Who was worse?

Caligula, Nero, or Commodus?
I've been learning about Roman history lately and these three stand out to me as the worst Emperors. They were all paranoid, narcissistic, unrepentant assholes whose said flaws did nothing to serve the state and two of them ended great dynasties.
But of the three, which is the worst?

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I think commodus was the worst. his shit seems even more rude and terrible than even nero and caligula.

I heard in this podcast (thehistoryofrome.typepad.com/) that he would travel to places, force them to spend their entire treasuries to build monuments, and then not even see them. He'd have dinners where he would force a inland town to import fish at great expense, or force a coastal town to import something from the mountains that was expensive, and then not even show up to the dinner. just RUDE.

not to mention what he represents as the beginning of the end after a golden age

It's not at all historically accurate, but the (great) movie The Fall of the Roman Empire made me really hate ngs never really get better after his rule the way they did with Caligula or Nero, so I'd go with him.

Nero gets a bad rap. I think one of the few Roman Emperors who did good but got the worst hearsay put against them was Tiberius though. Dude never wanted to be an emperor.

>caligula

not that bad desu, more of a shitposter irl. empire is fine when he's gone.

>nero

fucked shit up but empire still fine after him

>commodus

fuckwit who begins the decline of the empire due to his gross negligence and retardation, easily the worst of the 3

A lot, if not all, of the shit about Caligula and Nero is political smearjobs by bootlicking "historians" for later Emperors.

ever watched caligula?
epic fap material...but fuck commodus

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domus_Aurea

what the fuck was he thinking?

Tiberius is clearly the worst...

Elagabalus.

certainly the strangest, but far from the worst

this thread is for worst emperors, not best

I'd say he could be the worst in that he never even tried to do his fucking job.

better than actively trying to fuck things over like Caligula

>Judea is a growing powderkeg
>I know just how to defuse this situation, I'll let everyone know I'm planning on building a colossal statue of myself in their holy temple
>I'm sure they'll love that!

Keep in mind, most of what we "know" about these people comes from the pens of their political opponents, who had every reason to exaggerate and make shit up. It could be that the stories of those men are dramatically blown out of proportion.

Commodus by far. The empire's long decline started with him; even during "recovery" phases it never truly recovered from his rule and the chaos that resulted from it.

what the fuck

Commodus isn't even bottom 5

The worst emperors are

Caligula
Nero
Valentinian III
Honorius
Phocas

You're thinking of Caracalla with all of that not Commodus. Caracalla was a psychopath though.

I like how he's portrayed as JUST a fag when the guy was more a true sexual deviant hedonist. This is the same guy who caused an uproar because he married a Vestal Virgin (twice!) because as high priestesses they needed to bear his (a high priest's) children.

>Commodus
>Not worse than Nero
>Almost identical in their faults

I agree with Honorius being up there but Commodus definitely deserves a spot in the top 5.

And so does Maximinus Thrax.

Well user, would you?

It's hard to call Honorius bad when he basically did nothing for his reign aside from listen to the wrong people at the very end of Stillicho's time. Not like Valentinian who murdered his best general/statesman by his own hand (literally stabbed Aetius himself) and also was a rapist.