Underrated roman emperors

Underrated roman emperors
>gallienus
>dominitian

Oh? Why? In what way? That might make an interesting thread; let's all make a list usually does not.

Gallientus's handling of the palmyrene empire was genius and dominitian did literally nothing wrong except for not killing the whole senate

LVCIVS DOMITIVS AVRELIANVS, THE NOBLEST ROMAN EMPEROR, WORSHIPER OF GOD, THE ONLY AND GREATEST.

Mehmed II

Finally my boy Gallienus getting the respect he deserves.

He was the one ruling Rome and managed to maintain the Roman State (although much smaller) during the worst parts of the Crisis of the third century.

In the East:
>Previous emperor gets btfo and captured alive by Persians
>Military defences of the Eastern provinces collapses
>Vacuum filled by fucking Palmyra, who surprisingly manage to push back the Sassanids
>Gallienus decides to roll with it cause with litteraly everything blowing up at the same time he can't deal with the East

In the West:
>Frankish super-confederation raids Gaul
>Gallienus is too busy in Italy and the Balkans
>Usurper takes advantage of three vacuum and declares Gaul independent from Rome
>Gothic super-confederation raids the Balkans
>Alemani invade Italy
> 1 billion usurpers pop up the second the emperor leaves a front to focus on another
>Plague killing everyone
>Economy goes to shit

Despite the fucking massive dumpster fire he had to put out, Gallienus, although he couldn't stop the Balkanization of the Empire, managed to play his cards right and prevented the [collapse] of the Roman State.

Maximus Thrax was very large, an underated and valuable quality in an emperor.

Aurelian is a emperor who doesn't sent get much spotlight even though he repelled multiple barbarian invasions and helped to put an end to the crisis of the 3rd century.

How so?

He's a big guy

>kicks off the crisis of the third century by killing Alexander Severus
Nty

>Aurelian
He's the Roman Polk in that he's so "underrated" he's always listed among the greatest emperors while everyone says nobody gives him attention because normies don't know him even though the only ones they know of are Nero, Caligula, possibly Claudius or Commodus due to TV/a popular movie and Caesar because they probably think he was an emperor too. Aurelian was a great emperor but in no way is he anything approaching underrated.

Underrated is someone like Claudius Gothicus who (along with Gallienus) laid the groundwork for Aurelian or Probus who did a lot in trying to rebuild the physical infrastructure even if it got him assassinated because soldiers couldn't be assed to build a bridge. Or there's someone like Carus who seemed like he could've done good if not snuffed out so quickly.

But my vote's always going to go to Constantius II as the most underrated WRE emperor. Successfully defending the eastern border against the Sassanids under goddamn Shapur II and killed Shapur's brother, successfully smacking down some barbarian scum, dealing with one usurper in Magnentius, then another schemer in Constantius Gallus, smackind down more barbarian scum, being relatively moderate towards paganism and, realizing he was dying, had the sense to name Julian as his successor instead of allowing the empire to further devolve into civil war. His biggest problem was probably that he could be hot headed (as shown with Gallus), was ruthless at times (as his purge of half of his own family shows) and was a scary evil Arian heretic. But overall, even with the sources being against him, he stacks up very well and had he not gotten sick probably would've put Julian back in his place if not gotten rid of him completely and gone back to doing what he did best: smacking down barbarian scum and keeping the Eastern border secure.

Pic related is Probus.

This guy gets it.

Nope

Pertinax

Majorian

Aurelian is not underrated.

>Maximus Thrax was very large

magnus homo

Romulus Agustulus, end of discussion

Could've been great but he's the ultimate example of why the Praetorians were a mistake.

Likewise would've gone down as one of the heroes of the Empire if he hadn't been defeated by treachery. Him vs. Genseric would definitely have been an all time great showdown.

Postumus

fucker held the line

would also say Odenathus but he didn't declare himself emperor

Genseric was shitting his pants when he heard about Majorian's plans and started burning Mauretania to the ground in the hope of slowing him down.

Agree 100℅ on Constantius II. Dude got shit done, didn't fuck around, and had a long reign. Only knock against him would be his paranoia, which eventually led him to go to war with Julian.

IMO the last competent emperor who had his things in order.

Tiberius. He gets so much hate but it was the Senate's fault for being too weak.

DOMITIAN DID NOTHING WRONG

ALEXANDER SEVERUS WAS A GOOD BOY, HE DINDU NUFFIN

>Dindu nuffin
That's the problem

Domitian was shit
his father was a super solid emperor though

Pertinax. He tried to fight corruption and made too many enemies right from the start.

stop following senate propaganda

Tiberius was a paranoid fuck who was the ground stage for the bad emperors. He killed off Germanicus who did nothing but remain loyal and want to kill germans, and then he let Sejanus usurp him and make him a puppet. He basically set the precedent of Praetorian guards being assholes who have control over the emperor because he was too weak until the very end to actually oppose Sejanus and kill the fuck. And then he buttfucked Caligula a lot too.

Then he turned around a few years later and rekt Basiliscus. It was treacherous but Genseric was nothing if not wily and been doing well ruling his kingdom for decades so it's interesting to see how that would've played out. Probably with Majorian retaking Africa though of course he'd still have to deal with Ricimer.

I TRIED SO HARD

AND GOT SO FAR

BUT IN THE END

IT DOESN'T EVEN MATTER

Antoninus Pius.

Only because Basiliscus was a fucking dumbass.

If literally anybody else was leading that expedition North Africa would've been brought back to the Roman fold 100 years earlier.

>has absolute power and doesn't particularly want it
>however, doesn't give it back
>spends entire early career autistically baiting senate
>attempt no reforms of weakened senate, appoints no new senators, instead starts another autistic round of proscriptions that may have finally made the republic unrecoverable, permanently as they not only wiped out the last vestiges of many old families but a fuckload of effective New Men that Augustus appointed.
>not only this, proscibes on gigantic and retarded scale with little to no oversight, essentially subcontracts the entire thing to people with vested interests, unlike Sulla and Augustus who, at least, were pragmatic and limited.
>fuck of to Capri to fuck children because he doesn't want to do anything else, lets Sejanus do literally everything
>Amazingly, Sejanus tries to oust him
>takes a fucking long time to be convinced that the guy with de facto power in rome wants to oust him
>dies and leaves a fucking imbecile as his successor who makes things worse.

Anyone else about to go on a giant anti-Diocletian rant before they realised they'd mixed him up with Domitian?

Domitian is literally one of the most underrated emperors. Since his enemies in the Senate got to write all kinds of nasty shit about him and he was also thought of as a persecutors of Christians, his name was mud until quite recently.

Aurelian was too good for this world. I cry ebrey teim.

I really feel bad for Tiberius and feel for him, knowing that he knew himself and Rome better than any man at the time.
>Amazing military feats against several Barbarian nations
>Literally everyone was at his dick except the one woman he loved
>Ran away to Rhodes, a comfy Greek island because of this and hatred of politics and the noble life.
>Wants a comfy life, away from people and degenerate masses.
>Still feel bad for Augustus, and try to sail back to help the old man.
>He wasn't allowed to enter Italy on multiple occasions.
>Augustus finally passes, he becomes Emperor.
>A major fuck up, literally stating that he wasn't fit for political life on multiple occasions/
And people wonder why he was shit, even he knew he was shit.

Both were good emperors you cuck

Julian

True but again even a dumbass, with the purported advantage, should've been able to do something. The Vandals were no slouches on the sea and been conquering Sicily and other parts of the Meditteranean as well. So retarded Basilicus + Sea Barbarians = get fucked Romans.

Is it crazy to assume that Diocletian likely had some role in Numerian's death?

>No of course I had nothing at all to do with it. It was totally Aper and to prove it I'm going to kill him right here before he can even utter a word in his own defense.

I'd feel bad for him if, you know, he didn't turn into a baby rapist.

why dont italians look like ths anymore?

That actually looks like my neighbor Tony so you're wrong.