Augustus started strong and set the bar so damn high.
Here I juxtapose the reigns of a subset of Roman emperors against the (literal) arc of their lives. I made this as a poster for myself but it occurred to me that it may be of some interest to others.
See the [Jupyter notebook](https://github.com/dataisinteresting/WRE-Emperors/blob/main/emperors.ipynb) in my GitHub repository for methodological details, caveats, and acknowledgements. While it’s imperfect in many ways, I invite corrections and adjustments, as I do not have training in historical methods nor adequate time to rigorously review sources for manner of death and the like.
I attempted to compose the notebook in a fashion that would allow anyone else to generate the core of this visualization themselves at will. I admit that I’ve fallen in love with Vega.
Seems like the primary outcome of being emperor is being assassinated.
Look…all I know is the funniest one is Valerian cause he died a captive of Shapur I of the Sassanid Empire and one of the things that was rumored to have been done to him is that Shapur used him as a footstool (though sadly there’s not a ton of evidence to back this up.)
Shout out to Jovian, who spent the entirety of his short reign marching from Mesopotamia to Constantinople, and died before he even got to his own capital.
The fact that they basically took over the known world while also murdering their leader every couple years is honestly super impressive.
OP this is so clever! You did a great job compiling lots of information in a very easy to read way. Good for you!
(I would have liked natural causes to have been split between actual natural causes (old age or a genetic disease that caused an early death) or environmental causes. I looked up Jovian and Hostilian–I had never heard of them, and they died of the plague and suffocation from too many carbon dioxide fumes from a heating source.)
Tacitus didn’t stand a chance 💀
“Welcome emperor” * 🔪*
A very visible representation of the crisis of the third century, well done OP.
The one thing I would change is have “co emperors” vertically stacked so people who aren’t familiar with this period don’t see this and think for example that Maximian succeeded Diocletian.
![[OC] Visualizing the lifetimes and reigns of a subset of Roman emperors.](https://www.europesays.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/63punx6ketke1-1920x1024.png)
10 comments
Augustus started strong and set the bar so damn high.
Here I juxtapose the reigns of a subset of Roman emperors against the (literal) arc of their lives. I made this as a poster for myself but it occurred to me that it may be of some interest to others.
I used [Vega](https://vega.github.io/vega/) to generate the arcs, having been inspired by David Bacci’s visualization [here](https://github.com/PBI-David/Deneb-Showcase/blob/main/Coronation%20Arc%20Chart/Thumbnail.png). I imported the SVG I generated with Vega into Adobe Illustrator, adding iconography for manner of death and other minor finishing touches.
See the [Jupyter notebook](https://github.com/dataisinteresting/WRE-Emperors/blob/main/emperors.ipynb) in my GitHub repository for methodological details, caveats, and acknowledgements. While it’s imperfect in many ways, I invite corrections and adjustments, as I do not have training in historical methods nor adequate time to rigorously review sources for manner of death and the like.
I attempted to compose the notebook in a fashion that would allow anyone else to generate the core of this visualization themselves at will. I admit that I’ve fallen in love with Vega.
Seems like the primary outcome of being emperor is being assassinated.
Look…all I know is the funniest one is Valerian cause he died a captive of Shapur I of the Sassanid Empire and one of the things that was rumored to have been done to him is that Shapur used him as a footstool (though sadly there’s not a ton of evidence to back this up.)
Shout out to Jovian, who spent the entirety of his short reign marching from Mesopotamia to Constantinople, and died before he even got to his own capital.
Elagabalus’ story is interesting. (Middle left)
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/s/Vj52vDwY2b
The fact that they basically took over the known world while also murdering their leader every couple years is honestly super impressive.
OP this is so clever! You did a great job compiling lots of information in a very easy to read way. Good for you!
(I would have liked natural causes to have been split between actual natural causes (old age or a genetic disease that caused an early death) or environmental causes. I looked up Jovian and Hostilian–I had never heard of them, and they died of the plague and suffocation from too many carbon dioxide fumes from a heating source.)
Tacitus didn’t stand a chance 💀
“Welcome emperor” * 🔪*
A very visible representation of the crisis of the third century, well done OP.
The one thing I would change is have “co emperors” vertically stacked so people who aren’t familiar with this period don’t see this and think for example that Maximian succeeded Diocletian.
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