Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus, also known as Octavian, was the founder of the Roman Empire. He reigned as the first Roman emperor from 27 BC until his death in AD 14. The reign of Augustus initiated an imperial cult, as well as an era of imperial peace in which the Roman world was largely free of armed conflict. The Principate system of government was established during his reign and lasted until the Crisis of the Third Century.
Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, or Claudius, was a Roman emperor, ruling from AD 41 to 54. A member of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, Claudius was born to Drusus and Antonia Minor at Lugdunum in Roman Gaul, where his father was stationed as a military legate. He was the first Roman emperor to be born outside Italy.
The Julio-Claudian dynasty comprised the first five Roman emperors: Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, and Nero.
Tiberius Julius Caesar Augustus was Roman emperor from AD 14 until 37. He succeeded his stepfather Augustus, the first Roman emperor. Tiberius was born in Rome in 42 BC to Roman politician Tiberius Claudius Nero and his wife, Livia Drusilla. In 38 BC, Tiberius's mother divorced his father and married Augustus. Following the untimely deaths of Augustus's two grandsons and adopted heirs, Gaius and Lucius Caesar, Tiberius was designated Augustus's successor. Prior to this, Tiberius had proved himself an able diplomat and one of the most successful Roman generals: his conquests of Pannonia, Dalmatia, Raetia, and (temporarily) parts of Germania laid the foundations for the empire's northern frontier.
This article concerns the period 19 BC – 10 BC.
Nero Claudius Drusus Germanicus, commonly known in English as Drusus the Elder, was a Roman politician and military commander. He was a patrician Claudian but his mother was from a plebeian family. He was the son of Livia Drusilla and the stepson of her second husband, the Emperor Augustus. He was also brother of the Emperor Tiberius; the father of the Emperor Claudius and general Germanicus; paternal grandfather of the Emperor Caligula, and maternal great-grandfather of the Emperor Nero.
Livia Drusilla was Roman empress from 27 BC to AD 14 as the wife of Augustus, the first Roman emperor. She was known as Julia Augusta after her formal adoption into the Julia gens in AD 14.
Antonia Minor was the younger of two surviving daughters of Mark Antony and Octavia Minor. She was a niece of the Emperor Augustus, sister-in-law of the Emperor Tiberius, paternal grandmother of the Emperor Caligula and Empress Agrippina the Younger, mother of the Emperor Claudius, and maternal great-grandmother of the Emperor Nero. She outlived her husband Drusus, her oldest son, her daughter, and several of her grandchildren.
Tiberius Claudius Caesar Britannicus, usually called Britannicus, was the son of Roman Emperor Claudius and his third wife, Valeria Messalina. For a time, he was considered his father's heir, but that changed after his mother's downfall in 48, when it was revealed she had engaged in a bigamous marriage without Claudius' knowledge. The next year, his father married Agrippina the Younger, Claudius' fourth and final marriage. Their marriage was followed by the adoption of Agrippina's son, Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, whose name became Nero as a result. His stepbrother would later be married to Britannicus' sister Octavia and soon eclipsed him as Claudius' heir. After his father's death in October 54, Nero became emperor. The sudden death of Britannicus shortly before his fourteenth birthday is reported by all extant sources as being the result of poisoning on Nero's orders; as Claudius' biological son, he represented a threat to Nero's claim to the throne.
Gaius Caesar was a grandson and heir to the throne of Roman emperor Augustus, alongside his younger brother Lucius Caesar. Although he was born to Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa and Julia, Augustus' only daughter, Gaius and Lucius were raised by their grandfather as his adopted sons and joint-heirs. He experienced an accelerated political career befitting a member of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, with the Roman Senate allowing him to advance his career without first holding a quaestorship or praetorship, offices that ordinary senators were required to hold as part of the cursus honorum.
The gens Claudia, sometimes written Clodia, was one of the most prominent patrician houses at ancient Rome. The gens traced its origin to the earliest days of the Roman Republic. The first of the Claudii to obtain the consulship was Appius Claudius Sabinus Regillensis, in 495 BC, and from that time its members frequently held the highest offices of the state, both under the Republic and in imperial times.
Drusus Julius Caesar, also called Drusus the Younger, was the son of Emperor Tiberius, and heir to the Roman Empire following the death of his adoptive brother Germanicus in AD 19.
Nero Julius Caesar was the adopted grandson and heir of the Roman emperor Tiberius, alongside his brother Drusus. Born into the prominent Julio-Claudian dynasty, Nero was the son of Tiberius' general and heir, Germanicus. After the deaths of his father and of Tiberius' son, Drusus the Younger, Nero and his brother Drusus were adopted together by Tiberius in September AD 23. As a result of being heirs of the emperor, he and his brother enjoyed accelerated political careers.
Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus was a member of the imperial Julio-Claudian dynasty of Ancient Rome. Domitius was the son of Antonia Major. He married Agrippina the Younger and became the father of the emperor Nero.
Tiberius Claudius Nero was a Roman politician, senator, and praetor who lived in the 1st century BC.
The Roman imperial cult identified emperors and some members of their families with the divinely sanctioned authority (auctoritas) of the Roman State. Its framework was based on Roman and Greek precedents, and was formulated during the early Principate of Augustus. It was rapidly established throughout the Empire and its provinces, with marked local variations in its reception and expression.
Octavia the Younger was the elder sister of the first Roman emperor, Augustus, the half-sister of Octavia the Elder, and the fourth wife of Mark Antony. She was also the great-grandmother of the Emperor Caligula and Empress Agrippina the Younger, maternal grandmother of the Emperor Claudius, and paternal great-grandmother and maternal great-great-grandmother of the Emperor Nero.
The Julii Caesares were the most illustrious family of the patrician gens Julia. The family first appears in history during the Second Punic War, when Sextus Julius Caesar was praetor in Sicily. His son, Sextus Julius Caesar, obtained the consulship in 157 BC; but the most famous descendant of this stirps is Gaius Julius Caesar, a general who conquered Gaul and became the undisputed master of Rome following the Civil War. Having been granted dictatorial power by the Roman Senate and instituting a number of political and social reforms, he was assassinated in 44 BC. After overcoming several rivals, Caesar's adopted son and heir, Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus, was proclaimed Augustus by the senate, inaugurating what became the Julio-Claudian line of Roman emperors.
De vita Caesarum, commonly known as The Twelve Caesars or The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, is a set of twelve biographies of Julius Caesar and the first 11 emperors of the Roman Empire written by Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus. The subjects consist of: Julius Caesar, Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero, Galba, Otho, Vitellius, Vespasian, Titus, Domitian.
Lucius Arruntius Camillus Scribonianus was a Roman senator, who was active during the reign of Tiberius. He was consul in AD 32. Ten years later, he revolted against the emperor Claudius, but was swiftly defeated.
