What do you get when you make emperor a bodybuilding 18 year old with an obsession for matching his physical prowess to be that of the mythological hero Hercules?
You get Commodus. With his disregard for advice by his father’s advisors and his contempt for the established ruling class the Roman senate Commodus was sure to upend the status quo.
He was the first Roman emperor to claim the title of emperor while his father was emperor.
Actually Commodus shared more of a family lineage of emperors than that. His grandfather was also an emperor, Antoninus Pius.
Commodus was utimatley the “first straw that broke the camel’s back” when it comes to the decline of the Roman emperorship.
His reign was considered the beginning of the downfall of a prosperous era in Roman history.
Antoninus Pius his grandfather had been one of the “Five Good Emperors” ironically.
Commodus reigned as emperor from the years 180-192 BC.
Ordered a bath house servant tossed into an oven. His crime? Not ensuring that Commodus enjoyed hot water, it was lukewarm.
Historical accounts of the emperor Commodus describe him as a very handsome man. One has to wonder if an obsession with physical appearance tied with the erratic and paranoid nature of Commodus somehow influenced these accounts.
Commodus the Gladiator Emperor
Emperor Commodus turned down all of the good and time-tested qualities of previous Roman emperors.
While his father Marcus Aurelius was profound and thoughtful in his thinking and austere in his actions Commodus was not.
The bodybuilding emperor refused to abide by the advice of his father’s advisors and thus fell victim to the fake cronies who surrounded themselves around the new emperor.
One such way that Commodus defined his own display of emperorship and glorified his physical prowess was through the gladiatorial arena.
Of course out of respect and fear his opponents in the arena never actually resisted him by any means.
As a result Commodus sought to put on grander and more elaborate gladiator fights.
He imported hundreds and even thousands of exotic and strange beasts to the arena.
Commodus killed many animals at a time singlehandedly in a display that must have been extremely strange to witness.
Like I said earlier if you can imagine the worst kind of Roman emperor it was Commodus on display.
He used his power as emperor to murder any Roman citizen who posed a threat whether it was real or imagined. They were mostly imagined.
Commodus was a prime target for political dissidence by the many enemies he had created by his contempt for the Roman senate.
His own sister plotted to murder him. She was exiled as a result to Capri and murdered by Commodus’s assassins.
Commodus was poisoned but spit up the poison and survived. He was ultimately strangled in a bathtub.
His successor was to be Pertinax and once the conspiracy was completed by Commodus dying it was so.
The effects of Commodus were to send the republic into a chaos known as the Year of the Five Emperors.
The established claim to the throne through dynasty and legacy was no more. The title of emperor was up for grabs to the most ruthless and connected candidate of Rome’s aristocratic and military class.
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