Zhang Qian (d. 113 BC) was a Chinese official and diplomat who served as an imperial envoy to the world outside of China in the 2nd century BC, during the time of the Han dynasty. He was the first official diplomat to bring back reliable in...

Trajan was Roman emperor (A.D. 98-A.D. 117). Born in Spain, he was the first non-Italian to become head of the empire. Trajan served in the East, in Germany, and in Spain. He was adopted in A.D. 97 by Emperor Nerva, who died shortly afterwa...

Pliny the Younger, was a lawyer, author, and magistrate of Ancient Rome. Pliny's uncle, Pliny the Elder, helped raise and educate him. They were both witnesses to the eruption of Vesuvius on 24 August 79 AD. Pliny is known for his hundreds...

The Jewish–Roman wars were a series of large-scale revolts by the Jews of the Eastern Mediterranean against the Roman Empire between 66 and 135 CE. While the First Jewish–Roman War (66–73 CE) and the Bar Kokhba revolt (132–136 CE) were nati...

Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, commonly known as Suetonius, was an equestrian and a historian during the Roman Empire. His most important surviving work is a set of biographies of twelve successive Roman rulers, from Julius Caesar until Domit...

Hadrian was Roman Emperor from 117 to 138. In Latin, the full imperial title of Hadrian was also rendered as Tito Ael Hadriano, just as it appears in ancient epigraphic records. He re-built the Pantheon and constructed the Temple of Venus a...

Zhang Heng was a Chinese astronomer, mathematician, inventor, geographer, cartographer, artist, poet, statesman, and literary scholar from Nanyang, Henan. He lived during the Eastern Han Dynasty (AD 25–220) of China. He was educated in the...

Antoninus Pius, also known as Antoninus, was Roman emperor from 138 to 161. He was one of the Five Good Emperors in the Nerva–Antonine dynasty and the Aurelii. Born into a senatorial family, Antoninus held various offices during the reig...

Claudius Ptolemy was a Greco-Egyptian writer of Alexandria, known as a mathematician, astronomer, geographer, astrologer, and poet of a single epigram in the Greek Anthology. He lived in the city of Alexandria in the Roman province of Egypt...

Hegesippus was a Christian chronicler of the early Church and wrote against heresies. His works are lost, save some passages quoted by Eusebius, who tells us that he wrote Hypomnemata (Memoirs) in five books, in the simplest style concernin...

Saint Eustace, also known as Eustachius or Eustathius in Latin, St. Esthak in India, or Sh. Staka in Albania, is revered as a Christian martyr and soldier saint. Legend places him in the 2nd century AD (died AD 118). A martyr of that name i...

Pausanias was a Greek traveler and geographer of the 2nd century AD, who lived in the times of Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius. He is famous for his Description of Greece, a lengthy work that describes ancient Greece from firsth...

Hadrian's Wall, also called the Roman Wall, Picts' Wall, or Vallum Hadriani in Latin, was a defensive fortification in the Roman province of Britannia, begun in AD 122 in the reign of the emperor Hadrian. It ran from the banks of the River...

Aelius Galenus or Claudius Galenus, better known as Galen of Pergamum (modern-day Bergama, Turkey), was a prominent Roman physician and philosopher of Greek origin, and probably the most accomplished medical researcher of the Roman period....

Septimius Severus, also known as Severus, was Roman emperor from 193 to 211. Severus was born in Leptis Magna in the Roman province of Africa. As a young man he advanced through the cursus honorum—the customary succession of offices—under t...