Emperors of Pax Romana | World History | Khan Academy

As we saw in the last several videos, the Roman Republic that was established in 509 BCE finally met its end with the rule of Julius Caesar. We talk about Julius Caesar crossing the Rubicon, becoming dictator for life, and then he is assassinated because of the power he was able to accumulate. In 44 BCE, on March 15, the Ides of March, that throws Rome into a civil war. Eventually, it becomes a battle between Augustus, or at the time Octavian, versus Mark Antony and Cleopatra. Octavian is able to be victorious, and in 27 BCE, he is declared, or this is the date that historians often use as the beginning of him officially being Emperor.

This period, from 27 BCE with Augustus being Emperor all the way to 180 CE, is roughly a 200-year period. This is a relatively good time for the Roman Empire. As we will see, there is still a lot of conflict and bloodshed, but it is a relatively stable period. It is often referred to as Pax Romana, or the Roman peace. What we see pictured here are most of the Emperors of that roughly 200-year period. Augustus proves to be a relatively good administrator. He lays a good foundation for the next several hundred years of the Empire.

The Roman Empire, officially being ruled by an emperor, is eventually going to meet its demise in the Western Empire at least in 476 CE. So it's going to go for roughly 500 years, and Augustus lays a strong foundation for it. He's viewed as a strong administrator; he really builds a lot of institutions. From a historical perspective, it's worth noting that Jesus was born under Augustus' rule, and most historical views are that Jesus was born in some place between 4 BCE and 6 BCE.

Now, Augustus was followed by Tiberius, who was both Augustus's stepson and he married Augustus's daughter. So he was a stepson and son-in-law, and he also proved to be a relatively capable Emperor. You can see Augustus had a fairly long rule; he took power in his 30s, and his power ended in his 70s. Tiberius too had a fairly long rule. From a historical point of view, or even a biblical point of view, it's worth noting that Jesus would have been crucified under Tiberius's rule.

The Roman Emperor referred to in the New Testament is Tiberius. It would have been his governor, Pontius Pilate, who orders the crucifixion of Jesus. Now after Tiberius, you have his great-nephews, and so you are his great-great nephew. You can see they're all not directly related, but they're all kind of family. His great-great nephew is Caligula, and Caligula, that's his nickname, is a bit of an infamous figure; one of the infamous figures in history among the Roman Emperors.

Because he's really viewed as a sadist and a pervert, he's known for killing people just for fun, and he is quickly assassinated. His term, or his power, only lasts for several years, and then in his place is put his uncle Claudius. After Claudius comes another infamous figure of history, and that is Nero. Nero is known for the Great Fire of Rome, which had a significant fire in 64 AD. Many of the Roman citizens believed that Nero did it intentionally to clear out space for a palace.

A significant number of Romans died in that fire; he killed a ton of people, including his mother. He's maybe most famous for persecuting Christians. There are some accounts that he would dip them in oil and set them on fire in his garden just as a source of light. So these people, you notice, say that they were insane or demented or sick. Normally, I try to avoid making any judgments on some of these historical figures, but both Caligula and Nero, if we believe the accounts that we get from that period and that shortly after that period, were not by any stretch of the imagination good people.

Nero eventually does commit suicide, and with Nero's end, you actually have the end of the Julio-Claudian dynasty. Write that down: Julio-Claudian dynasty. The reason why it's called the Julio-Claudian dynasty is that all of these characters—let me circle or underline them—are essentially from the same family, their descendants from both the Julian line, Julius Caesar, and the Claudian family. So that's why it's called the Julio-Claudian dynasty.

Now, at the end of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, you have a new dynasty of Flavians. There's a short Civil War; so the Pax Romana is not without some war and bloodshed. In fact, this whole time, there are a lot of relatives being killed, people who might threaten the emperor being killed. And that's just talking about the Romans themselves; they're constantly fighting the Germanic tribes and groups in the Middle East and taking more and more territory.

These extremely bloody things, they're constantly enslaving people. The Roman Empire sometimes looks like this neat, clean, idealistic thing, but there was a lot of enslaving of people, destruction of towns, killing people out of paranoia, or really just out of the joy of killing if you take the case of Caligula or Nero. So then you have the Flavian dynasty. I don't have the three Flavian Emperors depicted right over here; you have Vespasian, you have Titus, and you have Domitian.

Note that the Colosseum, the famous Colosseum in Rome, was built during their time. They're also known for the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem. Then after that, you have what historians, and especially Niccolò Machiavelli, many centuries later called the "Good Emperors." The Good Emperors are these characters—let me square them off right over here—and these are really the last five emperors of the Pax Romana.

We should even use the term "good" maybe in quotation marks, because for Rome's enemies, for the slaves of Rome, for the people who were thrown into the Colosseum just because they were prisoners of war or they committed some simple crime, the Roman Empire didn't seem good. But the reason why they’re viewed as good is that they were seen as able administrators. They continued to expand the Roman Empire.

Trajan, in particular, is the peak of the Roman Empire. It comes in terms of geography under Trajan's rule; that's this map right over here. This is the largest geographic extent that the Roman Empire takes on. Trajan is succeeded by Hadrian, most known for Hadrian's Wall, marking the upper bound of the Roman Empire. Then the Pax Romana ends with Marcus Aurelius, who is viewed as a philosopher Emperor.

He actually wrote "Meditations." He is a Stoic; he's viewed as one of the last great Stoic philosophers. And so with that, you have the end of this period of Pax Romana. As we'll see in the next few videos, we then start really getting into the decline of at least the Western Roman Empire. We'll see that the Eastern Roman Empire outlives the West by a good thousand years.