Collage of the first Roman emperor Augustus and the last western Roman emperor Romulus Augustulus from Dovahatty- Unbiased History of Rome IX: Augustus and Dovahhatty – Unbiased History of Rome XIX: Fall of Rome respectively

TOP 10 BEST ROMAN EMPERORS (SPECIAL MENTION)

(11) VESPASIAN – FLAVIAN DYNASTY

(1 JULY 69 – 23 JUNE 79 AD: 9 YEARS 11 MONTHS 22 DAYS)

Founder of the Flavian dynasty and restorer of the Pax Romana from the civil war of succession in the first century.

(12) CLADIUS – JULIO-CLAUDIAN DYNASTY

(24 JANUARY 41 AD – 13 OCTOBER 54 AD: 13 YEARS 8 MONTHS 19 DAYS)

“Such was life for Uncle Claudius”.

Turned the empire around after inheriting it from its worst emperor – an able and efficient administrator, above all restoring the empire’s finances.

(13) DOMITIAN – FLAVIAN DYNASTY

(14 SEPTEMBER 81 AD – 18 SEPTEMBER 96 AD: 15 YEARS 4 DAYS)

Modern historians have increasingly seen Domitian’s reign as laying the foundation of the golden age that immediately succeeded him (or at least did via a brief interregnum via Nerva). His reign was distinctive or even unique for its economic success, above all in revaluing the currency. Whether or not as per Spectrum he “was the only emperor to have actually fixed the problem of inflation, the only one”, he certainly “maintained the Roman currency at a standard it would never again achieve”.

(14) TIBERIUS – JULIO-CLAUDIAN DYNASTY

(17 SEPTEMBER 14 – 16 MARCH 37 AD: 22 YEARS 5 MONTHS 17 DAYS)

Successor to Augustus – consolidated the empire and left the imperial treasury in huge surplus.

(15) ANTONINUS PIUS – NERVA-ANTONINE DYNASTY / FIVE GOOD EMPERORS

(10 JULY 138 AD – 7 MARCH 161 AD: 22 YEARS 7 MONTHS 25 DAYS)

My man Tony Pius, the man who maxed the pax of the Pax Romana – “His reign was the most peaceful in the entire history of the Principate” – which I would hazard to guess makes it the most peaceful in the entire history of the classical empire, given how much less peaceful the Dominate was.

(16) MARCIAN – THEODOSIAN DYNASTY: EASTERN EMPIRE

(25 AUGUST 450 AD – 27 JANUARY 457 AD: 6 YEARS 5 MONTHS 2 DAYS)

Sadly overlooked and underrated among Roman emperors – except among sources from the eastern Roman empire, with his reign often looked back on as a golden age and the people of Constantinople shouting “Reign like Marcian!” at the accession of subsequent emperors.

Took on the Huns in their own heartland – “Marcian secured the Eastern Empire both politically and financially”, and left the treasury with a surplus, reversing its near bankruptcy in which it had been when he acceded to the throne.

(17) CONSTANTIUS III – THEODOSIAN DYNASTY: WESTERN EMPIRE

(8 FEBRUARY – 2 SEPTEMBER 421 AD: 6 MONTHS 25 DAYS)

An emperor who should be ranked highly for his achievement in stabilizing the fifth century western empire, an achievement that would have been more enduring but for his short reign, truncated by illness.

(18) CLAUDIUS II / CLAUDIUS GOTHICUS – NON-DYNASTIC / CRISIS OF THE THIRD CENTURY

(SEPTEMBER 268 AD – AUGUST 270 AD: 1 YEAR 11 MONTHS)

The first of the so-called Illyrian emperors who renewed and led the Roman empire – turned the tide on the Crisis of the Third Century, laying the foundations for Aurelian and Probus to restore the empire, particularly by the victory of his title against the Goths, “one of the greatest in the history of Roman arms”.

(19) CONSTANTIUS – NON-DYNASTIC / TETRARCHY: WESTERN EMPIRE

(1 MAY 305 AD – 25 JULY 306 AD: 1 YEAR 2 MONTHS 24 DAYS)

Constantius might well have ranked higher but for his short reign as augustus or senior emperor in the West – the capstone of achievements as junior emperor or caesar for over 12 years from 293 AD, defeating the Carausian Revolt and Germanic tribes at the Rhine.

(20) TITUS – FLAVIAN DYNASTY

(24 JUNE 79 AD – 13 SEPTEMBER 81 AD: 2 YEARS 2 MONTHS 20 DAYS)

Built on the achievements of his father Vespasian – literally building in the case of completing the Colosseum, the achievement for which he is best known as emperor, and figuratively, coinciding with his most outstanding achievement being prior to his imperial accession, winning decisive victory in the First Jewish War.

And yes – I’ve shuffled those special mention entries from my original ranking, notably upgrading Constantius II after reading Peter Heather’s The Fall of the Roman Empire.

B-TIER (HIGH TIER)

And now we come to some special mention matched pairings, in which one emperor is similar to or echoed by another emperor in the Crisis of the Third Century – also while good, drop down a tier from top-tier to high-tier, often coinciding with a mixed or even negative reputation.

(21) CONSTANTIUS II – CONSTANTINIAN DYNASTY: EASTERN EMPIRE THEN WHOLE EMPIRE

(9 SEPTEMBER 337 AD – 3 NOVEMBER 361 AD: 24 YEARS 1 MONTH 25 DAYS)

(22) GALLIENUS – NON-DYNASTIC / CRISIS OF THE THIRD CENTURY:

WESTERN EMPIRE THEN WHOLE EMPIRE

(SEPTEMBER 253 AD – SEPTEMBER 268 AD: 15 YEARS)

Two beleagured emperors who holding the line of the empire during their reigns.

Constantius II has a mixed reputation but deserves his place among the good emperors for holding the empire together for almost two and a half decades – despite his brothers fighting each other, usurpers, civil war, and Germanic barbarian tribes, all while waging war with the Persian Sassanid empire for most of his reign.

Gallienus was the Crisis counterpart of Constantius II – holding the line as the empire faced “disease rampant, endless barbarian invasions, entire provinces seceding, and God knows how many usurpers”.

(23) LUCIUS VERUS – NERVA-ANTONINE DYNASTY / FIVE GOOD EMPERORS

(7 MARCH 161 AD – JANUARY / FEBRUARY 169 AD: 7 YEARS 11 MONTHS)

(24) CARUS – NON-DYNASTIC / CRISIS OF THE THIRD CENTURY

(SEPTEMBER 282 AD – JULY / AUGUST 283 AD: 10 MONTHS)

Two emperors who won impressive victories against the successive Persian empires, Parthians and Sassanids.

Lucius Verus – the mad lad or party boy adoptive brother and co-emperor of Marcus Aurelian everyone forgets about when they talk about the Five Good Emperors. “Meditate this, Marcus!” Led the Romans to victories over the Parthians, regaining control in Armenia and territory in Mesopotamia as well as sacking the Parthian royal city of Ctesiphon.

Carus – Crisis of the Third Century counterpart mirroring Lucius Verus, arguably outdoing Lucius’ Parthian War as the active leader of a campaign by an empire still recovering from the nadir of the Crisis of the Third Century against the tougher Sassanids, again sacking the Persian royal city of Ctesiphon.

(25) JULIAN – CONSTANTINIAN DYNASTY

(3 NOVEMBER 361 AD – 26 JUNE 363 AD: 1 YEAR 7 MONTHS 23 DAYS)

(26) VALERIAN – NON-DYNASTIC / CRISIS OF THE THIRD CENTURY: EASTERN EMPIRE

(SEPTEMBER 253 AD – JUNE 260 AD: 6 YEARS 9 MONTHS)

Two emperors with impressive achievements, particularly in the military field prior to their accession, but undone by defeat against the Persians.

Julian – “Thou has conquered, Galilean”. The Apostate or the Philosopher, reflecting his attempted revival of classical paganism.

Valerian – Crisis of the Third Century counterpart to Julian, similar in that his reign has also been defined by his defeat by the Sassanid Persians, although unlike Julian he was captured rather than mortally wounded in battle.

(27) NERVA – NERVA-ANTONINE / FIVE GOOD EMPERORS

(18 SEPTEMBER 96 AD – 27 JANUARY 98 AD: 1 YEAR 4 MONTHS 9 DAYS)

(28) TACITUS –

NON-DYNASTIC / CRISIS OF THE THIRD CENTURY

(DECEMBER 275 AD – JUNE 276 AD: 7 MONTHS)

Nerva – the first (and least) of the Five Good Emperors. Yes, his only real achievement might have been ensuring the peaceful transition to a good successor, but that’s still an impressive achievement, given how many Roman emperors screwed even that up.

Tacitus – no, not the historian that everyone knows when they hear the name, but Crisis counterpart of Nerva. Both were essentially (elderly) senatorial caretaker or placeholder emperors, enabling the stable succession of imperial authority from an assassinated predecessor.

C-TIER (MID-TIER)

MY PERTINAX-THRAX LINE SEPARATING GOOD FROM BAD EMPERORS

(29) PERTINAX – NON-DYNASTIC / YEAR OF FIVE EMPERORS

(1 JANUARY – 28 MARCH 193 AD: 2 MONTHS 27 DAYS)

(30) MAXIMINUS THRAX –

NON-DYNASTIC / CRISIS OF THE THIRD CENTURY

(MARCH 235 AD – JUNE 238 AD: 3 YEARS 3 MONTHS)

Poor Pertinax – he essentially tried to pull off a Nerva, but was unlucky to be faced with a more aggressive and frankly out of control Praetorian Guard. Indeed, in terms of his brief administration, he was better than Nerva, particularly in financial reform, but just didn’t get the same chance Nerva did.

Maximinus Thrax – archetypal barracks emperor, who secured the German frontier of the empire, at least for a while.

TOP 10 BEST ROMAN EMPERORS (HONORABLE MENTION)

ULPIA SEVERINA – FIRST AND LAST EMPRESS OF THE CLASSICAL ROMAN EMPIRE

(275 AD: 5-11 WEEKS – 6 MONTHS?)

I’m not giving her a numbered ranking since her ‘reign’ as widow of Aurelian really boils down to a few coins minted in her name (and she does not appear in the Wikipedia list of Roman emperors accordingly).

However, I’ll just leave her here as I like the romantic speculation of her as first and last empress of the classical Roman Empire.

(31) VETRANIO – USURPER: CONSTANTINIAN DYNASTY (WESTERN EMPIRE)

(1 MARCH – 25 DECEMBER 350 AD: 9 MONTHS 24 DAYS)

One of three good usurpers of the classical Roman empire – counter-usurper against another usurper (Magnentius), abandoning his claim when meeting Constantius II and earning himself peaceful retirement

MY PERTINAX-THRAX LINE…OR IS THAT MY EUGENIUS-JOHANNES LINE SEPARATING GOOD USURPERS FROM BAD EMPERORS?

(32) EUGENIUS – USURPER: VALENTINIAN DYNASTY (WESTERN EMPIRE)

(22 AUGUST 392 AD – 6 SEPTEMBER 394 AD: 2 YEARS 15 DAYS)

One of the great what-ifs of the late Roman empire – that the western empire would have fared better or at least stalled its fall longer if he and military commander Arbogast had won the Battle of the Frigidus in 394 AD. Or even better, if they had not fought it at all, with the eastern emperor Theodosius recognizing Eugenius as western emperor instead. At very least, the western empire would have been spared Honorius.

(33) JOHANNES – USURPER: THEODOSIAN DYNASTY (WESTERN EMPIRE)

(20 NOVEMBER 423 AD – MAY 425 AD: 1 YEAR 6 MONTHS)

If Eugenius would have spared the western empire Honorius, Johannes would have spared it Valentinian III.

Dovahhatty – Unbiased History of Rome XVIII: Barbarians at the Gates

(4) EUGENIUS –

USURPER: VALENTINIAN DYNASTY (WESTERN EMPIRE)

(392-394 AD: 2 YEARS 15 DAYS)

Yes, I’m going there – I’m ranking Eugenius as one of the three good usurpers in the classical Roman empire.

That’s because I see him as one of the great what-ifs of the late Roman empire – that the western empire would have fared better or at least stalled its fall longer if he and his military commander Arbogast had won the Battle of the Frigidus in 394 AD.

Or even better, if they had not fought it at all, with the eastern emperor Theodosius recognizing Eugenius as western emperor instead.

Yes – that reference to Arbogast as his military commander is somewhat reversed, as it would be more accurate to refer to Eugenius as Arbogast’s emperor, arguably a black mark against Eugenius as figurehead or puppet emperor of Arbogast.

On the other hand, it helps that Eugenius didn’t really usurp his predecessor Valentinian II, as Valentinian had died, probably at the hands or orders of Arbogast, three months before Eugenius became emperor.

Arbogast was the magister militum or supreme military commander of the western empire and effectively its de facto ruler. However, as a Frank and a pagan, Arbogast needed to defer, at least nominally, to a Roman and Christian emperor, not least because such an emperor was more likely to be supported by the Roman Senate. His friend Eugenius, a former teacher of grammar and rhetoric as well as imperial official, met the criteria of imperial candidacy nicely.

As I said, it’s arguably a black mark against Eugenius as puppet emperor or figurehead for Arbogast. However, if a good emperor like Marcian could be elevated in a similar role as eastern emperor in the fifth century by the Gothic miliary commander Aspar yet effectively rule in partnership of overlapping interests rather than as a puppet, then why not Eugenius?

And indeed Eugenius seems to have been reasonably capable in the role, whether as Arbogast’s partner or puppet, ably replacing the imperial administrators Theodosius had installed to keep the whole empire beholden to himself.

Alas, it was not to be, with Theodosius rejecting Eugenius as western emperor, proclaiming his eight year old son Honorius as western emperor instead – and defeating Eugenius in the costly victory of the bloody Battle of the Frigidus, fought over two days. Eugenius was captured in the battle and executed, while Arbogast took his own life the next day.

And so we come to those what-ifs of the history of the late Roman empire.

The Battle of the Frigidus saw the whole empire ruled by the dire Theodosian dynasty. Theodosius only ruled as the last emperor to rule the whole empire for a few months before dying from illness, but it was long enough to secure dynastic succession to his two useless sons for an empire thereafter divided into its western and eastern halves, Honorius in the western empire and Arcadius in the eastern empire.

In fairness, the victory of Theodosius did bring Stilicho as supreme military commander in its baggage, but even he was not enough to counteract the baleful influence of the Theodosian dynasty – first being rebuffed and thwarted by Arcadius in the eastern empire, before then being betrayed and executed by Honorius in the western empire.

The victory of Theodosius also brought the Gothic leader Alaric in its baggage – and worse, gave him a grievance against the empire for having used the Goths as legion fodder for casualties, a grievance that was to culminate in the sack of Rome itself by Alaric in 410, one of the western empire’s mortal wounds.

The casualties of the battle were costly enough for the forces of Theodosius (and Alaric), but even more critically weakened the army in the western empire – and it is hard not to draw a straight line from the losses for the legions in that battle and the Crossing of the Rhine by Germanic tribes twelve years later.

That’s particularly so as Eugenius had also been successful in the military field – “notably in the renovation of old alliances with Alamanni and Franks, even marching to the Rhine frontier, where he impressed and pacified the Germanic tribes by parading his army in front of them”.

Another what-if is the potential restoration or at least more harmonious tolerance of Roman pagan religion, reversing Theodosius’ persecution or “religious policies targeting pagans” and the discontent that arose in the western empire from them. Despite being Christian himself, Eugenius “renovated the pagan Temple of Venus and Roma and restored the Altar of Victory after continued petitions from the Roman Senate”, as well as appointing pagan officials to his imperial administration.

DID DOVAHHATTY DO RIGHT?

I feel Dovahhatty gives Eugenius somewhat short shift but at least gives him a pair of slick shades (and cigarette) as wojak.

RATING: 3 STARS***

X-TIER (WILD TIER)

Dovahhatty – Unbiased History of Rome: Crisis of the Third Century

As I said, I’m ranking all the Roman emperors (until 476 AD) – and between my Top 10 Best Roman Emperors and twenty special mentions, I’ve ranked the thirty emperors I consider as ‘good’ emperors, right up to the dividing line between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ emperors or what I’ve dubbed my Pertinax-Thrax line.

However, the good emperors don’t quite end there – it’s time to take pause and squeeze out a few honorable mentions for imperial claimants that don’t quite have the same authenticity or legitimacy as the emperors in my top ten or special mentions, but which I would still rank as ‘good’ (albeit in my x-tier or ‘wild’ tier).

Yes – we’re talking usurpers or at least those imperial claimants generally labelled as usurpers with the notable exception of my first honorable mention. Not surprisingly, I have generally ranked usurpers dishonorable mention as ‘bad’ emperors – usurpers by definition tend to be ‘bad’ – but there were literally a couple of ‘good’ usurpers I have ranked as honorable mention. Yes – that’s a spoiler that I was only able to squeeze out three honorable mentions (my first honorable mention and two usurpers).

The term usurper itself is to some extent a question of degree in the Roman Empire, with the primary distinction being between successful usurpers and unsuccessful usurpers – the former upholding their claim as emperor, and the latter, well, not doing so, usually also ending with their defeat and death.

“A large number of emperors commonly considered as legitimate began their rule as usurpers, revolting against the previous legitimate emperor”.

Indeed, usurpation and civil war tended to be the order of the day for the Roman empire. While the imperial government itself was rarely called into question, “individual emperors often faced unending challenges in the form of usurpation and perpetual civil wars”.

“From the rise of Augustus, the first Roman emperor, in 27 BC to the sack of Rome in AD 455, there were over a hundred usurpations or attempted usurpations (an average of one usurpation or attempt about every four years). From the murder of Commodus in 192 until the fifth century, there was scarcely a single decade without succession conflicts and civil war”.

As I said at the outset of ranking all the emperors, there is the issue of whom I rank as emperors – even with my ground rule of only ranking the emperors of the ‘classical empire’ prior to 476 AD – given the list of claimants to that title. As historian Adrian Goldsworthy points out, that’s a list which 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 new or unknown claimants.

So I’ve gone by Wikipedia’s list of Roman emperors, but I reserved the right to consider the entries noted to be of more dubious legitimacy as honorable or dishonorable mentions – hence these honorable mentions that, with the exception of my first honorable mention in a special category of its own, are for those entries in the Wikipedia list which are noted as being of “ambiguous legitimacy” or “varying ascribed status”.

Dovahhatty – Unbiased History of Rome: Diocletian’s Tetrarchy

(1) ULPIA SEVERINA –
FIRST AND LAST EMPRESS OF THE CLASSICAL ROMAN EMPIRE
(275 AD: 5-11 WEEKS – 6 MONTHS?)

Ulpia Severina – Lady Restorer of the World, first and last empress of the classical Roman Empire.

Or probably not according to the consensus of historiography, since her ‘reign’ as widow of Aurelian really boils down to a few coins minted in her name.

As such, she is my one honorable mention that does not appear in the Wikipedia list of Roman emperors at all, so obviously she’s not an usurper either. Well, at least not in the literal sense, but perhaps in the historiographical sense that some historians have metaphorically usurped her claim to the throne for her.

However, I prefer the romantic speculation of her as first and last empress of the Roman Empire – similar to my romantic fondness for the legend of Pope Joan, or for Joshua Norton as self-proclaimed First and Last Emperor of the United States (and Protector of Mexico).

After all, the eastern Roman empire has its reigning empresses, even if only a few of them. The eastern Roman empire also had a number of powerful women running things behind the throne, or beside it as imperial consorts, as did the classical Roman empire, although for some reason they seem to loom larger in the history of the eastern Roman empire – looking at you, Theodora. So why not one reigning empress in the classical empire?

Also, if anyone deserves that title, it’s Ulpia Severina as the wife of Aurelian – and widow after his assassination. Little is known about her – including when she was born, when she married Aurelian or when she was proclaimed as augusta (although the last may well have coincided with his triumphs celebrating his defeat and reclamation of the Palmyrene and Gallic Empires). The surviving literary sources do not discuss her at all, except for allusions to Aurelian’s wife in the Historia Augusta.

The only reliable evidence to her at all is a “scant number of inscriptions and coins”, confirming that she was indeed Aurelian’s wife and held the title of Augusta – and it’s from some unusual examples of those coins, minted in her name in 275 AD, that gives rise to speculation that she reigned in her own name as widow of Aurelian in the brief interregnum period between his assassination and the proclamation of Tacitus as his successor (originally thought to have been anywhere up to six months but now thought to be somewhere between five to eleven weeks).

DID DOVAHHATTY DO RIGHT?

If indeed she did reign in her own name, then in the eloquent words of Dovahhatty, she did “absolutely f*ck all, refusing to take advantage of her husband’s death and just printing coins for fun while waiting for a successor to be chosen” – coin mints go “brrr!” as Dovahhatty captioned her in the style of the meme.

And she did it awesomely – don’t you diss my empress, Dovahhatty! She also had a daughter with Aurelian, whose name is not known to recorded history – and both of them disappear from the historical record after the accession of Tacitus.

As for her depiction, Dovahatty did that right in the style of the ideal girlfriend or ideal GF meme – with a Sol Invictus mask to match that of her husband.

RATING: 3 STARS***
X-TIER (WILD TIER)

Dovahhatty – Unbiased History of Rome XVII: Imperial Wrath

(2) VETRANIO –
THE GOOD USURPER (CONSTANTINIAN DYNASTY – WESTERN EMPIRE)
(350: 9 MONTHS 24 DAYS)

Almost all usurpers in the Roman empire were by definition ‘bad’. Well, the unsuccessful usurpers that is, not the ones who successfully upheld their claim and became or were regarded as legitimate emperors throughout the empire accordingly. To adapt Clint Eastwood’s line in Hang ‘Em High, when you usurp an emperor, you better look at usurping him right.

Or at least learn to read the room – which is what got Vetranio his ranking as ‘good’, a ranking I award to only two usurpers. It also got him a happy ending – rare among usurpers or indeed in the later empire in general.

It helps that, like my other good usurper, he did not kill the emperor he was usurping – or indeed did not usurp an emperor but rather another usurper.

In part I attribute that to his origin in the province of Moesia and position as governor of Illyria at the time he was an usurper – both part of that bedrock of the so-called Illyrian emperors who saved the empire and mostly ruled it for a few centuries.

That might be a romantic notion on my part based on my fondness for those emperors – but what isn’t a romantic notion is that he didn’t really push his imperial claim to any great extent. Rather, the sources present him as a counter-usurper against another usurper, Magnentius, who had killed and usurped Constans as western emperor, and was facing off against Constans’ brother Constantius in the eastern empire.

Or in modern parlance, usurping to troll Magnentius – and more importantly, an imperial c*ck-blocker if you will, stopping Magnentius from sticking it any further eastwards into Illyria.

He was asked to do so by Constantina, the sister of Constans – usually inferred to be on the basis of protecting herself and her family from her brother’s fate, but also speculated to involve political ambitions of her own.

Mind you, Vetranio fluctuated as usurper, at one point genuinely seeming to ally with Magnentius against Constantius, presumably for them to be co-emperors of the western empire.

However, when Vetranio met with Constantius and Constantius successfully appealed to have the Illyrian troops acclaim him as sole emperor by way of a stirring speech, “Vetranio threw himself on the ground and begged Constantius’ clemency”.

And in that rare happy ending, “the emperor gently raised the aged general by the hand, honoring him with the name of father, and gave him instant pardon” – with Vetranio then living peacefully in happy retirement.

I agree with the assessment of Spectrum – “You know, this guy knew his place. The only reason he made himself emperor was to stop another usurper at the request of the imperial family, and then, when time came for him to relinquish his power, he did. He didn’t give in to powerlust. I can respect that.”

DID DOVAHHATTY DO RIGHT?

A rare exception to the usual depictions of Romans as chads, virgins or wojaks, Dovahhatty instead portrays Vetranio as the Spurdo meme (originating from a Finnish cartoon character) – and as that equally rare beast, the good usurper bowing to Constantius II.

RATING: 3 STARS***
X-TIER (WILD TIER)

Dovahhatty – Unbiased History of Rome XIX: The Fall of Rome

(3) JOANNES –
THE OTHER GOOD USURPER (THEODOSIAN DYNASTY: WESTERN EMPIRE)
(423-425 AD: 1 YEAR 6 MONTHS)

That’s right – I’m going there. I’m ranking Joannes as a good usurper, the only other good usurper in the classical empire apart from Vetranio.

Of course, it helps that the emperor he was usurping was none other than Valentinian III (and the Theodosian dynasty in general), one of the worst emperors (and the worst dynasty). Indeed, although I ranked him as fifth worst emperor, I’m open to arguments for him as the worst.

So Joannes would have been better than Valentinian III. Hell, Caligula’s horse would have been better than Valentinian III. It’s not a stretch to think that almost anyone else instead of Valentinian III would not only have been a better emperor, but meant that the western empire lasted longer.

And it’s not a stretch to think that Joannes would have been a decent emperor in his own right. At very least, one anticipates that he would have been better for Aetius (and hence the empire), reciprocating the loyalty that he was able to command from Aetius rather than assassinating Aetius as Valentinian did (after Aetius had saved the empire from Attila the Hun).

“The events of Joanne’s reign are as shadowy as its origins” due to our surviving historical records but his claim as western emperor occurred after that happy event for the western empire, the death of Honorius, when the eastern emperor Theodosius II did not immediately announce a successor.

Although it wasn’t so much his claim as such – in that brief bright shining light of opportunity, the patrician Castinus elevated him, a senior civil servant, as emperor. And at least according to the historian Procopius, it was a good choice, praising him as “both gentle and well-endowed with sagacity and thoroughly capable of valorous deeds.”

He was pretty decent, just not lucky. And unlike other usurpers – and like the other good usurper in my rankings – he didn’t kill the emperor he was usurping – who was in any event 5 years of age and in Constantinople at the time.

But of course the Theodosian dynasty wasn’t done screwing things up for the empire, no matter which half of the empire it did that from – instead of coming to an agreement with Joannes, Theodosius II proclaimed Valentinian III as caesar, “undoubtedly influenced by Valentinian’s mother Galla Placidia”.

And of course you know that meant war – civil war, between the eastern empire seeking to enthrone Valentinian as western emperor and the western empire under Joannes seeking to retain his throne – at the worst possible time when both empires needed everything they had against the barbarians at or inside their gates.

Theodosius II was not the only one screwing over the western empire to dethrone Joannes. The weaselly Bonifacius had previously screwed over the western empire’s campaigns against German barbarians in Spain because of his bitter rivalry with Castinus who led those campaigns, so no prizes for guessing what his attitude was towards Joannes, the emperor that Castinus had elevated to the throne.

Unfortunately, after screwing over the western empire in Spain, Bonifacius had somehow managed to fail upwards and acquire command of north Africa “in dubious circumstances” to screw the empire over from there, cutting off the grain shipments to Rome upon which the western empire depended.

Don’t worry – Bonifacius would continue screwing over the western empire after this as well, effectively with his renegade private empire in Africa, in the three man contest with Aetius and Felix that essentially characterized the western empire under Valentinian III. He ultimately lost north Africa to the Vandals (with some sources reporting that he had invited them there) and died from a wound in battle against Aetius in Italy. Good riddance too late.

And Joannes just seemed to have a string of bad luck – with an uprising or uprisings in Gaul, as well as an expedition to Africa, no doubt prompted by and to retaliate against Bonifacius, the outcome of which is not recorded but was presumably unsuccessful.

Joannes had been proclaimed emperor in Rome but moved his base of operations to Ravenna in a ballsy move, “knowing full well that the Eastern Empire would strike from that direction”. However, he did have an ace in the hole which he now played – sending Aetius on a mission to seek military help from the Huns, with whom Aetius had lived as a hostage earlier and had good relations. Ironically, Aetius mostly relied on the Huns as allies, before having to save the western empire from them.

In the meantime, the eastern empire sent its forces westwards, by land and sea, ultimately capturing Ravenna – the sources vary whether they did so outright or whether one of their captured leaders managed to convince the garrison of Ravenna to betray the city. Joannes was captured and killed.

Frankly, Theodosius II and the empire would have been better served by coming to an agreement with Joannes rather than enthroning Valentinian III. I mean, it’s like the meme – Theodosius II was mostly useless and basically slept through everything else falling apart in the western empire – but this is when he wakes up and does something?

“Three days after Joannes’ death, Aetius returned at the head of a substantial Hunnic army”. Three days! Still, Aetius was able to put the Hunnic army to good use spooking Galla Placidia, now in Italy with her useless son in train and as his regent, to make Aetius magister militum or military commander of the western empire.

As it was, even with all the odds stacked against him – the forces of the eastern empire and Bonifacius’ rogue state of north Africa cutting off Rome’s grain – Joannes did remarkably well. As historian Adrian Goldsworthy stated, “it took a hard-fought campaign by strong elements of the East Roman army and navy, in addition to a fair dose of betrayal,” to defeat Joannes.

DID DOVAHHATTY DO RIGHT?

Yeah – Joannes was something of the quintessential wojak. I just love the startled look on his face when being proclaimed emperor in my feature image (with Honorius’ body having been dragged outside the palace for dramatic effect as backdrop).

RATING: 3 STARS***
X-TIER (WILD TIER)

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:

S-TIER (GOD TIER)

(1) AUGUSTUS

(2) TRAJAN

(3) AURELIAN

(4) HADRIAN

(5) CONSTANTINE

A-TIER (TOP TIER)

(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.

Dovahhatty – Unbiased History of Rome X: The Mad Emperors

(1) CLAUDIUS –

JULIO-CLAUDIAN DYNASTY

(41-54 AD: 13 YEARS 8 MONTHS 19 DAYS)

“Such was life for Uncle Claudius”

Yes – it’s the first of six special mentions where you could arguably swap them into the top ten best emperors without too much protest.

It was a close call between Claudius and the other good imperial candidate from the Julio-Claudian dynasty I include in my special mentions. Claudius just won out for a few reasons, but primarily because he inherited the empire from the worst emperor as opposed to the best. And I use inherited very loosely, as he was not a formal heir but was thrust into his position as emperor by the Praetorian Guard after they had assassinated his predecessor, Caligula – the tradition is that one of the Guard found him hiding behind a curtain and declared him emperor.

Also, Claudius was put upon throughout his life – hence Dovahhatty’s catchphrase for him “such was life for Uncle Claudius”, originating from his physical infirmities he had since youth, including a limp and stammer, although he claimed to have exaggerated them to survive the reign of Caligula.

And a lot of people have a soft spot for him from his sympathetic portrayal in Robert Graves’ I, Claudius and its BBC TV adaptation.

Anyway, he was thrown headfirst into the position of emperor without any choice or background for it on his part and he did a pretty damn good job of it, essentially emulating Augustus and pulling it off to a substantial degree.

He was an able and efficient administrator, above all restoring the empire’s finances after their ruination by the excesses of Caligula’s reign – while also being an ambitious builder of projects and public works across the empire and in its capital.

He also expanded the empire in its first (and most enduring) major expansion since Augustus – annexing or completing the annexation of Thrace (so that the empire finally encircled the Mediterranean completely), Noricum, Lycia, Judaea and Mauretania – but is best known for the conquest of Britain during his reign, although Rome might have been better off without that province in the long run.

His biggest drawback was his choice of successor as Nero, albeit secured largely through his wife (and Nero’s mother) Agrippina’s manipulation of him – including, as it was widely believed by contemporaries, murdering him by poison.

DID DOVAHATTY DO RIGHT?

If ever an emperor was destined to be depicted as a wojak, it was Claudius. Also, I now can’t imagine Claudius without thinking of Dovahhatty’s catchphrase for him – “such was life for Uncle Claudius” – as encapsulating how put upon Claudius was (and what a sad sack of a life he had).

RATING: 4 STARS****

A-TIER (TOP TIER)

EMPIRE BASER

Dovahhatty – Unbiased History of Rome XI: Pax Romana

(2) VESPASIAN –
FLAVIAN DYNASTY
(69 – 79 AD: 9 YEARS 11 MONTHS 22 DAYS)

Founder of the Flavian dynasty (of himself and his two sons), restorer of the Pax Romana, divine pharaoh – and possibly…the Messiah? Well perhaps not that last one – to paraphase Monty Python’s Life of Brian, he wasn’t the Messiah, just a good emperor.

Vespasian did after all found a dynasty, having to advance his imperial claim in a civil war of succession. Like it or not, dealing with the Senate and senatorial class was a fact of political life in Rome, at least the Rome of the principate – and hence managing relations with the Senate was an important part of being emperor. The diplomacy and tact of Augustus towards the Senate is part of what made him so acclaimed, not least by the Senate who loved him for it – as they did Vespasian and his son Titus (as opposed to mutual antagonism with his other son Domitian).

Vespasian restored the Pax Romana and political stability to the empire after the civil war of the Year of the Four Emperors (of which he was the fourth), as well as fiscal stability to an empire left desperately in debt by the depradations of Nero and Vitellius (albeit with some slight debasement of the currency).

“His fiscal reforms and consolidation of the empire generated political stability and a vast Roman building program.” The latter included that most famous of Roman landmarks, the Colosseum.

Vespasian had a distinguished military career in Britain and, most famously, leading the campaign (and besieging Jerusalem) against the Jewish Revolt, in the First Jewish-Roman War.

He left the latter for his son Titus to achieve victory while he advanced his imperial claim in the civil war of succession after the death of Nero, seizing Egypt and its critical grain supply to Rome. In Egypt, he was hailed as literally divine pharaoh (son of the creator god Amun or Zeus-Ammon, and incarnation of Serapis) amidst claims of miracles and visions – doubling down on literally messianic prophecies.

“According to Suetonius, a prophecy ubiquitous in the Eastern provinces claimed that from Judaea would come the future rulers of the world. Vespasian eventually believed that this prophecy applied to him, and found a number of omens and oracles that reinforced this belief.”

“Josephus (as well as Tacitus), reporting on the conclusion of the Jewish war, reported a prophecy that around the time when Jerusalem and the Second Temple would be taken, a man from their own nation, viz. the Messiah, would become governor “of the habitable earth”. Josephus interpreted the prophecy to denote Vespasian and his appointment as emperor in Judea.”

One of the more entertaining theorists of ‘Christ-myth’ history, Joseph Atwill, in his 2005 book Caesar’s Messiah, proposes that the Gospels and Jesus were nothing more than Flavian fanfiction written by Josephus and others, concocting Christianitity as a pacifist and pro-Roman religion as a solution to the problem of militant Judaism. Although apparently Atwill proposes that the Son of Man in the Gospels was Vespasian’s son Titus – which would make a Flavian holy trinity of Vespasian the Father, Titus the Son, and Domitian the Holy Spirit…?

Back to more mundane earthly matters, aided by the spoils of war from the Jewish Temple, Vespasian restored the finances and treasury of the empire, through tax reform and other means, most famously the urine tax on public toilets (such that urinals are named for him in modern Romance languages) with an anecdotal saying attributed to him that money doesn’t stink.

Apart from the First Jewish-Roman War, Vespasian suppressed the (second) Batavian Rebellion in Gaul and expanded the Roman conquest of Britain in campaigns led by the skilled general Agricola.

“Vespasian was known for his wit and his amiable manner alongside his commanding personality and military prowess..According to Suetonius, Vespasian ‘bore the frank language of his friends, the quips of pleaders, and the impudence of the philosophers with the greatest patience'”. Hence, it could be said that Vespasian had a flair for diplomacy and tact to rival Augustus (in marked contrast to his younger son) – and at a similarly critical juncture to placate the Senate and secure the stability of the principate under a new dynasty.

Dying of diarrhea (no, really), “Vespasian appears to have approached his own impending cult” (of imperial divinity) “with dry humour: according to Suetonius, his last words were puto deus fio (“I think I’m turning into a god”).

DID DOVAHHATTY DO RIGHT?

The Flavian dynasty of…chads. One of only two dynasties to be depicted by Dovahhatty as consisting entirely of chads – and rightly so.

RANKING: 4 STARS****
A-TIER (TOP TIER)
EMPIRE BASER

Dovahhatty – Unbiased History of Rome X: The Mad Emperors

(3) TIBERIUS –
JULIO-CLAUDIAN DYNASTY
(14 – 37 AD: 22 YEARS 5 MONTHS 17 DAYS)

Like Claudius, you could arguably swap Tiberius into the top ten, albeit probably with more protest than for Claudius as some people – including contemporary Roman historians – seem to rank Tiberius among the worst. Even the Senate denied him the posthumous divine honors it gave Augustus and Claudius.

Those people are wrong. Indeed, it was a close call for me whom I ranked higher out of Claudius and Tiberius. As we’ve seen, ultimately I ranked Claudius higher, primarily because he inherited the empire from its worst emperor rather than its best – and because he was thrust into the position by the Praetorian Guard without any choice or preparation on his part.

Not that Tiberius was any happier to be emperor, although at least he had been nominated as heir in advance. “At the age of 55. Tiberius seems to have taken on the responsibilities of head of state with great reluctance…He came to be remembered as a dark, reclusive and sombre ruler who never really wanted to be emperor; Pliny the Elder called him ‘the gloomiest of men'”.

The problem for Tiberius is that he was overshadowed by Augustus as his predecessor, even in his own eyes. Perhaps foremost for his contemporaries was his absence of conquests as emperor, accustomed as they were to measuring an emperor by this criterion.

In my eyes, the prudence of Tiberius was exactly what the doctor ordered to consolidate the empire of Augustus – effectively Tiberius was the Hadrian to Augustus’ Trajan, but without withdrawing from any territory.

“Rather than embark on costly campaigns of conquest, he chose to strengthen the existing empire by building additional bases, using diplomacy as well as military threats, and generally refraining from getting drawn into petty squabbles between competing frontier tyrants. The result was a stronger, more consolidated empire, ensuring the imperial institutions introduced by his adoptive father would remain for centuries to come”.

This also overlooks that Tiberius had proved himself under Augustus as “one of the most successful Roman generals: his conquests of Pannonia, Dalmatia, Raetia, and (temporarily) parts of Germania laid the foundations for the empire’s northern frontier”.

It also overlooks an even better part of his prudence, though not unrelated to his prudence with respect to avoiding costly military campaigns – his financial prudence, rare among Roman emperors, such that he left the imperial treasury in huge surplus. Even Suetonius begrudged him that. While Suetonius notes that his successor and worst emperor Caligula squandered this, one wonders if the empire would have survived Caligula’s financial depredations otherwise – or whether the empire would have weathered its crisis of the first century, also known as the Year of the Four Emperors, quite so well but for the part Tiberius played in the empire’s military and financial consolidation.

Of course, it wasn’t just Augustus who overshadowed Tiberius, but Tiberius himself – particularly the latter part of his reign, after he retreated into isolation in Capri from 26 AD and his reign descended into despotism and depravity, albeit both overstated by Roman historians. The former accompanied the rise and fall of his Praetorian prefect Sejanus who effectively ruled Rome in his absence, while the latter was attributed to him in Capri by Suetonius. Let’s just say the less said about his little fishes the better – personally, I think it was just tabloid gossip made up or passed on by Suetonius. He’d probably be in a shoo-in for top ten if he’d died about halfway through his reign.

And like Claudius, when it came to a successor, he chose…poorly.

DID DOVAHHATTY DO RIGHT?

Like Claudius, the other emperor above all others destined to be depicted as a wojak – he “hated triumphs, hated people, hated being alive” (and pretty much hated being emperor as well.

RATING: 4 STARS****
A-TIER (TOP TIER)
EMPIRE BASER

Dovahhatty – Unbiased History of Rome XI: Pax Romana

(4) DOMITIAN –

FLAVIAN DYNASTY

(81 – 96 AD: 15 YEARS 4 DAYS)

Modern historians have increasingly seen Domitian’s reign as laying the foundation of the golden age that immediately succeeded him (or at least did via a brief interregnum via Nerva).

His reign was distinctive or even unique for its economic success, above all in revaluing the currency, maintaining it through his reign by financial prudence and “rigorous taxation policy”. In his ranking of emperors, Youtuber Spectrum asserts that Domitian “was the only emperor to have actually fixed the problem of inflation, the only one”. I’m not sure that he was as unique in that respect as Spectrum asserts but at very least it was exceedingly rare (literally only one or two others) and he certainly “maintained the Roman currency at a standard it would never again achieve”.

However, it was more than just the economy that he strengthened, although his economic management might be said to be representative of his prudent management of the empire and its administration as a whole.

“His foreign policy was realistic, rejecting expansionist warfare and negotiating peace” and “the military campaigns undertaken during Domitian’s reign were generally defensive in nature”. His military campaigns might not have been as conclusive or as overwhelmingly victorious as his critics would have preferred – notably against the Dacians, where Trajan finished the job – but he did leave the empire’s borders more secure, with his “most significant military contribution” as the development of the Limes Germanicus to defend the empire along the Rhine.

And his campaigns were, more or less, successful – extending the conquest of Britain into Scotland under his capable general Agricola, wars against the Germanic tribe of the Chatti (conferring upon himself the victory title of Germanicus Maximus), wars against the Dacians and other tribes across the Danube, and suppressing the revolt of governor Saturnius in Germania.

“Domitian is also credited on the easternmost evidence of Roman military presence, the rock inscription near Boyukdash mountain, in present-day Azerbaijan”. The Roman Empire may also have reached its northernmost and westernmost points during his reign – in Scotland (in the campaign by Agricola) and in Ireland (in a possible expedition, also by Agricola).

Otherwise, he was one of the Roman emperors with the largest architectural footprints in Rome with his extensive reconstruction of the city still damaged from disasters preceding his reign – and even the critical Suetonius observed “the imperial bureaucracy never ran more efficiently than under Domitian” with “historically low corruption”. Persecution of religious minorities such as Jews or Christians was minimal, if any, at least as observed by contemporaries although some was subsequently reputed to him.

Yet for all that, in a similar vein to the negative portrayals of Tiberius only even more so, Domitian is often seen as a bad emperor or even one of the worst, echoing senatorial hostility toward him as a ‘cruel tyrant’ through the ages.

So where does the hate for Domitian come from, often expressed in terms of ranking him as one of Rome’s worst and most tyrannical emperors? Why, from the Senate of course, reflecting the mutual antagonism between Domitian and the Senate, hence the latter’s official damnatio memoriae on Domitian after his death by assassination in a conspiracy by court officials.

The Senate hated him and he hated them right back, as he had been in Rome during the Year of the Four Emperors (while his father and brother were campaigning in Judaea) and seen the Senate kowtow to one imperial claimant after another (until his father won the throne as the fourth emperor). There’s an amusing story told of Domitian inviting the foremost senators to a banquet with such a theme of death for his guests – including gravestones in their names – that they feared execution – only to show himself to be trolling them, sending them all home at the end of the banquet.

Of course, that becomes a problem when it’s the senatorial class that wrote the histories.

Fortunately, modern historians have revised or reassessed Domitian as an emperor “whose administration provided the foundation for the Principate of the peaceful 2nd century”, with the policies of his immediate successors differing little from his in reality.

However, while one doesn’t have to agree with the senatorial hostility towards Domitian (and its viewpoint of him as a ‘bad’ emperor), one does have to recognize it, hence his ranking as special mention rather than in the top ten (as Spectrum does – in fifth place no less, over Marcus Aurelius in sixth place, because money trumps philosophy).

Like it or not, dealing with the Senate and senatorial class was a fact of political life in Rome, at least the Rome of the principate – and hence managing relations with the Senate was an important part of being emperor. The diplomacy and tact of Augustus towards the Senate is part of what made him so acclaimed, not least by the Senate who loved him for it – as they did Domitian’s father Vespasian and even more so his brother Titus. The mutual antagonism and hostility between the Senate and Domitian ultimately saw him assassinated for it, which might well have seen the empire in another civil war for imperial succession but for Nerva.

DID DOVAHHATTY DO RIGHT?

The last of the chads of the Flavian dynasty, filled with anger towards the Senate.

RATING: 4 STARS****
A-TIER (TOP TIER)
EMPIRE BASER – Literally with respect to the currency

Dovahhatty – Unbiased History of Rome XII: The Five Good Emperors

(5) ANTONINUS PIUS –
NERVA-ANTONINE DYNASTY / FIVE GOOD EMPERORS
(138 – 161 AD: 22 YEARS 7 MONTHS 25 DAYS)

My man Tony Pius, the man who maxed the pax of the Pax Romana – another emperor who could arguably be swapped into the top ten emperors (and more than earned his place among the Five Good Emperors), except perhaps for not really doing much.

In the words of Spectrum, “this guy played the game in easy mode”. Trajan and Hadrian having left him an empire humming along at its peak – “All he had to do was not fck up, and well, he didn’t fck up”.

Dovahhatty had a more generous assessment – “He did absolutely nothing for twenty-three years. Based”. Partly because Dovahhatty then goes on to list achievements or perhaps more precisely events during his reign, including the conquest in Scotland early in his reign to a wall that bore his name, the Antonine Wall.

Personally, I think both understate the achievement of maintaining the empire at peace for over two decades – or indeed, not screwing up, which after all seemed too high a bar for most emperors.

“His reign was the most peaceful in the entire history of the Principate” – which I would hazard to guess makes it the most peaceful in the entire history of the classical empire, given how much less peaceful the Dominate was. If it is to be characterized as inactivity, then it is inactivity from peace and good management requiring no action on his part, as opposed to the more disastrous supine inactivity from cowardice or incompetence we see from bad emperors – looking at you, Theodosian dynasty.

One might compare him to Hadrian with a focus on consolidating the empire, but in another way he was also the anti-Hadrian – whereas Hadrian travelled extensively throughout the empire, Antoninus never left Italy once during his reign. One modern scholar has written “It is almost certain not only that at no time in his life did he ever see, let alone command, a Roman army, but that, throughout the twenty-three years of his reign, he never went within five hundred miles of a legion”.

I tend to agree with scholars (such as Krzysztof Ulanowski) that this reflects his preference for – and achievements in – diplomacy, particularly “being successful in deterrence by diplomatic means”. Antoninus apparently stood off a resurgent Parthian Empire (under Vologasius IV) by writing a letter warning that “encroachment on Roman territory would not be taken lightly” – and that’s all it took for the Parthians to slink away with their tail between their legs.

The reign of Antoninus also saw the influence of the Roman Empire extend to its furthest extent beyond its borders (apart from spooking the Parthians) – he “was the last Roman Emperor recognised by the Indian Kingdoms, especially the Kushan Empire” and a group proclaiming themselves to be an “ambassadorial mission” made the first direct contact between Han China and the Roman Empire.

Otherwise, he was an effective administrator and left behind a treasury in substantial surplus (despite extensive building projects), something no other emperor would do for a long time.

Based, indeed.

DID DOVAHHATTY DO RIGHT?

One of the five chad emperors – that quote really sums it up. Based.

RATING: 4 STARS****
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EMPIRE BASER

Dovahhatty – Unbiased History of Rome XIX: The Fall of Rome

(6) MARCIAN –
THEODOSIAN DYNASTY (EASTERN EMPIRE)
(450-457 AD: 6 YEARS 5 MONTHS 2 DAYS)

Sadly overlooked and underrated among Roman emperors – even Dovahhatty’s Unbiased History of Rome portrays him essentially as a model of supine inactivity, not much more than a visual pun on his name depicting him as the cartoon Marvin the Martian (from Looney Tunes).

That is, overlooked and underrated except among sources from the eastern Roman empire, who apparently even compared him to their founding figure Constantine – with his reign often looked back on as a golden age and the people of Constantinople shouting “Reign like Marcian!” at the accession of subsequent emperors.

I was surprised looking him up to find this hidden gem of an emperor and to be fair, the eastern Roman empire sources call it pretty well – on the threshold of arguably swapping him into the top ten. You could (and I will) even argue for Marcian as an empire saver – that he was not only a large part of why the eastern empire endured, but the western empire as well, albeit the latter only from the more immediate threat of the Huns as it was doomed in the longer term.

Part of the surprise was that such an emperor could be found in that worst of imperial dynasties (prior to 476 at least), the Theodosian dynasty, but of course the answer is that, like another emperor we’ll come to shortly, he married into it – marrying Pulcheria, the sister of his predecessor Theodosius II. He didn’t consummate the marriage as she maintained her vow of virginity she had made in her youth – it was purely an arranged marriage for dynastic legitimacy.

That leads on to the next part of the surprise – that his accession to the throne was in very inauspicious circumstances to expect a good emperor. In a nutshell, he was effectively intended as a pawn by the real power behind the throne in the eastern Roman empire, its Germanic supreme military commander Aspar. Indeed, you could argue for Aspar playing a similar role to Ricimer and the other Germanic military leaders who controlled the western empire at the same time, except the eastern empire was robust enough to fight back and end the Germanic domination of their empire (albeit under Marcian’s successor).

Theodosius II – who was a model of supine inactivity, largely sleepwalking as emperor of the eastern empire as the western empire crumbled – had no sons nor had designated a successor, so the eastern empire faced its first succession crisis in sixty years. Aspar arranged Marcian’s accession to the throne and marriage to Pulcheria to seal the deal, Marcian serving and having served as domesticus or personal assistant to Aspar and Aspar’s father in the army. Marcian was also on the eve of his sixties, indeed mostly reigning in his sixties (hence perhaps why he didn’t rock the boat on Pulcheria’s vow of virginity).

Fortunately, there seem to have been other influences at play on Marcian as well as Aspar – Flavius Zeno and the strongminded Pucheria herself, as well as other advisors. Also, the interests of Aspar and his Germanic faction aligned with that of the eastern empire when it came to opposing the empire’s two greatest threats, the Huns and the Sassanid Persians.

Whatever the case, Marcian shook off the empire’s supine inactivity under his predecessor Theodosius II. In a ballsy move, he almost immediately revoked all treaties with Attila, ending the payment of ever increasing amounts of gold in tribute at Attila as Theodosius II had done. In an even ballsier move, he launched an expedition across the Danube, defeating the Huns in the very heartland (and breadbasket) of their empire in the Great Hungarian Plain, while Attila was raiding the western empire in Italy.

Although Attila’s ultimate motives remain unknown and there were other factors at play (notably famine and plague in Italy), these eastern Roman actions probably played a decisive role in the western empire and its envoy to Attila, Pope Leo I, persuading (or paying) Attila to withdraw from Italy.

It was a calculated gamble by Marcian and Aspar. Of course, their actions risked the renewed wrath of Attila – “after returning to the Great Hungarian Plain, he threatened to invade the Eastern Empire the following spring and conquer it entirely”. They ignored his threats – reasoning that “he could not be permanently deterred even by tons of gold” and the gold was better spent on building up their military strength rather than appeasing threats. Also, they reasoned that “the rich Asian and African provinces, which were protected behind Constantinople, were secure enough to allow the Eastern Empire to retake any European provinces it might lose”.

As it turned out, Marcian got lucky, with Attila dying in 453 and the Hunnic empire rapidly falling apart after his death. Marcian also got lucky in general – “some later scholars attribute his success not just to his skill, but also to a large degree of luck. Not only had he been fortunate enough to have Pulcheria to legitimize his rule, but for much of it the two greatest external threats to Rome, the Sassanian Empire and the Huns, were absorbed with their own internal problems. Further, no natural disasters or plagues occurred during his reign”. But then, the Romans saw luck or divine fortune as one of the marks of a good emperor, with the Senate invoking the fortune of Augustus for new emperors – “May you be luckier than Augustus and greater than Trajan”.

“Marcian secured the Eastern Empire both politically and financially, set an orthodox religious line that future emperors would follow, and stabilized the capital city politically”. He took advantage of the fragmentation of the Hunnic empire or confederation to settle Germanic tribes, notably the Ostrogoths, within the empire as foederati, and play barbarian tribes off against each other – imperial policies with mixed results to be sure but which that Marcian did successfully, with beneficial results for the eastern empire. Beyond that, he had a relatively peaceful reign, although he did win some minor campaigns against Saracens in Syria and Blemmyes in Egypt.

Even better, on his death he left the treasury with a surplus, reversing its near bankruptcy in which it had been when he acceded to the throne – in large part by cutting expenditure, notably those exorbitant tributes (and avoiding large-scale wars).

He didn’t do much to reverse the decline of the western Roman empire – other than of course having effectively saved it from the Huns during Attila’s invasion of Italy – but there was little he could do for that basketcase. He didn’t initially take action against the Vandals after their sack of Rome, but did secure release of the female imperial hostages taken by them and was planning an invasion of Vandal territory shortly before his death. It is a pity that his reign did not overlap with that of Majorian – it is tempting to imagine what a team-up between them could have achieved, particularly against the Vandals.

DID DOVAHHATTY DO RIGHT?

As I opened, sadly an example where Dovahhatty did not do right.

RATING: 4 STARS****
A-TIER (TOP TIER)
EMPIRE-SAVER

Dovahhatty – Unbiased History of Rome: Pax Romana XI

(7) TITUS –
FLAVIAN DYNASTY
(79 – 81 AD: 2 YEARS 2 MONTHS 20 DAYS)

And we come now to special mentions for emperors that, while good, might well have ranked higher but for the brevity of their reign – also typically in combination with their most outstanding achievements actually being prior to their accession to emperor as the capstone of those achievements.

Titus is perhaps the classic example of an emperor who might well have ranked in the top ten but for his brief reign, although in his case his accession to the throne was as the first emperor to come to the throne after his own biological father, Vespasian, putting the dynasty into the Flavian dynasty.

He did build on the achievements of Vespasian – literally building in the case of completing the Colosseum, the achievement for which he is best known as emperor.

Also figuratively, coinciding with his most outstanding achievement being prior to his imperial accession – winning renown as a military commander by finishing Vespasian’s campaign in the First Jewish War through to decisive victory (after Vespasian had left to pursue his own imperial claim in the Year of the Four Emperors).

Titus besieged and captured Jerusalem, ending the Jewish rebellion, for which he received a triumph (with his father and brother) commemorated by the famous Arch of Titus still standing today. Not to mention all the spoils of war in gold and silver from the sacked and destroyed Temple in Jerusalem.

Interestingly, he gained notoriety during the reign of his father while serving as prefect of the Praetorian Guard and for his relationship with the Jewish queen Berenice, more booty from the war (heh). However, he ruled to great acclaim from contemporaries – not least, like his father before him (and unlike his younger brother Domitian after him), from the Senate, no doubt aided by him, ah, not killing any Senators during his reign, with one of his first imperial acts calling an end to trials (and executions) for treason.

He also responded generously to two natural disasters during his reign – the eruption of Mount Vesuvius and another great fire in Rome. His reign also saw yet another rebellion by a Nero claimant pop up and be put down – man, that guy really was the Antichrist, constantly bubbling up in different forms.

He died from fever or illness and was succeeded by his brother Domitian.

DID DOVAHHATTY DO RIGHT?

Yes – the Flavian dynasty as one of the two chad dynasties (with the other as the five chad emperors).

RANKING: 4 STARS****
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EMPIRE BASER

Dovahatty – Unbiased History of Rome: Crisis of the Third Century

(8) CLAUDIUS II / CLAUDIUS GOTHICUS –
NON-DYNASTIC / CRISIS OF THE THIRD CENTURY
(268-270 AD: 1 YEAR 11 MONTHS)

Another special mention for an emperor that would have ranked higher but for his short reign, truncated by his death from illness.

As it was, Claudius II – or Claudius Gothicus to give him his victory title – turned the tide on the Crisis of the Third Century, laying the foundations for Aurelian and Probus to restore the empire. He may well even have substituted for Aurelian as savior of the empire if he had lived longer to fulfil his goal of reuniting the lost territories of the empire, but Aurelian achieved it for him instead as his successor.

He also was the first of the so-called Illyrian emperors who renewed and led the Roman empire, most immediately in its third century crisis but more generally for the three centuries or so – soldier-emperors who rose to prominence through the ranks of the army and served with distinction as military commanders, usually in succession to each other. These emperors came from the region of Illyricum and other Danubian provinces – provinces of Illyria, Dalmatia, Dacia, Raetia, Pannonia and Moesia – that gave the empire the core of its army and its best commanders.

While a predecessor Decius (and his sons) also came from the Illyricum region, he hailed from the senatorial background, as opposed to the provincial professional soldiers of humble origin who rose through the ranks of the army. Hence the period of the Illyrian emperors proper started with Claudius, “the first in a series of tough ‘soldier emperors’ who would eventually restore the Empire after the Crisis of the Third Century”, including Aurelian and Probus. The Illyrian emperors rose to prominence and served with distinction as military commanders, generally in succession to each other.

“Before the rule of Claudius Gothicus, there had only been two emperors from the Balkans, but afterwards there would only be one emperor who did not hail from the provinces of Pannonia, Moesia or Illyricum until 378” (when Theodosisus I became emperor). Those emperors included half the entries in my top ten – Aurelian, Probus, Diocletian, Constantine, and Valentinian – as well as a few more to come in special mentions. Not that they stopped in 378 either, but resumed subsequent to Theodosius I, albeit not as consistently as before – including some of the eastern empire’s best emperors after the fall of the western empire, notably the Justinian dynasty.

When Claudius became emperor upon the death of his predecessor (by assassination, possibly by a conspiracy involving Claudius himself and even Aurelian), the empire was at the height of the Crisis of the Third Century – invaded by barbarians, and worse, divided into three parts with de facto separate states of the Gallic and Palmyrene Empires in west and east respectively, albeit the latter not quite in open defiance of the empire at the outset of his reign.

The most serious barbarian invasion was an invasion of Illyricum and Pannonia by the Goths – against whom Claudius won his greatest victory, “one of the greatest in the history of Roman arms”.

“At the Battle of Naissus, Claudius and his legions routed a huge Gothic army. Together with his cavalry commander, the future Emperor Aurelian, the Romans took thousands of prisoners and destroyed the Gothic cavalry as a force. The victory earned Claudius his surname of “Gothicus” (conqueror of the Goths). The Goths were soon driven back across the Danube River by Aurelian, and nearly a century passed before they again posed a serious threat to the empire”.

Being the Crisis of the Third Century, there was of course more than one barbarian invasion to repel. “Around the same time, the Alamanni had crossed the Alps and attacked the empire. Claudius responded quickly, routing the Alamanni at the Battle of Lake Benacus in the late fall of 268, a few months after the Battle of Naissus. For this he was awarded the title of ‘Germanicus Maximus’.”

Claudius then turned on the Gallic Empire, aided by its own internal power struggles – winning serval victories and regaining Hispania as well as the Rhone river valley of Gaul. The Gallic Empire remained in place in most of Gaul as well as Britain, but Claudius had set the stage for its destruction by Aurelian.

All pretty impressive for a reign of less than two years, and Claudius was preparing a campaign against yet another barbarian invasion, by the Vandals in Pannonia – and presumably also had his sights set on a Palmyrene empire that had begun to emerge in open defiance to Rome – when he died from illness.

DID DOVAHHATTY DO RIGHT?

He sure did – just look at that chadly caption in that screenshot as my feature image, “it’s time…for the Illyrians to save the world!”

RATING: 4 STARS****
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Dovahhatty – Unbiased History of Rome: Diocletian’s Tetrarchy

(9) CONSTANTIUS –
TETRARCHY: WESTERN EMPIRE
(305-306 AD: 1 YEAR 2 MONTHS 24 DAYS)

Another special mention for an emperor that, while good, might well have ranked higher but for his short reign – and of course being overshadowed by his son Constantine as well as his own achievements prior to becoming emperor. Quick side bar – the name Constantius gets a pretty good run for quality of Roman emperors.

Short reign as augustus or senior emperor in the West that is – prior to that, he was the junior emperor or caesar for over 12 years from 293 AD, one of the members of the Tetrarchy and the only one consistently worth a damn apart from Diocletian.

And his short reign as augustus overlooks not only his successful reign as caesar but also his distinguished military career before that, serving under none other than Aurelian (against the Palmyrene Empire) as well as Aurelian’s successors.

Upon becoming caesar, his first task was to deal with the Carausian Revolt – effectively the secession of Britain and conquest of parts of the coastline of Gaul by the so-called Britannic Empire under the usurper Carausius – which the senior western emperor or augustus Maximian had royally failed to do.

That involved defeating the forces of Carausius in Gaul first, including the Franks that were allied with Carausius, before invading Britain itself and defeating the revolt, where the usurper Carausius had been usurped by his finance officer Allectus (which makes me see the position of chief financial officer in a whole new light).

He then returned to what he did best, both before and during the revolt – pounding Germanic barbarian tribes at the Rhine, particularly the Franks and Alamanni.

Upon his accession as augustus, Constantius replayed his greatest hits and returned to Britain, where he was joined by his son Constantine, campaigned against the Picts in the north and died of natural causes in York, recommending his son Constantine to his legions as his imperial heir.

Interestingly, because of the British connection, he assumed a role in that misty legendary British history before King Arthur.

DID DOVAHHATTY DO RIGHT?

An accurate depiction as chad – not so sure about the sunglasses and Monster energy drink in the screenshot image.

RANKING: 4 STARS****
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Dovahhatty – Unbiased History of Rome XVIII: Barbarians at the Gates

(10) CONSTANTIUS III –
THEODOSIAN DYNASTY (WESTERN EMPIRE)
(421 AD: 6 MONTHS 25 DAYS)

My fourth and last special mention for an emperor that would have ranked higher but for his short reign – the shortest reign of these four special mentions – although similarly to the other special mentions, part of my top tier ranking for him is comprised by his achievements that saw him rise to the imperial throne.

Along with Marcian, he’s one of the two good emperors that are surprising to find in the Theodosian dynasty, but again like Marcian it’s because he married into it – marrying the sister of Honorius, Galla Placidia (after retrieving her from the Visigoths who had captured her in their sack of Rome in 410).

Essentially, Constantius III was Stilicho II. Not formally in any dynastic sense of course, but between them, they were the two supreme military commanders holding the western empire together under its worst emperor Honorius. However, unlike Stilicho whom Honorius betrayed and had executed, Constantius found favor with Honorius – probably because Honorius needed someone to save his empire after stabbing Stilicho in the back, which led to the sack of Rome by the Visigoths.

Ultimately that favor extended to Honorius making Constantius his co-emperor, hence the marriage to his sister. Alas, it was only for a few months before Constantius died from illness – one suspects that but for this untimely death, Constantius may well have forestalled the collapse of the western empire, at least for a longer period of time.

As for the achievements that saw him rise to co-emperor, Constantius was appointed in place of Stilicho as magister militum in 411, suppressing the revolt of the usurper Constantine III in that same year. He “then went on to lead campaigns against various barbarian groups in Hispania and Gaul, recovering much of both for the Western Roman Empire” – most notably against the Visigoths, forcing them into submission as foederati in agreed territory after their sack of Rome and waging war on Rome’s behalf against the Vandals and other hostile barbarians within the empire.

Thereafter the Visigoths were the most loyal of Rome’s new Germanic allies within the empire, certainly when it came to defending the empire against the Huns – “That Visigothic settlement proved paramount to Europe’s future as had it not been for the Visigothic warriors who fought side by side with the Roman troops under general Flavius Aetius, it is perhaps possible that Attila would have seized control of Gaul, rather than the Romans being able to retain dominance”.

DID DOVAHHATTY DO RIGHT?

Among the last of the Roman chads…

RATING: 4 STARS****
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Dovahhatty – Unbiased History of Rome XVII: Imperial Wrath

(11) CONSTANTIUS II –
CONSTANTINIAN DYNASTY (EASTERN EMPIRE THEN WHOLE EMPIRE)
(337 – 361 AD: 24 YEARS 1 MONTH 25 DAYS)

And now we come to some special mention matched pairings, in which one emperor is similar to or echoed by another emperor in the Crisis of the Third Century. Also special mentions that while good, drop down a tier from top-tier to high-tier – often coinciding with a mixed or even negative reputation.

For Constantius II, I guess there was something to the name – there were three emperors with the name and they were all pretty decent. Granted, Constantius II wasn’t as good as the other two, which included his namesake grandfather and first Constantius. For that matter he wasn’t as good as his father Constantine the Great, although he was the only one of Constantine’s three sons worth a damn as emperor.

Constantius II has a mixed reputation but deserves his place among the good emperors for holding the empire together for almost two and a half decades, mostly in its eastern provinces but also the whole empire for about a third of his reign – despite his brothers fighting each other, usurpers, civil war, and Germanic barbarian tribes, all while waging war with the Persian Sassanid empire for most of his reign.

He and his brothers had succeeded their father as emperor, with Constantius reigning over the eastern third of the empire while his brothers Constantine II and Constans reigned over the western and middle thirds respectively. Constantius had played the leading role in doing the dirty work for their uncontested succession – the massacre of the princes, eliminating the other adult male members of the family as rivals to that succession.

His attention as eastern emperor was preoccupied foremost with constant warfare with the Persian Sassanids rather than the shenanigans of his brothers – Constantine II invaded Italy to usurp Constans but was defeated by Constans’s troops and killed instead, leaving only the two brothers maintaining an uneasy peace with each other until Constans was successfully usurped by the general Magnentius.

Constantius then fought one of Rome’s costliest civil wars, the civil war of 350-353 AD against Magnentius, defeating him at the decisive battle of Mursa Major in 351 AD, albeit the war dragged on until the final battle of Mons Seleucis in 353 AD. The battle of Mursa was one of the bloodiest battles in Roman history, bearing in mind that as a civil war the Romans lost soldiers on both sides. Contemporary writers lamented its losses as a disaster for the empire – with Eutropius opining those losses could have won triumphs from foreign wars and brought peace, while Zosimus believed they left the army so weakened that it could not counter barbarian incursions. Even modern academics have labelled the battle a pyrrhic victory for Constantius.

While perhaps an apt observation for civil war later that century and battles such as the Battle of Frigidus in 394 AD, it does seem overstated for Constantius – given that he successfully defeated the Alamanni at the Rhine frontier and the Quadi and Sarmatians across the Danube before having to turn his attention back to the east against a renewed Sassanid Persian threat. And for that matter, his junior emperor Julian was also able not only to defend the western empire but campaign across the Rhine, while Valentinian was able to robustly defend and campaign across the Rhine and Danube frontiers in his reign from 363 to 374 AD.

This negative observation of the civil war is mirrored by Wikipedia stating that Constantius was “unwilling to accept Magnentius as co-ruler”, an easy observation in hindsight, but it is difficult to see what else Constantius could have done or how his own position could have been secure if he had accepted Magnentius’ usurpation of his brother – and he demonstrated he was willing and able to compromise with usurpers where circumstances permitted, cutting a deal with another usurper Vetrantio (whose usurpation had effectively blocked further usurpation by Magnentius).

Anyway, his victory in the civil war left him sole ruler of the empire, although he appointed junior members of the far flung Constantinian family tree – whom had been children at the time of the massacre of the princes and thus avoided the purge – as junior emperor or caesar. Firstly Constantius Gallus in the eastern empire, who had to be, shall we say, written off, and then Julian in the western empire, who proved far more capable. Indeed, too capable, as civil war loomed between them but was fortunately averted when Constantius became gravely ill, naming Julian as his successor for the whole empire before he died.

DID DOVAHHATTY DO RIGHT?

I was pleased to see Dovahhatty did right by Constantius II, the only one of Constantine’s three sons inheriting the empire to be depicted as a chad. (We’ve seen Constantine III depicted as a virgin in my Top 10 Worst Roman Emperors – and Constans will be featured later). He also captured something of the weariness of Constantius II facing the challenges of the reign – as in the screenshot in my featured image. Youtuber Spectrum similarly ranked Constantius II among his ten most underrated emperors.

RATING: 4 STARS****
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Dovahhatty – Unbiased History of Rome: The Crisis of the Third Century

(12) GALLIENUS –
NON-DYNASTIC / CRISIS OF THE THIRD CENTURY
(253-268 AD: 15 YEARS – WESTERN EMPIRE AS CO-EMPEROR, THEN WHOLE EMPIRE)

“Don’t push me cause I’m close to the edge
I’m trying not to lose my head
It’s like a jungle sometimes
It makes me wonder how I keep from goin’ under”

That’s right – Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five’s The Message pretty much sums up the reign of Gallienus. One can easily imagine him rapping it, albeit with lyrics more contemporary to Rome – perhaps along the lines of Alemanni in the alley with a baseball bat.

Gallienus was a good emperor. It was just that he was faced with overwhelming circumstances that he largely inherited from his predecessors, none other than the height of the Crisis of the Third Century.

To quote Spectrum who similarly ranks him as a good emperor –
“He just happened to be caught up in a time when being good wasn’t enough. Gallienus is pretty much the definition of ‘Oh God, everything’s burning, everything’s on fire, and I’m just trying not to lose it!’…disease rampant, endless barbarian invasions, entire provinces seceding, and God knows how many usurpers. Under these circumstances, it’s a miracle he lasted fifteen years in power.”

Like Constantius II, he had a negative or mixed reputation, particularly among the Roman historians (although modern historians see him in a more positive light), hence my entry for him as the matching Crisis of the Third Century counterpart to Constantius – similarly attempting to hold the empire together against usurpers, civil war, and Germanic barbarian tribes, all while waging war with the Persian Sassanid empire in the east.

Of course, Constantius was more successful in that he held the empire together over a longer reign, but he faced less overwhelming circumstances or threats – and at fifteen years, Gallienus had the longest reign of any emperor during the Crisis of the Third Century, indeed one that compares quite well even to the reigns of other good emperors in better circumstances.

One could also propose other counterparts to Gallienus – Stilicho and Majorian also come to mind, with more similar fates to that of Gallienus. Indeed, in his Barbarians at the Gates episode, Dovahhatty has Stilicho sigh that he’s “feeling like Gallienus right now” with the crises faced by him.

I’ve seen a quip that Gallienus held the line, Claudius Gothicus turned the tide, and Aurelian beat the odds – a quip with which I tend to agree. On the other hand, one might snort – some line! He lost two thirds of the empire!

Two thirds that is, approximately speaking, with one third being the Gallic Empire that seceded in the west, and the other being the Palmyrene Empire that seceded in the east. However the latter is somewhat unfair to Gallienus. They may have been effectively independent, but during his reign the Palmyrenes were still loyal to Rome under their ruler Odaenathus and more limited in size. It was only after the death of Odaenathus – and Gallienus himself – that it became openly defiant under Zenobia and conquered Roman provinces, notably Egypt. Furthermore, Gallienus had little choice but to rely on the Palmyrenes to fight the Sassanid Persians after the Sassanids defeated and captured his father (and his co-emperor in the eastern empire). And choice or not, it seems a reasonable strategy, deflecting potential rebellion to your own defence (and effectively tallying up the losses on both sides as your wins) – and what’s more, it worked, defending the eastern provinces of the empire during his reign.

It was more his failure to win back the secession of the Gallic Empire which contributed to his negative reputation among Roman historians – with the Historia Augusta in particular implausibly presenting “him as a lover of luxury, who dressed in purple, sprinkled gold dust in his hair, and built castles of apples”.

Yes – he failed to win back the Gallic Empire led by the usurper Postumus, but that’s a combination of bad lack as well as that he had to deal with too many other usurpers and barbarian invasions at the same time. There’s a whole Wikipedia article titled Gallienus usurpers – and those are the ones we know about from a patchy historical record. Gallienus was the very definition of someone fighting on too many fronts against too many enemies with too few allies and too few forces – that last arising from an empire depleted in population and manpower by the Plague of Cyprian which raged during his reign.

I would venture to say that even the best emperors would have been hard pressed in those circumstances (as indeed were Claudius Gothicus and Aurelian after him) and all but a good emperor would have been completely overwhelmed.

Gallienus acceded to the throne as co-emperor of his father, effectively dividing rule of the western and eastern halves of the empire between them, with his father in the eastern empire waging war against the Sassanid Persians.

As it was, Gallienus successfully defended the Rhine and Danube borders from about 253 to 258, defeated the usurper Ingenuus in the Balkans, defeated an invasion of Italy to the outskirts of Rome itself by Alemanni and other Germanic tribes (safeguarding the empire from the Alemanni for another ten years), dealt with a Frankish invasion of Gaul and Hispania, faced the usurper Regalinus in the Balkans, became sole emperor when a Sassanid Persian invasion defeated and captured his father, dealt with the usurper Macrianus in the east, fought inconclusively against the Gallic Empire of the usurper Postumus, dealt with the usurper Aemilianus in Egypt, fought an invasion of the Balkans by Goths and other Germanic tribes, and fought the usurper Aureolus in Italy after Aureolus betrayed him and defected to Postumus.

And so it goes. More substantially, Gallienus is credited with military reforms to create a core of cavalry that could quickly respond to threats anywhere within the empire – cavalry that included as its commanders Claudius Gothicus and Aurelian, as well as being the impetus behind the Illyrian emperors who saved the empire.

In the end, however, it was too much like a jungle and Gallienus did indeed go under, assassinated by his troops as he besieged the usurper Aurelous in Italy.

DID DOVAHHATTY DO RIGHT?

I’m again pleased Dovahhatty bucked the classical criticisms of Gallienus to depict him as a chad, holding the line even as he is beleaguered by hostile forces on all sides – which as I noted he had Stilicho (aptly) invoke later. The violet eyes are a nice touch – inherited from his father Valerian, in turn a play on the Valyrian family of the Targaryens in Game of Thrones (or more precisely Song of Ice and Fire).

RATING: 4 STARS****
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EMPIRE SAVER? Well perhaps empire preserver would be a better ranking, since he held the line for his successors to save it.

Dovahhatty – Unbiased History of Rome XII: The Five Good Emperors

(13) LUCIUS VERUS –
NERVA-ANTONINE / FIVE GOOD EMPERORS (CO-EMPEROR WITH MARCUS AURELIUS)
(161 – 169 AD: 7 YEARS 11 MONTHS)

The mad lad or party boy adoptive brother and co-emperor of Marcus Aurelian everyone forgets about when they talk about the Five Good Emperors. In the words of Youtuber Spectrum – “Think of a Nero who can actually put in some work and you pretty much get this guy”, albeit I think that’s overstating the comparison with Nero.

Notably, the reign of Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus as co-emperors was the first time the Roman Empire was ruled by more than one emperor at the same time – an arrangement that would become increasingly common and indeed institutionalised in the later history of the empire.

His critics declaimed his luxurious lifestyle, literally partying it up almost everywhere he went – staying up till dawn feasting, gambling, and cavorting with actors and other disreputable favorites, including hot ‘low-born’ women such as his mistress Panthea.

In fairness, this is exactly how I would spend my time as Roman emperor and it is at least amusing to picture the Dionysian Lucius partying it up while his straightlaced Stoic adoptive brother Marcus Aurelius stands off to the side tut-tutting it all – with Lucius yelling out as he takes body shots off a hot slave girl, “Meditate this, Marcus!”.

The majority – and standout achievement – of his reign was his direction of yet another Roman war against Parthia. Apparently, “it was decided that Lucius should direct the Parthian War in person” as “he was stronger and healthier than Marcus…more suited to military activity” but that was somewhat belied by Marcus’ conduct of the Marcomannic Wars and suggestive of ulterior motives – “to restrain Lucius’s debaucheries, to make him thrifty, to reform his morals by the terror of war, to realize that he was an emperor”.

Predictably, he partied his way there, “lingering in the famed pleasure resorts of Pamphylia and Cilicia”, ultimately arriving at Antioch to manage the campaign and of course partying it up there. One can’t help but feel the accusations of glamorous lifestyle are overstated – as he had to whip the Syrian legions up into shape, being “on foot at the head of his army as often as on horseback” and personally inspecting “soldiers in the field and at camp, including the sick bay”.

Anyway, the war was a Roman victory, regaining control in Armenia and territory in Mesopotamia. Even if most of the success is credited to his subordinate generals (as it probably should be), he would hardly be the only emperor to rely on the victories of his generals. Once again, the Parthian royal city of Ctesiphon was sacked by Romans – as well as the old Seleucid royal city of Seleucia, the sack of which was not as well received by his contemporaries and which I attribute it to yet another party gone too far. Lucius shared the titles Armeniacus, Medicus and Parthicus Maximus with Marcus Aurelius for the victories.

Unfortunately, the Parthian War did have one dire consequence for the Romans – the Antonine Plague which the Roman soldiers brought back with them, which spread to the wider population and weakened the empire, particularly the army which was worst affected.

Of course, the Antonine Plague wasn’t Lucius’ fault, but neither was he around for the worst of its consequences – he returned to Rome for two years, partying it up but performing his official duties, and saw some initial action in the Marcomannic Wars before dying of illness. The Senate deified him as the Divine Verus.

DID DOVAHHATTY DO RIGHT?

Dovahhatty did do right – depicting Lucius as chad-brother to Marcus. I particularly like how he represented Lucius partying up by disco lights and mirror balls.

RATING: 4 STARS****
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Dovahhatty – Unbiased History of Rome: Diocletian’s Tetrarchy

(14) CARUS –
NON-DYNASTIC / CRISIS OF THE THIRD CENTURY
(282 – 283 AD: 10 MONTHS)

My special mention entry as Crisis of the Third Century counterpart mirroring Lucius Verus, with the similar standout achievement of his (brief) reign as a victorious campaign against the Persians, albeit taking up the campaign prepared by his predecessor Probus.

Indeed, it could be said he outdid Lucius’ Parthian War – as the active leader of a campaign by an empire still recovering from the nadir of the Crisis of the Third Century against the tougher Sassanids, albeit the Sassanids were beset by their own internal crisis and conflicts elsewhere. Also, prior to his Persian campaign and en route to it, he inflicted severe defeats on the Sarmatian and Quadi barbarian invaders at the Danube.

It might even be said that he equalled or even exceeded Trajan’s campaign against the Parthians (although the full extent of his success is unclear from the surviving sources) – annexing Mesopotamia, sacking the Persian royal city of Ctesiphon, and marched his soldiers beyond the Tigris river, thereby avenging all previous defeats of the Romans by the Sassanids and receiving the title of Persicus Maximus as well as his former Germanicus Maximus.

He was then reportedly struck by lightning – so probably assassinated – and like the similar conquests by Trajan, his Persian conquests were immediately relinquished by his successor and mediocre son, Numerian.

He gets some black marks for his possible complicity in the death of his predecessor Probus (as praetorian prefect at the time), his ‘dynasty’ consisting of his mediocre son Numerian and terrible son Carinus, and his final suppression of (and “haughty conduct towards”) the authority of the Senate (in notable contrast to his predecessors Tacitus and Probus).

DID DOVAHHATTY DO RIGHT?

One of the rare bald but bearded chads – although as usual Dovahhatty has an eye for detail as this seems to match up with coins and a possible bust for Carus. Note the purple he wears as praetorian prefect – which again I believe matches up to the imperial purple in the Praetorian uniforms I saw looking them up online. Also – that lightning strike is awesome animation.

RATING: 4 STARS****
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Dovahhatty – Unbiased History of Rome XVII: Imperial Wrath

(15) JULIAN –
CONSTANTINIAN DYNASTY
(361 – 363 AD: 1 YEAR 7 MONTHS 23 DAYS)

“Thou has conquered, Galilean”

Julian the Apostate – or as fellow Julian fans call him, Julian the Philosopher. Opinions tend to be divided on Julian, then and since, although I fall on the positive side of that divide.

I was tempted to nominate Julian for a wildcard entry in my top ten, in a similar romantic vein to Majorian for emperors fighting against the odds. Where Majorian strove to restore the western empire as its last great emperor, Julian strove to restore classical paganism as the last pagan emperor – and a large part of me wishes he had succeeded. It’s all I can do to stop myself yelling “This isn’t over! Pan isn’t dead! Julian the Apostate was right!” in churches.

It is his status as the last pagan emperor and his attempted revival of classical paganism for which he is best known – and definitively known, with subsequent Christians remembering him as apostate for having ‘abandoning’ Christianity.

Julian particularly appeals to modern sensibilities in religion, as he mostly dealt with Christianity not by persecution to which the imperial state had so often resorted in the past, but by mockery and tolerance, the latter essentially as a form of freedom of religion, albeit with preferential treatment for paganism as the official state religion. He even went so far as to allow the rebuilding of the Jewish Temple as a counterweight to Christianity – or as modern critics might say, to troll it – although nothing came of such plans, due to the cost and time involved.

However, Julian didn’t simply strive to restore classical paganism but also the classical principate of the empire, although the two were probably intertwined – in essence, he was a traditionalist, looking back to the golden age of Rome in the second century, the Rome of the Five Good Emperors, and sought to restore it through its leading institutions. In particular, Julian was an admirer of Marcus Aurelius and sought to emulate him, above all in a philosophical approach to being emperor. And as proverbial philosopher-kings go, Julian did pretty well – if anything, he erred on the side of being too philosophical.

What restoring the principate meant was eschewing the dominate – that autocratic style of government instituted by Diocletian and apotheosized by Constantine – and instead seeking to revive the principate, with the ideal rule as princeps or first among equals, engaging with the Senate and citizenry. He saw the royal court and imperial bureaucracy that had proliferated under the dominate as “inefficient, corrupt, and expensive”, dismissing thousands of “servants, eunuchs, and superfluous officials”. This too perhaps appeals to modern sensibilities.

Julian’s attempts at the revival of classical paganism and principate – as well as his rise to emperor and reign in general – are even more impressive as somewhat like Claudius he had to hide behind feigning or at least presenting harmlessness to the reigning members of the Constantinian dynasty and loyal faithfulness to the Christianity they had adopted. A nephew of Constantine the Great, Julian was one of the few members of the imperial family to survive the purges as a child in the reign of his cousin Constantius II but was effectively raised under house arrest or close supervision by Constantius, albeit in reasonably privileged circumstances and obviously with good education, given his philosophical studies and writings. Indeed, Julian is the emperor for whom we have the most surviving writings by his own hand.

Ultimately however, as you can see, I did not rank Julian in my top ten or even my top tier of emperors. One thing that has to count against such a ranking is the brevity of his reign – less than two years – which also probably undermined his attempts to restore classical paganism, reversed by his successors. If he had reigned a similar length to Constantius II or the emperors he sought to emulate like Marcus Aurelius, he might well have ranked higher and achieved more for the revival of classical paganism – but alas, it was not to be.

In fairness, like other emperors with similarly brief reigns in these special mentions, the brevity of his reign is offset by it being the capstone of his achievements prior to and resulting in him becoming emperor – in particular, as junior emperor or caesar for the western empire under Constantius II. Julian proved himself a capable military commander and tactician against Germanic barbarian raids into the empire, notably the Alamanni and Franks – firstly defending and repelling them from the empire, and then campaigning beyond the Rhine into German territory to subdue them.

Again, this is particularly impressive, as due to his background he had no prior military experience and instead acquired it through study of military texts or on the ground in campaign – the former depicted humorously by Dovahatty with Julian as a rare transformation from wojak to chad by sheer power of will.

Indeed, Julian did a little too well as junior emperor or caesar – with his troops declaring him augustus or emperor, he luckily averted civil war with Constantius II only through the fortunate timing of the latter’s death from illness, with the added bonus that the latter had to recognize there was no one other than Julian to succeed him as emperor.

Back to my ranking, apart from the brevity of his reign, there’s also the small fact that he did not succeed in restoring classical paganism, with all his attempts to do so reversed by his successors. Somewhat similarly to Majorian with the fall of the western Roman empire, it is not clear whether Julian could have decisively reversed the substitution of Christianity for classical paganism as the imperial religion, although a longer reign would almost certainly have stalled it for a time.

I’ve seen all sorts of contradictory arguments for this – ranging from Julian being too hardcore towards Christianity (not having “a little less venom and a little more tact”) to not being hardcore enough. Julian may well have added to this with a few apparent contradictions of his own – he was very philosophical in his approach to paganism, leaning heavily into Neo-Platonism, but there was also his participation in animal sacrifice, unpopular even among pagans.

Personally, the contradiction strikes me is his asceticism, reminiscent of Chesterton’s jibe at ascetic atheism in The Song of the Strange Ascetic – “of them that do not have the faith, and will not have the fun.” I mean, if you’re going to go pagan, go Dionysian or go home.

However, mostly I think that, again similarly to the situation of Majorian (and the Germanic states or influence within the western empire), that Christianity was simply too entrenched within the empire to be removed. For one thing, Christianity had an intellectual unity that the more amorphous paganism did not – indeed, there wasn’t really a coherent pagan ‘religion’ comparable to Christianity – as well as an institutional strength quite apart from its beliefs, as sociologist Rodney Stark has opined. Even Julian implicitly conceded the latter, as he sought to remodel pagan religion on Christianity, notably in its priesthood and public charity.

Youtuber Spectrum may well have summed it up best – “Great tactical dude, effective administrator, stupid-ass ideals – Christianity had some forty-odd years entrenching itself into the imperial fold. Did this guy think it was just going to go away, because he wanted it to?”

However, he was not quite the “great tactical dude” in the other fact that must detract from a higher ranking – and which also led directly to the brevity of his reign – namely his defeat and death in his ambitious campaign against the Sassanid Persians. It’s also why I’ve decided to rank him just lower than Lucius Verus and Carus, who after all led successful campaigns against the Parthians and Sassanids respectively.

He almost certainly would have been better off avoiding the campaign altogether but was another Roman undone by dreams of Alexander, albeit with the solid domestic motive of shoring up the support of the eastern army he had inherited from Constantius II. His tactical sense served him well enough at the outset of the campaign, which was initially successful but foundered as the army found itself in that common predicament of having to retreat from lack of supplies under constant attack.

Tactical skill born out of a textbook approach to military affairs and emulation of the past may have been all well and good against German barbarians, but the Persians were another matter, with the Sassanids and their scorched-earth tactics being very different from the Achaemenids of Alexander’s time or even the Parthians of Trajan’s. To the end however, Julian did not lack for personal courage – dying from a wound inflicted when he rushed out without his armor to pursue a Sassanid raid on the Roman camp.

DID DOVAHHATTY DO RIGHT?

Given that I’m a Julian stan, I’m not going to object to Dovahhatty depicting Julian as a chad. What’s more interesting is that Dovahhatty depicted him as a unique chad – the only chad in the Unbiased History of Rome to transform from wojak to chad through sheer force of will (and all that study of military textbooks). Yes – Hannibal also transformed into a chad but that’s because he was buffed by the gods to challenge Rome.

RANKING: 4 STARS****
B-TIER (HIGH TIER)
RATING: EMPIRE-BASER (or perhaps would-be restorer would be more apt?)

Dovahhatty – Unbiased History of Rome: Crisis of the Third Century

(16) VALERIAN –
NON-DYNASTIC / CRISIS OF THE THIRD CENTURY (EASTERN EMPIRE – CO-EMPEROR WITH HIS SON GALLIENUS)
(253 – 260: 6 YEARS 9 MONTHS)

My special mention entry as Crisis of the Third Century counterpart to Julian – similar in that his reign has also been defined by his defeat by the Sassanid Persians, although unlike Julian he was captured rather than mortally wounded in battle. Part of why it was so definitive is that he was the first emperor to be taken captive in battle, “causing shock and instability throughout the Roman empire” – as well as lurid tales of his fate at the hands of his captors.

There’s also a parallel with Julian in Valerian commanding the Roman forces on the Rhine prior to his accession as emperor, and even with Julian’s opposition to Christianity – although Valerian dealt with Christianity in the usual manner less appealing to modern sensibilities of imperial persecution prior to Christianity became an official religion.

But why does he rank as good emperor at all, you might ask – sharing a Sassanid Persian defeat with Julian, arguably leaving the eastern provinces of the empire in a much more precarious position than Julian’s defeat did, without any of Julian’s religious or administrative reform?

Well, Valerian did rule longer than Julian – nearly seven years, a miracle in the heart of the Crisis of the Third Century and the second longest reign after his son Gallienus in that period – having marched on Rome to restore the imperial authority that had collapsed and been usurped.

Valerian then almost immediately shared that imperial authority with Gallienus as co-emperor – and since the western and eastern halves of the empire were both in crisis, Valerian and Gallienus split the problems of the empire between them, Valerian taking the east while Gallienus took the west. Each held the line against overwhelming odds, with Valerian nearing and into his sixties.

Foremost among those odds for the eastern empire were the Sassanids, who had recently overthrown and taken over the Parthians in Persia, as well as proving far more dangerous to the Romans – attacking deeper into the Roman Empire than the Parthians ever had, reputed to have captured over thirty cities, including Antioch, one of the empire’s greatest cities.

Valerian was initially successful against the Sassanids, recovering Antioch and the province of Syria, but his problems were compounded by the Goths raiding deeper into the eastern provinces than any Germanic tribes ever had – with maritime raids along the Black Sea coastline and even to cities in Asia Minor.

Valerian got unlucky – “an outbreak of plague killed a critical number of legionaries” and the Sassanids attacked again. Valerian marched eastwards to engage them but was defeated and captured by them in the Battle of Edessa. The plague and defeat sorely depleted the defenses of the eastern provinces, but fortunately the Palmyrene client state under Odenathus stepped into the breach, albeit they would prove to be a bigger problem for the Romans soon.

Valerian never returned from his captivity, so at very least he lived out his days as a captive, possibly as a footstool to the Sassanid monarch Shapur. No, really – that was actually one of the tales told of him, indeed one of the better fates. There were other far more lurid fates attributed for him, with accounts of his death by Shapur forcing him to swallow molten gold (like the Parthians had done to the Roman general Crassus) or from being flayed alive. The latter even had the Persians add insult to injury by stuffing the skin as a grisly trophy in their temple – until it was retrieved for cremation and burial by the Romans after a subsequent victory over the Persians to avenge Valerian’s defeat.

DID DOVAHHATTY DO RIGHT?

A beleaguered chad like his son Gallienus – also with violet eyes as a play on his name Valerian with the violet-eyed Valyrian dynasty of the Targaryens (in the books)

RATING: 4 STARS****
B-TIER (HIGH TIER)
EMPIRE-SAVER – well he tried, anyway, arguably holding the line long enough for his successors to save it.

Dovahhatty – Unbiased History of Rome XII: The Five Good Emperors

(17) NERVA –
NERVA-ANTONINE / FIVE GOOD EMPERORS
(96-98: 1 YEAR 4 MONTHS 9 DAYS)

And now we come to the last of the Five Good Emperors in my rankings, who ironically was the first of them in historical sequence. As that implies, his inclusion in the Five Good Emperors overstates him as a good emperor – he was decent enough, but really only as a senatorial caretaker or placeholder to ensure the stability of imperial succession from his assassinated predecessor to his successor. But what a successor!

The predecessor was Domitian – an emperor I rank as good, indeed much better than Nerva, but who undeniably inflamed the senatorial and aristocratic hostility that saw him assassinated, which might well have resulted in a succession crisis or civil war but for Nerva. Nerva was declared emperor by the Senate – although he was almost 66 years of age, he had a lifetime of distinguished service under Nero and the Flavian dynasty.

The successor was of course Trajan and really it was only this succession that ranks Nerva among good emperors, let alone among the Five Good Emperors – or let alone gives his name to the historical label of the Nerva-Antonine dynasty.

That Nerva shares those conventional historical labels of the Five Good Emperors or the Nerva-Antonine Dynasty is definitely inflated. Macchiavelli coined the term of the Five Good Emperors, while Gibbon picked up that ball and ran with it. Frankly, the term should be the Four Good Emperors (with special appearance by Lucius Verus), dropping Nerva altogether – and it should also be the Trajanic-Antonine dynasty.

Otherwise, he wasn’t that good. Ancient historians loved him as “a wise and moderate emperor” but that’s not surprising as ancient historians were of the senatorial class and he was favorable to the Senate, in marked contrast to the mutual hostility between his predecessor Domitian and the Senate.

Modern historians on the other hand have assessed him less favorably. Brief as it was, his reign caused financial difficulties – particularly heart-breaking after the financial prudence and revaluation of the currency under Domitian. His reign was also “marred” by his “inability to assert control over the Roman army”. Even his greatest achievement – his nomination of a successor (and accordingly “the peaceful transition of power after his death”) – was forced upon him by the revolt of the Praetorian Guard.

Youtuber Spectrum summed it up – “The first of the Five Good Emperors, but let’s be real here, he wasn’t a good emperor. He sent the empire into financial troubles and his rule was marked by the fact that the army hated him. The only good thing he did was choosing Trajan as his successor and that’s the only reason he’s one of the Five Good Emperors. It was a good pick for sure though”.

I think that’s a little too caustic, hence my ranking of Nerva as a good emperor, albeit towards the tail end of good emperors. Spectrum and other critics underestimate the importance of succession. Yes, his only real achievement might have been ensuring the peaceful transition to a good successor, but that’s still an impressive achievement, given how many Roman emperors screwed even that up.

DID DOVAHHATTY DO RIGHT?

The first of the five chad emperors – as you can see, Dovahhatty also leans heavily into Nerva’s adoption of Trajan as his most chad quality. The highlight actually occurred in the preceding Pax Romana video when Domitian addresses the Senate about Nerva – “here stands the only reason why I don’t kill you all right f**king now!”

RATING: 4 STARS****
B-TIER (HIGH TIER)
EMPIRE-BASER

Dovahhatty – Unbiased History of Rome: Crisis of the Third Century

(18) TACITUS
NON-DYNASTIC / CRISIS OF THE THIRD CENTURY
(275-276: 7 MONTHS)

No, not the historian that everyone knows when they hear the name, if only for his famous quote about making a desert and calling it peace, but the emperor no one knows.

In fairness, we are coming to the tail end of emperors I rank as good, but Tacitus was pretty decent, even with his brief reign, albeit brief reigns were typical for emperors in the Crisis of the Third Century.

I’ve ranked Tacitus as matching entry for Nerva as his non-Crisis counterpart – both were essentially (elderly) senatorial caretaker or placeholder emperors, enabling the stable succession of imperial authority from an assassinated predecessor to a more capable successor.

In the case of Tacitus, his assassinated predecessor was one of the greatest emperors of all, the emperor who did the most to bring the empire back from the abyss – Aurelian. The usual account is that the army and Praetorian Guard, remorseful for the assassination of Aurelian, deferred the choice of imperial successor to the Senate – who chose Tacitus. Although the historical sources present him as elderly at the time, he had a distinguished career in public office. Not surprisingly, he restored the Senate’s authority in imperial administration.

Stable succession of imperial authority was critical at this time – although Aurelian had mostly brought the empire out of the Crisis, it would have been easy for the empire to slide right back into chaos after his assassination but for that stable succession through Tacitus.

In fairness, the succession wasn’t as stable as it might have been at the other end and more a matter of good fortune than design on the part of Tacitus. Tacitus died unexpectedly, either from illness or assassination (as the sources differ) – hence the brevity of his reign – but fortunately, albeit after a brief usurpation by his half-brother Florianus, he was succeeded by a more capable emperor with a longer reign, Probus, who consolidated the recovery of the empire from the Crisis.

It was a close call where he might have ranked above Nerva, with the latter just winning out through the adoption of Trajan as successor – and by design rather than chance. On the other hand, Tactitus was more than mere imperial placeholder. This was still the Crisis of the Third Century after all, as the barbarian tribes continued to remind the empire by raiding it – and Tacitus won a victory over tribes raiding the Danubian frontier, gaining himself the title Gothicus Maximus. He was en route to deal with further barbarian invasions of Gaul by the Franks and Alamanni when he died.

DID DOVAHHATTY DO RIGHT?

Yes he did, with Tactitus suitably a grey-haired chad. On the other hand, the misspelling of legionaries in the caption is annoying…

RATING: 4 STARS****
B-TIER (HIGH TIER)
EMPIRE BASER

Dovahhatty – Unbiased History of Rome XIII: The Severan Dynasty

(19) PERTINAX
NON-DYNASTIC / YEAR OF FIVE EMPERORS
(193 AD: 2 MONTHS 27 DAYS)

Oof – reigns don’t get much briefer than that. We come now to the first of two emperors right on my dividing line between good emperors and bad ones, although I will defend both that line and these last two emperors being on the good side of it, albeit only just (hence their three-star and mid-tier ranking).

Poor Pertinax – he essentially tried to pull off a Nerva, but was unlucky to be faced with a more aggressive and frankly out of control Praetorian Guard. Indeed, in terms of his brief administration, he was better than Nerva, particularly in financial reform, but just didn’t get the same chance Nerva did.

Like Nerva (and Tacitus), Pertinax succeeded an assassinated predecessor – in this case (and good riddance), Commodus. Born the son of a freed slave, Pertinax had risen through the ranks of the army, notably in the Roman-Parthian War of 161-166, to a career as provincial governor of a number of provinces and urban prefect of Rome. It was as the latter that the Praetorian Guard hurried to proclaim him as emperor after the assassination of Commodus, the first in what came to be called the Year of Five Emperors.

And for someone thrust into the position, Pertinax took a damn good swing at it. The most pressing issue was economic reform for an empire left with a treasury emptied by the profligacy of Commodus. Pertinax even emulated Domitian, reforming and revaluing the currency.

He managed to pay the Praetorian Guard off their expected ‘donations’ (or bribes) – by selling off Commodus’ booty (in both senses of the word, as it included pleasure slaves). However, he didn’t pay them enough – because of the aforementioned empty treasury – and that was compounded by him attempting to impose some semblance of military discipline on them as well.

You can guess how well that turned out for Pertinax. Not well, in short, as the Praetorian Guard descended on his palace. Rather than flee, Pertinax attempted to reason with them, appealing to their decency and service to the empire as well as the empty treasury – but of course being the Praetorian Guard, they killed him instead and proceeded to auction off the imperial throne.

It says something about Pertinax that he has consistently had a good historical reputation, even almost immediately after his assassination – probably because everyone deplored the Praetorian Guard.

The emperor who ultimately won out in the Year of Five Emperors, Septimius Severus, had Pertinax deified and commemorated, as well as executing the assassins and replacing the Praetorian Guard with loyal soldiers.

Historian Cassio Dio upheld him as “an excellent and upright man” who displayed “not only humaneness and integrity in the imperial administrations, but also the most economical management and the most careful consideration for the public welfare”. However, he did acknowledge that some called out Pertinax’s decision to reason with the Praetorian Guard as “senseless” – and that Pertinax might have been better to substitute a more tempered approach for the speed with which he tried to reform the imperial government.

So I’m not the only one to hold the Pertinax line. Writer Sophia McDougall even used his reign for the point of divergence for her alternate history novel Romanitas – “the plot against Pertinax was thwarted, and Pertinax introduced a series of reforms that would consolidate the Roman Empire to such a degree that it would still be a major power in the 21st century”.

DID DOVAHHATTY DO RIGHT?

Yes, he did – depicting Pertinax as a chad. The scene where Pertinax attempts to reason with the Praetorian Guard is one of my favorites – for a moment, you think he’s actually going to succeed in appealing to their better judgement but then it zooms in so you just know one of them’s going to stab him in the back…

RANKING: 3 STARS***
C-TIER (MID-TIER)
EMPIRE-BASER. Well, he tried to be – and he would have succeeded but for those meddling Praetorian Guards.

Dovahhatty – Unbiased History of Rome: Crisis of the Third Century

(20) MAXIMINUS THRAX –
NON-DYNASTIC / CRISIS OF THE THIRD CENTURY
(235-238 AD: 3 YEARS 3 MONTHS)

Maximinus I, nicknamed Maximinus Thrax for his Thracian origin – or as I like to call him, Max Thrax, the archetypal barracks emperor. Also second of two emperors right on my dividing line between good emperors and bad ones – I will defend my Pertinax-Thrax line!

I will also defend that Maximinus Thrax was on the good side of that line separating good emperors from bad, albeit only just.

Proposing Max Thrax as a good emperor, even borderline, might seem odd. As stated, he was the archetypal barracks emperor – and also the archetypal Crisis of the Third Century emperor, particularly as his reign is often considered to mark the start of the Crisis, proclaimed by his troops as emperor after the army assassinated his predecessor, Severus Alexander.

Furthermore, he is often portrayed as a bad emperor, indeed, a cruel despot – not least by the Historia Augusta, which also portrayed him as a giant over 8 feet tall. The Roman historian Herodian didn’t quite go that far, but did describe him as man of “frightening appearance and colossal size”. So who’s going to tell him he’s a bad emperor? You? I don’t think so.

Which, by the way, was pretty much the attitude of the Senate towards him, so they conspired in plots to assassinate him and proclaim other candidates for emperor, leading to the so-called Year of Six Emperors, outdoing the Year of Four Emperors and the Year of Five Emperors.

A good part of this was usual Senatorial snobbery towards a provincial of low birth who had risen through the ranks of the army, not even a true Roman but a barbarian – hence that Thrax title. However, they were also simply scared sh*tless of this man-mountain, particularly as Max Thrax more than reciprocated their hostility after their plots and other proclaimed emperors failed.

If Rome wouldn’t come to the mountain, then the mountain was coming to Rome – Max Thrax marched on Rome, Sulla-like, with his legions. Fortunately for the Senate, he was baulked by the city of Aquileia, which closed its gates against him – and he was assassinated by his mutinous, starving troops when the siege bogged down, having never set foot in Rome during his reign.

All of which seems to add to the oddity of my proposal for him as a good emperor but my proposal essentially arises for the reason that he was mostly too busy to be bothered with Rome for his reign of three years – doing what he did best, leading his legions in nearly constant campaigning to defend the empire at its frontiers, despite the Senate’s shenanigans which included trying to kill him on campaign. That and the small matter that he was easily the best of the emperors in the Year of Six Emperors.

Of course, the costs of his campaigning, as well as the heavy-handed harsh nature of his rule in the nature of military discipline, led to what he is usually criticized for as emperor – debasing the currency, excessive taxation and lavishing funds on the army.

But – and this is where my proposal comes in – it was effective against the Germanic barbarian tribes at the frontier. He defeated the Alamanni, taking the title of Germanicus Maximus – and campaigned deep into Germany itself, to the furthest extent of any Roman campaign in Germany, defeating a German tribe at the Battle of Harzhorn beyond the river Weser located in the modern German state of Saxony.

Wikipedia notes this achievement of “securing the German frontier, at least for a while” – but personally I think this understates that Maximinus’ campaigning seems to have secured the German frontier for a substantial period, remaining quiet and arguably buying the empire precious breathing space and time at that frontier in its crisis.

His achievements went beyond his campaigns on and beyond the German frontier. He was at the Danubian frontier with his legions fighting the Dacians and Sarmatians before marching on Rome – and his achievements may have extended further yet, as apparently Israeli archaeologists identified his name on a milestone in the Golan Heights, suggesting a massive renovation project during his rule on those roads.

DID DOVAHHATTY DO RIGHT?

Who’s going to tell this man-mountain of an emperor he’s not a chad? You? I don’t think so. And neither is Dovahhatty who depicted him – accurately – as a chad. Dovahhatty also follows the Historia Augusta as depicting Max Thrax as a literal giant in size.

I do love Dovahhatty’s caption for the citizens of Aquileia as Max is killed by his solders and the siege is lifted – “Why didn’t we let him through, again?”

RATING: 3 STARS***
C-TIER (MID-TIER)
EMPIRE-BASER

TOP 10 BEST ROMAN EMPERORS (SPECIAL MENTION) – RANKINGS ROLL CALL

A-TIER (TOP TIER)

(1) CLAUDIUS

(2) VESPASIAN

(3) TIBERIUS

(4) DOMITIAN

(5) ANTONINUS PIUS

(6) MARCIAN

(7) TITUS

(8) CLAUDIUS GOTHICUS

(9) CONSTANTIUS

(10) CONSTANTIUS III

B-TIER (HIGH TIER)

(11) CONSTANTIUS II

(12) GALLIENUS

(13) LUCIUS VERUS

(14) CARUS

(15) JULIAN

(16) VALERIAN

(17) NERVA

(18) TACITUS

C-TIER (MID TIER)

(19) PERTINAX

(20) MAXIMINUS THRAX

My Pertinax-Thrax line right on the dividing line between good and bad emperors

Dovahhatty – Unbiased History of Rome XIX: The Fall of Rome

(3) JOANNES –
THE OTHER GOOD USURPER (THEODOSIAN DYNASTY: WESTERN EMPIRE)
(423-425 AD: 1 YEAR 6 MONTHS)

That’s right – I’m going there. I’m ranking Joannes as a good usurper, the only other good usurper in the classical empire apart from Vetranio.

Of course, it helps that the emperor he was usurping was none other than Valentinian III (and the Theodosian dynasty in general), one of the worst emperors (and the worst dynasty). Indeed, although I ranked him as fifth worst emperor, I’m open to arguments for him as the worst.

So Joannes would have been better than Valentinian III. Hell, Caligula’s horse would have been better than Valentinian III. It’s not a stretch to think that almost anyone else instead of Valentinian III would not only have been a better emperor, but meant that the western empire lasted longer.

And it’s not a stretch to think that Joannes would have been a decent emperor in his own right. At very least, one anticipates that he would have been better for Aetius (and hence the empire), reciprocating the loyalty that he was able to command from Aetius rather than assassinating Aetius as Valentinian did (after Aetius had saved the empire from Attila the Hun).

“The events of Joanne’s reign are as shadowy as its origins” due to our surviving historical records but his claim as western emperor occurred after that happy event for the western empire, the death of Honorius, when the eastern emperor Theodosius II did not immediately announce a successor.

Although it wasn’t so much his claim as such – in that brief bright shining light of opportunity, the patrician Castinus elevated him, a senior civil servant, as emperor. And at least according to the historian Procopius, it was a good choice, praising him as “both gentle and well-endowed with sagacity and thoroughly capable of valorous deeds.”

He was pretty decent, just not lucky. And unlike other usurpers – and like the other good usurper in my rankings – he didn’t kill the emperor he was usurping – who was in any event 5 years of age and in Constantinople at the time.

But of course the Theodosian dynasty wasn’t done screwing things up for the empire, no matter which half of the empire it did that from – instead of coming to an agreement with Joannes, Theodosius II proclaimed Valentinian III as caesar, “undoubtedly influenced by Valentinian’s mother Galla Placidia”.

And of course you know that meant war – civil war, between the eastern empire seeking to enthrone Valentinian as western emperor and the western empire under Joannes seeking to retain his throne – at the worst possible time when both empires needed everything they had against the barbarians at or inside their gates.

Theodosius II was not the only one screwing over the western empire to dethrone Joannes. The weaselly Bonifacius had previously screwed over the western empire’s campaigns against German barbarians in Spain because of his bitter rivalry with Castinus who led those campaigns, so no prizes for guessing what his attitude was towards Joannes, the emperor that Castinus had elevated to the throne.

Unfortunately, after screwing over the western empire in Spain, Bonifacius had somehow managed to fail upwards and acquire command of north Africa “in dubious circumstances” to screw the empire over from there, cutting off the grain shipments to Rome upon which the western empire depended.

Don’t worry – Bonifacius would continue screwing over the western empire after this as well, effectively with his renegade private empire in Africa, in the three man contest with Aetius and Felix that essentially characterized the western empire under Valentinian III. He ultimately lost north Africa to the Vandals (with some sources reporting that he had invited them there) and died from a wound in battle against Aetius in Italy. Good riddance too late.

And Joannes just seemed to have a string of bad luck – with an uprising or uprisings in Gaul, as well as an expedition to Africa, no doubt prompted by and to retaliate against Bonifacius, the outcome of which is not recorded but was presumably unsuccessful.

Joannes had been proclaimed emperor in Rome but moved his base of operations to Ravenna in a ballsy move, “knowing full well that the Eastern Empire would strike from that direction”. However, he did have an ace in the hole which he now played – sending Aetius on a mission to seek military help from the Huns, with whom Aetius had lived as a hostage earlier and had good relations. Ironically, Aetius mostly relied on the Huns as allies, before having to save the western empire from them.

In the meantime, the eastern empire sent its forces westwards, by land and sea, ultimately capturing Ravenna – the sources vary whether they did so outright or whether one of their captured leaders managed to convince the garrison of Ravenna to betray the city. Joannes was captured and killed.

Frankly, Theodosius II and the empire would have been better served by coming to an agreement with Joannes rather than enthroning Valentinian III. I mean, it’s like the meme – Theodosius II was mostly useless and basically slept through everything else falling apart in the western empire – but this is when he wakes up and does something?

“Three days after Joannes’ death, Aetius returned at the head of a substantial Hunnic army”. Three days! Still, Aetius was able to put the Hunnic army to good use spooking Galla Placidia, now in Italy with her useless son in train and as his regent, to make Aetius magister militum or military commander of the western empire.

As it was, even with all the odds stacked against him – the forces of the eastern empire and Bonifacius’ rogue state of north Africa cutting off Rome’s grain – Joannes did remarkably well. As historian Adrian Goldsworthy stated, “it took a hard-fought campaign by strong elements of the East Roman army and navy, in addition to a fair dose of betrayal,” to defeat Joannes.

DID DOVAHHATTY DO RIGHT?

Yeah – Joannes was something of the quintessential wojak. I just love the startled look on his face when being proclaimed emperor in my feature image (with Honorius’ body having been dragged outside the palace for dramatic effect as backdrop).

RATING: 3 STARS***
X-TIER (WILD TIER)

Dovahhatty – Unbiased History of Rome XVII: Imperial Wrath

(2) VETRANIO –
THE GOOD USURPER (CONSTANTINIAN DYNASTY – WESTERN EMPIRE)
(350: 9 MONTHS 24 DAYS)

Almost all usurpers in the Roman empire were by definition ‘bad’. Well, the unsuccessful usurpers that is, not the ones who successfully upheld their claim and became or were regarded as legitimate emperors throughout the empire accordingly. To adapt Clint Eastwood’s line in Hang ‘Em High, when you usurp an emperor, you better look at usurping him right.

Or at least learn to read the room – which is what got Vetranio his ranking as ‘good’, a ranking I award to only two usurpers. It also got him a happy ending – rare among usurpers or indeed in the later empire in general.

It helps that, like my other good usurper, he did not kill the emperor he was usurping – or indeed did not usurp an emperor but rather another usurper.

In part I attribute that to his origin in the province of Moesia and position as governor of Illyria at the time he was an usurper – both part of that bedrock of the so-called Illyrian emperors who saved the empire and mostly ruled it for a few centuries.

That might be a romantic notion on my part based on my fondness for those emperors – but what isn’t a romantic notion is that he didn’t really push his imperial claim to any great extent. Rather, the sources present him as a counter-usurper against another usurper, Magnentius, who had killed and usurped Constans as western emperor, and was facing off against Constans’ brother Constantius in the eastern empire.

Or in modern parlance, usurping to troll Magnentius – and more importantly, an imperial c*ck-blocker if you will, stopping Magnentius from sticking it any further eastwards into Illyria.

He was asked to do so by Constantina, the sister of Constans – usually inferred to be on the basis of protecting herself and her family from her brother’s fate, but also speculated to involve political ambitions of her own.

Mind you, Vetranio fluctuated as usurper, at one point genuinely seeming to ally with Magnentius against Constantius, presumably for them to be co-emperors of the western empire.

However, when Vetranio met with Constantius and Constantius successfully appealed to have the Illyrian troops acclaim him as sole emperor by way of a stirring speech, “Vetranio threw himself on the ground and begged Constantius’ clemency”.

And in that rare happy ending, “the emperor gently raised the aged general by the hand, honoring him with the name of father, and gave him instant pardon” – with Vetranio then living peacefully in happy retirement.

I agree with the assessment of Spectrum – “You know, this guy knew his place. The only reason he made himself emperor was to stop another usurper at the request of the imperial family, and then, when time came for him to relinquish his power, he did. He didn’t give in to powerlust. I can respect that.”

DID DOVAHHATTY DO RIGHT?

A rare exception to the usual depictions of Romans as chads, virgins or wojaks, Dovahhatty instead portrays Vetranio as the Spurdo meme (originating from a Finnish cartoon character) – and as that equally rare beast, the good usurper bowing to Constantius II.

RATING: 3 STARS***
X-TIER (WILD TIER)

Dovahhatty – Unbiased History of Rome: Diocletian’s Tetrarchy

(1) ULPIA SEVERINA –
FIRST AND LAST EMPRESS OF THE CLASSICAL ROMAN EMPIRE
(275 AD: 5-11 WEEKS – 6 MONTHS?)

Ulpia Severina – Lady Restorer of the World, first and last empress of the classical Roman Empire.

Or probably not according to the consensus of historiography, since her ‘reign’ as widow of Aurelian really boils down to a few coins minted in her name.

As such, she is my one honorable mention that does not appear in the Wikipedia list of Roman emperors at all, so obviously she’s not an usurper either. Well, at least not in the literal sense, but perhaps in the historiographical sense that some historians have metaphorically usurped her claim to the throne for her.

However, I prefer the romantic speculation of her as first and last empress of the Roman Empire – similar to my romantic fondness for the legend of Pope Joan, or for Joshua Norton as self-proclaimed First and Last Emperor of the United States (and Protector of Mexico).

After all, the eastern Roman empire has its reigning empresses, even if only a few of them. The eastern Roman empire also had a number of powerful women running things behind the throne, or beside it as imperial consorts, as did the classical Roman empire, although for some reason they seem to loom larger in the history of the eastern Roman empire – looking at you, Theodora. So why not one reigning empress in the classical empire?

Also, if anyone deserves that title, it’s Ulpia Severina as the wife of Aurelian – and widow after his assassination. Little is known about her – including when she was born, when she married Aurelian or when she was proclaimed as augusta (although the last may well have coincided with his triumphs celebrating his defeat and reclamation of the Palmyrene and Gallic Empires). The surviving literary sources do not discuss her at all, except for allusions to Aurelian’s wife in the Historia Augusta.

The only reliable evidence to her at all is a “scant number of inscriptions and coins”, confirming that she was indeed Aurelian’s wife and held the title of Augusta – and it’s from some unusual examples of those coins, minted in her name in 275 AD, that gives rise to speculation that she reigned in her own name as widow of Aurelian in the brief interregnum period between his assassination and the proclamation of Tacitus as his successor (originally thought to have been anywhere up to six months but now thought to be somewhere between five to eleven weeks).

DID DOVAHHATTY DO RIGHT?

If indeed she did reign in her own name, then in the eloquent words of Dovahhatty, she did “absolutely f*ck all, refusing to take advantage of her husband’s death and just printing coins for fun while waiting for a successor to be chosen” – coin mints go “brrr!” as Dovahhatty captioned her in the style of the meme.

And she did it awesomely – don’t you diss my empress, Dovahhatty! She also had a daughter with Aurelian, whose name is not known to recorded history – and both of them disappear from the historical record after the accession of Tacitus.

As for her depiction, Dovahatty did that right in the style of the ideal girlfriend or ideal GF meme – with a Sol Invictus mask to match that of her husband.

RATING:
X-TIER (WILD TIER)

Dovahhatty – Unbiased History of Rome: Crisis of the Third Century

As I said, I’m ranking all the Roman emperors (until 476 AD) – and between my Top 10 Best Roman Emperors and twenty special mentions, I’ve ranked the thirty emperors I consider as ‘good’ emperors, right up to the dividing line between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ emperors or what I’ve dubbed my Pertinax-Thrax line.

However, the good emperors don’t quite end there – it’s time to take pause and squeeze out a few honorable mentions for imperial claimants that don’t quite have the same authenticity or legitimacy as the emperors in my top ten or special mentions, but which I would still rank as ‘good’ (albeit in my x-tier or ‘wild’ tier).

Yes – we’re talking usurpers or at least those imperial claimants generally labelled as usurpers with the notable exception of my first honorable mention. Not surprisingly, I have generally ranked usurpers dishonorable mention as ‘bad’ emperors – usurpers by definition tend to be ‘bad’ – but there were literally a couple of ‘good’ usurpers I have ranked as honorable mention. Yes – that’s a spoiler that I was only able to squeeze out three honorable mentions (my first honorable mention and two usurpers).

The term usurper itself is to some extent a question of degree in the Roman Empire, with the primary distinction being between successful usurpers and unsuccessful usurpers – the former upholding their claim as emperor, and the latter, well, not doing so, usually also ending with their defeat and death.

“A large number of emperors commonly considered as legitimate began their rule as usurpers, revolting against the previous legitimate emperor”.

Indeed, usurpation and civil war tended to be the order of the day for the Roman empire. While the imperial government itself was rarely called into question, “individual emperors often faced unending challenges in the form of usurpation and perpetual civil wars”.

“From the rise of Augustus, the first Roman emperor, in 27 BC to the sack of Rome in AD 455, there were over a hundred usurpations or attempted usurpations (an average of one usurpation or attempt about every four years). From the murder of Commodus in 192 until the fifth century, there was scarcely a single decade without succession conflicts and civil war”.

As I said at the outset of ranking all the emperors, there is the issue of whom I rank as emperors – even with my ground rule of only ranking the emperors of the ‘classical empire’ prior to 476 AD – given the list of claimants to that title. As historian Adrian Goldsworthy points out, that’s a list which 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 new or unknown claimants.

So I’ve gone by Wikipedia’s list of Roman emperors, but I reserved the right to consider the entries noted to be of more dubious legitimacy as honorable or dishonorable mentions – hence these honorable mentions that, with the exception of my first honorable mention in a special category of its own, are for those entries in the Wikipedia list which are noted as being of “ambiguous legitimacy” or “varying ascribed status”.