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hi everyone welcome back to the history and 20 podcast hope you're all keeping well this time is a first on the channel because we've got a very special guest my good friend tom is featuring today and we're discussing our top 10 roman emperors so sit back and enjoy hi everyone i'm tom and i'll be starting us off today with number 10 emperor hadrian now adrian was born on the 24th of january 76 a day he died 10th of july 138 a day his reign was from the 11th of august 117 to the 10th of july 138. now emperor hadrian was a successor of emperor trajan and he became roman emperor with a really strong support base as he was the obvious successor for emperor trajan now emperor trajan had had a very good run as emperor prior to emperor hadrian coming up and uh upon his ascension to the uh to the purple the emperorship he remained in rome for three years and in one twenty one a day he undertook a tour of the empire both west and east in order to inspect troops examined frontier defenses and generally uh show his face among the empire now he began his journey first in uh gaul modern day france and then went through into the roman holdings in germany and reached britain in 122 a year later either when it went to spain mauritania which is modern day morocco where he suppressed their berber uprising asian miner and then the balkans and then on to athens in greece when he returned into rome in 125 a.d his prolonged absence had emphasized some problems however his tours had paid off because he'd spent three years supervising the empire's defenses and knew how to deal with unrest and crack down on a public order and however his tours had paid off because he'd spent three years supervising the empire's defenses and knew how to deal with unrest from his pre-emperor days as a career officer in trajan's armies after spending another three years in rome adrian set forth to north africa in 128 a.d and then sailed eastward onto asia minor modern-day turkey syria and arabia he returned to rome in 132 a day after exploring the nile delta and a revolt in judea in 134 a.d forced him eastwards again to palestine as a military commander another revolt which he successfully oppressed hadrian died in bahi near naples in 138 age 61 due to failing health conditions one of the key elements of hadrian's reign was competent administration and construction he was a great military leader but he wasn't he was also good at shoring up and getting the things he wanted and stabilizing the emperor in his reign an example of his competent competence visible to us today would be the construction of hadrian's wall one of many such walls throughout the empire especially in northern europe there was another one in germany but obviously that's disappeared the site of hadrian's wall which can be visited today is a world heritage site a unesco one the original construction was approximately 73 miles long and stretched from coast to coast in northern england from wall's end well original in the east to bonus in the west the construction of hadrian's war began around 122 a day after hadrian visited britain up well britannia as it was unknown and is thought to have taken an army of 15 000 men six years to complete the wall still stands in segments in parts today almost 2 000 years later which is a testament to the construction of the empire empire which was fantastic and a reminder of the fact that this wall was at the very northern frontier of the roman empire there was nothing further north right thanks that tom that was good overview of hadrian so we move on to trajan next number nine so he was born on the 18th of september 53 a.d and he died circa 9th of august 117 aged 63. and his reign was from the 27th of january 98 to about the 8th or 9th of august 117 which is 19 years and seven months so after the assassination of the emperor domitian in 96 a.d trojan had served in his armies so the new emperor nerva appointed trajan as governor of upper germany and shortly after his appointment he received adoption and this meant that nova had formally listed trojan as his successor upon his death now after nerva's death in 98 a.d trojan did not immediately return to rome but instead inspected the rhine and danube frontiers instead although he did return to rome the following year in 99 a.d now in domestic administration trojan's policies were widely appreciated because he provided for the poor he built bridges baths aqueducts and he freed prisons and recalled exiles from when demacian had imprisoned or exiled them so militarily trojan was also successful though so in two campaigns in 101 202 and 105 206 he captured the dershan capital of valley and the kingdom of dershow was absorbed into the empire creating a new province within the roman empire which provided for rich salt and gold mines now trojan returned to rome victorious and he celebrated by hosting a series of gladiatorial tournaments involving 10 000 gladiators and about 11 000 animals now over in the east in 110 the parthians deposed of the pro-roman king of armenia and by 11 13-14 trojan campaigned to reinstate the old king now while marching against the parthians trojan undertook the construction of a road along the ancient world called the king's highway naming it via nova trijana and this road linked the city of bostro which was the capital of new province of arabia with the red sea so major treasury we can see emerging already now by 115 trojan conquered upper mesopotamia moved down the tigris river and conquered addie bernare babylon and finally captured cestifon the parthian capital now after capturing parthian reaching the persian gulf trojan wanted to go for india at repeating alexander the great's achievement but in 115 late 115 a.d he barely escaped death after an earthquake devastated antioch which is in modern day turkey so he decided to return back to rome instead but he fell ill after reaching celina since cilicia apologies to these pronunciations i'm not fluent in latin and he died there in 117 and his body was returned to rome where it's cremated and buried in an urn at the base of the base of the great trajan's column but what made trojan so great so like hadrian he was an avid explorer and a keen military man and his conquest took him further east in any emperor before him had reached and many historians also agree that the very pinnacle of the roman empire was in 117 a.d just around the time of trajan's death which again shows how important his conquests were for his successors and how no other success would manage to reach this level again and another little anecdote actually on trojan is that at every emperor's coronation after him and i'm not going to say this in latin because i just can't say it so but they had a little phrase that said be more fortunate than augustus and better than tragen and that was said after every emperor's coronation post trajan at number eight we've got uh justinian a bit of a controversial one you'll see why in a minute he was born on the 11th of may 482 a.d died 14th of november 565 a.d aged 83. his reign was from the first of april 5 27 80 to the 14th of november 565 a d that's 38 years seven months now justinian was emperor of the well the byzantine emperor a continuation of the roman empire after it fell in 476 a.d they're ruled from constantinople it's called istanbul nowadays but uh it was created on the site of an old greek colony the eastern half of the roman empire which survived more than a thousand years after the western half collapsed in 476 a.d justinian was the first great ruler of the byzantine empire during the years of his reign the empire included most of the land around the mediterranean sea as justinian's armies conquered part of the former western roman empire including north africa that had been taken by the german-speaking tribes like the vandals ostrogoths and goths during the centuries prior the hagio sofia a beautiful mosque nowadays but it was an old orthodox church style um cathedral or basilica before constantinople was taken by the seljuk turks um it was constructed in the middle ages one of the finest buildings of the age and it still stands today obviously justinian also reformed and codified roman law establishing a byzantine legal code known as the court of justinian a book that is used as a reference piece and a base plate for modern law law and order today the two main features of justinian's foreign policy was continuation of the age old struggle with persia at the time ruled by the sassanid dynasty and then his attempts to regain the former western roman empire with the help of one of the finest military commanders of the age a man named belisarius justinian achieved notable victories against the persians in early 530s and 540s if five-year truce was called in 545 and renewed in 551 after an outbreak a bubonic plague caused severe damage to the economy and the military respectively in the east despite the vigorous attempts of the assassinated persians to conquer byzantium justinian held his own and the 50 years truth was negotiated in 561 whereby the byzantine empire would pay 30 000 salidi gold coins annually to persia and the persians would renounce all claim to the christian kingdom of alaska an important bulwark against northern invaders justinian had therefore maintained his eastern provinces virtually intact in spite of the offensives of the sassanid persians in the west his fortunes differed slightly the brilliance of military successes of the 530s were followed by years of stagnation and the dragging war was a huge economic burden which he struggled to offset with his wars in the east yet in the 450s jose managed a victory in italy and kept hold of cities including rome naples and ravenna and those cities would be held by the byzantine empire until the invasions of the lombard some decades later justinian was one of the few christian roman emperors who was admired even by his pagan contemporaries though there wasn't many at the time as christianity was kind of becoming the largest religion in europe when he died on the 14th of november 565 he left no children he was buried in the church of the holy apostles in constantinople his remains what stayed there until it was robbed by the latin states in 1204 during the fourth crusade justinian does stand out on this list because he's technically not roman um as the byzantines were a continuation state and not the exact same thing as the roman empire but to us he does stand out in the fact that he was the uh a great restorer of the empire at large he uh kept all of his um all of his territory despite the empire at the time undergoing one of the i think the first european bout of bubonic plague from north africa um and the fact that he managed to remain emperor without getting ousted like a lot of his previous emperors just would have been removed straight away with such disasters they also survived the i think technically the worst year in human history 536 a.d where a speculated volcano chucked up enough dust particulates or ash into the air that the sun was blocked out for an entire year causing crops to fail it was a miserable year and the fact he managed to uh to keep up with the empire king on top of administration and staying power is miraculous and it's a testament to what a character he was and how great his powers a delegation are right so next at number seven we have got the emperor caligula and he was born on the 31st of august 12 a.d and died on the 24th of january 41 a.d and he ran from the 16th of march 37 a day to 24th of january 41ad which is a mayor three years and nine months so he was tiberius successor caligula and he's often regarded as one of the cruelest and most tyrannical roman emperors in history and that's exactly why no list of roman emperors is complete without him in it everyone's heard of him but i thought he has to come in just for that sheer shock factor so the first six months of caligula's reign were actually relatively stable and most of the senate were that scared of him they wouldn't question anything he did so for this one instead of doing like a biography i've literally just listed a few of the most disturbing things that he did in his reign so he made his horse a consul declared war on the sea he slept with his official's wives and then bragged to them about it when he had sacrificed a bull by hitting it on the head with a mallet at the last minute he decided to hit the priest and kill him instead he embarked on incestuous relationships with all three of his sisters he chose to walk on gold coins barefoot he had his dinner table set with golden loaves of bread he erected a statue dedicated to himself and made himself a god he enjoyed watching executions he sacrificed 160 000 animals in the first three months of his reign i'll let you do the maths with that one he killed his cousin father-in-law and brother by having them executed then had his two living sisters exiled when he got bored of having incestuous relations with him he then forced macro who was the praetorian guard who made him emperor to commit suicide he then auctioned away his gladiators lives and he blew 2.7 billion sisters in the first year of his reign and there's plenty more to talk about but we just don't have time for it but i'm sure you get the picture on that one so next we have tiberius and he was born in the 16th of november 42 bc and he died on the 16th of march 37 a.d and he ran from the 17th september 14 a.d to the 16th of march 37 ad which was 22 years and six months now tiberius was the second roman emperor succeeding his stepfather augustus and not only was he one of the roman empire's greatest most formidable emperors but one of the greatest generals too so his conquests of dalmatia germania pannonia and raita led the foundations for the northern frontier of the empire for centuries the major threat to tiberius's rule was the senate and he built up a huge praetorian guard and he kept them concentrated within march and distance of rome rather than their usual territory as they were spread all over italy however his laws were generally far-seeing so unlike hadrian and trojan he didn't attempt to create new conquests and move armies around and change governors for no reason but he did stop the waste of the imperial treasury so upon his death he left behind 20 times the wealth he had inherited and the power of rome was never more secure and he also strengthened the roman navy and abandoned the practice of providing gladiatorial games now there were instances where tiberius did put down rebellions and acts of extremity extremity sorry so upon hearing a rumor that four jews had considered steal a woman's treasure tiberius exiled the entire jewish community from rome and the death of his son drewsus affected him massively as well so he became much more tyrannical and hurtful in his remaining years which probably led to him naming the unstable caligula as his heir so tiberius died on the 16th of march 37 a day a few months shy of his 78th birthday and his death is a cause of debate and it's largely assumed that he was assassinated on caligula's orders knowing that the emperor's agent caligula wanted to cement his position as emperor while he was still young so although tiberius turned into tyrant in his later years economically he was probably the most successful roman emperor there ever was so from increasing the imperial treasury 24 to strengthen the navy tiberius definitely deserves a place in this list so that's it for this week's episode we hope you enjoyed it and you can tune in next week to for the remainder of the five roman emperors we'll be counting down thanks for tuning in and we'll see you next time