First Roman Empire

Hadrian will always be my favorite and its a fucking shame he will only ever be remember for a wall he didn't really give a shit about.

>Brought the beard back into style
>One of the most eclectic emperors of Rome, studying art, philosophy, history, architecture, literature, politics, and law
>Humanist authoritarian
>Rebuilt the Pantheon and even restored Agrippa's name on the building rather than replacing it
>Avid hunter
>Paved the way for Marcus Aurelius and even did a good job picking a place holder in Antoninus
>First openly and exclusively gay emperor and he didn't give a fuck
>In his final tragic years, slips into depression and paranoia attempting to commit suicide several times

He's easily one of the most interesting figures to be emperor.

Honorable mentions are Julian The Apostate and Vespasian.

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This guy because his name sounds like poopy-anus

>>1666165

Agreed, found him through an initial interest in OP's choice myself. As much as I still like good old Mark, the greekling is just shrouded in mystery. You ever read Yourcenar's Memoirs of Hadrian?

Does Caesar count ? Because he is the greatest roman leader

I'd go for Hadrian. Or maybe Caracalla because his story is great.

>>1666608
Everyone would pick the entire first triumvirate over any emperor so of course Julius doesn't count.

Marcus Aurelius for the west, Constantine XI Palaiologos for the East.

>>1666084
It's sad how the recession started during his reign and is mostly remembered for it.

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Augustus obviously

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>>1666915
This desu

Honestly he was the only decent Roman emperor. Everyone after him became progressively shittier

>great philosopher

Literally:

"I don't even want those sour grapes" - The Philosphy

i'll go with Elagabalus any day.

he became emperor at age 14, and dressed as a female prostitute in order to meet men.

>>1666399
I haven't. Is it good?

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I know there is at least one other Diocletian groupie on here.

>>1666084
Probably Trajan, but I'll say that Tiberius' reign is absurdly interesting. I think that his story is underrated simply because he followed Augustus and wasn't as insane or shitty as Caligula or Nero.

I feel like Trajan is a meme-tier answer given how many interesting guys came and went during and following the crisis of the third century, but Trajan ran the empire in the ideal fashion (hands-off, leave it to local authorities so that the state can function regardless of an emperor's quality) and was still aggressive militarily. Imagine if he lived longer and the Jews didn't revolt - what happens if he takes significant parts of the Iranian plateau? If he ends the threat from Persia forever by making it a part of Rome? The implications are massive.

>>1668119
His only mistake was living long enough to witness his life's work fall apart in front of him.

He was the only person who had the interest of the empire at heart and he believed other people would too.

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Julian.

But damn he really should've negotiated an advantageous peace when he reached Ctesiphon and Sapor was willing to give him one. Would've thought someone so familiar with Alexander wouldn't cut off his own retreat and press deeper into the deserts of Persia just because.

>>1666665
>Everyone would pick the entire first triumvirate over any emperor
>implying anybody would pick that greedy, narcissistic, insecure cunt Crassus

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>>1667098
Haven't you heard of Trajan?

>>1668292

>I think that his story is underrated simply because he followed Augustus and wasn't as insane or shitty as Caligula or Nero.

Tiberius strikes me as intensely tragic figure though maybe it's just I Claudius that makes me feel that way. His reluctance to ascend to the principiate doesn't seem at all feigned, and he seems to have been genuinely really uncomfortable with the demands of the role, like he would have preferred power to devolve back to the senate but didn't dare to let it. His abandonment of Rome to go hide in resorts is inexcusable though. If as the head of government people can spread stories that you went on holiday and had little kids trained to suck your dick in the pool while you are in office, you are bad at your job. He tarnished the name of the Caesars, brought large scale purges of the nobility back to Rome after a long time gone, and survived long enough for pretty much everyone who wasn't already accustomed to the idea of dynastic monarchy to get accustomed to it. I feel for the guy, but also he fucked shit up.

>>1667121
His philosophy is literally the opposite of sour grapes. The whole point is that even though he's the most powerful man in the world, he still focuses on fulfilling his personal, stoic ideal.

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RESTITUTOR ORBIS

Imagine what this guy could have done with another five years.

Julian

Carus is pretty epic desu

What's with all yall rating Julian? Dude was a wannabe and a puss. He lucked into empire when his main competitor up and died, farted around trying to invent a pagan church when paganism was already pretty much on the way out the door, and then on his first large scale campaign pulled a Crassus/Antony, started a land war in Asia, fucked up and very nearly got his entire army annihilated by the Persians. And they only survived because he died and the guy who replaced him immediately surrendered like a bitch rather than die fighting. Dude was a disaster and if he'd just been a good Christian and fucked some women and had some kids as opposed to jacking off with the cryptkeepers of a moribund intellectual culture as he bled to death on a pointless dickwaving crusade in the middle of the desert, Rome would have done a lot better than he did.

>>1666084
Augustus, Hadrian, and Charlemagne were too good for this world-tier.

>>1670790
>Yall
The mark of opinions that are to be trashed.

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>>1671503
>Charlemagne

>>1666084
>Augustus Caesar
>Vespasian
>Trajan
>Hadrian
>Marcus Aurelius
>Aurelian
>Diocletian
>Constantine I the Great
>Julian the Apostate
>Theodosius I the Great
>Majorian
>Leo I the Thracian
>Zeno
>Justinian I the Great
>Heraclius
>Leo III the Isaurian
>Charles I the Great (Charlemagne)
>Basil I the Macedonian
>Otto I
>Basil II the Bulgar Slayer
>Frederick II
>John II Komnenos the Good
>Michael VIII Palaiologos
>Sigismund of Luxemburg
>Maximilian I
>Mehmed II
>Charles V
>Selim I
>Suleiman I the Magnificent
>Ivan IV the Terrible
>Michael I
>Peter I the Great
>Catherine II the Great

>>1671705
>he doesn't recognize the Imperial evolution

>>1671719
>Constantine
>Great

Can't get behind any emperors. They're all goant reminders of how much cooler the republic was

>>1671705
This is nothing to loose your head over Saxon, calm down.

>>1671547

Nice job fagtron, sure convinced me with those hot opinions.

>>1669749
Restraint was a luxury only the wealthiest Romans could afford, and nobody was more proud about how much restraint he could afford than Marcus Aurelius

>>1673998
Who said anything about having or even wanting to convince you?

Continue sucking cocks. I don't want to convince you otherwise. Your opinion is shit though.

>>1671547
I'm a yankee and stfu he actually wrote a pretty damn good description of Julian the Apostate.

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>>1667177
>Finally, he set aside a room in the palace and there committed his indecencies, always standing nude at the door of the room, as the harlots do, and shaking the curtain which hung from gold rings, while in a soft and melting voice he solicited the passers-by. There were, of course, men who had been specially instructed to play their part. For, as in other matters, so in this business, too, he had numerous agents who sought out those who could best please him by their foulness. He would collect money from his patrons and give himself airs over his gains; he would also dispute with his associates in this shameful occupation, claiming that he had more lovers than they and took in more money.

>>1669776
>cucks the gallic empire
>fucks the palmyrian slutpire
>is murdered by officers tricked by a corrupt local government official

Absolutely disgusting how pathetic the Roman officer corps was.

>>1669684
>I'm going to permanently cripple Rome's future ability to crisis manage and waste reserve legions and manpower to undertake an absolutely wasteful and unjustifiable war against the Parthian Empire
>And then bring back a massive plague to the Roman East that wiped out nearly a quarter of the population in under two decades
>And by successor will have to fix my retarded Alexandrian vain-glory on the check board as his first job as Emperor
>And all of this will lead to Rome being forever unable to ever undertake an offensive campaign of conquest in the West for the rest of its duration
Yeah ****great****.

>>1666915
>>1667098
Augustus is my favorite but Tiberius, Claudius, and Aurelian are top tier as well.

>>1668386
>Sapor
Its Shapur and the only reason he was trying to smooth things over diplomatically was because Julian intentionally broke a peace treaty with the Persians while Shapur was busy putting down a rebellion in Khorasan by an upstart general allied with some nomadic Iranian tribes and he couldn't be in two different places at once.

>>1667177
Sounds hot af

>>1672302
>and then there's that plebeian

>>1671719
thank you for listing 30+ names, really narrows down your taste. I bet you make 12x12 hugelab collages too

>>1676057
>bullshit war in the west
>busy putting down a rebellion in Khorasan by an upstart general allied with some nomadic Iranian (sometimes Turkish/Turanian) tribes
>couldn't be in two different places at once

/Persian history/ in a nutshell.
I like to think this was the moment in every Shah/Shahanshah's life where he realized how fucking terrible his job was.

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>was interested in history
>was cucked by bitches
>his family hated him
I can identify with him too much