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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Roman Collector, post: 8046329, member: 75937&quot;]&quot;The five good emperors&quot; is a standard term in popular works of history, especially Edward Gibbon&#039;s <i>The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire</i>. It is easily found by a google search, which turns up several hundred hits, such as <a href="https://www.unrv.com/early-empire/five-good-emperors.php" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.unrv.com/early-empire/five-good-emperors.php" rel="nofollow">this</a>, <a href="https://human.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/History/World_History/Book%3A_Western_Civilization_-_A_Concise_History_I_(Brooks)/10%3A_The_Roman_Empire/10.05%3A_The_Five_Good_Emperors_and_the_Severans" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://human.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/History/World_History/Book%3A_Western_Civilization_-_A_Concise_History_I_(Brooks)/10%3A_The_Roman_Empire/10.05%3A_The_Five_Good_Emperors_and_the_Severans" rel="nofollow">this</a> and <a href="http://academickids.com/encyclopedia/index.php/Five_good_emperors" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://academickids.com/encyclopedia/index.php/Five_good_emperors" rel="nofollow">this</a>.</p><p><br /></p><p>It is not unusual for a set in classical numismatics to be defined by a book. After all, many collect &quot;The Twelve Caesars,&quot; which is a term popularized by Suetonius. <a href="https://www.cointalk.com/threads/if-youre-going-to-let-a-history-book-define-your-collecting-focus-why-not-mary-beard.314828/" class="internalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.cointalk.com/threads/if-youre-going-to-let-a-history-book-define-your-collecting-focus-why-not-mary-beard.314828/">Others have suggested</a> a set based upon chapter 10 of Mary Beard&#039;s <i>SPQR</i>, which is titled, &quot;Fourteen Emperors.&quot;</p><p><br /></p><p>The five in question were perhaps identified first by Machiavelli:</p><p><br /></p><p>&quot;From the study of this history we may also learn how a good government is to be established; for while all the emperors who succeeded to the throne by birth, except Titus, were bad, all were good who succeeded by adoption, as in the case of the five from Nerva to Marcus. But as soon as the empire fell once more to the heirs by birth, its ruin recommenced…Titus, Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus, and Marcus had no need of praetorian cohorts, or of countless legions to guard them, but were defended by their own good lives, the good-will of their subjects, and the attachment of the senate.&quot; – Niccolo Machiavelli</p><p><br /></p><p>But Gibbon popularized the notion that these five were good.</p><p><br /></p><p>&quot;If a man were called upon to fix that period in the history of the world during which the condition of the human race was most happy and prosperous he would, without hesitation, name that which elapsed from the deaths of Domitian to the accession of Commodus.&quot; – Edward Gibbon</p><p><br /></p><p>Edward Gibbon also said that under these men, the Roman Empire &quot;was governed by absolute power under the guidance of wisdom and virtue.&quot;</p><p><br /></p><p>This period of 84 years is generally regarded as the high point of the Roman Empire, at least after Augustus, but what is uncertain and a matter of ongoing debate is whether the five emperors were personally responsible for the situation and the accompanying prosperity enjoyed throughout the empire at the time or if they were simply the beneficiaries of the Pax Romana, inaugurated by Augustus in the early part of the 1st century CE. In other words, historians have wondered whether anyone in power during those years would have enjoyed the same rewards.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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