Worst Monarch Rulers in History
- Thread starter Maddie
- Start date
That chinese emperor who burned books.
Nero. Made a mockery of the Olympics and basically everything he got his hands on just to pet his own ego, and got near everyone to hate his ass for how shit he was at being a ruler.
I was actually gonna put him down too, but I couldn't remember the nigga's name in the moment, given I'd literally just woken up, so I said fuck it and just put down Nero.
Maddie
Acclaimed
Both Nero and Caligula were bad, but not to a level I'd considered worst. I'd give Nero a 4 and Caligula a 3 out of 10
When it comes to worst Roman Emperors, like utterly worst, not just terrible but fundamentally damaging to the empire, I put:
-Commodus: Fuse Caligula with Nero and you get this bastard
-Caracalla: Most sadistic emperor in Roman History. Utterly hateful, and if his father planted the seeds to the crisis, Caracalla was the miracle fertilizer which would make a forest out of it
-Honorius: Oversaw the systematic dismantlement of the Roman Empire and did jack shit about it, actually helped facilitate it by pissing off his german generals. Lazy and impotent asshole who killed the only capable man running the empire.
-Valentinian III: Oversaw the systematic dismantlement of the Roman Empire and did jack shit about it, actually helped facilitate it by pissing off his german generals. Lazy and impotent asshole who killed the only capable man running the empire. Wait have we been here before?
-Phokas: Needlessly murdered one of the best Roman Emperors and then pissed of Persia starting the last great Persian War, allowing Islam's rise.
-Constantine VIII: Basically reversed EVERYTHING his brother (Basil II) did and stood for. Was a lazy and hedonist emperor who broke the economy, destabilized the borders, deprofessionalized the army, and allowed Manzikert to happen a few years down the line.
-The Entire Angelid Dynasty: Two Words: Fourth Crusade
-Andronikos II: Imagine disbanding your navy to rely on Venice's navy, then having some Venetians massacared in your city, and then demanding reparations from Venice. Oh he also oversaw the rise of the Ottomans and failed miserably trying to stop them because he exiled all his good generals who seemed too popular.
Would Marie Antoinette and King Louis count? Like my memory of the French isn't very good but while they weren't bad like as in being tyrannical they didn't really do anything to help their people which was one of the influences for the French Revolution right?
That or I'm super wrong.
That or I'm super wrong.
I never believed Nero was as bad as Senators claimed. They equated him to the anti-Christ because he was one of the earliest Roman emperors to really persecute Christians and did so on a level few would ever manage before Constantine legalized the status of Christianity in the Roman Empire. That said as far as Rome and Byzantium are concerned:
PHOCAS is by the worst thing to happen at the end of Antiquity and his usurpation of power and the chaos he caused changed world history and the events that followed. He is magnitudes worse than Caligula, Commodous, Caracalla, Geta, etc...his murdering of Maurice, destablizing relations with the Persians; particularly Khosrow II Parviz, who was essentially Maurice's foster son, caused the worst war in Persian-Roman history and lead to the loss of most of Western Asia from being Christian and Zoroastrian.
PHOCAS is by the worst thing to happen at the end of Antiquity and his usurpation of power and the chaos he caused changed world history and the events that followed. He is magnitudes worse than Caligula, Commodous, Caracalla, Geta, etc...his murdering of Maurice, destablizing relations with the Persians; particularly Khosrow II Parviz, who was essentially Maurice's foster son, caused the worst war in Persian-Roman history and lead to the loss of most of Western Asia from being Christian and Zoroastrian.
Maddie
Acclaimed
Out of Byzantine Emperors, the only I can think being as directly involved in a disaster befalling Rome is the Angelids, whose sperging resulted in the travestous Fourth Crusade which ended 929 years (Aurelian's untimely death led to a short interregnum) of continuous Roman rule in some form
The sack of Constantinople because of the 4th Crusade was a end-result, not the spark that caused tragedy itself. The feuds between the Hellenic Greeks/Romans, Venetians and Genosians in the Merchant Quarters over profits and trade routes with the East to West and vice-versa is the real reason the Latins ended up sacking Constantinople. A bad event but I still think Phocas was far worse.
Charles I of England/Scotland/Ireland deserves a special mention here.
I greatly admire the way he maintained his dignity and self-respect at the end of his life during his show trial, but it never should have happened in the first place. His incredibly arrogance, taking every disagreement as a personal affront, his zealous hubris in an unlimited kingly power, turned his kingdoms, which had basically been peaceful since 1485, both in their hinterlands and with each other, into a 17th century Bosnia or Rwanda. More people in Britain died per capita than during World War I. Complete and total catastrophe.
He wasn't a BAD man. He didn't have bad morals, but these great character flaws led to completely avoidable tragedy.
I greatly admire the way he maintained his dignity and self-respect at the end of his life during his show trial, but it never should have happened in the first place. His incredibly arrogance, taking every disagreement as a personal affront, his zealous hubris in an unlimited kingly power, turned his kingdoms, which had basically been peaceful since 1485, both in their hinterlands and with each other, into a 17th century Bosnia or Rwanda. More people in Britain died per capita than during World War I. Complete and total catastrophe.
He wasn't a BAD man. He didn't have bad morals, but these great character flaws led to completely avoidable tragedy.
