Who were the greatest of Byzantine emperors?

Is this bait, or am I retarded?

history of byzantium podcast hasnt got that far yet, i cant say

Maurice was innovative tactician

Justinian because he captured 15,000 Hagia Sophias and made them march back to God without their domes.

Leo the Syrian

>claim the legacy
>claim
They literally are the Roman Empire

justinian was a power hungry manchild
real answer is Basil II

Julian the Apostate, if only because he was an apostate and ensured that the Constantinian dynasty was ultimately Pagan.

Byzantine Phd fag, I have my biases but

Best:
>Anastasius
Underrated, good administrator, and a good emperor in general, proves my point by being respected by people even though he had monophsyite leanings. He faced crowds and calmed them, unlike Justinian who tried to pull of an Anastaius but provoked them even more. Many of his achivements were trashed by Plague and Justinians excessive ( imho) spending
>Constantine V aka he dungnamed
due to iconodoulos butthurt he is trashed but he was an efficient emperor and put the empire on the offensive in a period of decline and was quite succesfull.
>Heraclius
The only reason he is not called great is his last few years of the reign, had it not for the arabs he would be remembered greater than Justinian. Proves you how for all your achivements one last fuck up will burry your ass permanently.
>Nikephoros II Phokas
For similar reason with Constantine V
>Alexios I Komnenos
Interesting story on this man, Blame Alexiad for putting him here.
>Justinian II the slitnosed
Literally Daenerys Targeryen irl, albeit a failed version of her. I think he alone has the most interesting personal story of all the Byzantine emperors.

I love that podcast - did you listen to the History of Rome too? If so, which podcast do you prefer?

I'd have to say the top three would be Constantine I, Justinian I, and Basil II, not necessarily in any order.

Mehmed II desu.
He fixed the city and enriched it culturally.

why constantine though

>Justinian II

This guy was fucking mental. His life reads like a Hollywood epic.

Jesus Christ, why do we let turks on the Internet?

Alexios Komnenos, easily

>yes Anastasius
>no Justinian
I luv u user, why are there so many ebin memesters who don't understand that unsustainable conquests are always a net drain? Justinian ruined the empire.

I agree that he shouldn't be on the list of best, but he certainly is the most interesting. Apparently he would have been a very good emperor had he not gone insane.

This guy gets it.

In no particular order:
Nikephoras Phocas
Heraclius
Constantine
Leo III (surprised no one else put him here)
Basil 1 and 2
John Tzimiskes
Alexios Komnenos
John II was pretty great also
Manuel was unlucky
Justinian is extremely overrated
My favorite Period of the Empire to study is the Komnenoi, did a whole podcast on it in fact.

A whole podcast? Is there any chance I can have a link?

>>Justinian II the slitnosed
>For three days, Justinian tried to convince the citizens of Constantinople to open the gates, but to no avail.[21] Unable to take the city by force, he and some companions entered through an unused water conduit under the walls of the city, roused their supporters, and seized control of the city in a midnight coup d'état.[16] Justinian once more ascended the throne, breaking the tradition preventing the mutilated from Imperial rule. After tracking down his predecessors, he had his rivals Leontius and Tiberios brought before him in chains in the Hippodrome, now wearing a golden nasal prosthesis.[22] There, before a jeering populace, Justinian placed his feet on the necks of Tiberios and Leontios in a symbolic gesture of subjugation before ordering their execution by beheading, followed by many of their partisans,[23] as well as deposing, blinding and exiling Patriarch Kallinikos I of Constantinople to Rome.

Sure thing
soundcloud.com/user-917120732/sets/the-three-komnenos-a-history
I have one more episode to go + an extra about the changes to the army structure in the 12th century. I think that Robin will do a much better job when he gets to the period but I wanted to try my hand at podcasting.

>True Emperor of the Romans tier
Basil II
Alexios Komnenos
Herakleios

>Good tier
Ioannes II Komnenos
Nikephoros II Phokas
Ioannes Tzimiskes
Basil I
Leo III (Iconoclasm prevents him from being GOAT-tier)
Anastasius

>At least you tried tier
Justin II
Isaac I Komnenos
Manuel I Komnenos
Manuel II Palaiologos
Theodoros I Laskaris
Michael VIII Palaiologos
Constantine V
Constantine XI Palaiologos
Maurice
Andronikos III Palaiologos
Irene

>You shouldn't have tried tier
Justinian I
Justinian II
Andronikos I
Andronikos IV
Constantine IX Monomachos
Romanos III Argyros
Romanos IV Diogenes
Nikephoros I
Basiliscus

>I never asked for this tier
Alexios II
Nicholas Kanabos

>Oh shit nigger what are you doing tier
Phokas
Every single Angeloi
Constantine X Doukas
Alexios V Doukas

Daily reminder that Byzantines were never Roman. They were retarded "WEWAZ" who were more romanboos, than the great true Roman heirs.

If the Romans were so great, why'd the Byzantines last longer?

Vladimir Putin

Half of it. If they never occupy Britannia, Gallia, Hispania, most of Africa, or Italia reliably, they cannot claim to be the entire empire.

This is one esoteric shitpost

With the exception of Britain and Gaul, they held those things into Heraclius' reign

You're talking pieces of Italy and Spain. It was an admirable try by those effete Greeks, but face it, they are only half of The Empire.

To be fair to Justinian if the plague hadn't fucked everything I think the areas Belisarius conquered would've stayed Roman for much longer. He was a very competent and ambitious man but he got fucked by something nobody could've predicted.

Much better conditions than what Romans had.

I'm talking about most of italy including Sicily, the most valuable part (and nearly the new capital before Constans II was assasinatef) and parts of spain

There was a Veeky Forums bro here who recorded talks about the Byzantines; does anyone happen to have a link to his content?

Wheres John II?

soundcloud.com/user-917120732/sets/the-three-komnenos-a-history
Is this it?

Reminder Greece had been part of the Roman Empire for over 700 years by the reign of Heraclius, Romans always jerked off to Greek culture and loved speaking Greek, and that some of the greatest Roman emperors came from outside the Italian peninsula. Roman is not an ethnicity.

Indeed! Thank you very much.

Uh...Romanos Lekapenos

He's in Good tier, Ioannes II.

>no Julian
butthurt Galilean detected

Fuckin THIS
Someone explain why isn't Julian the GOAT

>christian
>roman
pick 1

I bet you can't name every single emperor just from memory.

>renegeing on christianity just to try to convert the whole empire to nu paganism, absolutely nobody plays along
>dies after trying to rebuild the temple for the jews just to spite christians

>Send Belisarius double the manpower/supplies/reinforcements during his campaign in Italy
>Don't bother trying to conquer Spain at all
>Make sure the Gothic War is wrapped up in a couple of years like it almost was
>Don't recall Belisarius from Italy just before he's finished his campaign

This is how to get a Justinian who actually deserves his title. If he did these things then the empire would probably have survived the entire 7th century more or less intact.

Alexios Komnenos faced the greatest number of rebellions and assassination plot of any emperor in history. He deserves credit for that alone.

did someone said...Julian?

Basil II and Alexios Komnenos were the greatest.
>j*stinian
Kek.

>Byzantine Phd fag
Would you be so kind as to tell me about the social life, economics, and educational systems of the middle empire?

>>Oh shit nigger what are you doing tier
>Phokas
What? Why?

>overthrow previous emperor at the point of a sword with nothing resembling legitimacy
>slaughter his family
>get in bullshit ass war with persians
>fuckup constantly
>get overthrown yourself

Maurice was as good an emperor as one could have expected him to be, and Phokas fucked it up. The best thing he ever did was get killed by Heraclius

I thought you were talking about Nikephoros Phokas, because I can't read. Nevermind

The Komnenoi in general; John, Manuel, even Andronikos. For the most part they were just nice guys, and did what they could for the crusaders, and forgave them after innumerable unforgivable betrayals. Intelligent, calm, intellectual, pragmatic... Andronikos wasn't really a nice guy, but he must have been an undeniably loveable bastard.

Nice art too

Andreas I