Who was the greatest roman emperor and why? Who was the worst?

trajan
hadrian

Heraclius

>>3285476
Best: Augustus
Worst: Commodus

>>3285520
Why would Hadrian be the worst?

>>3285520
wow I bet you think land area is the best way to measure imperial success

>>3285476
>Hadrian
>Commodus

>>3285476
>best
augustus and all emperors from vespasian to marcus aurelius
>worst
commodus, caracalla, elgabalus, probably most of emperors from crisis of third century (not a single one of them died from natural causes in 50 years or so i think)

augustus is easily the best

it's not even something you can argue against. he had the longest reign by far, and he solidified the groundwork that julius threw together before julius got killed. augustus is the reason we had a thousand-year roman empire.

Friedrich I

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Aurelian.

He came to the throne at the least enviable time in almost all Roman history: the empire was totally collapsing, had split into three, with a ruined economy, a mutinous army that loved to assassinate its Emperors, and barbarians constantly pouring over the borders.
Yet in five years he beat back numerous major Germanic invasions, unified the empire by conquering Palmyra and Gaul, and (almost uniquely among all Rome's rulers) had the foresight to try and resolve the massive hyperinflation in the empire by increasing the silver content of the denarius.

By the time of his death he was marching east preparing for a major campaign against Persia when a massive fucking faggot called Eros tricked his officers into murdering him by forging a list of men the emperor was going to execute. After he died there was no immediate successor or usurper, which was unbelievable by the standards of the third century - and hints at the increasing stability of Rome's politics - and his wife may even have ruled for six months afterwards as sole empress.

Also he worked to make based Sol Invictus the supreme deity of the Roman pantheon, and was basically in the process of doing what Constantine would later do.

Best: Augustus for whole career, Aurelian for greatest peak

Worst: Commodus or Caracalla.

>>3285813

Augustus loses points for not thinking ahead and actually building a solid succession system.

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Valentinian had the best death 2bh

>RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH GERMANS GET OUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUT

>AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

>AGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

>GERMAAAAAAAAAAAANS

>AHHHHH- *has brain aneurysm*

Honorious was pretty bad too

>>3287357
He had to play up the republican aspects of the system, and it's not like the Empire ever developed a clear succession system. He went to pretty insane lengths to find at least a successor

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>people saying Commodus or Caracalla when this faggot exists

it's one thing to dress up like Hercules and name the months after yourself or massacre a city because someone called you a jerk, Honorius basically set in motion the destruction of the western empire

>>3287372
>Valentinian I was a great Emperor
>Valentinian II was an okay Emperor
>Valentinian III was a terrible Emperor
What did they mean by this?

Marcus Aurelius was pretty decent.
His son was a little shit. Wouldn't say the worst but he defenitly was down there.

>>3287372
>you will never be that angry that you for from it.

>>3287387
Sequels suck

>>3287393
*die from it

Aurelian was fucking based

>>3285476
>Who was the greatest roman emperor and why?
Barbarossa, for obvious reason
>Who was the worst?
Francis II
Faggot lost at Austerlitz caysing the end of the Empire

>>3287433
>
>
>

>>3285749
He gets bad press. He was actually pretty decent.

>>3285808
Domitian was one of the best?

>>3287357
He did the best he could, how many fucking heirs-in-training predeceased him? Ha was forced to keep working that on the fly his whole reign.

>>3287389
Aurelius was over-rated as fuck, all based n an irrelevant and not actually all that great collection of "Philosophical Calendar Thought of the Day" shit he wrote down.

>>3287487
Eh I give him brownie points for dying on the front with the men that he lead. Cant hate on a guy for helping to create a form of philosophical thinking though.

>>3285825
the patrician's choice
worked his way up from being a farmboy to legionnaire to emperor

>>3287487
Spotted the contrarian
Aurelius was the realest nigga that ever lived

>>3287384
Don't bully chicken-boy, he's a special guy

>>3285767
Seeing that was the only way of keeping the empire a float it seems like a fair assesment.

>>3287582
>the realest nigga that ever lived
Surely wouldn't that be Septimius Severus, the actual African?

>>3285476
Augustus
Tiberius

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>>3285476
>Who was the greatest roman emperor and why?

L V C I V S · D O M I T I V S · A V R E L I A N V S

BECAUSE HE WAS THE NOBLEST PERSON TO BE A ROMAN EMPEROR; WISE HEROIC REFORMER, ENDOWED WITH VISION, WORD, AND VOLITION.

>Who was the worst?

"CALIGULA".

unironically caligula, the only one to defeat a god

>>3287743
actual african and real nigga do not necessarily mean the same thing

>>3285476
>Greatest
Domitian

>Worst
Caracalla

>>3287474
Yes, Domitian as written off as an incompetent Tyrant immediately after his death because he disenfranchised the Senate by the autistic Tacitus but in reality he rejuvenated Roman pantheism, launched several successful Imperial ventures, increased the purity of Roman currency and created a strongly balanced economy unseen since JC

>>3285476
>>3287766
>>3287768

Anyone else get turned on by Caligula's exploits when they first red about them

>>3285733
This

>>3285825
When it was found out what Eros did, the officers who had killed Aurelian, many of whom had been his friends, captured him and pretty much tortured him to death, so he at least got what he deserved.

>>3285476

Greatest: Diocletian, followed closely by Augustus. Their leadership didn't just keep a nation great, they led the country out of civil war and determined the entire concept of emperor hundreds of years afterwards.

Worst: Probably Commodus, as others have said, but I'm going to throw out an honorable mention here for Valentinian III, who did almost nothing his entire reign except murder the one guy who was holding the empire together.

>>3287914
god bless

>>3287743
WE

>>3287357
The Roman succession system was "survival of the strongest faction"

>>3285476
best: caesar or augustus
worst: constantine or theodosius

>>3287384
honorius was also a 15 year old kid that was emperor in name only, he had no real power and stilicho was pulling all the strings until people got scared of his influence and pressured honorius into having him executed.

in a way, because honorius basically let stilicho have free reign he could be considered a low-tier emperor because stilicho almost saved the west, but not the worst emperor ever because basically everything was out of his hands and also not a good emperor because he kills stilicho anyways

>>3287788
He also attempted to reform the civil service into a more merit based system, rather than class and had that shit down.

Shame trying to alleviate class conflicts in Rome almoat always leads to the reformer being assassinated.

But Domitian and the Flavians were the real deal. Shame their dynasty had to end, but I guess no five good emperors period woulda happened.

The Definitive Great Roman Emperors List:
Augustus (Imperator Caesar Divi Filius Augustus)
Tiberius (Tiberius Julius Caesar Divi Augusti Filius Augustus)
Claudius (Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus)
Domitian (Titus Flavius Caesar Domitianus Augustus)
Trajan (Imperator Caesar Nerva Traianus Divi Nerva fili Augustus)
Hadrian (Caesar Traianus Hadrianus Augustus)
Antoninus Pius (Caesar Titus Aelius Hadrianus Antoninus Augustus Pius)
Marcus Aurelius (Imperator Caesar Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus)
Aurelian (Lucius Domitius Aurelianus Augustus - Restitutor Orbis)
Diocletian (Caesar Gaius Aurelius Valerius Diocletianus Augustus)
Constantine I the Great (Flavius Valerius Aurelius Constantinus Augustus)
Theodosius I the Great (Flavius Theodosius Augustus)
Majorian (Flavius Julius Valerius Maiorianus Augustus)
Leo I the Thracian (Flavius Valerius Leo Augustus)
Zeno the Isaurian (Flavius Zeno Augustus)
Anastasius I Dicorus (Flavius Anastasius Dicorus Augustus)
Justin I (Flavius Iustinus Augustus)
Justinian I the Great (Flavius Petrus Sabbatius Iustinianus Augustus)
Maurice (Flavius Mauricius Tiberius Augustus)
Heraclius (Flavius Heraclius Augustus)
Leo III the Isaurian (Leon III ho Isaurus)
Constantine V (Konstantinos V)
Basil I the Macedonian (Basileios o Makedon)
Leo VI the Wise (Leon VI ho Sophos)
Constantine VII the Purple Born (Konstantinos VII Porphyrogennetos)
Romanos II
Nikephoros II Phokas
John I Tzimiskes (Ioannes I Tzimiskes)
Basil II the Bulgar-Slayer (Vasileios II Bulgaroktonos) - Manuel Erotikos Komnenos
Isaac I Komnenos (Isaakios I Komnenos)
Alexius I Komnenos (Alexios I Komnenos)
John II Komnenos the Good (Ioannes II Komnenos Kaloioannes)
Manuel I Komnenos (Manuel I Komnenos ho Megas)

Greatest: Julius Caesar
Worst: Mark Antony

Had Commodus just pressed on fighting the Germanic tribes the way his father wanted him to do before succession, the Roman Empire would have extended its borders all the way to the northern tip of Denmark and into Poland.
Marcus Aurelius had the right plan, but like Bismarck, left no one capable enough to finish the job.

>>3288662
>No Michael VIII Palaiologos
Fuck your shit.

>>3287372
Wait what

Explain

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the big man himself

Best, Marcus Aurelius
Worst, Elagabalus
Honourable mention: Alexander Severus. Had he lived in less troubled time he would probably have made a good emperor

>>3285476
I think Hadrian just beats out Marcus Aurelius as the best, because he actually secured an worthy heir. Besides that he realized that continous expansion was not sustainable in the long term and built many defenses for the empire as well as dank public baths.

>>3287433
The so called
>holy
>roman
>empire
had it coming.

Napoleon did nothing morally wrong.

>>3285520
>Trajan
>best

>>3285825
>By the time of his death he was marching east preparing for a major campaign against Persia
Shapur would've blown him out and you know it.

>>3290172
This!!!

>>3287788
Cool, you did it on purpose and have thought it out.

>>3287372
>>3290172
How did Valentinian die? I don't know much about that period

>>3290286
>>3287372

>>3287914
>SO, WHICH IS IT? DID HE WORK TOWARD ESTABLISHING THE CULT OF SOL INVICTVS, OR DID HE WORK TOWARD ESTABLISHING JUDEOCHRISTIANITY?

It is OK to use lower case letters.

Recall, though, that Constantius I was a devotee of Sol Invictus, and Constantine I came to believe in a Greatest God through Sol Invictus before coming to identify the Greatest God as the Christian God.

Whether that is theologically sound is not the issue -- Constantine was less interested in deep theology than he was in identifying and staying connected to the God who brought him victory.

>>3285476
They were all shit Rome was better as a republic

>>3288310
>best: caesar or augustus

This raises a question -- how do we define "Emperor" of Rome. Ancient historians tended to list Caesar the Dictator as the first, later historians start with Augustus. I tend to think of the Juio-Claudians as being transitional, with there clearly being no such thing as an Emperor when JC started the family ball rolling and there clearly being an Emperor when Nero "suicided" and the position was grabbed by Galba,but not drawing a sharp line for hen the boundary was crossed.

>>3288662
As a list of "great" emperors, that seems over-long. Greatness would seem a meaningless term if you apply it so freely.

What are your criteria for greatness here?

>>3289138
>Best, Marcus Aurelius

Why? What did he do that you think qualifies him as great?

>>3289148
>I think Hadrian just beats out Marcus Aurelius as the best, because he actually secured an worthy heir.

Two generations worth, when you think about it.

>>3288662
>Justinian
Your opinion is shit, into the trash it goes

>>3290313
But toward the end, the Republic was demonstrably no longer able to function as a system of government. The Principate as designed by Augustus went a long way towards establishing a more stable system. Not a perfect one, but one that worked fairly well for a long time, and very well at times.

>>3290339
he wasn't a beta fag like his predecessors and decided to prefer hereditary way of succession to secure throne for his chad son instead of being cuck who adopts adults

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>>3290412
Thank you for clarifying that for me.

>>3289116
"Without waiting for the spring he decided to continue campaigning and moved from Savaria to Brigetio. Once he arrived on 17 November, he received a deputation from the Quadi. In return for supplying fresh recruits to the Roman army, the Quadi were to be allowed to leave in peace. However, before the envoys left they were granted an audience with Valentinian. The envoys insisted that the conflict was caused by the building of Roman forts in their lands; furthermore individual bands of Quadi were not necessarily bound to the rule of the chiefs who had made treaties with the Romans – and thus might attack the Romans at any time. The attitude of the envoys so enraged Valentinian that he suffered a burst blood vessel in the skull while angrily yelling at them, provoking his death on November 14, 375."

>>3290453
>Literally REEEEEing to death
Glorious.

>>3290345
Fuck off retard. Justinian was the last true Roman Emperor.

Best: Suleiman the Magnificent
Worst: Alexios Komenous

>>3290620
Fuck off T*rk.

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>>3290113
What, while rotting in his tomb? He died three years before Aurelian did you mong. He would have been fighting Bahram II if he made it to Persia, and Bahram was a useless faggot who got his capital sacked by Carinus.

>>3290957
Carus* sorry.
And whatever Carus can do, Aurelian could probably do better. The guy was legit one of Rome's best ever military commanders.

>>3285476
Best: Augustus
Worst: Before Commodus and the following centuries of turmoil, Nero. If you pick an asshole post-Marcus Aurelius, you're cheating.
The case can be made for Marcus, who was so up his ass with dour stoicism that he forgot to train his dipshit son to be a good emperor.

>>3285476
Best: Augustus
Worst: Honorius

>>3290286
>Without waiting for the spring he decided to continue campaigning and moved from Savaria to Brigetio. Once he arrived on 17 November, he received a deputation from the Quadi. In return for supplying fresh recruits to the Roman army, the Quadi were to be allowed to leave in peace. However, before the envoys left they were granted an audience with Valentinian.
>The envoys insisted that the conflict was caused by the building of Roman forts in their lands; furthermore individual bands of Quadi were not necessarily bound to the rule of the chiefs who had made treaties with the Romans – and thus might attack the Romans at any time.
>The attitude of the envoys so enraged Valentinian that he suffered a burst blood vessel in the skull while angrily yelling at them, provoking his death on November 14, 375.

>>3290957
>>3290964
>Carus
>sacking Ctesiphon
Never attested and most historians don't even trust his claims. Also funny how he died very shortly after his war for a supposedly successful Emperor.

>>3290981
Commodus received, as the one and only son of any Emperor thus far to be 'born into the purple' received as best of an imperial education as one could hope for, including administrative and military positions.
He was just an out and out insane psychopath.

which one was the tranny?

shes obviously the best one

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>>3285825
this.

>>3285733
Patrician answer

>>3291132
Elagabolus liked to call himself the wife in the marriage and referred to himself as the 'queen'

>>3287381
>>3287482

he could have written somewhere "if the immediate successor is dangerously underage, an autistic neckbeard or just literally as fucking bonkers as possible, The power will be distributed between the Consuls and the Emperors' best and most loyal for a term of five years"

>>3290412
Commodus was literally the Chad Emperor
>very attractive and physically strong
>always portrayed himself as Hercules
>personally got into the Colosseum and massacred hundreds of enormous beasts while nearly nude
>openly mocked and bullied the Senate
>killed anyone that made him angry
>had hundreds of concubines
>died in his prime while grabbing his dick

>>3291734
Which would have created a rift between the Senate and the living heir, creating civil war.

The only real solution to this issue was killing Commodus sooner rather than later and adopting an adequate heir.

>>3285476
marcus aurelius because dank philosophy

>>3290334
>empire lasts from 27BC to 1453AD
>hurr this list is too long

>>3288662

You have Justinian but not Julian?

Your list is bad and you should feel bad.

>>3290545
no dude

Unironically, Majorian or Heraclius. They are both quite romantic.

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Caracalla for giving us the coolest bust ever.

>>3292536
>ruled Rome for 3 years
Was he greater than Aurelian?

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Basil II was the best in my opinion
>came to power at a young age
>went to siege Pliska (Bulgar Capital) but stopped because of Logistics issues
>gets ambushed and defeated by the Bulgars on the way back, but escapes back to constantinople.
>swears an oath to destroy Bulgaria
>however, the aristocracy are angry at him for using the army without their consent, and funds two rebellions against him
>a lot of the remaining army defects
>agrees to an alliance with the prince of Kiev, so he can get his army in exchange for marring of his sister to Him
>Prince agrees, also converts to orthodoxy
>With new army he ambushes one of the enemy camps and destroyes it.
>The leader escapes with some men and goes to confront Basil in the field
>charges straight at Basil, but litterally
has a heart attack and dies
>other guy is so scared he gets deposed by his own supporters who surrender to Basil.
>now that he has control, he passes a law which returns all land bought since the start of the reign of His great grandfather to the original owners, with no compensation.
>this means that the aristocracy is destroyed overnight, one of the most powerful families goes completely Bankrupt and become literal peasants
>reorganises the land into themes(like provinces), with a governor appointed by him.
Cont.

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>Goes back to war with the Bulgars
>Is very slow but extremely efficent
>after a few years a muslim leader takes his chance and starts raiding, knowing that the army will take years to get there
>Basil gets his entire army there in two weeks, and utterly destroys the Muslim army
>Returns to Bulgaria
> after about 20 years of non-stop campaigning, he ambushes the Bulgar army and Destroys most of it, but captures 15000 prisoners
>decides to blind them so they will never fight again
>but 1 in a 100 get to keep one eye so they can lead the rest home
>Bulgar king sees his army and has a heart attack and dies
>whole realm gets annexed
>Kings of Croatia and Bosnia are so scared that they willingly become part of the empire, in exchange for being theme governors
>one his generals captures southern Italy for him.
>decides to stop expanding and start fixing the realm
>dies in his bed peacefully after having ruled for 40 years
if only he had had children.

>>3293487
I've heard that Basil II was a chad during his youth but had an encounter that left him uninterested in women. Shame about the lack of good heirs.

>>3293503
yeah, those encounters were probably the two rebellions he faced, which forced him to mature

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Justinian II

>>3292431
>Which would have created a rift between the Senate and the living heir, creating civil war.

But if the heir is an unlikable dipshit that nobody but a scheming mother would push they wouldnt get support.

Another way would be opening the senatorial rank so generals could try to attain power through civic means instead of being stuck with military power grabs.

>>3293481
>G*eeks
Get out.

>>3293954
>>3293481
>>3288662
>Roman

>>3294315
>literally an extension of the polity Augustus founded
>not Roman

>>3292648
>a neckbeard with a nerd cape
lmao virgin spotted

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>>3292648
Based Caracalla

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There is no comparison, the empire reached its peak under his reign.

>>3294421
The Ottoman empire has no continuity with the Eastern Roman Empire and Suleiman the Magnificent was born fifty years after the fall of Constantinople

>>3293999
Except the heir still has a fuck ton of money and position that he can lean on supporters.

You know how many unlikeable cunts attempted or succeeded in usurping the emperorship with just money and promises?

>>3287387
Was Valentinian I really a great Emperor? Didn't he get so many setbacks during his reign?

>>3294323
>not Roman
>not Latin
>not an extension but rather than abortion of what was *once* Roman
The Roman nature and character of Eastern Roman Empire died when Justinian died.

>>3288310
>worst: constantine or theodosius
Gibbon get out.

>>3290172
>augustus for his deeds
Completely destablizing his realm via his fucking retarded childeren, made the plight of the common roman even fucking worse with his "lmao more gaul slaves xd" plan, destroyed the republic and elevated himself to king? Augustus was a fucking traitor to rome, a man any true roman would despise.

>>3295385
The Roman nature and character of the Roman Empire Circa 100 AD was different from 200 AD and from 300 AD. That is not an effective argument, especially since during the height of the Roman Empire, its citizenry consisted of many different cultures throughout Europe.

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Best: Claudius, a personal favorite
Worst: Ultimately Diocletian, I guess
>>3287384
The Roman Empire was always destined to fall. It was never a steady, stable State, and was defined by constant political instability. We should not wonder why the Empire fell, but how such a nuclear disaster managed to survive for as long as it managed to, discounting Byzantium.
I liken the Roman Empire to a supernova, it's big and impressive and can last a long time, but ultimately, it's the death of a civilization; that civilization being that of the Roman Republic.
The fact that a long lasting state, the ERE, managed to continue the Roman Government is the result of a 1 in a 1,000,00 result of really good walls and location.

As for why Diocletian is the worst, he's the guy who said fuck the West, and decided to write off its problems for good. A Good Emperor would have used the East to supplement the west and bring it back from its spiral into extinction.

>>3288662
>No Vespasian or Titus
Into the trash it goes.

>>3290172
all these impressive looking sculptures, and then there's Constantine looking like a modern anime reject.

>>3285520
>hadrian
>worst
Yeah, why the fuck should we even try to keep the things we have, rome should've marched everysingle legion to china the second they created the system, it'd be fucking rad.

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>>3296349
It's a colossal statue, dingus. You have to emphasize features so they're discernible from large distances.
The David's head is too big since he was meant to be seen from the roof of a building

>>3296349
the full statue was literally 40 meters tall

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>>3296349
There's a good reason for it

>Late Roman Emperors, especially those of the Tetrarchy and the following Constantinian dynasty, are indeed very often depicted with very large and intensely staring eyes, with this larger than life portrait of Constantine the Great at the Capitoline Museum in Rome just as one very famous example. While this emphasize on the eyes certainly is part larger stylistic trends of the age it most probably also has some kind of symbolic meaning. It is also not necessarily limited to imperial portraits but also shows itself on other depictions like those of provincial grandees or local administrators. For example this marble head from Ephesos probably shows a man called Eutropius who was honored around the middle of the 5th century AD for providing the funds for the marble pavement of one of the city’s streets. It is quite stylized and an emphasize on the eyes is again noticeable.

>Previous generations of scholars have tended to explain this feature as a sign that the depicted emperor is supposed to be especially in tune with the spiritual world that lies beyond the material. This fits with a larger pattern to explain stylistic changes in Late Roman art with a heightened spirituality of the age that also manifested itself in the rise of Christianity and the new influence of Holy Men and Women on society. A famous exhibition from the years 1977/78 at the Metropolitan Museum in New York that showcased some of the most important pieces of Late Antique art was even called “The Age of Spirituality”. According to the great Ernst Kitzinger our portrait from Ephesos “conveys with great power the consuming intensity of one man’s awareness of the supernatural world” (E. Kitzinger, Byzantine Art in the Making (1977) p. 80). The equally influential André Grabar ascribes to it “a spiritual grandeur of quite exceptional order” (A Grabar, Byzantium (1967) p. 226)

>>3295419
No they aren't you goal-post moving monkey. The language, culture, customs, and structure the Roman to Western Roman Empire and early Eastern Roman Empire (circa end of 6th/start of 7th century AD) were consistent.

Stop with your bullshit.

>>3296557
>language, culture, customs, and structure the Roman to Western Roman Empire and early Eastern Roman Empire (circa end of 6th/start of 7th century AD) were consistent
Are you mad?
The governing structures were different, since efficient management of the empire grew more difficult as time went on with territorial increases and climate change. The creation of multiple regional emperors was not something that existed from the start. The fluctuation of the power of the Senate and the armies also were different and evolving.
The economic structures were wholly different, especially with regards to land issue management, monetary policy, and taxation. Early empire had a flourishing capitalistic society that ended up turning into a hereditary system of serfdom that would dominate Europe's growth until the Enlightenment.
The social structures also became different with the rise of Christianity halfway through that entire time period you gave.
Linguistically as well, since at the start, Greek was the learned aristocracy and nobility's language, then came the infusion of many other cultures into the empire, Latin's dominance, and then the increase of the use of Greek throughout the empire.
In terms of political geography, capitals moved around in the Empire as well, due to the change in flow of trade in the Empire in a span of 300 years.

YOU stop with your bullshit. That 600 year timespan had a lot of different shit going on with it.

>>3296127
Please explain your choices. Having three years of rule, Titus should have been greater than Aurelian to be put on that list. Vespasian would make sense, since he's a dynasty founder, but did he achieve some great feat during his reign?

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All the Emperors after Augustus are trash, except maybe Theodosius II.
All the Emperors are complicit in perpetuating the death of the Roman Civilization by putting petty squabbling and ambition over the foundation of a steady, State.
When Brutus founded the Roman Republic, he created a system that could govern a nation in and of itself, not a clusterfuck of a balloon, kept in the air by a series of timely, although unplanned, volleys. One day, your luck runs dry, and you miss more volleys than you fire and the balloon hits the ground.

There is no fall of the Roman Empire, only the belated death of the Republic.

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>>3296704
>>3290313
>>3295393
This is such a bizarre train of thought. Rome was an Empire for nearly five times as long as it was a Republic, and for most of its time as a Republic it was playing second banana to other regional powers.

>>3296704
If the senators weren't so retarded a much more stable system of succession could have been created

How good of an emperor was Michael VIII?

>>3296746
wait about five years until the History of Byzantium podcast gets there and then I can tell you

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>>3296736
>Rome was an Empire for nearly five times as long as it was a Republic
>Including Byzantium when it's convenient for statistics
The "Fall" of the Roman Empire is nearly universally conflated with the dissolution of the Western office of Emperor by the abdication of Romulus Agustulus to King Odoacer. That puts the Roman Empire at 503 Years, BC 27-AD 476, where the Republic Lasted 230 years, slightly more than twice as long.
Not so impressive, when you consider the significant decline the West had been experiencing since the shift towards the East during the reigns of Trajan and Hadrian.

>>3296771
>is nearly universally
Only due to German and British historians in the 16th century. Before then, everyone called the Byzantine Empire the Roman Empire until it collapsed to the Turks in 1453.

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>>3296783
Yes, and the notion of the Fall of the Roman Empire stems from them, so whenever you use that terminology, you're operating in that context. There was no Fall of Rome, just a change of government from a nominal Empire to a series of Kingdoms.
Hell, the Roman Magistrates who began creating proto-Feudal states were more to blame for a dissolution of the West than Odoacer

>>3296771
>Including Byzantium when it's convenient for statistics
"Byzantium" is an antique name for Constantinople, please either call it the Medieval Roman Empire or at the very least the Byzantine Empire

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>>3296847
I call it mine

>>3296847
Byzantium is actually the one true name for the city. That name will be restored after the Abrahamic religion is purged.

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>>3295507
>Claudius
>favorite is the most beta emperor in history

>>3296857
Of all the OC I made in that thread I sure didn't expect for this to be the one I always see reposted,

Anastasius I is criminally underrated.

>>3288662

>Those filthy Byzantines
WE

Augustus certainly takes the cake

Shout out to my boy Julian the Apostate, he was going to bring glory back to Rome.

Also Caligula was the best worst thing to happen.

>>3296783
>Roman

More like Greek Empire

Will Durant even frankly used that name to call them in his work "Story of Civilization"

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>>3297844
>most beta emperor in history
>not Snivellus Alexander, who literally had his mom telling him what to do for his entire reign, and ended up killed by his own soldiers because they thought him cowardly for attempting to bribe the barbarian tribes instead of fighting them

>>3285813
>we had a thousand-year roman empire.
wat?

>>3298807
This, actually closer to 1,500 years.

>>3298807
The Eastern empire lasted until Ottomans but it had little to do with what it used to be

>>3299017
>it had little to do with what it used to be
Roman society went through incredible changes. Pick a Roman out of time from the 3rd century BC, and show him the Empire in the 3rd century AD and the 13th century AD. He'd find them both equally alien.

>>3299017
>but it had little to do with what it used to be
This again? Read >>3296650
The Eastern Roman Empire literally had political continuity from the Roman Empire of Augustus.
How can people even argue against that?

>>3296746
Dude was a founder of a dynasty that lasted for 190 years.

>>3290302
>Constantius I was a devotee of Sol Invictus...

HOW IS THAT RELEVANT?

>... Constantine I came to believe in a Greatest God through Sol Invictus before coming to identify the Greatest God as the Christian God.

NOT REALLY; HE MERELY RAISED TO SUPREMACY THE DEMON THAT FACILITATED HIS TRIUMPH; HE RELATED IT TO CHRISTIANITY NOT VIA PERSONAL INSIGHT, BUT BECAUSE THE DEMON IN HIS DREAM APPEARED AS JESUS.

>Whether that is theologically sound is not the issue...

YES, IT IS.

>Constantine was less interested in deep theology than he was in identifying and staying connected to the God who brought him victory.

YOU CANNOT EARNESTLY CLAIM THAT F · V · A · C CONTINUED THE WORK OF L · D · A, WHEN YOU YOURSELF ARE IMPLICITLY ADMITTING THAT HE DID NOT.

>>3299070
>F · V · A · C
>L · D · A
Cringe.

>>3299070
Is this what autism looks like?

>>3285476
Augustus was the best. Everything after him was extremely bad. They weren't able to stop the inflation.

>>3292543
Yes, dude. Fuck off.

>>3296650
>Are you mad?
Are you mad?
>snip
Rest is bullshit. ERE is not Roman after Justinian, period. Get over it, Stephonalus.

>>3299189
epic xD

>>3299189
Sasuga fake-historian. Thanks for showing us how much (nothing) about the Roman Empire you actually know.

>>3299060
Just founding a dynasty means nothing.

Augustus
Elegabalus

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There's only one proper answer.

>>3299606
>Elagabalus
Riegned for 4 years and didnt really do anything meaningfully bad. Just because he was an Eastern drag queen doesnt make him the worst emperor.
There are so many better choices for worst emperor, who did more damage and reigned for longer.
Also
>Ignore >E >R >E posters
Geez youd think you people would learn by now

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>>3299643
>Hey, guys, I'm just going to set into motion the final death of the Western Empire
>Oh, is that cool, okay thanks
>By the way, I'm going to make it so the Emperor has the final say for religious matters of the Empire, I'm sure that won't help those guys I hate somewhere down the road
>Hey, you guys in the west, please be content with this shitty western Empire I've thrown down the toilet, and don't get jealous of the riches of the East
>Okay, be a Tetrarchy now, k thnks
>LOLSOQUIRKY CABBAGES dX

>>3293825
Or particularly handsome men.

>>3299041
>>3299051
Nope, they are greek larpers

>The Eastern Roman Empire continued on as the Byzantine Empire until 1453 CE, and though known early on as simply `the Roman Empire’, it did not much resemble that entity at all
http://www.ancient.eu/Roman_Empire/

>Roman Empire | ancient state [27 BC-476 AD]
https://www.britannica.com/place/Roman-Empire
>They called themselves Romaioi, or Romans. Modern historians agree with them only in part. The term East Rome accurately described the political unit embracing the Eastern provinces of the old Roman Empire until 476, while there were yet two emperors. The same term may even be used until the last half of the 6th century, as long as men continued to act and think according to patterns not unlike those prevailing in an earlier Roman Empire
>During those same centuries, nonetheless, there were changes so profound in their cumulative effect that after the 7th century state and society in the East differed markedly from their earlier forms. In an effort to recognize that distinction, historians traditionally have described the medieval empire as Byzantine.

https://www.britannica.com/place/Byzantine-Empire

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Even from the 1050s, the Latins were calling the Byzantines "Greeks" and used this more and more, till the end.

In the 13th century, we have three successor states, the Empire of Nicaea, the Despotate of Epiros and the Empire of Trebizond. They were all Christian Orthodox and both the official and the popular language was Greek.

The local residents of the area were in conflict with the nobles who had come from Constantinople. Both of them were calling themselves "Romans", "Nicaeans" or "Epirots" and sometimes "Greeks".

In 1261, the Emperor of Nicaea took Constantinople again. The Empire was weak and had a lot of enemies. From 1300 to 1354, the Empire had become weak, and had passed two disasterous civil wars. In 1370, the Empire contained only Constantinople. Morea was semi-independent, and Trebizond was completely independent, trying to cut any ties it had from Constantinople. The citizens were rarely calling themselves "Romans". Instead, they were calling themselves "Christians" and rarely "Greeks". They were more religious than ever in the whole history of the Empire, and didn't care much about their nationality.

The last Byzantine Emperor, Constantine XI Paleologos, had said " Ἕλληνες εσμέν " ("We are Greeks").

>>3288662
Glad to see Majorian there, he could haved Rome. He atleast returned some honour.

>>3299896
>ancient.eu
>modern historians that have been affected by the ethnocentrist German and British historians before them
> as long as men continued to act and think according to patterns not unlike those prevailing in an earlier Roman Empire
These are fucking idiots, because the Roman Empire from 100 AD was substantially different from the Roman Empire of 200 AD and 300 AD and 400 AD and 500 AD and 600 AD.

The was a wholly random way of just dividing up history.

>>3299907
The Turks kept calling everyone from Western and Central Europe "Franks" and all the Arabs called the Byzantines "Romans" during the same era.
Fucking ethnocentrists.

>>3288662
Romanos II didn't have a local full name?

>>3299972
>Arabs called the Byzantines "Romans" during the same era

For prestige reason.

It would be more better if they claimed they ass raped the "Romans" battle after battle rather than just some filthy Greeks.

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>>3299972
>The Turks kept calling everyone from Western and Central Europe "Franks"
They actually inherited this from the Byzantines. The Byzantines called all Continental Western Europeans, "Fragkoi (pronounced: Frangi)" because they mainly dealt with the Franks before Continental Europe balkanized. It's kind of funny, because even today, the Greek word for France is Gallia (Gaul).
>>3300210
It wasn't for Prestige, it was because the Arabs asked what they were called, and they said Romans (Romaioi)

>>3290172
Claudius had a hard life.

>>3300210
Or, it's because they called themselves Romans for the vast majority of their existence

Arabs and Turks called the Byzantines "Romans" because the Persians knew them as Romans and like most things, both of those shit cultures derived their knowledge from the Persians..

>>3288662
Trajan is shit tier.

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>>3300301
edgy

>>3300297
Yes, and the Persians knew them as Romans, because that's what they called themselves

>>3287372
>>3285825
Absolutely patrician choices

>>3300297
The Europeans were trying to inherit the mantle of the Roman Empire during the fading days of the Byzantine Empire, so they did their best in talking shit that the Roman Empire was not Roman at all.
the Middle Eastern Asians had no such designs on the Roman Empire, so they had far less bias on this issue. They just called the Romans Romans, because that's what they were known as in the region.

>>3300305
It's not edgy it's actually the truth. He was obssessed with becoming the new Alexander and ended up delegating a great deal of power away from the position that had to be reconciled by Hadrian, his pulling from the germanic legions allowed the tribes to get uppity again which was something that would haunt the reigns of his successors, all to March east to gain territory that Rome didn't have the money or manpower to ever actually fucking hold.

Had he stopped with taking control of the danube, Trajan might actually be pretty good. Everything else makes him overrated shit whose entire reign had to be undone by Hadrian and is only loved by border babbies.

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I'm going to have to go with Majorian here. All the other choices people have had the advantages of a large and stable empire. He didn't.
And yet he fought on, despite the ruined empire he had been handed. He fought against deceit, corruption, and empires, and only fell due to treachery from within. He was the last and greatest of the Romans.

>>3300291
>>3300323

>Byzantine
>Roman

WE

>>3300326
Hadrian fanboys fail to mention when bashing Trajan that his supposedly foolish conquests paid for his successors' works, and none of them would have been shit without the bank account he left for them. Hadrian didnt "undo" Trajan's reign, he would have had nothing to work with in the first place without Trajan's conquests. Its not like they tried to hold that territory, and they looted tons of riches on their way out. Yourd being obtuse.

>>3300339
LITERALLY ARE ROMANZ AN SHIEEEEEEEET

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>>3300345
>
>
>

>>3300350
DO IT AGAIN ENRICO DANDOLO

>>3300350
You can piss and moan about how the ERE didn't actually contain Rome all you like, but Rome was irrelevant by the time Hadrian came into power. Motherfucker didn't step foot one in Rome until like 10 years into his reign.

Does Rome being the Capital of Rome mean that the Roman Empire fell before 476, because the last few Emperors ruled from Ravenna, not Rome.

Oh wait, if the Roman Empire can be run from Ravenna, like it was, does that mean the ERE is the Roman Empire after all, because the Byzantines did in fact rule Ravenna like 300 years after the WRE fell.

How were the Byzantines not Romans
>But they spoke Greek
The Emperors didn't stop speaking latin until about a century after the fall of the WRE. Justinian spoke Latin as his primary language.

>>3300338
Damn, anon...

>>3300323
>Middle East
>Persians
There was no such thing as geo-political desginations at that time period. We're talking about inheriated knowledge and terms transfered from one macro-political entity to others. The Byzantines referred to themselves as the Romans, the Persians treated the Eastern Romans/Byzantine simply as "Romans" and this carried over to the Arabs and Turks and other subsequent cultures.

Edward Gibbons bullshit shouldn't be accepted here.

>>3300306
That's what I said.

>>3300305
>>3300344
You are dumb. Trajan is over-rated because his expedition against the Parthian Empire/Arsacid dynasty simply paved the way even faster for the Sassanid dynasty to usurp control of Western and Central Asia, and further racked the Arsacid dynasty with more issues that allowed the resuregent Persians to be a bigger and greater threat to Roman hegemony then the Parthians ever would be.

On top of which, Trajan's success against them were temporary and ephemeral with no long lasting success or influence in terms of positive nature for the Roman Empire. All he did was sack and cripple the Romans ability to EVER undertake an offensive war of territorial conquest, weaken the borders with the Germanic tribes and permanently drain the Roman reserves of manpower for its legions already stretched to the limits in its pre-war borders. He did more to damage the Roman Empire in the long run then help it in the short term.

Think about all that money, expenditure, supplies, and manpower wasted on a success that both failed to permanently conqueror the Parthians or retain annexed territories and Hadrian had to roll back everything to keep the empire running instead of turning into a cancerous tumor bloated by its own expanded size.

>>3300411
Thats reaching incredibly far to say Trajan is directly responsible for the Sassanids, the Parthians were already on the decline and all that loot would have been theirs if he had not conquered it first, even further expediting their rise.

>no long lasting success or influence in terms of positive nature for the Roman Empire.

How about the very gold Hadrian used to fortify the borders in the first place? The empire was in a shit position before Trajan, he finally managed to unify an empire that had been warring with itself for generations, and set the foundations for what many consider to be the height of roman excellence. As Ive already mentioned (and as you have so keenly ignored) Hadrian is nothing without his predecessor's spoils, none of the fortifications that would define the roman borders for hundreds of years would have happened without the money to build them. You act like the eastern invasions were a net loss when they directly contributed to strengthening the posture you credit hadrian for establishing. Aside from loose connections to distant, foreign powers, he unified, enriched, and glorified the empire.
You mention money wasted on war? He made a huge profit on his conquests, this is a nonissue. You claim he could never hold parthian lands and then scold Trajan for not doing so, your argument is incoherent. Trajan had already begun rolling back, he basically cashed out and the empire was better for it, because like you said originally it could not be held.
You cannot praise hadrian and damn Trajan. Not even Hadrian himself would deny this, he was reminded of it every time he pulled from the treasures Trajan had left him.

>>3300373


>How were the Byzantines not Romans


>Byzantine

A shit empire with a shit history which majority of its history acted as a punching bag for both Muslims and Turk Roachs with its citizens larped as Romans

>>3300567
They never called themselves that. That's just the term a bunch of asshurt Enlightenment cunts gave them, because they refused to admit that the Roman Empire survived 1000 years as a Christian Power. It would be 100% legitimate to call them the Roman Empire.

There was no fall of the Roman Empire until 1453.

>>3300577
>That's just the term a bunch of asshurt Enlightenment cunts gave them

t. Byzaboo

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VENETIAN DID NOTHING WRONG

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"Of that Byzantine empire, the universal verdict of history is that it constitutes, without a single exception, the most thoroughly base and despicable form that civilization has yet assumed. There has been no other enduring civilization so absolutely destitute of all forms and elements of greatness, and none to which the epithet "mean" may be so emphatically applied ... The history of the empire is a monotonous story of the intrigues of priests, eunuchs, and women, of poisonings, of conspiracies, of uniform ingratitude."
—William Lecky

"Its [Byzantium's] general aspect presents a disgusting picture of imbecility: wretched, nay, insane passions, stifles the growth of all that is noble in thoughts, deeds, and persons. Rebellion on the part of generals, depositions of the Emperors by means or through the intrigues of the courtiers, assassinations or poisoning of the Emperors by their own wives and sons, women surrendering themselves to lusts and abominations of all kinds."
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

"The history of the Greek Empire is nothing but a tissue of revolts, seditions, and perfidies."
-- Montesquieu

"There exists another history, more absurd than the history of Rome since the time of Tacitus: it is the history of Byzantium. This worthless collection contains nothing but declamations and miracles. It is a disgrace to the human mind."
-- Voltaire

>>3300593
The Greeks of the Byzantine Empire were aware of their Greekness or hellenic ideas. By the end of the Byzantine Empire many Greeks had even started to turn towards classical Greece - like some kind of proto-renaissance. Roman was never more than a political title.

Byzantium was not some kind of liberal society where citizenship was the only thing that mattered. People divided and judged each other by tongue and religion as they've always done. byzantine empire was an unique entity i dont know why all the byzantine fanboys here are so stuck up about them being the same as the roman times.

>>3300589
>we could have seen a Genoese-Byzantine alliance sack Venice
fuck

>>3300601
>By the end of the Byzantine Empire many Greeks had even started to turn towards classical Greece
Pletho even suggested returning to Paganism, but that all happened right at the ass end of the ERE, after the Latin Empire of Constantinople happened, and Romaness was being coopted by the Catholics.
Many of the Anatolians, even after Moslem conquest, retained a Roman identity, despite being Greeks. There's a famous anecdote when the Greek Army came to liberate Turkic Islands, they said, "Are you Greeks, to which they replied, 'No, we are Romans'."

>>3300593
>a bunch of Enlightenment ethnocentrist Europeans born 200+ years after the fall of Constantinople

>>3300612
Still saddened about the destruction of the Byzantine Imperial Court. Its descriptions were very impressive.

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>>3300584

>>3300593
Oh, by the way, Edward Gibbon was a cocksucker

>>3300482
Its not reaching, because of men like Trajan and Caracalla, the continued wars with the Parthian Empire would lead to civil wars within the Arsacids themselves which would benefit the Sassanid Persians into rising to power.

>he made a huge profit on his conquests
Not from Parthia he didn't. All the settlements, cities, provinces, loot taken from the Parthians was restored to them completely by Hadrian.

>he cashed out
No he didn't. He retired his expedition against the Parthians when illness took him on top of a contracted disease that took itself onto several of the Roman legions in his army not too mention Parthian guerilla tactics were taking their toll on his men.

You have an extremely retarded skew on what Trajan did and spin-doctoring apologism for his overly grand effort is sad. Not too mention you have no rebuttal for the weakening of the Roman army's manpower reserves and thinning of its borders with Germania which would permanently close off any further offensive wars undertaken for territorial expansion because of Trajan's wasted efforts against Parthia.

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>>3285476
Best: Constantius
Read "Gods and Legions" by Michael Curtis Ford
Worst: Caligula
Incestuous and impolite drunk faggot.

>there are literally /his/torians claiming anyone who ruled the empire under 5 years with lesser feats than Lucius Domitius Aurelianus Augustus are in the greatest category of Roman Emperors
Don't make no sense man.

Saying ERE isn't Roman is silly, just look at all that overthrowing going around.

>>3285825
Based Gaius Restitutor Orbis

>>3287372
this shit is hilarious

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Mehmed the Conqueror. He recaptured Constantinople and began a Roman renaissance.

>>3300741
>Incestuous and impolite drunk faggot.
Sounds like my kind of guy. Also, records of Roman Caesars are not to be trusted, because they were either written by fervent supporters or manic opponents.

>>3285808
Gallienus was a competent emperor from the third century.

>>3285733
The only correct answer.

>>3288714
>palaiologos pretenders
>great

nope

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t r a p
r
a
p

Diocletian's one of the best. On par with Augustus.

Nerva sucked dick.

VESPASIAN

>>3298765

the "most beta" emperor in history would have to be romulus agustulus, his name is already insulting him

>>3287372
There is literally no better way to die than raging so hard your head explodes

>>3299687
Ironic shitposting is still shitposting.

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Don't know about who was the best ruler but
Maximinus Thrax would kick the living shit out of any other Roman Emperor in single combat

>>3306925
Best name. Other than that he was absolute shit.

>>3287792
explain to an historylet

>>3306925
>tall as fuck
>inhuman strength
>probably first emperor with germanic heritage/roots or whatever you wanna call it
>died consisted purely of wine and good meat
if only virgin senate opened the gates to the rome and gave him their blessing he would create the most chad dynasty this world has ever seen

>>3307214
i mean to write diet instead of died

>>3305174
Tfw no syrian ladyboy emperor bf

>>3306925
Except maybe Constantine