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Historical person
121–180
Marcus Aurelius was Roman emperor from AD 161 to 180 and is remembered both as a ruler and as a Stoic philosopher. His reign was dominated by frontier wars, plague and the burdens of imperial duty reflected in his Meditations.
Marcus Aurelius was born in Rome and died in Vindobona. Marcus Aurelius also held the offices or ranks of Augustus, Roman consul, and quaestor. Marcus Aurelius belonged to the Antonines; Aurelies; Nerva–Antonine dynasty and operated within Ancient Rome.
Hourly History’s Marcus Aurelius follows the emperor from adoption into the Antonine dynasty through plague, revolt and the Marcomannic Wars, setting his Stoic reputation beside the practical demands of rule. His own Meditations supplies a very different perspective: private exercises in judgement, mortality and duty written by a ruler repeatedly occupied with war and administration. Richard Foreman’s Praetorian shows Marcus using the Arcani and praetorian officers to pursue diplomacy on the German frontier, while Centurion brings the danger back to Rome as conspirators exploit the emperor’s absence on campaign. In Emperor, Marcus’s willingness to pardon the fugitive Maximus depends on one final mission against the Marcomanni, while the looming succession of Commodus gives the ageing emperor’s choices additional weight.
Periods
Series
Path of Nemesis follows Albinus Silus from unwilling recruit to experienced Roman officer during the Marcomannic Wars. Set under Marcus Aurelius and the young Commodus, the series moves between frontier campaigns, family loss and the political future of the Nerva–Antonine dynasty.
All books in this series
The Roma Trilogy follows generations of the fictional Pinarius family across the long history of Rome. Roma begins with the city’s legendary foundation and continues through the Republic and the rise of Augustus; Empire carries the family through the Julio-Claudian, Flavian and adoptive-emperor periods; Dominus follows the later…
All books in this series
The Dream of Rome is an omnibus collection rather than a single continuous saga. Its volumes gather the complete Sword of Rome campaigns, the two Augustus novels, the first three Spies of Rome investigations, the complete Sword of Empire sequence and three later Rufus Varro novellas. The collection…
All books in this series
Sword of Empire follows the praetorians Gaius Maximus and Rufus Atticus during the Marcomannic Wars and the final years of Marcus Aurelius. Missions on the Danube frontier, conspiracy in Rome and a final assassination order expose the dependence of imperial strategy on officers who must act beyond ordinary…
All books in this series
Standalone books
Non Fiction
Biographies, histories and other non-fiction are listed separately from the historical novels above.
