Monthly Archives: October 2024

Top Tens – History (Rome): Top 10 Best & Worst Roman Emperors (10) Best: Majorian

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Dovahhatty – Unbiased History of Rome XIX: Fall of Rome

 

(10) BEST: MAJORIAN –

NON-DYNASTIC / LAST WESTERN ROMAN EMPERORS

(457 – 461 AD: 4 YEARS 11 MONTHS 1 DAY)

 

The last, best hope for the western Roman Empire, but alas it was not to be – although it was enough for him to be one of the historical figures labeled as the “Last of the Romans”.

There were probably emperors who might well have outranked Majorian for a place in my top ten but I just couldn’t resist Majorian for my usual wildcard entry in tenth place. What can I say? I’m a romantic for people fighting against the odds.

I also have a soft spot for stories of so-called lost legions, those left still standing or holding the line beyond the high tide mark of the empire – and Majorian was virtually a lost legion all to himself.

When I first found out about Majorian, it was a revelation. I had assumed that by the time of his reign, the western Roman empire was essentially dead on its feet, still standing only as it was propped up by the German barbarian tribes that had all but conquered it. After all, by 457 AD, Rome had been sacked twice by Visigoths and Vandals respectively, narrowly avoiding a third sack by Attila the Hun. Its emperors had all seemed to be one feeble emperor after another, useless or puppets (or both), as well as less than two decades away from the last such emperor being deposed altogether.

Majorian was having none of that. Seemingly cut from the same cloth as Aurelian two centuries earlier, he strove to pull the empire out of its spiral of doom, defeating all of Rome’s enemies he fought even in that twilight of the western empire.

He had of course come from a distinguished military career, starting and serving under none other than that other legendary last of the Romans, Flavius Aetius, particularly distinguishing himself fighting against the Franks. That saw him rise to the position of magister militum in the western empire, along with Ricimer, a Romanised German general who was increasingly the maker and breaker of emperors in the western empire.

Upon rising to the imperial throne, he defeated another attack by the Vandals on Italy, before setting upon the reconquest of former imperial territory in Gaul and Hispania, defeating the unruly barbarian allies or ‘foederati’ who had overrun that territory and confining them to their areas of settlement – the Visigoths, the Burgundians and the Suebi.

The jewel in the crown of his reconquest was to be the Vandal kingdom, which had conquered the Roman province of Africa – province of Rome’s old enemy Carthage and whose wealth and grain had formerly been the lifeblood of the western Roman empire – for its own, definitely not as subordinate foederati like other barbarian tribes in the empire.

Had he engaged them on the battlefield, one might anticipate that he would have defeated them as he had consistently defeated all his other adversaries (including the Vandals themselves in Italy) – but alas it was not to be. He did not get to engage them in the battlefield at all, as the fleet he had painstakingly built was scattered or destroyed, usually attributed to treachery paid by the Vandals.

Defeat as they say is an orphan – and Majorian soon found himself orphaned by history, betrayed and assassinated by his former colleague Ricimer.

In fairness, it is not clear whether Majorian could have decisively reversed or stalled the fall of the western empire, although surely his position would have been much improved by the reconquest of Africa.

It is tempting to imagine counterfactuals as to what he could have achieved if he had been able reconquer Africa. Or if the Leonid dynasty in the eastern empire, which pretty much sat around being useless until after 476 AD when emperors such as Zeno and Anastasius ascended the throne, had decided to lend its fleet to the campaign by Majorian rather doing so on its own a few years later for its chosen emperor Anthemius, resulting in disastrous defeat and near bankruptcy for itself. One can imagine that in those circumstances the western Roman empire may well have endured, perhaps long enough to when the eastern empire under Justinian lent itself in earnest to reclaiming or restoring its western half.

However, the precariousness of Majorian’s position and achievements are perhaps demonstrated by the extent to which his fleet could be exposed to treachery paid by the Vandals, or he himself could be deposed and assassinated by Ricimer – not to mention how quickly his reconquests unravelled afterwards.

Still, I tend to share the opinion of Edward Gibbon, who wrote that Majorian “presents the welcome discovery of a great and heroic character, such as sometimes arise, in a degenerate age, to vindicate the honour of the human species”.

 

MAXIMUS

 

I’m not sure the western Roman empire had victory titles or triumphs at that late stage, but he damn well deserved them for his victories over the Franks and Alamanni prior to his accession to the throne, and over the Vandals (in Italy), Visigoths, Burgundians and Suebi as emperor.

 

DEIFIED

 

With Christianity as the official religion of the empire, the Romans had ceased deifying emperors, but perhaps literary deification as the Last of the Romans

 

EMPIRE SAVER

 

Sadly, almost but not quite. At least saved it for a few more years.

 

DID DOVAHATTY DO RIGHT?

 

Dovahhatty rightly ranks him as a chad, even including that Gibbon quote.

Top Tens – Film: Top 10 Horror Films (10) Abigail

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(10) ABIGAIL (2024)

 

As usual, my wildcard tenth place entry is my pick for best horror film of the present year – so best horror film of 2024

And yes – Abigail was the most fun I had in a horror film in 2024, even if it was cheesy as hell and not actually that scary because it tended to telegraph its punches, including the film’s central twist in its trailer.

But what can I say? I love a fun vampire film and this one was apparently loosely based – very loosely based – on the 1936 film Dracula’s Daughter.

Part of the fun was the ensemble cast. Giancarlo Esposito, who seems to be the go-to guy to add smooth badass vocal charm to film or animated series. Dan Stevens – who is always fun in horror film roles and should be in more of them. Melissa Barrera further establishing herself as horror film scream queen (although she’ll never eclipse the high queen Jenna Ortega).

It’s a film that was in quite a few top ten horror film lists for 2024. In the words of critic, BJ Colangelo from Slashfilm – “With a pitch-perfect ensemble cast, exquisitely timed laugh-out-loud moments of humor, a barrage of twists (or should I say pirouettes?), an unbelievable amount of blood, killer action set pieces…Abigail sets the bar as the most fun you can have with a horror movie of the year. In other words, Abigail is horror on pointe”.

Yes, those ballet references are on point – or should I say are on pointe.

 

RATING: 4 STARS****

X-TIER (WILD-TIER)

Top Tens – History (Rome): Top 10 Best & Worst Roman Emperors

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A collage of Youtuber Dovahhatty’s “title cards” for the two classifications of the Roman imperial government – the Principate (from Unbiased History of Rome: Augustus) and the Dominate (from Unbiased History of Rome: The Tetrarchy)

 

 

Dilettantes think about the Roman Empire. True Roman connoisseurs rank the Roman emperors.

Of course, any such ranking is subjective opinion, although there does appear to be some broad consensus (or consensuses?) about the good or better Roman emperors. You don’t get such common labels as “the five good emperors” – which I understand to have originated with Machiavelli and been advanced by Gibbon – without some consensus.

Or the phrase used by the Roman Senate itself in the inauguration of later Roman emperors, invoking two emperors as the paragons of Roman emperors. Don’t be surprised if the emperors from either the five good emperors or the Senate’s inauguration phrase feature prominently in my top ten.

And of course, by definition I am only ranking my top ten Roman emperors in my top ten, but I rank the balance of Roman emperors in my special mentions. And because you can’t rank the best Roman emperors without also ranking the worst Roman emperors as well – primarily because the worst Roman emperors are legendary in their cruelty and depravity – I also rank my ten worst Roman emperors with the balance similarly in special mentions.

As for any matter of subjective opinion, my criteria for ranking my top emperors are somewhat loose, but primarily might be stated to be their effectiveness in managing or maintaining the empire, which may give rise to some moral dissonance as to what we might look for in leaders of modern democratic states today, given that the lifeblood of empire was conquest or war – “they make a desert and call it peace”.

Indeed, one gets the impression that the Romans themselves measured greatness in their emperors by two criteria – construction (of monuments or civic improvements) and expansion, with the latter changing to the defense of the empire once it had expanded to its peak,

Conversely, my criteria for the ranking of the worst emperors might be stated to be their ineffectiveness, often characterized by imperial defeats, and usually combined with that aforementioned legendary cruelty and depravity.

As for the ground rules for whom I rank as emperors, my primary rule is that I am only ranking Roman emperors until 476 AD, when the last western Roman emperor Romulus Augustulus was deposed – with the exception I do not include eastern emperor Zeno, who reigned briefly in 474-475 AD before returning for a longer second reign from 476 onwards (commencing just before Romulus Augustulus was deposed).

That’s really just a matter of brevity and also that I am more familiar with the ‘classical’ Roman emperors. I know that is short-changing the eastern Roman emperors, particularly as they had a millennium of imperial history after that and probably had more basic competence or effectiveness on average, or at least not the same depths of legendary cruelty and depravity as their worst counterparts in the classical empire.

On that note, I acknowledge my hubris from my armchair of hindsight in judging people, the least of which has ruled far more than anything I ever have (as in anything at all) – although I’d like to think that I’d have done a better job than the worst of them. Oh, who am I kidding? I’d be partying it up to legendary depravity as well.

My ground rule still leaves the issue of which emperors to rank prior to 476, given the list of claimants to that title – a list that as historian Adrian Goldsworthy points out is likely never to be complete or exhaustive, given the paucity of the contemporary historical record and that we are still finding ‘imperial’ coins minted in the name of claimants, previously unknown or ‘new’ to us.

So I’ve gone by Wikipedia’s list of Roman emperors, although I reserved their entries noted to be of more dubious legitimacy for my honorable (or dishonorable) mentions. I have not noted when emperors ruled the whole empire – as the majority of them did – but have noted when emperors ruled either the eastern or western empire after its division (prior to 476).

 

EMPIRE MAKER / SAVIOR / BASER OR EMPIRE BREAKER / DEBASER / DEBAUCHER

 

In addition to my usual star and tier-rankings (which, given that I’m also ranking the worst emperors, go all the way down to 1 star and F-tier rankings), I also have my own particular (and hence subjective) rankings for those (good) emperors that made or saved the empire (or strengthened its base) – or the (bad) emperors that broke, debased or debauched it. Debased the empire that is, not the currency – all emperors did the latter, with a few exceptions or perhaps even just the one exception.

 

MAXIMUS

 

I’ll also note victory titles awarded to or claimed by Roman emperors (setting aside of course the title of emperor or imperator itself) for victories in battle against adversaries or opponents, which I’ll extend to include literal triumphs (for their triumphal processions in Rome).

 

DEIFIED OR DAMNED

 

I’ll note those emperors who were deified after their deaths (I’ll allow this to include sainted) or damned – that is the subject of a damnatio memoriae or cancelled posthumously to use the modern term. Of course, deification became a little like the Roman currency in the later empire (until Christianity effectively abolished the practice) – so routine that it became debased.

 

DID DOVAHHATTY DO RIGHT?

 

Finally, because I have used Youtuber Dovahhatty’s Unbiased History of Rome animated video series as the source of images to depict each emperor, I’ll rank how well Dovahhatty did in his depiction of them.  His Unbiased History of Rome videos are probably my single biggest influence for Roman history – and certainly on Youtube.

While he does not actually rank the emperors as a whole, he does rank them individually by meme cartoon figures as being (good) chads or (bad) virgins, with the occasional (good or bad) wojaks. Of course, his tongue is firmly in his parody cheek, such as when he depicts some of the worst Roman emperors as the chads they proclaimed themselves to be.

Top Tens – Film: Top 10 Horror Films

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Janet Leigh in the 1960 film Psycho by Alfred Hitchcock – one of the most iconic scenes in film, and yes, it’s horror

 

 

“Horror is a genre of fiction that exploits the primal fears of viewers” – “that seeks to elicit fear or disgust in its audience for entertainment purposes”.

That always prompts for me the parallel with Greek tragedy and its quality of catharsis proposed by Aristotle through the pity and fear experienced by the audience – a quality that would apply equally to Shakespearean tragedy.

It seems ironic that I compare the high art of Greek or Shakespearean tragedy with the notoriously low art of horror films – sometimes I quip that there’s no such thing as a bad B-grade horror film, speaking to my fandom of the latter. Of course, that quip becomes less funny when I add that there’s no such thing as an A-grade horror film either. That’s an overstatement but perhaps not by too much.

However jarring it may be, I stand by that comparison between Greek or Shakespearean tragedy and horror films, at least as holding up in similar qualities of catharsis. And it wouldn’t take too much to tweak most Greek or Shakespearean tragedies into horror films – now there’s an idea for stark ravings or a top ten.

Back to that quip there’s no such thing as an A-grade horror film, while the horror film genre may be mostly cheap and exploitative (something of a virtue for studios seeking high returns on low costs or budding directors seeking to start careers), it does have surprising depth to it that is top ten-worthy of itself – not least in its various sub-genres or different national styles of horror.

“This is a very broad genre, it can go from tasteful and timeless tales of psychological suspense (a trademark of people like Alfred Hitchcock) to gross out horror (which tends to become campy). It often employs the supernatural but “normal” people are more than sufficient to scare audiences when used properly”.

I’ll be frank – my own tastes in horror lean towards dark fantasy or supernatural horror. I don’t tend to like more, well, mundane sources of horror, albeit with quite a few exceptions. I do like films that might be called SF horror – Alien, Terminator, The Thing – but I like them so much more as SF that I tend to rank them in my top Fantasy & SF Films. I will have a closer look at SF horror as a sub-genre in my special mentions, both here and for my Fantasy & SF Films.

And “despite being the subject of social and legal controversy due to their subject matter, some horror films and franchises have seen major commercial success, influenced society and spawned several popular culture icons.”

Anyway, these are my Top 10 Horror Films.