Low born Emperors

Who was the lowest born Roman who rose to be Emperor? Any freedmen or sons of slaves? Only counting "real" emperors, not some meme usurper who held it for a month.

Other urls found in this thread:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basil_I
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodosius_III
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_I_the_Thracian
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justin_I
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_II
twitter.com/NSFWRedditVideo

Me

/thread

no fuck off the question is decently interesting

Basil, the dude was literally a fucking peasant;

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basil_I

I see Basil follows the 'Greek' style of wrestling after subjugating his opponent very faithfully

Fucking this. Even worse than a peasant, IIRC he was a slave in the shittiest part of Bulgaria. And he was an old man by the time he arrived in the emperor's court. Then he works his way up through the court and goes apeshit one day and usurps the emperor (who by all accounts was successful and popular despite being a manipulable drunkard).

Basil I would be the ultimate badass if he wasn't also a cuckold. But that just adds to the legend.

son of the peasant

>muh Roman

Also
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodosius_III
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_I_the_Thracian
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justin_I
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_II

kys please

> Basil I would be the ultimate badass if he wasn't also a cuckold.

> Basil was compensated with the emperor's sister Thekla as his own mistress.

That is not cucking, that is just wifesharing/swingers stuff.

t. non roman barbarian

Diocletian was either a freedman himself or the son of one

Aurelian was a peasant.

vespasianus was a simple merchant

Though not an emperor, Ancus Marcius, 4th king of Rome was supposedly from a plebian family.

wow that's amazing, diocletian comes over as such an experienced ruler

Maximinus Thrax was a shitty emperor but it's pretty hard to argue his humble origins. He was born from barbarian poor parents. His martial prowess got him to the top.

True but he probably had the best name of any emperor. Also he suffered from acromegaly and was probably over 7 foot tall which was absolutely massive for the period. He must have been fucking terrifying.

The Emperor before Justinian was his uncle though, iirc.

>best roman emperors
>lowborn

muh aristocractic breeding

Justin was born a peasant. So was Basil I.