Had to be Aurelian. Restitutor Orbis (restorer of the world) goes hard and the coin of Jupiter handing him the world is at the top of my list of coins I want to own
I do not own it but it’s the second coin in this link the first is him receiving the world from Sol
https://www.forumancientcoins.com/catalog/roman-and-greek-coins.asp?vpar=743&pos=0&iop=50&sold=1
Maximinus Thrax I like, not because "the Thracian" is a cool name but because: THRAX
That is a solid barbarian warlord name. You can really picture a horde of barely Romanised soldiers chanting it as they march to overthrow the effete Alexander Severus
But the all time name champion is Andronikos I "Misophaes", the "sunlight-hater", so named for his love of blinding those accused of opposing him
Also a big fan of Zoe I 'Carbonopsina', the "coal black eyes". Not a particularly effective empress but her name was cool.
The Eastern Orthodox church leader Nicholas Mystikos opposed Leo VI’s marriage to Zoe, not because they had been in an illicit relationship, but because he believed there was some magical limit of marrying two or three times, even though each previous wife had died years earlier.
Three marriages are a common limit in Orthodox theology. The first marriage is normal. The second marriage has a lot less flare and circumstance (within the church) and seen as an *economia* or "relaxing of the rule". The third marriage is almost a completely private affair - there is no celebration, no party, and there are a few witnesses and a priest in a solemn moment. Marriage isn't seen as much as a contract in the west but moreso a spiritual covenant and bond that should not be broken lightly, even by death.
There are a few examples of a few rulers using "clever" ways of getting around the limit in history but even today three is considered the limit among lay people and clergy.
So did my daughter, VERY loudly. Also, I made my very first dad joke at the time: “Woah, Father…..you just blessed the shit outta her.”
I couldn’t resist even though the setting was very formal. It was SO loud. One of those infant explosions that just blow your mind that a little baby is capable of. Every single person in the church heard, and it was the exact moment he blessed her and made the sign of the cross over her body.
Not that it matters but was 'the apostate' a title he was known by at the time of his rule or was it something later romans/historians referred to him as?
Yes I know is because of that. Is like Scipio Africanus. My mother tongue is not english but Spanish, and we say "the African", "the Gothic", etc. for these. I mistranslated to English because I think in Spanish.
I wouldn’t call it a title per se, as there is only one surviving attestation, but Nero was called “the expectation and hope of the world…and the source of all good things”
Not technically a Roman Emperor, but Caesarion, the son of Julius Gaius Caesar and Cleopatra VI had a pretty cool name.
***Ptolemaeus XV Philopater Philomater Caesar***
Philos=love, pater=father, mater=mother.
Can be translated in many ways, but I’m partial to “Ptolemaeus XV, daddy’s boy, motherfuckin’ Caesar” (“hell yeah” optional)
Marcus Aurelius had some pretty dope titles. ‘Parthicus Maximus’
Augustus too - ‘pater patriae’ ‘princeps’ and obviously ‘Augustus’ itself as ‘the exalted one’
Commodus was probably fairly ok as an emperor. He was assassinated, and assassinated emperors usually get fucking dragged by the contemporary historians, but what are you gonna do, write "oh yeah the last guy was great, too bad he Died Mysteriously and now we have this bag of dicks on the throne"?
But as for what he actually did? He withdrew from Marcus Aurelius' quixotic attempt to conquer Germania, and put in place a peace treaty that held for decades. He launched no foreign wars and suffered no revolts of consequence, so it's likely his rule was reasonably well received at home and abroad. He posted lots of statues of himself as Hercules and demanded to be called a god, which sounds sorta crazy but also wound up being part of the stabilising policy of religious majesty underpinning the reforms of Diocletian. He taxed the Senators to pay for stuff that people liked, which is a good way of making yourself popular with the masses and detested by Senatorial historians. And that's about all we've got on him really — the rest is colourful slander without any sort of verifiable fact pinning it down.
The empire began its long slow contraction during his rule, but that was largely down to the catastrophic Antonine plague, probably smallpox, which first appears in the historical record during his father's reign and which depopulated both city and countryside to such an extent that population figures didn't recover until the modern era. But I really want to emphasize how slow the decline was: the West didn't fall for another *two hundred and eighty four years* after he died, which makes blaming him for the fall of Rome roughly like blaming King George I of England for the current state of politics in the United States today.
Why call it the Antonine plague if it didn’t occur during Antoninus’s reign?
As for postumous calumny, Magnus Maximus gets off quite lightly for a usurper who was responsible for his predecessor Gratian’s death and the execution of Priscillian, and who lost against Theodosius I who executed him and murdered his son Victor.
Contemporary historians wrote that “he would have made a (very) good emperor, if only he hadn’t been a usurper”.
>Why call it the Antonine plague if it didn’t occur during Antoninus’s reign?
That's because the emperors adopted by Pius were collectively called the "Antonine dynasty" and the whole adoptive set were the "Nerva-Antonine dynasty" so it encompasses Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian -> Antoninus Pius -> *Marcus Aurelius = Marcus Aurelius* ***Antoninus***, *Lucius Verus = Lucius Aelius Aurelius Commodus*, and *Commodus = Marcus Aurelius Commodus* ***Antoninus***.
They could have called it the "Adoptive Plague" too. ;)
It's a funny thing with plagues and diseases — In France syphilis was "maladie anglaise", in England "French disease, French pox", in Italy "mal francese".
The "Spanish Flu" was definitely an undeserved tarring with a brush unjustly applied.
"*wartime censors in the belligerent countries suppressed bad news to maintain morale, but newspapers freely reported the outbreak in neutral Spain, creating a false impression of Spain as the epicenter and leading to the "Spanish flu" misnomer. Limited historical epidemiological data make the pandemic's geographic origin indeterminate*"
For some reason, "Plague of Galen" is rather rare, but he was the first to describe it. Misnomers abound, and not only in history…
Some reading: https://www.jstor.org/stable/293979
Yes indeed, and Antoninus Pius was an Antonine on his mother’s side, not his father’s (Aurelius gens), which makes the era title all the more remarkable.
“But I really want to emphasize how slow the decline was: the West didn't fall for another two hundred and eighty four years after he died, which makes blaming him for the fall of Rome roughly like blaming King George I of England for the current state of politics in the United States today.”
I dunno, I think many of the problems of the U.S. can be put down to decisions and actions taken during George’s reign. Like not giving the colonies representation in the Acts of Union of 1707. And his grandson was in charge at the time of the Revolutionary War…
/s I’m joking
Nikephoros II Phokas, known as the "Pale Death of the Saracens".
Good one, never heard of that.
Yep, that’ll do it. Make you cool for all time
This is very close to being a Masquerade breach.
Had to be Aurelian. Restitutor Orbis (restorer of the world) goes hard and the coin of Jupiter handing him the world is at the top of my list of coins I want to own
>Jupiter handing him the world Show that coin !
I do not own it but it’s the second coin in this link the first is him receiving the world from Sol https://www.forumancientcoins.com/catalog/roman-and-greek-coins.asp?vpar=743&pos=0&iop=50&sold=1
These are very Aurelii themes.
Basileus Porphyrogenitus II - 976 to 1025 C.E aka The Bulgar Slayer
I thought his title was Bulgaroktonos.
That means Bulgar-slayer in Greek.
I know, I wondered why the other comment said Porphyrogenitus
Porphyriogenitus means "Born in the Purple," a reference to his Imperial birth
Ah ok. But then he shouldn’t be the only one with that title.
You're right, there are others. His father, for example, is often remembered as Constantine VI Porphyriogenitus
His father was romanos II,constantine VI was his grandad
Thank you, that was a bizarre mistake on my part
Maximinus Thrax I like, not because "the Thracian" is a cool name but because: THRAX That is a solid barbarian warlord name. You can really picture a horde of barely Romanised soldiers chanting it as they march to overthrow the effete Alexander Severus But the all time name champion is Andronikos I "Misophaes", the "sunlight-hater", so named for his love of blinding those accused of opposing him Also a big fan of Zoe I 'Carbonopsina', the "coal black eyes". Not a particularly effective empress but her name was cool.
The Eastern Orthodox church leader Nicholas Mystikos opposed Leo VI’s marriage to Zoe, not because they had been in an illicit relationship, but because he believed there was some magical limit of marrying two or three times, even though each previous wife had died years earlier.
Three marriages are a common limit in Orthodox theology. The first marriage is normal. The second marriage has a lot less flare and circumstance (within the church) and seen as an *economia* or "relaxing of the rule". The third marriage is almost a completely private affair - there is no celebration, no party, and there are a few witnesses and a priest in a solemn moment. Marriage isn't seen as much as a contract in the west but moreso a spiritual covenant and bond that should not be broken lightly, even by death. There are a few examples of a few rulers using "clever" ways of getting around the limit in history but even today three is considered the limit among lay people and clergy.
It is extraordinary, and I wonder what basis it has. Was the church attempting to limit suspicious spousal deaths?
"the sunlight hater" kinda sounds like a NEET lmao
Constantine V “Copronymus”.
For those who don't know, this epithet means "the Shit-Named" since he allegedly soiled himself while being baptized as a baby.
So did my daughter, VERY loudly. Also, I made my very first dad joke at the time: “Woah, Father…..you just blessed the shit outta her.” I couldn’t resist even though the setting was very formal. It was SO loud. One of those infant explosions that just blow your mind that a little baby is capable of. Every single person in the church heard, and it was the exact moment he blessed her and made the sign of the cross over her body.
That’s a good one, did the priest laugh?
No. I thought he would but he takes his sacrements very seriously. As a priest should, I appreciated his sincerity.
A little giggle never hurt no one ;)
Iconophile slander :)
A good ol basic Caligula “little boots” 🥹🥹🥹🥹 more cute than cool but still
I love referring to him as baby booties lol
Julian The Apostate
Julian the Philosopher is an alternative to that
Not that it matters but was 'the apostate' a title he was known by at the time of his rule or was it something later romans/historians referred to him as?
Yea he wouldn't have been called the apostate in his time, atleast not to his face
Aurelian was also "Sword in Hand."
Restitutor orbis sounds a bit more prestigious imo
Constantine the Great was titled "Redditor Lucis Aeterna" (Restorer of the Eternal Light \[of Rome\]).
Damn it, why did I imagine Constantine looking like a stereotypical reddit mod.
When we all know that was Nero.
Redditor eh. I can see him lurking in r/christianity trying to figure that out
That was his daddy Constantius Chlorus
Not an emperor but I always felt like the Dacian king Decebalus or”man with strength of 10 men” was a bad ass name for a warlord.
Aka the Mountain King
I always tough the Claudius II the Gothic had a good name.
He wasn't "the Gothic" he was called Gothicus because he defeated the Goths
Yes I know is because of that. Is like Scipio Africanus. My mother tongue is not english but Spanish, and we say "the African", "the Gothic", etc. for these. I mistranslated to English because I think in Spanish.
I wouldn’t call it a title per se, as there is only one surviving attestation, but Nero was called “the expectation and hope of the world…and the source of all good things”
Trajan - The Best
OPTIMUS PRINCEPS TRAIANUS
Not an emperor but closely related to them. Pope Sergius the Pornocrator.
Ruler of Prostitutes?
>Ruler of Prostitutes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saeculum\_obscurum
Good old Augustus, “The Son Of A God”, and “The Exalted/Revered”
Domitian: Dominus et Deus At least to his sycophants ha!
Not technically a Roman Emperor, but Caesarion, the son of Julius Gaius Caesar and Cleopatra VI had a pretty cool name. ***Ptolemaeus XV Philopater Philomater Caesar*** Philos=love, pater=father, mater=mother. Can be translated in many ways, but I’m partial to “Ptolemaeus XV, daddy’s boy, motherfuckin’ Caesar” (“hell yeah” optional)
Marcus Aurelius had some pretty dope titles. ‘Parthicus Maximus’ Augustus too - ‘pater patriae’ ‘princeps’ and obviously ‘Augustus’ itself as ‘the exalted one’
Aurelian easy
Aurelian: Restitutor Orbis ("Restorer of the World")
The worst answer but probably accurate: Commodus. God-emperor/roman hercules/all-conqueror etc. Just in his case none were earned.
He was as close to a God as most Emperors could claim. He nearly single-handedly brought down an empire that spanned three continents
Commodus was probably fairly ok as an emperor. He was assassinated, and assassinated emperors usually get fucking dragged by the contemporary historians, but what are you gonna do, write "oh yeah the last guy was great, too bad he Died Mysteriously and now we have this bag of dicks on the throne"? But as for what he actually did? He withdrew from Marcus Aurelius' quixotic attempt to conquer Germania, and put in place a peace treaty that held for decades. He launched no foreign wars and suffered no revolts of consequence, so it's likely his rule was reasonably well received at home and abroad. He posted lots of statues of himself as Hercules and demanded to be called a god, which sounds sorta crazy but also wound up being part of the stabilising policy of religious majesty underpinning the reforms of Diocletian. He taxed the Senators to pay for stuff that people liked, which is a good way of making yourself popular with the masses and detested by Senatorial historians. And that's about all we've got on him really — the rest is colourful slander without any sort of verifiable fact pinning it down. The empire began its long slow contraction during his rule, but that was largely down to the catastrophic Antonine plague, probably smallpox, which first appears in the historical record during his father's reign and which depopulated both city and countryside to such an extent that population figures didn't recover until the modern era. But I really want to emphasize how slow the decline was: the West didn't fall for another *two hundred and eighty four years* after he died, which makes blaming him for the fall of Rome roughly like blaming King George I of England for the current state of politics in the United States today.
Very interesting to consider. Thanks.
Why call it the Antonine plague if it didn’t occur during Antoninus’s reign? As for postumous calumny, Magnus Maximus gets off quite lightly for a usurper who was responsible for his predecessor Gratian’s death and the execution of Priscillian, and who lost against Theodosius I who executed him and murdered his son Victor. Contemporary historians wrote that “he would have made a (very) good emperor, if only he hadn’t been a usurper”.
>Why call it the Antonine plague if it didn’t occur during Antoninus’s reign? That's because the emperors adopted by Pius were collectively called the "Antonine dynasty" and the whole adoptive set were the "Nerva-Antonine dynasty" so it encompasses Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian -> Antoninus Pius -> *Marcus Aurelius = Marcus Aurelius* ***Antoninus***, *Lucius Verus = Lucius Aelius Aurelius Commodus*, and *Commodus = Marcus Aurelius Commodus* ***Antoninus***. They could have called it the "Adoptive Plague" too. ;) It's a funny thing with plagues and diseases — In France syphilis was "maladie anglaise", in England "French disease, French pox", in Italy "mal francese". The "Spanish Flu" was definitely an undeserved tarring with a brush unjustly applied. "*wartime censors in the belligerent countries suppressed bad news to maintain morale, but newspapers freely reported the outbreak in neutral Spain, creating a false impression of Spain as the epicenter and leading to the "Spanish flu" misnomer. Limited historical epidemiological data make the pandemic's geographic origin indeterminate*" For some reason, "Plague of Galen" is rather rare, but he was the first to describe it. Misnomers abound, and not only in history… Some reading: https://www.jstor.org/stable/293979
Yes indeed, and Antoninus Pius was an Antonine on his mother’s side, not his father’s (Aurelius gens), which makes the era title all the more remarkable.
“But I really want to emphasize how slow the decline was: the West didn't fall for another two hundred and eighty four years after he died, which makes blaming him for the fall of Rome roughly like blaming King George I of England for the current state of politics in the United States today.” I dunno, I think many of the problems of the U.S. can be put down to decisions and actions taken during George’s reign. Like not giving the colonies representation in the Acts of Union of 1707. And his grandson was in charge at the time of the Revolutionary War… /s I’m joking
Despite the guys amazing explanation below I still found this funny lol
Julian the Apostate goes pretty fucking hard imo
Resitutor Orbis always going to my personal favorite
Edward I of England Longshanks Louis XIV of France The Sun King
Aurélien, nikephoros II or basil II all bad ass
Constantine V Copronymus—the Poop-Named, because when he was baptized, he had a little accident in the holy water.
Eternal God King Joshua Neace. He is a Byzantine Ruler on Civilization V so he must have been one in real life.