Bad Ass of the Week: Justinian II

[Suu]

http://www.badassoftheweek.com/justinian.html



Emperor Justinian II of Byzantium wasn't a brilliant military strategist, a capable ruler, a benevolent dictator, or even a fucking half-decent human being.  He was a ruthless, merciless motherfucker who crushed all who opposed him, brutally eliminated his enemies, and let nothing stand in the way of his insane, over-the-top, possibly-misguided mission to stomp the lower intestines of anybody ballsy enough to think they could screw with him for any reason.  His entire existence was dedicated to one incredibly badass mission:  Live for Revenge.

Justinian inherited the throne of the Eastern Roman Empire in 685 at the age of 16, and immediately started more shit than a primadonna NFL wide receiver in his contract year.  During the early years of his reign he negotiated a peace treaty with the Umayyad Caliphate that resulted in the Caliph paying tribute to the mighty Emperor (this pretty much proved to everyone who had the hugest nuts in the land), and his army of crotch-stabbing warriors beat the crap out of some jackass rebels that were causing trouble in Armenia and the Balkan Peninsula.

But even though his armies were doing an excellent job of turning wild hordes of rampaging savages into sirloin chuck ground beef and the ruler of the most powerful nation in the Islamic World was sending him a fat welfare check every month, Justinian II was still pretty much utterly despised by the tightwad dickhead senators of the Byzantine Empire.  First off, they didn't really dig Justinian's economic strategy, which basically involved taxing the ever-loving pants off of the citizenry and then using that money to build incredibly huge buildings and massive statues of himself punching Minotaurs in the face or wrestling fire-breathing three-headed dragons.  On top of that, the populace was also a little pissed that Justinian once tried to have the Pope arrested for disagreeing with him on religious matters.  Now I don't care if you're Catholic or not - pretty much everyone can agree that signing an arrest warrant for the fucking Pope because he doesn't agree with your interpretation of Christianity takes some seriously colossal fucking brass testicles.  Unfortunately, the citizens of ancient Constantinople didn't really have the same appreciation for flagrant displays of testicular fortitude that you and I do, and eventually the Senate convened an emergency session so that they could do that which Roman Senators do best - plot an underhanded coup d'etat and depose the Emperor.  In 693, some fucking jackasses busted into the Imperial throne room and tackled Justinian like an over-enthusiastic police officer taking down a crackhead on Cops.  This group of usurpers, which was comprised mostly of escaped prisoners led by two former high-ranking Byzantine Generals and the goddamned Patriarch of Constantinople, roughed the Emperor up, punched him in the solarplexus a couple times, cut off part of his nose, slit his tongue down the middle, executed all of his closest advisors and exiled him to the shithole town of Cherson.

Well, not only did it fucking suck that Justinian just got humiliated, mutilated, and had his face jacked up by a bunch of convicted felons, but since the Emperor was supposed to be flawless and perfect in every way, his new disfigurement meant that he was pretty much out of the running to ever regain his throne.  But fuck that.  Justinian wasn't going to let something like a botched amateur nosejob stand in the way of his Palpatinian amibition.  His first order of business was to get a custom-made gold plate to cover his fucked-up nose, so he pretty much always looked like a mix between Rip Hamilton and the Phantom of the Opera.  I imagine that this made him look fucking awesome all of the time:


Years passed, but Darth Justinian never forgot what happened to him.  He just became more and more pissed.  Every day, he strapped on a red headband and trained for hours on a heavy bag in an old abandoned gym while awesome pump-up 80s hair band music played in the background and a grizzled old trainer yelled at him to push things to the limit.  Eventually, the false Emperor in Constantinople decided that it was too dangerous to have a ruthless, vengeful bastard like Justinian hanging around being not dead, so he sent some motherfuckers to arrest him and bring him into town for a proper execution.  Justinian figured out what was going on and was like, "fuck that", so he fled Cherson to go live with the Khazars, a badass tribe of Jewish-Turkic nomads known for being fucking hardcore all of the fucking time and for eating (Kosher) meat right off the fucking bone.  In the short time he was there, Justinian's badassitude, nunchuck skills and bench-pressing ability impressed the Khazar tribal leader so much that he offered his own sister to Justinian in marriage.  In 703, Justinian was married to the Khazar princess, a woman named Theodora, and was starting to adapt to life amongst the tough-ass warrior nomads.  It should also be mentioned that they lived in the town of Phangoria, a place so hardcore and insane that the magazine Fangoria was potentially named after it.  Well the false Emperor was still determined to turn Justinian into shark food, so he put a mafia hit out on him.  Luckily for our anti-hero, Theodora found out what was going on and tipped her husband off.  That night, two fucking goons busted into Justinian's bedroom to kill him, but Justinian got the drop on them and fucking choked them both to death with his bare hands.  Once the two thugs were sufficiently asphyxiated, Justinian stole a fishing boat and set out to seek his vengeance.

He soon arrived in the land of the Bulgars, an even more vicious race of lawless, badass warriors.  Justinian made peace with the Bulgar Khan and promised him truckloads of money and hookers in exchange for his help.  The Khan quickly assembled a well-trained, balls-out force of 15,000 bloodthirsty Bulgar cavalrymen ready to fucking kick serious asses.  Together with his new allies, Justinian rode out for the gleaming spires of Constantinople.  His force was too small to penetrate the massive walls of the heavily-fortified city, but like any good diabolical madman hell-bent on the destruction of his enemies, Justinian had a plan.  He knew about an old abandoned aqueduct that ran into the heart of downtown Constantinople, so in the middle of the night he and his men snuck into town through a series of secret passages and immediately started fucking shit up Trojan Horse-style, hacking up motherfuckers, burning shit, and generally just causing more havoc than a punch bowl of Red Bull at a birthday party full of eight year-olds being held in a Fabergé Egg museum.  The next morning, ten years after he had been deposed, Justinian once again took a seat on his blood-soaked throne.

Now the people that had messed with Justinian were fucked.  And by fucked, I mean seriously fucking fucked.  His first order of business was to march the false Emperor through the streets of Constantinople while a mob of angry citizens hurled rocks and rotten food at him, and then Justinian personally executed him in the public square by stabbing his head off with his boner.  Then he set out looking for the traitorous Generals that had used his face for a pincushion ten years ago.  In the time since Justinian was deposed, the two jackass traitor usurpers had themselves been overthrown and exiled, but the Emperor had his men travel to the farthest reaches of the Earth, find those bastards and bring them back to Constantinople.  Once he had them firmly in his kung fu grip, Justinian slashed their noses and tongues just like they had done to him, had them bound and trussed, and spent the next two weeks using these guys for footstools while he sat on his throne.  When he got bored of resting his feet on the backs of his enemies, he had them publicly executed for treason.  Justinian also found the Patriarch that was responsible for his ordeal, stripped him of his rank, and put out his eyes with a really sharp pencil.  Then he burned the town of Cherson to the ground, because it fucking sucked being exiled there for like eight years.

Well unfortunately Justinian spent so much time exacting cruel retribution on everyone who had ever fucked with him that he kind of lost track of what was going on in the Empire.  Towns soon revolted against him, foreign invasions threatened the borders, and he was eventually captured and executed by motherfuckers.  His severed head was placed on display outside the city of Ravenna, which is actually kind of awesome when you think about it.

Justinian II was a bad motherfucker.  He wasn't the kind of guy that poets wrote epic works of literary genius about, or that history books remember fondly, but he was a seriously hardcore motherfucker who put vengeance first and everything else second.  In my opinion, you kind of have to respect a guy who would "go the extra mile" and let his entire Empire collapse around him just to ensure that no man escaped his bloody retribution.

[Suu]

OMFG, these just keep getting better:

http://www.badassoftheweek.com/tiberius.html



Tiberius' parents were about as well off as a Roman family could be, kind of like a Classical Age version of the Kennedys, only without the terrible accents.  His father, Tiberius Claudius Nero, had not only fought with Julius Caesar, but was also elected Praetor, meaning he was directly beneath the Emperor Augustus himself.  Tiberius' mother was the sort of social-climbing debutante bitch who couldn't handle her man being second best, however, so she quickly divorced that worthless piece of crap and married Augustus.  So not only was Tiberius born with a silver spoon in his mouth, but thanks to his gold-digging mom, he upgraded to one made of solid diamond-encrusted platinum.  Augustus himself didn't have any sons, so he adopted Tiberius and his brother Drusus.  Why not?  Someone had to run the show after Augustus croaked.  As the son of the Emperor, Tiberius quickly became that spoiled little rich brat who received everything he wanted, who never got in trouble, and who everybody completely fucking hated.

Tiberius was pretty much utterly worthless until he got married to Vipsania Agrippina, the daughter of one of Augustus' BFFs.  Now that he had a wife, a studio apartment, etc., Tiberius decided that he might want to actually do something with his life instead of sitting around watching Maury, scratching his balls, thinking about how great he is, and eating handfuls of beef jerky right out of the bag.  He took command of some badass Legions, marched north, and yadda yadda yadda beat the hell out of the Germans and the Gauls and discovered the source of the Danube River.  No biggie.  Whatever.  After this display of badassery Augustus had such a boner for this guy that he couldn't just settle for having him married to one of his friend's daughters, so the Emperor hooked Tiberius up with his own daughter, Julia the Elder.  Hey, I guess it's not really incest if you're adopted (not that they would fucking care anyways).  Things were still up in the air as to who was going to run Rome after the Emperor beefed it, and the last thing the Romans wanted was another bloody civil war or the clusterfuck that happened when Alexander died and the diodachi said that all his forts were belong to them.  Now that Tiberius was not only Augustus' son, but was also his son-in-law (can I stress enough how messed up this is?) he was a shoo-in for the nomination.  Everything was coming up roses for this spoiled douchebag.

There was only one problem, though - Tiberius wanted nothing to do with it.  Here's how it went down in the Julian household:

Augustus::  Oh, Tiberius, you sure are swell.  Please run Rome when I'm gone.

Tiberius:  Whatever dad.  I'll take care of that about the same time I learn to properly fucking conjugate the verb possumus in the pluperfect.  Leave me alone.

Augustus::  Hahaha, what a sense of humor on this kid.  Say, isn't your birthday next month?  Why don't I give you your present now.  Here.

Tiberius:  What the hell is this?

Augustus::  Surprise!  You now control half of the Roman world.  Take command of my Legions in Greece, conquer the rest of the world, come back a triumphant hero and the people will love you as Emperor when I'm gone.

Tiberius:  Yeah, well Caius got socks for his birthday.  Do you know how well socks go with sandals?  God, why couldn't you have gotten me a cool gift like that?

Augustus::  What a kidder.  My little jokester.  Haha.

Tiberius:  Screw you, dad.  I'm gonna go get drunk and nail bitches on Rhodes.  Give your shitty gift to Drusus or something.  I'm Audi 5000.

Augustus::  WTF?


So, our hero-ish figure went to the luxurious isle of Rhodes, partied with floozies, snorted X off of dead hookers and got really pissed at his wife for not being OK with them having an "open relationship".  He pretty much gave the finger to the prospect of becoming Emperor (and thereby doing an honest day's work just once in his entire lifetime), and moved out of town to do whatever the fuck he wanted.  Meanwhile, back in Rome, Augustus' grandsons both died.  The Emperor was really fucking old at this point and was scrambling around looking for someone to take over his gig when he died.  Tiberius' scheming mother convinced everyone that he would make a good heir to the throne, and right before the old man peaced out, he named you know who as his replacement.  Tiberius still didn't want it.  He tried to convince the Senate to only give him a part of the Empire to rule, a request that probably involved quite a bit of gesturing towards his crotch, but they insisted.  He finally accepted, but that didn't mean he had to actually do anything.

Tiberius took a laissez-faire approach to Emperorship.  He didn't pay the armies.  They mutinied and someone else took care of the rebellion.  When this someone, his nephew Germanicus, came back to Rome as a hero, the new Emperor sent the young man to the eastern frontier and then had him killed just to make sure his free ride would stay intact.  Bored with being Emperor, Tiberius moved out to the resort island of Capri to relax in the villas he owned there.  One of his head honchos, a dude named Sejanus, took advantage of the Emperor's absence and started picking up the slack around Rome.  Tiberius seemed pretty appreciative of his friend lending a helping hand and started referring to him as his equal.  Sejanus, being the little ass-kisser that he was, basked in the compliments and kept running the Empire as if it were his own, and Tiberius loved him for it.

Until he got pissed off, that is. Tiberius called Sejanus on the phone:

        Sejanus:  Hello?

        Tiberius:  Hey, CJ, it's TC.  What's up?

        Sejanus:  It's like 4 in the morning man, what's your problem?

        Tiberius:  Just got done with a drunken orgy, wanted to see how things are going for you?

        Sejanus:  Fine.  Just got done paying off the debt you built up from all your coke parties.

        Tiberius:  Cool.  You know what, you're great.  Seriously.  You should get a medal or something.

        Sejanus:  I'm just doing your job, Tiberius.  Someone has to.

        Tiberius:  I know - I'm sure as hell not going to.  Hey, tell you what, after work tomorrow, you go to the Senate and I'll make them read a list of good things about you, absolutely free.

        Sejanus:  Well, I guess you do owe me.  I was kind of disappointed with the last 400 statutes you built in my honor.

        Tiberius:  Hey, it's the least I can do, man.  I gotta go though.  TTYL.

        Sejanus:  Bye.  –click- Jackass.

Sejanus walked into the Senate the next day and had a bunch of nice things said about him... then a bunch of mediocre things... then some terrible things... and by the time the senate was done reading Tiberius' e-mail, they all thought Sejanus was sexing all of their wives, killing all of their sons, and stealing all of their money.  On top of that, he didn't recycle, only used Styrofoam cups, and drove a crappy, environmentally-unfriendly car that only got like five miles to the gallon.  Almost immediately he was fucking strangled to death, kicked down the steps of the forum and his corpse was left to rot and be poked at by hobos in a dirty gutter somewhere.  Meanwhile, Tiberius was in a hammock in Capri with a cask of expensive wine on one side of him and a couple dozen beautiful ladies on the other.

Even though he was a total bastard, Tiberius was badass because he was a fucking gangster.  He wasn't crazy, like Al Pacino in Scarface or Joe Pesci in Goodfellas - overachievers who went balls-out all the fucking time and ended up in an early grave.  No, Tiberius did absolutely none of the work and got all of the benefits.  He was more like Marlon Brando as Don Corlione in The Godfather.  Just because of who he was, he got whatever he wanted, did whatever he wanted, and had sex with whatever he wanted.  He ruled most of the known world while barely lifting a finger, spent all day eating fermented grapes on top of piles of money and women, and utterly fucking destroyed anybody who displeased him or even remotely appeared to be a threat to his power.  True badasses know to dominate their subjects with an iron fist, but to do it from their couches, surrounded by plasma screen HDTVs and so many hot naked drunk babes that it makes the Girls Gone Wild series look like a recruiting film for Mormon missionaries.


BIG PIMPIN'

[Richter]

FUCK YEAH.

[zen_magick]

OMG, the badass of the week just made my day!!

[Jasper]

I love these so much.  I think I like the one about Tesla best.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

The Tesla one was pretty great! 

He needs to do one for Lozen: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lozen