[sinsofsolarempirefan]

He was probably the best Emperor in the entire Constantinian dynasty, who were mostly power-crazed, fratricidal religious zealots. He was a great admirer of emperors such as the philospher-emperor Marcus Aurelius, and he slashed imperial bureacracy and returned imperial land back to the cities, and these reforms essentially meant that the cities gained power at the expense of the central Roman state.
He deserved a much greater title than the contemptuous one he was lumbered with by his post-contemporaries....

[Osnome]

Emperor Aurelian of the 3rd century should have been remembered as a reformer too.
His life was cut short by the long string of assassinations of emperors that marked most of that century- also another factor in weakening the Roman state.