Arcadius was Roman emperor from 383 to his death in 408. He was the eldest son of the Augustus Theodosius I and his first wife Aelia Flaccilla, and the brother of Honorius. Arcadius ruled the eastern half of the empire from 395, when their father died, while Honorius ruled the west. A weak ruler, his reign was dominated by a series of powerful ministers and by his wife, Aelia Eudoxia.
Theodosius I, also called Theodosius the Great, was Roman emperor from 379 to 395. During his reign, he succeeded in a crucial war against the Goths, as well as in two civil wars, and was instrumental in establishing the creed of Nicaea as the orthodox doctrine for Christianity. Theodosius was the last emperor to rule the entire Roman Empire before its administration was permanently split between the West and East.
Theodosius II was Roman emperor from 402 to 450. He was proclaimed augustus as an infant and ruled as the eastern Empire's sole emperor after the death of his father, Arcadius, in 408. His reign was marked by the promulgation of the Theodosian law code and the construction of the Theodosian Walls of Constantinople. He also presided over the outbreak of two great Christological controversies, Nestorianism and Eutychianism.
Trajan's Column is a Roman triumphal column in Rome, Italy, that commemorates Roman emperor Trajan's victory in the Dacian Wars. It was probably constructed under the supervision of the architect Apollodorus of Damascus at the order of the Roman Senate. It is located in Trajan's Forum, north of the Roman Forum. Completed in AD 113, the freestanding column is most famous for its spiral bas relief, which depicts the wars between the Romans and Dacians. Its design has inspired numerous victory columns, both ancient and modern.
Aelia Pulcheria was an Eastern Roman empress who advised her brother emperor Theodosius II during his minority and then became wife to emperor Marcian from November 450 to her death in 453.
Aelia Eudoxia was a Roman empress consort by marriage to the Roman emperor Arcadius. The marriage was the source of some controversy, as it was arranged by Eutropius, one of the eunuch court officials, who was attempting to expand his influence. As Empress, she came into conflict with John Chrysostom, the Patriarch of Constantinople, who was popular among the common folk for his denunciations of imperial and clerical excess. She had five children, four of whom survived to adulthood, including her only son and future emperor Theodosius II, but she had two additional pregnancies that ended in either miscarriages or stillbirths and she died as a result of the latter one.
A victory column, or monumental column or triumphal column, is a monument in the form of a column, erected in memory of a victorious battle, war, or revolution. The column typically stands on a base and is crowned with a victory symbol, such as a statue. The statue may represent the goddess Victoria; in Germany, the female embodiment of the nation, Germania; in the United States either the female embodiment of the nation Liberty or Columbia; in the United Kingdom, the female embodiment Britannia, an eagle, or a war hero.
The Colossus of Barletta is a large bronze statue of a Roman emperor, nearly three times life size in Barletta, Apulia, Italy. It is a Late Antique statue, but the date, identity of the emperor, and the original location of the statue remain uncertain. Most datings are to the 5th or early 6th centuries, and many think it was made in Constantinople, and perhaps originally placed there. It is the largest Roman or Byzantine bronze statue to have survived essentially intact.
The Theodosian dynasty was a Roman imperial family that produced five Roman emperors during Late Antiquity, reigning over the Roman Empire from 379 to 457. The dynasty's patriarch was Theodosius the Elder, whose son Theodosius the Great was made Roman emperor in 379. Theodosius's two sons both became emperors, while his daughter married Constantius III, producing a daughter that became an empress and a son also became emperor. The dynasty of Theodosius married into, and reigned concurrently with, the ruling Valentinianic dynasty, and was succeeded by the Leonid dynasty with the accession of Leo the Great.
The Column of Marcus Aurelius is a Roman victory column in Piazza Colonna, Rome, Italy. It is a Doric column featuring a spiral relief: it was built in honour of Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius and modeled on Trajan's Column.
The Basilica Ulpia was an ancient Roman civic building located in the Forum of Trajan. The Basilica Ulpia separates the temple from the main courtyard in the Forum of Trajan with the Trajan's Column to the northwest. It was named after Roman emperor Trajan whose full name was Marcus Ulpius Traianus.
The Forum of Constantine was built at the foundation of Constantinople immediately outside the old city walls of Byzantium. It marked the centre of the new city, and was a central point along the Mese, the main ceremonial road through the city. It was circular and had two monumental gates to the east and west. The Column of Constantine, which still stands upright and is known today in Turkish as Çemberlitaş, was erected in the centre of the square.
The Column of Constantine is a monumental column built for Roman emperor Constantine the Great to commemorate the dedication of Constantinople on 11 May 330 AD. Built c. 328 AD, it is the oldest Constantinian monument to survive in Istanbul and stood in the centre of the Forum of Constantine. It occupies the second-highest hill of the seven hills of Constantine's Nova Roma, the erstwhile Byzantium, and was midway along the Mese odos, the ancient city's main thoroughfare.
The Forum of Theodosius was probably the largest square in Constantinople and stood on the Mese, the major road that ran west from Hagia Sophia. It was originally built by Constantine I, probably on the site of a pre-existing Hellenistic agora called the Strategion, and named the Forum Tauri. In 393, however, it was renamed after Emperor Theodosius I, who rebuilt it after the model of Trajan's Forum in Rome, surrounded by civic buildings such as churches and baths and decorated with a triumphal column at its centre.
The Column of Arcadius was a Roman triumphal column in the forum of Arcadius in Constantinople built in the early 5th century AD. The marble column was historiated with a spiralling frieze of reliefs on its shaft and supported a colossal statue of the emperor, probably made of bronze, which fell down in 740. Its summit was accessible by an internal spiral staircase. Only its massive masonry base survives.
Pompey's Pillar is the name given to a Roman triumphal column in Alexandria, Egypt. Set up in honour of the Roman emperor Diocletian between 298–302 AD, the giant Corinthian column originally supported a colossal porphyry statue of the emperor in armour. It stands at the eastern side of the temenos of the Serapeum of Alexandria, beside the ruins of the temple of Serapis itself.
The Column of Leo was a 5th-century AD Roman honorific column in Constantinople. Built for Leo I, Augustus of the East from 7 February 457 to 18 January 474, the column stood in the Forum of Leo, known also as the Pittakia. It was a marble column, without flutes, composed of drums with a Corinthian capital, surmounted by a statue of the emperor.
The ancient city of Constantinople was divided into 14 administrative regions. The system of fourteen regiones was modelled on the fourteen regiones of Rome, a system introduced by the first Roman emperor Augustus in the 1st century AD.
