page_title: Outline of ancient Rome
section_title: General history of ancient Rome
hierarchical_section_title: Outline of ancient Rome / General history of ancient Rome
caption_attribution_description: English: historic map of Roman Empire during the first tetrarchy
context_page_description: 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.
context_section_description: 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.
  Battle 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
  Trajan
  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 Roma
caption: Map of the Roman Empire under the Tetrarchy, showing the dioceses and the four Tetrarchs' zones of influence.
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS5.1 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2013:10:08 13:35:36", "Image ExifOffset": "164", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "302", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "7540", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "991", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "751"}