The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to ancient Rome:
Ancient Rome – former civilization that thrived on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to become one of the largest empires in the ancient world.
Essence of Ancient Rome
Civilization
Classical antiquity
Ancient Rome
Greco-Roman world
Geography of ancient Rome
Cities founded by the Romans
Climate of ancient Rome
Demography of the Roman Empire
Roman geographers
Topography of ancient Rome
Lexicon Topographicum Urbis Romae (1993–2000)
Government and politics of ancient Rome
Curia
Forum
Cursus honorum
Collegiality
Emperor
Legatus
Dux
Officium
Praefectus
Princeps senatus
Populares
Vicarius
Vigintisexviri
Lictor
Magister militum
Imperator
Pontifex maximus
Augustus
Caesar
SPQR
Tetrarch
Political institutions of ancient Rome
Political institutions of ancient Rome
of ancient Rome in general
Roman Senate
Roman assemblies
Curiate Assembly
Centuriate Assembly
Tribal Assembly
Plebeian Council
Executive magistrates
of the Roman Kingdom
Senate of the Roman Kingdom
Legislative Assemblies of the Roman Kingdom
Executive magistrates of the Roman Kingdom
of the Roman Republic
Senate of the Roman Republic
Legislative Assemblies of the Roman Republic
Executive magistrates of the Roman Republic
of the Roman Empire
Senate of the Roman Empire
Legislative Assemblies of the Roman Empire
Executive magistrates of the Roman Empire
Magistrates
Roman magistrate
Ordinary magistrates
Ordinary magistrate
Tribune
Quaestor
Aedile
Praetor
Consul
Censor
Promagistrate
Governor
Extraordinary magistrates
Extraordinary magistrate
Dictator
Master of the Horse
Decemviri
Consular tribune
Triumvir
Rex
Interrex
Roman law
Roman law
Constitution (Roman law)
Roman laws
Twelve Tables
Roman citizenship
Auctoritas
Imperium
Status in Roman legal system
Roman litigation
Roman Constitution
History of the Roman Constitution
Constitution of the Roman Kingdom
History of the Constitution of the Roman Kingdom
Constitution of the Roman Republic
History of the Constitution of the Roman Republic
Constitutional reforms of Sulla
Constitutional reforms of Julius Caesar
Constitution of the Roman Empire
History of the Constitution of the Roman Empire
Constitution of the Late Roman Empire
History of the Constitution of the Late Roman Empire (post Diocletian)
Military of ancient Rome
Military of ancient Rome
Roman generals
Weapons
Ballista
Battering ram
Catapulta
Gladius
Onager
Pilum
Scorpio
Siege tower
Spatha
Roman military diploma
Honesta missio
Praetorian Guard
Victory titles
Roman armed forces
Roman army
Early Roman army
Roman army of the mid-Republic
Roman army of the late Republic
Imperial Roman army
Late Roman army
East Roman army
Size of the Roman army
Troops
Alae
Cohorts
Auxiliaries
Alpine regiments of the Roman army
Cavalry
Turmae
Centuriae
Contubernia
Legions
Vexillationes
Limitanei
Numeri
Maniples
Palatini
Roman infantry tactics
Testudo formation
Military equipment
Roman military personal equipment
Roman siege engines
Navy
Fleet
Decorations and punishments
Roman triumph
Ovation
Decimatio
Fustuarium
Economics of the Roman army
Roman military clothing
Military history of Rome
Military history of ancient Rome
Borders of the Roman Empire
Roman military frontiers and fortifications
Castra
Military engineering of ancient Rome
Military establishment of the Roman kingdom
Military establishment of the Roman Republic
Political history of the Roman military
Strategy of the Roman military
Structural history of the Roman military
Technological history of the Roman military
Military conflict
Campaign history of the Roman military
Roman wars
Roman battles
Battle of Cannae
Battle of Cape Ecnomus
Battle of Actium
General history of ancient Rome
Roman era
History of Rome
Founding of Rome
Kingdom of Rome
Kings of Rome
Roman Republic
Conflict of the Orders (494-287 BC)
Punic Wars (264-146 BC) – series of three wars fought between Rome and ancient Carthage
First Punic War (264-241 BC)
Ebro Treaty
Second Punic War (218-201 BC) – marked by Hannibal's surprising overland journey and his costly crossing of the Alps, followed by his reinforcement by Gaulish allies and crushing victories over Roman armies in the battle of the Trebia and the giant ambush at Trasimene.
Hannibal – Punic Carthaginian military commander, generally considered one of the greatest military commanders in history. Hannibal occupied much of Italy for 15 years, but a Roman counter-invasion of North Africa forced him to return to Carthage, where he was decisively defeated by Scipio Africanus at the Battle of Zama.
Conquests of Hannibal
Hannibal's Crossing of the Alps
Battle of the Trebia
Battle of Lake Trasimene
Battle of Cannae
Battle of Zama – marked the final and decisive end of the Second Punic War. A Roman army led by Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus defeated a Carthaginian force led by the legendary commander Hannibal. Soon after this defeat on their home ground, the Carthaginian senate sued for peace, which was given to them by the Roman Republic on rather humiliating terms, ending the 17-year war.
Third Punic War (149-146 BC) – involved an extended siege of Carthage, ending in the city's thorough destruction. The resurgence of the struggle can be explained by growing anti-Roman agitations in Hispania and Greece, and the visible improvement of Carthaginian wealth and martial power in the fifty years since the Second Punic War.
Siege of Carthage (c. 149 BC)
Crisis of the Roman Republic (134 BC-44 BC) – extended period of political instability and social unrest that culminated in the demise of the Roman Republic and the advent of the Roman Empire.
Assassination of Julius Caesar
Roman Empire
Principate (27 BC-284 AD) – first period of the Roman Empire, extending from the beginning of the reign of Caesar Augustus to the Crisis of the Third Century, after which it was replaced with the Dominate. During the Principate, the constitution of the Roman Republic was never formally abolished. It was amended in such a way as to maintain a politically correct façade of Republican government. This ended following the Crisis of the Third Century (235–284), during the reign of Diocletian.
Julio-Claudian dynasty (27 BC-68 AD) – the first five Roman Emperors, including Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula (also known as Gaius), Claudius, and Nero. The dynasty ended when Nero committed suicide.
Augustus
Tiberius (ruled 14-37 AD) – stepson of Augustus. He was one of Rome's greatest generals, conquering Pannonia, Dalmatia, Raetia, and temporarily Germania; laying the foundations for the northern frontier. But he came to be remembered as a dark, reclusive, and sombre ruler who never really desired to be emperor; Pliny the Elder called him tristissimus hominum, "the gloomiest of men."
Caligula
Claudius
Nero
Year of the Four Emperors (69 AD) – these four emperors were Galba, Otho, Vitellius, and Vespasian. Vespasian's rule marked the beginning of the Flavian dynasty.
Galba
Otho
Vitellius
Vespasian
Flavian dynasty (69-96 AD)
Nerva–Antonine dynasty (96-192 AD) – dynasty of seven Roman Emperors who ruled over the Roman Empire from 96 AD to 192 AD. These Emperors were Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, Marcus Aurelius, Lucius Verus, and Commodus.
Nerva
Hadrian
Antoninus Pius
Marcus Aurelius
Lucius Verus
Commodus
Severan dynasty (193-235 AD)
Crisis of the Third Century (235-284 AD) – period in which the Roman Empire nearly collapsed under the combined pressures of invasion, civil war, plague, and economic depression. The Crisis began with the assassination of Emperor Alexander Severus at the hands of his own troops, initiating a fifty-year period in which 20–25 claimants to the title of Emperor, mostly prominent Roman army generals, assumed imperial power over all or part of the Empire.
Barracks emperor – any Roman Emperor who seized power by virtue of his command of the army. Barracks emperors were especially common in the period from 235 through 284, during the Crisis of the Third Century.
List of barracks emperors
Gallic Empire (260-274 AD) – modern name for a breakaway realm of the Roman Empire, founded by Postumus in 260 in the wake of barbarian invasions and instability in Rome, and at its height included the territories of Germania, Gaul, Britannia, and (briefly) Hispania.
Palmyrene Empire (260-273) – splinter empire, that broke away from the Roman Empire during the Crisis of the Third Century. It encompassed the Roman provinces of Syria Palaestina, Egypt and large parts of Asia Minor.
Dominate (284-476 AD) – 'despotic' latter phase of government in the ancient Roman Empire from the conclusion of the Third Century Crisis until the collapse of the Western Empire. The Emperor Diocletian abandoned the appearances of the Republic for the sake of control, and introduced a novel system of joint rule by four monarchs known as the Tetrarchy.
Decline of the Roman Empire – process spanning many centuries; there is no consensus when it might have begun but many dates and time lines have been proposed by historians.
Tetrarchy (293-313 AD) – Diocletian designated the general Maximian as co-emperor, first as Caesar (junior emperor) in 285, and then promoted him to Augustus in 286. Diocletian took care of matters in the Eastern regions of the Empire while Maximian similarly took charge of the Western regions. In 293, feeling more focus was needed on both civic and military problems, Diocletian, with Maximian's consent, expanded the imperial college by appointing two Caesars (one responsible to each Augustus). The tetrarchy collapsed, however, in 313 and a few years later Constantine I reunited the two administrative divisions of the Empire as sole Augustus.
First Tetrarchy – created by Diocletian with Maximian's consent in 293 by the appointment of two subordinate Caesars.
Diocletian (Augustus)
Galerius (Caesar)
Maximian (Augustus)
Constantius Chlorus (Caesar)
Second Tetrarchy – in 305, the senior emperors jointly abdicated and retired, elevating Constantius and Galerius to the rank of Augusti. They in turn appointed two new Caesars.
Galerius (Augustus)
Maximinus (Caesar)
Constantius Chlorus (Augustus)
Flavius Valerius Severus (Caesar)
Civil wars of the Tetrarchy – series of conflicts between the co-emperors of the Roman Empire, starting in 306 AD with the usurpation of Maxentius and the defeat of Severus, and ending with the defeat of Licinius at the hands of Constantine I in 324 AD.
Constantinian dynasty – informal name for the ruling family of the Roman Empire from Constantius Chlorus (†305) to the death of Julian in 363. It is named after its most famous member, Constantine the Great who became the sole ruler of the empire in 324. It is also called the Neo-Flavian dynasty.
First phase of the Migration Period
Division of the Roman Empire – in order to maintain control and improve administration, various schemes to divide the work of the Roman Emperor by sharing it between individuals were tried between 285 and 324, from 337 to 350, from 364 to 392, and again between 395 and 480. Although the administrative subdivisions varied, they generally involved a division of labour between East and West. Each division was a form of power-sharing (or even job-sharing), for the ultimate imperium was not divisible and therefore the empire remained legally one state—although the co-emperors often saw each other as rivals or enemies rather than partners.
Western Roman Empire – In 285, Emperor Diocletian (r. 284–305) divided the Roman Empire's administration into western and eastern halves. In 293, Rome lost its capital status, and Milan became the capital.
Byzantine Empire (Eastern Roman Empire) – term used by modern historians to distinguish the Constantinople-centered Roman Empire of the Middle Ages from its earlier classical existence.
Nicomedia – Nicomedia was the metropolis of Bithynia under the Roman Empire, and Diocletian made it the eastern capital city of the Roman Empire in 286 when he introduced the Tetrarchy system.
Constantinople – founded in AD 330, at ancient Byzantium as the new capital of the entire Roman Empire by Constantine the Great, after whom it was named.
Walls of Constantinople
Fall of the Western Roman Empire (476 AD) – the two halves of the Roman Empire ended at different times, with the Western Roman Empire coming to an end in 476 AD (the end of Ancient Rome). The Eastern Roman Empire (referred to by historians as the Byzantine Empire) survived for nearly a thousand years more, and eventually engulfed much of the Western Roman Empire's former territory.
Fall of the Western Roman Empire – this was not sudden, and took over a hundred years. By 476, when Odoacer deposed the Emperor Romulus, the Western Roman Empire wielded negligible military, political, or financial power and had no effective control over the scattered Western domains that still described themselves as Roman.
Odoacer – Germanic soldier, who in 476 became the first King of Italy (476-493). His reign is commonly seen as marking the end of the Western Roman Empire.
Byzantine Empire (Byzantium) – after the Western Roman Empire fragmented and collapsed, the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium) continued to thrive, existing for nearly another thousand years until it fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. Its citizens referred to it as the Roman Empire, and saw it as a direct continuation of it. Historians consider it to be a distinctly different empire, with some overlap, but generally not included in the period referred to as Ancient Rome. Byzantium differed in major ways, including its primary language, which was Greek rather than Latin. It also differed religiously, with Roman mythology being replaced by Christianity.
Legacy of the Roman Empire – what the Roman Empire passed on, in the form of cultural values, religious beliefs, as well as technological and other achievements, and through which it continued to shape other civilizations, a process which continues to this day.
Cultural heritage of the Roman Empire
Last of the Romans
History of the Romans in Arabia
Legacy of Byzantium
Third Rome
Roman historiography
Roman historiography
Historiography of the fall of the Western Roman Empire
Prosopography of ancient Rome
Works on Roman history
Ab urbe condita by Titus Livius (around 59 BC-17 AD), a monumental history of Rome, from its founding (traditionally dated to 753 BC).
Annals and Histories by Tacitus
De re militari by Vegetius
Res Gestae by Ammianus Marcellinus
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon
Culture of ancient Rome
Culture of ancient Rome
Architecture of ancient Rome
Ancient Roman architecture
Roman Architectural Revolution
Roman concrete
Roman brick
Types of buildings and structures
Roman amphitheatre
List of Roman amphitheatres
Roman aqueduct
List of aqueducts in the city of Rome
List of aqueducts in the Roman Empire
Roman bridge
List of Roman bridges
Roman canal
Roman circus
Roman cistern
Roman dams and reservoirs
Roman defensive walls
Roman domes
Forum
Roman Forum
List of monuments of the Roman Forum
Roman gardens
Roman horreum
Insula (building)
Roman roads
Roman roofs
Roman temple
List of Ancient Roman temples
Roman theatre
List of Roman theatres
Thermae
List of Roman public baths
Tholos
Roman triumphal arches
Roman villa
Villa rustica
Art in ancient Rome
Roman art
Art collection in ancient Rome
Decorative arts of ancient Rome
Ancient Roman pottery
Roman glass
Roman mosaic
Literature
Augustan literature
Augustan poetry
Music of ancient Rome
Painting of ancient Rome
Pompeian Styles
Sculpture of ancient Rome
Roman sculpture
Roman portraiture
Theatre of ancient Rome
Bathing in ancient Rome
Calendar
Julian calendar
Cuisine of ancient Rome
Food and dining in the Roman Empire
Baking in ancient Rome
Wine in Roman culture
Alban wine
Caecuban wine
Falernian wine
Education in ancient Rome
Athenaeum
Paedagogus
Fashion in ancient Rome
Clothing in ancient Rome
Abolla
Palla
Pallium
Stola
Synthesis
Toga
Angusticlavia
Trabea
Cosmetics in Ancient Rome
Roman hairstyles
Caesar cut
Roman jewelry
Festivals
Ludi Romani
Lupercalia
Saturnalia
Fiction set in ancient Rome
Roman folklore
Roman jokes
Legacy of the Roman Empire
Museum of Roman Civilization
Medicine in ancient Rome
Dentistry in ancient Rome
Disability in ancient Rome
Disease in Imperial Rome
Food and diet in ancient medicine
Gynecology in ancient Rome
Medical community of ancient Rome
Mental illness in ancient Rome
Surgery in ancient Rome
Naming conventions
People in ancient Rome
List of ancient Romans
Philosophy in ancient Rome
Public entertainment
Chariot racing
Gladiator combat
Ludi
Sexuality in ancient Rome
Homosexuality in ancient Rome
Prostitution
Technology
Engineering in ancient Rome
Units of measurement
Roman timekeeping
Sanitation in ancient Rome
Social order in ancient Rome
Associations in Ancient Rome
Collegium
Dignitas
Family in ancient Rome
Pater familias
Adoption in ancient Rome
Birth registration in ancient Rome
Childhood in ancient Rome
Marriage in ancient Rome
Confarreatio
Diffarreation
Manus marriage
Weddings in ancient Rome
Mos maiorum
Patronage in ancient Rome
Roman citizenship
Romanization
Slavery in ancient Rome
Social class in ancient Rome
Patricians
Equites
Plebs
Conflict of the Orders
Secessio plebis
Equestrian order
Gens
Tribes
Poverty in ancient Rome
Women in ancient Rome
Naming conventions for women in ancient Rome
Religion in ancient Rome
Religion in ancient Rome
Christianity
Imperial cult
Persecution of pagans in the late Roman Empire
Religious persecution in the Roman Empire
Roman mythology
Roman mythology
Roman Gods
Capitoline Triad
Juno
Jupiter
Minerva
Heroes
Hercules in ancient Rome
Great Altar of Hercules
Temple of Hercules Victor
Roma (deity)
Roman religious institutions
Collegium Pontificum
Vestal Virgin
Rex Sacrorum
Pontifex maximus
Flamen
Augur
Quindecimviri sacris faciundis
Epulones
Roman religious practices
Animal sacrifice
Lustratio
October Horse
Taurobolium
Roman funerary practices
Roman funerary art
Roman sarcophagi
Language in ancient Rome
Latin
Romance languages
History of Latin
Old Latin
Classical Latin
Vulgar Latin
Latin alphabet
Latin letters used in mathematics
Roman numerals
Latin phrases
Latin-script calligraphy
Roman cursive
Roman square capitals
Rustic capitals
Languages of the Roman Empire
Economy of ancient Rome
Roman economy
Roman agriculture
Deforestation
Grain supply to the city of Rome
Roman commerce
Roman trade with China
Roman trade with India
Roman finance
Banking in ancient Rome
Taxation in ancient Rome
Roman currency
Roman Republican currency
Roman provincial currency
Roman metallurgy
Mining in ancient Rome
Mining in Roman Britain
Scholars
Ancient
Modern
Edward Gibbon
Mary Beard
Ancient Roman lists
See also
Outline of Rome
Outline of the Byzantine Empire
Outline of classical studies
Daqin
Fiction set in ancient Rome
References
External links
Ancient Rome resources for students from the Courtenay Middle School Library.
History of Ancient Rome OpenCourseWare from the University of Notre Dame providing free resources including lectures, discussion questions, assignments and exams.
Ancient Rome portal at Encarta Encyclopedia
Gallery of the Ancient Art: Ancient Rome
Lacus Curtius
Livius.Org Archived 2017-07-01 at the Wayback Machine
Nova Roma - Educational Organization about "All Things Roman"
The Private Life of the Romans by Harold Whetstone Johnston