The first answer is simple: hereditary rule. For most of this period, emperors were not chosen on the basis of their ability or honesty, but simply because they were born in the right family.

This story appears in the January/February 2017 issue of National Geographic History magazine. The emperor Hadrian was well known for building monuments across the Roman Empire, a territory that ...

We sit outside, just a hundred yards from the slumbering Domus Aurea, at Osteria da Nerone, one of the few structures in Rome that bear the emperor’s name. “The restaurant is always full ...

Never the preferred heir, Tiberius (42 BC – 37 AD / reigned 14 – 37 AD) soon showed why Augustus had wanted someone else. His political inability, poor judgment and jealousy led Rome into a ...

A museum is to relabel its display about a Roman emperor after concluding that he was in fact a trans woman. North Hertfordshire Museum will now refer to emperor Elagabalus with the female ...

The two most powerful people in the senate were the consuls. The emperor ruled over the Roman Empire, a bit like a king. Find out below about some of the emperors who influenced Britain.

After a long period of civil conflict, Rome saw its governance pass from a republican system to one under the mastery of an individual, the Emperor, whose position was meant to embody the ...

An outstanding cast that includes names such as Denzel Washington, who plays Emperor Macrinus and has already been praised by critics, who note that he is eligible for the Academy Award for Best ...

In Infinite Craft, you have the freedom to craft anything and with anything. From unique combinations and bizarre creatures ...

At the centre of the Roman empire stood the emperor and the court surrounding him. The systematic investigation of this court in its own right, however, has been a relatively late development in the ...