Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Best emperors pt.1

Ancient Rome is a place where most of us instantly think of gladiators and the coliseum, but one thing that bothers me a bit is that most people (who are not ignorant, just naive) believe that the emperors were crazy power- hungry maniacs who had no idea how to govern. Well, for the most part they’re right. The majority of the Roman emperors were political illiterates, military failures and total idiots (this is an opinion paper). Most preferred to stay in the capital to dictate orders, throw games and live a life of luxury. It’s really a wonder how the Roman Empire managed to stick together for 500 hundred years with all these imbeciles taking the thrown. Well, the answer is quite simple. The work of the few good emperors who actually did something worthwhile managed to keep the Roman Empire intact for such a great length of time. These emperors managed to make great political, economic and military decisions that keep the empire in place even if a total idiot took the reins of power after them. In the following notes I will say which emperors were the best and why. (Remember this is just my opinion)
Now of course I can’t write about the best Roman emperors without mentioning Augustus. Now in my view he was not the best, yes you heard right I believe that Augustus was not the best emperor there ever was. But he is on the list and here is why. He’s the guy who started it all! The man who reformed the decaying republic into a stable monarchy for the next .....70 years or so haha. This is why I can’t give him too much credit. The Julian- Claudian dynasty made the Osbournes seem like the Brady Bunch. But by himself, Augustus is considered the godfather of Europe! The empire would have easily torn itself apart after the death of Julius Caesar if it were not for him. The Republicans (also known as the optimates) were famous for making decisions that benefited themselves and not the empire as they claimed to do so. Their primary interest was to keep their power. The early popularis minds (who were for the people if you haven’t guessed yet) recognized that the power had to be shared to some point to keep the balance. The best example is probably the Gracchi brothers and their land reform laws that got them killed. Others like Marius, Cinna and Julius Caesar used the people to achieve greater power for themselves. So the two can’t be seen as two different political factions, but just had different ways to achieve the power that all senators craved. It was either through the long established laws and codes that had kept the republic safe (rich get richer, poor get poorer in other words) or go straight to the people for their opinion (the people were naive and easy to please). So neither method was in anyway better than the other.
So yea! Back to Augustus, fuck I get off track sometimes. Another reason why Augustus was so great was that he reformed the political machine that was the dying republic. Instead of magistrates directly taking care of all the business he introduced a system where freedmen and slaves would run the bureaucracy on the orders of the appointed magistrates (It is important to remember that senators in power were friends of Augustus) slaves and freedmen were much more trustworthy than fellow senators that could also strive for power. A second bonus to this was that they could be trained in a specific area of specialty such as finances, letter writing etc.
The last reason I think Augustus was a great emperor was that he reformed the army into the 40 or so legions that existed at the end of the civil war with Mark Antony into just 28. There was no way that the state could fund 40 legions! So it had to cut down. All these legions were based in strategically placed areas of the empire where they would most be needed (The Rhine, Syria, Danube, etc.). He also introduced the 25 year system that would be in place for quite a long time after wards. This was where legionaries signed up for 25 years of service, 20 as a regular soldier, 5 as a veteran (who were exempt from normal duties).
So yea these are my crappy reasons why I like Augustus. Don’t worry I got much better stuff to say about emperors I actually appreciate. But that will have to wait!

as usual I dont check grammar when i write these so dont care about it!