Who was the best Roman emperor and why?

Claudius or Trajan for me.

Aurelian hands down. RESTITUTOR ORBIS

The one who competed with prostitutes about how much dick he sucked and how much he earned from his "labor"

Mah niggas
Trajan and Aurelian were 10/10

Nobody ever equaled Augustus. He managed to guide Rome trough a huge transition in government and political culture. His political and military maneuverings prior to his final victory at Alexandria are byzantine as fuck, but worked. His religious reforms and building programs were groundbreaking.

First was best.

Why those two? I would not have thought many people would pick ol' Claudius...

>Emperor "lets give command of 3 entire legions to an incompetent cuck and lose them in some bumfuck forest in Germania to some loincloth savages" Augustus
kek
He was basically a Roman Kushner
Wouldn't have gone nowhere if not for his uncle/father-in-law/senpai

Tiberius was literally a cuckold

I mean Claudius reached next levels for water supply in Rome and also foresaw the competition of the conquering of England.

And Trajan was also key to Rome's development in various social and economic growths.

Augustus managed 40 years of amazing political masterminding and essentially meme'd his way into absolute power over the entire Roman world, and never was threatened. Sure he was a pussy militarily sometimes, but he surrounded himself with talented men as well, and was able to control them and deploy them effectively.

He rebuilt a society that was suffering from almost 100 years of internal strife, and his only setbacks were in the Teutoberg Forest (under a nominally competent commander who got betrayed by a trusted german prince who effectively was raised and treated as a Roman) and not having an heir (which was largely due to the bleak fact about ancient life, you could die any moment).
>Wouldn't have gone nowhere if not for Agrippa
FTFY

Such a goddamn shame that he died so early. He certainly was as good as Trajan, but not as lucky as Augustus.

>God tier
Augustus
>Great tier
Trajan
Marcus Aurelius
Claudius
Constantine
Septimius Severus
>Pretty good tier
Antoninus Pius
Vespasian
Titus
Nerva
>Was totally into twinks tier
Hadrian
>Good tier
Tiberius
>Paranoid as fuck tier
Domitian
>Perv tier
Caligula
Elagabalus
>literal fat neckbeard with an Oedipus Complex tier
Nero

How is Good below pretty good? Also
>Tiberius
>Good

>Marcus Aurelius
>Great
He was good, but not Trajan good m8. Should have smothered his little cunt son.

Stick Diocletian and Aurelian in great tier.

Pretty good, very good, whatever. Diocletian persecuted way too many Christians to be in great tier. I'm also not listing off every single emperor so there are some omissions.

Alexios I Komnenos

>Diocletian persecuted way too many Christians to be in great tier
Now, I dislike Gibbon as much as the next guy, but that's absurd.

He provided stability after a sustained period of instability, I'll give him that. I doubt even Vespasian could have ended the Crisis of the Third Century.

Justinian

Suleiman the magnificent

Theodosius

When his great uncle was assassinated, the future Augustus was a rich teenager who didn't really have access to his inheritance since Antonius withheld it. When HE died, Augustus ruled most of the world that Rome knew anything about.

He done purty good.

Yeah but the nika riots were pretty grim
Imagine Trump luring protesters under the guise of negotiations into a giant stadium during the Superbowl only to order troops to butcher them
Its basically what he did

And the plague too

>You do not know what "literally" means.
>You do not know what "cuckold" means.
>You do not know who Tiberius was.
>You just playin.

You must choose one.

>not having an heir

I understand what you mean, but of course he DID have an heir. Tiberius was his adopted son when Augustus finally died. Prior to that he had been through a number of heirs that he outlived.

I wanted to list all the ones who were deified as "god tier," and the ones who were not from patrician families as "Pleb tier," but can't be arsed to go look them all up.

>Marcus Aurelius'
>Great tier

OK, why? He strikes me as hugely over-rated. But maybe you know more than me.

Also, don't be to ready to buy into the hostile histories about Caligula and, to maybe a lesser extent, Nero. There were reasons why their successors would want to make sure their names were blackened. (Notice how often an emperor who is assassinated so that some other guy can be emperor also happens to be an incredible douche, sexual monster and insane...)

Must be why roman emperors adopted sons a lot
Really makes you think huh

Julian the Apostate. gtfo Christianity

The 5 good emperors was largely of circumstance. As much as I criticize Marcus Aurelius for making Commodus his heir, and not strangling the little shit, any other of the emperors would have done the same thing.

Nerva adopted Trajan because his kids were dead, Trajan adopted Hadrian because he had no biological children, Hadrian was a faggot (literally), Antoninus' sons died, its understandable.

Tiberius was a cuckold though, his wife was a notorious whore, and he didn't love her anyways.

I cannot give a good or bad view of Justinian. His fuckups were magnified due to circumstance, such as his conquests in the West became incredibly taxing due to the plague that was crippling the population, and the actions of his Wife with Belisarius' cheating spouse. He did compile a fantastic law code, and the Hagia Sofia is an absolute masterpiece of engineering and art.
Now he was a a meme emperor who, despite having some talented military success, is only famous to idolized by atheist bookish shut-ins.

I don't know much about Julian the Apostate but I feel like you don't need to be an atheist to like him. I recall that he genuinely tried to undo the corruption in Roman politics with stuff like removing corrupt governors. Also just general Romaboos or Hellanaboos like Nietzsche would like him for trying to uphold classical religions.

> Trajan adopted Hadrian because he had no biological children, Hadrian was a faggot (literally),

The reason Trajan had no children is pretty much that he,too, was a dedicated homosexual.

>Tiberius was a cuckold though, his wife was a notorious whore, and he didn't love her anyways.

Ah you are buying into the "Julia was a slut" meme. OK, I understand your point. But don't be too quick to buy into the Official Story there, that reeks of being a crushing f a conspiracy covered up by charges of sexual impropriety, because it would be a bad idea to publicize large conspiracy that close to Augustus. Note how often women who are close to power in Rome are removed because of sexual charges. Maybe she was really just a slut, of course. But...

>He(Julian) was a a meme emperor who, despite having some talented military success, is only famous to idolized by atheist bookish shut-ins.

Here we can agree, but I do love how he decided to try and tweak the Christians by rebuilding the Temple in Jerusalem, which the Bible said would not happen until the end of the world, and then got his ass smote before he could do so.

Also, I think he would have been almost Trumpian in his communications if Twitter had existed then, "The Beard Hater" reads like something Trump might have written if there was not Twitter.

I do wonder what might have happened if he had not decided, "Well, we've been getting our asses kicked pushing the Eastern boundaries for centuries, but I bet I can do it!"

And had his own wife and wife sons murdered in a vacation trip

I like Diocletian

Even though everyone says I should hate him for persecuting the Christians and the Manichaeans, he pulled that empire together

Plus he retired, pretty rare for a civilization that had done away with laws holding their rulers accountable

>pretty rare

Unique, up to that point.

Least offensive leader. Maybe!
Best? Leaders are extremely ignorant, arrogant, offensive and unlearned by nature.

Aurelius was pretty cool, it's just a shame he allowed himself to be killed by his spoiled brat of a son.

>, it's just a shame he allowed himself to be killed by his spoiled brat of a son.
Get out of here Ridley

Marcus Aurelius was not killed by his son, and his son was killed by a wrestler, not Russel Crowe.

Quick drunk question. What made augustus an emperor if he shared power with the Senate and when he took consulship he shared power with another..

The Senate agreed to give him the title "imperator", which did NOT mean emperor, at least at the time, but it did give him power. They also granted him imperium mauis, which essentially means he had a higher authority than anyone else with imperium. He was also designated "First citizen" of Rome.

TL;DR it was a slow process and Augustus was very careful to not make himself look like a king. It may have been why he insisted on living in a modest size house.

So he allowed the Senate to give him power? Why do we call him the first emperor if he never even took the title and just wanted to be first citizen?

He did take the title imperator, but there were other people before him who had taken that title and yet they weren't emperors. His being given princeps (first citizen status) and imperium maius really gave him unprecedented stature and essentially made him head of state, though with checks and balances. The role of emperor evolved over time. It wasn't like he up and was made first emperor of Rome by the Senate one day.

>Trajan
>Roman
He was Castillian

Caligula of course

That was actually Constantine
My bad

Caligula duh, he had cool boats

Imperator was a military title back then, unrelated to a ruler

>Hey anonius, or should I say anonios haha, do you think my headdress is a bit much?

Because he was a fucking genius and realized he could have all the powers of an emperor without all the negative shit he would have had to deal with he took the title of emperor.

actual power > trappings of power

he's my favorite too ;)

It's more a matter of people pointing to Augustus and saying he's when the empire started. In truth the principate was a transitional period and the transition had started well before Augustus. After his death it could have reverted, but he lived such a long time that people got used to having a princeps.

Ya don't say?

Trajan, even old as your grandma paramour pagan prechristian books said good words about Trajan

Majorian in a heartbeat, maybe not the best, but with what he had he managed insanely well.

If his life wasn't cut short Rome would have lasted longer.

Vespasian
>brought some stability after the end of the Julio-Claudian dynasty
>started work on the Flavian Amphitheater, though he wouldn't live to see it completed
>had a sense of humor from what I've read of him.

This
Majorian was GOAT tier, he accomplished great things with the short time he had and would likely have breathed new life to Rome hadn't it been a corrupt and decadent shithole by then

If he died about 10 years earlier then this guy would be regarded as one of the greatest rulers in history

>corrupt and decadent
Please stop this, you just look foolish

WHAT? What's the name of that ship. I need to do some reading on it.

Are you saying the late Roman Empire wasn't corrupt and decadent?
The Empire were Majorian, after reconquering Burgundy, southern Gaul, Hispania, destroying the Suebis and planning to recover land from the vandals, the empire that betrayed and executed him because the elite didn't like his reforms?