Titus becomes emperor on the death of his father, Vespasian, and begins a brief two-year reign of lavish public generosity

Dying after a reign of only two years, Titus is succeeded on the imperial throne by his brother, Domitian

Trajan, succeeding to the imperial throne in AD 98, is sufficiently confident to spend a year in Germany before returning to Rome

Hadrian, governing Syria when he is declared emperor, is confident enough to delay almost a year before returning to Rome

Kanishka rules the Kushan empire of Afghanistan and northern India from his capital at Peshawar

The emperor Hadrian, with no children of his own, appoints a respected senator, Antoninus Pius, to succeed him

Marcus Aurelius, for long the designated heir, becomes emperor on the death of Antoninus Pius

Ardashir is crowned king of Fars - a first step towards his founding of the Sassanian dynasty in Persia

The Han dynasty is brought to an end, after more than four centuries, by decades of peasant unrest

Diocletian, commanding an army near the Bosphorus in Thracia, is proclaimed emperor by his troops

Diocletian resigns from his position as Augustus because of ill health, and retires to Dalmatia

Constantine's father, recently appoinnted Augustus in the west, dies at York and the young man is proclaimed Augustus in his place by the legions in Britain

Constantine, preparing for battle against a rival at the Milvian Bridge, orders his men to wear a Christian symbol, the Chi-Rho, on their shields

Constantine meets his co-emperor Licinius in Milan, and persuades him to follow a policy of encouraging the Christians

Warming to his new Christian role, Constantine summons more than 300 bishops to Arles to discuss the controversial issue of Donatus

The territory of the Gupta dynasty is extended by Chandra Gupta, to include most of the great plain of the Ganges

Constantine convenes a council of 200 bishops at Nicaea to discuss the beliefs of Arius, which are deemed to be heresy

Constantine's new Christian city on the site of Byzantium is inaugurated, as Constantinople

Constantine is at last baptized a Christian in Nicomedia, just a few days before his death

The Cushite dynasty fades away in Nubia, after lasting for 1000 years or more

The clan ruling the Yamato plain becomes so powerful that its chieftain is seen as the emperor of Japan

Julian, the new emperor in Constantinople, plans to reinstate the pagan cult of the ancient Roman empire

An apocryphal story states that Julian the Apostate, dying at Tarsus, acknowledges the victory of the Galilean, Jesus Christ

Theodosius becomes the Roman emperor and revives Constantine's close link between church and state

St Ambrose asserts the authority of the church, refusing communion to the emperor Theodosius in Milan until he does penance for a massacre