best roman emperor who died young

[gochisox]

hey i was wondering who you think which Roman Emperor has the most potential to do a lot for the Empire if they survived. Im gonna go with Theodosius, i know he was older, but he died in his 40 so he still had some years to live, and i think he was one of the best chances to have the Western Rome get stronger before it was to far gone.

I also think that Julian the apostate would be the most interesting (he only died at 30 i believe) but im not sure that he would have made Rome better (more religious tension is always bad)

Your guys thoughts

 

[Cambyses]

I'm going with under-40s myself.

Julian was good, but his reforms may have proven disastrous, we'll never know.

Alexander Severus had a very promising start.

 

[FrozenMix]

Titus, son of Vespasian, was a very popular military leader with both the aristocracy and the commoners.

His ideas on the military and his reluctance to spend much time cooped up in Rome might have led to a conquest of parts of Germania or Caledonia. (Not enough "glory", or more importantly, resources and Romanized institutions to latch onto in Dacia by this point. It was the conquest that really did not make sense)

His economic policies didn't really deviate from his father's that much, with lots of public works and generosity to the people and helped to do what could be done for the survivors of Vesuvius erupting.

If he had lived longer, and his death was flukish, he likely would have accomplished a lot of what Domitian was able to do without being such a dick about it.

I think he died at 41 or so, so maybe he doesn't qualify, but he only ruled for a few years.

He likely would have remarried to try to get a male heir, and maybe he would have been undone by his brother for trying to do so, but that is hard to know for sure (maybe Titus marries someone who is politically smart enough to tell him to actually deal with Domitian's treachery).

 

[Alcsentre Calanice]

Elagabalus! I want to see the first transsexual empire of the history.

Don't forget Caligula and Nero... They died so young, simply wanting to form a better world.

 

[Mike Stearns]

Elagabalus! I want to see the first transsexual empire of the history.

Don't forget Caligula and Nero... They died so young, simply wanting to form a better world.

Uhhh....you're kidding right? Caligula was known to serve Senators wine spiked with horse piss just to see how they'd react, in addition to bedding their wives and discussing the experience with their husbands, Nero burned down most of Rome so he could build the Domus Aurea and Elagabalus was just flat out weird.

 

[Valin Arcadius]

Definitely Titus.

 

[Kerney]

I also think that Julian the apostate would be the most interesting (he only died at 30 i believe) but im not sure that he would have made Rome better (more religious tension is always bad)

Your guys thoughts

Julian didn't push the persecution of Christians, just removed the favoritism they had received. Considering that within thirty years after his death the Christians were starting riots in Alexandria, persecuting pagans and Jew, perhaps restored paganism would have kept the Christians better behaved, which would have lead to less religious tension rather than more.

 

[SlyDessertFox]

Uhhh....you're kidding right? Caligula was known to serve Senators wine spiked with horse piss just to see how they'd react, in addition to bedding their wives and discussing the experience with their husbands, Nero burned down most of Rome so he could build the Domus Aurea and Elagabalus was just flat out weird.

Don't listen to everything you hear about Caligula. He wasn't a good emperor by any means but just about everything written about him is extremely suspect because of who wrote it. Caligula was a far more nuanced, calculating, and intelligent person than people give him credit for. Continuing his reign would be incredibly interesting because it might be different than people would expect.

There is literally zero actual evidence Nero was responsible for the Great Fire. Even moreso considering how flammable Rome was-fire's were not an uncommon occurrence in the city. The city was a tinderbox-they didn't even make it 2 decades before the next big fire.

 

[DominusNovus]

Alexander Severus. Full stop.

Dio says this of Titus:

His satisfactory record may also have been due to the fact that he survived his accession but a very short time, for he was thus given no opportunity for wrongdoing. For he lived after this only two years, two months and twenty days—in addition to the thirty-nine years, five months and twenty-five days he had already lived at that time. In this respect, indeed, he is regarded as having equalled the long reign of Augustus, since it is maintained that Augustus would never have been loved had he lived a shorter time, nor Titus had he lived longer. For Augustus, though at the outset he showed himself rather harsh because of the wars and the factional strife, was later able, in the course of time, to achieve a brilliant reputation for his kindly deeds; Titus, on the other hand, ruled with mildness and died at the height of his glory, whereas, if he had lived a long time, it might have been shown that he owes his present fame more to good fortune than to merit.

 

[Emperor Constantine]

Don't listen to everything you hear about Caligula. He wasn't a good emperor by any means but just about everything written about him is extremely suspect because of who wrote it. Caligula was a far more nuanced, calculating, and intelligent person than people give him credit for. Continuing his reign would be incredibly interesting because it might be different than people would expect.

There is literally zero actual evidence Nero was responsible for the Great Fire. Even moreso considering how flammable Rome was-fire's were not an uncommon occurrence in the city. The city was a tinderbox-they didn't even make it 2 decades before the next big fire.

Agreed. Caligula did bizarre shit, but it was mainly aimed at the senatorial aristocracy. Nothing he did was bad enough to really bring down the empire. Its not like he invited in the Germanic tribes or offered parts of the east to Parthia. Personally I think that if his sister (and maybe lover) Drusilla had survived things would have been pretty different.

On a related note, I gotta vote Alexander Severus. He seemed to be a remarkable Emperor in the short time he ruled and could have been a truly great ruler if he hadn't been killed by shortsighted soldiers.

 

[SlyDessertFox]

I think Alexander Severus is overrated personally-it's questionable how much the good in his rule can actually be attributed to him rather than the council that governed in his name for most of his reign. And when it came to military matters he seemed to be good at botching things up (invasion of Persia, and then screwing up the handling of the German tribes). He was certainly a thousand times better than what followed, but he wasn't particularly great.

 

[gochisox]

Julian didn't push the persecution of Christians, just removed the favoritism they had received. Considering that within thirty years after his death the Christians were starting riots in Alexandria, persecuting pagans and Jew, perhaps restored paganism would have kept the Christians better behaved, which would have lead to less religious tension rather than more.

The way i heard it was that he did that because he wasent persecuting Christians because he belived that the split between Arians and the regular Christians (orthodox? not sure their name) would basically kill the momentum of the religion with their infighting, (not completely unlikely considering the last Emporor Constantius II was Arian and it had wide support in the east until Theodosius wiped it out) near the end of his life however, he realized that the plan wasent working and started to combat Christianity more aggressively, although their it wasent through force, he made it so that any teacher would have to gain the approval of the city magistrate, which was appointed by Julian and therefore pagan. His goal wasent extermination but to make it so Christianity was not the learned religion, (Julian was above everything a scholar) and believed that by making Christianity the 'poor mans' religion pagans would stay in charge.

The problem is if he tried to do this intensely, those same educated men he was trying to force out would protest and thats where the tension would come from.