Who's the best Roman emperor including Byzantine emperors

[lfromnj]

I would probably go with Aurelian considering what he managed to do in 5 years. Managing to hold back multiple Barbarian invasions,setting the stage to end the Crisis of the 3rd century, reuniting an empire which didn't split into two but 3 separate parts all within 5 years. Generally forgotten today besides his namesake walls surrounding Rome. He also managed to set some monetary policy to fix part of what the Severans did even if it mostly failed.

[Obama-Biden Democrat]

I would say Constantine. He reclaimed back the holy city of Rome for centuries, took back Italy, parts of the Balkans, North Africa, and even parts of Spain.

[Orser67]

Augustus, who established the empire and, just as importantly, set a template on how to rule that generally served the empire well for 250+ years

[lfromnj]

I would say Constantine. He reclaimed back the holy city of Rome for centuries, took back Italy, parts of the Balkans, North Africa, and even parts of Spain.

Do you mean Justinian lol?

He was highly overrated and often used as a Byzantine emperor because his historian aka Procopius was one of the last historians of antuquity. He did manage to take back Rome after 560 but it more or less wasn't under full Byzantine control after a century. The only real useful conquest he did was probably Africa which he did quickly due to lucky use of heavy Calvary against the Vandals by his generals. The Spain parts were gone after a few decades. It wasn't even as if Rome was the holy city because the Pentarchy had most of the "holy cities" in the East.

[Badger]

Augustus

[lfromnj]

Augustus

Yeah it is tough to deny Augustus. He however did have the fortune of managing to live so long unlike most emperors.

[Obama-Biden Democrat]

I would say Constantine. He reclaimed back the holy city of Rome for centuries, took back Italy, parts of the Balkans, North Africa, and even parts of Spain.

Do you mean Justinian lol?

He was highly overrated and often used as a Byzantine emperor because his historian aka Procopius was one of the last historians of antuquity. He did manage to take back Rome after 560 but it more or less wasn't under full Byzantine control after a century. The only real useful conquest he did was probably Africa which he did quickly due to lucky use of heavy Calvary against the Vandals by his generals. The Spain parts were gone after a few decades. It wasn't even as if Rome was the holy city because the Pentarchy had most of the "holy cities" in the East.

Yes, Justinian lol

[Statilius the Epicurean]

Nero, of course.

Beloved by the common people, check.
Encouraged artistic flourishing, check.
Innovative counter-cyclical spending on public works during a recession, check.
Banned barbaric gladiator fights and the killing of wild animals in the circus, check.
Pissed off the Senate by passing laws protecting the rights of slaves, check.

The one black mark against his reign is that he executed Lucan before he finished the Pharsalia. But since he was implicated in a plot against him, I can just about forgive Nero for that. (The Christian persecution stuff is likely made up.)

[Relm]

Justinian and Augustus are the clear favourites whenever this gets brought up and for good reason.

Augustus kept the empire stable despite fighting almost half a dozen civil wars in his life time. Though he lived a long time he never got couped or assassinated like the ones who came immediately after him (literally all of them until Vespasian). The only "failed" policy he ever pushed was him trying to push a morality law to crack down on prostitutes that ended up in the banishment of his own daughter, everything else was great.

Justinian took an empire torn in two and took large swaths of it back. Had it not been for the plague that befell his empire even with the travesty that was his heirs reign it is likely that his conquests would have held and the Persians fought off.


Those two juggernauts aside there are some great choices however:

Aurelian - Put the empire back together even if not all of it can be directly attributed to him, but died very quick after doing it (5 years total was his reign) so hard to judge how he would have fared in the long term.

Trajan - Saw the empire at it's greatest extent but not much is actually known about his reign or him.

Constantine - Transitioned the Empire to a slightly stabler system and Christianity while establishing it's second capital.

Pius, Aurelius, Hadrian - part of the five good emperors along with nerva and trajan, all with their own strongpoints and lowpoints (especially hadrian who was a mixed bag) but I can't be bothered giving a synopsis for them.

Basil II - You don't get a nickname like "The Bulgar Slayer" without being a badass. Oversaw the Byzantine golden age while living a substantially long time (if I'm recalling correctly the top 4 reigns are him, constantine, justinian, and augustus)

Alexius I, Manuel II, John/Ioannas I Komnenos - all three ruled in succession, used the crusades to take back land in the Balkans and Anatolia. Of the three Alexius is the most well known, but the conquests and utter devestation Manuel II brought upon the magyars and other balkan territories were the most long lasting and beneficial to the empire long-term.

Heraclius - had Mohammad came to Jerusalem even 5 years later than he did, this man would have been solidified up there with Justinian and Augustus.

There are others who's names could be thrown out of course but here's my run down of who I'd list as the main candidates.

[RINO Tom]

Augustus, pretty obviously, but I have always had a fondness for Diocletian for some reason.

[lfromnj]

Justinian and Augustus are the clear favourites whenever this gets brought up and for good reason.

Augustus kept the empire stable despite fighting almost half a dozen civil wars in his life time. Though he lived a long time he never got couped or assassinated like the ones who came immediately after him (literally all of them until Vespasian). The only "failed" policy he ever pushed was him trying to push a morality law to crack down on prostitutes that ended up in the banishment of his own daughter, everything else was great.

Justinian took an empire torn in two and took large swaths of it back. Had it not been for the plague that befell his empire even with the travesty that was his heirs reign it is likely that his conquests would have held and the Persians fought off.


Those two juggernauts aside there are some great choices however:

Aurelian - Put the empire back together even if not all of it can be directly attributed to him, but died very quick after doing it (5 years total was his reign) so hard to judge how he would have fared in the long term.

Trajan - Saw the empire at it's greatest extent but not much is actually known about his reign or him.

Constantine - Transitioned the Empire to a slightly stabler system and Christianity while establishing it's second capital.

Pius, Aurelius, Hadrian - part of the five good emperors along with nerva and trajan, all with their own strongpoints and lowpoints (especially hadrian who was a mixed bag) but I can't be bothered giving a synopsis for them.

Basil II - You don't get a nickname like "The Bulgar Slayer" without being a badass. Oversaw the Byzantine golden age while living a substantially long time (if I'm recalling correctly the top 4 reigns are him, constantine, justinian, and augustus)

Alexius I, Manuel II, John/Ioannas I Komnenos - all three ruled in succession, used the crusades to take back land in the Balkans and Anatolia. Of the three Alexius is the most well known, but the conquests and utter devestation Manuel II brought upon the magyars and other balkan territories were the most long lasting and beneficial to the empire long-term.

Heraclius - had Mohammad came to Jerusalem even 5 years later than he did, this man would have been solidified up there with Justinian and Augustus.

There are others who's names could be thrown out of course but here's my run down of who I'd list as the main candidates.

Great list, yeah Heraclius definitely had the rare unfortunate fate of living too long for a Roman Emperor.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Lots of interesting candidates, for all kinds of different reasons and in all kinds of different ways. I'll proceed in chronological order.

I've always had a soft spot for Augustus - especially for when he was still Octavian. This frail, sickly kid that no one had any reason to think would ever be a major power player somehow managing to outmaneuver all his rivals and amass more power than anyone had ever had at any point in Roman history... well, you've gotta admit that's a heck of a story. And then, of course, he brought peace to an empire that had been in a quasi-permanent state of civil war for over a century, managed its finances soundly while establishing something as close as a welfare state as could exist in the Antiquity (which probably has a lot to do with the aforementioned peace), and tried (admittedly in vain) to rein in the utter depravity of the Roman ruling class. One the other hand, he destroyed whatever was left of Roman democracy (which was very little), and he obviously built his power on murdering a lot of innocents. Not great, but when you play the game of thrones, yadda yadda...

Claudius was a fascinating character (I really want to see the BBC series about him at some point) and he was the only good Julio-Claudian after Augustus, but nothing he did elevates him to outright greatness. Still, sometimes it's nice to have just a decent, competent guy in charge who doesn't have Grand Ambition but stirs the ship straight. Same applies to Vespasian, although the whole destroying Jerusalem thingy is a black mark to be sure. Domitian was, from what I understand, actually also a pretty good ruler who was the victim of a coordinated smear campaign by the Senators who murdered him. Sure he wasn't a guy you wanted to mess with, but his policies were by and large very farsighted.

Trajan is the guy you want to go to if you judge emperors mainly by military glory. He was a badass through and through, and even though I try not to elevate too highly the art of killing people too highly, his victory did ultimately make the Empire safer and stronger (even though his territorial conquests were probably unsustainable). And unlike many Great Conquerors, he was also a decent administrator who left the empire in a sound internal position (although he almost f**ked everything over by refusing to choose an heir - thank goodness his also incredibly badass wife took care of that for him).

Hadrian is... complicated. On the one hand, his policies by and large kept the state as a whole peaceful and prosperous. On the other hand... yeah, there's the whole mass persecution/repression thingy. Plus he was the emperor who really started the trend of "Orientalizing" the empire, and leaving Italy to rot in favor of Greece and Egypt, which I obviously deeply resent. So yeah, I'm going to go out on a limb and exclude him. Antoninus and Marcus Aurelius also have their pros and cons. Antoninus was again of the "stir the ship straight" kinda guy, which he did well enough, but not much else. Marcus Aurelius was an incredibly cool guy, and the emperor-philosopher ~aesthetic is just hard to resist, but all he could really do during his lifetime is wage defensive wars and watch as plague swept through the country. Obviously Commodus is the main culprit for Rome's upcoming demise, but the bottom had already begun to fall out under his father's rule.

Then we have a big gap with no realistic candidate until we get to Aurelian. Who, yes, as others have already pointed out, accomplished a bona fides miracle that saved the empire from certain doom. He's an absolute badass and deserves massive credit. However, he didn't get enough time to really shine in areas other than military prowess. He might very well also have been an excellent administrator, but We'll Never Know.

Diocletian too probably saved the empire, and he managed to make a permanent mark on the empire's administrative structure. Some of it was for the best (better provincial organization, a more effective defense system), some for the absolute worst (the rigid class system, the deification of the emperor, and obviously the massive persecutions), and some was just doomed to fail from the start (the Tetrarchy, the price control scheme). Ultimately, those were all bandaids on an already infected wound, and it's kinda sad to say because he really tried.

I do Not like Constantine. He's definitely Significant, of course, but he was also, you know, a massive dick. Taking all the backstabbing and kinslaying aside, he's the one who wrecked the Tetrarchy (it being doomed from the start is no excuse), his economic reforms solidified the turn toward proto-feudalism that would plunge Europe into the dark ages, and his building of Byzantium put the nail in the coffin of Italy's place in the empire (again, yes, I'm biased). As for his introduction of Christianity to empire, it's basically impossible to say if it did more good or harm (Mao's quote on the French Revolution very much applies here). I think his management of Church business was possibly the best aspect of his rule, he was surprisingly even-handed and sincere about finding solutions that worked for, if not everyone, at least as many people as possible. So I'll give him credit there.

After Constantine, it's really all downhill for the empire in its classical form. I have a lot of sympathy for Julian the Apostate, honestly - he seems like an earnest guy trying his best to do what he thought was right after being bullied or dismissed all his life. I don't buy the myth that his rehabilitating Paganism would somehow have fixed all the empire's problems, though. Finally, Majorian is the hope spot at the end of the horror movie: he could have been great and possibly even replicated Aurelian's masterstroke, but instead he was killed and fell into oblivion. Sometimes history is cruel like that.

And then, of course, you have Justinian. Ultimately, I'd say him and Augustus are the only real contenders. Justinian's achievements are so many that listing all of them right now would double the size of this post. He was truly the last emperor to have the ambition and wherewithal to truly restore Rome (as an idea, if not as a city) to its full old glory. Ultimately, he wasn't quite able to stick the landing - the harsh reality that that time was gone cruelly imposed itself. And ultimately, his refusal to accept this reality probably made the ensuing downfall even worse than it otherwise would have been. In particular, and once again I'll show my bias, his Italian campaigns ended up leaving the peninsula a hollowed out husk, and the Byzantine holdings that were left after his reign were little more than a backwater. Still, his accomplishments are nothing short of superb, and they endure to this day (the Justinian Code and the Hagia Sophia, to cite only the most significant). Of course, he also had to slaughter a bunch of people in a stadium to get there, but see my point about Augustus. It's sadly just impossible to judge historical rulers by the standards we use even for more recent rulers.

Unfortunately, my knowledge of the Byzantine empire after Justinian is sorely lacking (although I'm hoping to change that soon), so I'll stop there. There are some Byzantine emperors that sound incredibly badass, but I couldn't properly evaluate them without taking a closer look.

[Kingpoleon]

Charlemagne or Napoleon.

[dead0man]

Claudius-he was one of the few that wasn't a total c**nt, and the only one of those that could actually lead.

[lfromnj]

Lots of interesting candidates, for all kinds of different reasons and in all kinds of different ways. I'll proceed in chronological order.

I've always had a soft spot for Augustus - especially for when he was still Octavian. This frail, sickly kid that no one had any reason to think would ever be a major power player somehow managing to outmaneuver all his rivals and amass more power than anyone had ever had at any point in Roman history... well, you've gotta admit that's a heck of a story. And then, of course, he brought peace to an empire that had been in a quasi-permanent state of civil war for over a century, managed its finances soundly while establishing something as close as a welfare state as could exist in the Antiquity (which probably has a lot to do with the aforementioned peace), and tried (admittedly in vain) to rein in the utter depravity of the Roman ruling class. One the other hand, he destroyed whatever was left of Roman democracy (which was very little), and he obviously built his power on murdering a lot of innocents. Not great, but when you play the game of thrones, yadda yadda...

Claudius was a fascinating character (I really want to see the BBC series about him at some point) and he was the only good Julio-Claudian after Augustus, but nothing he did elevates him to outright greatness. Still, sometimes it's nice to have just a decent, competent guy in charge who doesn't have Grand Ambition but stirs the ship straight. Same applies to Vespasian, although the whole destroying Jerusalem thingy is a black mark to be sure. Domitian was, from what I understand, actually also a pretty good ruler who was the victim of a coordinated smear campaign by the Senators who murdered him. Sure he wasn't a guy you wanted to mess with, but his policies were by and large very farsighted.

Trajan is the guy you want to go to if you judge emperors mainly by military glory. He was a badass through and through, and even though I try not to elevate too highly the art of killing people too highly, his victory did ultimately make the Empire safer and stronger (even though his territorial conquests were probably unsustainable). And unlike many Great Conquerors, he was also a decent administrator who left the empire in a sound internal position (although he almost f**ked everything over by refusing to choose an heir - thank goodness his also incredibly badass wife took care of that for him).

Hadrian is... complicated. On the one hand, his policies by and large kept the state as a whole peaceful and prosperous. On the other hand... yeah, there's the whole mass persecution/repression thingy. Plus he was the emperor who really started the trend of "Orientalizing" the empire, and leaving Italy to rot in favor of Greece and Egypt, which I obviously deeply resent. So yeah, I'm going to go out on a limb and exclude him. Antoninus and Marcus Aurelius also have their pros and cons. Antoninus was again of the "stir the ship straight" kinda guy, which he did well enough, but not much else. Marcus Aurelius was an incredibly cool guy, and the emperor-philosopher ~aesthetic is just hard to resist, but all he could really do during his lifetime is wage defensive wars and watch as plague swept through the country. Obviously Commodus is the main culprit for Rome's upcoming demise, but the bottom had already begun to fall out under his father's rule.

Then we have a big gap with no realistic candidate until we get to Aurelian. Who, yes, as others have already pointed out, accomplished a bona fides miracle that saved the empire from certain doom. He's an absolute badass and deserves massive credit. However, he didn't get enough time to really shine in areas other than military prowess. He might very well also have been an excellent administrator, but We'll Never Know.

Diocletian too probably saved the empire, and he managed to make a permanent mark on the empire's administrative structure. Some of it was for the best (better provincial organization, a more effective defense system), some for the absolute worst (the rigid class system, the deification of the emperor, and obviously the massive persecutions), and some was just doomed to fail from the start (the Tetrarchy, the price control scheme). Ultimately, those were all bandaids on an already infected wound, and it's kinda sad to say because he really tried.

I do Not like Constantine. He's definitely Significant, of course, but he was also, you know, a massive dick. Taking all the backstabbing and kinslaying aside, he's the one who wrecked the Tetrarchy (it being doomed from the start is no excuse), his economic reforms solidified the turn toward proto-feudalism that would plunge Europe into the dark ages, and his building of Byzantium put the nail in the coffin of Italy's place in the empire (again, yes, I'm biased). As for his introduction of Christianity to empire, it's basically impossible to say if it did more good or harm (Mao's quote on the French Revolution very much applies here). I think his management of Church business was possibly the best aspect of his rule, he was surprisingly even-handed and sincere about finding solutions that worked for, if not everyone, at least as many people as possible. So I'll give him credit there.

After Constantine, it's really all downhill for the empire in its classical form. I have a lot of sympathy for Julian the Apostate, honestly - he seems like an earnest guy trying his best to do what he thought was right after being bullied or dismissed all his life. I don't buy the myth that his rehabilitating Paganism would somehow have fixed all the empire's problems, though. Finally, Majorian is the hope spot at the end of the horror movie: he could have been great and possibly even replicated Aurelian's masterstroke, but instead he was killed and fell into oblivion. Sometimes history is cruel like that.

And then, of course, you have Justinian. Ultimately, I'd say him and Augustus are the only real contenders. Justinian's achievements are so many that listing all of them right now would double the size of this post. He was truly the last emperor to have the ambition and wherewithal to truly restore Rome (as an idea, if not as a city) to its full old glory. Ultimately, he wasn't quite able to stick the landing - the harsh reality that that time was gone cruelly imposed itself. And ultimately, his refusal to accept this reality probably made the ensuing downfall even worse than it otherwise would have been. In particular, and once again I'll show my bias, his Italian campaigns ended up leaving the peninsula a hollowed out husk, and the Byzantine holdings that were left after his reign were little more than a backwater. Still, his accomplishments are nothing short of superb, and they endure to this day (the Justinian Code and the Hagia Sophia, to cite only the most significant). Of course, he also had to slaughter a bunch of people in a stadium to get there, but see my point about Augustus. It's sadly just impossible to judge historical rulers by the standards we use even for more recent rulers.

Unfortunately, my knowledge of the Byzantine empire after Justinian is sorely lacking (although I'm hoping to change that soon), so I'll stop there. There are some Byzantine emperors that sound incredibly badass, but I couldn't properly evaluate them without taking a closer look.

Love this post,

There are plenty of great byzantine emperors, Heraclian would probably top Augustus and  and Justinian on your list if he died 10 years earlier, Leo III's preparation and diplomacy during the siege of Constantinople made him the Charles Martel that actually did stop the rise of Islam. Justinian II wasn't a great emperor but his story is quite funny.  Basil II can't be forgotten along with most of the  Komnenian dynasty.