Dovahhatty – Unbiased History of Rome XII: The Five Good Emperors (depicting Trajan and peak Rome)

That’s right – I’m ranking all the Roman emperors (until 476 AD). By definition, my top ten best Roman emperors only ranked those ten, but I rank the balance of Roman emperors in these special mentions. My usual rule is twenty special mentions for a top ten – here I have twenty special mentions for the ‘good’ emperors and twenty for the ‘bad’.

To my surprise, I was able to make out twenty special mentions for the ‘good’ emperors with some more arguable entries, taking me up to those emperors right on my dividing line between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ emperors.

Surprise that is, because there were notoriously more bad than good emperors, although the bad emperors tended to reign for shorter periods so it more than evens up by length of reign (otherwise one might think the empire would have collapsed sooner).

I think one can usually list about twenty ‘good’ emperors without too much contest or controversy but will start to peter out or at least get a little heated after that. However, I stand by my twenty special mentions, including the two emperors right on my dividing line between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ emperors, which would give Rome thirty ‘good’ emperors all up (including my Top 10 Roman Emperors).

Or perhaps thirty-two if you extend my dividing line to the two emperors right on the threshold of being ‘good’ emperors in my special mentions for ‘bad’ emperors. Spoiler – they’re the founders of the two worst Roman imperial dynasties before 476 AD.

To recap those top 10 best Roman emperors ahead of these special mentions:

1 – Augustus

2 – Trajan

3 – Aurelian

4 – Hadrian

5 – Constantine

6 – Marcus Aurelius

7 – Probus

8 – Diocletian

9 – Valentinian

10 – Majorian

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

In addition to my usual star and 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. Given these are my special mentions for good emperors, I’ll throw in whether they are empire makers, saviors or basers after their star and tier rankings.

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.