(5) PALMYRENE EMPIRE
(270-273 AD)

And now we come to the biggest usurper states of all, during the Crisis of the Third Century when the Roman Empire split into three, with two breakaway empires at either end of it, west and east.

The Palmyrene empire was the more dangerous of the two, since it seized most of the wealthier eastern part of the empire, including the empire’s breadbasket in Egypt.

Ironically, the Palmyrene empire originated from the city of Palmyra (now in modern Syria) which while styling itself as a kingdom loyally defended the eastern borders of the Roman Empire from the Sassanid Persians, under its king Odaenathus, who defeated the Persians in 260 AD.

For his loyalty to and defense of the Roman Empire, he was rewarded with the position of Governor of the East, holding the highest political and military authority in the region, superseding that of the Roman provincial governors.

Unfortunately, he and his son were assassinated, so the Palmyrene kingdom now came under the control of its queen, widow of Odaenathus – one of those femme fatale figures to the empire that so alarmed Rome like Cleopatra before her, Zenobia.

Although it’s somewhat sad that Cleopatra eclipses Zenobia in popular imagination, since the shade of Cleopatra wishes she was Zenobia – Zenobia did what Cleopatra could only dream of doing, forge an eastern empire as a genuine rival to Rome.

Zenobia trod lightly at first, but her Palmyrene kingdom slowly transformed into the Palmyrene empire in open rebellion against the Roman Empire and conquering much of the latter’s eastern territory from 270 AD, although historians debate to what extent that rebellion was aimed at Palmyrene independence or more ambitiously at the imperial throne in Rome itself.

And she might have succeeded, certainly in the former and perhaps even the latter, had she not been opposed by the legendary restorer of the world himself, Emperor Aurelian, who made short work of her Palmyrene Empire in 272, as well as a brief revival of its rebellion under her successors in 273

RATING: 4 STARS****

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(6) BRITANNIC EMPIRE

(286-296 AD)

Arguably, the most dubious empire in this top ten – Wikipedia refuses to dignify it as such and calls it the Carausian revolt instead, but I have a soft spot for it, if only for the name history has given it on occasion as the Britannic Empire.

However, it’s more than the name. Although its founder, Roman naval commander Carausius did not claim succession from the Roman empire but only sought to usurp part of it for himself, that part did endure for ten years or so, which is pretty impressive even by the standards of some more substantial usurpers on this list.

Also, you have to admire his audacity, which at another time or in other circumstances might have paid off – foremost among those circumstances perhaps being that his loyalist Roman opponent was the glorious Constantius, father of the even more glorious Constantine the Great.

Carausius had risen through the ranks from humble origins and was appointed to naval command in Gaul, tasked to clear the English Channel of Frankish and Saxon pirates or raiders. Instead, he collaborated with them to enrich himself – or so he was accused of doing, being sentenced to death for it. In his most audacious move, he responded with the ultimate defence – declaring himself emperor over Britain and northern Gaul.

And he had substantial forces for his empire – his own fleet of course, augmented by new ships he had built. In addition, he not only had the three legions stationed in Britain, but a legion he had commandeered in Gaul, a number of foreign auxiliary units, a levy of Gaulish merchant ships, and barbarian mercenaries.

Given such forces, it might be said that he had reasonable prospects – particularly if he had confined himself to Britain, with its more defensible position combined with naval power. To me, his biggest mistake might have been biting off more than he could chew with northern Gaul as well – where his forces were readily defeated by those of Constantius in 293, which prompted his assassination by his subordinate Allectus, who fared no better when Constantius invaded and retook Britain itself.

It might also be said that Carausius was a man before his time – and after it, with the misfortunate timing of pulling his stunt at just the wrong time. Had he been around to pull this stunt during the Crisis of the Third Century, it might have paid off – and he might have pulled it off for good if he’d been around to do it when Emperor Honorius was prepared to abandon Britain altogether, with the end of Roman imperial rule traditionally dated to 410 AD.

There was just something about Britain that inspired Roman usurpers. Governor of Britain Clodius Albinus took his shot at usurping the imperial throne in the so-called Year of Five Emperors. Another imperial usurper, Magnus Maximus also raised the standard of revolt from Britain in the fourth century – and after elevating two disappointing usurpers, the Roman army in Britain chose one of its soldiers to be yet another claimant to the throne as Constantine III in 407 AD. He actually did reasonably well for a usurper, taking the legions from Britain and setting up shop in Gaul in such a way Emperor Honorius was forced to recognize him as co-emperor from 409 to 411, until Honorius had a competent general to take a swing at him.

RATING: 4 STARS****

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(7) DOMAIN OF SOISSONS

(457-486 AD)

In the fifth century, the western Roman Empire fell and all Gaul was conquered by German tribes. All? One small province of Romans remained, known to history as the Kingdom or Domain of Soissons.

Yes – it’s Asterix but replayed for real with a Roman province holding out in Gaul against the Germans. What can I say? I’m a romantic – and I have a soft spot for stories of lost legions, let alone whole holdout provinces.

The Domain of Soissons originated in 457 when the empire’s last best hope for a figure like Aurelian to pull it out of its doom, Emperor Majorian, appointed Aegitus as military commander or magister militum of Roman Gaul. Alas, the empires last best hope was not to be – as like Aurelian, Majorian was stabbed in the back, but unlike Aurelian, before he was able to save the empire.

Aegitus however kept a small part of that hope alive, as he and his son Syagrius maintained their rule in a remnant of Roman Gaul against the Visigoths and the Franks, even beyond the fall of the empire itself in 476, until finally defeated and conquered by the Franks in the Battle of Soissons in 486.

The Domain of Soissons even took a couple of shots at succeeding to the helm of the western Roman Empire – first, according to one writer, by threatening that empire with an invasion of Italy, and second, rejecting the rule of the barbarian king Odoacer in Italy by sending a messenger to the eastern Roman Emperor to claim the succession of the western Roman Empire for itself. Sadly but perhaps realistically, the eastern Roman emperor chose to offer legitimacy to Odoacer instead.

After that, the Domain of Soissons cut all ties with Italy and had no further recorded contact with the eastern Roman empire, although continuing to maintain that it was merely governing a Roman province.

Eterna Roma!

RATING: 4 STARS****

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(8) EMPIRE OF NICAEA

(1204-1261 AD)

First in the trinity of residual successor states to the eastern Roman Empire after the fall of Constantinople to the Fourth Crusade in 1204 – as the one that actually put its money where its mouth was for its claim as the legitimate successor of the empire.

Aptly enough perhaps for its conventional historiographic title of the Nicene Empire, echoing the Nicene Creed similarly named for Nicaea – although historians sadly missed out on the opportunity for it to be known as the Nice Empire.

For that matter, historians missed out on the opportunity for it to be known as the revenant Roman Empire. It did more than succeed the empire – it clawed the empire back from the grave, reclaiming Constantinople in 1261 in an amazing feat of resurrection, but like all revenants it wasn’t ever quite the same.

Credit for that feat goes to the final imperial dynasty, the Palaiologos dynasty, as founded by its first and best emperor, Michael VIII Palaeologus – although credit might also go the preceding Laskarid dynasty that had founded and sustained the Nicene Empire essentially from scratch.

Calling the restored eastern empire a revenant might be a little unfair – after all, it endured for about two centuries, albeit ultimately dwindling to little more than the city of Constantinople itself but with some reversals of fortune or rebounding before that. With a little more breathing space and a lot more luck – as well as fewer enemies and of course fewer of those interminable Byzantine civil wars always at the worst possible time – it might have rebounded more or at least endured longer.

Alas it was not to be – although I tend to think it was always doomed to fall to the Ottomans, as almost everyone else did at that time, with a few notable exceptions.

RATING: 4 STARS****

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(9) EMPIRE OF TREBIZOND & PRINCIPALITY OF THEODORO

(1204-1461 / 1475 AD)

One of the three major residual successor states to the eastern Roman Empire after the fall of Constantinople to the Fourth Crusade in 1204 – and the one with coolest alternative name, the Trapezuntine Empire.

(Which always prompts to my mind images of the Trapezoid Empire, itself prompted by that pyramid scheme in The Simpsons protesting that their model was more of a trapezoid).

Like the other two vestigial states, it claimed to be the legitimate successor of the eastern Roman Empire – but pushed that claim the least of the three of them, preferring to do its own thing on the Black Sea coast and peacefully abandoning its claim in 1281 or so by treaty with the state that did succeed in claiming back the empire.

Interestingly, the Trapezuntine Empire was formed before the fall of Constantinople, essentially as a descendant of the last truly great imperial dynasty took the opportunity presented by the encampment of Crusaders outside Constantinople for a military adventure to found his own empire, in alliance with the kingdom of Georgia.

Before that, Trebizond had a long history of doing its own thing even when part of the Roman empire and the Trapezuntine Empire just carried on that history, only more so through the wealth of its trade and pimping out its princesses famed for their beauty.

And there must be something to that foreign policy of bling and booty as Trebizond survived longest among the eastern Roman successor states (setting aside the residual Serbian or Italian dependency that was in Epirus), outlasting the fall of Constantinople until it too was besieged and conquered by the Ottomans in 1261.

Even then, its bizarro Byzantine offshoot in a sliver of Crimea, the Principality of Theodoro, lasted after 14 years until it too fell to the Ottomans in 1475.

RATING: 4 STARS****

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(10) DESPOTATE OF EPIRUS & EMPIRE OF THESSALONIKA
(1205-1337 & 1356-1479 AD)

The last surviving vestigial state of the eastern Roman Empire, originating when the Fourth Crusade captured Constantinople in 1204 and enduring (briefly) after the Ottomans captured Constantinople in 1453.

Admittedly, the eastern Roman Empire was not in good shape before the Fourth Crusade, arguably with the fault lines of its dissolution already in place, but it broke apart entirely when the Fourth Crusade struck it a death blow – not its finest moment for either the empire or the Crusades and certainly not the smartest for the latter.

I think it’s fair to call it a death blow as the empire as such ceased to exist, with the Crusaders founding their so-called Latin Empire in the heart of the former east Roman empire around Constantinople – scattering three residual states of the empire vying as successor to it. Amazingly, the empire came back from the dead, reviving under one of those residual successor states, but like all revenants it was never the same again.

One of those states was the so-called Despotate of Epirus, so-called because that title, like that of the Byzantine Empire, is a modern historiographic convention rather than a name in use at the time.

Like the other two, it claimed to be the legitimate successor of the eastern Roman empire – and even took a decent but ultimately unsuccessful swing at it by expanding in Greece towards Constantinople, in what is styled as the Empire of Thessalonika, until their imperial aspirations came to an abrupt end with their disastrous defeat by the Bulgarian Empire in 1230.

From there it gets convoluted but essentially the original Epirus part broke away from the new Thessalonika part, before both were swallowed up again by the successor state that did go on to revive itself as the east Roman Empire – with Thessalonika being straight up reabsorbed in 1246, while Epirus bounced back and forth until its final reconquest in 1337.

Only to slip the imperial leash again in 1356 during one of the eastern Roman empire’s interminable civil wars, bouncing from Serbian dependency to being inherited by Italian rulers, until it too fell to the Ottomans – although in its case, some small parts of it endured beyond the fall of Constantinople, with the very last stronghold in the town of Vonitsa, holding out until 1479.

Shout-out to those other eastern Roman holdouts that (briefly) survived the fall of Constantinople, most notably the so-called Despotate of the Morea – which had become a tributary to the Ottomans but rebelled, prompting the Ottomans to conquer them outright by 1460 or 1461 (depending which holdout you go by).

RATING: 4 STARS****

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Roma Eterna!

At the time of writing this, a meme from social media has come to the attention of mainstream media that men think about the Roman Empire a lot (from the viral trend of asking how often they did).

It reminds me of that old anecdote (of dubious authenticity) that the average male thinks of sex one in every seven seconds, which always begged the question to me of what all those other males were thinking about in those other seconds. Well, I guess we know the answer now.

So given its enduring topicality, I thought I’d compile my Top 10 Roman Empires.

Wait – what? Top 10 Roman…Empires? Plural?! Wasn’t there only the one Roman Empire?

In short, yes – except perhaps when there wasn’t.

My tongue is mostly in my cheek, but there has been a tendency to demarcate the Roman Empire into different parts, even while maintaining the fundamental continuity between those parts.

The foremost demarcation is the division of the Roman Empire into its western and eastern halves, reflecting the empire’s own division of imperial administration, with the latter enduring for a millennium after the fall of the former but which was named retrospectively by historiographical convention as the Byzantine Empire to distinguish it from their continuation of the Roman Empire.

For that matter, the ‘classical’ Roman Empire is sometimes demarcated into two parts, the Principate to describe the empire instituted by Augustus in 27 BC, and the Dominate to describe the empire as reformed under Diocletian in 284 AD – the latter overlapping with the division of imperial administration into western and eastern halves.

The eastern Roman Empire is similarly often demarcated into two parts – its original ‘Latin’ empire (literally by its official imperial language) and its transition to its medieval ‘Greek’ empire from the seventh century or so.

One could also parse either the ‘classical’ Roman empire or eastern Roman Empire further by imperial dynasty (or period when there was no dynasty).

This top ten mostly won’t be concerned with such academic divisions, albeit don’t be surprised if those eastern and western divisions feature prominently. Rather, it will be concerned with the exceptions to the rule of the Roman Empire – the various breakaway or vestigial states that were either substantial claimants to the Roman Empire or usurping it.

Indeed, this top ten might be more the iceberg meme that is usually reflected in my special mentions – in this case my iceberg of Roman Empire continuity. The top three entries are all within the fundamental continuity of the Roman Empire as the iceberg above the surface, with subsequent entries being more esoteric or wild as the iceberg beneath the surface. Don’t worry – I’ll have even wilder entries in my special mentions as we follow the iceberg all the way down claimants to the succession of the Roman Empire.

Note that reference to substantial – arguably the various breakaway states or claimants might extend to any territory controlled by any rivals or usurpers to the imperial throne but let’s not go crazy here, like we’re just anyone with delusions of imperial grandeur in the Crisis of Third Century or something. This top ten must have some standards beyond the local barracks emperor.

So that said, these are my Top 10 Roman Empires…