5 Good Emperors

[LouisJoseph]

What are your thoughts on the Five Good Emperors? Were they as good as they are made out to be? I am interested in seeing your opinions.

 

[LightSpectra]

Antoninus Pius is one of the few leaders of the Roman Empire that I can confidently say wasn't a gigantic jerk-bag, and actually made his realms a better place to live. The others... not so much.

 

[Dachs]

Yeah, I rather like Antoninus Pius myself. It's probably a Good Thing when somebody's reign is so monumentally boring that blood-and-guts historians tend to skip over it. And I suppose Nerva probably wasn't all that bad either.

Traianus, on the other hand, was an overrated dickweed.

 

[Traitorfish]

I thought Marcus Aurelius was meant to be a pretty decent bloke, too? Sort of like Antonious Pius 2.0, with a bit more time spent stroking his chin and staring into space? (And, for the record, I'm going by stuff I've rad and his various writings on How Not To Be A Douche, and not just by Gladiator. )

 

[Dachs]

Well, his reign did suck for most Romans partially for reasons outside of his control (the Aurelian Plague), but most of it was spent at war with the Pahlavan and with the Markomanna. The latter war saw vast amounts of blood and treasure expended to no clear purpose, while cities like Aquileia were sacked. Long, bloody war, narrow victory at best. Not really sure what's "Good" about that; I suppose it was "Good" that Rome didn't lose, but that was never really in the cards anyway.

I don't know how people seem to always forget about his wars and focus on the Meditations, because he intersperses mentions of the "Quadi" and "Marcomanni" in the work itself, sometimes in chapter titles.

 

[LouisJoseph]

Why do you say that?

 

[NovaKart]

Who were the Pahlavan. The word means wrestler in Farsi and in Turkish, well in Turkish it's Pehlivan but close enough.

 

[Dachs]

Why do you say that?

What, exactly, did he do?

Who were the Pahlavan. The word means wrestler in Farsi and in Turkish, well in Turkish it's Pehlivan but close enough.

Another way to refer to the Ashkâniân. Parthia.

 

[citedon]

Cyrus the Great deserves consideration.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyrus_the_Great

Please ignore this post. After I did it I noticed the OP was the five good emperors (meaning Romans). I originally read it as five good emperors.

 

[LouisJoseph]

What, exactly, did he do?\

He managed to restore internal stability after the reign of Nerva, so he must have been pretty good.

 

[Dachs]

He managed to restore internal stability after the reign of Nerva, so he must have been pretty good.

The internal instability under Nerva - an issue effectively confined to the city of Rome itself - was basically the result of Nerva being a nice guy. Traianus was a dickweed, as I said, or Not a Nice Guy. Matches up pretty well.

 

[Neonanocyborgasm]

There's nothing to make them any better than necessarily any other Roman emperors. They simply had the distinction of being rulers when the empire was at its height. They left few enduring legacies which other emperors could be said to have left. More important emperors would be Augustus, Constantine, and Diocletian.

 

[Masada]

There's nothing to make them any better than necessarily any other Roman emperors.

The Five Good Emperors are notable for being Good - which is usually tied to boring things like: peace, love and happiness - and not for being the Best (or better) - which is usually tied to just the opposite: death, war and sorrow. Personally, I'd prefer the Good over the Better. Then again, I like peace and prosperity, fair rule and good governance. War just ain't me. I don't like the idea of dying.

More important emperors would be Augustus, Constantine, and Diocletian.

Civil war, civil war and maor civil war?

 

[Dachs]

The Five Good Emperors are notable for being Good - which is usually tied to boring things like: peace, love and happiness - and not for being the Best (or better) - which is usually tied to just the opposite: death, war and sorrow. Personally, I'd prefer the Good over the Better. Then again, I like peace and prosperity, fair rule and good governance. War just ain't me. I don't like the idea of dying.

Funnily enough, three out of the five Good Emperors are famous because of death, war, and sorrow, although one of them only engaged in a very little of it during his actual reign and spent more time buggering Greeks in Egypt.

 

[ParkCungHee]

Civil war, civil war and maor civil war?

Freudian slip, or proposing the Maori were the real brains behind the Roman Empire?

 

[Lord Baal]

Freudian slip, or proposing the Maori were the real brains behind the Roman Empire?

The Legions were clones?

 

[Masada]

It was deliberate

Funnily enough, three out of the five Good Emperors are famous because of death, war, and sorrow, although one of them only engaged in a very little of it during his actual reign and spent more time buggering Greeks in Egypt.

Eh, might seem arbitary but dickering around on the edge is rather a better thing than being dickered around inside the country. I dunno, the Civil Wars hold far more terror than beating up on Dacia?

 

[Neonanocyborgasm]

The Five Good Emperors are notable for being Good - which is usually tied to boring things like: peace, love and happiness - and not for being the Best (or better) - which is usually tied to just the opposite: death, war and sorrow. Personally, I'd prefer the Good over the Better. Then again, I like peace and prosperity, fair rule and good governance. War just ain't me. I don't like the idea of dying.

Good is a subjective term, but there was nothing particularly good about them. It was more that the times they lived in were good, so they were given credit by later historians as being good. There is nothing that those emperors did that can be said to have made the times good, for any credit in that should go to predecessors who established legacies which would've allowed for the prosperous and stable times they enjoyed.

Civil war, civil war and maor civil war?

The death of nearly every emperor was nearly always marked by some sort of in-fighting, as succession was rarely definitively established or respected.

 

[LightSpectra]

Good is a subjective term, but there was nothing particularly good about them. It was more that the times they lived in were good, so they were given credit by later historians as being good. There is nothing that those emperors did that can be said to have made the times good, for any credit in that should go to predecessors who established legacies which would've allowed for the prosperous and stable times they enjoyed.

We're not talking about the times they lived in, we're talking about the decisions they made as leaders. Antoninus Pius deciding not to persecute any random minority, misuse the imperial treasury to all hell, or go to war to make his name flashy in the history scrolls made him a good leader, in contrast to Diocletianus, who was a miserable failure at almost everything he did but was the talk of the town.

The death of nearly every emperor was nearly always marked by some sort of in-fighting, as succession was rarely definitively established or respected.

Then having taken care of that is a sign of an unusually good emperor, nay?

 

[Masada]

I'm going to go with what LightSpectra said. Diocletianus left an unstable mess in his wake and a system that collapsed pretty soon after. Even Augustus wasn't that flash. Dude had an eye for talent, did rather well out of it in the Civil War and sat back comfortable for the remainder of his rule. Also, I'm not quite sure what made the Principate better than what had gone before it? As to Constantinus his rule ended up in much the same way as Diocletianus in a series of Civil Wars and another system that barely survived his death. (Hell Constantinus wouldn't have come around if Diocletianus' legacy hadn't sucked).

It was more that the times they lived in were good

What is a Good Time, what makes a Good Time and how do I get one of these Good Times? I'm all for agency, but I'm not sure giving time agency is a Good Idea? I might need to consult a physicist for an opinion on this one.