Most Ruthless Dictator on a Coin

That is what I have heard. I have never seen a coin from Vlad, (I am sure they would be popular), but one from his uncle, (wallachian coin?). I do not think Vlad had children.

 

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queen mary the sister of elizabeth I was commonly known as bloody mary for her ruthless slaughter of protestants and also tried to sell off her own country to spain.

 

Absolutely Kasia, I couldn't agree more. I have nothing against Russia or its people and would LOVE to travel there and see all of the wonderful sites that I have studied in history. I was merely pointing out another historical act that shows why J. Stalin gets my vote in this category.

 

whilst in prague a couple of weeks ago it was plainly obvious that the czechs despise the russians and i saw a couple of examples of the stalin coin for sale that had his portrait defaced.

 

I agree as well. I am pretty big in Byzantine history, and to be able to travel around and see the "third Rome" myself would be incredible. I think my dream trip would start in Istanbul, go to Kiev, St. Pete, and Moscow, maybe Volgograd, and end up in Samarkand and other Central Asian destinations. One day I hope.

You can keep western Europe, (no offense meant).

 

I know you mentioned Elagabalus & Maesa but there is Nero too. Letting rome burn while he played music *if that is indeed true*, kicking his preagant wife killing her and the kid, attempted to kill him mom & she escapes only to be killed by his men.

 

He didn't say he would pick George Bush over Stalin. Only that some people would. If you are an Iraqi citizen whose family was killed by a U.S. bomb dropped on them during the War then I imagine you might very well be the sort of person he's talking about.

 

I want to thank the OP for putting up this thread. Many people use the word ruthless to describe someone (and as a result, depersonalizing/dehumanising that same person based on actions). But ruthless is a word that contains the base word ruth and, except for the personal name, is rarely, if ever seen in any other form or usage. For example, ruthful is the opposite of ruthless, yet it is probable that the majority of English speakers in the world have ever used or heard someone else say ruthful. In Russian language ruthless is (transliteration) bezzhalostnie which translates, similar to English as without ruth - ruth equalling compassion or pity or remorse or woe. In otherwords, actively acting in a way that shows NO empathy or compassion for other people's welfare or suffering AND not having any remorse.I think most dictators, as well as a number of otherwise classified polititans, rulers, and leaders, would squarely have this as their main character based on how expidiently they were in accomplishing their goals.Nowhere can I find that ruthless is measured strictly in how many people are killed by or under instruction of a person. So... What is the measure of the spectrum of ruthlessness from least to most?

 

As far as the Romans go, Nero and Caligula hog all the bad press. But I would give a shout-out to the likes of Commodus and Caracalla. Caracalla wins on the ruthless front. He knew what he wanted and didn't care how many people he had to bump off to get it (including his wife and brother). Commodus was certainly ruthless, but he is better defined by his paranoia and egomania.

Nasty pieces of work all.

 

The other day somebody talked about her recent trip to Belarus, and how oh-so-safe she had felt there. Frankly, sometimes the price for "feeling safe" is just too high ...

As for the topic title, well, if "dictator" had an S at the end, making it a plural, I would not find it odd. But it will be impossible to single out one person who was the most etc. Besides, some dictators who I would put on a ruthless list have never appeared on coins - Hitler, Pol Pot, Ceaușescu, Pinochet, and a lot more.

Christian

 

Very true Christian. I was stationed in Saudi in 1991 and you could go into a jewelry store and handle a necklace valued at a quarter million dollars, and the shop owner had no qualms at all. Its definitely a trade off between security and human rights. I do not know where the line is drawn, like I like freedoms in this country, I have to admit women feeling safe walking down a street and store owners not having to worry about theft is worth a lot too. The balance is somewhere in between, but that is a different debate.

Chris

 

Not a dictator but I've often wondered and look a bit but never found any info is if Elizabeth Bathory was on a coin.Granted she was only a Countess but I don't know world coinage that much

 

Just to add a little.
"When the inhabitants of Alexandria heard Caracalla's claims that he had killed Geta in self-defense, they produced a satire mocking this as well as Caracalla's other pretensions. In AD 215 Caracalla savagely responded to this insult by slaughtering the deputation of leading citizens who had unsuspectingly assembled before the city to greet his arrival, and then unleashed his troops for several days of looting and plunder in Alexandria. According to historian Cassius Dio, over 20,000 people were killed."

 

Thanks for the points; the posting of this idea thread came about as a result of a conversation with a knowledgable world coin dealer.

Relevant to the point you made, it would be good if we could bring back some discarded uses of language like "ruthful". People use the word "disgruntled", but when was the last time you heard the word "gruntled", again a perfectly good word. People are named "Lawless", Lucy Lawless comes to mind as a pretty charming example, but how many people are name "Lawful"?

As to the criteria of the most ruthless, I think the following should apply:

1. Entrusted with great power, and completely amoral, using an "end justifies the means" power-oriented political philosophy, ala Machiavelli.

2. A great pretender, at least to start with, appearing to be good, altruistic, credentialled, with people around him/her to reinforce perceptions of competance. Later on the pretence may fall away as the people learn to live in great fear of the absolute ruler.

3. A leader who finds similarly unscrupulous people to do his/her dirty work leaving no tracks or trails to tip off significant people off to his/her plan.

I'm sure others could come up with more criteria.

ince love and fear can hardly exist together, if we must choose
between them, it is far safer to be feared than loved. — Niccolò
Machiavelli, The Prince, 1513

http://mises.org/daily/1819

 

hail douglas the first!!!

 

My error, you are absolutly correct.

It was 5am when I posted that so a bit sleepy.

Thanks

 

I travelled in Sweden and Denmark and felt safe. Nobody or nobody in right mind would say they are not free countries. Perhaps traveller to Belarus was surrounded by people that spoke her language as well as local language and felt "protected". I cannot say same for all the times I have been in ex-USSR states, but I am not around people speaking so much in foreign languages. But I felt most "unsafe" in travels in USA or France. Only time I had someone comment about me being foreigner was in Germany - "Auslander raust den Hamburg" or something similar was overheard once. But when I thought about my impression of person who makes this comment - I think "Yeah, you don't look like you belong here either, fool, because you don't act like all these other fine German peoples".

 

I'll second Leopold II of Belgium. What he did to the Congo was truly, monumentally ruthless. Not only did he engage in a reign of terror to increase production (chopping off peoples hands, ordering mercenaries to engage in systematic rape, burning cropland of people in rebellion, etc), but he also did it all under some pretty intensely hypocritical conditions. He accepted huge sums of money from charitable organizations to fund his 'development' programs, while pillaging the country of ivory and rubber.

'Heart of Darkness' does a pretty good job of capturing how terrible conditions in the Congo Free State were under Leopold II. The author was incredibly brave to venture into the country and see things first hand.