"Those who do not know their history are doomed to repeat it."
Dynasties almost always end badly and we have an enormous amount of historical data to support this fact.
Augustus (great emperor) -> Tiberius (meh) -> Caligula (shitter) -> Claudius (not bad) -> NERO (little shitter that persecuted Christians and ended the dynasty, went insane)
Vespasian -> Titus (both good emperors) -> DOMITIAN (little shitter that persecuted Christians and ended the dynasty, went insane)
Marcus Aurelius (great emperor) -> COMMODUS (little shitter that ended the Pax Romana and plunged the empire into the Crisis of the 3rd century that nearly destroyed the Empire)
Constantine (great emperor) -> Constantine II / Constantius II / Constans -> JULIAN THE APOSTATE (little shitter that tried to bring back paganism and rebuild the jewish temple)
Theodosius (great emperor) -> ARCADIUS and HONORIUS (both incompetent)
Charlemagne -> Louis the Pious -> Lothar / Louis / Charles (Frankish empire is split up)
I can't stress this enough: THE ONLY GOOD LINE OF EMPERORS IS THE ONE THAT DID NOT HAVE THEIR SONS OR ANY FAMILY SUCCEED THEM
Nerva -> Trajan -> Hadrian -> Antoninus Pius -> Marcus Aurelius / Lucius Verus
These are the good emperors and this is the longest run of peace of prosperity Rome ever had and not a single one is a blood relative of the other, they were each legally adopted by their predecessor. It all comes tumbling down when Marcus Aurelius has his son Commodus made emperor.
The moral of the story is avoid political dynasties and dynastic successions like the plague, they just don't work. Just because you have an Augustus or a Constantine or even the big dawg POTUS MAXIMUS himself Donald J. Trump kicking things off does not mean things will end well, in fact they almost always end very badly. You have all been warned.
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[–] Intlrnt2 ago
You got a bit over your skis there.
We still have 8 more years of DJT winning ahead of us.
Check back in January 2028. We’ll have a bit more time to chat then.