Worst Roman Emperors
- Thread starter LouisJoseph
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Dreadnought
Deity
To be fair, he was playing for his soul against the Devil.
Funny, I always thought it was dropsy.
At any rate, the real explanation - that the Byzantine military had been almost completely destroyed after three decades of war with the Sasanians (most of the war taken up by fratricidal slaughter and/or losing), and thus didn't have anywhere near the kind of resources to defend the Levant - is much more satisfying. And it makes Herakleios out to be a much better war leader, which he was. There are few campaigns in the annals of history, much less Roman history, that equal his achievements against the Sasanians in the 620s. In 636, he was beset by illness, his commanders in the field were acting out the motions of a civil war, and his armies were faced by a powerful, war-tested, and highly motivated army led by a general that came close to being Herakleios' equal in skill.
Now that's a ****ing explanation.
Perhaps being a moderator for so long has made you a worse troll.
Maybe it's a new tactic; he'll be a deliberately poor troll in an effort to get me pissed at how bad a troll he's being, and so draw my ire because, as is well known, I frown on poor trolling. The history stuff would be just window-dressing.
JohnRM
Don't make me destroy you
Nero may not be the worst Roman Emperor, but he doesn't have to be. He just had to be the first one that I thought of, even before I saw the list. He is the poster-child for bad Roman Emperors.
Pangur Bán
Deconstructed
That's hardly his fault. He's a higher-tier emperor for sure. All the worst emperors are palace-bred dynasts, brought up as spoiled brats with no idea of the outside world. Diocletion was a self-made military man who did a good job. He retired from emperorship to grow cabbages in Dalmatia. Only emperor to be able to retire in peace I think (though probably wrong).
LightSpectra
me autem minui
Retiring in peace and leaving an illogical and unstable political system that immediately collapsed into civil war isn't the mark of a good emperor. Also, you're forgetting how many resources he wasted on persecutions and his awful economic edicts.
Pangur Bán
Deconstructed
Don't know if that is fair. It's like saying George Washington was a bad president because of the US civil war.
The Civil Wars of the Tetrarchy broke out the year after Diocletian abdicated. Using the US Civil War analogy, Diocletian was Rome's Buchanan.
Edit: crosspost with Masakiwi.
Pangur Bán
Deconstructed
But you can't say they were his fault just because they happened afterwards. If anything that argues that Diocletian prevented civil wars. The latter were really part of Rome's succession system. Only founding a prestigious dynasty prevented them. And guys that do that get accused of promoting tyrants. A Roman emperor really can't win!
LightSpectra
me autem minui
George Washington wasn't involved in any of the factors that lead to the Civil War. He didn't even play a huge part in the creation of the Constitution. On the other hand, Diocletianus basically rewrote the constitution of the Roman Empire, which failed catastrophically.
Yes I can. He was almost the sole cause of it, because he made a ridiculous political system that fostered an instability which caused several previous wars in Roman history.
The latter were really part of Rome's succession system. Only founding a prestigious dynasty prevented them. And guys that do that get accused of promoting tyrants. A Roman emperor really can't win!
Republicanism is preferably to autocracy is preferable to lawlessness is preferable to totalitarianism. Diocletianus is second from the bottom there.
Pangur Bán
Deconstructed
GW was [partly] responsible for creating a centralized federal govt, replacing the one in Europe with one on Continental America. The former was distant and had very little real control, the latter became the "overbearing bully" southerners fought against [and indeed the same one modern US right-wingers hate]. Not really possible to have had a Civil War without GW.
The point is of course a frivolous one, but that is the underlying intent.
This is just speculation. Civil wars were around before Diocletian. That they came around after him too does not make him the cause. Post hoc ergo propter hoc.
It appears that, rather than being judged an incompetent emperor, he is instead an ideologically offensive one. That probably wouldn't have bothered him!
LightSpectra
me autem minui
It's frivolous because it's incomparable and you're grasping at straws to avoid giving a real response, not because my original point was wrong.
What in tarnations are you going on about? I didn't say Diocletianus is the cause of every civil war in history, but that he caused one in particular, which proceeded his death because the tetrarchical system he established was ridiculous and unstable.
It appears that, rather than being judged an incompetent emperor, he is instead an ideologically offensive one. That probably wouldn't have bothered him!
No, you missed the point. For the purposes of this discussion, I don't care if he was autocratic, since that is superior to lawlessness which he caused through "incompetence." And, what he would've thought of his own historical evaluation is irrelevant, since we're not discussing this for Diocletianus' sake, but for our own interest.
Pangur Bán
Deconstructed
Your original point was pretty much that Diocletian must have caused the civil war because he preceded it. GW preceded the Civil War. Both can be plausibly linked ... but it doesn't equate to it being their fault. Nor is a political system "ridiculous", neither the Washingtonian nor Diocletianic--because it can't bear the tension of another period. A guy is normally evaluated primarily on what he achieved in life, not on what others do when he is dead.
Didn't say you did. Reread. You are very specifically linking one emperor to one set of civil wars on very superficial grounds. Yet the link between the tetrarchy and civil war is far from being obvious, and in the broader picture--the history of the Roman empire as a whole--such civil war the norm pretty much most of the time (when succession was disputed or no-one was clearly a better candidate than anyone else or when a living emperor was regarded poorly by his soldiers). The claim you make is more unconvincing still because Diocletian actually brought to an end half a century of on-and-off war and political instability.
I.e. deeper factors about the Roman empire and its culture are far more convincing explanations for the warring than Diocletian's alleged poor stewardship. In fact, Diocletian rather than being a cause of such instability, actually solved it for his own lifetime.
Diocletian emerged from being a nobody to being the most successful soldier and administrator in the empire in one of the empire's most competitive periods, ruled for two decades and retired in peace. He was in a far better position than yourself to know what was necessary and possible and to what ends.
You mentioned lawlessness being superior to totalitarianism, which seems to me like an ideological distraction. Someone who is actually an emperor has a job to do and only keeps it by appeasing those with the power to remove/kill him, fulfilling certain culturally agreed norms of rulership which both he and his society endorse. So it does matter what his ideological criteria were, and it doesn't matter what y/ours are.
LightSpectra
me autem minui
Wha--? No, Diocletianus caused the civil war because he did things that facilitated civil war, not because he preceded it. Unless you think it's impossible for civil wars to be caused by things that precede them, in which case say so now, so I'll be sure not to respond to any more of your posts.
???
By your logic, nothing ever causes civil wars, they're just aberrations of nature. Establishing a nondynastic tetrarchy in which upon Diocletianus' death, four different people would compete for political authority with a very flimsy way for them to legally disassociate their positions was a terrible idea and it lead to a war for succession. This is quite simple. Diocletianus rewrote the Roman constitution, it failed, I blame Diocletianus.
Oh, do tell then.
He was hardly a successful administrator; at least, not in an unqualified sense, given his wasteful persecutions and backfiring economic edicts. Apparently your opinion is that he was infallible, and since he briefly ruled over a period of peace that therefore he was incapable of not causing another war with his own blunders (which were several).
Why are you talking about ideology? That has nothing to do with anything. Your original response was that if Diocletianus had a more stable system of imperial succession, I would've instead criticized him for being too authoritarian. My response is that I would not have, to which you have derived all sorts of mindless babble. Stick to the topic at hand.
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