Rarely did ancient authors write about the lives of women; even more rarely did they write about the lives of ordinary women: not queens or heroines who influenced war or politics, …
The astonishing career of Galla Placidia (c. 390-450) provides valuable reflections on the state of the Roman empire in the fifth century CE. In an age when emperors, like Galla's …
A princess born to the Thuringian royal house. A captive in war, forced to marry the Frankish king who killed her family. A queen, who renounced her position, received consecration …
The elder Faustina (c. 97 - 140 AD) was the wife of Antonius Pius and the aunt of Marcus Aurelius, and her more prominent daughter, Faustina II (130 - 175), the wife of Marcus …
Perpetua was an early Christian martyr who died in Roman Carthage in 203 CE, along with several fellow martyrs, including one other woman, Felicitas. She has attracted great …
Fulvia is the first full-length biography in English focused solely on Fulvia, who is best known as the wife of Marcus Antonius (Mark Antony). Born into a less prestigious branch …
Two of the most famous mosaics from the Byzantine period, from the church of San Vitale in Ravenna, depict the sixth-century Emperor Justinian and, on the wall facing him, his …
In the middle of the third century, a girl was born on the north-eastern frontier of the Roman empire. Eighty years later, she died as Flavia Iulia Helena, Augusta of the Roman …
The Roman emperor Augustus gave his name to the age he dominated, from the latter half of the first century BC until the second decade of the following century. Yet he shared the …
Hailing from the Syrian city of Palmyra, a woman named Zenobia (also Bathzabbai) governed territory in the eastern Roman empire from 268 to 272. She thus became the most famous …
