An engraved red gem showing the she-wolf feeding Romulus and Remus
Garnet intaglio: Romulus, Remus, and the She-Wolf, 2nd century BCE–3rd century CE
Marked Rome

SubjectIn outline · lessons being written

The Roman Republic

After expelling its kings, Rome was governed by elected magistrates, a senate and assemblies. In five centuries it conquered the Mediterranean, and then tore itself apart in civil wars that ended with an emperor.

Place
Rome · The Forum · Pharsalus · ActiumEurope
Laid out as
A civilisationA society seen from the inside: its rulers, places, work, beliefs and daily life, laid out like the rooms of a house.
Lessons
6 planned, none written yet

The lessons we plan

Titles may change as they are written

  1. INo more kings
  2. IISenate and people
  3. IIIConquering Italy
  4. IVSpartacus
  5. VCaesar crosses the Rubicon
  6. VIAugustus, the first emperor

Still to come

The people and objects these lessons will cover

People

  • Cicero
  • Julius Caesar
  • Cleopatra VII
  • Spartacus
  • Augustus

Objects

  • Coins of the Republic
  • The Res Gestae of Augustus

Where it sits

All of human history, era by era

Early human ancestryOur species and the Old Stone AgeFarming and the New Stone AgeFirst cities and the Bronze AgeThe Iron Age and growing statesThe classical worldAfter the empiresMedieval networks and empiresOceans crossedRevolutions and the first factoriesIndustry, empire and world warThe world since 1945

509 BC to 27 BC. Each era is drawn the same width, so the earliest are squeezed: era II alone is over 300,000 years.

Nearby in time and place

This page is an outline. The summary above is a starting point; each lesson, when it is written, will give its sources, its pictures and where historians disagree. Spotted a mistake?