Roman Emperors – An Online Encyclopedia of Roman Rulers and Their Families

Julia Domna Julia Maesa Julia Soaemias Julia Mamaea Introduction and Sources In the mid 180s, Septimius Severus became governor of the province of Gallia Lugdunensis. At thia point in the emperor’s life,  the Historia Augusta records, “He had meanwhile lost his wife, and now, wishing to take another, he made inquiries about the horoscopes of marriageable women, being himself […]

Revolt and Brief Reign Gregory, a distant relative of Heraclius (son of Heraclius’ cousin Nicetas) became exarch of Carthage during Heraclius‘ reign.  The exarchate of Carthage was very unsettled at this time due to religious conflict caused by friction between the mainly orthodox provincial population and an influx of Monothelite refugees from Egypt, including a group of zealous […]

Nothing is known of the antecedents of Anastasia, wife of Constantine IV (668-685). Her eldest son Justinian II was born c. 668, which would place her birth most probably in the early 650s. A presumably apocryphal tradition, recorded by Constantine Porphyrogenitus, states that she gave birth to Justinian on the island of Cyprus.[[1]] When Constantine died in 685, at the age […]

(c) 2000 Chris Connell Following the chronology carefully reconstructed by G. Sumner from often conflicting sources (namely the chronicles of Theophanes and Nicephorus, Chronicon Altinate et Gradense published in part by Grierson as the Necrologium imperatorum, and the later Syriac chronicle of Michael the Syrian), we can attempt to sketch the events of Philippicus’ brief but eventful reign […]

Introduction The reign of Alexius II Comnenus (24 September 1180- before 24 September 1183) marks the beginning of a rapid decline in Byzantine affairs, following the restoration effected by the first three emperors of the Comnenian dynasty. Throughout, the spectre of the boy emperor’s second cousin Andronicus loomed, whether it be as a rallying-point to the opponents […]