Capture of Seleucia, detail from the Arch of Septimius Severus

~After the murder and damnatio memoriae of Commodus in 193, the Praetorian guard selected Publius Helvius Pertinax as the next emperor of Rome. Pertinax was an obvious choice because he had distinguished himself both under Marcus Aurelius and Commodus. During Marcus’s principate, he was adlected into the senate and served under the emperor in a military...

When the Greek historian Polybius set out, in the middle of the second century BC, to satisfy such healthy curiosity he was writing for a Greek public that must have been amazed to see the citizens of a small town half-way up the coast of Italy conquering first the western and then the eastern Mediterranean. The Greeks had always thought that if they were good at anything it was at building successful cities...