4 – Aurelian – 275
The brief reign of the ‘restorer of the world‘ is perhaps one of the biggest ‘What If?’ questions in Roman history. When Aurelian came to power in 270, he was in charge of an Empire in dire straits during the midst of the Third Century Crisis. Rome had split in three as the Palmyrene and Gallic Empires became independent; thanks to Aurelian, this was only a short period of complete chaos.
In the space of a few years, Aurelian defeated the Juthungi, Vandals, Sarmatians, Marcomanni, Alemanni, Goths, and Palmyrenes; a feat of military skill unmatched by all but a handful of Roman Emperors. He achieved this during the midst of a domestic crisis as Rome was still reeling from the effects of Cyprian Plague.
As well as doing a remarkable job in keeping the Empire together, he still found time to implement reforms in Rome. First and foremost, he decided to distribute bread to the people rather than grain; and he also added pork and other items to the list of rations. Aurelian improved the distribution and transport of goods. To be fair, he wasn’t successful in every reform; his attempt to handle the coinage crisis failed, and he abandoned his low-cost wine initiative rather early. Nonetheless, he was an Emperor that brought much-needed stability to the Empire; and Diocletian was able to benefit from that less than a decade later.
Alas, Aurelian’s disciplinarian attitude was not popular in the army, and he was eventually assassinated by his disgruntled troops in what was a terribly short-sighted maneuver. Although the Third Century Crisis soon ended with the Diocletian’s reign, his desire to farm cabbages in Croatia meant that the Empire was soon in crisis once more.