TOP 10 WORST ROMAN EMPERORS

 

(89) PETRONIUS MAXIMUS –

NON-DYNASTIC / LAST WESTERN ROMAN EMPERORS: WESTERN EMPIRE

(17 MARCH – 31 MAY 455 AD: 2 MONTHS 14 DAYS)

 

The nadir of the last western Roman emperors.

Duped his predecessor Valentinian III into assassinating Flavius Aetius, the supreme military commander holding the empire together and who had defended it against the Huns – then orchestrated the assassination of Valentian III.

Killed while attempting to flee the sack of Rome by the Vandals – something for which he was largely responsible by cancelling the betrothal of Valentinian’s daughter to the Vandal prince (and marrying her to his own son instead to shore up his legitimacy).

 

(90) ARCADIUS – THEODOSIAN DYNASTY: EASTERN EMPIRE

(17 JANUARY 395 – 408 AD: 13 YEARS 3 MONTHS 14 DAYS)

 

He and his brother are why the Theodosian dynasty was the worst imperial dynasty and virtually synonymous with the fall of the Roman empire. Arcadius was much like his brother in the western empire, weak and useless, puppeted by subordinates but luckier in that the eastern empire was more robust.

 

(91) CONSTANTINE II – CONSTANTINIAN DYNASTY: WESTERN EMPIRE

(9 SEPTEMBER 337 – APRIL 340 AD: 2 YEARS 7 MONTHS)

 

A whiny little toad, who tried to usurp his younger brother and got pawned instead.

 

(92) CARACALLA – SEVERAN DYNASTY

(4 FEBRUARY 211 – 217 AD: 6 YEARS 2 MONTHS 4 DAYS)

 

You wouldn’t like him when he’s angry – the Incredible Hulk of the Roman Empire, not in superhuman strength but in violent temper, smashing his way from one end of the empire to another.

 

(93) COMMODUS – NERVA-ANTONINE DYNASTY

(17 MARCH 180 – 192 AD: 12 YEARS 9 MONTHS 14 DAYS)

 

His accession was the exact moment Rome went from a kingdom of gold to a kingdom of iron and rust, according to contemporary historian Cassius Dio (and almost literally in the form of him debasing the currency)

I mean, you have seen the gospel according to Ridley Scott – Gladiator – haven’t you? Yes, it’s – ahem – not entirely accurate to history, but it does capture the essence of Commodus, even if that is turned all the way up to eleven (and combined with that of Caligula) in the film.

Essentially preferred role playing as Hercules or as a gladiator to imperial administration or military policy.

 

(94) VALENTINIAN III – THEODOSIAN DYNASTY

(23 OCTOBER 425 – 16 MARCH 455 AD: 29 YEARS 4 MONTHS 21 DAYS)

 

“Whether well or not, I do not know. But know that you have cut off your right hand with your left”.

Like his predecessor Honorius, he was a model of supine inactivity as the empire crumbled, except for betraying the loyal subordinate who was the one holding things together and stabbing that man in the back. Literally in the case of Valentinian III with Aetius – well, perhaps not literally in the back, but literally stabbing Aetius, the only time he ever drew a sword, striking down the unarmed Aetius and with a pack to back him up no less.

One of the notorious sacks of Rome duly followed – by the Vandals, albeit via Petronius Maximus. Between Valentinian and Honorius with their inexplicably long reigns – of similar length of 30 years each – they broke the western Roman empire and presided over its fall.

 

(95) HONORIUS – THEODOSIAN DYNASTY: WESTERN EMPIRE

(17 JANUARY 395 AD – 15 AUGUST 423 AD AD: 28 YEARS 6 MONTHS 29 DAYS)

 

Chicken boy.

Dovahhatty summed him up best – “Honorius continued on living as he always had, laying around, babbling like an idiot as the world around him fell apart, but for one exception. One day Honorius turned it all around and decided, for once, to do the best possible thing he could do for the empire and died, after ruling Rome for a godawful thirty years.”

Like Valentinian III with Aetius, Honorius betrayed the loyal subordinate Stilicho who was the one holding things together and stabbing that man in the back – just not as literally as Valentinian III, having him executed instead.

But for Constantius III, effectively the successor of Stilicho, saving Honorius’ empire for him, the empire may well have crumbled and fallen as rapidly as it did after Valentinian III.

Oh – and that chicken boy reference? It comes from the story that Honorius initially reacted with alarm to being told that Rome had “perished” after its sack by the Visigoths – as he had thought it a reference to his favorite pet chicken he had named Roma and he was relieved to find out it was only in reference to the actual city. It’s probably apocryphal but just too true to his character and symbolic with respect to it involving a chicken that I accept it anyway.

 

(96) ELAGABALUS – SEVERAN DYNASTY

(16 MAY 218 AD – 13 MARCH 222 AD: 3 YEARS 9 MONTHS 4 DAYS)

 

Certainly one of the weirdest emperors, Elagabalus is what happens when you let an omnisexual teenager of dubious mental stability loose with absolute imperial power AND his own cult. It’s like Elagabalus read Suetonius’ The Twelve Caesars with its lurid depictions of imperial depravity and said hold my beer – or his weird sun god cult (as opposed to Aurelian’s cool sun god cult).

 

(97) NERO – JULIO-CLAUDIAN DYNASTY

(13 OCTOBER 54 AD – 9 JUNE 68 AD: 13 YEARS 7 MONTHS 27 DAYS)

 

What can I say? You just can’t argue with the Gospel of Suetonius. Or the Book of Apocalypse, with Nero literally as the Beast of the Apocalypse – or as I like to quip, that sixy beast, given that the Number of the Beast was alphanumeric code for Nero Caesar.

 

(98) CALIGULA – JULIO-CLAUDIAN DYNASTY

(18 MARCH 37 AD – 24 JANUARY 41 AD: 3 YEARS 10 MONTHS 6 DAYS)

 

“Would that the Roman people had but one neck”

Ah – Caligula, dreaming of choking out all Rome, the archetype of legendary cruelty and depravity as well as that of the capricious and insane tyrant, so much so that there is a trope of the Caligula named for him (and we all know the type, depressingly frequent in history and culture).

As I said for Nero, what can I say? You can’t argue with the Gospel of Suetonius, or the Revelations of Bob Guccione in his 1979 Caligula film. Or with the Gospel of Robert Graves which follows Suetonius, or the Revelations of Judge Dredd with Caligula as its Chief Judge Cal in The Day the Law Died.