Quick! Post the best Roman Emperor

how did I know that a mad cuckstantine dickrider would come in here with his hot opinions? too bad he was a lunatic who killed his wife and step son, and fucked up the christian church.

Claudius has been my favourite since I was about six years old.

personal underrated favourite: vespasian

...

Unironically this

...

...

You want to repeat that, plebian?

>born to Tuscan parents
>native language was a dialect of Italian
>typical Italian phenotype in his youth to boot with brown hair, olive skin, average height, slender build, large eyes, and a large and slightly curved nose
>became LITERALLY the emperor of Rome when he conquered it
>conquered Italy
>conquered most of the former territory of the Western Roman Empire, only missing the Magherb (sparse and poor at the time) and Sardinia
>spanked the G*rman barbarians
he was a true Roman.

When did Rome become an Empire officially?

When Augustus declared himself emperor I suppose, though he still technically kept the Senate.

Augustus never declared himself emperor.

Aurelian.

>Something wrong
>I hold my head
>Fucking Praetorians
>My nigga ded

>all this wh*tewashin of a proud black empire

Roman "Empire" is a modern historical construct.

But I thought an empire was when one group of people controlled other groups who spoke different languages, had different religions ethnicities etc.

Correct. By modern terminology a certain period of Roman civilization is an empire. Officially though Romans never considered themselves to live in an "empire". It's actually pretty hard to say how they called their "country" since "country" (or "nation") is also a modern construct. Livy, for example uses terms "state" or "commonwealth".

Based

Sleep calmly sweet Basilius, Rashinids won't steal your land in the Kingdom of Heaven.

The Romans had a multiethnic state even as a Republic, controlling Sicily and southern Italy, Spain, North Africa, and more.

What makes it an empire is its political composition. When one individual has accumulated enough capital as to make him the majority shareholder of the entire economy, they also tend to stage a (usually hostile) takeover of the government, and the realm is now ruled not by the consent of the citizenry but by the imperium of a single man, treated like a god on Earth. He rules the economy, military, religious hierarchy, and “becomes” the state within a state

all other answers are objectively wrong

I wonder if all emperors have viewed themselves as gods or divine in some way. I guess Caesar would be the best then.

Unironically agree

Most later Roman emperors began to be viewed as Godly beings and wanted to be perceived that way from what I'm getting, Constantine and Constantius II would be good examples
Description of Constantine:
>[He appeared] like some heavenly messenger of God, clothed in a shining raiment, which flashed as if with glittering rays of light… and adorned with the lustrous brilliance of gold and precious stones
and Constantius II
>[He sat immobile in his golden chariot] as if his neck were firmly clamped; he kept his gaze fixed straight ahead... When a wheel jolted [Constantius II] did not nod, and at no point was he seen to spit or to wipe or rub his face or nose, or to move his hand…. [The onlookers saw] not a man, but an emperor who looked as though he were a statue of a man.

...

*BRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAP*
*BRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAP*

oh i feel good now

...

But user, this is Empress.

improved my own OC

Augustus
/thread

...

I'll give you peons a hint: The bets emperor rode the best senator and they didn't have sex(presumably).

emperor commodous bar far
This wan was a gladiator and created a crescent shaped arrow just to decapitate ostriches.

Incitatus was never a senator nor considered for a senatorial position.

kek, saved

...

...

During the principate, the emperor was careful to maintain the illusion that Rome was still a Republic, that the senate had real authority and that the emperor’s role was that of a preserver of the old ways. Emperors during the principate were typically deified after they died as a sort of posthumous honor, during their life they were expected to maintain the facade of Republicanism, and that meant giving deferential treatment to the senate.

This charade broke down in the third century when soldiers realized the senate for the stuffy old band of finger waggling irrelevant rich guys that they were, and that they the soldiers themselves were where all the real power in the empire was. From that point on, soldiers made and unmade emperors as their whims shifted. When Diocletian was reorganizing the empire he realized the problem of letting soldiers nominate en emperor based on who offered then the biggest donative, so he had himself branded as Jupiter living on Earth, with his Caesar as Hercules reincarnate. He did this specifically to wrestle imperial appointment away from the soldiers and return it to a civic bureaucracy. Divine right of kings was an important adaptation for the age that was approaching the west.

>no habsburgs posted yet

...