Roman Timeline

10000 BCE – 2000 CE · 95 sites

Rome is a map problem as much as a chronology: one imperial system left amphitheatres, roads, and forts from Britain to the Sahara. Use this timeline to see which Atlas sites were active in the Republic, High Empire, or late antique reuse.

All sites in this period

Featured

Colosseum

72 CE – 80 CE

The Colosseum, Rome's iconic Flavian Amphitheatre, hosted gladiatorial combats and public spectacles, embodying imperial power and engineering innovation.

322

Roman

94

Featured

World Record

Most-Visited Ancient Site in the World

Troy

3000 BCE – 500 CE

Nine settlement layers at Hisarlık in northwestern Türkiye, where Heinrich Schliemann dug for Homer's Troy and archaeologists still debate which level matches a historical war. UNESCO listed the site in 1998; renewed interest from epic film adaptations keeps new visitors comparing poetry with stone.

312

Iron AgeClassicalRoman

93

Featured

Country Record

Oldest City in Jordan

Petra

300 BCE – 700 CE

Petra, the Nabataean capital from ~300 BCE to 700 CE, is famed for its rock-cut tombs and sophisticated water system, recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the New Seven Wonders.

322

HellenisticRomanLate Antique

91

Featured

Country Record

Oldest City in Italy

Pompeii

700 BCE – 79 CE

The Roman city of Pompeii was buried in the catastrophic eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE, its extraordinary preservation offering an unparalleled window into ancient daily life.

521

Iron AgeClassicalHellenistic

90

Featured

Pantheon

27 BCE – 125 CE

The best-preserved monument of ancient Rome — a temple "to all the gods" rebuilt under the emperor Hadrian around 125 CE, crowned by the largest unreinforced concrete dome ever built, a perfect hemisphere lit by a single open oculus at its apex. It has stood roofed and in continuous use for nearly nineteen centuries.

311

Roman

89

Featured

Country Record

Longest Recorded History in Greece

Acropolis of Athens

447 BCE – 1687 CE

The fortified limestone citadel rising above Athens — crowned by the Parthenon, Erechtheion, and Propylaea — the supreme monument cluster of classical Greece and one of Europe's most visited archaeological sites.

31

ClassicalHellenisticRoman

87

Featured

Continent Record

Northernmost Known Site in Europe

Hadrian's Wall

122 CE – 410 CE

Hadrian's Wall, built AD 122 at the Roman Empire's northern frontier in Britain, stretched 73 miles across the island and served as a military boundary until Roman withdrawal around AD 410.

322

RomanLate Antique

86

Featured

Continent Record

Most-Visited Ancient Site in Africa

Carthage

814 BCE – 700 CE

Ancient Phoenician city-state that became Rome's greatest rival, later reborn as a Roman metropolis, embodying over a millennium of Mediterranean history.

422

Iron AgeClassicalHellenistic

83

Delphi

800 BCE – 393 CE

Sanctuary of Apollo on the slopes of Mount Parnassus, seat of the Pythia whose oracles shaped Greek colonisation, warfare, and personal choices. Treasury buildings, a theatre, and the stadium crown the site where Greeks imagined the omphalos, the navel of the world.

422

Iron AgeClassicalHellenistic

83

Featured

Country Record

Oldest Complex in Italy

Roman Forum

500 BCE – 600 CE

The political, religious, and commercial heart of ancient Rome, continuously inhabited from the 7th century BCE to the 7th century CE, now one of the world's most iconic archaeological landscapes.

322

ClassicalHellenisticRoman

82

Ephesus

1000 BCE – 700 CE

Major Ionian city near modern Selçuk, once home to the Temple of Artemis and later a Roman metropolis of marble streets, terrace houses, and the Library of Celsus. Paul's epistles and pilgrimage routes kept Ephesus famous after the ancient harbour silted away.

312

RomanClassicalHellenistic

81

Featured

Herculaneum

300 BCE – 79 CE

A wealthy Roman town buried by Vesuvius in 79 CE to a depth of 20 m — more completely preserved than Pompeii, with wooden furniture, carbonized scrolls, and organic material intact.

41

Roman

81

Show 83 more