The Emperors of Rome

Lyrics

(Verse 1)
From the ashes of the Republic, a new dawn rose,
Octavian took the crown, the senate froze.
In twenty-seven BC, Augustus took the name,
Pax Romana started, the Empire joined the game.
Next came Tiberius, gloomy and austere,
Sought the cliffs of Capri, ruling through their fear.
Then Caligula went mad, demanding to be divine,
Made his horse a consul, crossed the safety line.
Claudius stuttered in, but conquered Britain's shore,
Then Nero played his fiddle while Rome burned to the core!
(Chorus)
Hey ho, let’s go, down the Appian Way,
The Emperors of Rome are ruling today!
From the golden age of glory to the final, fatal fall,
We’re gonna rock through the Caesars, we're gonna name them all!
(Verse 2)
Sixty-nine AD brought the Year of Four,
Galba, Otho, Vitellius, walking through the door.
Then Vespasian took the wheel, built the Colosseum high,
Titus saw Vesuvius blow Pompeii to the sky.
Domitian was a tyrant, paranoia on the throne,
But Nerva brought the peace back, an era of their own.
Trajan expanded borders to the ultimate extreme,
While Hadrian built a wall to block the Scottish stream.
Antoninus Pius kept the peaceful status quo,
And Marcus Aurelius wrote philosophy on the go!
(Chorus)
Hey ho, let’s go, down the Appian Way,
The Emperors of Rome are ruling today!
From the golden age of glory to the final, fatal fall,
We’re gonna rock through the Caesars, we're gonna name them all!
(Verse 3)
Then Commodus went crazy, fighting in the sand,
Septimius Severus brought the army to command.
Caracalla gave out citizenship, but killed his brother dead,
Elagabalus worshipped stones, put a heavy price on his head.
Severus Alexander was the last of that line,
Then the Crisis of the Third Century fractured the design!
Barracks emperors rising, fifty years of dread,
Until Aurelian, Restorer of the World, went ahead.
Diocletian split the map, the Tetrarchy was born,
And Constantine the Great saw a Christian Sunday morn!
He moved the capital to Byzantium's shore,
But the Western half was fading, knocking on death's door.
(Bridge)
Fast forward through the chaos, the Western line grew thin,
Vandals at the gates, barbarians breaking in.
In four-hundred-seventy-five, a boy king took the stage,
Romulus Augustulus, the last of the Western age!
Deposited by Odoacer, the Western Empire died,
But wait! The flame was burning on the Eastern side!
(Verse 4)
For a thousand years in New Rome, the purple still survived,
Through Justinian’s legal code, the empire revived!
Heraclius fought the Persians, Leo fought the siege,
Basil the Bulgar-Slayer made the rebels pledge allegiance.
Through Comnenian restoration and the Fourth Crusade's blow,
The Palaiologos dynasty watched the final shadows grow.
And in fourteen-fifty-three, against the Ottoman gun,
Stood Constantine the Eleventh, the very final one!
He tore his imperial crest away, charged into the fray,
And the thousand-year-old Roman Empire finally passed away!
(Guitar Solo - Fast, heavy, melancholic alt-rock riff)
(Outro)
From Augustus in the marble to Romulus's fall,
To Constantine the Eleventh, standing on the wall!
Seventeen-hundred years of history and pride,
That's the story of the Emperors, and how the empire died!
(Final heavy guitar crash)