Ancient Rome

On 26 June AD 4, Augustus formally adopted Tiberius, his wife's forty-five-year-old son from a previous marriage. He had run out of everyone he would have preferred.

On 9 June AD 68, Nero drove a dagger into his own throat in a freedman's villa outside Rome. He was the last of the Julio-Claudians, and his death opened the first succession crisis in imperial history - the Year of the Four Emperors.

On 12 May 113 AD, Trajan dedicated a thirty-metre marble column in Rome depicting his conquest of Dacia in 2,500 carved figures. The wars it commemorated were Rome at its peak — and the plunder that paid for almost everything.

On 1st April 286, Diocletian appointed Maximian as co-Augustus, establishing Rome's first diarchy. The empire covered 5 million square kilometres. The logic was straightforward.

On 27 January 98 AD, Nerva died and Trajan became Roman emperor. For centuries after, the Senate greeted every new emperor with the same ritual wish: may you be better than Trajan. He was not without flaws, but the bar he set outlasted the empire itself.

On 24 January AD 41, the Praetorian Guard assassinated Caligula and proclaimed Claudius emperor. Rome expected a joke. It got thirteen years of competent government instead.

On 17 January 395, Theodosius I died in Milan - the last man ever to govern a united Roman Empire. He left it to two sons, aged seventeen and ten. They never put it back together.