Rome had emperors for five centuries in the west and far longer in the east. These ten shaped what the office became.
The Roman emperor was never a job with a clean job description. Augustus took care to present himself as a first citizen rather than a king, and the powers he assembled were a bundle of republican offices held simultaneously. What followed was an office defined largely by whoever occupied it, with no fixed rule of succession and no reliable way to remove a bad occupant except violence. That instability explains a good deal of Roman political history. Adoption produced a run of competent rulers in the second century; inheritance by sons produced Commodus. The army made and unmade emperors so often in the third century that a reign of five years counted as long. Diocletian's answer, dividing the work between four men, was the first serious attempt to make the succession something other than a lottery.
Every question in this quiz is listed below with its correct answer and the reasoning behind it. Play first if you would rather not see the answers — or read through as a study sheet.
Play it insteadAnswer: D. Hadrian
Why: The wall ran roughly 117 kilometres from the Tyne to the Solway. A shorter turf wall was pushed further north in Scotland a few years later and abandoned within a generation.
Answer: C. Trajan
Why: The conquests of Dacia and Mesopotamia marked the high point around AD 117. His successor gave up the eastern gains almost immediately as indefensible.
Answer: B. Constantine I
Why: The Edict of Milan of 313 ended official persecution, and Constantinople was dedicated in 330. Christianity became the state religion only later, under Theodosius I.
Answer: A. Diocletian
Why: Two senior Augusti and two junior Caesars governed different regions from around 293. He is also one of very few emperors to retire rather than die in office.
Answer: D. Marcus Aurelius
Why: He wrote them in Greek, much of it while on campaign on the Danube frontier. They were never intended for publication.
Answer: C. Vespasian
Why: Work started around AD 72 and his son Titus opened it in 80. Its formal name, the Flavian Amphitheatre, comes from the family that paid for it.
Answer: B. Nero
Why: His death in AD 68 was followed by the Year of the Four Emperors. The fighting ended only when Vespasian took control the following year.
Answer: A. Claudius
Why: Caesar had landed twice in the 50s BC without leaving a garrison behind. This invasion led to nearly four centuries of Roman rule in the south.
Answer: D. Being adopted as heirs by their predecessors
Why: Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius each named a successor from outside their immediate family. The pattern broke when Marcus Aurelius left the throne to his son Commodus.
Answer: C. Romulus Augustulus
Why: The commander Odoacer removed him and ruled Italy himself without taking the title. Some historians prefer Julius Nepos, who kept a claim until 480, which is why the date is a convention rather than a clean break.
The Emperors of Rome has 10 questions and takes about 8 minutes to finish. It is rated Hard and sits in our Ancient Greece & Rome category.
Each of the 10 correct answers adds 10 XP, up to 100 XP for a clean run. Wrong answers cost you nothing, and your full question-by-question review is shown at the end.
Yes. All 10 questions carry a written explanation of why the correct answer is right, so the quiz works as a study sheet as well as a test.
Yes, as often as you like. The questions and the answer options are reshuffled on each run, and you can use Practice Mistakes afterwards to retry only the ones you missed. No account is needed to play.
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