From Sulla's retirement to the death of Commodus: what Rome governed, what it held through kings, and what it gave up.
These two and a half centuries fall into three parts, each with its own map. In the first the Republic, torn by civil war, still conquers: Pompey in the East, Caesar in Gaul, Octavian in Egypt. In the second Augustus and his successors push the frontier to the Danube, lose Germany, and cross into Britain. In the third the empire reaches its widest extent under Trajan, then holds a line that Hadrian drew and Marcus Aurelius defended.
Each map follows the same rule. A territory is coloured as a province from the year Rome began to govern it, and hatched while it was a client kingdom, being conquered, or in revolt. A gold outline marks what changed at each step.
From Sulla's retirement to the death of Cleopatra: Pompey's East, Caesar's Gaul, and Egypt.
Sulla lays down his dictatorship. Rome governs Sicily, Sardinia, Spain, southern Gaul, Macedonia, Africa and Asia, and holds a command in Cilicia against the pirates. In Spain the exile Quintus Sertorius, a Marian general, is holding much of the peninsula against the government at Rome.
Nicomedes IV of Bithynia dies and leaves his kingdom to Rome; Cyrene, bequeathed in 96, is at last organised as a province. Mithridates of Pontus answers by invading Bithynia, and the consul Lucullus is sent east. In 73 he relieves the siege of Cyzicus.
Lucullus has driven Mithridates out of Pontus and beaten Tigranes of Armenia at Tigranocerta (69), but his army will go no further. Quintus Metellus completes the conquest of Crete. The Gabinian law gives Pompey a command over the whole sea, and he clears it of pirates in a single summer. Sertorius is dead and Spain obedient again.
With Mithridates beaten, Pompey redraws the East. Syria, the last remnant of the Seleucid kingdom, becomes a province (64); the coast of Pontus is joined to Bithynia; Cilicia is enlarged. Jerusalem falls after a siege of three months. Galatia, Cappadocia and Judaea keep their rulers as clients of Rome.
A tribune's law annexes Cyprus from its Ptolemaic king, and Cato is sent to collect its treasure. Caesar takes up his five-year command in Gaul; within months he has turned back the migrating Helvetii near Bibracte and driven the German king Ariovistus back across the Rhine.
Eight campaigns have carried Roman arms to the Rhine and the Channel, and twice across it into Britain (55, 54). The great revolt of 52 ends at Alesia; Uxellodunum falls in 51. In the East, Crassus and most of his army have been destroyed by the Parthians at Carrhae (53). Egypt's king rules by grace of a Roman garrison.
Caesar crosses the Rubicon in 49. He beats the Pompeians in Spain at Ilerda (49), is checked at Dyrrachium and wins at Pharsalus (48), then at Thapsus in Africa (46) and Munda in Spain (45). King Juba's Numidia becomes the province of Africa Nova; Cyprus is handed back to Egypt. On the Ides of March, 44, Caesar is killed.
Caesar's heirs beat his murderers at Philippi (42) and then fall out. Octavian's fleet defeats Antony and Cleopatra off Actium (31); the next year both are dead, and Egypt passes to Rome as the property of its conqueror. Mauretania, bequeathed by its king in 33, is also under Roman administration.
Province outlines: Ancient World Mapping Center, “Roman Empire c. 60 BC”, “c. AD 117 extent” and “c. AD 200 extent and provinces” (ODbL; after the Barrington Atlas). Each territory is drawn at its c. 60 BC or c. AD 200 extent from the date it came under Roman rule, so earlier inland limits are drawn too large. The c. 60 BC Bithynia–Pontus strip is divided here at the river Parthenius, and Spain beyond the c. 60 BC limit is shown as a single band; both are approximations. Coastlines and rivers: Natural Earth. Sites: Pleiades.
Octavian's victory left one master of the whole Mediterranean coast. The next map widens the frame to the north, where the new regime spent most of its soldiers' lives.
The frontier pushed to the Danube, won and lost beyond the Rhine, and carried into Britain.
In January 27 Octavian returns the state to the Senate and people and receives the name Augustus, with the great frontier provinces for his own command. Egypt he keeps under a prefect of his choosing. The Alps, the northwest of Spain and the Balkans below the Danube are still unconquered.
When King Amyntas is killed in 25, Galatia becomes a province; the same year Mauretania is given to Juba II as a client kingdom. The Cantabrian and Asturian wars, begun under Augustus himself in 26, are finished by Agrippa in 19, and all Spain is Roman after two centuries of fighting.
Augustus' stepsons, Drusus and Tiberius, strike into the Alps from the south and from Gaul in a single summer and take Raetia and the lands up to the Danube. Noricum, a kingdom long friendly to Rome, is annexed about the same time. The trophy at La Turbie later lists forty-five Alpine peoples subdued.
Tiberius conquers Pannonia (12–9), carrying the frontier to the middle Danube. Across the Rhine, Drusus campaigns every year from Mogontiacum and reaches the Elbe in 9, then dies after a fall from his horse. Roman bases and markets begin to be built east of the Rhine.
Herod's son Archelaus is deposed and Judaea becomes a province under a prefect. A command in Moesia is now attested on the lower Danube. Then Pannonia and Dalmatia rise; for three years Tiberius, with the largest Roman army assembled since the civil wars, fights to recover them.
The Pannonian revolt is crushed in 9. Weeks later, in the forests of northern Germany, Arminius of the Cherusci destroys Quinctilius Varus and three legions; the battlefield near Kalkriese has been identified by excavation. Rome keeps the Rhine but never again governs the land beyond it.
Augustus dies in 14; Germanicus leads punitive campaigns over the Rhine (14–16) and is recalled. Under Tiberius the kingdom of Cappadocia is annexed at the death of Archelaus, and Commagene is placed under Syria. The empire's revenue from Cappadocia allowed Tiberius to halve the sales tax, as Tacitus reports.
Gaius has the king of Mauretania put to death (40), and after a hard war two provinces are made there. In 43 Claudius sends four legions to Britain and takes Camulodunum; Lycia is annexed the same year. In 46 the client kingdom of Thrace is ended, and the whole southern bank of the Danube is Roman.
In Britain Boudica's rising (60–61) burns Camulodunum, Londinium and Verulamium before it is crushed. In the East Corbulo's wars end with a compromise: Tiridates, a Parthian prince, is crowned king of Armenia by Nero in Rome (66). The same year Judaea rises, and the garrison of Jerusalem is destroyed.
Nero's death ends the house of Augustus. Galba, Otho and Vitellius follow in a year; the armies fight two battles near Bedriacum and sack Cremona before Vespasian, commanding in Judaea, is recognised. On the lower Rhine the Batavian Julius Civilis rises and besieges the legions at Vetera.
Province outlines: Ancient World Mapping Center, “Roman Empire c. 60 BC”, “c. AD 117 extent” and “c. AD 200 extent and provinces” (ODbL; after the Barrington Atlas). Each territory is drawn at its c. 60 BC or c. AD 200 extent from the date it came under Roman rule, so earlier inland limits are drawn too large. Thrace is divided from Asia across the straits, and Galatia from Cappadocia along a meridian; the second division is an approximation. The Roman advance to the Elbe is shown by labels only, since no border was ever settled there. Coastlines and rivers: Natural Earth. Sites: Pleiades.
Vespasian's victory in the civil war of 69 founded a second dynasty. The last map reaches from Caledonia to the Persian Gulf, the furthest any Roman army went.
Scotland won and lost twice, Dacia taken, Mesopotamia held for three years, and the Danube defended.
Vespasian holds Rome. His son Titus takes Jerusalem after a five-month siege and the Temple is burned; on the Rhine the Batavian revolt is ended by negotiation and force. In Britain the new governors push north against the Brigantes and west into Wales.
Masada, the last Jewish stronghold, falls (73 or 74). Commagene and rough Cilicia are annexed (72), and legions move up to the Euphrates. Roads are driven into the angle between the upper Rhine and the Danube, the Agri Decumates, shortening the line between the two armies.
Julius Agricola, governor of Britain for seven seasons, carries Roman arms into Scotland and defeats the Caledonians at Mons Graupius (83 or 84), a site still not identified. On the Rhine, Domitian's war with the Chatti (83) extends the frontier into the Taunus.
Decebalus of Dacia invades Moesia (85) and destroys a Roman army. Domitian's generals win at Tapae (88), and peace in 89 makes Decebalus a client, paid a subsidy. Troops are drawn from Britain and the forts north of the Forth are given up. At Mogontiacum the governor Saturninus rebels and is put down.
Trajan fights two Dacian wars (101–102, 105–106). Apollodorus bridges the Danube at Drobeta, Sarmizegetusa falls and Decebalus kills himself; Dacia becomes a province with a new capital, Ulpia Traiana. The same year the Nabataean kingdom is annexed as Arabia, with its capital at Bostra.
Trajan annexes Armenia (114), takes northern Mesopotamia and in 116 the Parthian capital, Ctesiphon, and sails down the Tigris to the Persian Gulf. Behind him revolts break out in the new provinces, and the Jewish communities of Cyrene, Egypt and Cyprus rise (115–117). Hatra holds out against him.
Trajan dies in 117. Hadrian gives up the eastern conquests at once, returning to the Euphrates, and sets about fixing the frontiers: palisades in Germany, and in Britain a wall of stone from the Tyne to the Solway, begun about 122. He spends much of his reign touring the provinces.
Hadrian refounds Jerusalem as a Roman colony, Aelia Capitolina. Simon bar Kosiba (Bar Kokhba) leads a revolt in 132 that takes three years and heavy losses to crush. Afterwards the province is renamed Syria Palaestina, and Jews are barred from Jerusalem.
Antoninus Pius, who never leaves Italy as emperor, has his governor advance again into Scotland and build a turf wall between the Forth and the Clyde, celebrated on the coinage of 142–143. His reign is the longest peace the empire knew.
The Parthians invade Armenia and Syria (161). Under Lucius Verus the Roman armies take Dura on the Euphrates, restore a client king at Edessa and burn Seleucia and Ctesiphon (165). The returning troops bring an epidemic that spreads across the empire. The Antonine Wall has been abandoned.
The Marcomanni and Quadi cross the Danube, besiege Aquileia and sack Opitergium, the first invaders in Italy for nearly three centuries; the date is disputed (167 or 170). The Costoboci raid through the Balkans as far as Eleusis. Marcus Aurelius commands on the Danube from Carnuntum for most of a decade.
Marcus dies on campaign in 180, at Vindobona or Sirmium; the sources differ. Commodus makes peace with the northern peoples and returns to Rome. On the last day of 192 he is strangled by a wrestler in a palace plot. The frontiers he leaves are, almost everywhere, those Hadrian fixed.
Province outlines: Ancient World Mapping Center, “Roman Empire c. 60 BC”, “c. AD 117 extent” and “c. AD 200 extent and provinces” (ODbL; after the Barrington Atlas). Each territory is drawn at its c. 60 BC or c. AD 200 extent from the date it came under Roman rule, so earlier inland limits are drawn too large. Trajan's eastern provinces are the AD 117 extent beyond the AD 200 frontier. The Agri Decumates are cut from the AD 200 provinces along the Rhine and Danube, and Britain at the line of Hadrian's Wall; the Antonine Wall is drawn schematically between the Forth and the Clyde. Invasion arrows are schematic. Coastlines and rivers: Natural Earth. Sites: Pleiades.
Apart from Dacia and Arabia, and the brief conquests in the East, almost every province Commodus left had been Roman before Augustus died. The great expansions were the Republic's, carried out by generals with their own armies and their own ambitions. The emperors mostly defended what those generals had won, and the price of defending it is the story of the next century.