Battle of Pydna

Ancient Rome

The Roman Empire, which at times included much of the known world, came into being following the five centuries of the Republican period in the history of Rome. The Roman Empire was founded in 27 B.C. and existed as a unified entity until approximately A.D. 480. During this period, the Roman Empire extended from the Middle East to the British Isles. The Roman Empire is remembered for its influence of language, law, military operations, and culture. The Roman Empire was ruled by a succession of emperors, and a 200-year period of peace that began with the reign of Caesar Augustus is known today as the “Pax Romana.”

Ancient Rome

Bloody Clash on the Tiber

By Tim Miller

On October 28, ad 312, a Roman emperor was drowning. The sight must have amazed his soldiers. All summer Rome had been filled with rumors of the western emperor, Constantine, and the ease with which he and his army had crossed the Alps and, once on Italian soil, strung together a handful of victories in the north. Read more

The white-bearded Archimedes (bottom, right), Greek mathematician, physicist, engineer, astronomer, and inventor, directs the defense of his home city of Syracuse against the Roman attack.

Ancient Rome

The Siege of Syracuse

By John E. Spindler

From the deck of a quinquereme, one of 60 in his invasion fleet, Roman Consul Marcus Claudius Marcellus surveyed Syracuse’s Little Harbor on the coast of Sicily. Read more

Ancient Rome

The Roman Gladius

By Gabriele Esposito

Few weapons in world history have had such great tactical importance as the Roman gladius. To understand the importance this short sword had on the battlefields of antiquity, it is best to start with the Roman historian Livy. Read more

Pompey led troops to victory in a series of battles and actions that neutralized threats to Rome’s interests in Asia Minor.

Ancient Rome

Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus

By Ludwig Heinrich Dyck

Gnaeus Pompey was one of the pivotal Roman leaders during the last decades of the Republic. He was born into an old and wealthy provincial family from Picenum on September 29, 106 BC. Read more

In an ambush led by Arminius (later known as Hermann), three Roman legions were destroyed in Germania in 9 CE. The event, one of Rome’s worst defeats, was seized upon by nationalists in the 19th-century, and later by the Nazi Third Reich, as the mythological origin of the German state. Paintings such as “The battle of Hermann in the Teutoburg Forest,” (1840) by Wilhelm Lindenschmit the Elder, helped popularize Hermann as the father of the German nation.

Ancient Rome

Havoc in the Teutoburger Forest

By Michael D. Greaney

One of the most devastating events to shake the early Roman Empire was the defeat of Legate Publius Quinctilius Varus and his army at the hands of Arminius in the Battle of Teutoburgerwald in 9 ad. Read more

Ancient Rome

Zenobia’s Bloody War of Independence

By Glenn Barnett

The pages of history tend to dwell on the men who created empires. No matter how ephemeral may be the famed exploits of an Alexander, Caesar or Napoleon, historians have written volumes on their behalf. Read more

Ancient Rome

How Hannibal Hammered the Roman Army

By Keith Milton

Gisgo, a commander in the Carthaginian army, sat on his horse nervously as he waited with other members of the staff for their general, the now-famous Hannibal, to complete his final inspection. Read more

This high-relief sculpture carved on a sarcophagus of the 2nd century ably depicts the confusion and havoc of battle between Romans and Celtic warriors.

Ancient Rome

The Gallic Wars: To Northern Gaul

By Ludwig Heinrich Dyck

The gray skies of winter still shrouded the town of Vesontio on the Dubis River. To the south, when not obscured by mist and rain, rose the Jura Mountains, and beyond that the lofty peaks of the Alps and the nearest Roman Province, Gallia Cisalpina. Read more

A Roman soldier dictates a letter to a scribe outside a permanent Roman camp in Germany.

Ancient Rome

Roman Generals: Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo

By Harold E. Raugh, Jr.

Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo was probably born between 4 bc and ad 1. His younger half-sister was first the mistress and then the consort of Gaius Caesar Germanicus, better known as the Emperor Caligula. Read more

Belisarius is shown triumphant over the Ostrogoths and heading for Rome.

Ancient Rome

Military Myths and Legends: Belisarius

By James Allan Evans

It was a sorry tale. A brilliant general, military hero, and faithful servant of the state, blind and reduced to penury in his old age, sitting on the main street of Constantinople begging for his living. Read more

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    Washington’s bold crossing of the Delaware River breathed new life into the faltering American Revolution.
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  • 'Operation Deadstick' entailed an audacious British glider assault to capture two Normandy bridges, one of which was Pegasus Bridge.

    WWII

    Operation Deadstick: the Capture of ‘Pegasus Bridge’
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  • Loyalists attack Patriot earthworks at Moore’s Creek Bridge in North Carolina on February 27, 1776. Those wearing Scottish kilts, bonnets and stockings, are soldiers of the 84th Regiment who arrived from Canada and New York. Others in simple hunting shirts are likely local recruits. The figure falling on the road at right could be Lt. Col. MacLeod, who was killed in the charge.

    Military History

    Patriots Early Test at Moore’s Creek Bridge
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