The Romans Gallery 9 - End of Empire

Antoninus Pius (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York: René Seindal).

Marcus Aurelius (Digital reconstruction by Richard Sebring)

Nerva vowed publicly that he would never execute a member of the senate, and stuck to his promise even when the senator Calpurnius Crassus was proved guilty of conspiracy against him. (VRoma: Museo Massimo: Ann Raia)

Trajan was born at Italica near Seville in AD 52, and became emperor in AD 98. (Capitoline Museums, Rome: René Seindal)

Gold aureus of Trajan, depicting the triumphal arch which was the entrance to the Forum of Trajan. After the procession which celebrated his first victory over the Dacians in AD 103, there were 123 days of public games and gladiatorial contests. (VRoma: British Museum: Barbara McManus)

Gold aureus of the time of Trajan, with the head of his wife, Plotina. It was said in some quarters that Plotina engineered Trajan’s adoption of Trajan as his son and kept her husband’s death a secret until the official bulletin about the adoption had been issued.(© Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery, University of Glasgow)

Antinous, whose lover Hadrian almost certainly was, drowned in the Nile in mysterious circumstances in AD 130. (Vatican Museums: René Seindal)

Imperial couple as Mars and Venus, AD 120 - 40: Hadrian and his wife Sabina, whose head has been later replaced by that of Lucilla, wife of Verus. (VRoma: Louvre, Paris: Barbara McManus)

Marcus Aurelius was an active devotee of the Stoic school of philosophy, one of whose doctrines was the universal brotherhood and equality of man. When the time came, he insisted that equal imperial rights should be invested in Verus, which were duly but largely nominally exercised by Verus until his death. (Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples: René Seindal)

Detail from the arch of Marcus Aurelius, showing him riding in a triumphal chariot in AD 176. This celebration of his victory over the Marcomanni was delayed while he put down an insurrection in the east. Winged victory hovers over him. A trumpeter blows a tuba, the long horn used by the military to sound the advance and retreat. If the head and shoulders in the centre of the design are those of Faustina, she was his late wife. Though various amours and other disloyal acts have been attributed to her, she was deified on her death in AD 175. (Capitoline Museums, Rome: René Seindal)

Annia Galeria Faustina, wife of Antoninus (Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples: René Seindal).

Her younger daughter, also called Faustina, wife of Marcus Aurelius (Capitoline Museums, Rome: René Seindal).

Commodus (Digital reconstruction by Richard Sebring)

Severus (Capitoline Museums, Rome: René Seindal)

Caracalla (AD 188 - 217), nicknamed after a Gaulish greatcoat, in military uniform c. 215 (VRoma: AICT).

Geta (AD 189 - 212) (Capitoline Museums, Rome: René Seindal)

Julia Domna. The Roman tradition that women took no part in public life was conclusively broken by the wife of Septimius Severus, Julia Domna. When Caracalla became emperor, she dealt with petitions and with her son’s correspondence (in Latin and Greek), and held soirées and receptions for philosophers and scientists. Note the artistic development whereby a drill has been used on the eyes to indicate the ring of the iris and the pupil. (Antikensammlungen: Richard Stoneman)

Alexander Severus (Capitoline Museums, Rome: René Seindal)

Mother of Alexander Severus, Julia Mammaea (Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek: René Seindal).

Maximinus. (Capitoline Museums, Rome: René Seindal)

Bronze medallion of Gordian III, showing the Circus Maximus with the emperor as victor in a six-horse chariot race. Gladiators and wrestlers compete in the foreground. (VRoma: British Museum: Barbara McManus)

Gallienus (Museo Archeologico Nazionale: René Seindal)

Aurelian built the great defensive wall round Rome itself. Finished after his death, it was about 20 km long, 4 m thick, and 7.2 m high. (Photograph copyright © William P. Thayer 2000)

Diocletian. (Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek: René Seindal)

The tetrarchs, (left) Diocletian and Maximian, (behind) Constantius and Galerius. Porphyry sculpture of AD 305, Piazza san Marco, Venice. (VRoma: AICT)

Caracalla had introduced the antoninianus, a silver coin worth two denarii, which gradually became debased. By c. AD 293 - 6, the date of this particular coin, the metal was simply an alloy. It was minted in Britain by Allectus, who murdered Carausius in AD 293 and usurped his unconstitutional role. The figure, and the letters round the rim, stand for peace. The ten-year rebellion was put down by Constantius in AD 296. The letters ML stand for Moneta Londiniensis (Mint of London); established by Carausius, it was retained as an official source of issue until about AD 326. ( © Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery, University of Glasgow)

Reconstruction of Diocletian’s palace, Split, Croatia. (From Helen and Richard Leacroft, The Buildings of Byzantium, Brockhampton Press 1977)

Helena, a former barmaid, wife of Constantius Chlorus and mother of Constantine the Great. Constantius was subsequently forced to divorce her and marry Maximian’s daughter. (Capitoline Museums, Rome: René Seindal)

Bronze statue of Constantine, who was born in Naissus in Upper Moesia in about AD 272. (Capitoline Museums, Rome: René Seindal)

Coin of Severus Alexander, depicting implements used in sacrifice. (© Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery, University of Glasgow)

Triumphal procession going through the Arch of Constantine in Rome, built in AD 315. Behind the arch is part of the Colosseum. (From Helen and Richard Leacroft, The Buildings of Ancient Rome, 1969)

The Arch of Constantine today, with the Colosseum behind it. A photograph taken from much the same viewpoint as the drawing above. (VRoma: Paula Chabot)

Late fourth-century AD gold bar stamped four times with the name of the imperial accountant and also with that of the imperial assayer. Gold coins collected for taxes were immediately melted down, made into bars, and sent to the emperor’s residence to prevent pilfering by officials. (VRoma: British Museum: Barbara McManus)

Gold coins from a belt depicting the emperors from Constans to Theodosius. (VRoma: Getty Museum, Santa Monica: Barbara McManus)

Part of a bust of Valentinian I (AD 321 - 75). (Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek: René Seindal)

Aelia Flavia Flaccilla (d. AD 386), the Spanish first wife of Theodosius and mother of Arcadius and Honorius. (Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek: René Seindal)

Europe in about AD 400. From Antony Kamm, The Last Frontier: the Roman Invasions of Scotland, Tempus 2004

Coin from Constantinople of Anastasius, who in AD 491 was chosen by Zeno’s widow to succeed Zeno. A month later Anastasius married her. He ruled until AD 518. ( © Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery, University of Glasgow)

In training, recruits were required to march 32 km in five hours, but that would be about the most that an army could travel on foot in a day. Scenes from Trajan’s column. (VRoma: AICT)

Reconstruction of the race-course, Constantinople, with behind it the church of St Sophia. (From Helen and Richard Leacroft, The Buildings of Byzantium, Brockhampton Press 1977)

Reconstruction of the interior of the church of San Vitale, Ravenna, Italy, built between AD 526 and 547 by a wealthy banker for the emperor Justinian. (From Helen and Richard Leacroft, The Buildings of Byzantium, Brockhampton Press 1977)

Church of St Sophia (interior seen here in a lithograph of 1849). From Picture Reference Ancient Romans, Brockhampton Press 1970

Justinian and his court, and (inset) Theodora. (Illustration by John Pittaway from Picture Reference Ancient Romans, Brockhampton Press 1970)

Roman aqueduct at Segovia, 29 m high and still in working order. (VRoma: Paula Chabot)

Latin inscription on an altar to Disciplina, a military cult deity, found at Birrens, Dumfriesshire, and dating from between AD 120 to 180. It goes on to say that the altar was erected by the Second Tungrian Cohort, which included a troop of cavalry. (Illustration by Jennifer Campbell from Scotland in Roman Times, Scottish Children’s Press 1998)

Spread from William Shakespeare’s sonnets, published by the Folio Society in 1947. (Antony Kamm)

A device for measuring distance, described by Vitruvius (fl. c. 50 - 26 BC). The wheel (A) runs along the ground. A peg on its axle fits into the cogs of wheel (B), the rotation of which is transmitted through a series of joints (C, D, E, F) to disk (G), which is perforated with holes. As the disk rotates these holes come opposite to the open end of a tube (H, J), leading to a tank (K). Pebbles are placed on each hole at (G), and the device is so geared that at every mile one falls into the tank. Dials may be fitted to the horizontal shafts (L, M). (From Cyril Bailey (ed.), The Legacy of Rome, Clarendon Press 1923)

Families, from the Ara Pacis, Rome 13 - 9 BC. (VRoma: Ann Raia)