The Ancients - Commodus: The Gladiator Emperor

Episode Date: August 8, 2024

Known as one of Rome's worst emperors, Commodus is famed for both his infamy and bravado. Ascending the throne as a teenager, he dressed up as Hercules, fought as a gladiator in the Colosseum, and renamed Rome after himself. But who was the real Commodus? And was he really as bad and megalomaniacal as some have claimed?In this episode of The Ancients, Tristan Hughes is joined by Dr Alex Imrie to dive into the conspiracies, controversy and assassinations that made the reign of Commodus so chillingly captivating and inspired the performance of Joaquin Phoenix in the 2000 sword and sandal epic ‘Gladiator’.Presented by Tristan Hughes. Edited by Aidan Lonergan. The producer is Joseph Knight, the senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff.The Ancients is a History Hit podcast.The Ancients is recording our first LIVE SHOW at the London Podcast Festival on Thursday 5th September 2024! Book your tickets now to be in the audience and ask Tristan and his guest your burning questions. Tickets on sale HERE https://www.kingsplace.co.uk/whats-on/words/the-ancients/Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original TV documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Sign up HERE for 50% off your first 3 months using code ‘ANCIENTS’. https://historyhit.com/subscriptionYou can take part in our listener survey here.

Hi, I'm Tristan Hughes, and if you would like the Ancients ad-free, get early access and bonus episodes, sign up to History Hit. With a History Hit subscription, you can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries, including my recent documentary all about Petra and the Nabataeans, and enjoy a new release every week. Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com slash subscribe. Hi, Tristan here, and I have an exciting announcement. The Ancients has been invited to open the London Podcast Festival. We will be recording our very first live show on Thursday 5th September at 7pm at King's Place,

and being the first live show where we want it to be extra special, so I've invited a friend of the podcast, Professor Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones, to join me on stage where we will be diving into the captivating story of the Tower of Babel, from its first mention in the Book of Genesis to the real-life great ancient Babylonian structure that it was based on. Of course, the ancients is nothing without you, so we want you to be there in the audience taking part and asking us your burning questions. Tickets for the festival always sell fast,

so book yourself a seat now at www.kingsplace.co.uk forward slash what's on, or click the link in the show notes of this episode. I really hope to see you there. It's the Ancients on History Hit. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host, and today we are exploring the life of the Roman Emperor Commodus, the son of the famous philosopher Emperor Marcus Aurelius. Commodus' predecessors are often portrayed as some of Rome's greatest ever emperors, the so-called Five Good Emperors. However, this all came crashing down with Commodus. Ascending the throne as a teenager, his reign has come to be defined by conspiracies, assassinations and megalomania. Dressing up as the god Hercules, fighting in the arena as a gladiator, renaming

Rome and, perhaps best of all, being portrayed by Joaquin Phoenix in the 2000 sword and sandal epic Gladiator. So who was Commodus? What are these infamous stories associated with him? Was he really that bad? Well, to explain all of this and more, our guest is Dr Alex Imrie from the University of Edinburgh. Alex, he has been on the podcast before to talk all things Caracalla, another pretty infamous emperor. Now he's back to explain the story of Commodus. I really do hope you enjoy. Alex, it is wonderful to have you back on the podcast. Thank you. It's a great pleasure. I had such fun last time. It's great to be back.

It was really good fun. And it was so long ago now, wasn't it? Looking at Caracalla, we're looking at another emperor beginning with C and similarly infamous. Now, Commodus, whenever there are any lists of Rome's worst emperors, it almost seems like Commodus is always in that top five of the worst. Yeah, he's always a challenger for good reason in some cases. In other ways, I would say that his reputation has been exaggerated slightly by intervening figures and the image that we have of him or the image that i have of him in my mind is a little bit more nuanced than maybe some of the wilder accusations leveled at him he's quite big in a lot of our imaginations today isn't he because of that 2000 epic the ridley scott movie gladiator he is the main

villain he is Joaquin Phoenix absolutely Joaquin Phoenix just absolutely nails a a wonderful presentation my first exposure to Commodus as well I'll confess so I started my university journey into classics with a very distinct idea of who Commodus was, thanks to Ridley Scott and Joaquin Phoenix, and then had to have that slightly dispelled. And so, yes, I think Commodus is one of those emperors that a lot of people in the popular sphere, I think, think they know pretty well, whether it's through Joaquin Phoenix

or maybe those slightly more seasoned through Christopher Plummer's version of Commodus in Fall of the Roman Empire, which I also adore. I mean, it's scenery-chewing madness, but it is a really, really compelling watch. So yeah, he's an emperor that I think is familiar to us, but on a programme like this, it's great to be able to peel behind that slightly mad layer and see what's beneath. I feel like the word mad is going to come up time and time again in this episode, which is going to make it great, great fun. Well, let's go to the beginning, to the background. Do we know much about Commodus' early life, his background? We know a little bit in as much as how important he becomes quickly to his father,

Marcus Aurelius' imperial regime. He's interesting in a way that we think we know a lot about him, but there are large gaps in our knowledge, particularly of his childhood period. But certainly where he comes to the fore is really in how he is used by his father and how he is really needed by his father at certain points in that reign. So Commodus is born at the end of August 161. He's not an only child at that point. He's born alongside a twin, Aurelius Phobos Antoninus, but that twin brother sadly dies five years later. Now he has a younger brother, Marcus Annius Verus, who's born in 162. Now it's with that younger brother that Commodus, we find out, is made Caesar in 166.

So from a very early age, he's made an heir apparent by his father, Marcus Aurelius. Now, Annius Verus dies in 169, which is the same year that Marcus Aurelius' colleague in office, Lucius Verus, also dies. And so the dynastic arrangement within the Antonine imperial household that Commodus has been brought into changes rapidly within the space of just a couple of years. I mean at one point he's just he's one of two Caesars. He's the dynastic guarantee of the dynasty looking long term and then suddenly his younger brother has died, his father's colleague in office has died, and we have a single emperor, Marcus Aurelius, with his young son Caesar. And that's it. There is his sister Lucilla, of course, but she obviously, being a woman, cannot feature in the imperial line of succession. Well, let's focus a bit on Marcus Aurelius first, because although we have this

very infamous reputation assigned to Commodus today, in almost complete contrast, when someone talks about Marcus Aurelius, he's labelled as one of the better emperors, if I can put that in quotation marks. So Marcus Aurelius, he is this larger-than-life figure for Commodus when he's growing up in his early years. As you say, originally a co-emperor, but when his partner in office, Lucius Verus, dies, he is the sole emperor in charge. Absolutely. Now I think part of Commodus's poor reputation and label as a bad emperor has to do with succeeding an emperor who is commonly regarded even in his own era as one of the

better emperors to hold the throne. Now certainly Marcus Aurelius is renowned as the philosopher emperor, and this really gives him that kindly, sage Richard Harris vibe that certainly everybody wants to lean into. But we shouldn't forget that he himself was a military autocratic ruler who spends the majority of his reign in a military context. I mean, at the point where Commodus really starts to be brought into the imperial fold, Marcus Aurelius is on the northern frontier waging the Marcomannic Wars against various tribes seeking to breach the northern frontier line of the empire. And so Marcus, the meditations are wonderful work, but that's not marcus aurelius is and indeed i suppose one of my little missions in today's episode is probably to get you to think slightly less of marcus and maybe

slightly more of comedis within reason though because i i have absolutely no love for either of them to be totally honest so if you keep on marcus aurelius's reign and we will absolutely get back to that military context as you highlighted against the Mark of Marni, which is also shown, of course, at the start of the Gladiator epic. If we focus on the sources of Commodus now and his early life, I was just having a brief look through the Historia Augusta chapter on Commodus. I know they're not the most reliable of our ancient sources for this figure, but I think I remember reading how there are these

stories of him as a child and being a really horrible child as well is this one of the problems we have with Commodus is that there are so many of these stories whether it's the beginning of his life or the end of his life associated with him which just are out there to depict him as horrific as possible in short yes absolutely when I talked to you about Caracallan and Severan matters previously, I mentioned three main historical sources that we use for the period, and these are the same here for Commodus and indeed slightly for Marcus Aurelius, his pinnacle emperor in fact, and thus Commodus suffers by association of not being able to live up to Marcus Aurelius. You have the near-contemporary author Herodian, who is slightly more measured but is often charged by modern historians with parroting an official version of events offered by the imperial household at any turn. So this explains why sometimes our sources differ on certain episodes. And then, of course, yes, the infamous Historia Augusta,

late antique Latin set of biographies. One author, many authors, that subject is debated. I tend towards one author. And indeed, the Historia Augusta in terms of Commodus is remarkable because it really does lean very heavily into the notion that Commodus is an absolutely irredeemable character from his very youth. It doesn't even conform to the biographical trope of having him as this kind of angelic cherub as a child and then turning bad and rotten. He's just rotten from start to finish, according to the author, who revels in it slightly. So I think we have to obviously be careful about this source because it loves its gratuitous stories about figures like

Commodus. And we may well be missing a lot of literary allusions and playful games that were intended with its original audience that we, at such a distance, just can't pick up on. But yeah, in terms of Commodus, he is the bad kid who stays bad. So Marcus Aurelius is emperor and Commodus from an early age, as you say, he's starting being almost raised, can we say, to become Marcus Aurelius' successor. So what do we know about this period before Marcus Aurelius dies, but at the time that Commodus is starting to be involved in imperial affairs? So on a very the time that Commodus is starting to be involved in imperial affairs. So on a very basic level, Commodus is remarkable because he is the first emperor born to the

purple, as we would say. So he's the first emperor who is born at the point when his father is already an emperor. He's not like other dynasties who are either, you know, the people have to be adopted into the family or their father sees power and then they succeed to become emperors. This is an immediately dynastic setup. Now that in itself is quite interesting because the transition of power or the introduction of Commodus into the imperial framework kind of dead ends the process that is regarded very positively for the century prior which is this adoptive process starting with the emperor Nerva adopting Trajan and so you see the dynasty itself called the Nerva Antonine or the adoptive Antonine dynasty owing to this so Commodus's

accession to the rank of Caesar and then later to Augustus is in itself remarkable because it does change the very nature of the system that supposedly supported the zenith of the Roman Empire through that relatively peaceful second century period. Now, I mean, I have a slight problem with that whole image going back to Marcus Aurelius and before anyway, because really, if you start looking at the way that the family members of this imperial period are all linked and associated, there are usually family relations tracing back to Trajan. And so ultimately, it's questionable how far this is a complete break with the idea of hereditary succession, because everybody's related in this period. And to reach

that pinnacle you seem to require to have the right bloodlines in order to get there. So in that sense Commodus on the face of it is remarkable but I think there's probably more going on behind the scenes of the so-called adoptive period than meets the eye. So he's brought in as a Caesar, this in itself is not incredibly remarkable, it's his route to become a co-Augustus that I think is most remarkable. Because it takes place not only in the context of the Marcomannic War, but more importantly, it takes place in the context of a failed coup by the governor of Egypt, Avidius Cassius, in the year 175. Now, what we have is a rather confused telling of a rumour that reaches Cassius that Marcus Aurelius

has died on the frontier and Cassius at that point decides that he will try to seize power. Interesting in that by that point Commodus had already been named Caesar but we'll park that for one second and indeed the tragic element of Cassius's story comes out in that he discovers that Marcus Aurelius is in fact alive and kicking, and yet is too far down the path. He's already persuaded another couple of provincial governors to support his claim. down the path and refuses them and so his coup d'etat seems to be picking up pace only for Cassius to be murdered by one of his own centurions in province. Now we're not entirely sure why, maybe a sudden change of loyalty or heart but the coup comes to a crashing halt. So in actual fact there's not been terribly much damage done logistically, practically to the empire by Cassius, but it has certainly frightened Marcus Aurelius, I would say. It's certainly shown him that even with a Caesar in the wings,

his regime is more fragile than maybe it once was when Lucius Verus was alive and Marcus Aurelius had another son in the wings as a co-Caesar. So this is where we see Commodus suddenly move from a young prince, member of the royal court, to being at the very heart of the imperial setup. He's summoned actually from Rome in 175 to join his father on the Danubian front and this is when the process really starts. He's inducted into the College of Priests at that point and then once the revolt of Cassius falters and collapses we have Marcus Aurelius and Commodus engage in an imperial tour of the eastern empire including some of those provinces that were until recently in revolt and then Marcus Aurelius is very keen to promote clemency all round and so

there's no real witch hunt that follows this but, but the tour reasserts the imperial family's control over the empire as a whole. And it's following that tour that we find Commodus at the very end of 176 being given the rights of imperium and the tribunician power, making him a co-emperor in law as well as in principle. making him a co-emperor in law as well as in principle. And it's at the start of the following year, January the 1st, 177, he takes up his first consulship in that year. He's aged only 15. This is the youngest consul ever put forward at this point. So again, Commodus is a strange mix of the traditional coming from Marcus Aurelius, but the radical as well. And it's not even really Commodus is doing. It's on the so-called good guy, the so-called philosophical meditative emperor, Marcus Aurelius, who is really using his remaining son to shore up his regime at a point where it was challenged by one of his oldest comrades. It is almost as if Marcus Aurelius, compared with all those before him, the adoptive emperors,

that he is actually putting his actual son very much in line out there from a very young age in his teenage years to become his clear successor which is sometimes in contrast to the thoughts you might have if you've seen something like gladiator or only have like a rough outline of the period this idea that maybe marcus aurelius actually had doubts over the suitability of commodus to succeed him but But from what you're saying there, when you explore the evidence, it seems actually the complete opposite. Absolutely. Setting to one side even the whole idea of Cassius' revolt in Egypt, that doesn't change the fact that Aurelius had promoted Commodus to the rank of Caesar before he was six years old or something like that. I mean, it was really, really fast. He has decided that this will be his successor. And so absolutely, it is a break with this idea of the adoptive principle.

And that's really what has led me in the past to look back at all the family links and question how far this is a move that will not be popular with the senatorial conservative class, undoubtedly so. But certainly, I don't think it's quite so radical a break in the if you take the whole history as a long span but yes it's something that aurelius decided on it's not as in the films aurelius is having doubts about his wayward son but dies before he can decide what to do or dies before he can put a plan in place to secure the empire no he's quite happy to bring his son on board, maybe train him as a successor directly. But again, this is where the evidence kind of breaks off. That point where

he is made co-emperor to the point where Aurelius himself dies, we don't have a tremendous amount of information. So we don't know to what extent he is being trained in the arts of being an emperor by his father, or to what extent he is literally an insurance policy and is allowed to go about his ways as he was previously to that point. that takes place between all the various advisors and factions within the imperial court at that point on who should advise them etc suggests to me that he might not have been incredibly active in learning the craft of being an emperor in that intervening period but the evidence itself we can only speculate and just before we kind of explore those advisors following the death of marcus aurelius do we know during this earlier period whether Commodus, you mentioned how he accompanies his father to the east of the empire, is he also a figure who's accompanying his father let's say on military campaigns, let's say in the Marcomannic

wars, that he's there on the front line, he's visiting legionaries and so on? So he is with his father at the front at points, at times, he's not so constantly at the front. There's a sense that he sets up for a while at the Roman headquarter site of the city of Aquileia in northern Italy. That may be where he more commonly resided, but certainly he is not a continual presence on the front line. And this may again partly explain his reason later, his decision later, to try and cease, to try and end the Marcomannic conflict after Aurelius had died. Okay, so if we go to 180 AD, Marcus Aurelius is dead. Commodus is the new sole emperor.

What does his immediate circle look like when he ascends the throne? Who is there advising him by his side? So there are a range of individuals. There are a range of senatorial individuals. One notable figure is that Claudius Pompeianus, who is a longstanding mover and shaker within the senatorial order. He is in actual fact also married into the imperial family. He is married to Marcus Aurelius'

daughter, Lucilla. Lucilla had previously been married to Lucius Verus, but certainly with Lucius Verus' death, the daughter of the surviving emperor was allowed to remarry, and this is who she ends up united with. There are other officers such as the Praetorian prefect, the wider senatorial concilium. Dio, I think it is, tells us that one thing Marcus Aurelius did in his training of the young Commodus was essentially to expose him to the very best of advisors. We don't get too many specific identities at that point, but we have a sense, given that it's coming from these sources who are more conservative in posture, Given that it's coming from these sources who are more conservative in posture, that it's probably predominantly composed of leading senators who have advised Aurelius for much of his own reign at that point. And so what does Commodus and this team behind him at the start, what do conflict. Now this is something that does cause concern and surprise among some of his advisors apparently

although it's to what extent that is true. I mean I think really your reading of Commodus's decision to end the Marcomannic war depends very much on what you think Marcus Aurelius was intending to do. These wars had dragged on for decades at this point, and indeed we have, you know, Rome has been stabilising the northern frontier against incursions. If you read it quite liberally, you have a sense that Marcus Aurelius wants to extend the frontier, wants to annex territory beyond the northern Limes it's debatable whether that was ever his true intention but certainly whether it was or wasn't the fact that the war had dragged on for over 15 years probably makes comodus's decision not entirely unreasonable there are also a couple of other factors i think that need to be borne in mind the sources i will

say likes of dio in particular sees this very much as the playboy wanting to return to Rome. That's the rationale if you read our surviving literature. Commodus could not be bothered living in a tent and wants to get back to the imperial capital. Now looking behind that obviously hostile take, I think there are a couple potential reasons here that might explain Comenstay's thinking and decision process. The first is that he's a new emperor on his own. He's been co-emperor officially up until this point, but he's really the sole single man in the job now. He probably wouldn't want to risk the embarrassment of a military defeat should it occur very early into his reign and so i think that is

one potential consideration the other consideration that we've we've not talked about yet is the effect the damaging potential impact of the antonine plague that had been ravaging the empire you know lucius verus potentially falls to the antonine plague and brings it back with him from his campaigning against parthia it's estimated estimated that around 10% of the Empire's entire population succumbs to this pandemic. And so it's not unreasonable to think that maybe we have Commodus here recognising that his military position in the North is not so strong as some of his advisers would want him to believe.

And thus he can't afford to be waging either a war of expansion or to drag out a stalemate in the northern frontier. So this is really his first move, heading back to Rome, ending a long-term conflict that had been waged by his father. And it is a controversial decision at the time. Whether we want to analyse it from a detachment of 2,000 years and figure out that there's rationality there or not, people around him were not 100% convinced that this was the right move. And his motivations for this were questioned, it seems, at the time. So this, it feels, in a way, it stirs the apple cart right from the off with his advisors. Although he's got rid of this potential external threat,

having this peace, does this lead to him having internal threats closer to home in Rome? Yes, it does. The intervening years between his arrival in Rome and then his eventual assassination are marked by internal struggles. you have to think about the imperial court as all of these minor influential nobles trying to work together but often treating each other as opponents rather than collaborators, seeking to gain their own niches of power and influence with the emperor. And it seems to be what happens with Commodus. Now, this is heightened, I suppose, to some degree by the fact that, yes, Commodus does not seem terribly interested in the daily grind of being an emperor, the daily workload of being an emperor. And so what we find is that rather than leaning on that senatorial group that Aurelius had left behind, we find a number of named individuals

start appearing in the sources that Commodus apparently really leans on or it puts a lot of trust and faith in and all of these seem to be in some way either incredibly unpopular with the senatorial elite or out for themselves, corrupt, murderous and so pretty much from the return to Rome we see the regime almost limping from crisis to crisis or embarrassment to embarrassment with these named individuals who seem to hold a great degree of power or sway over the young emperor. Interesting. Is this the tradition of the freesmen that we hear of for instance so much in the first century AD with the likes of Nero and Claudius and so on? Yes, partially that's correct. One of the figures in particular, really the last of the influential figures over Commodus, is a freedman, Cleander, who rises to extraordinary authority, it seems, basically after agitating against other people within the court to get there. and you can tell if the sources are to be believed why this individual may have put the hackles up of

the senatorial class from the outset. He certainly doesn't have the bona fides, the background or stature or office that would allow him sway or influence over the emperor and yet Commodus seems almost infatuated with this individual. In one telling, Sauterres actually rides in Commodus' triumphal chariot into Rome alongside the emperor, which is a huge statement of support for this named individual, Sauterres, but obviously it puts a great big target on him as well from the other groups who are seeking to assert their own power within the imperial capital and it's not very long before sau terras really becomes either the catalyst or the target of a murderous plot that seems to kick off in the year 182 and this is really important because it

is a plot that includes apparently a variety of senators a variety of figures within the imperial court, up to and including the Augusta Lucilla, Commodus's own sister. And to clarify here, so this plot is not to remove Commodus, it is to remove this influential figure of Sauteris from Commodus's side. So again, it depends who we're reading here. If we're reading somebody like, say, Herodian, yes, this is what's happening. There's a plot that's coalescing because the influence of this Sauteris is too much, and people are not incredibly happy with this figure's sway. Now, we also have rather more

mysterious or nebulous accusations that Commodus himself becomes kind of embroiled as a target in this plot as well. It's not entirely clear. Certainly Commodus' response to the plot suggests that he felt personally vulnerable as well. Lucilla is, for her part, when the plot is exposed, is exiled initially and then is murdered later. A number of senators are executed for their apparent role in this conspiracy, the seditious conspiracy, and one of the senatorial advisors that I mentioned before, Lucilla's husband, Claudius Pompeianus, I feel a little bit sorry for him because he's not really implicated in anything in particular, but he has so many links and associations to all of these other plotters who do end up meeting more grisly

ends that he is forced to retire from public life. Now up until that point he has been an influential force within the imperial court and so the plot of 182 really shakes Commodus's imperial household to the core because a bunch of the old senators are executed, his sister is implicated in trying to engineer something surrounding his downfall and his brother-in-law is forced to retire. I can imagine it being an incredibly jarring experience for the young emperor. Only, you know, this is two years after he has succeeded his father and so it's not been a terribly long time to set himself up in the capital before this strange plot seems to be taking off. I mean, absolutely. And as you mentioned there, he's still quite a young figure at this time.

But come on then, Alex, does this kick him up the backside to say, okay, let's really start ruling properly? Does he get more bothered in ruling or is it the opposite? Rather more the opposite. Salteris is the first of a few of these figures. Salteris, it seems, survives

at least the initial plot that is exposed but then is put out of the way, is murdered probably on the order of the Praetorian Prefect Paternus at the time. Now Paternus as Praetorian Prefect has a lot of power, a lot of sway within the imperial court. He himself is not incredibly long-lived in that position. He is overthrown in turn by another ambitious prefect, Perennis, who has been apparently fanning flames of suspicion against Paternus that this Praetorian is far too ambitious and should be gotten rid of. And it's not clear whether he's just collateral damage for Perennis or whether there is something going on, but again it speaks to the real lack of control I think that Commodus has in personally asserting himself over his imperial court structure. These

subordinates, these officers of state, they seem to be out for each other as much as out for the emperor, and Commodus doesn't seem to be doing a terrible lot to stop it either. Perennis succeeds as praetorian prefect, and he has a relatively strong three-year period where he seems to hold a lot of sway. You have potential opponents being exiled etc. Our sources are unclear of whether he is truly corrupt from the outset or whether he's just ambitious. Dio calls him ambitious but the Historia Augusta claims that he's just corrupt from the outset and is out for himself entirely and Perennis himself, this Praetorian prefect, one of the most important paramilitary officers of the state, meets his own death following an uprising in Britain. How we get

from A to B there is slightly convoluted but certainly what we see here is that Commodus doesn't seem to have a hold on his household and there are still provincial revolts, uprisings, problems going on as well that he is failing to bothered to rule does he just almost retire to his palace and engage in this luxurious life of banquets and debauchery, is that the image we get? So we really do get the sense that he does retire from public life in as much as doing the daily grind of an emperor's job. Whether he goes from that immediately to unhinged debauchery is another question and that is probably more the input of sources like Cassius Dio who claims that Commodus's reign was

a transition from an age of gold into an age of rust and we have people like Gibbon who essentially Edward Gibbon who claims that Commodus destroyed the most happy age of human existence by his terrible reign and so you know that reputation has kind of all been embroiled with the fact that Commodus, yes, I would have no hesitation in saying I don't think he was incredibly bothered with being an emperor in terms of being a political animal. I think he'd been brought up in that household. It wasn't exactly his choice.

And it seems like he was looking for people that he could trust to take on much of the weight of the job or the mantle of that job and that's why we have these influential figures chamberlains praetorian prefects stepping up and becoming prominent within common disease regime because he is not there pulling the reins or holding all of these people in check he's essentially telling them to get on with it while he just settles himself. The story of various Praetorian prefects is absolutely fascinating. Of course, you have one of those, don't you, who plays a very prominent role in the movie Gladiator at the time of Commodus.

So it is interesting, as you highlighted there, how powerful they become in almost Commodus' absence. During these middle years then, Alex,, Alex, how does his rule progress? Do we actually know much about what Commodus does during this time where it seems like he's almost retreating from the public eye and these other figures are almost rising to the fore? So from the period between 182 and 190, I mean, it's an exaggeration to say he's absent, but certainly he's not the figure driving the events. Now, I mentioned an uprising in Britain. This is around 185. This is one of the

most significant provincial uprisings faced by Commodus as a sole emperor. It's quickly followed, apparently, by a legionary mutiny in the same province and so it's just nothing good is happening in Britain apparently and within the space of that mutiny there's allegations that the Praetorian Prefect Perennis is trying to take power for himself he's trying to put his own son in as a Caesar and this is one of the potential reasons or catalysts for Perennis's own downfall. one of the potential reasons or catalysts for Perennis' own downfall. Now another reason for that is the input of the freedman Cleander that I mentioned earlier. Now Cleander is again one of those figures that's really close to Commodus personally, he's a freedman. He is probably whispering suspicions into Commodus' ear all the time about Perennis. And so it's no surprise that when Perennis falls, it's Cleander that steps into this gap. So in terms of Cleander's period of

prominence, there are two episodes that really warrant discussion. The first is the nature of the position that Cleander himself rises to within Commodus' regime. Because if you read certain historians, modern writers as well, many don't really know quite how to classify the position that Cleander rises to. Now he's mentioned in one voice, or in one breath rather, alongside the other Praetorian prefects of the age. So there's a suggestion here that he rises to some kind of office akin to the Praetorian prefecture. Now given his position, given his social background etc, it would be very odd were he to be made a formal Praetorian prefect. Indeed we do have this suggestion, I can't remember whether it's in Dai or Herodian, that this is a point where we do have

three Praetorian prefects in office at the point and Cleander being one of them. But we actually have Dai in particular, I think, mention that Cleander takes on a different title. He assumes the title of Apugione, which is essentially like dagger bearer. And so we have this idea that he is assuming powers or authority close to the emperor concerned with the emperor's own protection but he's almost apart from the praetorian guard structure at this point as well so another layer of confusion and jumbled jurisdiction shall we say within commodus's court now cleander's rising power and prominence obviously creates enemies for him and one of those it seems is the prefect of the grain, Papirius Dionysius. Now 190 it seems or 189 into 190 is an important year for

Commodus's reign because we have tell through the sources of a grain shortage in the capital which causes rioting across the entire city. You know, the urban populace of Rome is infamous for its fickle attitude towards its patrons, and indeed if the grain runs out, the rioting usually begins immediately, and it's no different here. Now depending on who you read, certainly Dion Herodian discuss the nature of this rioting and this grain shortage. So in one telling, we have the sense that the grain shortage is engineered by cleander himself in order to destroy the popularity of commodus and thus step into power himself cleander's whole position and influence depended on the figure of commodus so i find that explanation really very difficult to swallow the other explanation comes back to this prefect of

the grain who is a personal enemy of Cleander and it suggests that Papirius basically cuts off the grain supply to the capital in order to embarrass this very influential quasi-bodyguard slash regent of Commodus and indeed the clamouring for Cleander within the city starts to pick up and it's at that point that Commodus does have to cut him loose and get rid of him because his position is untenable at that point. So it seems again Commodus is placing a lot of trust on these people but there's a lot of internal opposition and competition between these magistrates and these officials and it seems that they're trying to embarrass each other and sideline each other because Commodus doesn't have

a secure hold personally on the situation and it's after that fracas of the the grain shortage riots that we start to see potentially Commodus taking an interest finally in the year 190. But our sources take great pleasure in telling us that he kind of makes a real hatchet job of it and that this is where Commodus' quote-unquote madness really starts to appear. His madness and his attempt to take charge of the situation seem to go really hand in hand. You get words like madness and megalomania appearing now, don't you? I mean, but what are these sources? What do they depict as the key signs of this supposed madness that go hand in hand with Commodus coming back into the field almost of actually being an active Roman emperor? So there are probably three aspects to Commodus' alleged megalomania that I would draw

listeners' attention to. So the first is his intense self-identification with the figure of Hercules. He is depicted in statue busts, coins, draped with lion skins, carrying clubs. Comedic's Hercules obsession, self-identification reaches an extent that the Senate are pressured to vote him ultimately a god in the vein of hercules romanus so this shows really the extent of this emperor's self-identification with hercules now i'll come back to why i think there's maybe a little bit more rationality to that later but certainly it is given in the sources as sign one that the emperor is beginning to lose the plot sign two or the second episode that I draw attention to,

is that it's at this point that we have Commodus launching an absolute raft of games. Public games are just the order of the day. The Senate, the Equestrian Order, are compelled to attend and the emperor himself takes part. Now, whether this is using bow and arrow to kill wild animals in the arena or whether it is taking part personally in gladiatorial combat he always wins funnily enough the senate obviously loathed this idea of the emperor besmirching his dignity

by taking part in this base kind of activity now Now Cassius Dye was probably our best source for this, the lived experience of these mandatory games, in as much as he gives a very interesting little episode where he's sitting with a group of senators and Commodus approaches them, having killed wild ostriches in the arena. And he approaches the senators carrying an ostrich's head and neck ultimately he doesn't

really even say much he just wiggles it and dangles it in front of the senators rather menacingly you know as if to say this is what could happen to you now dow it's he talks about himself and some of the other senators basically having to take leaves from their laurel garlands and chew them to stop themselves dio says from laughing which may well be, but I think Dio was trying to cover up, you know, kind of a hysterical potential reaction here to the very, very open threat of murder by an emperor carrying a head of an ostrich around the arena. So the games are another facet, according to our literary sources, of comedicis losing grip on reality and indeed propriety when it comes to being an emperor. The third, potentially the most infamous, is something that I think is immortalised in the Fall of the Roman

Empire 1964 film where you have the suggestion that Commodus wants to change the name of Rome to the Colonia Commodiana ultimately and this is obviously a very bold move, and it's something that is actually attested in some of the inscriptional evidence that we have, not so much for Rome as a city itself, but we have officials like the Decurians, for example, suddenly start having to take Commodian titles within their official titles and nomenclature. So we have this sense that he is really pushing this sense of a personal identification with the city of Rome, with its people, and he's drawing that past, that legacy to himself as a figure. And for somebody

like Dio, who obviously is an arch-prosenitorial source, this is really the final straw because it is an emperor who is cavorting around like a gladiator thinks himself hercules reborn and is now trying to change the very social fabric of rome around his megalomaniac personality and that is i think proof positive for many hostile sources at least that this emperor has completely lost the plot so those are the key factors that are associated with the supposed madness megalomania of commodus. But you did hint at it earlier, Alex. I mean, what can you gather from this when you kind of look a bit deeper into these stories associated with Commodus? So I think we have to take a step back. We have to strip away some of the hostility

of our surviving sources. And I I think really when we look at the period 190 to 192 his eventual death I think we have to think about Commodus and those who are remaining around him struggling to try and figure out a way to personalize his regime for so long for the best part of a decade he's been an emperor but our sources seem to reflect the idea that it's his subordinates who are the better known individuals within at least a certain social sphere at the higher end of the spectrum. So I think what we've got here is an attempt almost by Commodus to create a personal brand of his reign, what it represents. And I think we have that in a couple of different ways. So I think if we're looking at the Hercules Romanus allegation, I think we have that in a couple of different ways. So I think if we're looking at

the Hercules Romanus allegation, I think we have an attempt absolutely to identify himself personally with the figure of Hercules. But Hercules at this point is in some ways a rather salvific figure. He's renowned as a pacifier of the West in sort of religious terms. This type of self-identification with Hercules will later be done by the Severan emperors. And indeed, self-identification with deities is not unprecedented itself. I think the speed, the intensity with which Commodus kicks it off is the point which starts to concern maybe people like Cassius Dio. The same can sort of be said, I think, for the games. I think that the games you're seeing Commodus here, who has maybe not been the most forthright emperor

during his first decade in sole power, realizing that he has to forge a connection with the common people, the plebeian class, etc. I mean, that's perhaps in itself not incredibly surprising either, given that from 182 onwards, he's had to battle off potential conspiracies and plots by ambitious senators and equestrians. It's not surprising that he's looking to maybe create a more personal link with his populace at large through something that is incredibly popular like game culture and we know

that it does provoke popularity with the lower social orders and indeed among the army so it is to some extent effective. Now the colonia comodiana allegation I can't go out on a limb and defend but I think it comes back to this idea of Commodus almost wanting to draw a line under everything that's come before and reset the clock because by this act he casts himself as a founder of a new city a new era etc so I think what we've got here is admittedly probably a fairly clumsy attempt to start the clock at zero again but I don't think it's completely without any degree of sense i think if we strip away the idea that commodus is this murderous licentious lunatic i think you can start to see a process here which although unsuccessful had some kind of point behind it at the very least

there you go it's nice to explore that and to kind of get that idea and as you highlighted there you go it was nice to explore that and to kind of get that idea and as you highlighted there you know with the games how that can lead to such popularity as an emperor as a figure staging all those games as it's kind of shown in the film gladiators so you can try and imagine actually i wonder how much popularity commodus himself did have with the everyday people of rome even if they saw him in the arena itself but ultimately as you hinted at there alex as we start to wrap up 190 just to 192 commodus doesn't last long and he doesn't have a very nice end does he no no he doesn't and he ultimately meets his end on the very final day hogmanay of 192 and depending on who you read this is either a spontaneous plot that comes out when a group of people within the court find out that they are next on the chopping block. So the figures named within this plot are the Praetorian prefect at the time, Lytus, a favoured courtesan of Commodices named Marcia, and a chamberlain known as Eclectus. and a chamberlain known as Eclectus.

Now, these figures, it seems, are sort of in the firing line according to one telling, and so they contrive a plot quickly to get rid of Commodus. And this plot comprises of an attempt to poison him, or rather multiple attempts to poison him, across the course of the day. And Dio in particular offers us a really frantic picture of the poisonings failing and the emperor getting more suspicious and a bit angrier. And so the situation is threatening to tumble out of control. And it's at that point that apparently the plotters decide to just take an executive action and they order an athlete Narcissus to enter the emperor's chamber and strangle him to death in the bath,

which is ultimately how the emperor Commodus meets his end, at the hands of a court conspiracy with some of the people absolutely closest to him, but strangled by an athlete and left in the bath in the palace. Now, the plot itself, I'm pretty happy to accept that that is how the events played out. The extent to which it is a spontaneous explosion of fear and anxiety amongst these conspirators I am less inclined to accept. I think that the way that the plot plays out and indeed what happens in the immediate aftermath when they approach Publius Helvius Pertinax who will become the next emperor and they offer him power, I think this has been a much longer conspiracy that has been waiting for its moment to strike. And I think that it's been timed, I think that it's been planned out, and I think that it's

been planned out in collaboration with other figures within the court, be they senators or somebody like Pertinax, who prior to becoming emperor himself was actually in charge of the urban cohorts within the city and so it seems fairly clear to me that there's been a lot to oust him amongst these people for some time and so what happens to commodus's legacy following his death if considering just two years before he'd been really trying to reach out and show himself in the public sphere is there now an attempt really to reverse that policy completely? Absolutely. Within the space of a few months during the reign of his short-lived admittedly successor, Hippertinax, Commodus is condemned through the acts that we

refer to as damnatio memoriae. And so his public image is condemned condemned some of his inscriptions and portraits are erased etc his legacy is entirely condemned and spoiled at this point because in a way that's understandable i mean you can't really assassinate an emperor and then sing his praises and say actually he was quite a good guy it's all good you have to i think double down and condemn him utterly which is absolutely what happens now the problem for the conspirators is that while they may have a successor in mind which is this this individual Pertinax in the year the early hours of 193 the conspirators knock on Pertinax's door and tell him that he is now ruler and Pertinax is an old soldier he's a long-term governor he's served all across the empire and in many ways he should be the ideal candidate he's a favorite of the senators and

he has had military experience with the legions and indeed the urban cohort so in some ways he's the ideal candidate and yet he's unpopular he's unpopular with the army he's un ideal candidate. And yet he's unpopular. He's unpopular with the army. He's unpopular with the Praetorian Guard. He's regarded as a bit of a stern disciplinarian. And so his regime, predicated on the condemnation of Commodus and the reassertion of senatorial authority, fails within three months. I think it's 86 days he lasts before he is assassinated by the Praetorian Guard. Then we have the rather infamous episode that Dio labels the Auction of the Empire. This is seen at the very close of the 1964 Fall of the Roman Empire film,

where you have a couple of senators bidding to give the Praetorian Guard the highest donatives that they can afford and become emperor as a result. And this is won by a senator called Didius Julianus and Didius Julianus has basically no other support apart from the guard and so he only lasts 67 days before he is overthrown and it's at that point that the governor of Upper Pannonia Lucius Septimius Severus will seize power. He will march on Rome, he will enter the capital, he will be named emperor, and the Severan dynasty will begin. Now in terms of what happens to Commodus within this, it's rather interesting because Severus is a political

chameleon. Severus comes in all fire and fury, depicting himself initially as the avenger of the murdered Pertinax, and so Commodus doesn't get a look in. He's still condemned. But later on, around the year 195, Severus appears to realise that he needs to link his new dynasty with a longer imperial tradition, because Severus is actually fighting two opponents for the throne at the same time. because Severus is actually fighting two opponents for the throne at the same time. And so he self-adopts himself and his sons, his family, into the Antonine household. And so he moves from being the avenger of the slain Pertinax to actually calling himself the son of Marcus Aurelius and the brother to Commodus. Now, in one move, Commodus's reputation is completely restored

owing to the fact that this is now a political necessity to revive and rehabilitate the last Antonine emperor. It's now a core pillar of Severan imperial propaganda and all of the Severan emperors thereafter assume the name Antoninus as one of their imperial names. So this is not just a throwaway link, this is something that Severus decides is a real political calculation. So it moves from Commodus 190 trying to assert a personal brand, 192 murdered, condemned, forgotten, legacy destroyed, 195 back in the game. He is a deified emperor and brother of the serving emperor it seems. So it's a kind of wild ride for Commodus which is rather befitting his life I think I mean absolutely that's a great note to end it on because as we mentioned at the start sometimes he's associated with being

mad and bad one of the worst Roman emperors ever to have like taken the purple but as you've highlighted there you know this is an absolute roller coaster of a ride with this emperor sometimes he's at the front other times he's taking a back seat there these other prominent figures he rises and he falls both during his actual rule and in his afterlife too absolutely and i think you know the reputation that commodus enjoys is mad and bad really comes back to the ways in which our literary sources think that a Roman emperor should behave. And Commodus fails those tests, unfortunately. He surrenders the imperative of his office to subordinates, and he enjoys interacting and performing as a gladiator.

It's comparable to Nero performing in the theatre. It's just not what an emperor does, and so he has condemned himself in their eyes by acting beneath the dignity of the imperial office. Well, Alex, it just goes to me to say thank you so much for taking the time to come on the podcast today.

Absolute pleasure. Thanks for having me again. Well, there you go. There was Dr Alex Imrie talking all things Commodus, the infamous Roman Emperor Commodus. I hope you enjoyed today's episode thank you for listening please follow this show on spotify or wherever you get

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