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Lucius Aurelius I Cotta was born about 180 BCE. He died.

Wife died.

Eunice Marcella Corelia was born about 075 in Rome, Italy. She died.

Caius Julius Verus ("Roman emperor") Maximinus Roman Emperor was born in 173 in Rome, Latium, Italy. He died in 238, at age ~65, in Thrace.

Caius Julius Verus Maximinus (c. 173?238), also known as Maximinus Thrax (Maximinus the Thracian) and Maximinus I, was a Roman emperor (235?238).

He was conspicuous as the first barbarian who wore the imperial purple and the first never to set foot in Rome. He was the first of the so-called soldier-emperors of the 3rd century, but certainly notthe last; his rule is often considered to mark the beginning of the Crisis of the Third Century.

Maximinus was born in Thrace to a Gothic father and an Alanic mother. He was reportedly eight feet, six inches (2.59m) tall and of tremendous strength. He joined the army during the reign of SeptimiusSeverus, but did not rise to a powerful position until promoted by Alexander Severus. Maximinus was in command of the recruits from Pannonia, who were angered by Alexander's payments to the Alemanniand his avoidance of war. The troops, among which Legio XXII Primigenia, elected the stern Maximinus, killing young Alexander and his mother at Mainz in 235. The Praetorian Guard acclaimed him emperor, and their choice was grudgingly confirmed by the Senate, who were displeased to have a peasant as emperor.

Maximinus hated the nobility and was ruthless towards those he suspected of plotting against him. He began by eliminating the close advisors of Alexander. His suspicions may have been justified; two plots against Maximinus were foiled. The first was during a campaign across the Rhine, during which a group of officers, supported by influential senators, plotted the destruction of a bridge across the river, to leave Maximinus stranded on the other side. Afterwards they planned to elect senator Magnus emperor; however the plot was discovered and the conspirators executed. The second plot involvedMesopotamian archers who were loyal to Alexander. They planned to elevate Quartinus, but their leader Macedo changed sides and murdered Quartinus instead, although this was not enough to save his ownlife.

Maximinus also reversed Alexander's policy of clemency towards the Christians, who were viewed as unsupportive enemies of the state. He persecuted Christians ruthlessly, and the bishop of Rome, Pontian, as well as his successor, Anterus, are said to have been martyred.

His first campaign was against the Alemanni, who Maximinus defeated despite heavy Roman casualties in a swamp near what is today Baden-Württemberg. After the victory, Maximinus took the title Germanicus Maximus, raised his son Maximus to the rank of Caesar and Prince of Youths, and deified his late wife. Securing the German frontier, at least for a while, Maximinus then set up a winter encampmentat Sirmium in Pannonia (now in northwest Serbia, near the Bosnian and Croatian borders), and from that supply base fought the Dacians and the Sarmatians during the winter of 235?236.

Maximinus doubled the pay of soldiers; this act, along with virtually continuous warfare, required higher taxes. Tax-collectors began to resort to violent methods and illegal confiscations, further alienating the governing class. Early in 238, in the province of Africa (Tunisia), a treasury official's extortions through false judgments in corrupt courts against some local landowners ignited a full-scale revolt in the province. The landowners armed their clients and their agricultural workers and entered Thysdrus (modern El Djem), where they murdered the offending official and his bodyguards and proclaimed the aged governor of the province, Gordian I, and his son, Gordian II, as co-emperors. The senate in Rome switched allegiance, but when the African revolt collapsed, the senators electedtwo of their number, Pupienus and Balbinus, as co-emperors. A faction in Rome preferred Gordian's grandson (Gordian III), and there was severe street fighting.

Maximinus marched on Rome, but at Aquileia Maximinus's troops, suffering from famine and disease, bogged down in an unexpected siege of the city, which had closed its gates when they approached, became disaffected. Praetorian guards in his camp assassinated him, his son and his chief ministers. Their heads were cut off, placed on poles, and carried to Rome by cavalrymen. The Senate elected the 13year-old grandson of Gordian I emperor. Caius Julius Verus ("Roman emperor") Maximinus Roman Emperor was born in 173.

Marcus Aurelius Claudius Gothicus was born on 10 May 213 in Sirmium, Pannonia, Italy. He died in January 270, at age 56.

Marcus Aurelius Claudius Gothicus (May 10, 213/214 - January, 270), more often referred to as Claudius II, ruled the Roman Empire for less than two years (268 - 270), but during that brief time, he was so successful and beloved by the people of Rome that he attained divine status.

His origin is uncertain. Claudius was either from the Sirmium region (in Pannonia Inferior) or from Dardania (in Moesia Superior). He attained the throne in September of 268, amid charges, never proven, that he murdered his predecessor Gallienus. However, he soon proved to be less than bloodthirsty, as he asked the Roman Senate to spare the lives of Gallienus' family and supporters. He was less magnanimous toward Rome's enemies, however, and it was to this that he owed his popularity.

Claudius, like Maximinus I before him, was of barbarian birth. After an interlude of failed artistocratic Roman emperors since Maximinis's death, Claudius was the first in a series of tough soldier-emperors who would eventually restore the Empire from the Crisis of the third century.

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Claudius as Emperor
At the time of his accession, the Roman Empire was in serious danger from several incursions, both within and outside its borders. The most pressing of these was an invasion of Illyricum and Pannoniaby the Goths. Not long after being named emperor (or just prior to Gallienus' death, depending on the source), he won his greatest victory, and one of the greatest in the history of Roman arms.

At the Battle of Naissus, Claudius and his legions routed a huge Gothic army. Together with his cavalry commander, the future Emperor Aurelian, the Romans took thousands of prisoners, destroyed the Gothic cavalry as a force and stormed their chariot laager (a circular alignment of battle-wagons long favored by the Germans). The victory earned Claudius his surname of "Gothicus" (conqueror of the Goths), and that is how he is known to this day. More importantly, the Goths were soon driven back across the Danube River, and a century passed before they again posed a serious threat to the empire.

While this was going on, the Germanic tribe known as the Alamanni had crossed the Alps and attacked the empire. Claudius responded quickly and swiftly, routing the Alamanni at the Battle of Lake Benacus in the late fall of 268, a few months after the battle of Naissus. He then turned on the "Gallic Empire", ruled by a pretender for the past 15 years and encompassing Britain, Gaul and Spain. He wonseveral victories and soon regained control of Spain and the Rhone river valley of Gaul. This set the stage for the ultimate destruction of the Gallic Empire under Aurelian.

However, Claudius did not live long enough to fulfill his goal of reuniting all the lost territories of the empire. Late in 269 he was preparing to go to war against the Vandals, who were raiding in Pannonia. However, he fell victim to an epidemic of plague and died early in January of 270. Before his death, he is thought to have named Aurelian as his successor, although Claudius' brother Quintillus briefly seized power.

The Senate immediately deified Claudius as "Divus Claudius Gothicus", making him one of the few Roman emperors of the period to be so honored.

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Death of St. Valentine
Claudius II Gothicus is also known to history for his execution of a little-known Christian monk named Saint Valentine, who secretly married Claudius' soldiers in defiance of an order from him that professional soldiers were not to marry. This execution is said to have taken place on February 14, 269, and when Valentine was later sainted, February 14 became his feast day.

Historia Augusta reports Claudius and Quintillus having another brother named Crispus and through him a niece. Said niece Claudia reportedly married Eutropius and was mother to Constantius Chlorus. Historians however suspect this account to be a genealogical fabrication by Constantine the Great.

Source: Wikipedia.

Marcus Aurelius Claudius Quintillus was born about 215 in Sirmium, Pannonia, Italy. He died.

Faustina was born about 150 in Rome, Latium, Italy. She died.

Marcus Aurelius was born in 137 in Rome, Latium, Italy. He died in 180, at age ~43, in Vienna, Austria.

Juliano Calpernius Piso was born about 100 in Rome, Italy. He died.

Domitia Lucila Tranjanus was born about 100 in Selinus, Cilicia, Italy. She died.

Marcus Ulpius Tranjanus was born about 080 in Ialica, Seville, Spain. He died in 117, at age ~37, in Selinus, Cilicia, Italy.

Pompeia Plotina Claudia Piso was born before 090. She died.

Arrius Antoninus Calpernius Piso died.

Boionia Procilla Sevilla died.

Gaius Calpernius Piso died.

Mariamne Caecin Arria died.

Justus Calpernius was born about 070 in Rome, Italy. He died.

T. Flavius Sabinus was born about 010 BCE. He died.

Mariamne Arria died.

Aristobulbus was born about 040 BCE. He died in 007, at age ~47.

Bernice was born about 030 BCE. She died.

Herod II Judea was born in 073 BCE in Jerusalem. He and Mariamme were married in 29 BCE. He died in 004 BCE, at age ~69, in Jerusalem.

HEROD THE GREAT, KING OF JUDEA

Herod (73-4 BCE) was the pro-Roman king of the small Jewish state in the last decades before the common era. He started his career as a general, but the Roman statesman Mark Antony recognized him as the Jewish national leader. During a war against the Parthians, Herod was removed from the scene, but the Roman Senate made him king and gave him soldiers to seize the the throne. As 'friend and ally of the Romans' he was not a truly independent king; however, Rome allowed him a domestic policy of his own. Although Herod tried to respect the pious feeling of his subjects, many of them were not content with his rule, which ended in terror. He was succeeded by his sons.

Herod was born 73 BCE as the son of a man from Idumea named Antipater and a woman named Cyprus, the daughter of an Arabian sheik. Antipater was an adherent of Hyrcanus, one of two princes who struggling to become king of Judaea.

In this conflict, the Roman general Pompey intervened in Hyrcanus' favor. Having favored the winning side in the conflict, Antipater's star rose, especially since he cooperated with the Romans as muchas possible. In the civil war between Pompey and Julius Caesar, Hyrcanus and Antipater sided with the latter, for which especially the courtier was rewarded: in 47, he was appointed epitropos ('regent') and received the Roman citizenship.

It was obvious that Antipater was the real power behind Hyrcanus' throne. He managed to secure the appointment of his young son Herod to the important task of governor of Galilee. The boy, who was only sixteen years old, launched a small crusade against bandits, which made him very popular with the populace and impopular with the Sanhedrin.

On March 15, 44 BCE, Caesar was murdered. The new leaders in Rome were Caesar's nephew Octavian and Caesar's powerful second-in-command Mark Antony. They announced that they would punish Caesar's murderers, Brutus and Cassius, who fled to the East. Cassius ordered all provinces and principalities to pay money for their struggle against Octavian and Mark Antony, and Judaea had to pay some 15,000 kgof silver. Antipater and his sons had to take harsh measures to get the money, and in the ensuing troubles, Antipater was killed. With Roman help, Herod killed his father's murderer.

In 43, Hyrcanus' nephew Antigonus tried to obtain the throne. Herod defeated him, and secured the continuity of the line of Hyrcanus by marrying his daughter Mariamme. Of course, the young man was notblind to the fact that this marriage greatly enhanced his own claim to the throne.

Meanwhile, Octavian and Mark Antony had defeated Brutus and Cassius (at Philippi, in 42). Herod managed to convince Mark Antony, who made a tour through the eastern provinces that had supported Caesar's murderers, that his father had been forced to support their side. The Roman leader was convinced, and awarded Herod with the title of tetrarch of Galilee, a title that was commonly used for the leaders of parts of vassal kingdoms. (Herod's brother Phasael was to be tetrarch of Jerusalem; Hyrcanus remained the Jewish national leader in name only.)

This appointment caused a lot of resentment among the Jews. After all, Herod was not a Jew. He was the son of a man from Idumea; and although Antipater had been a pious man who had worshipped the Jewish God sincerely, the Jews had always looked down upon the Idumeans as racially impure. Worse, Herod had an Arabian mother, and it was commonly held that one could only be a Jew when one was born froma Jewish mother. When war broke out between the Romans and the Parthians (in modern Iran and Iraq), the Jewish populace joined the latter. In 40, Hyrcanus was taken prisoner and brought to the Parthian capital Babylon; Antigonus became king in his place; Phasael committed suicide.

Herod managed to escape and went to Rome, where he persuaded Octavian and the Senate to order Mark Antony to restore him. And so it happened. After Mark Antony and his lieutenants had driven away theParthians, Herod was brought back to Jerusalem by two legions, VI Ferrata (whose men had already fought in Gaul and the civil wars) and another legion (37 BCE). Antigonus was defeated and after he hadbesieged and captured Jerusalem and defeated the last opposition (click here), Herod could start his reign as sole ruler of Judaea. He assumed the title of basileus, the highest possible title.

Herod's reign
Herod's monarchy was based on foreign weapons; the start of his reign had been marked by bloodshed. His first aim was to establish his rule on a more solid base. Almost immediately, he sent envoys tothe Parthian king to get Hyrcanus back from Babylon. The Parthian king was happy to let the old man go, because he was becoming dangerously popular among the Jews living in Babylonia. Although Hyrcanus was unfit to become high priest again, Herod kept his father-in-law in high esteem. The support of the old monarch gave an appearance of legality to his own rule.

The new king started an extensive building program: Jews could take pride in the new walls of Jerusalem and the citadel which guarded its Temple. (This fortress was called Antonia, in order to pleaseHerod's patron Mark Antony.) Coins were minted in his own name and showed an incense burner on a tripod, intended to signify Herod's care for the orthodox Jewish cult practices. These coins had a Greek legend -HÈRÔDOU BASILEÔS- which indicates that Herod considered his standing abroad. And the new king continued to please the Romans, to make sure that they would continue their support. He sent lavish presents to their representative in the East, Mark Antony, and to his mistress, the Egyptian queen Cleopatra.

These gifts almost were Herod's undoing. The relations between on the one hand Mark Antony and Cleopatra in the East and on the other hand Octavian and the Senate in the West became strained, and civil war broke out in 31. It did not last very long: in August, the western leader defeated the eastern leader, who fled to Alexandria. For the first time in his life, Herod had aligned himself with a looser.


He managed to solve this problem, however. First, he had Hyrcanus executed, making sure that no one else could claim his throne. Then, he sailed to the island of Rhodes, where he met Octavian. In a brilliant speech, Herod boasted of his loyalty to Mark Antony, and promised the same to the new master of the Roman Empire. Octavian was impressed by the man's audacity, confirmed Herod's monarchy, andeven added the coast of Judaea and Samaria to his realm. Actually, Octavian did not have much choice: his opponents were still alive, and if he were to pursue them to Egypt, Herod could be a useful ally. As it turned out, Mark Antony and Cleopatra preferred death to surrender, and Octavian became the only ruler in the Roman world. Under the name Augustus, he became the first emperor. He rewarded his ally with new possessions: a.o. Jericho and Gaza, which had been independent.

Herod's position was still insecure. He continued his building policy to win the hearts of his subjects. (A severe earthquake in 31 BCE had destroyed many houses, killing thousands of people.) In Jerusalem, the king built a new market, an amphitheater, a theater, a new building where the Sanhedrin could convene, a new royal palace, and last but not least, in 20 BCE he started to rebuild the Temple. And there were other cities where he ordered new buildings to be placed: Jericho and Samaria are examples. New fortresses served the security of both the Jews and their king: Herodion was one of them, Masada another.

But Herod's crowning achievement was a splendid new port, called Caesarea in honor of the emperor (the harbor was called Sebastos, the Greek translation of 'Augustus'). This magnificent and opulent city, which was dedicated in 9 BCE, was build to rival Alexandria in the land trade to Arabia, from where spices, perfume and incense were imported. It was not an oriental town like Jerusalem; it was laid out on a Greek grid plan, with a market, an aqueduct, government offices, baths, villas, a circus, and pagan temples. (The most important of these was the temple where the emperor was worshipped; it commanded the port.) The port was a masterpiece of engineering: its piers were made from hydraulic concrete (which hardens underwater) and protected by unique wave-breaking structures.

Although Herod was a dependent client-king, he had a foreign policy of his own. He had already defeated the Arabs from Petra in 31, and repeated this in 9 BCE. The Romans did not like this independentbehavior, but on the whole, they seem to have been very content with their king of Judaea. After all, he sent auxiliaries when they decided to send an army to the mysterious incense country (modern Yemen; 25 BCE). In 23, Iturea and the Golan heights were added to Herod's realms, and in 20 several other districts.
With building projects, the expansion of his territories, the establishment of a sound bureaucracy, and the development of economic resources, he did much for his country, at least on a material level. The standing of his country -foreign and at home- was certainly enhanced. However, many of his projects won him the bitter hatred of the orthodox Jews, who disliked Herod's Greek taste - a taste heshowed not only in his building projects, but also in several transgressions of the Mosaic Law.

The orthodox were not to only ones who came to hate the new king. The Sadducees hated him because he had terminated the rule of the old royal house to which many of them were related; their own influence in the Sanhedrin was curtailed. The Pharisees despised any ruler who despised the Law. And probably all his subjects resented his excessive taxation. According to Flavius Josephus, there were twotaxes in kind at annual rates equivalent to 10.7% and 8.6%, which is extremely high in any preindustrial society (Jewish Antiquities 14.202-206). It comes as no surprise that Herod sometimes had to revert to violence, employing mercenaries and a secret police to enforce order.

On moments like that, it was clear to anyone that Herod was not a Jewish but a Roman king. He had become the ruler of the Jews with Roman help and he boasted to be philokaisar ('the emperor's friend'). On top of the gate of the new Temple, a golden eagle was erected, a symbol of Roman power in the heart of the holy city resented by all pious believers. Worse, Augustus ordered and paid the priestsof the Temple to sacrifice twice a day on behalf of himself, the Roman senate and people. The Jewish populace started to believe rumors that their pagan ruler had violated Jewish tombs, stealing golden objects from the tomb of David and Salomo. [Coin of king Herod the Great.] Herod concluded ten marriages, all for political purposes. They were probably all unhappy. His wives were:

1. Doris, from an unknown family in Jerusalem: married c.47, sent away 37; recalled 14, sent away 7/6. She was the mother of Antipater, who was executed in 4.
2. The Hasmonaean princess Mariamme I: married 37, executed in 29/28. According to Flavius Josephus, Herod was passionately devoted to this woman, but she hated him just as passionately. Nonetheless,she bore him five children: Alexander, Aristobulus, a nameless son, Salampsio and Cyprus.
3. An unknown niece: married 37. No children.
4. An unknown cousin: married c.34/33. No children.
5. The daughter of a Jerusalem priest named Simon, Mariamme II: married 29/28, divorced 7/6. They had a son named Herod.
6. A Samarian woman named Malthace: married 28, died 5/4. Their children were Antipas, Archelaus and Olympias.
7. A Jerusalem woman named Cleopatra: married 28. They had two sons named, Herod and Philip.
8. Pallas: married 16. They had a son named Phasael.
9. Phaedra: married 16. They had a daughter named Roxane.
10. Elpis: married 16. They had a daughter named Salome.

Herod's reign ended in terror. The monastery at Qumran, the home of the Essenes, suffered a violent and deliberate destruction by fire in 8 BCE, for which Herod may have been responsible. When the king fell ill, two popular teachers, Judas and Matthias, incited their pupils to remove the golden eagle from the entrance of the Temple: after all, according to the Ten Commandments, it was a sin to make idols. The teachers and the pupils were burned alive. Some Jewish scholars had discovered that seventy-six generations had passed since the Creation, and there was a well-known prophecy that the Messiah was to deliver Israel from its foreign rulers in the seventy-seventh generation. The story about the slaughter of infants of Bethlehem in the second chapter of the Gospel of Matthew is not knownfrom other sources, but it would have been totally in character for the later Herod to commit such a terrible act.

A horrible disease (probably a cancer-like affection called Fournier's gangrene) made acute the problem of Herod's succession, and the result was factional strife in his family. Shortly before his death, Herod decided against his sons Aristobulus and Antipater, who were executed in 7 and 4 BCE, causing the emperor Augustus to joke that it was preferable to be Herod's pig (hus) than his son (huios)- a very insulting remark to any Jew.

However, the emperor confirmed Herod's last will. After his death in 4 BCE, the kingdom was divided among his sons. Herod Antipas was to rule Galilee and the east bank of the Jordan as a tetrarch; Philip was to be tetrarch of the Golan heights in the north-east; and Archelaus became the ethnarch ('national leader') of Samaria and Judaea. Herod was buried in one of the fortresses he had build, Herodion. Few will have wept.

Hasmonaean Marianne was born about 065 BCE. She died in 028 BCE, at age ~37.

Hyrcanus was born about 095 BCE. He died.

Alexander was born about 038 BCE. He died.