Evaluating Blame and Honorable Mentions

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The ten worst Byzantine emperors I found this task far trickier than choosing good emperors I think ninety nine percent of us would pick the same twenty good emperors and then it just comes down to your personal preferences Bad emperors. So it's not so easy For example, if someone presides over collapse across a decade fails to stop it But it's otherwise a nice guy How do you compare him to someone who tortchures their own tenure within eighteen months and is overthrown Who was the poorer emperor By definition, a good emperor has to both survive and help the state to thrive But you can be a bad Vassy lefts. in multiple ways then you get into questions about whether you include things people did in order to get to the throne or only their actions once they were crowned and how much you take into account how things played out after their time in power. Can you blame them for what went wrong under their successors As with my top ten greatest emmperors, I'll leave a full discussion of criteria That the end of the list and we'll talk about those who didn't make it Unlike with the best emmperors though, I'm not going to do a countdown I think it's easier to follow my logic If we go from one So the number one worst emperor is Andronicus I first Comninos eleven eighty three to eleven eighty five As you know, this is not a podcast for silly nicknames and in jokes And yet I have been very comfortable calling this man filthy old Andronicus since His reign began And that's because he stood out to me as clearly the worst Roman emperor of our podcast era. And yes, this list will only cover those who ruled betweenet four hundred seventy six and fourteen fifty three Andronicus was Manael Comninos' cousin, he was called in to take over the regency for Manael's son and began his reign by encouraging a massacre of Latin residents of the capital. A cynical move for personal political gain and not for the benefit of the Roman state. and his reign continued in that manner He murdered Manuel's son, tortured and terrorized his relatives, and married a girl who may have been fifty years his junior Andronicus correctly understood that the Comnenian aristocracy were a problem for the Roman state But his solution was to stand atop the tree hacking at its roots Inevitably the whole thing felled out Not only did he do tremendous damage to the state, but he ensured his own sons would be swiftly dealt with In just a few years, Andronic has managed to Damage the state materially, just destabilize its future, denigrate the office of Azilele itself and Get overthrown The fact that people lined up to torture him to death is a pretty emphatic. Number two John the sixixth Pantacuzinos thirteen forty seven to thirteen fifty four. I was sympathetic to John right up until he went to Serbia Cantaczinos was best friend and financier for Andronicus III Paleoloos. the grandson of Andronicus II who lost Anatolia to the Turks Andronicus III was active and effective, and when he died, Cantaczinos was the obvious person to run the state until Andronicus' son came of age but as often happened in Byzantium, The regency was afraid of John, and so they turned against him. Muzynos was understandably angry and fought back, and he never hurt his best friend's son And yet he did go to Serbia There he chose to put his own interests ahead of those of the Roman state. by agreeing to leave the Kraal a free hand in Greece in exchange for an army that would help him take Constantinople In his top ten worst list, Anthony Cordellis called this treason and it's hard to disagree John chose to put his own rights ahead of the lives of Roman people And he then doubled down on this by hiring Turkish mercenaries who he couldn't fully control In other words, after serving him each summer, they went off and rounded up free Romans and sold them into slavery And Cantacuzinos tolerated this because it kept him in power I don't think John was as malicious and short sighted as Andronicus, but he was delusional He was behaving as if this was the good old days. And then in a few years time Constantinople would be back on its feet been able to retake all this territory. and dispense with the Turks. But delusions are no excuse. No one understood the international situation better than John He willingly deluded himself. to become emmperor condemned the emmpire Obsolescence. Number three is Alexius I fourth, Agelos. twelve o three to twelve o four This is, of course, the son of Isaac Angelos who would go on to bring the Fourth Crusade to Constantinople This was the most actively treasonous and destructive act by an emperor in Roman history. The only reason he isn't number one is because of his youth and naivety. Like Kateakuinos, he starts out as the wronged party. trying to get help to avenge his father is almost admirable But at some point, you have to grow up and understand how the world works blindings and usurpations happen in Byzantium, they were not always the hideous crimes that Westerners perceived them as, They were part of the political process. Alexius gave the Crusade leadership cover to extort Constantinople to take all of its wealth for themselves Once he was actually on the throne, he needed to find a solution problem. either turn violently on the crusaders or effectively appease them to save the city And he didn't either Now that was the easy part of the list. The other seven were much harder to sort. But at number four I've gone for just in the second fiveive, sixty five five seventy eight Justinian had spent a long time and a lot of money get his Persian and Italian wars ended and his nephew inherited this fragile situation There wasn't a lot he could do about the subsequent Lombard invasion of Italy As in he couldn't do a lot to stop them invading in the first place. there was lots he could have done to try and throw them out. But instead He restarted the war with the Persians Now this decision was not as baseless as I once believed Anthony Calellis's new book argues strongly that the international situation was so complex that this was perhaps inevitable in the long term but not in the short term Justin started the war recklessly lost the bulwark of Dara and then lost his mental health He had many more options than later emperors would ever have by choosing the worst of them He goes in at number four. At number five is Irene of Athens Seven, ninety seven to eight o two. Irene was clearly an impressive woman almost the only woman in Byzant team to shrug off Reency cououncil or forceful general to simply rule alone on behalf of her son She was a ruthless politician and her decision to restore the icons won her an ecclesiastical following which was important to her survival. Militarily Rin wasn't great She suffered a lot of raids from the Bulgars and Arabs. But a male emperor would probably have fared little better under the circumstances The reason she's here is that she blinded her own son actically This was just a terrible decision since it delegitimized her own reign. She was ruling on his behalf, if she thought she could reign for long without a male consort, then she was delusional and morally This is just completely unacceptable. We don't have great sources for this period, but there's no indication that her son was a monster or that he was threatening her. In fact, he'd restored her to power and privilege that he'd initially stripped away. It seems like she simply used that leniency against him to regain power And I think you do that to your own child, you go on the list. Now listeners have pointed out that Constantine I killed one of his sons Now, obviously I haven't studied that period, nor is he eligible for this list, but I'm sure I would condemn him for that act He did, however Have other sons? which may be why he isn't judged as harshly for that murder Had Irene blinded one son and had others she could then groom for the throne probably would look at her differently That's how these highly subjective historical judgments go But she didn't, so I won't Number six is Antronicus II, Paleolocus twelve eighty two to thirteen twenty eight Our first five emperors technically reigned for a combined twenty eight years. ough many of them had power before their actual coronations Whereas Andronicus was in charge for forty six disastrous years, and that is why he is at number six Andronicus was the son of Michael theII who retook Constantinople from the Latins Michael left Andronicus with a difficult legacy He'd spent lavishly to keep New Rome safe and to restore its image. every turn, Anderonica seemed to make the wrong decisions He disbanded the fleet, leaving the Romans at the mercy of the Italians. He refused to trust his generals, who couldn't coordinate against the Turks, who were sweeping through Anatolia And then he hired the Catalan Comany. who ravaged everywhere for a very long time I'm sympathetic to Paiologus up to a point he was faced with terrible choices, and I doubt he could have stopped the Turks But when you are in charge for that long and you make that many bad decisions Number seven is Constantine Xent Dukas ten fifty nine. ten sixty seven This is the preamble toanzickt Constantine II, monomacos is the man who faced the triple threat of Petchenigs in the Balkans, Normans in Italy, and Turks in the east. There's lots of controversy about what shape the armies in the East were in and which Constantine was responsible for what But Monomacos was pretty energetic And once he was gone, the army staged a coup and put Isaac Komninos on the throne who made it clear he wanted to cut expenses at home spend the money on the military who obviously had their hands full Dukas was his nominated successor. And yet he reversed those policies in order to maintain his grip on power allowing the Turks and Normans to conquer territory without any response from Byzantium So for putting dynasty above country, Dukas makes the list Though we would love to know more about what was going on Number eight is Isaac II Agelos eleven eighty five to ninety five. And then again, in twelve o three to four This is the first person on the list who I feel genuinely sorry for This was the man who filthy old Andronicus was overthrown for Isaac was not a rebel, gunning for the throne. He was swept to power by popular acclaim basically because of Andronicus's unpopularity rather than because of his own record. Isaac then attempted to restore Romania, but failed at every turn The Bulgarian Empire was revived, the Turks and Hungarians lopped off bits of the emmpire And he badly mismanaged the passage of the Third Crusade Isaac was in the wrong place at the wrong time He just couldn't win a battle against foreign enemies or fellow Romans, and ultimately that did for him. We don't know what part he played in his son going west to seek help from the Fth Crusade But it seems doubtful that he discouraged him significantly. Number nine is his brother, Alexius III Anglos Comninos. eleven ninety five to twelve o three Aside from blinding his own brother which may have been for the best Anglus comness was actually an okay emperor. He went round and around trying to put out fires with some success before the fourth Crusade arrived We'll never know exactly what happened fateful day, when he led his army out to confront the Latins, but then turned around and retreated behind the walls Had he heard that the Venetians had captured some towers Was he afraid of being betrayed by his own men Or did he think ultimately? They would rout in the face of a Latin cavalry charge Whatever really happened, he fled the city that night. to save his own life Undoubtedly he would have been deposed the next day, but in their hour of need he abandoned his people And so he makes the list Number ten is Alexius the fifth Mortsu floss twelve o four the man who killed Alexius Agelos and ordered the Latins to leave or face war He failed to mobilize the human potential of Constantinople to defend the walls and then ran for his life when the Latins broke in. If you taunt the enemy camped outside the gates into attacking you, you should have the decency die in the fighting So that's my list It wasn't easy And I don't look at that list with a huge amount of satisfaction I've included all five emmperors from Manuil Comninos's deeath to the Fourth Crusade, which makes it seem imbalanced and too wedded to particular events But let me take you through my thought process When judging good emperors, my main criteria is whether their actions benefited the Roman state So with this list, I reversed that But as I said in my introduction, it's not easy to judge which actions deliberately hurt the Roman state or which were just Bad choices from a bad set of options The top two are easy for me Andronicus and Cantaczinos put their own needs above those of their people in pretty shocking fashion You could make the case that Alexius Anggelos doesn't belong on this list since he wasn't a proper emperor more of a puppet But he lobbied hard for the role, so I think he deserves to be on there After that, things get much more subjective There aren't many policy decisions which have shocked me while researching the podcast, but just in the second restarting the war with Persia struck me immediately as mindless dileletantism Given all the blood spilt during his uncle's reign, he should have known better and given his mental collapse. Perhaps he did Irene is next and I just can't forgive blinding your own child. Given it condemned her own reign, I feel justified placing her so high on the list, despite the fact that she was otherwise pretty competent Then we get into those who presided over decline. I chose Andntronicus ahead of Constantine Dukas because Paleologos had so much longer to act and I'm giving Dukast some benefit because The idea that the Turks would settle on the plateau was still a fanciful one even at that stage Then come the other fourth Crusade actors Isaac, Alexias and Mozuloss. The Anglos brothers are unfortunate to make the list, neither was a terrible person. They both tried their best at times, but one is condemned by a record of failure and the other for one fateful decision Mortu flloss shouldn't really be on this list As I'll discuss in a moment, I disregarded other short lived emperors because their reigns were inconsequential But he makes it on because of who didn't The emperor who was at number ten for most of this process was Michael VII Dukas. the son of Constantine Duas. boy who stood aside for Romanost the Ooenis to take charge at Manzakad And who then presided over the betrayal of Theoenis and the subsequent loss of Anatolia to the Turks But Michael is such a cipher that there seemed no point in putting him on the list. He let others make the decisions for him and was considered a non entity by everyone around him So I chose Mortzu flloss. because he made actual decisions and did not stay to face the consequences So ultimately, my list becomes about how much blame I place on emperors for individual decisions I feel comfortable condemning these ten for the choices they made Your ten will likely be quite different and reflect a different assessment of the criteria by which badness should be measured Let me know who you would have chosen and why at the history ofyzantium d. com or on social media or on Patreon. I'm genuinely interested to know Before we wrap up though, let me just cover the Neeely men So I discounted those whose reigns were so short that they didn't do any damage to the state Bassiliscus, who briefly ousted Xeno was a complete train wreck And if Seno hadn't overthrown him, surely someone else would have Similarly, Michael the Fth So the nephew of Zoe's second husband was overthrown by the crowds immediately because he had no legitimacy. And I discounted the later squabbling Paleologans since the state. was beyond repair at that. The two men I didn't include who make a lot of online lists are Fockas Justiny in the second Focus has been unfairly maligned by Heraclian propaganda He is blamed for overthrowing Maurice and killing his children, but he was not the sole instigator of that rebellion, and killing children, sadly, is the quickest way to avoid future civil wars. He did then use some cruelty to put down other conspiracies. with no allies at the capital, he had little choice Heraclius then started a far more damaging civil war, which undermined Phocus's ability Persians Anyway Justinian II was similarly cruel and careless and got himself overthrown twice So not a good emperor, but in between he was pretty hard working for the benefit of the state It's a running joke on the podcast tours that I hate Justinian. which I don't But I do think he did a few things which could land him on this list if it weren't for the dozens of other things he did very well And I did mention on my greatest Emperor' list that John Zimas Kkeys is lucky to be on that list and not this one