Lucius Aurelius Commodus ascended the throne in 180 AD As the ideal heir: son of the venerable Marcus Aurelius, he was educated in Stoic philosophy and surrounded by the best teachers. However, the young emperor soon revealed a radically different personality. According to the historian Cassius Dion, who wrote his Roman history just a generation later, Commodus He despised the obligations of government and felt an irresistible pull to the spectacular violence of the arena..
Starting in 190, the Emperor began to disappear from the Palatine Palace for several days in a row. He has been seen training at the Ludus Magnus School, the great gladiator school next to the Colosseum, They wear only an apron And they carry real weapons. Herodianus, an almost contemporary witness, describes how Commodus came to be It is called “Roman Hercules” He ordered that they represent him in statues with a lion’s skin and a demigod’s club.
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The climate of this obsession came when the emperor himself entered the Flavian amphitheater to fight openly. The Historia Augusta, though sometimes exaggerated, agrees with Cassius Dion and Herodianus in a basic detail: Commodus appears hundreds of times (Dion speaks of 735) as Phaetor, the monster hunter. From an elevated and protected platform, They threw a spear against the lionsCheetahs, bears, and even elephants and rhinos were brought explicitly from Africa.
Roman Colosseum, center of all entertainment for Emperor Commodus
No fight was fair. The monsters arrived exhausted from hunger or drugged; Gladiators who dared to confront him They acquired wooden or lead weapons While he was waving the sharp iron. He killed the emperor without risk and, according to Cassius Dion, charged the public treasury a million sesterces per square walk, an astronomical sum that exacerbated the empire’s financial crisis.
Rome, accustomed to brutal scenes, had never seen anything like it before: its prince, dressed as a gladiator, bathed in blood and guts before… A crowd of people had to cheer him on. Senators and knights had to attend under threat of death; Anyone who showed disgust was executed on the spot. The Colosseum, a symbol of Roman power, became a private place for a megalomaniac.
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Commodus went further: he renamed the city Colonia Comudiana, changed the names of the months to titles that glorified him, and ordered him to be worshiped as a living god. Official coins show him with the attributes of Hercules; Inscriptions declare him “Undefeated” and “Founder of Rome.”
The farce ended on the night of December 31, 192 AD. After announcing that he would serve as consul for the following year dressed as a gladiator, his closest collaborators – the courtesan Marcia, the prefect Leto, and the chamberlain Eclecto – decided to act. They poisoned him. When the athletic poison failed, Narcissus He strangled him in his bathtub. Commodus was 31 years old.
Historians love Edward Gibbon and Anthony Burley It is considered His reign was a turning point towards the crisis of the third century. The emperor who left the palace for the sands not only humiliated the imperial dignity, but also showed, in blood and gold, how far the corruption of absolute power can go when no one dares to stop it.