Depending how you define it, there were approximately 70 Roman emperors.

They were a mixed bag ranging from philosophers to the insane and from generals to children.

Some of them were truly horrible, but some of them were actually pretty good at their job.

In particular, there were five consecutive emperors who reigned during the peak of Paxramana.

Learn more about the five good emperors on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. When talking about good Roman emperors you have to put things into perspective.

Being a good emperor doesn't mean that they were necessarily good people.

This is ancient Rome after all where slavery was a massive institution people were

killed for sport in arenas and crucifixion was considered an acceptable form of

execution. So when I say good it doesn't mean that they were saints but rather they were good at

their jobs or at least they weren't crazy. The term five good emperors was

coined by Nikola Machiavelli in 1531 and then popularized by the 18th century English historian

Edward Givin in his landmark book, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

With that, I should give you a quick overview of the

emperors who led up to the five good emperors. The Roman

empires considered to have started in the year 27 BC when the Senate gave

Julius Caesar's posthumously adopted son Octavian the title of Augustus.

Augustus is widely considered to be the greatest Roman Emperor in history, as well as having been the longest serving.

He was the first emperor in what became known as the Giulio-Claudean dynasty.

Following Augustus, there was Tiberius, Kalegula, Clauseus, and Nero.

Nero and Kalegula are usually put on the list of the worst emperors.

When Nero died in the year 68, he had no error, and it led to the chaos of the year of the four

emperors which I've covered in a previous episode. The man left standing was

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