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The Timeline
Every one of the 104 records, set on a line of time. Where the record names a year, it sits under its era; the rest are grouped by show. Each one links to the full piece — and to the sources behind every claim.
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Before Rome 1
Republican Rome 2
Imperial Rome 19
- A Legion Ate 18,000 Grain Measures a Month: Rome's Mess Tin Ledger
- Attila Demanded 2,100 Pounds of Gold: Rome's Tribute Loop, AD 447
- ATTO Is Still Cut Into a Roman Workbench: Vindolanda, AD 105-120
- Augustus' 170 Million Sesterces: Rome Put Veterans on the Books
- Claudius' 15,000 Sesterces: The First Payable Accession
- France's 112 Million Livre Deficit Loop
- Pydna's 120 Million Sesterces: Rome Ended the Citizen War Tax
- Rome Bought 200,000 Citizens' Loyalty With Grain: The Annona Ledger
- Rome Froze Legionary Pay for 113 Years - Who Actually Paid the Army
- Rome Paid 5,000 Pounds of Gold and Still Lost the City (Alaric, 408)
- Rome Paid for 200 Empty Feet: Building a Marching Camp
- The 120 Million Tael White Lotus Loop
- The Plague Didn't Kill Rome. It Killed the Farmers. (AD 165)
- Tiberius Lent 100 Million at Zero Interest: Rome's AD 33 Credit Crisis
- Venice's 85,000-Marks Debt Loop: How Constantinople Became Payment
- Vindolanda 155: 343 Men In The Workshops
- Vindolanda 180: 320.5 Modii Before The Fort Could Fight
- Vindolanda 182: A Brewer, A Horse, And 60 Pounds Of Bacon
- Vindolanda Tablet 302: At A Fair Price
Late Antiquity 9
- Carthage 439: The Tax Base Rome Couldn't Buy Back
- Crassus Bought Burning Houses With 500-Plus Builders: Rome's Fire-Sale Fortune
- Rome Made Tax Collectors Impossible to Quit (AD 370)
- Rome Paid an Army With Taxpayers: Aquitaine, AD 418
- Rome Spent a Treasury to Buy Africa Back (Cape Bon, 468)
- Rome's 297 Grain Tax: When Coins Couldn't Feed the Army
- Rome's Taxpayers Ran to Patrons (AD 440)
- The Sun Went Dim in 536. Justinian Kept Spending.
- Vindolanda 346: The Socks Letter as a Frontier Object
Medieval & after 11
- Abbasids, Zanj, and the Salt-Marsh Tax Loop (869)
- France Printed Church Land and Broke Its Money, 1790
- Gaykhatu's Paper Money Panic, 1294
- Ming Saved 685,720 Taels. Li Zicheng Collected. (1630)
- Spain's Silver Fleet Arrived Already Claimed (1596)
- Tang Counted 8,914,709 Households. Then The Register Broke
- The 1602 Copper Coin That Taxed Castile Twice
- The Caliph Bought Soldiers Who Owned the Throne (Samarra, 861)
- The Ottoman Coin That Priced The Palace
- The Tax Receipt That Put Britain Inside Bengal (1765)
- Yuan Paper Money's Inflation Tax Loop, 1287
What-if (counterfactual) 26
- Charles Martel Loses at Tours, 732 - The Raid That Reaches the Loire
- Ogedei Lives (1242): The Year Hungary Loses Its Shield
- What If Alexander Survived Babylon (323 BC) - Arabia Comes First
- What If Athens Escaped Syracuse (413 BC) - The Eclipse Nicias Ignores
- What If Bayezid II Licensed Ottoman Printing (1493): The Press That Came Early
- What If Carthage Won at the Aegates (241 BC) - Sicily Stays Punic
- What If Constantine Lost at Milvian Bridge (312)
- What If Crassus Took Armenia's Road (53 BC) - Carrhae Never Happens
- What If Crassus Won at Carrhae (53 BC) - Rome's Mesopotamian Bridgehead
- What If Hannibal Marched on Rome After Cannae (216 BC) - The Fork Everyone Gets Wrong
- What If Harold Held Senlac (1066) - Normandy Inherits the Crisis
- What If Harun al-Rashid Kept The Abbasid Succession Undivided In 809?
- What If Justinian Fled the Nika Riot (532) - Italy Is Not Restored
- What If Leo Phokas Won at Acheloos (917) - Simeon's Balkan Map Stalls
- What If Majorian's Fleet Sailed (460) - Rome's Last Payroll
- What If Ottoman Printing Started in 1627 - Istanbul's Press That Stayed Open
- What If Persia Won at Salamis (480 BC) - Athens Loses the Sea
- What If Romanos Held at Manzikert (1071) - Anatolia Falls Slower
- What If Shahrbaraz Kept Egypt (629) - Heraclius' Unfinished Victory
- What If the Black Death Killed Half as Many (1347) - The Wage Revolution That Shrinks
- What If The Mongols Didn't Turn Back In 1242?
- What If the Ottomans Took Vienna in 1683 - The Danube Shock That Holds
- What If the Song Held Xiangyang (1273): Kublai Khan's Road Slows
- What If the Umayyads Took Constantinople (718): The Siege That Almost Closed the Straits
- What If Varus Believed Segestes In 9 AD
- What If Vinland Took Root (~1000) - The Bull That Keeps the Western Route Alive
The Bronze Frontier: Roman Army & Frontier Life 14
- A Lead-Tin Sheet For a Stolen Cloak: Bath's Docilianus Curse
- A Roman Grain Bucket Was 3 Pints Too Big: The Carvoran Modius
- A Roman Lamp Had 3 Wick Holes: Imported Light for Hadrian's Wall
- A Roman Pan Named the Wall: Staffordshire's Hadrian Fort List
- A Roman Shoe Was 32.6 cm Long: Magna Fort's Giant Footprint
- A Roman Soldier's Masada Pay Slip: 50 Denarii In, 50 Out
- Forty-Four Wooden Clogs at Vindolanda: Rome's Bathhouse Shoes
- Londinio Mogontio: London's First Address on Wood
- Solinus, Not Tablet 97: The Stolen Bathing Tunic at Aquae Sulis
- The Bloomberg Tablet Addressed To London
- The Uley Glove Curse: Mercury Gets a Stolen Pair
- Vilbia, If That Is Her Name: The Bath Curse Tablet
- Vindolanda's Black Pot: Pepper in a Roman Fort
- Vindolanda's Wooden Toy Sword: A Child in the Cavalry Barrack
How Empires Break: Why Civilizations Collapse 11
- Assyria Moved 4.5 Million People: The Labor Machine That Needed Force
- Byzantine Themata: The Pay, Land, and Tax Loop
- Fatimid Cairo's Nile-Grain-Price Loop
- Kucuk Kaynarca's 4.5 Million Ruble Esham Loop
- Ming's 97 Percent Silver Tax Loop
- Nadir Shah's Three-Year Tax Remission Loop
- Rome Kept Taxing Empty Fields: Deserted Land and the Late Empire
- Rome Rented Its Army - and Couldn't Pay the Rent
- Song-Liao Chanyuan: The Silver, Silk, and Peace Payment Loop
- Song's Green Sprouts Loan Loop
- The Maya Reservoir Loop: When 80 Percent Became a Warning
Mint & Legion: The Roman Economy, Money & Empire 11
- Augustus Taxed the Dead at Five Percent: Rome's Military Treasury
- Caesar Built 25 Roman Miles of Wall Around Himself: Alesia's Siege Invoice
- Caracalla's 50 Percent Raise: The Army Bill Behind Citizenship
- Domitian's 98% Silver Denarii Dropped Out Early: Gresham's Law in Rome
- Nero Turned 84 Denarii Into 96: Rome's Quiet Pay Cut
- Rome Charged 2 Drachmas for a Temple It Destroyed: The Fiscus Judaicus
- The 10% Tax That Became Three Tithes: Roman Tax Farming
- The 4.5-Gram Coin That Outlived Rome: Constantine's Solidus
- The Coin That Came From Urine: Vespasian's 40-Billion Sesterce Problem
- The Coin Worth 2 Denarii That Held the Silver of 1.5: Rome's Antoninianus Scam
- Trajan Paid Children With 5% Farm Loans: The Alimenta Ledger