Yehudah

Maybe the southern coast of Gaul. Or Egypt.

I read that Nero was in Greece when the Great Fire broke out; he supposedly rushed back to Rome and was seen helping the citizens look for family and possessions amongst the rubbel. Is there any truth to this?

St. Paul's letter to the Christian churches of Galatia is now a book of the New Testament. Galatia (formerly Phyrgia) had fallen under Roman rule less than a century before; the region had been colonized by Gaulish mercenary bands c. 279 BC and had a large population of Celtic warriors who had served as mercenaries both for and against Rome. Paul doesn't mention any of the Galatian believers by name, but this may be due to the brevity and severity of his message in his letter. Is there any evidence as to what kind of people he had ministered amongst? Were they local Greeks/Hellenized Asians, or did he bring Christianity to the Celtic parts of Galatia?

Hadrian briefly surpressed the rights of the Jews, and did not allow them to practice circumcision. His successor Antoninus Pius revoked these laws.

Caracalla was just imitating the Macedonian phalanx of old, and there is little evidence outside the writings of Cassius Dio for this bizarre experiment. I would personally think it has nothing to do with the later adoption of pike-like polearms by the Eastern Roman Empire. The pilum and its descendants, the spiculum and the angon, continued to be used throughout the 4th and probably into the 5th Century. I think javelins remained in favor over thrusting spears longer than has been traditionally assumed.

I've read that the rank of centurion ceased to be used in the early 4th Century. Apparently it was renamed.

Legions are supposed to have been smaller - maybe like 500 or 1000 men, by this time period. Most "legions" of the 4th Century were actually legionary vexillations of the 3rd Century under a new name. I recall reading that the last evidence for the rank of centurion dates to the beginning of the 4th Century. But logically it would have continued (mayhaps been renamed).

Military tombstones of the 2nd and 3rd Centuries often depict the deceased holding his weapons, but not wearing armor. This could be an artistic convention, or it could mean armor was going out of vogue somewhat.

If they were Romanized Illyrians, I doubt they were looked down upon in Rome because of their origins. By the mid-3rd Century Rome had already had a couple of Romanized Celts, a Syrian, a few Africans, a Thracian, and an Arab emperor. At least some of these peoples would have been much more offensive than the Illyrians. It's possible that the names of these emperors could give a clue to their origins - Claudius Gothicus and Probus both bore the praenomen/nomen Marcus Aurelius. This indicates that their families received citizenship possibly under M. Aurelius Antoninus, or more probably Caracalla. This in turn would imply that they were probably coming from a non-Roman, and maybe only recently Romanized background. But that's just my two cents.

Weren't the limitani a citizen militia?

American midwest.

Hey, I'm new. I'm interested in the Imperial phase of Roman history, particularly the Antonine and Severan periods (138 -235 AD).