Roman rulers

Colourful illustration of 12 historical figures's heads (Winston Churchill, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Thomas Cromwell, Richard III, Elizabeth I, William Shakespeare, Anne Boleyn, William Marshal, Jane Austen, Hatshepsut, Gandhi and Catherine the Great) shown in a grid pattern.

Top historical figures: 100+ of the most famous people through history – in chronological order

The death of Domitian: how aristocrats conspired against the Roman emperor.

A bust of Marcus Aurelius and a detail on Marcus Aurelius’s column in Rome

Marcus Aurelius: Rome’s reluctant killer.

Marcus Aurelius: thinker or fighter?.

Julius Caesar. (Photo by Getty Images)

Caesar's British gamble.

The Roman emperors: everything you wanted to know.

Marble bust of Nero

Rethinking Nero: was the Roman emperor really so bad?.

Marble bust of Caligula

Caligula: murderous and depraved, or a victim of history?

Your guide to the Roman empire: when it was formed, why it split and how it failed, plus its most colourful emperors

The bloody rise of Augustus

Roman republic

Your guide to the Roman Republic

Marble relief depicting the Praetorian Guard, legionnaires and elite soldiers. In the Louvre, Paris, France. (Photo by Leemage/Corbis via Getty Images)

The Praetorian Guard: the emperors’ fatal servants

Portrait head of Roman Emperor Nero circa AD 59-64. (Photo by Alamy)

Nero: Rome’s Antichrist?.

Marble bust of Nero

Emperor Nero: the tyrant of Rome

Engraving of emperor Commodus's death

Cheese, angry gods and shoddy surgeons: the unlikely deaths of Roman emperors.

Once he gained control of the entire Roman Empire, Constantine set about an ambitious programme of reform. (Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

Constantine the Great: the emperor who created Europe

Emperor Nero and the fire in Rome

Q&ADid Emperor Nero really play the fiddle while Rome burned?

Bust of young Caligula. Did he really make his horse a lawmaker of Rome? (Photo by DeAgostini/Getty Images)

Q&ADid Caligula really make his horse a senator?

Early 20th century image showing a tribune in the Roman Republic. (Photo by Culture Club/Getty Images)

Elections in the late Roman Republic: how did they work?.

My history heroNick Knowles chooses Julius Caesar (100–44 BC).

A 1985 production of 'Julius Caesar'. For all their despotism, Romans thanked their first three emperors for delivering them from the curse of civil war. (Photo by Jean-Jacques BERNIER/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images)

The glorious Caesars.

Life of the Week: Romulus Augustus

Photo of Roman coins

Q&ADid Roman Britain have its own emperor?.

Bust of Emperor Alexander Severus

The LibraryAncient Rome in crisis.

5 facts about Caligula

A detail of a fresco of Hannibal riding his elephant. It is estimated he took as many as 40 elephants when he marched an army across the Alps and into northern Italy. (Photo by Photo12/UIG/Getty Images)

Q&AHow many elephants did Hannibal take over the Alps?

Picture of the last Roman Emperor, Romulus Augustus

Q&AWhat happened to the last emperor of Rome?

Q&AWhat does it mean to 'cross the Rubicon'?

An illustration of Nikephoros II. (Photo by INTERFOTO/Alamy Stock Photo)

A big day in history: the all-conquering Byzantine emperor Nikephoros II loses his head.

A second-century bronze head of Roman Emperor Hadrian

Hadrian: rescuer of the Roman Empire.