3rd-century Romans

Plotinus (; , Plōtînos;  – 270 CE) was a Hellenistic Greek philosopher, born and raised in Roman Egypt. Plotinus is regarded by modern scholarship as the founder of Neoplatonism.

Tertullian (; ; 155 – 220 AD) was a prolific early Christian author from Carthage in the Roman province of Africa. He was the first Christian author to produce an extensive corpus of Latin Christian literature and was an early Christian apologist and a polemicist against heresy, including Gnosticism.

Christian saint and martyr (died 303)

pope

Bishop of Rome from 257 to 258

Pope and bishop of Rome from 259 to 268

Pope and bishop of Rome from 253 to 254

pope

Pope and Bishop of Rome from 199 to 217

Bishop of Rome from c. 218 to c. 223

pope and bishop of Rome from 236 to 250

Pope and Bishop of Rome from 254 to 257

pope Saint (251 to 253)

Egyptian Christian monk, hermit, and saint (died 356)

Pope and Bishop of Rome from 235 to 236

Arius (; ; 250 or 256 – 336) was a Cyrenaic presbyter and ascetic. He has been regarded as the founder of Arianism, which holds that Jesus Christ was not coeternal with God the Father, but was rather created directly by God the Father before anything else, as the true Firstborn. Arian theology and its doctrine regarding the nature of the Godhead showed a belief in radical subordinationism, a view notably disputed by 4th century figures such as Athanasius of Alexandria.

Eusebius of Caesarea (30 May AD 339), also known as Eusebius Pamphilius, was a historian of Christianity, exegete, and Christian polemicist from the Roman province of Syria Palaestina. In about AD 314 he became the bishop of Caesarea Maritima.

Pope and Bishop of Rome from 275 to 283

Pope and bishop of Rome from 269 to 274

Pope and bishop of Rome (tenure 296-304)

Greco-Roman statesman and historian (c. 155–c. 235)

Christian theologian (c.150 – c.215)

pope of the Catholic Church from 283 to 296

Irenaeus ( or ; ; ) was a Greek bishop noted for his role in guiding and expanding Christian communities in the southern regions of present-day France and, more widely, for the development of Christian theology by opposing Gnostic interpretations of Christian Scripture and defending orthodoxy. Originating from Smyrna, he had seen and heard the preaching of Polycarp, who in turn was said to have heard John the Evangelist.

pope

Saint Valentine was a 3rd-century Roman saint, commemorated in Western Christianity on February 14 and in Eastern Orthodoxy on July 6. From the High Middle Ages, his feast day has been associated with a tradition of courtly love. He is also a patron saint of Terni, epilepsy, and beekeepers. Saint Valentine was a clergyman – either a priest or a bishop – in the Roman Empire who ministered to persecuted Christians. He was martyred and his body buried on the Via Flaminia on February 14, which has been observed as the Feast of Saint Valentine since at least the eighth century.

Christian saint and martyr (256–288)

3rd-century Greek Neoplatonist philosopher

3rd-century Roman biographer of Greek philosophers

Christian saint, martyr and a deacon of Rome (225-258)

Cyprian (; ; to 14 September 258 AD) was a bishop of Carthage and an early Christian writer of Berber descent, many of whose Latin works are extant. He is recognized as a saint in the Western and Eastern churches.

Christian theologian and saint (c. 170 – c. 235)

Roman Catholic saint, martyr and patron saint of music

Iamblichus ( ; ; ; ) was a Syrian Arab Neoplatonist philosopher who determined a direction later taken by Neoplatonism. Iamblichus was also the biographer of the Greek mystic, philosopher, and mathematician Pythagoras. In addition to his philosophical contributions, his is important for the study of the sophists because it preserved about ten pages of an otherwise unknown sophist known as the Anonymus Iamblichi.

Lucius Caecilius Firmianus Lactantius () was an early Christian author who became an advisor to Roman emperor Constantine I, guiding his Christian religious policy in its initial stages of emergence, and a tutor to his son Crispus. His most important work is the Institutiones Divinae ("The Divine Institutes"), an apologetic treatise intended to establish the reasonableness and truth of Christianity to pagan critics.

Ulpian (; ; 223 or 228) was a Roman jurist born in Tyre in Roman Syria (modern Lebanon). He moved to Rome and rose to become considered one of the great legal authorities of his time. He was one of the five jurists upon whom decisions were to be based according to the Law of Citations of Valentinian III, and supplied the Justinian Digest about a third of its contents.

Roman author and teacher (c.175–c.235)

Hellenistic Platonist philosopher (175-242)

Novatian (Greek: , , ) was a scholar, priest, and theologian. He is considered by the Catholic Church to have been an antipope between 251 and 258. Some Greek authors give his name as Novatus, who was an African presbyter.

Herodian or Herodianus (), sometimes referred to as Herodian of Antioch (c. 170 – c. 240), was a minor Roman civil servant who wrote a colourful history in Greek titled History of the Empire from Marcus onwards (τῆς μετὰ Μάρκον βασιλείας ἱστορία) in eight books covering the years 180 to 238. His work is not considered entirely reliable, although his less biased account of Elagabalus may be more useful than that of Cassius Dio. The origin of Herodian is contested in scholarship, popular hypotheses being Syria, Alexandria in Egypt and Asia Minor. However, he appears to have lived for a considera

Januarius ( ; ; Neapolitan and ), also known as , was Bishop of Benevento and is a martyr and saint of the Catholic Church. While no contemporary sources on his life are preserved, later sources and legends say he died during the Great Persecution, which ended with Diocletian's retirement in 305.

Aemilius Papinianus (; ; 142 CE–212 CE), simply rendered as Papinian () in English, was a celebrated Roman jurist, magister libellorum, attorney general (advocatus fisci) and, after the death of Gaius Fulvius Plautianus in 205 CE, praetorian prefect.

Latin-language writer

Greco-Roman Christian traveller and historian (c.160–c.240)

Christian martyr (died 306)

Philostratus or Lucius Flavius Philostratus (; ; 170s – 240s AD), called "the Athenian", was a Greek sophist of the Roman imperial period. His father was a minor sophist of the same name. He flourished during the reign of Septimius Severus (193–211) and died during that of Philip the Arab (244–249), probably in Tyre.

Patriarch of Antioch

late 2nd/early 3rd century Roman jurist and possibly father of empress Julia Cornelia Paula

3rd or 4th century Roman geographer and grammarian

Aureolus was a Roman military commander during the reign of Emperor Gallienus before he attempted to usurp the Roman Empire. After turning against Gallienus, Aureolus was killed during the political turmoil that surrounded the Emperor's assassination in a conspiracy orchestrated by his senior officers. Aureolus is known as one of the Thirty Tyrants and is referenced in ancient sources including the Historia Augusta, Zonaras' epitome and Zosimus' Historia Nova.

Roman Catholic saint

Christian martyr

Syrian/Egyptian Neoplatonist philosopher (c.213–273)

thumb|Fragmentary statue base erected for Dexippus at Eleusis (I.Eleusis 656 = IG II² 3671) Publius Herennius Dexippus (; c. 210–273 AD), Greek historian, statesman and general, was an hereditary priest of the Eleusinian family of the Kerykes, and held the offices of archon basileus and eponymous in Athens.

Coptic pope of Alexandria

Hilarion (291–371), also known by the bynames of Thavata, of Gaza, and in the Orthodox Church as the Great was a Christian anchorite who spent most of his life in the desert according to the example of Anthony the Great (c. 251–356). While Anthony is considered to have established Christian monasticism in the Egyptian Desert, Hilarion, who lived in the coastal area near Gaza, is considered by his biographer Jerome (c. 342/347 – 420), to be the founder of Palestinian monasticism - regarding this claim see also Hilarion's contemporary, Chariton (mid-3rd century – c. 350), founder of monasticism

3rd century Christian ecclesiastical writer

Marcus Aurelius Nemesianus was a Roman poet thought to have been a native of Carthage and flourished about AD 283. He was a popular poet at the court of the Roman emperor Carus (Historia Augusta, Carus, 11).

Egyptian saint, martyr and wonder-worker, said to have lived 285-ca. 309

Christian martyr, presbyter and theologian (died 312)