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January 12, 475 AD: Flavius Basiliscus usurps the throne after his sister Aelia Verina, the wife of Emperor Leo I (457–474), forced the ruling emperor (her son-in-law) Zeno to flee Constantinople by a revolt.
He eventually ruled for 20 months, during which he alienated the fundamental support of the Church and the people of Constantinople, promoting the Miaphysite christological position in opposition to the Chalcedonian faith. He also alienated his Isaurian generals, who turned their allegiance back to Zeno.
In August 476, Zeno returned to besiege Constantinople. After the Senate opened the gates of the city, Basiliscus fled to sanctuary in a church, but he was betrayed by Acacius and surrendered himself and his family after extracting a solemn promise from Zeno not to shed their blood. Basiliscus, his wife Aelia Zenonis and his son Marcus were sent to a fortress in Cappadocia, where Zeno had them enclosed in a dry cistern, to die from exposure.
The usurpation of Basiliscus paralyzed the Eastern empire during the crisis of the Western empire, in which they were unable to intervene.
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January 13, 86 BC: Death of Gaius Marius, Roman general and politician (b. 157 BC), just one month after his return to Rome from exile.
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January 14, 83 (or pehaps 86) BC: Birth of Marcus Antonius, Roman politician (d. 30 BC).
January 14, 244 AD: The Battle of Misiche, Mesiche, or Massice. In this battle, which is only mentioned by a Persian source (on the trilingual inscription king Shapour made at Naqsh-e Rustam), but unnamed in Roman ones, the 19-year old Emperor Gordian III was killed. Roman sources (who fail to mention the defeat entirely) however claim that the teenager Gordian was killed in a plot by Philippus Arabs, probably in the aftermath of the failed campaign. Fact is that Arabs had to by an armistice from Shapur.
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January 15, 588 BC: Start of the siege of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon. The siege lasts about thirty months until July 23, 586 BC, after which king Zedekiah and his followers are captured on the run near Jericho, blinded and taken to Babylon. The city is razed to the ground.
January 15, 69 AD: Marcus Salvius Otho (28 April 32[1] – 16 April 69) seizes power in Rome, proclaiming himself Emperor.
Otho had rebelled as governor of Lusitania against Nero in 68, but he was disappointed when Galba adopted Piso. On the morning of January 15, only five days after the adoption, Otho hastily excused himself with Galba on the score of private business hurried from the Palatine Hill to meet his accomplices. They hastened to the Praetorian camp where he was saluted as Imperator (because the guard as well as the army resented the fact that Galba failed to pay them promised gold). With this force he returned to the Roman Forum, and at the foot of the Capitoline Hill encountered Galba who was making his way through a dense crowd of citizens. The accompanying cohort instantly deserted him, and Galba, his newly adopted son Piso and others were brutally murdered by the Praetorians.
Otho soon realised he was in over his head when he read through Galba's private correspondence and realized the extent of the revolution in Germany, where several legions had declared for Vitellius. After only three months his army was defeated by the forces of Vitellius near Bedriacum and Otho committed suicide.
January 15, 69 AD: Death of the emperor Servius Sulpicius Galba (b. 24 December 3 BC) after just 7 months of rule.
First emperor of the Year of the Four Emperors, he was governor of his native Hispania Tarraconensis, when in the spring of 68 he was informed of Nero's intention to put him to death. Nero's suicide, he assumed the title of Caesar, and marched straight for Rome, reaching the city in October. His rule was first and foremost concerned with state finances, resulting in his failure to pay his loyal troops and praetorians a promised reward. When on 1 January 69, two legions in Germania Superior refused to swear loyalty to Galba, he adopted L. Calpurnius Piso, which only hastened his downfall at the hands of Otho and the disgruntled Praetorians.
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January 16, 27 BC: The title Augustus is bestowed upon Gaius Julius Caesar Octavian by the Roman Senate.
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January 17, 38 BC: Octavian marries Livia Drusilla (58 BC-AD 29 ), daughter of Marcus Livius Drusus Claudianus and Aufidia. Livia was probably married in 43 BC to Tiberius Claudius Nero, and her first child, the future Emperor Tiberius, was born in 42 BC. When introduced to Octavian in 39 BC, Octavian was still married to Scribonia (who gave birth to his daughter Julia the Elder on the very day when he divorced her) and Livia was pregnant with her second son Nero Claudius Drusus (later known as Drusus the Elder), who was born 3 days before they married. Her former husband to Tiberius Claudius Nero, who had been forced to divorce her, was present at the wedding, giving her away in marriage.
January 17, 395 AD: Death of the Emperor Flavius Theodosius (11 January 347 – 17 January 395) after suffering from a disease involving severe oedema in Milan.
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January 18, 350 AD: Flavius Magnus Magnentius (commander of the Ioviani and Herculiani) is proclaimed emperor by the troops at Augustodunum Haeduorum (Autun). Constans is abandoned by all and flees south, but is overtaken in a fortress near Helena, close to the Pyrennees. A troop of light cavalry drags him from a temple and kills him (end of February).
January 18, 474 AD: Death of the emperor Leo of dysentery, aged 73. Accession of his grandson Flavius Leo (Junior) at age 7, until his death of an unknown disease after about 10 in November.
January 18, 532 AD: end of the Nika-revolt in Constantinople (January 11-18). The riots turn into a rebellion by the two main circus factions when the aristocracy forces Justinian to name Hypatius (a nephew of Anastasius) emperor. Justinian is saved by the magister militius per Orientem Belisarius and the magister militum per Illyrium Mundus, who quell the rebellion with a few loyal troops, killing 30-40.000 people.
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January 19, 379 AD: Flavius Theodosius is elevated to Augustus of the Eastern Empire in Sirmium (Sremska Mitrovica) by Gratian.
January 19, 383 AD: Theodosius elevates his older son Flavius Arcadius to the rank of Augustus at the age of 6.
January 19, 398 or 399 AD: Birth of Aelia Pulcheria, Byzantine empress (d. 453), daughter of Eastern Roman Emperor Arcadius and Empress Aelia Eudoxia.
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January 20, 225 AD: Birth of Marcus Antonius Gordianus Pius (later Emperor Gordian III, d. 244), son of an unnamed Roman Senator and Antonia Gordiana, the daughter of emperor Gordian I and younger sister of emperor Gordian II.
January 20, 250 AD: Death of Fabian, bishop of Rome, as one of the first to die when Emperor Decius begins a widespread persecution of Christians in Rome.
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January 23, 393 AD: The Emperor Theodosius elevates his second son Flavius Augustus Honorius to Augustus of the West, at the age of just 9 years.
January 23, 422 AD: The Spanish usurper Maximus is executed in Ravenna.
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January 24, 3 BC: Birth of the later Emperor Galba (d. 69)
January 24, 41 AD: Death of the Emperor Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (31 August AD 12 – 24 January AD 41), commonly known as Caligula and sometimes Gaius. He is assassinated after being Emperor from 3 by his disgruntled Praetorian Guard led by Cassius Chaerea in the cryptoporticus (underground corridor). Caligula's loyal Germanic guard were too late and responded with a rampaging attack on the assassins, conspirators, innocent senators and bystanders. When the military refused to acknowledge the Senate’s attempt to restore the Republic, the assassins also killed Caligula's wife, Caesonia, and killed their young daughter, Julia Drusilla. Caligula's uncle Claudius, fleeing from the murder of the Imperial family, was apparently found hiding behind a curtain by a Praetorian named Gratus, who declared him princeps, after which he was spirited out of the city to a nearby Praetorian camp. Claudius succeeded his nephew and pardoned nearly all assassins.
According to Suetonius, Caligula's death was similar to that of Julius Caesar. He states that both the elder Gaius Julius Caesar (Julius Caesar) and the younger Gaius Julius Caesar (Caligula) were stabbed 30 times by conspirators led by a man named Cassius (Cassius Longinus and Cassius Chaerea). His body was placed under turf until it was burned and entombed by his sisters. He was buried within the Mausoleum of Augustus; in 410 during the Sack of Rome the tomb's ashes were scattered.
January 24, 76 AD: Birth of the later Emperor Hadrian (d. 138).
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January 25, 41 AD: Accession of Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (1 August 10 BC – 13 October AD 54), after a night of negotiation with the Senate.
January 25, 381 AD: Death of Athanaric, king of several branches of the Therving Goths, in Constantinople (the first foreign king to visit the new Roman capital), just after he negotiated a peace with the new emperor, Theodosius I, which made some Thervings foederati and allowed them to settle on Roman soil. No foul play seems to have been involved and he received a state funeral from Theodosius.
January 25, 477 AD: Death of Genseric (c. 389 – January 25, 477), or Geiseric or Gaiseric, King of the Vandals and Alans (428–477), at Carthage.
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January 26, 457 AD: Death of the Emperor Marcian (Flavius Marcianus, b. 392 – d. 26 January 457), at age 65, possibly of gangrene in the feet contracted during a long religious journey.
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January 27, 98 AD: Death of the Roman Emperor Marcus Cocceius Nerva (b.8 November 30), Emperor from 96 to 98. On 1 January, at the start of his fourth consulship, Nerva suffered a stroke during a private audience. Shortly thereafter he was struck by a fever and died at his villa in the Gardens of Sallustius.
January 27, 98 AD: Trajan (Marcus Ulpius Nerva Traianus, b. 18 September 53 – d. 9 August 117 A.D.), becomes Roman Emperor after the death of Nerva.
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January 30, 133 AD: Birth of Marcus Severus Didius Julianus, Roman Emperor (d. 193).
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