44 Facts About Commodus

1.

Commodus was a Roman emperor who ruled from 177 to 192.

2.

Commodus served jointly with his father Marcus Aurelius from 177 until the latter's death in 180, and thereafter he reigned alone until his assassination.

3.

Commodus's reign is commonly thought as marking the end of a golden age of peace and prosperity in the history of the Roman Empire.

4.

Commodus accompanied his father during the Marcomannic Wars in 172 and on a tour of the Eastern provinces in 176.

5.

Intrigues and conspiracies abounded, leading Commodus to revert to an increasingly dictatorial style of leadership, culminating in his creating a deific personality cult, including his performing as a gladiator in the Colosseum.

6.

Commodus was succeeded by Pertinax, the first emperor in the tumultuous Year of the Five Emperors.

7.

Commodus was the son of the reigning emperor, Marcus Aurelius, and Aurelius' first cousin, Faustina the Younger, the youngest daughter of Emperor Antoninus Pius, who had died only a few months before.

8.

Commodus had an elder twin brother, Titus Aurelius Fulvus Antoninus, who died in 165.

9.

Commodus was looked after by his father's physician, Galen, who treated many of Commodus' common illnesses.

10.

Commodus received extensive tutoring by a multitude of teachers with a focus on intellectual education.

11.

Commodus is known to have been at Carnuntum, the headquarters of Marcus Aurelius during the Marcomannic Wars, in 172.

12.

The title suggests Commodus was present at his father's victory over the Marcomanni.

13.

Commodus subsequently accompanied his father on a lengthy trip to the Eastern provinces, during which he visited Antioch.

14.

Commodus was the first emperor "born in the purple," meaning during his father's reign.

15.

Commodus subsequently married Bruttia Crispina before accompanying his father to the Danubian front once more in 178.

16.

Commodus reduced the weight of the denarius from 96 per Roman pound to 105 per Roman pound.

17.

Whereas the reign of Marcus Aurelius had been marked by almost continuous warfare, Commodus' rule was comparatively peaceful in the military sense, but was characterised by political strife and the increasingly arbitrary and capricious behaviour of the emperor himself.

18.

Commodus remained with the Danube armies for only a short time before negotiating a peace treaty with the Danubian tribes.

19.

Commodus tended throughout his reign to leave the practical running of the state to a succession of favourites, beginning with Saoterus, a freedman from Nicomedia who had become his chamberlain.

20.

Dissatisfaction with this state of affairs led to a series of conspiracies and attempted coups, which in turn eventually provoked Commodus to take charge of affairs, which he did in an increasingly dictatorial manner.

21.

Commodus had four surviving sisters, all of them with husbands who were potential rivals.

22.

Commodus's motive is alleged to have been the envy of the Empress Crispina.

23.

Commodus took the loss of Saoterus badly, and Perennis seized the chance to advance himself by implicating Paternus in a second conspiracy, one apparently led by Publius Salvius Julianus, the son of the jurist Salvius Julianus and betrothed to Paternus' daughter.

24.

Commodus was inaugurated in 183 as consul with Aufidius Victorinus as colleague and assumed the title Pius.

25.

Commodus's tale was considered false and he was immediately put to death.

26.

However, the following year a detachment of soldiers from Britain denounced Perennis to the emperor as plotting to make his own son emperor, and Commodus gave them permission to execute him as well as his wife and sons.

27.

Commodus sold Senate seats, army commands, governorships, and increasingly, suffect consulships, to the highest bidder.

28.

Cleander fled to Commodus, who was at Laurentum in the house of the Quinctilii, for protection, but the mob followed him calling for his head.

29.

At the urging of his mistress Marcia, Commodus had Cleander beheaded and his son killed.

30.

In opposition to the Senate, in his pronouncements and iconography, Commodus had always stressed his unique status as a source of god-like power, liberality, and physical prowess.

31.

Commodus had the head of the Colossus of Nero adjacent to the Colosseum replaced with his own portrait, gave it a club, placed a bronze lion at its feet to make it look like Hercules Romanus, and added an inscription boasting of being "the only left-handed fighter to conquer twelve times one thousand men".

32.

When Marcia found a list of people Commodus intended to have executed, she discovered that she, the prefect Laetus, and Eclectus were on it.

33.

Commodus was succeeded by Pertinax, whose reign was short; he became the first claimant to be usurped during the Year of the Five Emperors.

34.

Commodus's recorded actions do tend to show a rejection of his father's policies, his father's advisers, and especially his father's austere lifestyle, and an alienation from the surviving members of his family.

35.

On his father's death in 180, Commodus changed this to Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Commodus, before changing back to his birth name in 191.

36.

The latter eventually would be used as a conventional title by Roman emperors, starting about a century later, but Commodus seems to have been the first to assume it.

37.

Disdaining the more philosophic inclinations of his father, Commodus was extremely proud of his physical prowess.

38.

Commodus thought of himself as the reincarnation of Hercules, frequently emulating the legendary hero's feats by appearing in the arena to fight a variety of wild animals.

39.

Commodus had a passion for gladiatorial combat, which he took so far as to take to the arena himself, dressed as a secutor.

40.

Commodus never killed his gladiatorial adversaries, instead accepting their surrenders.

41.

Commodus's victories were often welcomed by his bested opponents, as bearing scars dealt by the hand of an emperor was considered a mark of fortitude.

42.

Commodus was known for fighting exotic animals in the arena, often to the horror and disgust of the Roman populace.

43.

On other occasions, Commodus killed three elephants on the floor of the arena by himself, and a giraffe.

44.

The Emperor Commodus Leaving the Arena at the Head of the Gladiators by Edwin Blashfield, Hermitage Museum and Gardens, Norfolk, Virginia.