I excluded a few (or rather, quite a few) Emperors for lack of strong opinions. I have mixed feelings on Gallienus, but I also recognize that he was in the hardest of fucking hard places, and I can’t really fault him for being thrust into the literal middle of the Crisis of the Third Century.
Is Julian the Apostate on here? I have a soft spot for him, though he definitely wouldn’t go in the top tiers. Also, did Philip the Arab make it on your list? My memory would place him as above average, though it’s been awhile and I could be misremembering what all he did
Ah, I love Julian! Him and Phillip the Arab were both put in the “Right Emperor, Wrong Time” category. Julian for being an absolute throwback to the Principate of the Early Empire, who was out of place in the Christian Dominate of the Late Empire; and Phillip for being a man of humility and moderation in a time of chaos and upheaval.
Ah, perfect. I would agree with those rankings. I always wonder what the world would look like if Julian had ruled longer. Would he have been able to return Rome to a pre-Christian era? Or would all of his changes be undone anyway after his death regardless of how long he could stay in power.
And apologies for missing them, the image was hard to read on my phone.
No worries! As someone else pointed out, the names are a bit blurry on a lot of them.
I think that he wouldn’t have been able to permanently reverse the Christianization of the Empire, but if he ruled longer, we’d probably have more surviving pagan texts and artifacts, and that would be pretty cool.
I excluded a few (or rather, quite a few) Emperors for lack of strong opinions. I have mixed feelings on Gallienus, but I also recognize that he was in the hardest of fucking hard places, and I can’t really fault him for being thrust into the literal middle of the Crisis of the Third Century.
Is Julian the Apostate on here? I have a soft spot for him, though he definitely wouldn’t go in the top tiers. Also, did Philip the Arab make it on your list? My memory would place him as above average, though it’s been awhile and I could be misremembering what all he did
Ah, I love Julian! Him and Phillip the Arab were both put in the “Right Emperor, Wrong Time” category. Julian for being an absolute throwback to the Principate of the Early Empire, who was out of place in the Christian Dominate of the Late Empire; and Phillip for being a man of humility and moderation in a time of chaos and upheaval.
Ah, perfect. I would agree with those rankings. I always wonder what the world would look like if Julian had ruled longer. Would he have been able to return Rome to a pre-Christian era? Or would all of his changes be undone anyway after his death regardless of how long he could stay in power.
And apologies for missing them, the image was hard to read on my phone.
No worries! As someone else pointed out, the names are a bit blurry on a lot of them.
I think that he wouldn’t have been able to permanently reverse the Christianization of the Empire, but if he ruled longer, we’d probably have more surviving pagan texts and artifacts, and that would be pretty cool.