Best Roman Emperor

[Iulius]

Well, Lts discuss jsut who was the best roman emperor. I beleive it was Trajan. Empire was stable and his milatary exploits in dacia, armenia, parthia, and lord knows where else brought more power, land, and stability to the empire. sorry but i g2g. i always seem to have ot leave for some where wafter i try to repsond or make a toipc.

[Ursus]

http://www.unrv.com/forum/index.php?act=ST&f=2&t=1246&

[Guest Aaron Callan]

Augustus was the first, and the greatest, Roman emperor, and he succeeded in replacing the Roman republic,with a system of monarchy headed by emperors. His long reign brought Rome peace and stability after a century of intermittent civil war and disorder, and provided a model of successful government that it would be difficult or impossible for his successors to match.

[McClam]

I agree i think that augustus was the best emperor,he made many strides in different aspects of roman civilazation also in trade,and innovations that would be used later in the empire.

[Q Valerius Scerio]

M. Aurelius personally, the last of the good emporers...

[PerfectimusPrime]

Augustus was the first, and the greatest, Roman emperor, and he succeeded in replacing the Roman republic,with a system of monarchy headed by emperors. His long reign brought Rome peace and stability after a century of intermittent civil war and disorder, and provided a model of successful government that it would be difficult or impossible for his successors to match.

Augustus, I think, was not the best.

 

He tried to create a good constitutional government but ultimately failed and the principate, in the end, became an incompetent super heavy government, that lacked accepted dynasty.

 

But, the senate also wasn't really competent either...

 

Trajan I think was the best.

[pompeius magnus]

There is already a topic on this matter which Ursus gave the url for above. Most people there said what I did, that Augustus was the best emperor, check it out.

[Sebastianus]

Wow this is hard... My favorite emperor is Hadrian, simply because he stabilized the frontiers, and took time to make the empire an administrative whole. Then of course pax Romana was true to its name during his reign. And I like the fact that when restoring the Pantheon he left the inscription that it was Agrippa who built the edifice, when he easily could've removed it in favor of his own. His provincial travels is also something that I like.

 

But I think I will have to choose Octavianus/Augustus Caesar anyway. He ha a much harder time to take power and keep it, and he exercised his power in a very subtle way (as subtle as he amassed it). He eased the empire into a monarchy of sorts without hardly anyone noticing, or at least not caring enough to create such uppheavals as the century before Octavians rise was full of. Augustus is a man to be admired, but I still like Hadrian more.

 

If we go on pure military skills the price goes to Trajan or Aurelian.

[Anticleia]

Nero is one of the most intersting to read about! I wouldnt say he was the best though.

[Ceres]

I've always found Caligula exceedingly interesting... Quite an odd duck he was...

 

The best, though? Probably Augustus...

[Augur]

To be meaningful it seems to me this string question should ask: who is the 2nd Best Roman Emperor, because the "best" emperior seems so obvious. He is the fellow who created the concept of "emperor" in the first place. The guy who created the imperial infrastructure over which he and future emperors would rule. The practical genius who defined -- over four decades of living example -- what an "emperor" was and what the person holding that title should and should not do: obviously Octavian/Augustas. All subsequent emperors must be measured by how well they met the standards he set. One might just as well ask who, among so many immitators, were the "best" Elvis or the "best" Marilyn Monroe. Who else but Elvis and Marilyn themselves?

 

That said, my vote for the 2nd greatest emperor must go to one of Augustus' successors who had not only inherated and maintained imperial institutions but, like Augustus, someone who had to create totally new imperial solutions to meet new challenges facing Rome -- probably someone like Diocletian or perhaps Constantine I. While, with 20-20 hindsight, I disagree with much of what these two Emperors did, what sets them apart is that both, like Augustus, attempted and were able to achieve fundamental redirections of the Empire itself.

.

[lucius artorius castus]

I beleive it was anotonius pius he extended the frontier in britain to the area between the firth of forth and the firth of clyde and had the antonine wall built and 95 percent of the size of the empire under trajan was maintained.

[Hadrian]

My absolute favourite is Hadrian; the man who brought unity into the Empire! Stabilizing the frontiers, reorganizing the army, brought the Greeks at the same level as the Romans, interested in art (beautiful heritage from the Hadrianic Age!), travelling around the empire to let everybody know who was the emperor (former emperors were trapped in Rome )... such a man deserves the title: 'Best Emperor'.

[P.Clodius]

Augustus, I think, was not the best.

 

He tried to create a good constitutional government but ultimately failed and the principate, in the end, became an incompetent super heavy government, that lacked accepted dynasty.

 

 

A political problem of the maginitude Augustus dealt with was not to arise again until post American Revolution, (Constitutional Convention etc...). To call Augustus' consolidation of power and political stabilization a failure is to underestimate the turmoil of the Roman Revolution (133-27BC). The magnitude of the issues that confronted Octavian once he decided to pursuit his uncle's bequethment should not be underestimated. There was political giants such as Cicero and Mark Antony to confront, there was the collective hostility of the Tyranicides, the ever powerful knights, and of course the Legions, who were fully aware of their individual and collective corporate selves. ....And that was the tip of the iceberg!!

[Zeke]

I am torn between Vespasian, Tarjan, and Aurelian.

 

Vespasian brought back Rome to its former glory after the fall of the Juli-Cladius dynasty.

 

Tarjan brought Rome to its greatest economic, military and cultural extent.

 

And Aurelian restored it after the Crisis of the Third Century.

So I don't which one to choose,

 

Zeke