05-29-2004, 12:24 AM
Like Pompeius Magnus, I have to go with Augustus as the greatest Roman. He brought a much needed stability to a Roman world exhausted by civil war. Due to his own genius and/or his ability, realizing that not all the ideas were his, to listen to his advisors, he was able, using their advise and help, to bring order out of the chaos. He managed to still maintain some "fiction" of a continuation of key Roman institutions. There is so very much that he organized, set on a firm footing, etc., including our own favorite, the Roman Army. His long life, I am sure, helped enormously. Thus the passage of time allowed things to take hold and become habitual. I think his successors for many many years acknowledged that they lived under his shadow.<br>
I would place Diocletian near the top, probably at number 2-because, like Augustus, he brought a much needed stability to the empire after some fifty or so years of ever constant changes in rulers and wars. He also gets credit for reorganizing things, possibly/probably including the army. His colleague in the western end of the empire existed in Diocletian's shadow.<br>
And a note on Constantine. I have to agree that he granted official Tolerance to Christianity, but by no means made it the official religion. He still maintained "more than a foot in the polytheistic camp." I possess a coin of Constantine, which on the reverse has an image and inscription to Sol Invictus, a very popular pagan diety during that era. I think he finally accepted baptism on his deathbed because he very much feared death and was hedging his bets He had done some conceivably wicked things in his lifetime, for which he might be punished in an afterlife, and he may have become convinced that the Christians' god would be the one to punish him. Those wicked things included the killing of his wife and his son, which I believe he later regretted, especially his son's death.<br>
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Marcus Quintius Clavus <p></p><i></i>
I would place Diocletian near the top, probably at number 2-because, like Augustus, he brought a much needed stability to the empire after some fifty or so years of ever constant changes in rulers and wars. He also gets credit for reorganizing things, possibly/probably including the army. His colleague in the western end of the empire existed in Diocletian's shadow.<br>
And a note on Constantine. I have to agree that he granted official Tolerance to Christianity, but by no means made it the official religion. He still maintained "more than a foot in the polytheistic camp." I possess a coin of Constantine, which on the reverse has an image and inscription to Sol Invictus, a very popular pagan diety during that era. I think he finally accepted baptism on his deathbed because he very much feared death and was hedging his bets He had done some conceivably wicked things in his lifetime, for which he might be punished in an afterlife, and he may have become convinced that the Christians' god would be the one to punish him. Those wicked things included the killing of his wife and his son, which I believe he later regretted, especially his son's death.<br>
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Marcus Quintius Clavus <p></p><i></i>
Quinton Johansen
Marcus Quintius Clavus, Optio Secundae Pili Prioris Legionis III Cyrenaicae
Marcus Quintius Clavus, Optio Secundae Pili Prioris Legionis III Cyrenaicae
