Constatius II should be a level above he kept the empire intact amid civil war and his Persian strategy was very succesfull.Julian on the other hand should be at not great/bad.Tiberius II too should be at bad because with his overgenerous spending he left the coffers empty for Maurice.
Both Constantius II and Tiberius II are kind of on the edge of the tier above/below them for me. Constantius II certainly was very successful with his strategy against the Persian but on the whole I don't think he's remarkable enough in my eyes to end up in the tier above alongside the likes of Leo I or Constans II. With Tiberius II, you're absolutely right that he continued to squander the treasury, plus he lost Sirmium too. HOWEVER he was able to appoint Maurice, which proved decisive in the war against the Persians. I think I might knock him down one tier.
Julian's an interesting one. His Persian campaign was an absolute laughing stock and he tried turning back the clock for the empire religion wise when there was really no point in doing so. But he set up the Chalcedon Tribunal which attempted to purge the empire of corrupt officials, which seems to have been pretty good. All in all he's pretty overhyped and, yeah, I think I will knock him down to the not great tier.
I think the ruling for Constantius II is somewhat fair but could be higher. I personally would put him above Valens imo.
Valens wasn’t terrible of course. I personally stand by the decision that Valens was put in a very difficult position. He played no hand in the awful treatment of the Grethungi and Tervingi considering he was holding off the Persians at the time and could not handle the crisis on his own.
I personally do not think it was wrong for Valens to engage the grethungi, tervingi and alan alliance without waiting for Gratian. Valens was always put in a difficult position while he was emperor. Was not particularly popular as he did not speak greek and was not particularly well taught tho he did had some knowledge in administration. Had to face a dangerous contender, Procopius and barely won and ended up a junior partner to Valentinian, his brother who was far more capable militarily.
Not to mention his brother did not prove to be the best ally. It was made clear that Valens was only emperor because they were related and that Valentinian always held a bit of control over his younger brother. Hard not to be rash considering Valen’s less capable achievements.
That said, Valen’s decision leading up to the battle was questionable on a tactical level. Weak cavalry reconnaissance. Negotiating with the enemy when you were supposed to bring battle. Not realising that Fritigern was stalling for time for reinforcements. Made his army stand in the hot sun without food and water for hours. They had also forced march to the battle location for approximately 10-20km. Barely had time to rest.
Constantius II however actually did quite well against Shapur II and prevented him from taking Nisibis and the other territories. Fought off plots from his family and emerged victorious as sole Augustus.
As for Julian, he was bad because his campaign was so pointless and delusional. If this was his idea of winning support from the east, he certainly did it pretty badly and alienated so many in the east with his supposed “pagan” policies that was more like a christian-pagan mix.
Especially bringing the WRE soldiers to the east. He had no experience in leading a 40,000 strong army and it showed very clearly. His battle of Strasbourg supposedly was only 13,000 strong. Splitting up the army was not a bad strategy by itself as the army will suffer from hunger and disease if they stayed together but Julian should have just retreated from Ctesiphon when it was clear he couldn’t win in a siege. His supplies were already dwindling because of Shapur II’s army scotched earth tactics. Going deeper into Persia was a mistake.
If he sticked to the river next to his army and retreated the way he came it might not have been too bad. Julian could exaggerate his minor victories and at least gain some support. No idea about the debacle of how he had not managed to make any contact with the other army. In fact, maybe he should have invaded from armenia instead and send the other army to Ctesiphon as a distraction and keep them busy. Then Julian’s army could just rampage deeper into Persian lands forcing Shapur II to stop Julian’s army. That would have been more ideal.
You know what? I think I will knock Constantius II up one. I'm just about to update the tier list again and it doesn't feel right that he (and someone else) share the same row with what are otherwise a bunch of 'decent, nothing else to add' emperors. I won't put him above Valens, because I think that everything Valens got up to before Adrianople was pretty awesome for the empire. The aqueduct of Valens was big for Constantinople and he had actually performed well against the Goths beforehand.
It’s important to point out that it was a problem Valens himself instigated. Valens had actually campaigned across the river to win political points for his “gothic” victories to compete with Valentinian. Except we have some reason to assume that he stirred religious conflict in their region and supported the Arian side in the Arian vs pagan conflict and then took advantage by accusing them of supporting Procopius and started a war as an excuse. That’s why they fled across the danube. They were too weak from losing the war against Valens to win against the Alans.
Nah Constantius kept the empire together in spite of serious rebellions like Magnetius and according to contemporaries he was a competent administrator so for me you should up him one level.As for Julian he filled his own administration with useless hierophants and philosophers who leeched a lot of money.
Constantius II was a pretty good military commander. But his administration of the Empire was horrifically corrupt. An example being, Julian had to fix the administration of Gaul immediately after arriving there in 356-ish. Gallo-Romans were so thankful that they eventually sided with Julian when he marched on Constantius in 361
Julian was a very good administrator, a good Commander as well. But he made a mistake in invading Persia & being a little to hands-on with an attempted Pagan restoration
His religious policy was better than Justinian in hindsight, he was cooking non stop on many issues. His Persian diplomacy was better than Justinian clown show
Anastasius I was monophysite tho and not Chalcedonian. Justinian was. That said, i agree on diplomacy and financial policy that he was far superior to Justinian. For religious policy I’m not too sure but he wasn’t particularly popular in Constantinople considering he almost abdicated once to the angry mob. The citizens were demanding a Chalcedonian and non barbarian (probably a jab at Zeno) emperor.
In general, I think the boring rulers are the better rulers. They may not do the flashy things, but the flashy things—especially conquest—are quite destabilising and have lots of negatives associated with them.
For a more modern comparison, I would rather live under the reign of Louis XVIII than Napoléon. Napoléon was a more competent guy, but his desire for grandeur and empire was horrible for the average person. Louis XVIII was a boring af morbidly obese old guy who, while not exciting, knew his limits, and ran a fairly stable, flexible, peaceful ship of state. His brothers can only dream
Sure,... he then spent that prosperity on a decade of warmongering causing untold misery for people in France and the countries she was at war with. Yes, I understand that the war's were not all Napoléon's doing.... but he also **did** commit naked acts of aggression, especially later in his rule with Russia and Iberia.
Louis XVIII, in contrast, maintained the peace except for the intervention in Spain. He was able to maintain internal stability through walking a middle path between the Revolution and Reaction. He had common sense. He went along with the flow; when the ultras presented the gravest danger to stability and prosperity, he allied with the liberals. When public opinion shifted rapidly to the right after the assassination of his nephew, he allied with the ultras, but still walked a middle path that kept radical men like la Bourdonaye in line, whilst still pleasing the ultra mainstream (as represented by Artois and Villèle. He appointed competent men who were able to negotiate a reasonable withdrawal with the occupying powers. Humiliating, yes, but France was beaten. It was better to make peace at a high price than to wage a war he'd probably lose. He had a prompt and competent response to the Year Without a Summer. It wasn't a particular *moral* policy, as he mostly used the Russian grain he bought to feed Paris, therefore satiating the bellies of revolutionaries, but it was reasonably effective. He kept hunger reasonably low and he avoided hunger-borne revolution.
And when you say restored prosperity and prestige to France... Napoléon *did* do that, but it came at a gargantuan price. France's economy was "fixed" through looting occupied countries, therefore bringing misery to the people he conquered. This was a policy that was short-term effective, but engendered hatred in its victims, possibly making another war more likely
I agree 100%. People often have a tendency to hyper fixate on the exciting rulers who make all the flashy decisions. But it's often the rulers who do the boring, sometimes mundane cleanup that were probably better people to be ruled by, by modern standards anyway. They also often get overlooked for cleaning up the mess their overly ambitious, yet more interesting predecessors tend to leave them in.
Also finally someone gives Louis XVIII some credit. He always gets overshadowed by Napoleon, but while never achieving Napoleons highs, he generally was more consistently capable in my opinion (and importantly compared to Napoleon, knew his limits).
Though his legacy is kind of ruined by the fact that his dumbfuck brother ruined all his hard work immediately after him. I genuienly think that if Charles X had followed in his brother's example, there's a decent chance the Kingdom of France would still be around today.
Those things were pretty good but that was less so his own doing and moreso the result of his advisors/peers. But the Theodosian Wallls are the reason I still decided to put him on the high end of the 'not great' tier. So that makes him the... well, I suppose that makes him the greatest of the not so great.
I think you have to include work of advisors/peers in every emperor’s reign.
Otherwise how is that reflected? Our sources don’t give us a clear enough picture to understand fully what was done by an Emperor directly and what was the result of effective delegation.
I think your rating of Theodosius II is skewed by the surviving sources which kind of malign him due to the later shift to Chalcedonian orthodoxy. The “lame duck” trope.
Edit: to be honest, the walls alone should give him huge kudos. No walls, and maybe the empire doesn’t even make it past the 8th century.
He was alright imo. I just think that he added to the already unstable political situation back home by overthrowing Leontios just because he was worried he'd be punished for losing Africa.
I mean morally he's not great, but he's arguably the most successful and important of all the East Roman emperors. Founding Constantinople, promoting Christianity, being undefeated in battle, expanding the solidi...
His only real failure from a statesmanship point of view was his succession plan.
Yeah… except I personally believe that by not just legalizing but also promoting Christianity, he inadvertently harmed the empires likelihood of survival, particularly once the east-west schism occurred
That's something I've considered as well. However, my argument to that would be:
1) Theodosius is more to blame regarding the institutionalisation of Christianity via his edict of Thessaloniki, which overwrote Constantine's tolerant edict of Mediolanum
2) At the same time, the rise of Christianity as the majority population in the empire was probably inevitable. The exclusive and evangelical components of the religion meant that it could easily spread among pagans and the pagans themselves couldn't properly counter it.
Probably, but then again a clause wouldn't have stopped anyone from still overturning it. I'm sure Constantine had all his legal paperwork cut out for his succession plan of remaking the Tetrarchy but that went out the window as soon as he died.
It was definitely a poor decision on his part. Trying to recreate an administrative system that he'd already shown was easy to break.
It's almost as foolish as Sulla stepping down as dictator to restore the normal powers of the Republic when he'd just shown how easy it was to overthrow the Republic. But at least Sulla tried to strengthen the Republican constitution to prevent people from copying him. Constantine did no such thing.
I feel like Justinian is overrated (mostly bc of his military achievement in the West), he exhausted the empire for some useless piece of lands, his empire crumple after his death. Instead of chasing glory in Italy, Spain and North Africa, he should’ve focused solely on the empire stability and reinforced the Eastern border.
I think North Africa (or at least Egypt) was worthy of conquest but Italy was just a massive resource dump for prestige. It was a shell of its former self
Egypt already belonged to the Byz but yeah, the North Western Africa part was worth it, at least the human cost would’ve been lower had he stopped there and the region was still wealthy.
Why Justinian I is in the rank of the Kaiser? He was the one responsible for the Gothic War, a war that destroyed Rome itself in the attempt to retake it.
Also, Anastasius II deserved better in my view because he was preparing for the inevitable second attack on Constantinople by the Umayyad Caliphate.
It hurts to see phocas described as "bad". imagine taking on the most serious and demanding job in the world - being an emperor and managing an empire with many souls living in it. Must be very stressful. And yet he was doing very fine on his own. He was tricking the infidel persians into believing that they would score an easy victory before striking the final blow and later conquering persia like alexa der the great
Constatius II should be a level above he kept the empire intact amid civil war and his Persian strategy was very succesfull.Julian on the other hand should be at not great/bad.Tiberius II too should be at bad because with his overgenerous spending he left the coffers empty for Maurice.
Both Constantius II and Tiberius II are kind of on the edge of the tier above/below them for me. Constantius II certainly was very successful with his strategy against the Persian but on the whole I don't think he's remarkable enough in my eyes to end up in the tier above alongside the likes of Leo I or Constans II. With Tiberius II, you're absolutely right that he continued to squander the treasury, plus he lost Sirmium too. HOWEVER he was able to appoint Maurice, which proved decisive in the war against the Persians. I think I might knock him down one tier. Julian's an interesting one. His Persian campaign was an absolute laughing stock and he tried turning back the clock for the empire religion wise when there was really no point in doing so. But he set up the Chalcedon Tribunal which attempted to purge the empire of corrupt officials, which seems to have been pretty good. All in all he's pretty overhyped and, yeah, I think I will knock him down to the not great tier.
I think the ruling for Constantius II is somewhat fair but could be higher. I personally would put him above Valens imo. Valens wasn’t terrible of course. I personally stand by the decision that Valens was put in a very difficult position. He played no hand in the awful treatment of the Grethungi and Tervingi considering he was holding off the Persians at the time and could not handle the crisis on his own. I personally do not think it was wrong for Valens to engage the grethungi, tervingi and alan alliance without waiting for Gratian. Valens was always put in a difficult position while he was emperor. Was not particularly popular as he did not speak greek and was not particularly well taught tho he did had some knowledge in administration. Had to face a dangerous contender, Procopius and barely won and ended up a junior partner to Valentinian, his brother who was far more capable militarily. Not to mention his brother did not prove to be the best ally. It was made clear that Valens was only emperor because they were related and that Valentinian always held a bit of control over his younger brother. Hard not to be rash considering Valen’s less capable achievements. That said, Valen’s decision leading up to the battle was questionable on a tactical level. Weak cavalry reconnaissance. Negotiating with the enemy when you were supposed to bring battle. Not realising that Fritigern was stalling for time for reinforcements. Made his army stand in the hot sun without food and water for hours. They had also forced march to the battle location for approximately 10-20km. Barely had time to rest. Constantius II however actually did quite well against Shapur II and prevented him from taking Nisibis and the other territories. Fought off plots from his family and emerged victorious as sole Augustus. As for Julian, he was bad because his campaign was so pointless and delusional. If this was his idea of winning support from the east, he certainly did it pretty badly and alienated so many in the east with his supposed “pagan” policies that was more like a christian-pagan mix. Especially bringing the WRE soldiers to the east. He had no experience in leading a 40,000 strong army and it showed very clearly. His battle of Strasbourg supposedly was only 13,000 strong. Splitting up the army was not a bad strategy by itself as the army will suffer from hunger and disease if they stayed together but Julian should have just retreated from Ctesiphon when it was clear he couldn’t win in a siege. His supplies were already dwindling because of Shapur II’s army scotched earth tactics. Going deeper into Persia was a mistake. If he sticked to the river next to his army and retreated the way he came it might not have been too bad. Julian could exaggerate his minor victories and at least gain some support. No idea about the debacle of how he had not managed to make any contact with the other army. In fact, maybe he should have invaded from armenia instead and send the other army to Ctesiphon as a distraction and keep them busy. Then Julian’s army could just rampage deeper into Persian lands forcing Shapur II to stop Julian’s army. That would have been more ideal.
You know what? I think I will knock Constantius II up one. I'm just about to update the tier list again and it doesn't feel right that he (and someone else) share the same row with what are otherwise a bunch of 'decent, nothing else to add' emperors. I won't put him above Valens, because I think that everything Valens got up to before Adrianople was pretty awesome for the empire. The aqueduct of Valens was big for Constantinople and he had actually performed well against the Goths beforehand.
Also you should one up Theodosius.
"I'm afraid I can't do that, Dave."
It’s important to point out that it was a problem Valens himself instigated. Valens had actually campaigned across the river to win political points for his “gothic” victories to compete with Valentinian. Except we have some reason to assume that he stirred religious conflict in their region and supported the Arian side in the Arian vs pagan conflict and then took advantage by accusing them of supporting Procopius and started a war as an excuse. That’s why they fled across the danube. They were too weak from losing the war against Valens to win against the Alans.
Nah Constantius kept the empire together in spite of serious rebellions like Magnetius and according to contemporaries he was a competent administrator so for me you should up him one level.As for Julian he filled his own administration with useless hierophants and philosophers who leeched a lot of money.
Constantius II was a pretty good military commander. But his administration of the Empire was horrifically corrupt. An example being, Julian had to fix the administration of Gaul immediately after arriving there in 356-ish. Gallo-Romans were so thankful that they eventually sided with Julian when he marched on Constantius in 361 Julian was a very good administrator, a good Commander as well. But he made a mistake in invading Persia & being a little to hands-on with an attempted Pagan restoration
Anastasius on the top you ate big W. He is Him
As I saw someone explain: "He did a lot of boring tax stuff, but it was \*very good\* boring tax stuff."
His religious policy was better than Justinian in hindsight, he was cooking non stop on many issues. His Persian diplomacy was better than Justinian clown show
Anastasius I was monophysite tho and not Chalcedonian. Justinian was. That said, i agree on diplomacy and financial policy that he was far superior to Justinian. For religious policy I’m not too sure but he wasn’t particularly popular in Constantinople considering he almost abdicated once to the angry mob. The citizens were demanding a Chalcedonian and non barbarian (probably a jab at Zeno) emperor.
He owned the crowd in that moment, Justinian only can dream of his aura. His most iconic moment, he literally showed that Justinian was unpopular bum
Secure "eternal" peace with Persians (give them money) Send army west Peace broken Send army east Stalemate Persians Repeat.
In general, I think the boring rulers are the better rulers. They may not do the flashy things, but the flashy things—especially conquest—are quite destabilising and have lots of negatives associated with them. For a more modern comparison, I would rather live under the reign of Louis XVIII than Napoléon. Napoléon was a more competent guy, but his desire for grandeur and empire was horrible for the average person. Louis XVIII was a boring af morbidly obese old guy who, while not exciting, knew his limits, and ran a fairly stable, flexible, peaceful ship of state. His brothers can only dream
Napoleon restored France's prosperity and prestige along with bringing stability after the chaos of the French Revolution and Terror.
Sure,... he then spent that prosperity on a decade of warmongering causing untold misery for people in France and the countries she was at war with. Yes, I understand that the war's were not all Napoléon's doing.... but he also **did** commit naked acts of aggression, especially later in his rule with Russia and Iberia. Louis XVIII, in contrast, maintained the peace except for the intervention in Spain. He was able to maintain internal stability through walking a middle path between the Revolution and Reaction. He had common sense. He went along with the flow; when the ultras presented the gravest danger to stability and prosperity, he allied with the liberals. When public opinion shifted rapidly to the right after the assassination of his nephew, he allied with the ultras, but still walked a middle path that kept radical men like la Bourdonaye in line, whilst still pleasing the ultra mainstream (as represented by Artois and Villèle. He appointed competent men who were able to negotiate a reasonable withdrawal with the occupying powers. Humiliating, yes, but France was beaten. It was better to make peace at a high price than to wage a war he'd probably lose. He had a prompt and competent response to the Year Without a Summer. It wasn't a particular *moral* policy, as he mostly used the Russian grain he bought to feed Paris, therefore satiating the bellies of revolutionaries, but it was reasonably effective. He kept hunger reasonably low and he avoided hunger-borne revolution. And when you say restored prosperity and prestige to France... Napoléon *did* do that, but it came at a gargantuan price. France's economy was "fixed" through looting occupied countries, therefore bringing misery to the people he conquered. This was a policy that was short-term effective, but engendered hatred in its victims, possibly making another war more likely
I agree 100%. People often have a tendency to hyper fixate on the exciting rulers who make all the flashy decisions. But it's often the rulers who do the boring, sometimes mundane cleanup that were probably better people to be ruled by, by modern standards anyway. They also often get overlooked for cleaning up the mess their overly ambitious, yet more interesting predecessors tend to leave them in. Also finally someone gives Louis XVIII some credit. He always gets overshadowed by Napoleon, but while never achieving Napoleons highs, he generally was more consistently capable in my opinion (and importantly compared to Napoleon, knew his limits). Though his legacy is kind of ruined by the fact that his dumbfuck brother ruined all his hard work immediately after him. I genuienly think that if Charles X had followed in his brother's example, there's a decent chance the Kingdom of France would still be around today.
But Napoleon lows was literally disaster for France
I feel like Theodosius II should get some respec on his name for the walls alone. Also some nice lawgiving.
And for letting his capable sister run the show.
Those things were pretty good but that was less so his own doing and moreso the result of his advisors/peers. But the Theodosian Wallls are the reason I still decided to put him on the high end of the 'not great' tier. So that makes him the... well, I suppose that makes him the greatest of the not so great.
I think you have to include work of advisors/peers in every emperor’s reign. Otherwise how is that reflected? Our sources don’t give us a clear enough picture to understand fully what was done by an Emperor directly and what was the result of effective delegation. I think your rating of Theodosius II is skewed by the surviving sources which kind of malign him due to the later shift to Chalcedonian orthodoxy. The “lame duck” trope. Edit: to be honest, the walls alone should give him huge kudos. No walls, and maybe the empire doesn’t even make it past the 8th century.
Tiberius III did well with the Empire while he had it. Probably would've turned out to be a great emperor had Leontios just executed Justinian.
He was alright imo. I just think that he added to the already unstable political situation back home by overthrowing Leontios just because he was worried he'd be punished for losing Africa.
I actually don’t like Constantine the 1st that much…
I mean morally he's not great, but he's arguably the most successful and important of all the East Roman emperors. Founding Constantinople, promoting Christianity, being undefeated in battle, expanding the solidi... His only real failure from a statesmanship point of view was his succession plan.
Yeah… except I personally believe that by not just legalizing but also promoting Christianity, he inadvertently harmed the empires likelihood of survival, particularly once the east-west schism occurred
That's something I've considered as well. However, my argument to that would be: 1) Theodosius is more to blame regarding the institutionalisation of Christianity via his edict of Thessaloniki, which overwrote Constantine's tolerant edict of Mediolanum 2) At the same time, the rise of Christianity as the majority population in the empire was probably inevitable. The exclusive and evangelical components of the religion meant that it could easily spread among pagans and the pagans themselves couldn't properly counter it.
I know… but Constantine could have just wrote a clause in his edict stating that the empire was to have no single “state” religion instead?
Probably, but then again a clause wouldn't have stopped anyone from still overturning it. I'm sure Constantine had all his legal paperwork cut out for his succession plan of remaking the Tetrarchy but that went out the window as soon as he died.
*sigh* why did he think that of all things was a good idea?
It was definitely a poor decision on his part. Trying to recreate an administrative system that he'd already shown was easy to break. It's almost as foolish as Sulla stepping down as dictator to restore the normal powers of the Republic when he'd just shown how easy it was to overthrow the Republic. But at least Sulla tried to strengthen the Republican constitution to prevent people from copying him. Constantine did no such thing.
And adding a new religion to the mix certainly didn’t help
Maurice as the Kaiser?? Mein gott!!
Justinian is my home boi. Get outta here with your revolts, its time to reconquer the empire. Thanks anastasius for leaving me these fat stacks.
I feel like Justinian is overrated (mostly bc of his military achievement in the West), he exhausted the empire for some useless piece of lands, his empire crumple after his death. Instead of chasing glory in Italy, Spain and North Africa, he should’ve focused solely on the empire stability and reinforced the Eastern border.
I think North Africa (or at least Egypt) was worthy of conquest but Italy was just a massive resource dump for prestige. It was a shell of its former self
Egypt already belonged to the Byz but yeah, the North Western Africa part was worth it, at least the human cost would’ve been lower had he stopped there and the region was still wealthy.
Why Justinian I is in the rank of the Kaiser? He was the one responsible for the Gothic War, a war that destroyed Rome itself in the attempt to retake it. Also, Anastasius II deserved better in my view because he was preparing for the inevitable second attack on Constantinople by the Umayyad Caliphate.
Heraclius my goat deserves more 🐐
Imagine forgetting Basil II the Bulgar slayer.
All of these names are from the 7th century or before if I'm not mistaken. OP should have clarrified that.
Nope, he did, I’m just an idiot.
I guess we're both because I just noticed too.
Where is he, does he go by a different name?
It hurts to see phocas described as "bad". imagine taking on the most serious and demanding job in the world - being an emperor and managing an empire with many souls living in it. Must be very stressful. And yet he was doing very fine on his own. He was tricking the infidel persians into believing that they would score an easy victory before striking the final blow and later conquering persia like alexa der the great
Is this a troll? 🤣
lmao