The Roman Republic and its provinces on the eve of the assassination of Julius Caesar in 44 BC – by TheDastanMR for Wikipedia “Roman Republic” licensed under https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

(1) ROMAN REPUBLIC (509 BC – 27 BC)

Some might argue for this as the real Roman Empire or true Pax Romana – the Roman Republic as imperial republic, a recurring political model with surprising frequency in Western history.

Certainly, when many people think of the Romans, they are thinking of the Romans of the Republic rather than the Romans of the Empire.

As I said for the eastern Roman Empire, there seem to be two recurring arguments among Roman history enthusiasts – whether one ranks the Roman Republic over the Roman Empire, and whether one ranks the Byzantine Empire over the Roman Empire.

While the Roman Republic predates the formal institutions of empire founded by Augustus, it essentially laid almost all the foundations for the subsequent empire, not least in its Mediterranean supremacy and imperial core territory. And perhaps even more so in the values or virtues, martial or otherwise, fostered by the Republic in its citizens and institutions – such that it might be (and has been) argued that the further one gets into its history, the more the Empire is running on fumes from the Republic.

The Republic also saw some of the most definitive events and figures of Roman history – not least Julius Caesar, who lent his name to the title of emperor and is perhaps the figure most identified with the Empire, although it was his heir Augustus who actually founded the empire in the wake of Caesar’s assassination. Like a good car salesman, Augustus just slapped the formal institutions of empire on the pretense of authority of the Republic or Senate, and said this baby can fit a millennium and a half in it.

Obviously, it is the one exception to my special mentions as successors to the Roman Empire – but not from the line of succession itself, except that for the Roman Republic, the Roman Empire claimed succession from it rather than the other way around.

And while we’re on the subject of line of succession, I can’t give special mention to the Roman Republic without a shout-out to the Republic’s legendary predecessor, the Roman Kingdom.

RATING: 5 STARS*****

S-TIER (GOD TIER)

Apotheosis of Empire by Hermann Wislicenus – fresco in the German Imperial palace of Goslar in 1880 (public domain image)

But wait – there’s more Roman Empires!

That’s right – we haven’t come close to the bottom of our Roman Empire iceberg, as we follow the iceberg all the way down through wilder and more esoteric claimants to the succession of the Roman Empire.

As my usual rule, I have twenty special mentions for each top ten – and to my surprise, I was able to compile twenty special mentions for my Top 10 Roman Empires, as there was no shortage of claimants for succession to the Roman Empire. That is, there’s no shortage of polities or states claiming succession from the Roman Empire as a whole or from one of its western or eastern halves.

I might even have squeezed out some more – or at least a couple more, with the short-lived state of Dalmatia held by the surviving former emperor Julius Nepos until 480 AD, or the Despotate of the Morea holding out in revolt against the Ottomans until 1460.

“The continuation, succession, and revival of the Roman Empire is a running theme of the history of Europe and the Mediterranean Basin. It reflects the lasting memories of power and prestige associated with the Roman Empire. Several polities have claimed immediate continuity with the Roman Empire, using its name or a variation thereof as their own exclusive or non-exclusive self-description. As centuries went by and more political ruptures occurred, the idea of institutional continuity became increasingly debatable”.

As the above quote indicates, the claimants to the succession of the Roman Empire reflected in my special mentions become increasingly tenuous, to the point of metaphor at best and delusions of grandeur at worst.

However, there are some exceptions to the general rule – my first god-tier special mention is very much an exception to the other claimants to succession from the Roman Empire albeit still involving a line of succession with the empire, while my second god-tier special mention does involve a line of succession from the empire but in a unique sense.

My next top-tier three special mentions are for “the most enduring and significant claimants of continuation of the Roman Empire”.

My high-tier special mentions may not be as “enduring and significant” but at least could made their claims from a position of having control or possession of either Rome or Constantinople – or close enough for the purposes of the ranking.

And the balance of special mentions is where things get wild – as tends to be the case in my special mentions where I have some fun with the subject category and splash out with some wilder entries – hence their consistent wild-tier ratings.

Epirus 1205-1230 by Cplakidas for Wikipedia “Despotate of Epirus” licensed under https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

(10) DESPOTATE OF EPIRUS & EMPIRE OF THESSALONIKA
(1205-1337 & 1356-1479 AD)

The last surviving vestigial state of the eastern Roman Empire, originating when the Fourth Crusade captured Constantinople in 1204 and enduring (briefly) after the Ottomans captured Constantinople in 1453.

Admittedly, the eastern Roman Empire was not in good shape before the Fourth Crusade, arguably with the fault lines of its dissolution already in place, but it broke apart entirely when the Fourth Crusade struck it a death blow – not its finest moment for either the empire or the Crusades and certainly not the smartest for the latter.

I think it’s fair to call it a death blow as the empire as such ceased to exist, with the Crusaders founding their so-called Latin Empire in the heart of the former east Roman empire around Constantinople – scattering three residual states of the empire vying as successor to it. Amazingly, the empire came back from the dead, reviving under one of those residual successor states, but like all revenants it was never the same again.

One of those states was the so-called Despotate of Epirus, so-called because that title, like that of the Byzantine Empire, is a modern historiographic convention rather than a name in use at the time.

Like the other two, it claimed to be the legitimate successor of the eastern Roman empire – and even took a decent but ultimately unsuccessful swing at it by expanding in Greece towards Constantinople, in what is styled as the Empire of Thessalonika, until their imperial aspirations came to an abrupt end with their disastrous defeat by the Bulgarian Empire in 1230.

From there it gets convoluted but essentially the original Epirus part broke away from the new Thessalonika part, before both were swallowed up again by the successor state that did go on to revive itself as the east Roman Empire – with Thessalonika being straight up reabsorbed in 1246, while Epirus bounced back and forth until its final reconquest in 1337.

Only to slip the imperial leash again in 1356 during one of the eastern Roman empire’s interminable civil wars, bouncing from Serbian dependency to being inherited by Italian rulers, until it too fell to the Ottomans – although in its case, some small parts of it endured beyond the fall of Constantinople, with the very last stronghold in the town of Vonitsa, holding out until 1479.

Shout-out to those other eastern Roman holdouts that (briefly) survived the fall of Constantinople, most notably the so-called Despotate of the Morea – which had become a tributary to the Ottomans but rebelled, prompting the Ottomans to conquer them outright by 1460 or 1461 (depending which holdout you go by).

The partition of the eastern Roman empire after the Fourth Crusade by LatinEmpire for Wikipedia “Empire of Nicaea” licensed under https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

(8) EMPIRE OF NICAEA

(1204-1261 AD)

First in the trinity of residual successor states to the eastern Roman Empire after the fall of Constantinople to the Fourth Crusade in 1204 – as the one that actually put its money where its mouth was for its claim as the legitimate successor of the empire.

Aptly enough perhaps for its conventional historiographic title of the Nicene Empire, echoing the Nicene Creed similarly named for Nicaea – although historians sadly missed out on the opportunity for it to be known as the Nice Empire.

For that matter, historians missed out on the opportunity for it to be known as the revenant Roman Empire. It did more than succeed the empire – it clawed the empire back from the grave, reclaiming Constantinople in 1261 in an amazing feat of resurrection, but like all revenants it wasn’t ever quite the same.

Credit for that feat goes to the final imperial dynasty, the Palaiologos dynasty, as founded by its first and best emperor, Michael VIII Palaeologus – although credit might also go the preceding Laskarid dynasty that had founded and sustained the Nicene Empire essentially from scratch.

Calling the restored eastern empire a revenant might be a little unfair – after all, it endured for about two centuries, albeit ultimately dwindling to little more than the city of Constantinople itself but with some reversals of fortune or rebounding before that. With a little more breathing space and a lot more luck – as well as fewer enemies and of course fewer of those interminable Byzantine civil wars always at the worst possible time – it might have rebounded more or at least endured longer.

Alas it was not to be – although I tend to think it was always doomed to fall to the Ottomans, as almost everyone else did at that time, with a few notable exceptions.

The Domain or Kingdom of Soissons in Gaul, 476 AD – map adapted by Publius-Vergilius-Maro from Bernard Baruch, Merovingian Military Organization for Wikipedia “Kingdom of Soissons” under licence https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

(7) DOMAIN OF SOISSONS

(457 – 486 AD)

In the fifth century, the western Roman Empire fell and all Gaul was conquered by German tribes. All? One small province of Romans remained, known to history as the Kingdom or Domain of Soissons.

Yes – it’s Asterix but replayed for real with a Roman province holding out in Gaul against the Germans. What can I say? I’m a romantic – and I have a soft spot for stories of lost legions, let alone whole holdout provinces.

Hmm – this looks familiar…

Also yes – we’re going deeper down the Roman empire iceberg to this remnant or rump state from the fall of the western empire. There were arguably others but the Domain of Soissons is perhaps the best defined of them and my favorite as romantic Roman last redoubt.

The Domain of Soissons originated in 457 when the empire’s last best hope for a figure like Aurelian to pull it out of its doom, Emperor Majorian, appointed Aegitus as military commander or magister militum of Roman Gaul. Alas, the empires last best hope was not to be – as like Aurelian, Majorian was stabbed in the back, but unlike Aurelian, before he was able to save the empire.

Aegitus however kept a small part of that hope alive, as he and his son Syagrius maintained their rule in a remnant of Roman Gaul against the Visigoths and the Franks, even beyond the fall of the empire itself in 476, until finally defeated and conquered by the Franks in the Battle of Soissons in 486.

The Domain of Soissons even took a couple of shots at succeeding to the helm of the western Roman Empire – first, according to one writer, by threatening that empire with an invasion of Italy, and second, rejecting the rule of the barbarian king Odoacer in Italy by sending a messenger to the eastern Roman Emperor to claim the succession of the western Roman Empire for itself. Sadly but perhaps realistically, the eastern Roman emperor chose to offer legitimacy to Odoacer instead.

After that, the Domain of Soissons cut all ties with Italy and had no further recorded contact with the eastern Roman empire, although continuing to maintain that it was merely governing a Roman province.

Eterna Roma!

Yeah – basically something like this

(6) BRITANNIC EMPIRE

(286-296 AD)

Yeah, we’re going into the Roman Empire iceberg with this one, with one of the more dubious empires in this top ten – Wikipedia refuses to dignify it as such and calls it the Carausian revolt instead, but I have a soft spot for it, if only for the name history has given it on occasion as the Britannic Empire.

However, it’s more than the name. Although its founder, Roman naval commander Carausius did not claim succession from the Roman empire but only sought to usurp part of it for himself, that part did endure for ten years or so, which is pretty impressive even by the standards of some more substantial usurpers on this list.

Also, you have to admire his audacity, which at another time or in other circumstances might have paid off – foremost among those circumstances perhaps being that his loyalist Roman opponent was the glorious Constantius, father of the even more glorious Constantine the Great.

Carausius had risen through the ranks from humble origins and was appointed to naval command in Gaul, tasked to clear the English Channel of Frankish and Saxon pirates or raiders. Instead, he collaborated with them to enrich himself – or so he was accused of doing, being sentenced to death for it. In his most audacious move, he responded with the ultimate defence – declaring himself emperor over Britain and northern Gaul.

And he had substantial forces for his empire – his own fleet of course, augmented by new ships he had built. In addition, he not only had the three legions stationed in Britain, but a legion he had commandeered in Gaul, a number of foreign auxiliary units, a levy of Gaulish merchant ships, and barbarian mercenaries.

Given such forces, it might be said that he had reasonable prospects – particularly if he had confined himself to Britain, with its more defensible position combined with naval power. To me, his biggest mistake might have been biting off more than he could chew with northern Gaul as well – where his forces were readily defeated by those of Constantius in 293, which prompted his assassination by his subordinate Allectus, who fared no better when Constantius invaded and retook Britain itself.

It might also be said that Carausius was a man before his time – and after it, with the misfortunate timing of pulling his stunt at just the wrong time. Had he been around to pull this stunt during the Crisis of the Third Century, it might have paid off – and he might have pulled it off for good if he’d been around to do it when Emperor Honorius was prepared to abandon Britain altogether, with the end of Roman imperial rule traditionally dated to 410 AD.

There was just something about Britain that inspired Roman usurpers. Governor of Britain Clodius Albinus took his shot at usurping the imperial throne in the so-called Year of Five Emperors. Another imperial usurper, Magnus Maximus also raised the standard of revolt from Britain in the fourth century – and after elevating two disappointing usurpers, the Roman army in Britain chose one of its soldiers to be yet another claimant to the throne as Constantine III in 407 AD. He actually did reasonably well for a usurper, taking the legions from Britain and setting up shop in Gaul in such a way Emperor Honorius was forced to recognize him as co-emperor from 409 to 411, until Honorius had a competent general to take a swing at him.