Roman Emperors

[Conserative Morality]

Julius Caesar.

You know, the first guy who actually had the title Imperator

Not the first m80. The title dates back to at least the Punic Wars and just means 'commander'.

[The East Marches II]

Julius Caesar.

You know, the first guy who actually had the title Imperator

Not the first m80. The title dates back to at least the Punic Wars and just means 'commander'.

>a filthy Marian lecturing anybody on history

Salus, ignore this man

(no bully mods is joke)

[Astrolinium]

Pupienus, clearly.

Less jokingly, Rome died at Formiae in December of 43 BCE.

Not jokingly at all, Hadrian on, like, liking him as a person, but probably Augustus for actual evaluation of leadership ability. The world hasn't seen a mind like Augustus's before or since, I think.

Not the first m80. The title dates back to at least the Punic Wars and just means 'commander'.

>a filthy Marian lecturing anybody on history

Salus, ignore this man

(no bully mods is joke)

Marius probably did ultimately bring about the fall of the Republic...

[Salus Maior]

Christianity's impact on the Roman Empire was that it undermined the authority of the Emperor. If there's only one god then that means the Emperor is not inherently superior to anybody else. Before Christianity, the Emperors were elevated to a god-like status. Afterwards, they were only people. Christianity was a factor, among many others, that led to Rome's demise.

I see you love outdated historical theories. Christianity was not responsible for Rome's fall, in fact, the adoption of Christianity coincided with a rise of Roman power.

The deification of the Roman Emperors didn't stop what was plaguing the Empire pre-and-post Paganism, which was uppity generals, civil wars, and barbarian invasions. Some common people may have been fooled into thinking that the Emperors were untouchable gods, but the people with actual power in the Empire were not. So your point is baseless.

And besides, Christianity firmly establishes the authority of earthly rulers as a force to be obeyed.

[Astrolinium]

Christianity's impact on the Roman Empire was that it undermined the authority of the Emperor. If there's only one god then that means the Emperor is not inherently superior to anybody else. Before Christianity, the Emperors were elevated to a god-like status. Afterwards, they were only people. Christianity was a factor, among many others, that led to Rome's demise.

I see you love outdated historical theories. Christianity was not responsible for Rome's fall, in fact, the adoption of Christianity coincided with a rise of Roman power.

The deification of the Roman Emperors didn't stop what was plaguing the Empire pre-and-post Paganism, which was uppity generals, civil wars, and barbarian invasions. Some common people may have been fooled into thinking that the Emperors were untouchable gods, but the people with actual power in the Empire were not. So your point is baseless.

And besides, Christianity firmly establishes the authority of earthly rulers as a force to be obeyed.

One could maybe get in a half-decent argument about the disconnect between the urban, Christianized east and the more rural west, where much of the population remained pagan, and perhaps an argument about ways in which the Church failed to replicate all of the functions of traditional Roman civic cult, but they'd be on tenuous ground. At any rate, Rome fell and the Catholic Church is, in some ways, the only part left.

[Risottia]

Split from the Trump thread, let's talk Rome and Roman Emperors! First question: favorite emperor? Vespasian #1 and if you answer otherwise you're wrong.

Vespasianus was piss-rich.
To me it's a toss-up between Traianus and Octavianus. The latter was a better politician, the former a better administrator.

[Minzerland II]

Sulla was the last great Roman.

Cato was truly the last great Roman.

I personally like Claudius and Tiberius of the Julio-Claudian Dynasty.

[Cedoria]

Sulla was the last great Roman.

Cato was truly the last great Roman.

I personally like Claudius and Tiberius of the Julio-Claudian Dynasty.

Cato? You mean Marcus Porcius Cato the Younger, that Cato?

That gibbering ignorant half-witted fanatic who thought Rome was still a small hill tribe in Central Italy?

You can't be serious...

[New Totzka]

I don't like these options. Everyone whose read I, Claudius and Claudius the God knows that stammering,sickly,joke-of-the-family who also had a limp, was clearly the greatest Roman. Or Trajan. Or Caligula, he was fun.

[Phoenicaea]

Marcus Annius Verum, said Marcus Aurelius (wich is one of five good emperors), and he should have a private option alone

I said him instead of Augustus, because while the latter despite re - founding the Empire had a good envirnoment, and could have other paths which were disposable, Mrcus Aurelius reversed a bad situation in an exhausted homeland and made it good, mostly because of himself.

personally, I voted for Cato and its party, which I didn t vote before, untill the end

[Minzerland II]

Cato was truly the last great Roman.

I personally like Claudius and Tiberius of the Julio-Claudian Dynasty.

Cato? You mean Marcus Porcius Cato the Younger, that Cato?

That gibbering ignorant half-witted fanatic who thought Rome was still a small hill tribe in Central Italy?

You can't be serious...

I am positively triggered. Legitimately triggered, I'm not even joking.

[Nakari]

Otho rubbed his face with bread dough daily. Good skincare is a requirement for best emperor, personally. Though he may have only had the roll of emperor for three months, they were good months, and he killed himself for the sake of Rome, which he dearly loafed. Truly inspiring. Doughn't forget his sacrifice.

[The Greater Aryan Race]

Claudius. I empathise with his backstory and how, in spite of his physical difficulties and lack of standing in the eyes of his fellow Romans, he managed to steer the Empire back on track after the madness of Caligula.

[The East Marches II]

(Image)

Cato was truly the last great Roman.

I personally like Claudius and Tiberius of the Julio-Claudian Dynasty.

Cato? You mean Marcus Porcius Cato the Younger, that Cato?

That gibbering ignorant half-witted fanatic who thought Rome was still a small hill tribe in Central Italy?

You can't be serious...

You mean one of the few good Romans left with any guts. Far better than Greek loving layabouts who got fat and soft of heart. Somethings never change, we've the same softness problem today.

[Pasong Tirad]

Richard Harris.

[Phoenicaea]

Richard Harris.

Robert Harris you mean, great

[Cedoria]

Cato? You mean Marcus Porcius Cato the Younger, that Cato?

That gibbering ignorant half-witted fanatic who thought Rome was still a small hill tribe in Central Italy?

You can't be serious...

I am positively triggered. Legitimately triggered, I'm not even joking.

Play the world's smallest violin.

Cato? You mean Marcus Porcius Cato the Younger, that Cato?

That gibbering ignorant half-witted fanatic who thought Rome was still a small hill tribe in Central Italy?

You can't be serious...

You mean one of the few good Romans left with any guts. Far better than Greek loving layabouts who got fat and soft of heart. Somethings never change, we've the same softness problem today.

I wouldn't call Caesar or Pompey a couch layabout. Cato I will grant was brave in his suicide, but it was mostly the Optimates who were the couch generals...

And of course, being brave in suicide didn't help much, would've been better to be more brave while he was alive. And being brave in defense of a foolish cause looks more like stupidity.

[The Archregimancy]

<wakes from his posting slumber>

Why would you give Julian the Apostate his own option but not Marcus Aurelius? XD

Because there are only ten options available and Julian deserves a spot.

On what basis?

By any objective measure Julian was failure.

He was an Augustus for just over three years, and sole emperor for less than two. He was also politically incompetent.

His one great success was proving himself to be a better general than anyone anticipated, though it's worth stressing that he only reached the summit of unchallenged power because Constantius II died of natural causes on his way to depose Julian as Augustus of the West and named the latter - the sole surviving male member of his family - his successor.

While many of his attempted anti-corruption reforms were well-intentioned, his failure to acknowledge that the structure of the Empire had changed in the last 200 years led him to idolise and attempt to emulate an idealised government structure of the 2nd century. His short-sighted rigid adherence to his political ideology managed to rapidly alienate just about everyone who might have formed some sort of reliable power base. Even before his move to Antioch and his cack-handed (though again, almost certainly well-intentioned) attempt to deal with the Antiochian famine, he'd managed to systematically alienate just about everyone except his core support in the Western Army and a scattering of pagan philosophers - and that was before his failed religious reforms.

Those religious reforms, which is just about the only thing most people remember him for, were an abject failure. They not only continued to undermine core support in the Eastern Empire - by now by far the wealthiest and most powerful part of the Roman state - but vanished without a trace on his death. They weren't even embraced by the majority of pagans; his core support for his reforms seems to have been a tiny minority of Attican neoplatonists whose abstract ideas on paganism and attempts to co-opt some aspects of Christianity was rejected by most pagans, not least because 'paganism' wasn't a single religion or ideology. Attempting to make it so while imposing Christian discipline on its organisation was itself politically misguided because it likely alienated as many pagans as it did Christians.

His death was itself the direct result of spectacular political and military misjudgements. His plan for the invasion of Persia and capture of Ctesiphon was almost bizarrely hubristic. Leaving aside the total lack of provocation from the Sassanids, Julian could only rely on the Western army; his political incompetence had alienated the Eastern army, the officers of which were predominantly Christian, and which would inevitably bear the brunt of the workload for the invasion. His strategic decisions in the invasion were poor, leaving his army isolated deep within enemy territory, and unable to either besiege or storm Ctesiphon. His lack of caution and refusal to appoint the sort of bodyguard typical to post-Diocletian emperors led directly to his death during a Sassanid attack on the camp.

His reign was as brief, and as effective, as that of a transient soldier-emperor of the crisis of the third century. The only reason we remember him at all was because of the attempt to turn back the Christian tide and make his ascetic version of paganism the state religion

Leaving aside the extent to which Christian polemics against Julian and Vidalesque romanticisation of the last member of Constantine's dynasty can obscure debate, Julian was a failure as an emperor. A fascinating character, perhaps, but an effective emperor no.

Your fandom for the founder of the Flavians is far more understandable than this bizarre promotion of Julian as a potential candidate for a list of great Roman emperors.

[Frank Zipper]

Antoninus Pius seems quite appealing to me.

Him or Brian Blessed.

[Uxupox]

Claudius. I empathise with his backstory and how, in spite of his physical difficulties and lack of standing in the eyes of his fellow Romans, he managed to steer the Empire back on track after the madness of Caligula.

His pick on successor was appalling not to mention his story is embellished to a great degree. Though his predecessor was uh probably the worst ruler in history.

[The Archregimancy]

Claudius. I empathise with his backstory and how, in spite of his physical difficulties and lack of standing in the eyes of his fellow Romans, he managed to steer the Empire back on track after the madness of Caligula.

His pick on successor was appalling not to mention his story is embellished to a great degree. Though his predecessor was uh probably the worst ruler in history.

Gaius 'Caligula' wasn't even the worst of the Roman emperors.

If we take the stories of the worst of their excesses at face value, Elagabalus seems to have easily outdone Caligula.

As to being 'the worst ruler in [all of] history', that's an impossible claim to prove; but the simple fact that Caligula neither destroyed the state he was ruling nor committed mass genocide rather suggests otherwise.

[Minzerland II]

I am positively triggered. Legitimately triggered, I'm not even joking.

Play the world's smallest violin.

You mean one of the few good Romans left with any guts. Far better than Greek loving layabouts who got fat and soft of heart. Somethings never change, we've the same softness problem today.

I wouldn't call Caesar or Pompey a couch layabout. Cato I will grant was brave in his suicide, but it was mostly the Optimates who were the couch generals...

And of course, being brave in suicide didn't help much, would've been better to be more brave while he was alive. And being brave in defense of a foolish cause looks more like stupidity.

I don't think you understand why he committed suicide. Cato killed himself because Caesar offered to pardon him, which, if he accepted, would be a tacit admission of Caesar's legitimacy as, practically, Dictator Perpetuo, this would contradict Cato's convictions, which he was steadfast in. People like Cato because he is admirable, someone who's worthy of striving towards.

In response to your initial post: Gibbering? That's, frankly, hard to believe. Cato was described by Plutarch as having countenance in speech, Cicero even described him as eloquent. Perhaps you think Cato is foolish when you say 'half-witted', which, to some extent, he was, because he certainly was not stupid.

[Washington Resistance Army]

Carrying on from my previous answer (Julian the filthy pagan), I'm sort of tempted to say Majorian.

I've always quite liked his story and I've always thought there's a chance he could have turned the WRE around if he hadn't gotten killed by that damn German.

[United States of Natan]

Split from the Trump thread, let's talk Rome and Roman Emperors! First question: favorite emperor? Vespasian #1 and if you answer otherwise you're wrong.

No, he's my least favorite because I'm Jewish, and he destroyed our temple and exiled us.

[The Greater Aryan Race]

Claudius. I empathise with his backstory and how, in spite of his physical difficulties and lack of standing in the eyes of his fellow Romans, he managed to steer the Empire back on track after the madness of Caligula.

His pick on successor was appalling not to mention his story is embellished to a great degree. Though his predecessor was uh probably the worst ruler in history.

My understanding is that Nero and Britannicus were to rule jointly upon Claudius' death or Britannicus at least, in accordance with Claudius' will (or so the Wikipedia entry says). I blame Nero's ascension to the throne as the result of Agrippina's machinations.

I don't think Claudius' story has been embellished to a great degree. Most historical accounts portray him in a mixed manner, highlighting his competencies as an administrator while contrasting them with his perceived cruelty and bloodthirstiness towards his political opponents. Of course, much of his correspondence and private works were destroyed after his death so we will honestly never really know 'who' Claudius really was.