Hi,
I have been studying the romans for the majoirty of my life, although i may only be 16 my inspiration for the romans (and atrebartans - for other reasons) only started when i was 8 i feel i have come away to be able to explain who is the greatest and i beleive to put a firm backbone to it. There are several figures who would fit into the catagory and i would argue That Hadrian was the greatest roman figure.
I havent seen him mentioned before in this thread and it makes me wonder why when he focused more on makeing the empire a more civilized place and he done this through a number of ways maybe on of the more obvious is his architecture.
Not only did he use this architecture to civilize the roman empire, he was the first emporer who seemed to be walling his empire, for example in Britain you have hadrians wall. (which played a big part in Mithra's religion i beleive) He did this for defence of his people and more importantly the roman empire.
He tryed to accept every religion and culture as they were in the different countrys of his empire, letting them still live there life as long as they live up to the roman laws, the only religion he refused to accept was the jews. saying no to returing there homeland to them.
Then he went a little insane when his young male companion died, but thats neither here nor there, there is no denying the brilliance of his work.