(4) ANTONINUS PIUS –
NERVA-ANTONINE DYNASTY / FIVE GOOD EMPERORS
(138 – 161 AD: 22 YEARS 7 MONTHS 25 DAYS)

My man Tony Pius, the man who maxed the pax of the Pax Romana – another emperor who could arguably be swapped into the top ten emperors (and more than earned his place among the Five Good Emperors), except perhaps for not really doing much.

In the words of Spectrum, “this guy played the game in easy mode”. Trajan and Hadrian having left him an empire humming along at its peak – “All he had to do was not fck up, and well, he didn’t fck up”.

Dovahhatty had a more generous assessment – “He did absolutely nothing for twenty-three years. Based”. Partly because Dovahhatty then goes on to list achievements or perhaps more precisely events during his reign, including the conquest in Scotland early in his reign to a wall that bore his name, the Antonine Wall.

Personally, I think both understate the achievement of maintaining the empire at peace for over two decades – or indeed, not screwing up, which after all seemed too high a bar for most emperors.

“His reign was the most peaceful in the entire history of the Principate” – which I would hazard to guess makes it the most peaceful in the entire history of the classical empire, given how much less peaceful the Dominate was. If it is to be characterized as inactivity, then it is inactivity from peace and good management requiring no action on his part, as opposed to the more disastrous supine inactivity from cowardice or incompetence we see from bad emperors – looking at you, Theodosian dynasty.

One might compare him to Hadrian with a focus on consolidating the empire, but in another way he was also the anti-Hadrian – whereas Hadrian travelled extensively throughout the empire, Antoninus never left Italy once during his reign. One modern scholar has written “It is almost certain not only that at no time in his life did he ever see, let alone command, a Roman army, but that, throughout the twenty-three years of his reign, he never went within five hundred miles of a legion”.

I tend to agree with scholars (such as Krzysztof Ulanowski) that this reflects his preference for – and achievements in – diplomacy, particularly “being successful in deterrence by diplomatic means”. Antoninus apparently stood off a resurgent Parthian Empire (under Vologasius IV) by writing a letter warning that “encroachment on Roman territory would not be taken lightly” – and that’s all it took for the Parthians to slink away with their tail between their legs.

The reign of Antoninus also saw the influence of the Roman Empire extend to its furthest extent beyond its borders (apart from spooking the Parthians) – he “was the last Roman Emperor recognised by the Indian Kingdoms, especially the Kushan Empire” and a group proclaiming themselves to be an “ambassadorial mission” made the first direct contact between Han China and the Roman Empire.

Otherwise, he was an effective administrator and left behind a treasury in substantial surplus (despite extensive building projects), something no other emperor would do for a long time.

Based, indeed.

RATING: 4 STARS****
A-TIER (TOP TIER)
EMPIRE BASER