Although awesome, was never a Roman Emperor.
- Augustus, for being badass.
- Hadrian, for touring the empire and getting to know people rather than being detached. He also made a nifty wall.
- Caligula, for being the Crazy Awesome villain who might just be our world's answer to Nobunaga Oda from Sengoku Basara.
- Elagabalus, for, well, being just plain weird.
edited 20th Jan '11 5:56:01 PM by NickTheSwing
Another Byzantine emperor in my book is Ioannes II Komnenos. His father started the Komnenian Reforms, he took it to its height and his son was most famous for exploiting it.
He died too young, though. God was not on Byzantine's side.
Support Taleworlds!In terms of totally psychopathic emperors, Caligula gets a bit too much airtime due to the flagrancy of his misbehaviour. On the other hand, Tiberius, while less talked about, has always struck me as far more sinister: A seemingly normal man who, for whatever reason, transformed over the span of maybe two years into a Complete Monster on every level. Seriously. It's even been suggested that part of what made Caligula what he was had something to do with Tiberius...
I'm not sure if I'd ever want to know.
On a far less hideously evil note, my quasi-namesake
was a pretty interesting guy. He was the last non-Christian Emperor of Rome, as well as a respected philosopher.
Of course, since we're restricting ourselves to emperors here, we're forgetting the true Magnificent Bastard of the Julio-Claudian period: Livia Augusta, power behind the throne, alledged poisoner, and Evil Matriarch extrordinaire. It was her influence that put Tiberius on the throne (somewhere he really didn't want to be), and her constant meddling may have been one of the things that led to his breakdown.
Words cast into the uncaring void of the internet.
