What is Europe? European Spaces of Antiquity (This concept of political, social, economic and cultural unity will be the seed of our current EU and international institutions) In the 1st century AD, Rome had given birth to a powerful empire that covered a large part of the known world in Antiquity. The extension of its culture, civilisation, language and customs into these territories enabled it to exploit them more easily and to exercise its power. Their imprint was so strong that it has endured to the present day in many aspects of our culture. The emperors, including Tiberius, to whom this sculpture belongs, were the great architects of this Empire.