From the legendary twins Romulus and Remus on the Palatine Hill to the fall of the Western Empire — the full twelve-hundred-year history of Rome, every significant individual, every decisive event, every institution and idea that built the greatest empire of antiquity, each with inline citations and direct links to trusted sources.
Continue through the eras in order for a continuous account of Roman history.
Contents: The legends of Aeneas, Romulus and Remus; the seven kings of Rome; the Etruscan kings; the institutions of the early city; and the expulsion of Tarquin the Proud in 509 BC.
Open the Founding & Monarchy →Contents: The consuls and the Senate; the Twelve Tables; the Conflict of the Orders between patricians and plebeians; the tribunate; and the conquest of Italy (509–264 BC).
Open the Early Republic →Contents: Hannibal and the great wars with Carthage; the Macedonian wars; the conquest of Greece; and Rome's rise to Mediterranean supremacy (264–146 BC).
Open the Punic Wars & Conquest →Contents: The Gracchi, Marius and Sulla; the slave wars and Spartacus; Pompey and Caesar; the crossing of the Rubicon; Caesar's dictatorship and assassination; Antony, Cleopatra and Octavian (133–27 BC).
Open the Late Republic →Contents: Augustus and the founding of the empire; the Julio-Claudian and Flavian dynasties; the "Five Good Emperors"; the Antonines; and the height of Roman power and culture (27 BC–AD 180).
Open the Empire & Pax Romana →Contents: The Crisis of the Third Century; the soldier-emperors; Diocletian’s reforms and the Tetrarchy; and the reign of Constantine (AD 180–337).
Open Crisis & Recovery →Contents: The barbarian invasions; the division of the empire; the sack of Rome (410); the western provinces lost; and the fall of the last western emperor in AD 476 — and why Rome fell (AD 337–476).
Open the Late Empire & Fall →Contents: A complete directory of every significant Roman — kings, consuls, generals, reformers, orators, emperors, empresses, jurists, poets, historians, philosophers and early Christians — with dates, role and significance.
Browse Every Person →Contents: A chronological register of the decisive events — founding, wars, battles, treaties, reforms, assassinations, plagues and destructions — from 753 BC to the fall of Constantinople in 1453.
See Every Event →Contents: Roman law, government, engineering, architecture, roads, the Latin language, literature, religion, and the eternal legacy of Rome in the modern world.
Read the Legacy →This encyclopaedia is compiled from established scholarly and reference works. The primary online source is the World History Encyclopedia (worldhistory.org), reviewed for educational use by Oxford University and others, alongside the Perseus Digital Library (with the primary sources Livy, Tacitus, Suetonius, Plutarch, Caesar, Cicero and others), Livius, the British Museum, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Direct links to every cited page are given throughout the text.
https://www.worldhistory.org/Rome/https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/https://www.livius.org/https://www.britishmuseum.org/collectionhttps://www.metmuseum.org/toah/It was the duty of the Annals to record virtue and to confront evil words and deeds.— Tacitus, Annals III (trans., Perseus Digital Library)