This infographic illustrates the succession of Roman emperors from 96 to 180 CE, commonly referred to as the Five Good Emperors - Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, and Marcus Aurelius. This term, unknown to the Romans themselves, was coined by Niccolò Machiavelli in his 1531 manuscript Discourses on Livy and later popularized by Edward Gibbon in The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. The 84-year period is widely regarded as a golden age of Roman rule, marked by internal stability, administrative efficiency, and a relatively peaceful succession of power based on merit and adoption rather than heredity.

These emperors, all members of the Nerva-Antonine dynasty (with the exception of Lucius Verus and Commodus), governed at the height of the Roman Empire’s territorial and political power. Under their reigns, the empire saw extensive infrastructure development, legal reform, and frontier consolidation. Trajan expanded the empire to its greatest extent, while Hadrian and Antoninus focused on securing and managing it. According to Gibbon, this was the time when the Roman world was “governed by absolute power under the guidance of wisdom and virtue,” making it a model of enlightened autocracy in Western historical thought.