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I've actually been listening to the history of Rome podcast lately so I'll give the smug rear end in a top hat answer; the Praetorians, since they were the true power behind the throne  .As an actual answer, Domitian sounds like he got a way worse rap than he deserved mostly because he didn't butter up to the rich assholes in the senate, who wrote the history afterwards. He had a lovely early life, his dad and brother barely paid any attention to him and he was treated like a political trophy in the year of the 4 emperors, he was a goony shut in most of his life that nobody thought would amount to anything and at best people thought he would be actively dangerous as Emperor. Despite this he was actually a really competent administrator, especially when it came to the empires financial footing, who was hugely popular with the common man and the rank and file soldiers seemingly because he put effort into infrastructure, payment and social policies without giving heed to whatever the windbags in the Senate said. He was pragmatic about defending the empires borders, building strong fortifications in the gap between the Danube and Rhine, although his cautious policy towards Dacia was a source of controversy. He was damned as a tyrant later for his paranoia about threats to his life which led to predictable outcomes towards people who looked at him wrong, but this was based on actual real threats on his life that ended up proving his paranoia was perfectly vindicated what with him getting killed by a senatorial conspiracy. Despite this he was still popular for years after his death with most of the citizens of the empire which led to uproar, and lots of misery for his successor, Nerva, who at one point was literally besieged by his own Praetorians until he agreed to prosecute Domitian's killlers (among other reasons). Of course Nerva's only real quality was the fact that he named Trajan the next emperor. All in all, you wonder how much Domitian might have laid the groundwork for the five emperors.
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Feb 6, 2019 02:23
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Arrhythmia posted:For everyone who is laughing at Elagabalus tiny dick: that is almost one hundred percent on purpose. The Gobbler had some ideas about his gender and would probably be considered trans in this day and age. While true, I think classical sculpture in general considered tiny dicks to be a good sign.
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Feb 6, 2019 02:26
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Pistol_Pete posted:Hadrian was also super into this Greek twink (embarassingly so by Roman standards - nothing wrong with screwing guys but don't get so serious about it ffs) and when he accidentally drowned, Hadrian went half-crazy with grief and put up loads of statues to him and announced that he should now be worshipped as a god and everyone else just had to awkwardly play along lol. May his boner be crushed.
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Feb 16, 2019 12:47
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The Fourth Crusade is one of the most incredible and bizarre events in all of history for me, literally nobody comes out of it looking good. It kind of says something about how disordered the empire had gotten by that point that this fractious and broke band of chucklefuck crusaders who started off undersized and had been hemorrhaging men for months managed to attack and conquer one of the most impregnable cities in history. If Alexios III had just grown a pair and fought properly instead of absconding with the imperial treasury at the first hint of trouble things might have been totally different. The lead up was pretty nutty as well, in the last few decades the empire had gone into decline with the death Manuel I Komnenos who in his last years started getting his poo poo kicked in by Turks. Komnenos is probably the last 'Great' Roman emperor in history, and he was soon followed up by the last 'Great' insane tyrant in the vein of Caligula and Caracalla, Andronicus, who overthrew and murdered Manuel's young son Alexios II and his mother, Empress Maria, helped in large part by the fact that Maria was a westerner which made her unpopular in the Eastern Empire. He also directed Constantinople's Greek population to massacre tens of thousands of Latins, mostly Italians who were economically very powerful in the city, which created permanent bad blood that came back around 20 years later. Andronicus also killed his allies who invited him to the city in the first place, Marie Komnene and her husband Renier of Montferrat, this is important because Boniface of Montferrat was the brother of Renier and played a key role in the Fourth Crusade and subsequent chopping up of the empire. Not done yet, Andronicus (probably in his 60s by now) married Alexios's 12 year old widow, Agnes of France, and initiated a reign of terror against the Aristocracy that was bloody and horrifying even by Roman standards, he seems to have resolved to wipe out the entire aristocracy, unfortunately a Norman invasion in the Balkans complicated things and (obviously) people were starting to get a wee bit less keen on him that they might have previously. When Isaac Angelos managed to escape assassination the city rose up around him, Andronicus was deposed and, fittingly for Rome, was tortured to death slowly and horribly by the mob in a way that almost makes me feel bad for him. Isaac Angelos then became emperor, the father, by the way, of Alexios IV who managed to convince the crusaders to go to Constantinople in 1203, his rule was beset by Norman wars and, worse, a gigantic insurrection in the Balkans that eventually led to the Second Bulgarian Empire being proclaimed. Isaac was overthrown and blinded (not killed, though such a maiming meant he was technically ineligible to rule as Emperor which was the source of consternation when he was returned to the throne with his son by the Crusaders since this was clear example of foreigners breaking Byzantine customs to hoist upon them their own candidates for office) by Alexios III, his own brother! As you might imagine with a man who runs off from the Greatest city in Europe with everyone else's money, even leaving his own family behind to angry invaders, he wasn't a very good emperor who let the defenses of the empire rot (especially the navy, which obviously had massive repercussions in the fourth crusade) and hopelessly squandered money on himself and his favorites to maintain power, even though the empire was getting pressed from every angle by Turks, Bulgarians, Hungarians and various local uprisings. The worst part was when the Holy Roman emperor Henry VI basically just shook him down for a ton of money to not invade, which Alexios gladly provided by taxing the hell out of the people and ransacking priceless artifacts to melt down and sell. In the end, it all feels so fittingly Roman in a weird kind of way that had gotten really outmoded in Europe around then, with total insanity and incompetence you could only really get when your succession process sucks and you're beholden to the mob on the street of your capital who'll gladly torture you to death personally if you gently caress things up, but the Emperor was still powerful enough that they could attempt to wipe out their entire aristocracy and come surprisingly close, one of the reasons Byzantium truly was the Roman Empire. steinrokkan posted:But really, which is the legitimate successor of Rome (Byzantium)? America 
khwarezm fucked around with this message at 00:30 on Feb 17, 2019 |
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Feb 17, 2019 00:25
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The Varangians are really interesting to me since they are like the perfect opposite to the Praetorians and actually protected the Emperor like they were hired to do rather than killing the emperor and literally auctioning off the job to the highest bidder (look up Pertinax for more on this). They were even used in battle as elite crack troops and performed exceptionally, the Praetorians on the other hand mostly lolled around Rome bossing around the locals and trying to make their already ridiculously oversized paychecks bigger, its such a night and day difference, every other imperial guard force in history seems to pale against these guys in terms of loyalty and competence. Does anyone know more about how they came into being?
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Feb 17, 2019 01:37
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 Oh godThat's what gets me, could you imagine something like that happening to any other crowned head of Europe at the time? At least with somebody like Edward II of England they tried to make his murder not so obvious. The Eastern Empire tended to consider themselves above the barbarians from the west, and they were in some ways, but I would imagine a king from France or Germany would have been as shocked as a modern reader looking at that.
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Feb 17, 2019 01:53
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Alhazred posted:When Harald Hardråde (Harald the Stern Ruler) was a member of the varangian guard he lead a revolt where the varangian guard blinded the emperor and stole his gold before sailing away to Norway. In 1071 the varangian guard deposed of Emperor Romanos IV Diogenes, arrested the empress and installed his nephew as emperor, then in 1078 they lead a revolt against Nikephoros III Botaneiates. So the varangian guard wasn't exactly blindly loyal. I didn't know about the Harald Hardrade thing but for the other two, I can't find much, or really any, information that implicates the Varangians as key players in the post-Manzikert skulduggery that you describe, can you show me? Like for Nikephoros III, wasn't he in the process of seizing power in 1078, having to battle the other Nikephorus for the position of emperor? At worst it seems like they were caught up in confusing events rather than causing them.
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Feb 18, 2019 22:00
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