|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Posted: Thu May 03, 2007 9:17 pm
So, I'm a big dork and decided to start a Who's your favorite Roman emperor and why? thread. I will begin.
Just recently, I've claimed Elagabalus as my favorite for some quite simple reasons. He was eccentric, aesthetic, weird, and wanted to be a woman. Which I find ridiculously amusing, considering almost all other Roman emperors were pretty manly men (unless I feel particularly like being mean to Octavian, but I'm not that cruel).
So, what about you?
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu May 03, 2007 9:22 pm
Was he the emperor that finally got stabbed on the toilet by one of his guards? ninja
|
|
|
|
|
|
Harvested Sorrow Vice Captain
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
In media res Vice Captain
|
Posted: Thu May 03, 2007 9:22 pm
I'm moving this into the "Roman History" forum sweatdrop
But, I love Hadrian for being one of the "5 good emperors" and keeping them damn barbarians out with his wall.
Augustus I love for his re-establishment of Roman peity.
AND Nero, I LOVE this guy. He burns Rome down and blames the Christians so he can have a larger villa (hero), I mean c'mon, what a wonderful way to exploit insurance.
I will add more information on these guys when I can THINK. My brain isn't very awake.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu May 03, 2007 9:28 pm
Ariadnae I'm moving this into the "Roman History" forum sweatdrop I took care of that one. biggrin
|
|
|
|
|
|
Harvested Sorrow Vice Captain
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu May 03, 2007 9:32 pm
I was originally going to put this in the History forum, but as the subject was somewhat random, I wasn't sure if I should. Now I know! n_n
I quite enjoy Hadrian, as well, but I don't know much about him.
And also, Harvested: I'm not quite sure about that. I do know that he was murdered and dragged through the town, though, because nobody liked the fact that he had his own crazy religion he was forcing onto people (which I don't blame them for).
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu May 03, 2007 9:44 pm
Ah. The Roman emperor I'm thinking of wished to be a woman and went so far as to have a marriage ceremony with another man (with himself as the bride).....at that point one of his guards said '******** this, it's gone too far' and assassinated him while he was out for a midnight toilet break.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Harvested Sorrow Vice Captain
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu May 03, 2007 10:11 pm
Harvested Sorrow Ah. The Roman emperor I'm thinking of wished to be a woman and went so far as to have a marriage ceremony with another man (with himself as the bride).....at that point one of his guards said '******** this, it's gone too far' and assassinated him while he was out for a midnight toilet break.
Oh, sweet. That sounds like it could be him, but I'm not sure. Do you know the name of this one? If not, I will have to do a search sometime. XD
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu May 03, 2007 10:25 pm
Cereal Murder Harvested Sorrow Ah. The Roman emperor I'm thinking of wished to be a woman and went so far as to have a marriage ceremony with another man (with himself as the bride).....at that point one of his guards said '******** this, it's gone too far' and assassinated him while he was out for a midnight toilet break.
Oh, sweet. That sounds like it could be him, but I'm not sure. Do you know the name of this one? If not, I will have to do a search sometime. XD
That was Nero who dressed up as a woman and married his lover.
|
|
|
|
|
|
In media res Vice Captain
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Harvested Sorrow Vice Captain
|
Posted: Thu May 03, 2007 10:29 pm
Okay. I recall discussing it in history class junior year....apparently by that point the empire was in such a degraded state that every time they ended up with a bad or really eccentric emperor the population just sort of shrugged their shoulders and carried an attitude of 'Eh, ******** it, don't worry about it. Someone'll assassinate him soon enough.'
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu May 03, 2007 10:39 pm
LOL! it's so true though.
This is why we had the pax augustus after the Ides of March. After so much scandal and assassinations, Augustus was like..
"Ok, you're all bastards, have you no love for your imperial cult?!"
thus, stricter laws and more centered around the paterfamilias.
Didn't last long.
|
|
|
|
|
|
In media res Vice Captain
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu May 03, 2007 10:45 pm
Oh, Rome, and your historical eccentricities that will always make me lol.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu May 03, 2007 11:05 pm
Mine is Marcus Aurelius, he was an Emperor, a philosopher and a writer...pretty smart guy, stoic though... xp .
His work Meditations is throughly clear and well-develped for my taste. And one of the five good emperors. He actually did do much to expand Roman territory. Though, I do not think he is given enough credit.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri May 04, 2007 7:21 am
Marcus is okay. I find the philosophical side of him a little dry, but he was in favor of doing away with slavery, so he gets points for that. His big mistake was allowing Commodus to succeed him instead of adopting someone a but more mature, but hey, it's family.
I've always been fond of Claudius, mostly because of Robert Graves and Derek Jacobi.
I've read some revisionist stuff on Domitian, too, Vespasian's 2nd son who was assassinated but who apparently wasn't as bad as all that.
Oh, and Julian was pretty cool, too, at least, Gore Vidal would have you think so.
And Justinian was okay.
I guess I don't have an actual favorite.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri May 04, 2007 8:14 am
I'm a fan of Decius, he was especially severe.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat May 05, 2007 11:02 pm
Hm. I don't know who my favorite is... but my least favorite is Nero. He got what he deserved.. No. He deserved worse. What kind of self-centered jerk burns down the most wonderful place ever? I mean, look at him.. he must have thought he was Orpheus or something.. must not have worked too well, he didn't escape from the underworld with his "art."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
