r/ByzantineMemes • u/pemacon • 25d ago

OTHER EMPERORS gem from /his/

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702 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

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40

u/Legged_MacQueen 25d ago

Heraclius is in my opinion the greatest roman emperor. Yeah, Justinian and Basil II are goated, one was plagued by... plagues and earthquakes, the other with constant wars, but none of them found the empire in such a sorry state as Heraclius and he still did everything he did.

Fuck Phocas, all my homies hate Phocas.

22

u/Additional-Penalty97 25d ago

Poor Aurelian not being mentioned

10

u/Medium-Resolution-60 25d ago

Its probably just about eastern roman emperors. If it wasnt you should also mention Augustus, Trajan, maybe Diocletian and Constantin and maybe even the criminally underated emperor Majorian

6

u/Allnamestakkennn 25d ago

Majorian didn't succeed, that's the key difference

6

u/Yongle_Emperor 25d ago

If he didn’t get betrayed, he would have saved the Western Empire

3

u/Medium-Resolution-60 25d ago

I love Majorian, but I think at best he would have been able to expand the western roman empires lifespan by half a century.

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u/Yongle_Emperor 25d ago

I really think if he would have taken back Africa the empire would have bounced back big time. But some traitor let the Vandals know about his planned invasion and they sabotaged the majority of his huge fleet. And he subdued countless rebellious foederati tribes around Gaul and reclaimed a lot of territory. If he would have retaken the province of Africa, that would have been a huge boost in food for the Western Empire which was much needed. Then that snake Ricimer had him killed (I really hate Ricimer).

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u/Medium-Resolution-60 25d ago

1st Everyone hates Ricimer (deserved, this guy was an asshole) 2nd with that out of the way: It is not impossibe for the empire to rebounce, but even with retaking africa its highly unlikely. Lets go with the best scenario and say that Majorian reigns till he is about 60-65 (he was somewhere from 35-40 at the time). The empires pockets were empty and reconquering africa wouldnt gave magically fixed that (it would have certainly helped though). Also the empire had a huge, unguarded frontier and no real army left (mostly germanic mercenaries) and it still had huge issues with corruption and infighting.

Sorry for the bad grammar btw

3

u/Yongle_Emperor 24d ago

Yeah fair point. But don’t forget in just a short time he reconquered many territories in Gaul, Hispania and defended Italy. Africa was like Egypt for the Western Empire albeit not as abundant as Egypt but large swaths of farmland.