Roman Empire

Dat tetrarchy, dat Persecution of Christians.

worst, Constantine the "great". Neoplatonism available, turn cristian... hurr durr

I'd rank him among the worst of the non-homicidal-maniac ones.

He was not emperor long enough to make any lasting impact, and the things he did accomplish did not outlive him. He was, as history worked itself out, just a "meh" Emperor who wound up not mattering.

But, anybody who writes soothing called "The Beard Hater" to troll his opposition can't be all bad, so bonus points for that.

I also was amused by his efforts to have the Temple in Jerusalem re-built just to disprove the Biblical predictions about it not being rebuilt. But God had the last laugh on that one, sorry Julian, next time don;t try to troll God...

>Philosopher
>King
>Mediocre at both.

>Valens
>worst
Why? Do we really ignore everything he did, all of the disorder, chaos, and bullshit he had to surmount and beat just to say he was a bad Emperor because of the last decision he made was Adrianople? Dumb.

He was basically wearing the purple for 8 years but if you want to get technical that he was only an Augustus for 3 years instead of a "Caesar", he'd still have over 3 years. There were a shit ton of Emperors only reigned for a few weeks or months so what we know was he was a very competent general, able administrator, but unlucky to get killed.

I still think people wank his Persian campaign though.

It was the hebrews themselves who opposed rebuilding the temple. There's some bizarre theological reason for it and it still holds true for Jews in Israel today.

Dat colossus statue. What a great emperor.

The Jews attempted to rebuild it once Muslims took control of Jerusalem.

Trajan

post romanboo images

But what he was trying to do was an enormous task that required more time than he had, hence it was all reversed quickly after his death. He essentially had no impact on history because he did not live longer.

>There were a shit ton of Emperors only reigned for a few weeks or months

True, and it would be silly to say they were on the best or worst list, because they, like Julian in a longer time period, didn't accomplish anything. I wouldn't put him lower then the Emperors who reigned for a month -- but I would not put him much higher.

>It was the hebrews themselves who opposed rebuilding the temple.

That's not what I recall, but it has been a while since I was reading about that period, so I'll yield the point, but Jewish opposition was not what motivated Julian -- he wanted to poke the Christians in the eye.

>Trajan
>not one of the worst
He was an autistic vain-glorious asshole who sabotaged the Roman Empire's future with his delusions of grandeur of being like Alexander the Great and going after the Arsacid dynasty/Parthian Empire to emulate his hero. All this did in the long run was cripple Rome of its reserves of manpower, overstretch it past its traditional boarders with their eastern rival, and deplete vast reserves of auxiliary legions from the northern and western provinces while eating away at the coffers of the state.

And Hadrian had to give it all up because he knew it was impossible to keep all this land in the long run, and the returning survivors of Trajan's legions back to the Roman East borders brought plagues and diesases that devastated their Levant and Balkan holdings.

After Trajan, there would NEVER be a single future offensive Roman attempt at new conquest again. He crippled the Roman Empire and is over-rated.

this t. b. h.

I would agree, I think he saw Judaism as a legitimate ethnic religion of the empire and Christianity as a universalist mutation that threatened to undermine old Roman values. Rebuilding the temple would re-establish Judaism and delegitimize Christianity. But then the dumbass got himself killed so thanks for that julian, hope that Persian campaign was worth it.

Best was either Hadrian, Marcus Aurelius, Augustus or Trajan, maybe Diocletian.

Worst was either Caligula and Elagabalus when it comes to fucked up minds, or Constantine and Caracalla when it comes to brutality. Also Commodus.

>no Aurelian
>no Vespasian
>no Domitian

Also just want to throw it out there while Commodus failed to live up to his foster uncle or his father, he was heavily praised for his military ability and generalship.

>Trajan

>Brutality
>Bad in any way

Caracalla is a fuck up though. He just further weakened the Roman Empire and got himself assassinated which lead in his failed invasion of the Arsacid/Parthian empire to the rise of the hyper aggressive Sassanid dynasty/Neo Persian Empire.

Good job.

Augustus. No question. Second place is the real competition, and I think it sits between Trajan, Diocletian and Aurelian.

>Trajan
>Diocletian
>second place