Claudius

>>3386715

The personalities of the various emperors made very little difference to lives of 99% of Romans and Roman subjects. Unless you were one of the privileged few who interacted with the emperor on a regular basis, it really didn't matter whether the emperor was Caligula or Claudius or Hadrian or Nero.

>>3386788
Gotta love these sobering answers.

>>3386788
You cannot tell me Hadrian did not positively impact citizens through his autistic building projects

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>>3386871

All the Emperors had grandiose public building projects. Caraculla even had his bath-house.

>>3386715
Yes, Claudius was easily one of the top 10 best. He wouldnt' quite make the top 5, but top 10 for sure. What makes him even more impressive is that he started out as the stuttering loser who everyone knew would never amount to anything.

>>3387983

>What makes him even more impressive is that he started out as the stuttering loser who everyone knew would never amount to anything

That was just an act. In truth, Claudius was a villainous usurper who took advantage of his nephew's murder to seize power.

>>3386788
It did, though, since Imperial policies would affect things like "Does your Daddy get pressed into the Legions?" or "How badly will the tax gatherers bleed you family?" An Emperor might move legions, or his court, from place to place, and by his decisions inadvertently decide here the plague turned up this year. Emperors might divert the merchant fleet to be used in moving troops, or hauling materials for some vanity project, making grain more scarce -- and s more expensive.

The mostly-senators who rote a lot of the history tended to define "good" and "bad" Emperors by how the Senate fared under them -- but that does not mean that it made no difference to the "Man on the via" who the Emperor was.

>>3386788
>it doesn't matter whether the Emperor who burned Rome to the ground or the one who funded the Empire's greatest amount of public works projects was donning the purple, they were all the same

Aside from the fact each Emperor (or for the less mature ones their advisors) had different views on taxation, provincial management, and governance, each Emperor had a different view on social systems which vastly effected the average poor citizen. Some Emperors ratcheted back grain/wine allotments while others got very liberal with it. Some Emperors like Nerva instituted a wide array of social system and safety nets while others like Domitian were fiscally strict.

TL;DR: There's enough misinformation on this small corner of 4chan that we don't need your uneducated bullshit added to it.

>>3386715
Yes Claudius was a good emperor. Probably top 10ish. He would've been better had he garnered a better public reputation and had he been succeeded by someone other than Nero.

>>3388243
That's pretty rude desu senpai baka

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>>3388243
>tl:dring a 3 sentence post

>>3388249
Sort of like Marcus A. should get down-voted for not finding some way to supplant Commodus, Claudius loses points for bringing Nero into the line of succession.

>>3388243
There's, you know, a nice way to say that.

>>3388243
this

policies changed from emperor to emperor, and trying to state otherwise is blatant misinformation. you literally only need to watch Gladiator to figure this out.

>>3387983
> Claudius
> top ten best Roman emperors

Damn, the Romans had a lot of shitty emperors, didn't they? Or does it just seem that way because the Julian-Claudian dynasty was so fucked up?

My top ten

1. Augustus
2. Constantine
3. Trajan
4. Hadrian
5. Marcus Aurelius
6. Severus
7. Diocletian
8. Theodosian
9. Aurelian
10. Pius

>>3389421
Marcus A was also a greater person in the Roman's eyes and a better Emperor and IMO Nero was worse than Commodus.

>>3386788
>Whether or not the man who controls the army is a paranoid schizophrenic or a well-adjusted individual means nothing!
Your brain on /his/.

>>3389855
The Julio-Claudian dynasty was that fucked up. In terms of that Dynasty I would say Augustus and Claudius were the only good emperors to come out of it. I agree with your list completely.

>>3391143
tiberius was alright for like half his reign though, only major fuck up during that part was killing germanicus

>>3391125

Unless you actually interacted with the Emperor on a regular basis, it really didn't matter. Sure, senators hated fuckers like Domitian and Commodus because they had to deal with their BS on a regular basis. But ordinary people loved those emperors.

>>3386715
were there roman emperors with greek ancestry?

i know there was roman emperors that was phoenicians

what do you guys think about that?

>>3386715
He viciously hated the senate ((turning a horse into a senator)) which I can admire. But he was also batshit crazy and inherited grandpa Ceasars epilepsy.

>>3392047
That was Caligula.

>>3392145

And aside from that, "CALIGULA WAS FUCKING CRAZY" is just a meme that Claudius created to justify his usurpation.

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>>3389855
It's not so much that they had a bunch of shitty emperors, but instead that the Empire was in a near constant Succession crisis. Generals were always being proclaimed Emperor by their armies, so that they could get a sweet donative upon victory, and many of them actually won, only to be, nearly always, usurped in turn.

It was a mess.