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Greatest monarch rulers in history

I think had Aurelian lived longer, he would still be getting into trouble with the Senate and at a certain point would appoint the more popular and chill Probus to be Caesar and successor, especially given Aurelian had no heir (He apparently killed his nephew).

I actually wrote this up, had that happened, I think Probus's heir ironically enough would be Constantius Chlorus given several factors and so in the end Constantine would become emperor anyways
 
I'll add some here:
Swedish kings
Gustav Vasa (might be propaganda, but hey, he got sweden out of international debt and changed the swedish hieracal system).
Gustav II Adolph (warlord, that counqered the baltic sea and made Sweden into superpower, until his daughter Kristina abdicated and became a nun)
Karl XII (Created the carolus rex, followed in his great forefather Gustav II adoplh footsteps and made sweden a even bigger superpower, until he got hybris and wanted to conquer russia duing winter)
 
Xadlin said:
Karl XII (Created the carolus rex, followed in his great forefather Gustav II adoplh footsteps and made sweden a even bigger superpower, until he got hybris and wanted to conquer russia duing winter)
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DAMN how many people made this mistake, just leave the Russians the hell alone, fighting them on their ground's never going to end well for you.
 
Adamant soul said:
DAMN how many people made this mistake, just leave the Russians the hell alone, fighting them on their ground's never going to end well for you.
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Like I said, hybris.
Karl and his karolus was unstoppable, until they reached the Russian border.
Karl thought if he could take Peter the greats forces during summer, instead of listening to his advisors of starting his campaign in spring.
 
Xadlin said:
Like I said, hybris.
Karl and his karolus was unstoppable, until they reached the Russian border.
Karl thought if he could take Peter the greats forces during summer, instead of listening to his advisors of starting his campaign in spring.
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Yeah just ignore your advisors, what the fuck do they know?

Foolishness Karl! Foolishness!
 
By civilization, off the top of my head now:

Very incomplete list.

Rome

Julius Caesar was one of the single most talented figures I've ever come across. It's hard to find anyone who possessed to same breadth and depth of talent that he did.

- Augustus (great politician and reformer, not so much a military man but he was wise enough to know this limitation of his and work around it)
- Aurelian
- Constantine

Greece

- Philip II
- Alexander

Egypt

- Thutmose III (Egypt's greatest king)
- Ramesses II (overrated, but still a great diplomat and communicator, less so a military man)
- Hatshepsut (the way she managed to keep power for so long despite her sex and despite having Thutmose reach maturity while she ruled is remarkable, and her reign brought Egypt great wealth)
- Thutmose I

Eastern Rome/"Byzantine"

- Justinian (his conquests were short-lived but his successful theft of silk tech from China ensured the Empire would have a big source of revenue for centuries after it lost military primacy)

Medieval Europe

- Charlemagne
- William the Conqueror

Early Modern

- Henry VII
- Elizabeth I (overrated, but nevertheless proved the most skilled and charismatic leader England produced in centuries)
- Louis XIV (somewhat cynical and vain, but I read his memoirs and the man understood what was required of a good leader, he turned France into a great power following the chaos of the 30 Years War)
- William III/of Orange (resisted France for decades, later laid the foundation for turning Britain into the world's leading power)
- Peter the Great

Modern

- Napoleon (if his ego hadn't gotten the better of him, he probably could have made a deal with Britain that left France as the leading power in Europe and not been ruined)

Very incomplete. Maybe I'll update later. Maybe not. This makes me think of a tournament of generals though, an idea I've had circulating in my mind for a while.
 
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I agree on napoleon. i fhis pride and hybris didnt get to him. history would have looked different.
sadly he went the karl XII route and lost in russia.
 
Maddie said:
I personally cannot stand Louis XIV ngl
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He was cynical and vain but he got the job done. His memoirs were incredibly revealing. Very driven. Not a man to fuck with. His reign spoke for itself until Marlborough started kicking his ass at the end, but that was a misfortune I'm not sure he could have avoided.
 
Had Aurelian lived longer, he doubtlessly would have chosen Probus. I still think history would have gone mostly the same given Probus' best pick going by what we know was Constantius Chlorus, but had Aurelian + Probus reigned longer, they'd probably be considered the greatest monarchs in history, even greater than Constantine (Who would have just been considered a strong emperor in the Aurelio-Constantinian Dynasty). Constantine would have no civil wars likely and be less paranoid, making this alternate history Crispus likely to survive and rule from 317 to the 350s or 360s, maybe up to the 370s.

Had Constantine converted to Christianity, it would have been a more slow and gradual process of him modifying Sol Invictus to be compatible with Christianity, so our modern day Christianity would be heavily influenced by Syriac religion and Sun-Worship.
 
another one:
Baldwin IV of Jerusalem- The leper king

Big chad king power. Held jerusalem together and repelled saladin, while having a prosperous regime.
 
Ardashir I of House Sasan aka Ardashir the Unifier of Sassanian Persia/Eranshar:

From the Herodian (LXXX 4.2):


Herodian also attributes the following utterances to the Persian (Sassanid) envoy (VI 4.5):


Ardasir's Letter of Tansar (a 6th century document that was translated from Middle to New Persian in the 9th-10th century AD):


I don't think I stress enough how relevant Ardashir I is, both in reestablishing Persia once more as a superpower that was the Romans greatest rivals for another nearly 500 years but also the pivotal tipping point in the power balance in Western Asia that would lead to increasingly escalating conflicts between the Persians and Romans for supremacy. Independent of this, Ardashir reasserted the national identity and culture of the Aryans (Iranian) peoples, and almost all modern non-Islamic Persian, Kurdish, Tat, Luri, Gilaki, etc...indigenous festivals, holidays (possibly Nowrooz, most certainly Shab e Yalda, Mehegran, Tieregan (day of victory over evil/darkness, etc...), customs, oral traditions, folk dress derive almost entirely from the Sassanian period. As well as the true orthodoxy of Zoroastrianism as we know it today.
 
Ardashir and his son Shapur were the bane of the Romans' existence at the time. At a time when the Roman and Chinese empires were on the verge of collapse, middle Asia rose to have a golden age from the mid 3rd century to the mid 7th century
 
Damn the dude sounds like he not only studied his history, but he also wanted to remake it in his own image. Mostly succeeded from what I see.
 
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