The Greatest Caesar (Part II)

[Julius Ratus]

Back a while ago on the Greatest Caesars post caldrail brought up a rating system for Emperors. His rating system was torn appart like the cow in the raptor scene in Jurassic Park but his point was missed. There can be endless discussion on who was the best Emperor or Gens or whatever but this will always boil down to fan-boy-ism. I will always argue for the point of Caesar because I like him and he wrote a good book, and Ciarn Hinds did a good performance of him in ROME, but none of thesereasons are acceptable by all, nor should they be. This is what caldrail seemed to be getting at when he brought up the idea of a rating system.

 

I have thought long and hard about this but always became stumped. Then I talked to my father about it. He rates cigars on a forum and told me that the important thing to look for in subjects are things that are in common. With cigars, the thing must be constructed well and must smoke nice. The taste is based on personal prefernces so are left out of the rating.

 

Applying this to emperors, if we are to develope a rating system upon which we all can agree, we must find things that all good emperors did. Here are my criteria:

 

Prosperity

External Order

Internal Order

 

By prosperity I look at the economic factors combined. Did the emperor spend revenues unwisely? Did he leave a surplus? Were his building projects for the public good or wastes (Hadrian's Wall vs The Golden House)? Did he have to excessively raise taxes?

 

Externally speaking, was there peace? If there were wars, were they sucessful? Was the empire at least as strong when the Emperor died as it was when he took over?

 

Internally, did the people seem to support him? Were there riots, civil wars, or revolts in the provinces?

 

All of these things can be subjective but I believe that using these criteria we can come to a consensus and all of these factors can be backed up by the sources. I am trying to keep this simple because these criteria need to be applicable to any emperor. I purposefully strayed away from using assassination as a criteria because the motives need to be looked at. Nero died violently, but he did so as a result of civil war, so that death is already covered in internal peace. Claudius I was killed by his wife. One should never be judged based on the opinions held by their spouse so I would not count his mushroom dinner against his ability to rule as emperor.

 

I think that this will become a multi-part project so I invite all of you to first take issue with my criteria. When we have come to a full consensus on the criteria then we have a standard that can be used. Then we can begin to rate the emperors based on our common opinions, which will open a new can of worms.

 

I have had my two denarii so I will let you all have a go.

[M. Porcius Cato]

I confess to loving caldrail's suggestion as well. Though the exercise might not acheive its intended aim (to discover the greatest emperor), it could be an educational exercise--if only the rating criteria were more explicit and more detailed. For example, what is the best way to measure "Prosperity"? What about "internal order"? For example, should the goons unleashed by Sejanus be marked as a point for or against "internal order"? What about executing Christians? Etc.

 

Without a very good checklist, the task doesn't even hope to be educational. With a good checklist, at least the ensuing debate might shed some light with the heat.

[Julius Ratus]

The reason that my criteria were not all that explicit was that I hoped there would be some discussion on the topic. I hoped that better criteria could be found, so I picked three vague ones. Looking at your examples I would say that the whole Sejanus thing would be considered as disorder against Tiberius. Likewise, the persecution of Christians would be considered to be a negative action, as all persecutions are, because it disrupts public harmony.

 

As far as a checklist goes, one would have to look at the sum of each emperor's activities to decide. For example, lets use Augustus because his reign was well documented and most of us here are pretty familiar with his reign. The first part to finding some consensus on his abilities would be to have common ideas on what are important. Since no one has offered any alternatives to my criteria I will use them.

 

The Empire was prosperous under his realm. He left the city made of marble rather than stone for one. While this was probobly propoganda, it had to beased on some truth. There were no famines in Rome, so the people had food.

 

There was external order to a large extent. His expedition against the Germans failed so that should be held against him. Apart from the Germans, Rome faced few if any external threats, and the German threat did not ammount to much at this period and so no territory was lost and there were no large scale raids committed by them on Roman territory.

 

Internally, there were no major civil wars after Antonius was put down. There were no major rebellions, revolts, or riots. Even Egypt, a newly conquered land, seemed to have been handled smoothely.

 

Now, the next phase of looking at this emperor is for people to cut up my assessment of him. Look and see if any of my facts are incorrect of misrepresented. Then add new facts into their respective categories.

[Primus Pilus]

Just some more thoughts....

 

How do we factor in inherited stability such as the reign of Antoninus Pius. Granted, he was an able administrator, but should he receive a higher rating simply because he had the good fortune to rule in a period of relative peace and prosperity? Yes, his policies played a part, but if he had not been left with an excess treasury and secure frontiers thanks to the efforts of Trajan and Hadrian, perhaps things would've been different.

 

Don't get me wrong here, I personally feel that Antoninus should be ranked among the most effective, but we must determine how circumstances come into effect.

 

Taking measures to alleviate an ailing economy even if unsuccessful (ie Diocletian) might carry as much weight as maintaining general prosperity (ie Pius in my example above)?

 

Stability of succession should be a major factor. As an example, Marcus Aurelius maintained relative stability despite nearly continuous frontier warfare and the emergence of the plague. All the failings of Commodus shouldn't be blamed on MA, but he did abandon the immensely successful adoptive succession methodology of the previous century.

[M. Porcius Cato]

The reason that my criteria were not all that explicit was that I hoped there would be some discussion on the topic. I hoped that better criteria could be found, so I picked three vague ones. Looking at your examples I would say that the whole Sejanus thing would be considered as disorder against Tiberius. Likewise, the persecution of Christians would be considered to be a negative action, as all persecutions are, because it disrupts public harmony.

 

OK, great, so persecutions are points off. I'd assume that includes proscriptions, kangaroo courts, secret police, etc. What about wars in violation of the ius fetiale?

 

As far as a checklist goes

 

Checklist, schmecklist. A checklist loses information. For example, do you really want to maintain that someone who presided over 50 years of external peace is equal to someone who maintained only 5 years of external peace before being overthrown by an internal force? Or that someone who persecuted a handful of Christians is equal to someone who persecuted 100,000?

 

Also, when does the tally start? As soon as the person assumes imperium? But with no regard to how it was gained??? Surely an usurper should lose points, no?

[Julius Ratus]

To Primus Pilus -- I think that the stable system inherited by Antoninus Pius should definately be added to his predecessors prestige because leaving stability makes it possible for good rulers to do their job. What Antoninus Pius gets credit for was that he didn't screw anything up. He left the empire in as good of shape as he found it. Another example of this would be the case of Tiberius. He left the empire in reletively good shape. Caligula would then loose points because he left Claudius a worse position than Tiberius left him.

 

To M. Porcius Cato -- I agree that one who kills 10 is less guilty than one who kills a thousand. I also agree that the proscription lists and other such gestapo-esque measures should count against an emperor. The problem is, the persecutions of Diocletian, Decius, and Galerius were far greater deals than even Sulla's proscription lists. The reason that attacks on senators were considered so important is because it was the rich men who did the writing. Many more Christians died under Diocletian than senators under Sulla.

 

A usurpur should definately be looked down upon depending on the motives. Did he assassinate a decent ruler in order to gain power or was there already a civil war going on which his sucession helped to end? Shouls Vespasian be looked down upon because he took over at the end of a civil war? The civil war of 69 AD should be blamed on Nero's inept rule, or maybe even on Vindex, but not on Vespasian. If anything, he should be credited for ending the civil war and bringing stability back to the empire.

 

 

 

 

To Primus Pilus -- You said that you considered Antoninus Pius to be one of the better emperors. Indeed, he was one of the good five. What are your criteria on judging emperors? What things did Antoninus Pius do to warrant your praise?

 

BTW, I don't know much about Antoninus Pius except that he carried on after Hadrian and left a good situation for Marcus Aurelius. I hope that your answer to my question will be educational for me.

[Primus Pilus]

BTW, I don't know much about Antoninus Pius except that he carried on after Hadrian and left a good situation for Marcus Aurelius. I hope that your answer to my question will be educational for me.

 

Apologies... I didn't intend for this to be a discussion of Antoninus, but was only using him as a sample of difficulty. However, I find him compelling because he openly delegated administrative authority and allowed those who were capable of various functions to perform their tasks unhindered. He was fiscally responsible yet personally generous. He respected tradition and the law and he was uncommonly popular among all three major elements of Roman imperial society... the aristocracy, the masses and the legions. He defended the frontiers without engaging in costly campaigns with little hope for success. Finally he secured nearly another generation of imperial stability by properly grooming Marcus Aurelius as his successor.

My own brief bio

[Julius Ratus]

Primus Pilus -- Don't apologise. By bringing up Antoninus and looking at what made his reign great we are able try and figure out what makes an emperor great. I quess that the main point of this thread is to determine what it is that makes an emperor great.

 

M. Porcius Cato -- Do you have an emperor that you feel is important and any reasons that you think this way? What are the criteria you would use to judge your favorite emperor?

 

edit: spelling

Edited November 1, 2006 by Julius Ratus