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Lucius Verus

Lucius Verus

c. 130 CEc. 169 CE · Rome

Lucius Verus (born 130 CE in Rome, died 169 CE) was Roman emperor from 161 until his death, ruling jointly with his adoptive brother Marcus Aurelius in Rome's first co-emperorship. His reign was dominated by the war against Parthia (162–166 CE), which ended in Roman victory and gains in Armenia and Mesopotamia, after which he and Marcus celebrated a joint triumph in 166. He died in 169 on the return from the northern frontier, most likely of the plague that the returning eastern armies had spread through the empire (the Antonine Plague), though ancient sources also report apoplexy.

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Stop 1 of 1161Birthplace / Reign

RomeרומאItaly

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About Rome

# Rome In the late eleventh and twelfth centuries, Rome lay within the Papal States, the territorial domain of the Catholic Church, though its temporal glory as an empire had long faded. The city sprawled across its famous hills along the Tiber River, a landscape of crumbling ancient monuments, medieval fortifications, and Romanesque churches that dominated the skyline. The Jewish community of Rome was among Europe's most ancient, tracing roots to the second century BCE, and it flourished in a precarious but resilient position under papal authority; while confined to restricted quarters and subject to discriminatory laws, Roman Jews maintained a sophisticated intellectual and commercial life, with Hebrew scholarship and biblical commentary flourishing despite—or perhaps because of—the community's isolation. The Jewish quarter itself, densely packed and vibrant, became a center of learning where skilled scribes copied manuscripts and rabbinical discussions drew on centuries of local tradition. What made Rome extraordinary for Torah study was not merely its learned scholars but the tangible presence of antiquity itself: the community lived amid the ruins of pagan temples and Roman law, giving their interpretations of Jewish law a unique resonance, as if they were rebuilding Jewish civilization in the very streets where Roman power had once reigned supreme.

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