Claudius was possibly murdered, but it doesn’t sound like it was political, and it sounds like it may also have been suicide.
It was political, if one buys the assassination theory (as I do). It was over succession to the position of Emperor. Claudius’s successor also spent a good deal of time defaming his name and mocking him.
Was this meant to be a complete list? Elgabalus, just off the top of my head, should be on there.
Elagabalus was after Commodus, I presumed you were looking for ones pre-Commodus. If you’re looking at ones after Commodus, Septimius Severus has a reputation as a cruel tyrant, but also as an incredibly intelligent and well-read man, and a very competent soldier.
My le epic armchair historiography makes me think Hadrian was a complete monster, based on that. Like, probably a murderbot comparable to Stalin or Henry VIII.
He’s a complex figure. He’s capable of great wrath, but also reflection. The man had SERIOUS impulse control problems, I think. He once stabbed a slave in the eye with a stylus - but at the same time, though slaves had no right against such violence, and Hadrian was the most powerful man in the Empire anyway, he still publicly brought the man out to apologize and offer him anything he wanted as restitution.
The slave said he wanted his goddamn eye back, which is a pretty baller thing to say to the most powerful man in the world at the time.
Hadrian would later implement some limited slave rights against being killed by their masters.
As far as the Third Jewish-Roman War is concerned, I honestly don’t think any Roman Emperor would have handled it significantly differently.
Ah. Just Hadrian, Tiberius and Septimius Severus then.
Third Jewish-Roman War
Something something apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system, and public health … what have the Romans ever done for us?
It’s ‘funny’ - the province was relatively quiet, despite the extreme religious/cultural differences, for some 70 years, and then a little butchery of Hellenized Jews by Jewish radicals and the place becomes a hotbed of rebellion.
It was political, if one buys the assassination theory (as I do). It was over succession to the position of Emperor. Claudius’s successor also spent a good deal of time defaming his name and mocking him.
Elagabalus was after Commodus, I presumed you were looking for ones pre-Commodus. If you’re looking at ones after Commodus, Septimius Severus has a reputation as a cruel tyrant, but also as an incredibly intelligent and well-read man, and a very competent soldier.
He’s a complex figure. He’s capable of great wrath, but also reflection. The man had SERIOUS impulse control problems, I think. He once stabbed a slave in the eye with a stylus - but at the same time, though slaves had no right against such violence, and Hadrian was the most powerful man in the Empire anyway, he still publicly brought the man out to apologize and offer him anything he wanted as restitution.
The slave said he wanted his goddamn eye back, which is a pretty baller thing to say to the most powerful man in the world at the time.
Hadrian would later implement some limited slave rights against being killed by their masters.
As far as the Third Jewish-Roman War is concerned, I honestly don’t think any Roman Emperor would have handled it significantly differently.
Ah. Just Hadrian, Tiberius and Septimius Severus then.
Something something apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system, and public health … what have the Romans ever done for us?
They really did rebel a whole lot in Iudaea.
It’s ‘funny’ - the province was relatively quiet, despite the extreme religious/cultural differences, for some 70 years, and then a little butchery of Hellenized Jews by Jewish radicals and the place becomes a hotbed of rebellion.