Commŏdus, L. Aurelius
Antonīnus
The son and successor of M. Aurelius Antoninus, who ascended the imperial throne A.D. 180.
The reign of this prince is a scene of guilt and misery, which the historian is glad to
dismiss with brevity. He appears, indeed, to have inherited all the vices of his mother,
Faustina; and his father, in selecting him for his successor, allowed the feelings of the
parent to triumph over the wisdom of the magistrate. He had accompanied his father on the
expedition against the Marcomanni and the Quadi, but no sooner was Aurelius dead than his son
became anxious to proceed to Rome, and soon concluded a hasty and disgraceful peace with the
barbarians whom his father had been on the point of completely subjugating when he was cut off
by disease. Notwithstanding the care which Aurelius had bestowed on his education, Commodus
was ignorant to an extreme degree, having neither abilities nor inclination for profiting by
the paternal example and instruction. On his return to Rome he speedily showed the bias of his
natural disposition, giving himself up to unrestrained indulgence in the grossest vices. That
he might do so without impediment, he intrusted all power to Perennis, praefect of the
Praetorian Guard, a man of stern and cruel temper, who was at last slain by the soldiers for
his severity.
A conspiracy against the life of Commodus having failed, it was followed by a long
succession of judicial murders to gratify the vengeance of the cowardly and vindictive tyrant.
He was next threatened by a new danger: disaffection had spread over the legions; and an
attempt of Maternus, a private soldier, who headed a band of deserters and projected the
assassination of Commodus during the celebration of the festival of Cybelé, was so
ably conceived that it must have been successful but for the treachery of an accomplice. But
neither duty nor danger could draw Commodus from the sports of gladiators or the pleasures of
debauchery. Cleander, a Phrygian slave, soon succeeded to the place and influence of
Perennis, and for three years the Empire groaned
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Commodus. (Bust in the Capitoline Museum, Rome.)
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beneath his cruelty and rapacity. At length a new insurrection burst forth, which
nothing could allay, the praetorian cavalry being defeated in the streets by the populace,
until the unworthy favourite was, by the emperor's command, delivered to the insurgents. In
the meantime, Commodus was indulging his base tastes and appetites, not only by gross
sensuality, but by attempting to rival the gladiators. Being a very skilful archer and of
great personal strength, he delighted in killing wild beasts in the amphitheatre, and thus
pretending to rival the prowess of Hercules. In the gladiatorial contests, he publicly engaged
so often that he was the conqueror in 735 combats. Though luxurious in his dress, frequently
resorting to the baths eight times in the day, scattering gold dust in his hair, and, from the
fear of admitting the approach of a razor in the hand of another, singeing off his beard, he
was especially proud of exhibitions of personal strength, and frequently, in the garb of a
priest, butchered victims with his own hands. Among the flatteries of the obsequious Senate
none pleased him more than the vote which styled him the “Hercules of
Rome,” not even that which decreed to him the titles of Pius and Felix, or which
offered to abolish the name of the Eternal City and substitute for it the title Colonia
Commodiana. After thirteen years of unmitigated oppression, his favourite, Marcia, ultimately
became the instrument by which the Roman world was delivered from its odious master. She
discovered, from some private notes of Commodus, that herself, Laetus the praetorian praefect,
and Eclectus the chamberlain, were on the list devoted to death. A conspiracy was immediately
formed, Marcia administered poison to the emperor, and, lest the measure should not prove
effectual, the deed was completed by suffocation, in A.D. 192. The life of Commodus has come
down to us, written by Lampridius, in the
Historia Augusta.