How "Good" Were Rome's Five Good Emperors?

In the first volume of his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, published in 1776, Edward

Gibbon famously proclaimed: “If a man were called to fix the 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 death of Domitian to the

accession of Commodus.”

Although few modern historians would say anything quite so sententious, the period Gibbon describes

– from 98 to 180 AD – is generally considered the apogee of the Roman Empire.

It coincided with the reigns of the so-called “Five Good Emperors.”

Nerva, the first, restored balance to the government after the tyranny of Domitian.

Trajan, the second, waged a series of wars that pushed the empire’s frontiers to their

greatest extent.

Hadrian, the third, traveled tirelessly through the provinces, dispensing justice and instituting

reforms.

Antoninus Pius, the fourth, presided over a generation of virtually uninterrupted peace.

Marcus Aurelius, the last, applied the principles of Stoic philosophy to the problems of ruling

a world-empire.

All but the last of these men adopted his successor; and each seems to have chosen his

heir well.

Though far from perfect – Hadrian, for example, had a nasty habit of executing senators – the

Five Good Emperors seem, as a group, to have been effective and responsible rulers.

Under their stewardship, the Pax Romana extended from Scotland to Sudan, Roman coins circulated

in Sweden and Sri Lanka, and Roman merchants reached China.

Although conditions didn’t change profoundly for the subsistence farmers who made up the

bulk of the empire’s population, new goods, such as mass-produced pottery and roof tiles,

made life a bit easier in many places.

So did a highly effective trade network, which blunted the impacts of local famines.

The real beneficiaries of the Roman peace, however, were members of the elite.

Both at Rome and in the provinces, aristocrats had never been wealthier.

Men like Herodes Atticus – the orator and senator who divided his time between vast

estates in Greece and Italy – dominated the imperial bureaucracy, governing provinces

and leading legions before retiring to the manicured gardens of their townhomes and villas.

With war banished to distant frontiers, the cities of the empire thrived as never before.

Most of the theaters, forums, fountains, and baths that dominate Roman ruins from Spain

to Syria were built under the Five Good Emperors.

At Ephesus, for example, virtually every structure along the monumental main streets was built

or reconstructed in this era.

So were the spectacular plazas of Gerasa in Jordan

The planned city of Timgad in Algeria The great pool of the Roman baths in Bath,

England And ambitious building projects in every other