Who is your favorite Roman Emperor?

Septimius Severus

Reasons:
A lot is known about him. He was an interesting guy.

He was a success at what he did while he lived but failed miserably leaving the empire to his kids.

He has many coin types from at least four mints (unless you count Provincials where the count is huge).

His coins are cheap compared to other rulers.

Many 'special' coins can be cherrypicked from dealers who do not know how to tell the rare from the common.

I bought a coin of his in 1963 that turned out to be one of my better buys and still own it: http://dougsmith.ancients.info/feac6.html

Over the years it has been joined by many others that I feel lucky to have found: http://dougsmith.ancients.info/bride.html

 

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Titus

 

Trajan Decius is an interesting choice. Not only did he brutally kill his predecessor Philiip (and Philip's son) who had trusted him with command of the military, he persecuted Christians and others who would not sacrafice to the state recognized gods.

He later led the Roman legions into a trap set by the Goths in the marshes at Abrittus, getting himself as well as well as his son killed.

Not the nicest man.

guy

 

The question was 'favorite', not necessarily the nicest. From what we know that has to be Antoninus Pius but he suffers a bit from the lack of historical works covering his time. What is known about him is pieced together from records and less than reliable late sources. He certainly does qualify numismatically since he has a lot of coin types including some interesting ones.

 

And the reason one could consider Trajan Decius his favorite?


guy

 

The OP did ask for reasons and I'm not the one who listed Decius or Hostilian but both have some merit for coin collectors. I even listed Decius as a back up choice when I wrote my page on the subject of selecting a specialty back in 1997:
http://dougsmith.ancients.info/special.html

First: If your book denies Hostilian, get a different book. Just because it is printed on paper does not make it truth. Hostilian has coins as Caesar under his father Decius and as Augustus under Trebonianus Gallus who elevated the child as co-emperor to justify his taking over as the legitimate successor to Decius.

Why Decius:
My problem with the selection and attraction to the selection both use the same reasons. It just depends on what you want. The history of the time is not all that cut and dried due to the lack of contemporary histories. Similarly, the coinage system and mint identifications are not fully agreed upon. You may consider this confusion or an opportunity to contribute with further study.

Decius has more than one mint (3?) identifiable by style but did not use mintmarks that make things too easy. Many of his coins are interesting types relating to events or places. He does not have an endless series of gods and personifications with multiple dating devices.

He was original with denominations compared to other rulers of the period. He has the last semis and the first AE double sestertius (which is a fine looking coin in high grade if you have a few thousand $ available for the project.

Many (not all) students assign to him the DIVO series where he honored all the consecrated emperors before him. Considering his position on Christians making sacrifice to the cult of the emperor, one could imagine a connection with these coins but nothing here is concrete. It is, however, interesting.

Decius had a face best described as 'interesting'. Some dies are plain old boring but some remind you of the ugly phase of late Caracalla.

Decius is interesting in a historical sense but much of the data is less than certain. It is relatively certain that he was the first emperor to die at the hands of a foreign enemy but the degree of his involvement with the end of Philip and Gallus' involvement with the end of Decius are matters less than certain (depending on whose book you read).

Like my choice Septimius, there are interesting/rare items of Decius available for cherrypicking. Not all coin dealers charge extra for the ones you don't see everyday.

Finally, there will be a place in my heart for any ruler who issued a coin in my collection that I considered interesting enough to warrent a page of its own on my site:
http://dougsmith.ancients.info/feac51dec.html

Each of us will collect what we prefer based on our own reasons. Some will consider the best collection to be the one with the most rare coins while others will prefer coins of the guys who made a difference in a historical sense. If you don't consider Decius an interesting guy, feel free to select from a couple hundred other people whose names appear on coins and leave Decius rarities to those who will appreciate them. Coin Talk is interesting to me because of the variation in opinions as to what is collectable. At any coin show you are likely to find as many examples of 'Rare' Lincoln cents as the entire world supply of many 'scarce' ancient coins. Some of us find interest in having the finest while others want the most. Some Decius; others Pius. Whatever floats your boat...

 

There was a couple of years in the middle 3rd century, when nobody wanted to be Emperor and there was a new republic, but they elected Tacitus instead and it all went down hill from there.

Heliogabolous was my favorite. The worst emperor of all!

 

My favorite would have to be old Trajan. The empire reached its Zenith under his rule, just wish I had a better example of his Image. Traci :hatch: