Constantine the god of the bible

[Anomalocaris]

He brought a huge army of 7 legions to fight a insurgent war. So his military accumen was better then those of Rumsfled, Wolfowiz and Bush, but 2000 years ago they had much higher standards for martial virtue and manly accumen than we do now, I doubt too many Romans would have been impressed.

[Minimalist]

So his military accumen was better then those of Rumsfled, Wolfowiz and Bush,

Setting the bar kind of low there, no?

[Anomalocaris]

So his military accumen was better then those of Rumsfled, Wolfowiz and Bush,

Setting the bar kind of low there, no?

I had to find a height even Octavian can clear.

[Minimalist]

LOL.


You're forgetting that he brought the Romans peace after a protracted period of civil war. That would have been plenty. How he did it was secondary to them.

From Wiki

The main Temple of Janus stood in the Roman Forum. The temple had doors on both ends, and inside the temple was a statue of Janus, the two-faced god of boundaries. The temple doors were closed in times of peace and opened in times of war.

The closing of the temple was a very rare event. It is said to have happened for the first time under Numa Pompilius, for the second time under Titus Manlius in 235 BC, a third time by Augustus in 29 BC, a fourth time by Nero in 66 AD and only a fifth time under Vespasian in AD 70.

It's a long time from 235 to 29 BC.

[Anomalocaris]

LOL.


You're forgetting that he brought the Romans peace after a protracted period of civil war. That would have been plenty. How he did it was secondary to them.

From Wiki

The main Temple of Janus stood in the Roman Forum. The temple had doors on both ends, and inside the temple was a statue of Janus, the two-faced god of boundaries. The temple doors were closed in times of peace and opened in times of war.

The closing of the temple was a very rare event. It is said to have happened for the first time under Numa Pompilius, for the second time under Titus Manlius in 235 BC, a third time by Augustus in 29 BC, a fourth time by Nero in 66 AD and only a fifth time under Vespasian in AD 70.

Well, the civil war only had two dominant sides, the army was loyal to Caesar's memory but divided between Caesar's heir and Caesar's senior surviving patrician lieutenant. The republican forces have been crushed. All other possible contenders were minnows next to Octavian and Antony. so whichever side won in this situation would have brought an end to the civil war and peace to Rome. It was the circumstances and not Octavian's genius that gave him rather than Antony the credit for this.

As to closing the temple of Janus, here again Octavian was lucky. Rome fought several necessary wars between 235 BC and 29BC, like the second punic war, the macedonian war, and the Marius' war against teutonic invasion. She also fought many discretionary wars. But these wars were not continuous. One war alone lasted continuously from 215 BC to 29 BC, that's the war of Iberian conquest. This war kept the temple of Janis open. The Romans had been making slow but steady progress for close to 200 years. Around 30 BC the war finally appears to draw to a close, so Octavian was able to claim credit for 200 years of Roman effort and close the temple door. But it was premature as cantabrian insurgency flared right back up within a couple of years, and took 7 legions several more years to crush.


It's a long time from 235 to 29 BC.

[/quote]

[Minimalist]

Beginning around 107 BC the Romans had to deal with a serious Germanic incursion by the Cimbri and Teutones who were finally beaten by Marius. But Marius, in order to do so, had to reorganize the army to provide enough soldiers for the war. Shortly after that, the Social Wars broke out followed in short order by Sulla ( who had been fighting in Asia Minor) marching on Rome. Within 10 years, the Spartacus revolt broke out. This was followed in short order by Pompey's campaign against the Cilician Pirates where, through a combination of skill and luck, he managed to conquer half the East. When Pompey was finished Caesar began the wars in Gaul, Britain and Germania while Crassus went off to Parthia and got his ass kicked at Carrhae. By 49 the Civil Wars started and basically lasted for a generation.

I can see how people might have been a tad war-weary after all that!

[Cerrone]

The real thing that Octavian was revered for -aside from bringing an end to the wars- was improving peoples lives within Rome itself. The plebians were in crisis because slaves were taking the jobs, so Octavian set new legislature demanding -much to the anger of the wealthy patricians- that so many percentage of jobs had to be given to a citizen instead of a slave, so that citizens were employed and earning money instead of the work being given to slaves who were paid nothing. This cost the ruling class a lot of money, but it was the smart move on his part and brought some prosperity into ordinary peoples lives. And of course as his own said "I found Rome a city of clay, and left it a city of marble".

He was definately a good guy, for that last reason alone.

No doubt about it, he was a clever politician and a manipulative cunt (in the complimentary sense of the word) but he achieved some impressive things. Chucks talking about judging a leader by their skill at war, but when the war's finished people may still starve right? Octavian not only succeeded in war, but he took great pains to ensure that the citizens were well cared for.

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Actually let me correct myself there... was it Mark Antony who enacted the citizen/slave jobs legislature initially? I remember reading that it was Octavian years ago, but i'm also remembering the Rome tv show where Mark Antony did it.. ah well..

[Anomalocaris]

Well, the main current that ran though the Roman society from Marius down through Caesar, Octavian, Claudius to Vaspasian was the gradual destruction of the political influences of the traditional Roman patrician class. Although Julio-Claudians were as blue blooded patricians as they get, they knew they won't get ahead by championing the interest of a class that regard them as no more than a peer amongst many. So the Julio-Claudians decided from Caesar onwards that the ticket to supremacy was not to champion the patrician class, as Sulla had tried to do, but to be seen as a patrician champions of the plebians. As a later British politican said, "the commoners love a lord".

After the end of the civil war in 31BC, the power rested with the Emperor and the emperor stayed in power by catering to the plebians. The Patricians were not so much the ruling political class any more. They were now a class seen to still possess residual previleges and wealth, but whose political credit have largely exhausted and who have become ripe for plucking by a dictator for popularist reasons. Admittedly Octavian plucked them rather subtlely and artfully, and with more show of deceptive deference then some later emperors, He plucked them nonetheless.

It may be a very good thing to redistribute the wealth. But whether the redistribution of the wealth is good not not depends on whether the wealth is redistributed to people who are better at reinvesting the wealth to generate more wealth. If the redistribution is a one time windfall that actually reduce the long term productivity of the wealth involved, then its just shabby popularism.

I read an analysis sometime back. It suggested that under Augustus, Tiberius, and Gius, the productivity of Italy suffered a continued decline, plebians become contiuously less productive. Most of the wealth transfer that prompted the less productive plebians of Italy to continue to support the Imperial system came not from the Patricians, but from the provinces. Basically the from Augustus onwards the emperors squeezed the provinces to create a welfare state for the plebians in order to stay in power. The first Roman emperor to actually try and reverse the decline in the productivity of the plebians through systematic improvements of productive infrastructure in Italy was the lame and supposedly mad emperor Claudius. As to who the best emperor of Rome was, I believe the cult of the deified emperor Claudius was still venerated in Rome right up to 5th century CE. I've not heard the cult of Augustus lasting that long.