Were All Roman Emperors Despicable People?

Emperors being despicable and mean, probably was part of their job (& life) security. It was probably a lonely existence.

Indeed, many of the "good" emperors were bumped off too early, by people high up in the military who preferred their emperors to be a bit more mercenary, ruthless and plunder-acquiring.

Then there are some emperors who were "pretty good" but received bad press in subsequent generations. Diocletian was a brilliant administrative reformer who was just about the only emperor to voluntarily retire to his villa after serving 10 years wearing the purple. But because he persecuted the Christians (he was the last emperor to do so), subsequent Christian historians gave him a very bad reputation; the early calendar based on year 1 being the accession of Diocletian was known as the "Year of the Martyrs calendar".

But for the most part, the nature of the job meant that the most ruthless, the most driven, the most ambitious, the most cunning tended to rise to the top of the Imperial heirarchy. Such people rarely earn the title "nice".

As a general rule, the emperors who were deified (declared by the Senate to have become gods after they died) were the ones whose legacy was appreciated by their successors and whose passing was generally regretted. So look for coins where the emperor is acclaimed as "DIVVS" (or "DIVO").

The standards of the times were very different than today. No one ever questioned the death penalty or the 'custom' of enslaving defeated people or removing anyone who posed a threat from this world. The bodies of "Enemies of the State" were dragged through the streets and thrown into the Tiber. It was a very different world. A Professor of mine once remarked that it would be quite easy for one of us (students) to wind up getting stoned to death for doing something inappropriate if we could 'go back' so to speak. It was a veeeery different world with even the most enlightened people knowing that things like magic daemons and witches were very real and to be identified and dealt with.

OK, I know I've posted about this before but I really, really think this far and away the very best series of podcasts I've heard.

http://thehistoryofrome.typepad.com/

I encourage anyone interested in Roman history to listen to it.

I listened to it on my commute to work and I'm probably going to listen to it all over again in the near future.

Mike Duncan (the host) mixes it up with humor and it never gets dry.

There is so much excellent information on the web about Ancient history. He is a site about the lives of the Roman emperors.

http://www.roman-emperors.org/impindex.htm

If I had to say some were good and some were bad it'd be good: nerva, trajan, hadrian, antonius pius, Marcus Aurilius.

Bad, = Caligula, Elgabalus, commodus, Nero, Domitian.

All bosses suck though in the end. Some are better than others though I guess.

One more, Vetranio. He was a good guy. Usurper, technically, but remained loyal to the emperor. He took the purple so he could march against the usurper magnentius to stop the guy taking over the empire. As soon as he finished the job and his army met the army of Constantius II which had been tied up in Persia, he abdicated. Although his only actions were warring, he was probably the most loyal to the empire.