22nd October 180 AD was the day on which Emperor
Commodus entered Rome to begin his 12-year reign, one which Rome was all too
happy to forget when it ended.
Commodus, aged 18, became emperor on the death of his
father, Marcus Aurelius, when the two were on campaign on the Danube river, 700
miles from Rome. Marcus Aurelius had been one of the wisest emperors that Rome
ever produced, and he was the last in a line of “good” emperors that stretched
back to Trajan who had become emperor more than 80 years previously.
Commodus began his reign cautiously enough, but he then got
a taste for luxury and the high life, and he might also have suffered from some
sort of mental illness that transformed him into a brutal maniac.
After about five years he had given himself over totally to
pleasure and was quite content to let the affairs of the Empire be handled by
others. He organised massive celebrations and orgies, sparing no expense. When
the money started to run out he simply took it from other people, by having wealthy
senators executed on trumped-up charges and seizing their estates.
Megalomania took over, even to the extent of having Rome
renamed “Colonia Commodiana” and the months of the year changed to the names of
the titles he had awarded himself. Even the people of Rome were required to add
the name Commodianus to their own.
He then started to fancy himself as a gladiator, appearing
in the Colosseum in the guise of Hercules. Naturally enough he won all his
contests, although he did not kill his opponents, preferring to vent his
bloodlust on the many animals that appeared in the arena. However, on one
occasion he vented his fury on a gladiator who killed a lion with more skill
than Commodus could muster – the unfortunate gladiator was executed for daring
to be better than the emperor.
Eventually, Commodus’s excesses became too much to bear and
he was assassinated in a plot that involved his own favourite concubine. Once
he was dead Rome swiftly returned to normal with all the statues of Commodus
being torn down and his name removed from all state documents. As far as the
people and senate of Rome were concerned, Commodus had never existed.
©
John Welford
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