Were All Roman Emperors Despicable People?

Antoninus Pius, Theodosius I had a couple of controversial moments but he was good, Marcus Aurelius, Hadrian, Trajan.

Aurelian is another good emperor.

Yeah, I realize that in part it was the time in which they lived. Kinda makes modern politicians seem tame, huh?

My favourite is Hadrian he consolidated the power of the empire after Trajan's expansion and set up Antoninus Pius to have, as my prof put it, 'a boring period of no decent wars'. Although Hadrian did go into a bit of a funk when his, again as my prof put it, 'special friend' died trying to swim across the nile (lol)

Excellent points, Whizb4ng. "Good" is a vague term. I suppose I mean someone who was relatively well thought of in his time, was generally regarded as fair and prudent, and perhaps under whose reign the empire flourished. And who didn't kill people for looking at him cross-eyed.

And WHAT? Written history isn't always accurate? Say it isn't so

Apparently Claudius I was supposed to be a fairly good sort as well. While often portrayed as a drooling idiot he was in fact quite intelligent, well read, and a noted published author of his day (sadly no example of his works survive). He was a decent administrator, and though he did have a penchant for gambling and drink, he seemed to stay away from the cruel depravities that many other emperors had. You also may want to consider Constantine the Great, although he was a bit of an opportunist, at least on the statesmanship side of things. He managed to pull the empire back together again for it's last final hurrah before it's eventual fragmentation into decline.

Penny is correct about Claudius modern scholars have been rehabilitating his reputation lately. He supposedly could speak Etruscan and wrote on the subject.

As said before, you should try for the 5 'good emperors'.

And then collect some of the real evil ones...nearly all the Julio-Claudians were inbred madmen. Caligula road his horse across the sea using merchant ships - because of something a guy predicted to Tiberius. Nero tried to crush his mother with a lead roof. Nero was one messed up cookie. Stuff too bad for a family forum.

If you have the dough, I say you should try and collect a Germanicus too. Well loved by the people and they would come in droves for his 'adventvs'.

Another cool one (but moi pricey) is Carausius. No real source material on him, but he stood for roman values away from Rome - he struck coins in pure silver again and his coins had all sorts of things on them - 'RSR' stood for 'The Good Times are Back' which is on his early bronze, he had legends like 'PACATOR ORBIS' and 'RENOVAT ROMA' which means 'Rome, Renewed'. He put quotes from famous latin texts on his coins despit them circulating exclusively in gaul and Britain.