Dovahhatty – Unbiased History of Rome XIX: The Fall of Rome

(5) WORST: VALENTINIAN III –

THEODOSIAN DYNASTY

(425 – 455 AD: 29 YEARS 4 MONTHS 21 DAYS)

Jeez – this guy. Arguably the worst Roman emperor ever (albeit not quite in my rankings), although you could easily shuffle him and my next entry, his predecessor, for that spot, as they are so uncannily similar as to be interchangeable.

Each was a model of supine inactivity as the empire crumbled, except for betraying the loyal subordinate who was the one holding things together and stabbing that man in the back, with each having one of the two notorious sacks of Rome following shortly afterwards. Between the two of them and their inexplicably long reigns, almost 60 years in combination, they broke the western Roman empire and presided over its fall. It’s like the Roman Empire cloned its crappiest emperor, just so it could have him reign twice to ensure its own fall.

In the case of Valentinian III, that loyal subordinate was his general Aetius – who defeated Attila the Hun’s invasion of Gaul. One could argue that his betrayal of Aetius was even worse than the corresponding betrayal by his predecessor. Firstly, because he waited until Aetius had defeated the Huns and felt secure enough that he no longer needed Aetius. Secondly because the creep did it himself, the only time he ever drew a sword, striking down the unarmed Aetius and with a pack to back him up no less. And thirdly, he had the sheer hubris to boast that he had done well to dispose of Aetius in such a way, prompting a counsellor’s famous reply “Whether well or not, I do not know. But know that you have cut off your right hand with your left”.

Edward Gibbon summed it up best with this acid observation in his characteristic prose – “But the emperor of the West, the feeble and dissolute Valentinian, who had reached his thirty-fifth year without attaining the age of reason or courage, abused this apparent security to undermine the foundations of his own throne by the murder of the patrician Aetius. From the instinct of a base and jealous mind, he hated the man who was universally celebrated as the terror of the barbarians and the support of the republic.”

And in the case of Valentinian III, the notorious sack of Rome following shortly afterwards was the Sack of Rome by the Vandals in 455 AD – although he wasn’t alive to see it as fortunately karma had kicked in and he had been killed by two of Aetius’ loyal followers, orchestrated by Petronius Maximus.

And yes – Valentinian III was the predecessor to whom I was referring all the way back in my tenth place entry for Petronius Maximus. A disgrace to the proud name of Valentinian the Great, although Valentinian III hailed from that worst of classical Roman dynasties, the Theodosian dynasty.

“Valentinian’s reign is marked by the dismemberment” – DISMEMBERMENT! – “of the Western Empire; by the time of his death, virtually all of North Africa, all of western Spain, and the majority of Gaul had passed out of Roman hands. He is described as spoiled, pleasure-loving, and heavily influenced by sorcerers and astrologers and devoted to religion”. That’s right – Valentinian III, resorting to sorcery and astrology in the ghost dance of the Roman Empire.

That devotion to religion, of course being Christianity – somewhat inconsistent with the influence “by sorcerers and astrologers” – at least contributed to him giving greater authority to the Papacy, which might explain his only good decision, using Pope Leo as an envoy to Attila the Hun in the latter’s invasion of Italy, which succeeded (among other things) in persuading Attila to leave Italy without sacking Rome, never to return to attack Italy or the empire as it turned out.

RATING: 1 STAR*

F-TIER (WORST TIER)

EMPIRE BREAKER

MAXIMUS:

No, just no.

DAMNED:

He should have been – I’ll take his assassination as damnatio memoriae.

SPECTRUM RANKING COMPARISON:

As noted previously for Majorian and Petronius Maximus , Spectrum ranked the western Roman emperors after 395 AD separately, but stated that he would not only rank Valentinian III as the second worst of those emperors, he would rank him as second worst of all Roman emperors.

Dovahhatty – Unbiased HIstory of Rome XVI: Constantine the Great

(5) BEST: CONSTANTINE –

CONSTANTINIAN DYNASTY

(306 – 337 AD: 30 YEARS 9 MONTHS 27 DAYS)

“In this sign thou shalt conquer”.

Diocletian may have created the Dominate but Constantine…dominated it (heh).

It’s hard to go past Dovahhatty’s summation of Constantine’s greatness –

“Having ruled as Rome’s emperor for over three decades, he displayed wisdom and virtue, was never defeated in battle, defended the empire against barbarians countless times, reunited Rome after a terrible civil war, transformed Christianity into a Roman, civilizing faith, and gave the empire a new capital that would last for over a thousand years. And it is for these reasons, and a thousand reasons more, that history will forever remember him, as Constantine the Great.”

Although, as we’ve seen, that title of the Great was used by Roman chroniclers to signify the first of his name (as emperor) rather than greatness, in the case of Constantine the greatness also applies.

In the eastern Roman empire, “it became a great honor for an emperor to be hailed as a new Constantine; ten emperors carried the name”, including the last ever Roman emperor, Constantine XI.

That carried over in the west as well. The Holy Roman Empire “reckoned Constantine among the venerable figures of its tradition” and Charlemagne “used monumental Constantinian forms in his court to suggest that he was Constantine’s successor and equal”. Charlemagne was one of many monarchs or royal dynasties that claimed descent from Constantine – Geoffrey of Monmouth even claimed it for King Arthur. (Weirdly, Monmouth also had Caracalla as a king of Britain).

“The age of Constantine marked a distinct epoch in the history of the Roman Empire…He built a new imperial residence at the city of Byzantium and renamed it New Rome, later adopting the name Constantinople after himself…It subsequently became the capital of the empire for more than a thousand years, the later Eastern Roman Empire”.

He also proclaimed that the Praetorian Guard, by now a byword in assassinating the emperors they were meant to safeguard, would be ABOLISHED – the subject of the greatest sequence in the entirety of Dovahhatty’s Unbiased History of Rome, even if Constantine didn’t gloriously slaughter them all as depicted.

As for the usual beating back barbarians from the borders, Constantine drove back the Picts in Britain (having succeeded his father as emperor while they were both in Britain), as well as winning campaigns against the Franks and Alemanni on the Rhine, and the Goths and Sarmatians on the Danube. He also reoccupied most of the long-lost province of Dacia (in his campaigns on the Danube) and at the time of his death was planning a campaign against the Sassanids in Persia (to end their raids on the eastern provinces).

However, as Adrian Goldsworthy wryly points out, Constantine spent as much (or more) time fighting other Romans as the Tetrarchy collapsed into chaos and civil war. However, this was as (or more) important for the empire as defeating the barbarians at its borders – as Constantine reunited and restored the empire under one emperor.

It was also during these civil wars that Constantine embraced Christianity for himself and the empire – through the legend of the sign that literally came to him in a dream, the Chi Ro or Labarum that he then had placed on the shields of his soldiers before winning the famous Battle of the Milvian Bridge against the usurper Maxentius. “By this sign, thou shalt conquer” – and he did!

Constantine didn’t just become the first Christian emperor – he also became a saint, “one of the only saints to be canonised in the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox & Anglican Churches”. Indeed, he was (and is) hailed as the ‘Thirteenth Apostle’, a pretty impressive feat for someone who had his eldest son Crispus and wife Fausta executed – which remains a black mark against his name.

RATING: 5 STARS*****

S-TIER (GOD TIER)

EMPIRE-MAKER

(Yes – only one emperor was truly the empire maker but Constantine gave it a makeover, enduring for a century in the west and more than a millennium in the east)

MAXIMUS:

And how! Germanicus Maximus, Sarmaticus Maximus, Gothicus Maximus, Dacicus Maximus.

DEIFIED:

And sainted too, earning the double whammy of deification and canonization.

SPECTRUM RANKING COMPARISON:

Similar but Spectrum ranked Constantine higher as third best emperor. By contrast, Daily Roman Updates had Basil II in fifth place in his top five Roman emperors, but I have ranked Roman emperors past 476 AD separately.

Dovahhatty – Unbiased History of Rome XIII: The Severan Dynasty

(6) WORST: CARACALLA –
SEVERAN DYNASTY
(211 – 217 AD: 6 YEARS 2 MONTHS 4 DAYS)

You wouldn’t like him when he’s angry – the Incredible Hulk of the Roman Empire, not in superhuman strength but in violent temper, smashing his way from one end of the empire to another.

I said I hadn’t finished ragging on the Severan dynasty while discussing Severus Alexander and Elagabalus, so here’s the third entry from that terrible dynasty in my top ten, Lucius Septimus Bassianus – or as he is known to history, Caracalla, his nickname from the cloak he wore while cosplaying as a soldier. What is it with two of the worst Roman emperors being nicknamed for their clothing (and military cosplay clothing at that)…?

Technically he reigned as co-emperor with his father (and founder of the Severan dynasty) Septimus Severus from 198 AD and then with his younger brother Geta as well from 209 AD. His father died in February 211 AD and his brother died in December 211 – the latter with a little help from Caracalla. Or a lot of help, as Caracalla orchestrated Geta’s murder by the Praetorian Guard – worse in the guise that Caracalla had their mother Julia Domna arrange a peace meeting with his brother in her apartments, thus depriving Geta of his bodyguards, and then had him murdered in her arms.

Low blow, bro – although their mother got over it, obviously reconciling herself with the thought that one live imperial son in the hand was better than a dead one in damnation memoria (which Caracalla of course had the Senate decree for Geta). Indeed, she essentially ran Caracalla’s imperial administration for him, as he found it too boring.

What he didn’t find boring was lavishing attention on the military and LARPing as a soldier in the provinces. And by lavishing attention, I mean spending money and debasing the currency to do it. The denarius? Caracalla smash! He instituted another coin for Rome’s currency but debased that too.

That is, when he was taking time off from his purges and massacres, including his infamous purge of Geta’s supporters and his equally infamous massacre of the inhabitants of Alexandria because he was insulted by a play about him in that city.

One seemingly positive achievement was that he did decree all free men (with certain exceptions) as Roman citizens, thereafter puzzling historians as to his motives, although it is usually attributed to extending the tax base.

In fairness, he also did a reasonable job at shoring up the empire against Germanic tribes along the Rhine and Danube. On the other hand, the latter part of his reign was spent entirely away from Rome, starting with an ongoing tour of the provinces, reputed to bankrupt provincial governments with his extravagant expenses. It was this that prompted Edward Gibbon to write that “every province was by turn the scene of his rapine and cruelty”. That’s metaphorical rapine I presume, although you never know with the bad Roman emperors.

He then obsessively began LARPing as Alexander the Great, to the point of starting a war with Persia’s Parthian Empire by a Red Wedding style of massacre (although the accounts vary), which may have indirectly played a part in the rise of the Sassanids that followed as a rod for the empire’s back – and definitely played a part in a knife for his own, as he was assassinated during his war with Parthia.

“Caracalla has had a reputation as being among the worst of Roman emperors, a perception that survives even into modern works…historian David Magie describes Caracalla, in the book Roman Rule in Asia Minor, as brutal and tyrannical and points towards psychopathy as an explanation for his behaviour”.

RATING: 1 STAR*
F-TIER (WORST TIER)
EMPIRE DEBASER

MAXIMUS:

Britannicus Maximus mooching off his father’s campaign but he got Germannicus Maximus on his own

DEIFIED:

Dude should have had a damnatio memoriae but got deified instead. I mean, they’d deify anyone those days.

SPECTRUM RANKING COMPARISON:

Very similar as fifth worst emperor before 395 AD (although that would drop two places to seventh worst emperor if we included his separate rankings from the western Roman empire)

Dovahhatty – Unbiased History of Rome XI: Pax Romana

(6) BEST: DOMITIAN –

FLAVIAN DYNASTY

(81 – 96 AD: 15 YEARS 4 DAYS)

Domitian in sixth place? Higher than Marcus Aurelius?

Damnatio memoriae Domitian vs deified Marcus Aurelius? And with Domitian the victor?

In short, yes.

I refuse to elaborate. Just kidding – obviously I will (and have to) elaborate my three-fold argument for the virgin Marcus Aurelius vs the chad Domitian. Also just kidding – obviously that’s the chad Domitian vs the slightly less chad Marcus Aurelius.

Firstly, there’s the symmetry of each at either end of Rome’s second century golden age. Modern historians have increasingly seen Domitian’s reign as laying the foundation of the golden age that immediately succeeded him (or at least did via a brief interregnum via Nerva). On the other hand, Rome’s golden age ended after Marcus Aurelius, with his son that immediately succeeded him.

Secondly, I considered that the Flavian dynasty should be represented in the top ten best emperors, particularly given that I rank it as the second best imperial dynasty – which is pretty impressive as it consists of Vespasian and his two sons, Titus and Domitian. Of course, arguably I might have ranked Vespasian in the top ten (and it was a close call but I’ve ranked him as special mention), but Domitian ruled longer, indeed longer than any emperor since Tiberius.

Thirdly and most fundamentally, money trumps philosophy – and Domitian’s reign was distinctive, perhaps even unique, for its economic success, albeit this is contested by historians (which still seems to lean towards a balanced economy for the greater part of his reign). Above all, he successfully revalued the currency, maintaining it through his reign by financial prudence and “rigorous taxation policy”. Spectrum – who similarly ranks Domitian over Marcus Aurelius – asserts that that he “was the only emperor to have actually fixed the problem of inflation, the only one”. I’m not sure that he was as unique in that respect as Spectrum asserts, but at very least it was exceedingly rare and he certainly “maintained the Roman currency at a standard it would never again achieve”.

However, it was more than just the economy that he strengthened, although his economic management might be said to be representative of his prudent management of the empire and its administration as a whole.

“His foreign policy was realistic, rejecting expansionist warfare and negotiating peace” and “the military campaigns undertaken during Domitian’s reign were generally defensive in nature”. His military campaigns might not have been as conclusive or as overwhelmingly victorious as his critics would have preferred – notably against the Dacians, where another entry in this top ten finished the job – but he did leave the empire’s borders more secure, with his “most significant military contribution” as the development of the Limes Germanicus to defend the empire along the Rhine.

And his campaigns were, more or less, successful – extending the conquest of Britain into Scotland under his capable general Agricola, wars against the Germanic tribe of the Chatti (conferring upon himself the victory title of Germanicus Maximus), wars against the Dacians and other tribes across the Danube, and suppressing the revolt of governor Saturnius in Germania.

“Domitian is also credited on the easternmost evidence of Roman military presence, the rock inscription near Boyukdash mountain, in present-day Azerbaijan”. The Roman Empire may also have reached its northernmost and easternmost points during his reign – in Scotland (in the campaign by Agricola) and in Ireland (in a possible expedition, also by Agricola).

Otherwise, he was one of the Roman emperors with the largest architectural footprints in Rome with his extensive reconstruction of the city still damaged from disasters preceding his reign – and even the critical Suetonius observed “the imperial bureaucracy never ran more efficiently than under Domitian” with “historically low corruption”. Persecution of religious minorities such as Jews or Christians was minimal, if any, at least as observed by contemporaries although some was subsequently reputed to him.

So where does the hate for Domitian come from, often expressed in terms of ranking him as one of Rome’s worst and most tyrannical emperors? Why, from the Senate of course, reflecting the mutual antagonism between Domitian and the Senate, hence the latter’s official damnatio memoriae on Domitian after his death (by assassination in a conspiracy by court officials).

Which is just unfair. Claudius purged more senators than Diocletian and the Senate deified him, while he is widely regarded as one of the good emperors (whom I’ll feature in special mentions). And Domitian’s autocratic style of government seems similar to (if not less despotic than) that instituted by Diocletian for the Dominate, but Diocletian is lauded and Domitian is not.

Fortunately, modern historians have revised or reassessed Domitian to his standing as at most a ruthless but efficient autocrat (with ruthlessness and autocracy as common features among Roman emperors) – and an emperor “whose administration provided the foundation for the Principate of the peaceful 2nd century”, with the policies of his immediate successors differing little from his in reality.

(By the way, I guess if I would substitute Justinian for Marcus Aurelius when extending rankings for emperors past 476 AD, I guess I’d substitute Basil II for Domitian).

RATING: 4 STARS****

A-TIER (TOP TIER)

EMPIRE BASER (as opposed to empire debaser).

MAXIMUS:

He took the title Germanicus as well as claimed several triumphs

DAMNED

Yeah – one of the few formal damnatio memoriae by Senate decree. Sigh.

SPECTRUM RANKING COMPARISON: Almost the same with Spectrum ranking him in fifth place – and similarly one place above Marcus Aurelius, for similar reasons, perhaps the greatest influence his rankings had on my own.

Dovahhatty – Unbiased History of Rome XIII: The Severan Dynasty

(7) WORST: ELAGABULUS –

SEVERAN DYNASTY

(218 – 222 AD: 3 YEARS 9 MONTHS 4 DAYS)

With great power comes great degeneracy.

Certainly one of the weirdest emperors, Elagabulus is what happens when you let an omnisexual teenager of dubious mental stability loose with absolute imperial power AND his own cult. It’s like Elagabulus read Suetonius’ The Twelve Caesars with its lurid depictions of imperial depravity and said hold my beer.

And so “Elagabalus developed a reputation among his contemporaries for extreme eccentricity, decadence, zealotry and sexual promiscuity” – “his short reign was notorious for sex scandals and religious controversy”.

It does however make for entertaining reading – indeed one of the most entertaining entries in either my top ten worst (or best) emperors. It’s a pity Suetonius wasn’t around to write the tabloid history of Elagabalus.

Elagabalus was his god name – literally. He was born Sextus Varius Avitus Bessianus, a relative (by marriage) of the Severan dynasty – a family connection which his grandmother (and emperor-maker) Julia Maesa boosted further by spreading the rumor that he was the illegitimate son of the emperor Caracalla. His family held hereditary rights to the priesthood of the syncretized Syrian-Greek-Roman sun of the same name (or variants of it) he adopted, having served as high priest from his early youth.

So naturally he brought his god with him to Rome, in the form of his pet rock – again literally, a black conical meteorite from the temple of the god in Emesa, Syria.

The new god of itself was not so weird, since it was readily assimilated to the Roman sun god Sol – the worship of whom had become increasingly prevalent under the Severan dynasty, becoming known as Sol Invictus or the Unconquered Sun (and which would be redeemed by far superior emperors).

What was weird was Elagabalus installing his god as the chief deity of the Roman pantheon and suborning that pantheon to his god – compounded by equivalent of forcing Roman Senators to go to his church and watch him as he danced around the god’s altar, which was hardly conducive to imperial dignity.

Speaking of the Severan dynasty, it’s something of a running theme in my top ten worst Roman emperors, with Elagabalus as the second entry from that dynasty – and I haven’t finished ragging on them yet.

Perhaps the most entertaining part of this emperor’s history are the lurid tales of his sexuality. However, “the question of Elagabalus’s sexual orientation and gender identity is confused” due to the salaciousness of the sources, which includes accounts of him asserting and adorning himself as a female, to the point of reputedly seeking out sex changing surgery. Hence some have asserted or claimed him or her as the transsexual Roman emperor.

I am not sure that one should want to claim Elagabalus as one’s poster boy or girl, but moreover, I am not sure that these accounts are accurate to that extent, smacking as they do of Roman hyperbole to characterize someone of, ah, unmanly conduct – un-Romanly conduct that is. However, I do think that the historical sources are clear enough to say that Elagabalus swung every which way, hence my omnisexual quip.

Which has gone down a treat with historical writers. As per Edward Gibbon – Elagabalus “abandoned himself to the grossest pleasures with ungoverned fury” – and Barthold Georg Niebuhr – “the name Elagabalus is branded in history above all others” because of his “unspeakably disgusting life”.

Even Sir James George Frazer, author of The Golden Bough, got in on the act – “The dainty priest of the Sun [was] the most abandoned reprobate who ever sat upon a throne … It was the intention of this eminently religious but crack-brained despot to supersede the worship of all the gods, not only at Rome but throughout the world”.

A more neutrally stated modern assessment is by Adrian Goldsworthy -“Elagabalus was not a tyrant, but he was an incompetent, probably the least able emperor Rome had ever had.”

Interestingly, some have sought to reclaim his reputation. It’s a running theme throughout my top ten worst emperors that almost every entry – or at least almost every entry of major significance – has some advocate for them, as indeed it is for my top ten best emperors to the converse of people querying their legacy or reputation, arising as it does for figures that lack the comprehensive documentation of their contemporary counterparts.

In particular, modern historian Warwick Ball has picked up the Elagabalus ball (heh) and run with it, describing him as “a tragic enigma lost behind centuries of prejudice” – and one whose religious syncretism was ultimately successful in the long term, “in the sense that his deity would be welcomed by Rome in its Sol Invictus form 50 years later” and “came to influence the monotheist Christian beliefs of Constantine, asserting that this influence remains in Christianity to this day”.

RATING: 1 STAR*

F-TIER (WORST TIER)

MAXIMUS:

No victory titles as such but he did claim the title of Pontifex Maximus as high priest of his god – and did have something of a regular annual triumph for his god, parading his pet rock about the city.

DEIFIED AND DAMNED:

It was a fine line between the divinity he claimed for his god and that for himself. When marrying a Vestal Virgin – outraging Rome yet again – he claimed the marriage would produce god-like children. And of course after the usual assassination by the Praetorian Guard, the Senate rolled out a damnatio memoriae on him.

EMPIRE DEBAUCHER

No surprise there, surely?

SPECTRUM RANKING COMPARISON: I’m not quite as hard on him as Spectrum, who ranks him as THE worst emperor before 395 AD, possibly the worst of all Roman emperors (although Spectrum seems to hint that he ranks two subsequent emperors as even worse).

Dovahhatty had one of his tongue-in-cheek portrayals of Elagabalus as a chad in drag.