in june, ancient rome left 8 dated events: the end of the man who bought the empire · the vandal sack that emptied rome in fourteen days · the child emperor who scandalised rome. here is what happened, day by day.
sixty-six days after buying the empire at auction, didius julianus discovered in an empty hall of the palatine that money does not buy the loyalty of those who wield the swords. on 1 june 193 they left him alone, and an ordinary soldier came looking for him.
read the full entry →the vandal sack of 455 was not a fit of barbarity but an inventory carried out in cold blood. for fourteen days, genseric's troops emptied rome of its gold, its treasures and its hostages, and carried off even the menorah from the temple of jerusalem.
read the full entry →on 8 june 218 a battle at the gates of antioch handed the empire to a fourteen-year-old syrian priest. rome expected a pliable puppet and received a foreign god sealed inside a black stone.
read the full entry →on 9 june 68, nero cut his own throat in a freedman's villa on the outskirts of rome. with him the blood of augustus was extinguished, and the secret that would change the empire came to light: an emperor could be made outside the city.
read the full entry →during the vestalia, in the middle of june, rome's most secret sanctuary lay open for a few days. inside burned the fire that, so the belief went, kept the city alive. the most lethal superpower in the world entrusted its survival to a flame of firewood and to six women.
read the full entry →the so-called edict of milan was neither an edict nor issued in milan. it was a letter that licinius posted in nicomedia on 13 june 313, and behind the tolerance there was as much faith as a very cold calculation of power.
read the full entry →on 21 june 217 bce, hannibal hid an entire army in the hills that fringe lake trasimene and let consul flaminius' legions walk on their own into the defile. when the mist lifted, it was already a slaughter.
read the full entry →on 26 june 363, a javelin thrown by a hand no one ever identified ran julian the apostate through during the retreat from persia. with him died the last imperial attempt to give the throne back to the old gods.
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