Commodus

Commodus was the eighteenth Emperor of Rome, and is remembered as one of the worst. He was the son of the previous emperor, Marcus Aurelius. It is believed that his being brought up through childhood with his every whim answered that made him into the conceited brat we know. His father is known as the philosopher emperor, so it is odd that Marcus did not teach his son about philosophy, or if he did, his son didn’t listen to him. Marcus had started many wars and wasn’t able to end them before his reign ended, so the wars carried on to Commodus’s time. But Commodus did not care about expanding the borders of the empire or making more money off more taxpayers, he only cared about enjoying himself. So he quickly traveled east and north and signed treaties with the rebellious people that were greatly to Romes disadvantage, so when he returned home he was known as a coward by some people, and as a peace bringer by others. These conflicting opinions on the Emperor were quickly ended however, when he began to enter the coliseum. Before Commodus the coliseum was a place where the common people were able to gather when they wanted to see some bloodshed, with gladiators fighting animals from all over the known world in the morning, while gladiators would fight each other in the afternoon. During these afternoon battles the emperor would choose if it had been an entertaining fight or not. If it was entertaining both slaves won their freedom. If it was a poor fight, however, the winner would kill the loser and wouldn’t win his freedom. During Commodus’s reign, however, he joined in on the gladiator fights, something that was considered by all to be very menial and far, far below an emperors station. But Commodus didn’t care what people thought about him, he only wanted to have fun, so he would fight animals and gladiators, and it is unclear what his actual skill was, since the gladiators knew they would be punished if they killed or maimed him, but the animals wouldn’t have had such qualms. Commodus is recorded to have killed many dangerous creatures such as rhinos, elephants, hippopotami, and most famously, ostriches. All of these he killed by the hundreds or thousands, at least, that’s what was recorded. Alongside the crocodiles he mass slaughtered gladiators, though this doesn’t really mean anything about his strength. All throughout his reign he did this, and he would often execute members of the senate for not pandering to his every whim and want.

He started showing off his full ego when he began naming things after himself, such as the city of Rome, the senate, each of the twelve months of the year, and the military. He left nothing in Rome without his name, and he even renamed the fleet of ships that transported wheat and grain to Rome from Egypt. Eventually, in 192, the senate had had enough of him and put a poison in his drink. He immediately tasted the poison and spit it out. After this failed assassination attempt he started bragging that he had the strength and vitality of Hercules, which angered the praetorian guard, and so they sent a professional wrestler into Commodus’s bath so that he could strangle him. This murder succeeded and Commodus was no more. After this the remaining senate (he had killed quite a few) completely reversed all of the name changes and laws that Commodus had made, restarting the old wars. The movie “Gladiator” is based on this time period.