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.