Nero, and was the Emperor Tiberius's younger brother and Augustus's stepson. In the year 9, Augustus ordered and forced Tiberius to adopt Germanicus, who happened to be Tiberius's nephew, as his son and heir. Germanicus was a favorite of his great-uncle Augustus, who hoped that Germanicus would succeed his uncle Tiberius, who was Augustus's own adopted son and heir. This in turn meant that Tiberius was also Agrippina's adoptive grandfather in addition to her paternal great-uncle.

Birth and early life

Agrippina was born at Oppidum Ubiorum on 6 November AD 15 or possibly 14, a Roman outpost on the Rhine River located in present-day Cologne, Germany.  A second sister Julia Drusilla was born on 16 Sept. AD 16 also in Germany.   As a small child, Agrippina traveled with her parents throughout Germany (AD 15-16) until she and her siblings (apart from Caligula) returned to Rome to live with and be raised by their maternal grandmother Antonia.  Her parents departed for Syria in AD 18 to conduct official duties, and, according to Tacitus, the third and youngest sister was born en route on the island of Lesbos, namely Julia Livilla, probably in March AD 18.  In October AD 19, Germanicus died suddenly in Antioch (modern Antakya, Turkey).

Germanicus' death caused much public grief in Rome, and gave rise to rumors that he had been murdered by Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso and Munatia Plancina on the orders of Tiberius, as his widow Agrippina the Elder returned to Rome with his ashes. Agrippina the Younger was thereafter supervised by her mother, her paternal grandmother Antonia Minor, and her great-grandmother, Livia, all of them notable, influential, and powerful figures from whom she learnt how to survive. She lived on the Palatine Hill in Rome. Her great-uncle Tiberius had already become emperor and the head of the family after the death of Augustus in 14.

First marriage to Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus

After her thirteenth birthday in 28, Tiberius arranged for Agrippina to marry her paternal first cousin once removed Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus and ordered the marriage to be celebrated in Rome.  Domitius came from a distinguished family of consular rank. Through his mother Antonia Major, Domitius was a great nephew of Augustus, first cousin to Claudius, and first cousin once removed to Agrippina and Caligula. He had two sisters; Domitia Lepida the Elder and Domitia Lepida the Younger. Domitia Lepida the Younger was the mother of the Empress Valeria Messalina.

Antonia Major was the elder sister to Antonia Minor, and the first daughter of Octavia Minor and Mark Antony. According to Suetonius, Domitius was a wealthy man with a despicable and dishonest character, who, according to Suetonius, was "a man who was in every aspect of his life detestable" and served as consul in 32. Agrippina and Domitius lived between Antium (modern Anzio and Nettuno ) and Rome. Not much is known about the relationship between them.

Reign of Caligula

Tiberius died on March 16, 37 and Agrippina's only surviving brother, Caligula, became the new emperor. Being the emperor's sister gave Agrippina some influence.

Agrippina and her younger sisters Julia Drusilla and Julia Livilla received various honors from their brother, which included but were not limited to:

* They were given the rights of the Vestal Virgins like the freedom to view public games from the upper seats in the stadium.
* Coins were issued depicting images of Caligula and his sisters. Roman coins like these were never issued beforehand. The coins depicted Caligula on one side and his sisters on the opposite.
* Caligula added his sister's names to motions. In loyalty oaths, it was, "I will not value my life or that of my children less highly than I do the safety of the Emperor and his sisters," or, if in consular motions: "Good fortune attend to the Emperor and his sisters."

Around the time that Tiberius died, Agrippina had become pregnant. Domitius had acknowledged the paternity of the child. In the early morning hours in Antium of December 15, 37, Agrippina gave birth to a son. Agrippina and Domitius named their son Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, after the Domitius' recently deceased father. This child would grow up to become the Emperor Nero. Nero was Agrippina's only natural child. Suetonius states that Domitius was congratulated by friends on the birth of his son, whereupon he replied "I don't think anything produced by me and Agrippina could possibly be good for the state or the people".

Caligula and his sisters were accused of having incestuous relationships. On June 10, 38, Drusilla died, possibly of a fever, rampant in Rome at the time. He was particularly fond of Drusilla, claiming to treat her as he would his own wife, even though Drusilla had a husband. Following her death Caligula showed no special love or respect toward the surviving sisters and was said to have gone insane.

In 39, Agrippina and Livilla, with their maternal cousin, Drusilla's widower Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, were involved in a failed plot to murder Caligula, a plot known as the Plot of the Three Daggers, which was to make Lepidus the new emperor. Lepidus, Agrippina and Livilla were accused of being lovers. Not much is known concerning this plot and the reasons behind it. At the trial of Lepidus, Caligula felt no compunction about denouncing them as adulteresses, producing handwritten letters discussing how they were going to kill him.

Exile 

Lepidus was executed. Agrippina and Livilla were exiled by their brother to the Pontine Islands. Caligula sold their furniture, jewellery, slaves and freedmen. In January 40  Domitius died of edema (dropsy) at Pyrgi. Lucius had gone to live with his second paternal aunt Domitia Lepida the Younger after Caligula had taken his inheritance away from him.

Caligula, his wife Milonia Caesonia and their daughter Julia Drusilla were murdered on January 24, 41. Agrippina's paternal uncle, Claudius, brother of her father Germanicus, became the new Roman Emperor.

Reign of Claudius

Return from exile

Claudius lifted the exiles of Agrippina and Livilla. Livilla returned to her husband, while Agrippina was reunited with her estranged son. After the death of her first husband, Agrippina tried to make shameless advances to the future emperor Galba, who showed no interest in her and was devoted to his wife Aemilia Lepida. On one occasion, Galba's mother-in-law gave Agrippina, in a whole bevy of married women, a public reprimand and a slap in the face. 

Claudius had Lucius' inheritance reinstated. Lucius became more wealthy despite his youth shortly after Gaius Sallustius Crispus Passienus divorced Lucius' aunt, Domitia Lepida the Elder (Lucius' first paternal aunt) so that Crispus could marry Agrippina. They married, and Crispus  became a step-father to Lucius. Crispus was a prominent, influential, witty, wealthy and powerful man, who served twice as consul. He was the adopted grandson and biological great, great nephew of the historian Sallust. Little is known on their relationship, but Crispus soon died and left his estate to Nero.

In the first years of Claudius' reign, Claudius was married to the infamous Empress Valeria Messalina. Although Agrippina was very influential, she kept a very low profile and stayed away from the imperial palace and the court of the emperor. Messalina was Agrippina's second paternal cousin. Among the victims of Messalina's intrigues were Agrippina's surviving sister Livilla, who was charged with having adultery with Seneca the Younger. Seneca was later called back from exile to be a tutor to Nero.

Messalina considered Agrippina's son a threat to her son's position and sent assassins to strangle Lucius during his siesta. The assassins fled in terror when they saw a snake suddenly dart from beneath Lucius' pillow—but it was only a sloughed-off snake-skin in his bed, near his pillow.

In 47, Crispus died, and at his funeral, the rumor spread around that Agrippina poisoned Crispus to gain his estate. After being widowed a second time, Agrippina was left very wealthy. Later that year at the Secular Games, at the performance of the Troy Pageant, Messalina attended the event with her son Britannicus. Agrippina was also present with Lucius. Agrippina and Lucius received greater applause from the audience than Messalina and Britannicus did. Many people began to show pity and sympathy to Agrippina, due to the unfortunate circumstances in her life. Agrippina wrote a memoir that recorded the misfortunes of her family (casus suorum) and wrote an account of her mother's life.

Rise to power

After Messalina was executed in 48 for conspiring with Gaius Silius to overthrow her husband, Claudius considered remarrying for the fourth time. Around this time, Agrippina became the mistress to one of Claudius' advisers, the former Greek Freedman Marcus Antonius Pallas. At that time Claudius' advisers were discussing which noblewoman Claudius should marry. Claudius had a reputation that he was easily persuaded. In more recent times, it has been suggested that the Senate may have pushed for the marriage between Agrippina and Claudius to end the feud between the Julian and Claudian branches.  This feud dated back to Agrippina's mother's actions against Tiberius after the death of Germanicus, actions which Tiberius had gladly punished.

Regardless, for Agrippina's seduction, it was a help that she had the niece's privilege of kissing and caressing her paternal uncle. Claudius was seduced by her passions. Claudius made references to her in his speeches: "my daughter and foster child, born and bred, in my lap, so to speak". When Claudius decided to marry her, he persuaded a group of senators that the marriage should be arranged in the public interest. In Roman society, an uncle (Claudius) marrying his niece (Agrippina) was considered incestuous, and obviously immoral.

Marriage to Claudius 

Agrippina and Claudius married on New Year's Day, 49. This marriage caused widespread disapproval. This was a part of Agrippina's scheming plan to make Lucius the new emperor. Her marriage to Claudius was not based on love, but on power. She quickly eliminated her rival Lollia Paulina. In 49, shortly after marrying Claudius, Agrippina charged Paulina with black magic. Paulina did not receive a hearing. Her property was confiscated.  She left Italy and, on Agrippina's orders, committed suicide.

In the months leading up to her marriage to Claudius, Agrippina's maternal second cousin, the praetor Lucius Junius Silanus Torquatus, was betrothed to Claudius' daughter Claudia Octavia. This betrothal was broken off in 48 when Agrippina, scheming with the consul Lucius Vitellius the Elder, the father of the future Emperor Aulus Vitellius, falsely accused Silanus of incest with his sister Junia Calvina. Agrippina did this hoping to secure a marriage between Octavia and her son. Consequently, Claudius broke off the engagement and forced Silanus to resign from public office.

Silanus committed suicide on the day that Agrippina married her uncle, and Calvina was exiled from Italy in early 49. Calvina was called back from exile after the death of Agrippina. Towards the end of 54, Agrippina would order the murder of Silanus' eldest brother Marcus Junius Silanus Torquatus without Nero's knowledge, so that he would not seek revenge against her over his brother's death.

Empress of Rome

On the day that Agrippina married her uncle Claudius as her third husband/his fourth wife, she became an Empress and the most powerful woman in the Roman Empire. She also was a stepmother to Claudia Antonia, Claudius' daughter and only child from his second marriage to Aelia Paetina, and to the young Claudia Octavia and Britannicus, Claudius' children with Valeria Messalina. Agrippina removed or eliminated anyone from the palace or the imperial court who she thought was loyal and dedicated to the memory of the late Messalina. She also eliminated or removed anyone who she considered was a potential threat to her position and the future of her son, one of her victims being Lucius' second paternal aunt and Messalina's mother Domitia Lepida the Younger.

In 49, Agrippina was seated on a dais at a parade of captives when their leader the Celtic King Caratacus bowed before her with the same homage and gratitude as he accorded the emperor. In 50, Agrippina was granted the honorific title of Augusta, a title which, up until this point, no other imperial woman had ever received in the lifetime of her husband. She was only the third Roman woman (Livia Drusilla and Antonia Minor received this title) and only the second living Roman woman (the first being Antonia) to receive this title.

Also that year, Claudius had founded a Roman colony and called the colony Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensis or Agrippinensium, today known as Cologne, after Agrippina who was born there. This colony was the only Roman colony to be named after a Roman woman. In 51, she was given a carpentum which she used. A carpentum was a sort of ceremonial carriage usually reserved for priests, such as the Vestal Virgins, and sacred statues. That same year she appointed Sextus Afranius Burrus as the head of the Praetorian Guard, replacing the previous head of the Praetorian Guard, Rufrius Crispinus.

Ancient sources claim that Agrippina successfully manipulated and influenced Claudius into adopting her son and having him become his successor. Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus in 50 was adopted by his great maternal uncle and stepfather. Lucius' name was changed to Nero Claudius Caesar Drusus Germanicus and he became Claudius's adopted son, heir and recognised successor. Agrippina and Claudius betrothed Nero to Octavia, and Agrippina arranged to have Seneca the Younger return from exile to tutor the future emperor. Claudius chose to adopt Nero because of his Julian and Claudian lineage. 

Agrippina deprived Britannicus of his heritage and further isolated him from his father and succession for the throne in every way possible. For instance, in 51, Agrippina ordered the execution of Britannicus' tutor Sosibius because he had confronted her and was outraged by Claudius' adoption of Nero and his choice of Nero as successor, instead of choosing his own son Britannicus. 

Nero and Octavia were married on June 9, 53. Claudius later repented of marrying Agrippina and adopting Nero, began to favor Britannicus, and started preparing him for the throne. His actions allegedly gave Agrippina a motive to eliminate Claudius. The ancient sources say she poisoned Claudius on October 13, 54 with a plate of deadly mushrooms at a banquet, thus enabling Nero to quickly take the throne as emperor. Accounts vary wildly with regard to this private incident and according to more modern sources, it is possible (but exceedingly convenient) that Claudius died of natural causes; Claudius was 63 years old.

Reign of Nero

Power struggle between mother and son

Agrippina was named a priestess of the cult of the deified Claudius. She was allowed to visit senate meetings, watch and hear the meetings behind a curtain. This evidently shows that she had real power.

In the first months of Nero's reign Agrippina controlled her son and the Empire. She lost control over Nero when he began to have an affair with the freedwoman Claudia Acte, which Agrippina strongly disapproved of and violently scolded him for. Agrippina began to support Britannicus in her attempt to make him emperor. Britannicus was secretly poisoned on Nero's orders during his own banquet in February 55. The power struggle between Agrippina and her son had begun.

Agrippina between 55 and 58 became very watchful and had a critical eye over her son. In 55, Agrippina was forced out of the palace by her son to live in imperial residence. Nero deprived his mother of all honors and powers, and even removed her Roman and German bodyguards. Nero even threatened his mother he would abdicate the throne and would go to live on the Greek Island of Rhodes, a place where Tiberius had lived after divorcing Julia the Elder. Pallas also was dismissed from the court. The fall of Pallas and the opposition of Burrus and Seneca, contributed to Agrippina's loss of authority.Simon Hornblower, Antony Spawforth – E.A. (edd.), Oxford Classical Dictionary, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2003

Towards 57, Agrippina was expelled from the palace and went to live in a riverside estate in Misenum. While Agrippina lived there or when she went on short visits to Rome, Nero had sent people to annoy her. Although living in Misenum, she was still very popular, powerful and influential. Agrippina and Nero would see each other on short visits.

Death and aftermath

The circumstances that surround Agrippina's death are uncertain due to historical contradictions and anti-Nero bias. All surviving stories of Agrippina's death contradict themselves and each other, and are generally fantastical.

Tacitus's account

According to Tacitus, in 58, Nero became involved with the noble woman Poppaea Sabina. With the reasoning that a divorce from Octavia and a marriage to Poppaea was not politically feasible with Agrippina alive, Nero decided to kill Agrippina.  Yet, Nero did not marry Poppaea until 62, calling into question this motive.   Additionally, Suetonius reveals that Poppaea's husband, Otho, was not sent away by Nero until after Agrippina's death in 59, making it highly unlikely that already married Poppaea would be pressing Nero.  Some modern historians theorize that Nero's decision to kill Agrippina was prompted by her plotting to set Gaius Rubellius Plautus (Nero's maternal second cousin) or Britannicus (Claudius' biological son) on the throne. 

Tacitus claims that Nero considered poisoning or stabbing her, but felt these methods were too difficult and suspicious, so he settled on - after the advice of his former tutor Anicetus - building a self-sinking boat.  Though aware of the plot, Agrippina embarked on this boat and was nearly crushed by a collapsing lead ceiling only to be saved by the side of a sofa breaking the ceiling's fall.Tacitus, Annals XIV.5 Though the collapsing ceiling missed Agrippina, it crushed her attendant who was outside by the helm.

The boat failed to sink from the lead ceiling, so the crew then sank the boat, but Agrippina swam to shore. Her friend, Acerronia Polla, was attacked by oarsmen while still in the water, and was either bludgeoned to death or drowned, since she was exclaiming that she was Agrippina, with the intention of being saved. She did not know, however, that this was an assassination attempt, not a mere accident. Agrippina was met at the shore by crowds of admirers.Tacitus, Annals XIV.8 News of Agrippina's survival reached Nero so he sent three assassins to kill her.

Suetonius's account

According to Suetonius, Nero was annoyed at his mother being too watchful and tried three times to poison Agrippina, but she took the antidotes in time and survived.Suetonius, The Lives of Caesars, Life of Nero 34 He then tried to crush her with a mechanical ceiling over her bed at her residence. After this failed, he devised a collapsable boat, which would either have its cabin fall in or become shipwrecked.  Nero then ordered captains of a different boat to ram this boat while Agrippina was aboard.  Nero heard Agrippina survived the wreck so he ordered her to be executed and framed it as a suicide.

Cassius Dio's account

The tale of Cassius Dio is also somewhat different. It starts again with Poppaea as the motive behind the murder.   Nero designed a ship that would open at the bottom while at sea.Cassius Dio, Roman History LXIII.12  Agrippina was put aboard and after the bottom of the ship opened up, she fell into the water. Agrippina swam to shore so Nero sent an assassin to kill her.   Nero then claimed Agrippina plotted to kill him and committed suicide.  Her reputed last words, uttered as the assassin was about to strike, were "Smite my womb", the implication here being she wished to be destroyed first in that part of her body that had given birth to so "abominable a son." 

Burial

After Agrippina's death, Nero viewed her corpse and commented how beautiful she was, according to some.  Her body was cremated that night on a dining couch. At his mother's funeral, Nero was witless, speechless and rather scared. When the news spread that Agrippina had died, the Roman army, senate and various people sent him letters of congratulations that he had been saved from his mother's plots.

Aftermath

During the remainder of Nero's reign, Agrippina's grave was not covered or enclosed. Her household later on gave her a modest tomb in Misenum. Nero would have his mother's death on his conscience. He felt so guilty he would sometimes have nightmares about his mother. He even saw his mother's ghost and got Persian magicians to scare her away. Years before she died, Agrippina had visited astrologers to ask about her son's future. The astrologers had rather accurately predicted that her son would become emperor and would kill her. She replied, "Let him kill me, provided he becomes emperor," according to Tacitus.

Agrippina's alleged victims 

* 47 AD
** Passienus Crispus Agrippina's 2nd husband poisoned (suet)
* 49 AD
** Lollia Paulina as she was a rival for Claudius' hand in marriage as proposed by the freedman Callistus. (Tac. & Dio)
** Lucius Silanus was betrothed to Octavia, Claudius' daughter before his marriage of Agrippina. He committed suicide on their wedding day.
** Sosibius Britannicus' tutor executed for plotting against Nero.
** Calpurnia banished (Tac.) executed (Dio) because Claudius had commented on her beauty.
* 53 AD
** Statilius Taurus was forced to suicide because Agrippina wanted his gardens. (Tac)
* 54 AD
** Claudius her husband poisoned (Tac. Sen. Juv. Suet. Dio.)
** Domitia Lepida mother of Messalina executed. (Tac.)
** Marcus Junius Silanus potential rival to Nero poisoned. (Pliny, Tac. Dio)
** Cadius Rufus was executed on the charge of extortion.

Ancestry

Cultural references

In music and literature 

*Agrippina: Trauerspiel (1665), a German baroque tragedy by Daniel Casper von Lohenstein
*G.F. Handel's 1709 opera Agrippina with a libretto by Vincenzo Grimani
*Empress of Rome (1978), a novel by Robert DeMaria (Vineyard Press edition, 2001, ISBN 1-930067-05-4)

In film, television, and radio 

* The 1911 Italian film Agrippina
*I, Claudius (1976) played by Barbara Young (here called Agrippinilla).
*Caligula (1979) and also Messalina, Messalina (1977) played by Lori Wagner.
*A.D. (1985 miniseries) played by Ava Gardner.
*Boudica (2003) played by Frances Barber.
*Imperium: Nero (2005) played by Laura Morante.
*Ancients Behaving Badly (2009) Documentary on  History Channel. Episode Nero.
* Agrippina the Younger was portrayed by Betty Lou Gerson in the August 31st, 1953 episode of the CBS radio program Crime Classics that was entitled "Your Loving Son, Nero." The episode chronicles the killing of Agrippina by her son Nero who was portrayed by William Conrad.

Perspectives on Agrippina's personality

Ancient

*Note that most ancient Roman sources are quite critical of Agrippina the Younger, because she was seen as stepping outside the conservative Roman ideals regarding the roles of women in society.
*Tacitus: Critical view, considered her vicious and had a strong disposition against her due to her femininity and influential role in politics. Perhaps the most comprehensive of Ancient sources. Others are Suetonius and Cassius Dio.

Modern

*  Girod, Virginie, Agrippine, sexe, crimes et pouvoir dans la Rome impériale , Paris, Tallandier, 2015, 300 p.
* Minaud, Gérard, Les vies de 12 femmes d'empereur romain - Devoirs, Intrigues & Voluptés , Paris, L'Harmattan, 2012, ch. 3,  La vie d'Agrippine, femme de Claude, p. 65-96.
*  (edd.), Prosopographia Imperii Romani saeculi I, II et III, Berlin, 1933 –. (PIR2)
* Scullard: A critical view of Agrippina, suggesting she was ambitious and unscrupulous and a depraved sexual psychopath. "Agrippina struck down a series of victims; no man or woman was safe if she suspected rivalry or desired their wealth.", From the Gracchi to Nero: History of Rome from 133 B.C.to A.D. 68, London, 19825, p. 303.
* Ferrero: Sympathetic and understanding, suggesting Agrippina has been judged harshly by history. Suggesting her marriage to Claudius was to a weak emperor who was, because of his hesitations and terrors, a threat to the imperial authority and government. She saw it her duty to compensate for the innumerable deficiencies of her strange husband through her own intelligence and strength of will. Pages 212ff.; 276ff.
* Barrett: A reasonable view, comparing Scullard's criticisms to Ferrero's apologies. (See Barrett, Anthony A., Agrippina: Sex, Power and Politics in the Early Roman Empire, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1996.)
* Annelise Freisenbruch "The first ladies of Rome"
* Wood, S. "Diva Drusilla Panthea and the Sisters of Caligula American Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 99, No. 3 (July 1995)
* Rogers, R. S. The Conspiracy of Agrippina Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association, Vol. 62 (1931)
* Godolphin, F. R. B. A Note on the Marriage of Claudius and Agrippina Classical Philology, Vol. 29, No. 2 (April 1934)
* Grimm-Samuel, V On the Mushroom That Deified the Emperor Claudius The Classical Quarterly, New Series, Vol. 41, No. 1 (1991)
* McDaniel, W. B Bauli the Scene of the Murder of Agrippina The Classical Quarterly, Vol. 4, No. 2 (April 1910)
* Salmonson, Jessica Amanda. (1991) The Encyclopedia of Amazons. Paragon House. Pages 4–5.
* Donna Hurley, [http://www.roman-emperors.org/aggieii.htm Agrippina the Younger (Wife of Claudius)].
* , Agrippina. Keizerin van Rome, Leuven, 2006.
* Opera by G.F. Handel: Agrippina

Notes CaligulaClassical Latin spelling and reconstructed Classical Latin pronunciation of the names of Caligula:
#
# or was the popular nickname of Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (31 August AD 12 – 24 January AD 41), Roman emperor (AD 37–41). Born Gaius Julius Caesar Germanicus (not to be confused with Julius Caesar), Caligula was a member of the house of rulers conventionally known as the Julio-Claudian dynasty. Caligula's biological father was Germanicus, and he was the nephew and adopted son of Emperor Tiberius. The young Gaius earned the nickname "Caligula" (meaning "little soldier's boot", the diminutive form of caliga, hob-nailed military boot) from his father's soldiers while accompanying him during his campaigns in Germania.

When Germanicus died at Antioch in AD 19, his wife Agrippina the Elder returned with her six children to Rome, where she became entangled in a bitter feud with Tiberius. The conflict eventually led to the destruction of her family, with Caligula as the sole male survivor. Untouched by the deadly intrigues, Caligula accepted the invitation to join the Emperor in AD 31 on the island of Capri, where Tiberius had withdrawn five years earlier. With the death of Tiberius in AD 37, Caligula succeeded his grand uncle and adoptive grandfather as emperor.

There are few surviving sources about the reign of Emperor Caligula, although he is described as a noble and moderate ruler during the first six months of his reign. After this, the sources focus upon his cruelty, sadism, extravagance, and sexual perversity, presenting him as an insane tyrant. While the reliability of these sources is questionable, it is known that during his brief reign, Caligula worked to increase the unconstrained personal power of the emperor, as opposed to countervailing powers within the principate. He directed much of his attention to ambitious construction projects and luxurious dwellings for himself, and initiated the construction of two aqueducts in Rome: the Aqua Claudia and the Anio Novus. During his reign, the empire annexed the Kingdom of Mauretania as a province.

In early AD 41, Caligula was assassinated as a result of a conspiracy by officers of the Praetorian Guard, senators, and courtiers. The conspirators' attempt to use the opportunity to restore the Roman Republic was thwarted: on the day of the assassination of Caligula, the Praetorian Guard declared Caligula's uncle, Claudius, the next Roman emperor.

Early life

Family

See Julio-Claudian family tree.
Gaius Julius Caesar (named in honor of his famous relative) was born in Antium (modern Anzio and Nettuno ) on 31 August 12 AD, the third of six surviving children born to Germanicus and his second cousin Agrippina the Elder.  Gaius had two older brothers, Nero and Drusus, as well as three younger sisters, Agrippina the Younger, Julia Drusilla and Julia Livilla. He was also a nephew of Claudius, Germanicus' younger brother and future emperor. 

Agrippina the Elder was the daughter of Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa and Julia the Elder. She was a granddaughter of Augustus and Scribonia on her mother's side. Through Agrippina, Augustus was the maternal great-grandfather of Gaius.

Youth and early career

As a boy of just two or three, Gaius accompanied his father, Germanicus, on campaigns in the north of Germania.  The soldiers were amused that Gaius was dressed in a miniature soldier's outfit, including boots and armour. He was soon given his nickname Caligula, meaning "little (soldier's) boot" in Latin, after the small boots he wore.  Gaius, though, reportedly grew to dislike this nickname. 

Suetonius claims that Germanicus was poisoned in Syria by an agent of Tiberius, who viewed Germanicus as a political rival. 

After the death of his father, Caligula lived with his mother until her relations with Tiberius deteriorated.  Tiberius would not allow Agrippina to remarry for fear her husband would be a rival.  Agrippina and Caligula's brother, Nero, were banished in 29 AD on charges of treason.  

The adolescent Caligula was then sent to live with his great-grandmother (and Tiberius's mother) Livia. After her death, he was sent to live with his grandmother Antonia. In 30 AD, his brother, Drusus Caesar, was imprisoned on charges of treason and his brother Nero died in exile from either starvation or suicide.  Suetonius writes that after the banishment of his mother and brothers, Caligula and his sisters were nothing more than prisoners of Tiberius under the close watch of soldiers. 

In 31 AD, Caligula was remanded to the personal care of Tiberius on Capri, where he lived for six years. To the surprise of many, Caligula was spared by Tiberius.  According to historians, Caligula was an excellent natural actor and, recognizing danger, hid all his resentment towards Tiberius.  An observer said of Caligula, "Never was there a better servant or a worse master!"

Caligula claimed to have planned to kill Tiberius with a dagger in order to avenge his mother and brother: however, having brought the weapon into Tiberius's bedroom he did not kill the Emperor but instead threw the dagger down on the floor. Supposedly Tiberius knew of this but never dared to do anything about it.  Suetonius claims that Caligula was already cruel and vicious: he writes that, when Tiberius brought Caligula to Capri, his purpose was to allow Caligula to live in order that he "... prove the ruin of himself and of all men, and that he was rearing a viper for the Roman people and a Phaethon for the world." 

In 33 AD, Tiberius gave Caligula an honorary quaestorship, a position he held until his rise to emperor.  Meanwhile, both Caligula's mother and his brother Drusus died in prison.   Caligula was briefly married to Junia Claudilla, in 33, though she died in childbirth the following year.  Caligula spent time befriending the Praetorian prefect, Naevius Sutorius Macro, an important ally. Macro spoke well of Caligula to Tiberius, attempting to quell any ill will or suspicion the Emperor felt towards Caligula. 

In 35 AD, Caligula was named joint heir to Tiberius's estate along with Tiberius Gemellus. 

Emperor

Early reign

When Tiberius died on 16 March 37 AD, his estate and the titles of the principate were left to Caligula and Tiberius's own grandson, Gemellus, who were to serve as joint heirs. Although Tiberius was 78 and on his death bed, some ancient historians still conjecture that he was murdered.  Tacitus writes that the Praetorian Prefect, Macro, smothered Tiberius with a pillow to hasten Caligula's accession, much to the joy of the Roman people, while Suetonius writes that Caligula may have carried out the killing, though this is not recorded by any other ancient historian. Seneca the elder and Philo, who both wrote during Tiberius's reign, as well as Josephus record Tiberius as dying a natural death.  Backed by Macro, Caligula had Tiberius's will nullified with regard to Gemellus on grounds of insanity, but otherwise carried out Tiberius's wishes. 

Caligula accepted the powers of the principate as conferred by the senate and entered Rome on 28 March amid a crowd that hailed him as "our baby" and "our star", among other nicknames.  Caligula is described as the first emperor who was admired by everyone in "all the world, from the rising to the setting sun."  Caligula was loved by many for being the beloved son of the popular Germanicus, and because he was not Tiberius.  Suetonius said that over 160,000 animals were sacrificed during three months of public rejoicing to usher in the new reign.   Philo describes the first seven months of Caligula's reign as completely blissful. 

Caligula's first acts were said to be generous in spirit, though many were political in nature. To gain support, he granted bonuses to the military, including the Praetorian Guard, city troops and the army outside Italy. He destroyed Tiberius's treason papers, declared that treason trials were a thing of the past, and recalled those who had been sent into exile.  He helped those who had been harmed by the imperial tax system, banished certain sexual deviants, and put on lavish spectacles for the public, including gladiatorial games.   Caligula collected and brought back the bones of his mother and of his brothers and deposited their remains in the tomb of Augustus. 

In October 37 AD, Caligula fell seriously ill, or perhaps was poisoned. He soon recovered from his illness, but many believed that the illness turned the young emperor toward the diabolical: he started to kill off or exile those who were close to him or whom he saw as a serious threat. Perhaps his illness reminded him of his mortality and of the desire of others to advance into his place.  He had his cousin and adopted son Tiberius Gemellus executed – an act that outraged Caligula's and Gemellus's mutual grandmother Antonia Minor. She is said to have committed suicide, although Suetonius hints that Caligula actually poisoned her. He had his father-in-law Marcus Junius Silanus and his brother-in-law Marcus Lepidus executed as well. His uncle Claudius was spared only because Caligula preferred to keep him as a laughing stock. His favorite sister Julia Drusilla died in 38 AD of a fever: his other two sisters, Livilla and Agrippina the Younger, were exiled. He hated being the grandson of Agrippa and slandered Augustus by repeating a falsehood that his mother was actually conceived as the result of an incestuous relationship between Augustus and his daughter Julia the Elder. 

Public reform

In AD 38, Caligula focused his attention on political and public reform. He published the accounts of public funds, which had not been made public during the reign of Tiberius. He aided those who lost property in fires, abolished certain taxes, and gave out prizes to the public at gymnastic events. He allowed new members into the equestrian and senatorial orders. 

Perhaps most significantly, he restored the practice of democratic elections.  Cassius Dio said that this act "though delighting the rabble, grieved the sensible, who stopped to reflect, that if the offices should fall once more into the hands of the many ... many disasters would result". 

During the same year, though, Caligula was criticized for executing people without full trials and for forcing his supporter Macro to commit suicide. 

Financial crisis and famine

According to Cassius Dio, a financial crisis emerged in AD 39. Suetonius places the beginning of this crisis in 38.  Caligula's political payments for support, generosity and extravagance had exhausted the state's treasury. Ancient historians state that Caligula began falsely accusing, fining and even killing individuals for the purpose of seizing their estates. 

Historians describe a number of Caligula's other desperate measures. In order to gain funds, Caligula asked the public to lend the state money.Suetonius, The Lives of Twelve Caesars, Life of Caligula [http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Suetonius/12Caesars/Caligula*.html#41 41]. He levied taxes on lawsuits, weddings and prostitution.  Caligula began auctioning the lives of the gladiators at shows.  Wills that left items to Tiberius were reinterpreted to leave the items instead to Caligula.  Centurions who had acquired property by plunder were forced to turn over spoils to the state.

The current and past highway commissioners were accused of incompetence and embezzlement and forced to repay money. According to Suetonius, in the first year of Caligula's reign he squandered 2.7 billion sesterces that Tiberius had amassed.  His nephew Nero Caesar both envied and admired the fact that Gaius had run through the vast wealth Tiberius had left him in so short a time. 

A brief famine of unknown extent occurred, perhaps caused by this financial crisis, but Suetonius claims it resulted from Caligula's seizure of public carriages; according to Seneca, grain imports were disturbed because Caligula repurposed grain boats for a pontoon bridge. 

Construction

Despite financial difficulties, Caligula embarked on a number of construction projects during his reign. Some were for the public good, though others were for himself.

Josephus describes Caligula's improvements to the harbours at Rhegium and Sicily, allowing increased grain imports from Egypt, as his greatest contributions.  These improvements may have been in response to the famine.

Caligula completed the temple of Augustus and the theatre of Pompey and began an amphitheatre beside the Saepta.  He expanded the imperial palace.  He began the aqueducts Aqua Claudia and Anio Novus, which Pliny the Elder considered engineering marvels.  He built a large racetrack known as the circus of Gaius and Nero and had an Egyptian obelisk (now known as the "Vatican Obelisk") transported by sea and erected in the middle of Rome. 

At Syracuse, he repaired the city walls and the temples of the gods. He had new roads built and pushed to keep roads in good condition.  He had planned to rebuild the palace of Polycrates at Samos, to finish the temple of Didymaean Apollo at Ephesus and to found a city high up in the Alps. He planned to dig a canal through the Isthmus of Corinth in Greece and sent a chief centurion to survey the work.

In 39, Caligula performed a spectacular stunt by ordering a temporary floating bridge to be built using ships as pontoons, stretching for over two miles from the resort of Baiae to the neighboring port of Puteoli.  It was said that the bridge was to rival that of the Persian king, Xerxes, crossing of the Hellespont. Caligula, who could not swim,  then proceeded to ride his favorite horse, Incitatus, across, wearing the breastplate of Alexander the Great. This act was in defiance of a prediction by Tiberius's soothsayer Thrasyllus of Mendes that Caligula had "no more chance of becoming emperor than of riding a horse across the Bay of Baiae".

Caligula had two large ships constructed for himself, which were recovered from the bottom of Lake Nemi during the dictatorship of Benito Mussolini. The ships were among the largest vessels in the ancient world. The smaller ship was designed as a temple dedicated to Diana. The larger ship was essentially an elaborate floating palace with marble floors and plumbing. Thirteen years after being raised, the ships were burned during an attack in the Second World War, and almost nothing remains of their hulls, though many archeological treasures remain intact in the museum at Lake Nemi and in the Museo Nazionale Romano (Palazzo Massimo) at Rome.

Feud with the senate

In AD 39, relations between Caligula and the Roman Senate deteriorated.  The subject of their disagreement is unknown. A number of factors, though, aggravated this feud. The Senate had become accustomed to ruling without an emperor between the departure of Tiberius for Capri in AD 26 and Caligula's accession.  Additionally, Tiberius's treason trials had eliminated a number of pro-Julian senators such as Asinius Gallus.

Caligula reviewed Tiberius's records of treason trials and decided, based on their actions during these trials, that numerous senators were not trustworthy. He ordered a new set of investigations and trials. He replaced the consul and had several senators put to death.  Suetonius reports that other senators were degraded by being forced to wait on him and run beside his chariot.

Soon after his break with the Senate, Caligula faced a number of additional conspiracies against him.  A conspiracy involving his brother-in-law was foiled in late 39. Soon afterwards, the Governor of Germany, Gnaeus Cornelius Lentulus Gaetulicus, was executed for connections to a conspiracy.

Western expansion

In AD 40, Caligula expanded the Roman Empire into Mauretania and made a significant attempt at expanding into Britannia – even challenging Neptune in his campaign. The conquest of Britannia was fully realized by his successors.

Mauretania

Mauretania was a client kingdom of Rome ruled by Ptolemy of Mauretania. Caligula invited Ptolemy to Rome and then suddenly had him executed.  Mauretania was annexed by Caligula and subsequently divided into two provinces, Mauretania Tingitana and Mauretania Caesariensis, separated by the river Malua.  Pliny claims that division was the work of Caligula, but Dio states that in 42 AD an uprising took place, which was subdued by Gaius Suetonius Paulinus and Gnaeus Hosidius Geta, and the division only took place after this.  This confusion might mean that Caligula decided to divide the province, but the division was postponed because of the rebellion.  The first known equestrian governor of the two provinces was Marcus Fadius Celer Flavianus, in office in 44 AD.

Details on the Mauretanian events of 39–44 are unclear. Cassius Dio wrote an entire chapter on the annexation of Mauretania by Caligula, but it is now lost.  Caligula's move seemingly had a strictly personal political motive – fear and jealousy of his cousin Ptolemy – and thus the expansion may not have been prompted by pressing military or economic needs.  However, the rebellion of Tacfarinas had shown how exposed Africa Proconsularis was to its west and how the Mauretanian client kings were unable to provide protection to the province, and it is thus possible that Caligula's expansion was a prudent response to potential future threats.

Britannia

There seems to have been a northern campaign to Britannia that was aborted. This campaign is derided by ancient historians with accounts of Gauls dressed up as Germanic tribesmen at his triumph and Roman troops ordered to collect seashells as "spoils of the sea".  The few primary sources disagree on what precisely occurred. Modern historians have put forward numerous theories in an attempt to explain these actions. This trip to the English Channel could have merely been a training and scouting mission.  The mission may have been to accept the surrender of the British chieftain Adminius.  "Seashells", or conchae in Latin, may be a metaphor for something else such as female genitalia (perhaps the troops visited brothels) or boats (perhaps they captured several small British boats). 

Claims of divinity

When several client kings came to Rome to pay their respects to him and argued about their nobility of descent, he allegedly cried out the Homeric line:  "Let there be one lord, one king."  In AD 40, Caligula began implementing very controversial policies that introduced religion into his political role. Caligula began appearing in public dressed as various gods and demigods such as Hercules, Mercury, Venus and Apollo.  Reportedly, he began referring to himself as a god when meeting with politicians and he was referred to as "Jupiter" on occasion in public documents.  

A sacred precinct was set apart for his worship at Miletus in the province of Asia and two temples were erected for worship of him in Rome. The Temple of Castor and Pollux on the forum was linked directly to the imperial residence on the Palatine and dedicated to Caligula.  He would appear here on occasion and present himself as a god to the public. Caligula had the heads removed from various statues of gods and replaced with his own in some temples.  It is said that he wished to be worshipped as "Neos Helios," the "New Sun." Indeed, he was represented as a sun god on Egyptian coins. 

Caligula's religious policy was a departure from that of his predecessors. According to Cassius Dio, living emperors could be worshipped as divine in the east and dead emperors could be worshipped as divine in Rome.  Augustus had the public worship his spirit on occasion, but Dio describes this as an extreme act that emperors generally shied away from. Caligula took things a step further and had those in Rome, including senators, worship him as a tangible, living god. 

Eastern policy

Caligula needed to quell several riots and conspiracies in the eastern territories during his reign. Aiding him in his actions was his good friend, Herod Agrippa, who became governor of the territories of Batanaea and Trachonitis after Caligula became emperor in AD 37. 

The cause of tensions in the east was complicated, involving the spread of Greek culture, Roman Law and the rights of Jews in the empire.

Caligula did not trust the prefect of Egypt, Aulus Avilius Flaccus. Flaccus had been loyal to Tiberius, had conspired against Caligula's mother and had connections with Egyptian separatists.  In AD 38, Caligula sent Agrippa to Alexandria unannounced to check on Flaccus.  According to Philo, the visit was met with jeers from the Greek population who saw Agrippa as the king of the Jews.  Flaccus tried to placate both the Greek population and Caligula by having statues of the emperor placed in Jewish synagogues.  As a result, riots broke out in the city.  Caligula responded by removing Flaccus from his position and executing him. 

In AD 39, Agrippa accused Herod Antipas, the tetrarch of Galilee and Perea, of planning a rebellion against Roman rule with the help of Parthia. Herod Antipas confessed and Caligula exiled him. Agrippa was rewarded with his territories. 

Riots again erupted in Alexandria in AD 40 between Jews and Greeks.Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews XVIII.8.1. Jews were accused of not honoring the emperor. Disputes occurred in the city of Jamnia.  Jews were angered by the erection of a clay altar and destroyed it. In response, Caligula ordered the erection of a statue of himself in the Jewish Temple of Jerusalem,  a demand in conflict with Jewish monotheism.  In this context, Philo wrote that Caligula "regarded the Jews with most especial suspicion, as if they were the only persons who cherished wishes opposed to his".

The Governor of Syria, Publius Petronius, fearing civil war if the order were carried out, delayed implementing it for nearly a year.  Agrippa finally convinced Caligula to reverse the order.

Scandals

Philo of Alexandria and Seneca the Younger describe Caligula as an insane emperor who was self-absorbed, angry, killed on a whim, and indulged in too much spending and sex.  He is accused of sleeping with other men's wives and bragging about it,  killing for mere amusement,  deliberately wasting money on his bridge, causing starvation,  and wanting a statue of himself erected in the Temple of Jerusalem for his worship. Once, at some games at which he was presiding, he ordered his guards to throw an entire section of the crowd into the arena during intermission to be eaten by animals because there were no criminals to be prosecuted and he was bored. 

While repeating the earlier stories, the later sources of Suetonius and Cassius Dio provide additional tales of insanity. They accuse Caligula of incest with his sisters, Agrippina the Younger, Drusilla, and Livilla, and say he prostituted them to other men.  They state he sent troops on illogical military exercises,  turned the palace into a brothel, and, most famously, planned or promised to make his horse, Incitatus, a consul, 
and actually appointed him a priest.

The validity of these accounts is debatable. In Roman political culture, insanity and sexual perversity were often presented hand-in-hand with poor government. 

Assassination and aftermath

Caligula's actions as emperor were described as being especially harsh to the senate, to the nobility and to the equestrian order.  According to Josephus, these actions led to several failed conspiracies against Caligula.  Eventually, officers within the Praetorian Guard led by Cassius Chaerea succeeded in murdering the emperor.  The plot is described as having been planned by three men, but many in the senate, army and equestrian order were said to have been informed of it and involved in it. 

The situation had escalated when, in 40 AD, Caligula announced to the senate that he planned to leave Rome permanently and to move to Alexandria in Egypt, where he hoped to be worshiped as a living god. The prospect of Rome losing its emperor and thus its political power was the final straw for many. Such a move would have left both the senate and the Praetorian Guard powerless to stop Caligula's repression and debauchery. With this in mind Chaerea convinced his fellow conspirators to put their plot into action quickly.

According to Josephus, Chaerea had political motivations for the assassination.  Suetonius sees the motive in Caligula calling Chaerea derogatory names.  Caligula considered Chaerea effeminate because of a weak voice and for not being firm with tax collection.  Caligula would mock Chaerea with names like "Priapus" and "Venus". 

On 22 January 41 (Suetonius gives the date as 24 January), Cassius Chaerea and other guardsmen accosted Caligula as he addressed an acting troupe of young men during a series of games and dramatics held for the Divine Augustus.  Details recorded on the events vary somewhat from source to source, but they agree that Chaerea stabbed Caligula first, followed by a number of conspirators.  Suetonius records that Caligula's death resembled that of Julius Caesar. He states that both the elder Gaius Julius Caesar (Julius Caesar) and the younger Gaius Julius Caesar (Caligula) were stabbed 30 times by conspirators led by a man named Cassius (Cassius Longinus and Cassius Chaerea).  By the time Caligula's loyal Germanic guard responded, the Emperor was already dead. The Germanic guard, stricken with grief and rage, responded with a rampaging attack on the assassins, conspirators, innocent senators and bystanders alike. 

The cryptoporticus (underground corridor) beneath the imperial palaces on the Palatine Hill where this event took place was discovered by archaeologists in 2008. 

The senate attempted to use Caligula's death as an opportunity to restore the republic.  Chaerea tried to persuade the military to support the senate.  The military, though, remained loyal to the idea of imperial monarchy. The grieving Roman people assembled and demanded that Caligula's murderers be brought to justice.  Uncomfortable with lingering imperial support, the assassins sought out and stabbed Caligula's wife, Caesonia, and killed their young daughter, Julia Drusilla, by smashing her head against a wall.  They were unable to reach Caligula's uncle, Claudius; after a soldier, Gratus, found Claudius hiding behind a palace curtain he was spirited out of the city by a sympathetic faction of the Praetorian Guard   to the nearby Praetorian camp. 

Claudius became emperor after procuring the support of the Praetorian Guard. He ordered the execution of Chaerea and of any other known conspirators involved in the death of Caligula. 
According to Suetonius, Caligula's body was placed under turf until it was burned and entombed by his sisters. He was buried within the Mausoleum of Augustus; in 410, during the Sack of Rome ashes in the tomb were scattered.

Legacy

Historiography

The history of Caligula's reign is extremely problematic as only two sources contemporary with Caligula have survived — the works of Philo and Seneca. Philo's works, On the Embassy to Gaius and Flaccus, give some details on Caligula's early reign, but mostly focus on events surrounding the Jewish population in Judea and Egypt with whom he sympathizes. Seneca's various works give mostly scattered anecdotes on Caligula's personality. Seneca was almost put to death by Caligula in AD 39 likely due to his associations with conspirators. 

At one time, there were detailed contemporaneous histories on Caligula, but they are now lost. Additionally, the historians who wrote them are described as biased, either overly critical or praising of Caligula.  Nonetheless, these lost primary sources, along with the works of Seneca and Philo, were the basis of surviving secondary and tertiary histories on Caligula written by the next generations of historians. A few of the contemporaneous historians are known by name. Fabius Rusticus and Cluvius Rufus both wrote condemning histories on Caligula that are now lost. Fabius Rusticus was a friend of Seneca who was known for historical embellishment and misrepresentation.  Cluvius Rufus was a senator involved in the assassination of Caligula. 

Caligula's sister, Agrippina the Younger, wrote an autobiography that certainly included a detailed explanation of Caligula's reign, but it too is lost. Agrippina was banished by Caligula for her connection to Marcus Lepidus, who conspired against Caligula. The inheritance of Nero, Agrippina's son and the future emperor, was seized by Caligula. Gaetulicus, a poet, produced a number of flattering writings about Caligula, but they too are lost.

The bulk of what is known of Caligula comes from Suetonius and Cassius Dio. Suetonius wrote his history on Caligula 80 years after his death, while Cassius Dio wrote his history over 180 years after Caligula's death. Cassius Dio's work is invaluable because it alone gives a loose chronology of Caligula's reign.

A handful of other sources add a limited perspective on Caligula. Josephus gives a detailed description of Caligula's assassination. Tacitus provides some information on Caligula's life under Tiberius. In a now lost portion of his Annals, Tacitus gave a detailed history of Caligula. Pliny the Elder's Natural History has a few brief references to Caligula.

There are few surviving sources on Caligula and no surviving source paints Caligula in a favorable light. The paucity of sources has resulted in significant gaps in modern knowledge of the reign of Caligula. Little is written on the first two years of Caligula's reign. Additionally, there are only limited details on later significant events, such as the annexation of Mauretania, Caligula's military actions in Britannia, and his feud with the Roman Senate.

Health

All surviving sources, except Pliny the Elder, characterize Caligula as insane. However, it is not known whether they are speaking figuratively or literally. Additionally, given Caligula's unpopularity among the surviving sources, it is difficult to separate fact from fiction. Recent sources are divided in attempting to ascribe a medical reason for his behavior, citing as possibilities encephalitis, epilepsy or meningitis. The question of whether or not Caligula was insane (especially after his illness early in his reign) remains unanswered.

Philo of Alexandria, Josephus and Seneca state that Caligula was insane, but describe this madness as a personality trait that came through experience.   Seneca states that Caligula became arrogant, angry and insulting once becoming emperor and uses his personality flaws as examples his readers can learn from.  According to Josephus, power made Caligula incredibly conceited and led him to think he was a god. Philo of Alexandria reports that Caligula became ruthless after nearly dying of an illness in the eighth month of his reign in AD 37.  Juvenal reports he was given a magic potion that drove him insane.

Suetonius said that Caligula suffered from "falling sickness", or epilepsy, when he was young.  Modern historians have theorized that Caligula lived with a daily fear of seizures.  Despite swimming being a part of imperial education, Caligula could not swim.  Epileptics are discouraged from swimming in open waters because unexpected fits in such difficult rescue circumstances can be fatal.  Additionally, Caligula reportedly talked to the full moon. Epilepsy was long associated with the moon. 

Some modern historians think that Caligula suffered from hyperthyroidism.  This diagnosis is mainly attributed to Caligula's irritability and his "stare" as described by Pliny the Elder.

Possible rediscovery of burial site

On 17 January 2011, police in Nemi, Italy, announced that they believed they had discovered the site of Caligula's burial, after arresting a thief caught smuggling a statue which they believed to be of the emperor.  The claim has been met with scepticism by Cambridge historian Mary Beard. 

Ancestry

Ancestors of Caligula

Gallery 

File:RIC 0039.jpg|Quadrans celebrating the abolition of a tax in AD 38 by Caligula. The obverse of the coin contains a picture of a Pileus which symbolizes the liberation of the people from the tax burden.
Image:Roman gold coins excavated in Pudukottai India one coin of Caligula 31 41 and two coins of Nero 54 68.jpg|Roman gold coins excavated in Pudukottai, India, examples of Indo-Roman trade during the period. One coin of Caligula (AD 37–41), and two coins of Nero (AD 54–68). British Museum.

In popular culture

In film

Welsh actor Emlyn Williams was cast as Caligula in the never-completed 1937 film I, Claudius.

American actor Jay Robinson famously portrayed a sinister and scene-stealing Caligula in two epic films of the 1950s, The Robe (1953) and its sequel Demetrius and the Gladiators (1954). 

A feature-length historical film Caligula was completed in 1979, in which Malcolm McDowell played the lead role. The film alienated audiences with explicit sex and violence. Although reviews were overwhelmingly negative (though McDowell's performance as the title character was praised), the film is considered to be a cult classic. 

David Brandon portrayed Caligula in the 1982 Italian exploitation film Emperor Caligula, the Untold Story which was directed by Joe D'Amato. 

Courtney Love appeared as Caligula in a fake trailer for Gore Vidal's Caligula, ostensibly a remake of the 1979 film, but actually a parodic short film by conceptual artist Francesco Vezzoli.

Szabolcs Hajdu portrayed Caligula in the 1996 film Caligula.

In literature and theatre

Caligula, by French author Albert Camus, is a play in which Caligula returns after deserting the palace for three days and three nights following the death of his beloved sister, Drusilla. The young emperor then uses his unfettered power to "bring the impossible into the realm of the likely".

In the 1934 novel I, Claudius by English writer Robert Graves, Caligula is presented as being a murderous sociopath from his childhood, who became clinically insane early in his reign. At the age of only seven, he drove his father Germanicus to despair and death by secretly terrorising him. Graves's Caligula commits incest with all three of his sisters and is implied to have murdered Drusilla.

In the BBC series based on Graves' novel (where the role is played by John Hurt), Caligula, although unhinged since early childhood, becomes dangerously psychotic after an apparent epileptic seizure and awakens believing that he has metamorphosed into the god Zeus. He kills Drusilla while trying to reenact the birth of Athena by cutting his child from her womb.

In 1941, Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote I Am a Barbarian. The story is pitched as a free translation of the memoirs of Britannicus (a fictional character created by Burroughs)  who was the slave of Caligula from early childhood till Caligula's death.

The character Ellsworth Toohey in Ayn Rand's 1943 novel The Fountainhead references Caligula in his climactic speech to Peter Keating stating, "Remember the Roman Emperor who said he wished humanity had a single neck so he could cut it? People have laughed at him for centuries. But we'll have the last laugh. We've accomplished what he couldn't accomplish. We've taught men to unite. This makes one neck ready for one leash."

The play The Reckoning of Kit and Little Boots, by Nat Cassidy, examines the lives of the Elizabethan playwright Christopher Marlowe and Caligula, with the fictional conceit that Marlowe was working on a play about Caligula around the time of his own murder. It emphasizes the similarities between the two characters—both stabbed to death at 29, both in part as a result of their controversial religious perspectives. The play focuses on Caligula's love for his sister Drusilla and his deep-rooted loathing for Tiberius. It received its world premiere in New York City in June 2008.  

Eugene O'Neill's play Lazarus Laughed features the young Caligula as one of its pinnacle characters, where he is portrayed as a psychopath who believes he will only be happy once Tiberius is dead and he is the Caesar.

In music

Canadian death metal band Ex Deo released an album called Caligula, styled as Caligvla. The band's video, "I Caligula", features Caligula and other members of his court that were important in his rule.

The Dickies' 1989 album Second Coming includes the song "Caligula," which relates his origins and reign of terror.

In television

Caligula has been portrayed in a number of television series:

*Ralph Bates in the 1968 ITV television series The Caesars; 
*John Hurt in the 1976 BBC television series I, Claudius; 
*John McEnery in the 1985 miniseries A.D.; 
*Tony Hawks in the Red Dwarf episode "Meltdown" (1991); 
*Alexis Arquette in season six of Xena: Warrior Princess (2001);
*Simon Farnaby and Jalaal Hartley in "Horrible Histories"; 
*John Simm in the 2004 miniseries Imperium Nerone.
*Simon Gower in the 2015 miniseries A.D. The Bible Continues
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