The Worst Byzantine Emperor

[Koprulu Mustafa Pasha]

As one of the many persons interested in East Roman history, I wonder which emperor was thr best. My favorite was Basil II, for restoring Roman glory. Then I thought... there were emperors who made all the mess or destroyed whatever the predecessors fought for.

Anyways, in my opinion Phocas is the worst emperor followed by Michael VII and Andronikos I.

Who is in your eyes by far the worst emperor?

(Sorry if I forgot others)

 

[Riain]

I picked Andronicus I, mainly because I'm most interested in the Komnenos and Crusades and he ruined the Komnenos dynasty and through his rule handed it to the Angelos'.

 

[ByzantineCaesar]

I'm surprised Isaac II isn't there. Anyway, Phokas for me. Michael VIII Palaiologos is also definitely in the list.

 

[Flavius Phocas]

Phocas is my pick. For such a short reign he couldn't have screwed the empire further than he did. Other Emperors may have been more incompetent over a longer period of time, but the fact that Phocas could do so much damage in so little time puts him at number 1 for me. His rule also had extremely grave consequences for the Empire, which would affect it for the rest of it's existence.

His powegrab not only resulted in the death of Maurice, who was a competent Emperor and general but it caused the war with Persia (which had just concluded for the time being) to needlessly continue. The war would be the most destructive and pointless Rome and Persia ever fought, and allowed the Arabs to exploit the weakness of both to take over the Middle East. On top of this Phocas handled his already poor situation really badly. Instead of uniting the Empire in a time of need, he fractured if further by cracking down on his political opponents and religious minorities, causing revolts in an Empire already severly weakened and at war.

If Phocas never took over then the Persian war wouldn't have happened when it did, which would mean that the Empire would have had time to recover, possibly butterflying the Arab Conquests entirely and limiting the Caliphate to Arabia.

 

[TyranicusMaximus]

Phocas was a competent ruler, it was the usurper Heraclius who ruined Roman control over Syria, Palestine, and Egypt.

In other words, Heraclius is my vote under "Other."

 

[SealTheRealDeal]

I'm not that familiar with the Byzantines, but why is Alexios III not here? His horrible combination of familial disloyalty, bank breaking, wrathfulness, incompetence, cowardice, and greed is truly stunning.

 

[ByzantineCaesar]

Phocas was a competent ruler, it was the usurper Heraclius who ruined Roman control over Syria, Palestine, and Egypt.

In other words, Heraclius is my vote under "Other."

Are you serious or are you joking?

 

[Urcea]

Phocas was a competent ruler, it was the usurper Heraclius who ruined Roman control over Syria, Palestine, and Egypt.

In other words, Heraclius is my vote under "Other."

Yeah, the guy who pushed back the Persians and recovered the True Cross, recovering the Empire from the brink - he's your pick for worst Emperor. Got it.

 

[GauchoBadger]

Where's Alexander III in this one? All he did was play Polo and indirectly allow Simeon of Bulgaria to come closer to attaining the byzantine purple.

 

[John7755 يوحنا]

If we include females, the dual reign of Zoe and Theodora. Their regimes ended the continual growth of the Empire against the weakening Abbasid hegemony through a series of policy against the military and the increasing power of bureaucracy and noble families. These two co-opted the Power of the military, weakening its power and also the religious authorities. This contributed to the deadlock decision making of the Byzantine empire at its most critical moments and decisions being made that made sense to bureaucrats in Constantinople, that made no sense when one thinks of military assets against the coming Saljuq foes. The most major of those decisions was disarmament of the people along the Byzantine frontiers, especially the Armenians. As a result, the Armenians has little means to defend against the Saljuq, forcing the weakened military to rely upon the good will of the major noble houses of Anatolia who vied for control over the imperial title.

 

[TyranicusMaximus]

Yeah, the guy who pushed back the Persians and recovered the True Cross, recovering the Empire from the brink - he's your pick for worst Emperor. Got it.

Take a look at the course of the war before Heraclius took Egypt and cut off grain to Constantinople. When Heraclius seized the city, Syria, Palestine, and Egypt were in Byzantine hands. Within a few years he lost them. Then, after using the Gokturks to do the heavy lifting, Heraclius then lost these lands to the Muslim conquerors.

He caused the very disaster he gets credited with solving. What he had was the benefit of a "loyal press," who basically slandered Phocas in their accounts and praised Heraclius.

 

[Flavius Phocas]

Take a look at the course of the war before Heraclius took Egypt and cut off grain to Constantinople. When Heraclius seized the city, Syria, Palestine, and Egypt were in Byzantine hands. Within a few years he lost them. Then, after using the Gokturks to do the heavy lifting, Heraclius then lost these lands to the Muslim conquerors.

He caused the very disaster he gets credited with solving. What he had was the benefit of a "loyal press," who basically slandered Phocas in their accounts and praised Heraclius.

Are you under the illusion that Phocas would have done any better? Phocas was the one who restarted the war in the first place, and caused a ton of revolts that Heraclius had to fix. Sure Heraclius lost Syria and Egypt temporarily to the Persians, but he spent that time consolidating his remaining holdings and stabbed back at the Persians when they were overstretched, devastating their army.

I also don't think it's very fair to blame him for the Arab Conquests, nobody at the time could have seen that coming. Arabia had never been a player in the region for the previous millenia, nobody could have expected them to destroy both Persia and Rome. Even then, Heraclius, while he failed was able to recognize the Arabs as a serious existential threat and dispatched as many men to Syria as he feasibly could. I don't think anyone could have handled the shitty position Heraclius was in any better.

 

[Koprulu Mustafa Pasha]

Pardon me for the lack of options. Most of those are the emperors I read about. Mostly about the Arab-Roman conflict, Seljuk-Roman conflict and the crusades because of my interest in those era's.

The reason I add Michael VII is because of not upholding the treaty with Alp Arslan and losing Anatolia as result.

Alexios IV for staging a coup in Constantinople but not able to pay off the Crusaders and having the city sacked afterwards. I mean, if you can't uphold your promises why do you even try?

Romanos IV for fighting the Seljuks anyway while could have better terms of peace.

 

[Koprulu Mustafa Pasha]

Are you under the illusion that Phocas would have done any better? Phocas was the one who restarted the war in the first place, and caused a ton of revolts that Heraclius had to fix. Sure Heraclius lost Syria and Egypt temporarily to the Persians, but he spent that time consolidating his remaining holdings and stabbed back at the Persians when they were overstretched, devastating their army.

I also don't think it's very fair to blame him for the Arab Conquests, nobody at the time could have seen that coming. Arabia had never been a player in the region for the previous millenia, nobody could have expected them to destroy both Persia and Rome. Even then, Heraclius, while he failed was able to recognize the Arabs as a serious existential threat and dispatched as many men to Syria as he feasibly could. I don't think anyone could have handled the shitty position Heraclius was in any better.

Nobody expects the Arab armies! Heheheh...

But I agree, Heraclius doesn't belong among the worst emperors. In my view ofcourse...

 

[SealTheRealDeal]

Alexios IV for staging a coup in Constantinople but not able to pay off the Crusaders and having the city sacked afterwards. I mean, if you can't uphold your promises why do you even try?

Alexios III running off with the money certainly didn't help, and Alexios IV had been deposed and murdered before the city was sacked. All he did was bring the Crusaders to Constantinople (which is certainly still a pretty big deal), he had pretty much no power over what followed.

 

[CJNyfalt]

Since this seemed interesting, I decided to read up on these, and here are my comments:

Phocas
- His reign was a disaster, but there was a least something positive about it. Still, he was the guy reintroduced the concept of coups to the Eastern Empire.

Andronikos I
- This guy was a total disaster, causing trouble with his dick even before he became emperor, and since the emperors after him were all bad, he was to blame for them too.

Alexios IV
- Well, in the end he was the one who had to pay for Andronikos' sins.

Romanos IV Diogones
- Had to work with shit. Sure he did make some mistakes, but he seemed like a better ruler than the Byzantium of his days deserved.

Michael VII
- Weak, worthless, but not the cause of the decay.

Leo III
- Even if he caused problems with the iconoclast issue, the state was better off after his reign than before.

Arcadius
-I'm not sure why he is on the list? Sure he seemed weak, but it doesn't seems like there was major problems caused by his reign that I spotted.

Of these I would have to go with Andronikos I, with Phocas taking second place.

 

[Noblesse Oblige]

I'm also saying Andronikos. A lot of the problems that led to the overall collapse of the Byzantines started with him for all intents and purposes. While I wouldn't say Michael VII was as weak or worthless as some people say (he was the man after all who restored Constantinople to Byzantium, for good or ill. And was kinda trying to ride up s*** creek without a paddle.) I do think he was that good an emperor, but certainly nowhere near the worst.

 

[Avrorrange]

Arcadius
-I'm not sure who he is on the list? Sure he seemed weak, but it doesn't seems like there was major problems caused by his reign that I spotted.

He left the WRE to die.

 

[PuffyClouds]

Phocas basically was an ignition source next to a huge container of combustibles that no one knew was there because they were busy looking at box of oil soaked rags.

There have been Western and Eastern Roman Emperors that filled a swimming pool full of gasoline and did a running dive, naked, screaming profanities at everyone who tried to stop them, while clenching a burning stick of dynamite between their... well you get the picture.

I gave an Other Vote, and if not worst he was IMO a dishonorable mention: JUSTINIAN for his Gothic War.
Barbarians can't rule Roman Italy if you kill everyone in Roman Italy.

 

[trajen777]

I would say 2 .. Neither on list ...

Justin ii .. He started a war with Persia, then went I save after losing his major fortress, when they wanted peace which ultimately led to Maurice fighting a war in the Balkans with no money, and losing his crown to phocus. In addition he fired Narses ( some say Narses invited in the Lombards to italy as revenge) letting in the Lombard to italy. He also let the avars destroy the gepids forcing the Lombards into Italy, and setting up a dangerous enemy (avars) for centuries to byz.

Constantine x.

Took over in 1057 and spent tons while with the threat of the Seljuks from the east ( the Armenian theme defeated them in 1045) he dismissed the 50, 000 experienced Armenian theme. His dismissal of these troops led directly to the Turkish success at manzikert.