Dilettantes think about the Roman Empire. True Roman connoisseurs rank the Roman emperors.
I owe my own rankings to the influence and inspiration of truer Roman connoisseurs than me. You don’t get more of a true Roman connoisseur than the Youtuber and X-Twitter account Daily Roman Updates, named for his updates on the Roman Empire (“It’s gone”) – and I’m prompted by his joke about asking favorite Roman emperors as an icebreaker at dates or parties, despite his inner voice repeatedly pleading with him not to say to say it.
Of course, any such ranking is subjective opinion, although there does appear to be some broad consensus (or consensuses?) about the good or better Roman emperors. You don’t get such common labels as “the five good emperors” (which I understand to have originated with Machiavelli and been advanced by Gibbon) without some consensus.
Or the phrase used by the Roman Senate itself in the inauguration of later Roman emperors, invoking two emperors as the paragons of Roman emperors. Don’t be surprised if the emperors from either the five good emperors or the Senate’s inauguration phrase feature prominently in my top ten.
And again I am influenced in my rankings by truer Roman connoisseurs. I’ve seen a post by Daily Roman Updates of his top five Roman emperors, which is largely the same as my own but for one notable exception (which we’ll get to shortly).
Similarly, the Youtuber Spectrum has ranked the Roman emperors in videos and my rankings echo his in many respects, although I dissent in others.
While the Youtuber Dovahhatty – whose Unbiased History of Rome videos are probably my single biggest influence for Roman history on Youtube but who now sadly appears to be inactive there and on X-Twitter – does not actually rank the emperors, he does depict them by meme cartoon figures as being (good) chads or (bad) virgins, with the occasional (good or bad) wojaks. Of course, his tongue is firmly in his parody cheek, such as when he depicts some of the worst Roman emperors as the chads they proclaimed themselves to be.
Of course, by definition I am only ranking my top ten Roman emperors, but I do rank the balance of ‘good’ Roman emperors in my special mentions. And because you can’t rank the best Roman emperors without also ranking the worst Roman emperors as well – primarily because the worst Roman emperors are legendary in their cruelty and depravity – I rank my ten worst Roman emperors with the balance similarly in their own special mentions.
As for any matter of subjective opinion, my criteria for ranking my top emperors are somewhat loose, but primarily might be stated to be their effectiveness in managing or maintaining the empire – which may give rise to some moral dissonance as to what we might look for in leaders of modern democratic states today, given that the lifeblood of empire was brutal war or conquest, “they make a desert and call it peace”.
Conversely, my criteria for the ranking of the worst emperors might be stated to be their ineffectiveness, often characterized by imperial defeats and usually combined with that aforementioned legendary cruelty and depravity.
As for the ground rules for whom I rank, my primary rule is that I am only ranking Roman emperors until 476 AD, when the last western Roman emperor Romulus Augustulus was deposed (with the exception I do not include eastern emperor Zeno, who reigned briefly in 474-475 AD before returning for a longer second reign from 476 onwards).
That’s really just a matter of brevity and also that I am more familiar with the ‘classical’ Roman emperors. I know that is short-changing the eastern Roman emperors, particularly as they had a millennium of imperial history after that and probably had more basic competence or effectiveness on average, or at least not the same depths of legendary cruelty and depravity as their worst counterparts in the classical empire.
So yes – sorry Byzantine bros, I am not ranking any eastern Roman emperors from 476 AD onwards in my top ten. Instead, they will get their own special mentions, good and bad, in which I will effectively rank my top best and worst eastern Roman emperors, just only against each other and not among Roman emperors as a whole.
Oh well, what the hell – you can have a ranking of eastern Roman emperors for my top ten as a treat. I rank Basil II (the Bulgar-Slayer) as the best eastern Roman emperor and he would easily rank in my top ten if it extended to 1453 AD. (He was that notable exception for Daily Roman Updates’ top five emperors as against my own, although I’m not sure I’d rank him quite as high).
Otherwise, I’d rank Justinian (narrowly missing out in a close call for best eastern Roman emperor) and Heraclius in my top ten emperors if extended to 1453 AD – probably also Alexios I Komnenos, although he illustrates the further problem of scale between the eastern Roman empire and the classical empire in comparing the emperors of both together. That is, he was operating on a far smaller scale than the emperors of the classical empire – although that also cuts both ways in that he overcame the greater challenges of fewer resources against more powerful enemies posing a genuine existential threat.
As for top ten worst Roman Emperors, I’d easily rank the eastern Roman emperor (and usurper) Phocas among them, pronouncing judgement in the same terms as Heraclius “Is this how you have ruled, wretch?”
On that note, I acknowledge my hubris from my armchair of hindsight in judging people, the least of which has ruled far more than anything I ever have (as in anything at all) – although I’d like to think that I’d have done a better job than the worst of them. Oh, who am I kidding? I’d be partying it up to legendary depravity as well.
My ground rule still leaves the issue of which emperors to rank prior to 476, given the list of claimants to that title – a list that as historian Adrian Goldsworthy points out is likely never to be complete or exhaustive, given the paucity of the contemporary historical record and that we are still finding ‘imperial’ coins minted in the name of new or unknown claimants.
So I’ve gone by Wikipedia’s list of Roman emperors, although I reserved the right to consider their entries noted to be of more dubious legitimacy in further honorable (or dishonorable) mentions.
Finally, in addition to my usual star and tier-rankings (which, given that I’m also ranking the worst emperors, goes all the way down to 1 star and F-tier rankings), I also have some other rankings for emperors:
MAXIMUS
The clearest ranking, since it’s the victory titles awarded to or claimed by Roman emperors (setting aside of course the title of emperor or imperator itself) for victories in battle against adversaries or opponents, which I’ll extend to include literal triumphs (for their triumphal processions in Rome)
DEIFIED OR DAMNED
Again a relatively clear ranking (albeit not always), for emperors who were deified after their deaths (I’ll allow this to include sainted) or damned – that is the subject of a damnatio memoriae, or cancelled posthumously to use the modern term. Of course, deification became a little like the Roman currency in the later empire – so routine that it became debased.
EMPIRE MAKER / SAVIOR OR EMPIRE BREAKER / DEBASER (DEBAUCHER)
Exactly what it says on the tin – my own particular (and hence subjective) distinction for those (good) emperors that made or saved the empire – or the (bad) emperors that broke or debased it (bonus points for debauching it as well). Debased the empire that is, not the currency – all emperors did the latter, with a few exceptions, although I will point out those worthy of particular mention
SPECTRUM RANKING COMPARISON
Because of the influence of Spectrum’s rankings for me, I’ll compare them to my own. I’ll also note Dovahhatty’s chad/virgin/wojak rankings here.