Why would anyone even want to be a Roman Emperor? The expected lifespan is abysmal, you'd be living in constant fear of your life it seems
Romans were culturally political the way the middle east is religious.
Get a load of this pleb. Being a Roman Emperor is better than being the Shashahallah of Persia. Why would you NOT want to be the king?
>>781134
what do you mean by this?
>>781111
>Why would anyone even want to be a Roman Emperor?
Gravitas
>>781111
Yes, going through Rome and pointing out 20 women to have taken back to your bathhouse for an orgy must have been a real drag. I don't really like you, so I'm going to toss you into the lion pit, and watch them eat you.
So, so boring.
>>781111
them fucking quads tho
wew lad
>>781143
The entire society and your worth as a human Beeing revolved around political offices you had.
They had ancestor rooms full of masks of previous members of that family that held office and drilled into the children that they have to uphold the family honour and that high office makes your Name immortal
>>781111
That depends a lot on when you'd be taking the title.
>>781111
Roman cultural thought was if you weren't the top you were a shameful disgrace to your ancestors, the busts of whom sat in your atrium staring at you with disappointment every time you walked outside with your entourage of slaves and amici.
>>781111
You don't want to make your family name proud through military and ascending to the highest possible office? Are you a plebeian or are you a patrician?
>>781111
For the glory, you pleb. How could you not want to be emperor?
>>781138
It is if you've been adopted by a good emperor, and know what you're doing, and aren't Heraclius.
Swag is for boys, imperium is for men.
>>781180
The Roman Empire was the first coming of the USSR. It's total shit.
>>781180
I guess that makes it sort of like ancient Chinese society. Except in that case you'd become a powerful civil servant by being good at memorizing rules and obeying the emperor while in Rome you'd make big speeches and promise bread and circuses and conquer land. I guess that's why the two societies took such different trajectories.
>>781165
>Yes, going through Rome and pointing out 20 women to have taken back to your bathhouse for an orgy must have been a real drag. I don't really like you, so I'm going to toss you into the lion pit, and watch them eat you.
Except that's the exact sort of shit that's likely to get you a Praetorian Gladius in your back.
>>781111
I heard from a professor than unlike the republic there was alot of turnover in the Imperial noblity.
An emperor, definitely not. But just a patrician...definitely.
>>781587
Yeah but that was also one of the problems that led to the collapse of the Republic in the first place. The Patricians refused to let any plebs into their ranks, and at one point, even made it illegal for a Patrician and Pleb to marry, one of the few routes available to the Plebian to become a Patrician.
>>781143
>what did you mean by this?
What did he mean by this?
>>781165
Yet still so many Roman Emperors have been dismembered to death by Senators they've insulted or made enemies of, assassinated by their own family members or bodyguards, killed in wars, even at one point one was murdered while taking a piss on the side of the road.
If we averaged all the reigning Roman Emperors from Augustus to the last one in the Western Roman Empire and averaged their years, as well as causes of natural death vs murder or death in office, what do you think is going to turn out from this?
>>781111
the "It won't happen to me" mentality.
>>781111
Because you get endless money to spend on wardrobe and makeup to better help you sell your butthole to legionairres and generals, make more money in the process while terrifying the normies, and get the glory of dying as a delicious teen trap with cum covered buttcheeks and a gape that could spook an ape.
>>781875
>If we averaged all the reigning Roman Emperors from Augustus to the last one in the Western Roman Empire and averaged their years, as well as causes of natural death vs murder or death in office, what do you think is going to turn out from this?
So I calculated it out, mainly just using Wikipedia and for ease I only counted Emperor's in the west and before the split, and I rounded all numbers up to the nearest round number, the average time served over all the emperors of the Roman Empire was around 9 years, however it's important to note that out of 86 or so emperors, 28 served as such for a year or less.
As for cause of death, I counted being executed by rivals or murdered by mobs/soldiers as assassinations. So 34 emperors were assassinated, 32 died of natural causes, including disease, and potentially one lighting strike, 9 deaths in battle, and 6 suicides. 5 of the emperors had deaths who circumstances are unknown, so I left them out, but assuming the died of unnatural causes you can bump the assassinated number up by that amount. So if you were a Roman emperor, you'd have about a 37% chance of living to die of natural causes, including plague, and that's even lower if you believe certain historical conspiracy theories, like Augustus being murdered by Livia, and such.
>>781111
It's a western civilization thing. Ambitions and individualism and shit.
Or have a nice relationship with a horse.
Oh Caligula
>>781111
Power.
And the reason they tended to have short lifespans: Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely
>>782203
now do it for the byzantines
>>781111
Does the one on the right have a double chin? Or is it just the markings on the stone.
>>783456
That is a double chin Romans tended to make their busts realistic showing the flaws of the person.
>>783423
Byzantines have another 80 or so emperors not even counting claimants after the ottomans, and the different claimants during the Latin Empire, and the information isn't laid out as well on wikipedia, so it will take more time than I've got tonight, so I think I'll save the Byzies till tomorrow if the threads still up.
>>781111
>Why would anyone even want to be a Roman Emperor?
Why indeed.
>>782203
I've been curious about this as well, especially after listening to the History of Rome podcast in its entirety. Thanks for a cool post.
>>782203
Doesn't matter had IMPERIVM
>>781593
This is the right answer. Coming from a respected and rich patrician family would be far better. Less risk and plenty of luxury still.
>>783008
>Rome
>Individualism
The words I would use to describe Roman culture is stoic and collectivist.
>>781111
Because most Romans were more into power than statistics.
>>781554
Is spending the rest of your life at risk of being assassinated by your own bodyguards something for men too?
>>781138
Being controlled by a military junta that threatens to kill you at every turn if you get cheeky with them 2bh
>>781111
Why even live if your just go to die?
>>781111
LIVE FAAAAST DIE YOUNG, PLEB.
>>781111
Live fast, die young, or "carpe diem" more or less. no better way to live than as Roman emperor, no matter how short your lifespan is. Plus its human nature, "I will stop any attempt on my life, unlike those fools before me".
I would rather live 10 years as emperor than live 100 as a pleb. Wouldn't you?
>>782203
>>783423
>>783495
So I got around to doing the Byzantine emperors, made more difficult by the fact that records on the Byzantines deaths are less descriptive and I often had to search outside the wiki for causes of death, which wasn't always fruitful, so the numbers will probably be less accurate that those for the Western emperors. In general if a cause of death wasn't specified, I counted it as a natural death, as the Byzantines were favorable to blinding, tonsuring, or otherwise maiming political opponents and sending them off to a monastery, where they usually die due to the wounds, I counted those with the assassination/execution.
I counted out 84 emperors, not including the emperors of Trebizond, Epirus, or the Latin Empire, however I did include the 3 husbands of Zoe. In total the average length of their rules was around 13 years, once again there were a large number of single year or less emperors, but in contrast roughly 20 of the Eastern emperors reigned for over 20 years.
As for cause of death, 53 died to natural causes mostly old age and disease, 26 were confirmed assassinated or executed by rivals, revolts, or foreign powers, and 5 died in battle or by post battle wounds by my reckoning. This means you had roughly a 63% chance to die of natural causes as an Eastern Emperor compared to the 37% of the West, Principate, or Dominate. However it's interesting to point out that many Emperors who died of natural causes, many were supposedly poisoned.
>>787609
You are ans hero
>>781111
Hubris and Ambition.
Mostly Hubris.
>>781143
A lot of their culture revolved around who did you knew, what public offices you and your contacts had, what family your are from, etc.
They were all politicians, the same way all americans are businessmen.
>>787609
which of these emperors lived in peaceful times and which existed in periods where multiple emperors came and went in a short period of time
>>787987
Depends on how you define 'peaceful'. For example the empire was often at war under Trajan or Augustus and they ruled for good long times, but then you get things like the Year of 4/5/6 emperors where Emperors drop like flies. You could be tempted to say that Emperors lived longest when they were at war with powers outside the Empire and died quickly when at war within, but you get guys during the crisis of the 3rd century doing decent stints for 5 or more years then getting killed, or Nerva who ruled for a year when the empire was relatively peaceful.
There were a lot of circumstances that lead to longevity of an emperor. In generaly though, I'd say the Principate, Dominate, and Western Empire, generally had bad luck to the reliance of Emperors on their spoiled or insane children to succeed them, the lack of proper legal succession law due to the fact that everyone was still trying to pretend there was still a republic, and the lack of legal or moral repercussions on assassinating an emperor, for years the Praetorian or the Senate would just assassinate any Emperor they got tired of or disagreed with, or who just didn't give them what they want. Though often they did have to deal with absolute batshit crazy tyrants where assassination was probably justified. However if they had ever bothered to just codify the whole Imperial system and properly organize it, like the ERE would eventually do, probably would have save them a lot of headache.
>>781180
>le dan carlin meme
Immortality in history.
