|
Commodus - Roman Emperor: 177-192 A.D. -
Bronze 18mm (4.3 grams) Struck at the Roman provincial city of Philippopolis
in Thrace: 177-192 A.D.
AVT K M AVP KOMMOΔOC, Bare-headed draped bust right.
ΦIΛIIΠΠOΠOΛEITΩN, Eagle standing right on thunderbolt, head left, wreath in
beak.
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Plovdiv (Bulgarian:
Пловдив) is
the second-largest city in
Bulgaria
with a population of 380,683. Plovdiv's history spans some 6,000 years, with
traces of a Neolithic settlement dating to roughly 4000 BC. It is the
administrative center of
Plovdiv Province in southern Bulgaria and three municipalities (Plovdiv,
Maritsa and
Rodopi) and Bulgaria's
Yuzhen tsentralen planning region (NUTS II), as well as the largest and most
important city in
Northern Thrace and the wider international historical region of
Thrace. The
city is an important economic, transport, cultural and educational center.
Known in the West for most of its history by the
Greek name Philippopolis, it was originally a
Thracian
settlement before becoming a major
Roman
city. In the Middle Ages, it retained its strategic regional importance,
changing hands between the
Byzantine and
Bulgarian Empires. It came under
Ottoman rule in the 14th century. In 1878, Plovdiv was made the capital of
the autonomous Ottoman region of
Eastern Rumelia; in 1885, it became part of Bulgaria with the
unification of that region and the
Principality of Bulgaria.
Plovdiv is situated in the southern part of the Plovdiv Plain on the two
banks of the
Maritsa River. The city has historically developed on seven
syenite
hills, some of which are 250 m high. Because of these seven hills, Plovdiv is
often referred to in Bulgaria as "The City of the Seven Hills".
There are many remains preserved from
Antiquity such as the
Ancient amphitheatre, Roman odeon,
Roman Stadium, the archaeological complex Eirene and others.
Plovdiv was given various names throughout its long history. It was
originally a
Thracian settlement by the name of Eumolpias.
Philip II of Macedon conquered the area in 342-341 BC and renamed the city
Philippoupolis (Greek:
Φιλιππούπολις), of which the later Thracian
name for the city, Pulpu-deva, is a reconstructed translation. After the
Romans took control of the area, the city was named
Latin: Trimontium, meaning the
Three Hills. During the Middle Ages the city was known as Philippoupolis in
Byzantine Greek and Paldin (Пълдин) or Plavdiv (Плъвдив) in
Old Bulgarian, variations of the town's earlier
Thracian name. The city was known as Philippopolis in Western Europe well
into the early 20th century. The city was known as Filibe in
Turkish during the
Ottoman Empire.
Plovdiv has settlement traces dating from the Neolithic, roughly 4000 BC.
Archaeologists have discovered fine pottery and other objects of everyday life
from as early as the Neolithic Age, showing that in the end of the 4th
millennium B.C. there already was an established settlement there. According to
Ammianus Marcellinus, Plovdiv's written post-Bronze Age history lists it as
a Thracian
fortified settlement named Eumolpias. In 4th century BC the city was a centre of
a trade fair (called panegyreis). In 342 BC, it was conquered by
Philip II of Macedon, the father of
Alexander the Great, who renamed it "Φιλιππόπολις", Philippopolis or
"the city of Philip" in his own honour. Later, it was reconquered by the
Thracians
who called it Pulpudeva (a reconstructed translation of Philipopolis)
In 72 AD it was seized by the Roman general Terentius Varo Lukulus and was
incorporated into the
Roman
Empire, where it was called Trimontium (City of Three Hills)
and served as metropolis (capital) of the province of
Thrace. It
gained a city status in late 1st century. Trimontium was an important crossroad
for the Roman Empire and was called "The largest and most beautiful of all
cities" by Lucian.
Although it was not the capital of the Province of Thrace, the city was the
largest and most important centre in the province. In those times, the
Via
Militaris (or Via Diagonalis), the most important military road
in the Balkans,
passed through the city.
| "This [Plovdiv] is the biggest and loveliest of all cities. Its
beauty shines from faraway..." |
| Roman writer
Lucian. |
The Roman times were a period of growth and cultural excellence. The ancient
ruins tell a story of a vibrant, growing city with numerous public buildings,
shrines, baths, and theatres. The city had an advanced water system and
sewerage. It was defended with a double wall. Many of those are still
preserved and can be seen by tourists. Today only a small part of the ancient
city has been excavated.
 Lucius
Aurelius Commodus Antoninus (31 August 161 – 31 December 192) was a
Roman
Emperor who ruled from 180 to 192 (also with his father,
Marcus Aurelius, from 177 until 180). The name given here was his official
name at his accession to sole rule; see
Changes of name for earlier and later forms. His accession as emperor was
the first time a son had succeeded his father since
Titus succeeded
Vespasian
in 79. Commodus was the first emperor "born
to the purple"; i.e., born during his father's reign.
Early
life and rise to power (161–180)
Childhood
Commodus was born as Lucius Aurelius Commodus in
Lanuvium,
near
Rome, the son of the reigning emperor, Marcus Aurelius. He had an elder twin
brother, Titus Aurelius Fulvus Antoninus, who died in 165. On 12 October 166,
Commodus was made
Caesar together with his younger brother,
Marcus Annius Verus; the latter died in 169, having failed to recover from
an operation, which left Commodus as Marcus Aurelius's sole surviving son. He
was looked after by his father's physician,
Galen, in order
to keep him healthy and alive. Galen treated many of Commodus's common
illnesses.
Commodus received extensive tuition at the hands of what
Marcus Aurelius called "an abundance of good masters". The focus of Commodus's
education appears to have been intellectual, possibly at the expense of military
training.
The
Pompey connection
According to the notoriously unreliable Historia Augusta, he
is the great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandson of Triumvir
Pompey the Great through his daughter Pompeia Magna. His paternal great
grandmother Rupilia was the great granddaughter of Scribonia (daughter of Lucius
Scribonius Libo consul 16) , who was herself the great granddaughter of Pompey
the Great on both her parents side. This makes Commodus and his father Marcus
Aurelius, the only Princeps to have been directly related to the son-in-law and
rival of Triumvir Julius Caesar.
Teenage
years
Commodus is known to have been at
Carnuntum,
the headquarters of Marcus Aurelius during the
Marcomannic Wars, in 172. It was presumably there that, on 15 October 172,
he was given the victory title Germanicus in the presence of the
army.
The title suggests that Commodus was present at his father's victory over the
Marcomanni.
On 20 January 175, Commodus entered the
College of Pontiffs, the starting point of a career in public life.
In April 175,
Avidius Cassius, governor of
Syria, declared himself emperor following rumors that Marcus Aurelius had
died. Having been accepted as emperor by Syria,
Palestine
and
Egypt, Cassius carried on his rebellion even after it had become obvious
that Marcus was still alive. During the preparations for the campaign against
Cassius, the prince assumed his
toga virilis on the
Danubian front
on 7 July 175, thus formally entering
adulthood. Cassius, however, was killed by one of his
centurions
before the campaign against him could begin.
Commodus subsequently accompanied his father on a lengthy
trip to the eastern provinces, during which he visited
Antioch. The
emperor and his son then traveled to
Athens, where
they were initiated into the
Eleusinian mysteries. They then returned to Rome in the
autumn of 176.
Joint
rule with father
Marcus Aurelius was the first emperor since
Vespasian
to have a son of his own, and though he himself was the fifth in the line of the
so-called
Five Good Emperors who had each adopted their successor, it seems to have
been his firm intention that Commodus should be his heir. On 27 November 176,
Marcus Aurelius granted Commodus rank of
Imperator,
and in the middle of 177, the title
Augustus, giving his son the same status as his own and formally sharing
power. On 23 December of the same year, the two Augusti celebrated a joint
triumph, and Commodus was given
tribunician
power. On 1 January 177, Commodus became
consul for the
first time, which made him, aged 15, the youngest consul in Roman history up to
that time. He subsequently married
Bruttia Crispina before accompanying his father to the Danubian front once
more in 178, where Marcus Aurelius died on 17 March 180, leaving the 19-year-old
Commodus sole emperor.
Sole
reign (180–192)
Whereas the reign of
Marcus Aurelius had been marked by almost continuous warfare, even though he
preferred books over war, that of Commodus was comparatively peaceful in the
military sense but was marked by political strife and the increasingly arbitrary
and capricious behaviour of the emperor himself. In the view of
Dio Cassius, a contemporary observer, his accession marked the descent "from
a kingdom of gold to one of rust and iron"[1]—a
famous comment which has led some historians, notably
Edward Gibbon, to take Commodus's reign as the beginning of the
decline of the Roman Empire. Despite his notoriety, and considering the
importance of his reign, Commodus's years in power are not well chronicled. The
principal surviving literary sources are Dio Cassius (a contemporary and
sometimes first-hand observer, but for this reign, only transmitted in fragments
and abbreviations),
Herodian
and the
Historia Augusta (untrustworthy for its character as a work of
literature rather than history, with elements of fiction embedded within its
biographies; in the case of Commodus, it may well be embroidering upon what the
author found in reasonably good contemporary sources).
Commodus remained with the Danube armies for only a short
time before negotiating a peace treaty with the Danubian tribes. He then
returned to Rome and celebrated a triumph for the conclusion of the wars on 22
October 180. Unlike the preceding Emperors
Trajan,
Hadrian,
Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius, he seems to have had little interest in
the business of administration and tended throughout his reign to leave the
practical running of the state to a succession of favourites, beginning at this
time with
Saoterus, a freedman from
Nicomedia
who had become his
chamberlain. Dissatisfaction with this state of affairs would lead to a
series of conspiracies and attempted coups, which in turn eventually provoked
Commodus to take charge of affairs, which he did in an increasingly dictatorial
manner. Nevertheless, though the
senatorial order came to hate and fear him, the evidence suggests that he
remained popular with the army and the common people for much of his reign, not
least because of his lavish shows of largesse (recorded on his coinage) and
because he staged and took part in spectacular
gladiatorial
combats. One of the ways he paid for his donatives and mass entertainments was
to tax the senatorial order, and on many inscriptions, the traditional order of
the two nominal powers of the state, the Senate and People (Senatus
Populusque Romanus) is provocatively reversed (Populus Senatusque...).
The
conspiracies of 182
At the outset of his reign, Commodus, aged 19, inherited many
of his father's senior advisers, notably
Tiberius Claudius Pompeianus (the second husband of Commodus's sister
Lucilla), his
father-in-law
Gaius Bruttius Praesens,
Vitrasius Pollio, and
Aufidius Victorinus, who was
Prefect of the City of Rome. He also had five surviving sisters, all of them
with husbands who were potential rivals. Four of his sisters were considerably
older than he; the eldest, Lucilla, held the rank of
Augusta as the widow of her first husband,
Lucius
Verus.
The first crisis of the reign came in 182, when Lucilla
engineered a conspiracy against her brother. Her motive is alleged to have been
envy of the
Empress Crispina. Her husband, Pompeianus, was not involved, but two men
alleged to have been her lovers,
Marcus Ummidius Quadratus (the consul of 167, who was also her first cousin)
and
Appius Claudius Quintianus, attempted to murder Commodus as he entered the
theatre. They bungled the job and were seized by the emperor's bodyguard.
Quadratus and Quintianus were executed; Lucilla was exiled to
Capri and later
killed. Pompeianus retired from public life. One of the two
praetorian prefects,
Tarrutenius Paternus, had actually been involved in the conspiracy but was
not detected at this time, and in the aftermath, he and his colleague
Sextus Tigidius Perennis were able to arrange for the murder of Saoterus,
the hated chamberlain.
Commodus took the loss of Saoterus badly, and Perennis now
seized the chance to advance himself by implicating Paternus in a second
conspiracy, one apparently led by
Publius Salvius Julianus, who was the son of the jurist
Salvius Julianus and was betrothed to Paternus's daughter. Salvius and
Paternus were executed along with a number of other prominent consulars and
senators.
Didius Julianus, the future emperor, a relative of Salvius Julianus, was
dismissed from the governorship of
Germania Inferior. Perennis took over the reins of government and Commodus
found a new chamberlain and favourite in
Cleander, a
Phrygian
freedman
who had married one of the emperor's mistresses, Demostratia. Cleander was in
fact the person who had murdered Saoterus. After those attempts on his life,
Commodus spent much of his time outside Rome, mostly on the family estates at
Lanuvium. Though physically strong, he was mentally lazy, and his chief interest
was in sport: taking part in
horse
racing,
chariot racing, and combats with beasts and men, mostly in private but also
on occasion in public.
Dacia
and Britain
Commodus was inaugurated in 183 as consul with Aufidius
Victorinus for a colleague and assumed the title
Pius. War broke
out in Dacia: few
details are available, but it appears two future contenders for the throne,
Clodius Albinus and
Pescennius Niger, both distinguished themselves in the campaign. Also, in
Britain in 184, the governor
Ulpius Marcellus re-advanced the Roman frontier northward to the
Antonine Wall, but the
legionaries revolted against his harsh discipline and acclaimed another
legate, Priscus, as emperor. Priscus refused to accept their acclamations, but
Perennis had all the legionary
legates in
Britain
cashiered. On
15 October
184 at the
Capitoline Games, a
Cynic philosopher
publicly denounced Perennis before Commodus, who was watching, but was
immediately put to death. According to Dio Cassius, Perennis, though ruthless
and ambitious, was not personally corrupt and generally administered the state
well.[2]
However, the following year, a detachment of soldiers from Britain (they had
been drafted to
Italy to suppress brigands) also denounced Perennis to the emperor as
plotting to make his own son emperor (they had been enabled to do so by Cleander,
who was seeking to dispose of his rival), and Commodus gave them permission to
execute him as well as his wife and sons. The fall of Perennis brought a new
spate of executions: Aufidius Victorinus committed suicide. Ulpius Marcellus was
replaced as
governor of Britain by
Pertinax;
brought to Rome and tried for treason, Marcellus narrowly escaped death.
Cleander's
zenith and fall (185–190)
Cleander proceeded to concentrate power in his own hands and
to enrich himself by becoming responsible for all public offices: he sold and
bestowed entry to the Senate, army commands,
governorships and, increasingly, even the
suffect consulships to the highest bidder. Unrest around the empire
increased, with large numbers of army deserters causing trouble in
Gaul and
Germany.
Pescennius Niger mopped up the deserters in Gaul in a military campaign, and a
revolt in
Brittany was put down by two
legions
brought over from Britain. In 187, one of the leaders of the deserters, Maternus,
came from Gaul intending to assassinate Commodus at the Festival of the Great
Goddess in March, but he was betrayed and executed. In the same year,
Pertinax
unmasked a conspiracy by two enemies of Cleander—Antistius
Burrus (one of Commodus's brothers-in-law) and Arrius Antoninus. As a
result, Commodus appeared even more rarely in public, preferring to live on his
estates. Early in 188, Cleander disposed of the current praetorian prefect,
Atilius Aebutianus, and himself took over supreme command of the Praetorians
at the new rank of a pugione ("dagger-bearer") with two praetorian
prefects subordinate to him. Now at the zenith of his power, Cleander continued
to sell public offices as his private business. The climax came in the year 190,
which had 25 suffect consuls—a record in the 1,000-year history of the Roman
consulship—all appointed by Cleander (they included the future Emperor
Septimius Severus).
In the spring of 190, Rome was afflicted by a food shortage,
for which the praefectus annonae
Papirius Dionysius, the official actually in charge of the
grain supply, contrived to lay the blame on Cleander. At the end of June, a
mob demonstrated against Cleander during a horse race in the
Circus Maximus: he sent the praetorian guard to put down the disturbances,
but Pertinax, who was now City Prefect of Rome, dispatched the
Vigiles Urbani to oppose them. Cleander fled to Commodus, who was at
Laurentum
in the house of the
Quintili, for protection, but the mob followed him calling for his head. At
the urging of his mistress
Marcia, Commodus had Cleander beheaded and his son killed. Other victims at
this time were the praetorian prefect Julius Julianus, Commodus's aunt Annia
Fundania Faustina, and his brother-in-law Mamertinus. Papirius Dionysius was
executed too. The emperor now changed his name to Lucius Aelius Aurelius
Commodus and, at 29, took over more of the reins of power, though he continued
to rule through a cabal consisting of Marcia, his new chamberlain Eclectus, and
the new praetorian prefect
Quintus Aemilius Laetus, who about this time also had many Christians freed
from working in the mines in
Sardinia.
Marcia, the widow of Quadratus, who had been executed in 192, is alleged to have
been a Christian.
A
new order (190–192)
In opposition to the Senate, in his pronouncements and
iconography, Commodus had always laid stress on his unique status as a
source of god-like power, liberality and physical prowess. Innumerable statues
around the empire were set up portraying him in the guise of
Hercules,
reinforcing the image of him as a demigod, a physical giant, a protector and a
battler against beasts and men (see "Commodus and Hercules" and "Commodus the
Gladiator" below). Moreover, as Hercules, he could claim to be the son of
Jupiter, the
representative of the supreme god of the Roman
pantheon. These tendencies now increased to
megalomaniac proportions. Far from celebrating his descent from Marcus
Aurelius, the actual source of his power, he stressed his own personal
uniqueness as the bringer of a new order, seeking to re-cast the empire in his
own image.
During 191, the city of Rome was extensively damaged by a
fire that raged for several days, during which many public buildings including
the Temple of Pax, the
Temple of Vesta and parts of the imperial palace were destroyed.
Perhaps seeing this as an opportunity, early in 192 Commodus,
declaring himself the new
Romulus, ritually re-founded Rome, renaming the city Colonia Lucia Annia
Commodiana. All the months of the year were renamed to correspond exactly
with his (now twelve) names: Lucius, Aelius, Aurelius,
Commodus, Augustus, Herculeus, Romanus,
Exsuperatorius, Amazonius, Invictus, Felix, Pius.
The legions were renamed Commodianae, the fleet which imported grain from
Africa was termed Alexandria Commodiana Togata, the Senate was
entitled the Commodian Fortunate Senate, his palace and the Roman people
themselves were all given the name Commodianus, and the day on which
these reforms were decreed was to be called Dies Commodianus.[3]
Thus he presented himself as the fountainhead of the Empire and Roman life and
religion. He also had the head of the
Colossus of Nero adjacent to the
Colosseum
replaced with his own portrait, gave it a club and placed a
bronze
lion at its feet to
make it look like Hercules, and added an inscription boasting of being "the only
left-handed fighter to conquer twelve times one thousand men".[4]
Character
and physical prowess
Character
and motivations
Dio Cassius, a first-hand witness who had no known reason to
defend Commodus, describes him as "not naturally wicked but, on the contrary, as
guileless as any man that ever lived. His great simplicity, however, together
with his cowardice, made him the slave of his companions, and it was through
them that he at first, out of ignorance, missed the better life and then was led
on into lustful and cruel habits, which soon became second nature."[5]
His recorded actions do tend to show a rejection of his father’s policies, his
father’s advisers, and especially his father’s austere lifestyle, and an
alienation from the surviving members of his family. It seems likely that he was
brought up in an atmosphere of
Stoic
asceticism,
which he rejected entirely upon his accession to sole rule. After repeated
attempts on Commodus' life,
Roman citizens were often killed for raising his ire. One such notable event
was the attempted extermination of the house of the Quintili. Condianus and
Maximus were executed on the pretext that, while they weren't implicated in any
plots, their wealth and talent would make them unhappy with the current state of
affairs.[6]
Changes
of name
On his accession as sole ruler, Commodus added the name
Antoninus to his official nomenclature. In October 180 he changed his
praenomen
from Lucius to Marcus, presumably in honour of his father. He later took the
title of Felix in 185. In 191 he restored his praenomen to Lucius
and added the family name Aelius, apparently linking himself to Hadrian and
Hadrian's adopted son
Lucius Aelius Caesar, whose original name was also Commodus. Later that year
he had dropped Antoninus and adopted as his full style Lucius Aelius
Aurelius Commodus Augustus Herculeus Romanus Exsuperatorius Amazonius Invictus
Felix Pius (the order of some of these titles varies in the sources).
Exsuperatorius (the supreme) was a title given to Jupiter, and Amazonius
identified him again with Hercules.
An inscribed altar from
Dura-Europos on the Euphrates shows that Commodus's titles and the renaming
of the months were disseminated to the furthest reaches of the Empire; moreover,
that even auxiliary military units received the title Commodiana, and that
Commodus claimed two additional titles: Pacator Orbis (pacifier of the
world) and Dominus Noster (Our Lord). The latter eventually would be used
as a conventional title by Roman Emperors, starting about a century later, but
Commodus seems to have been the first to assume it.[7]
Commodus
and Hercules
Disdaining the more philosophic inclinations of his father,
Commodus was extremely proud of his physical prowess. He was generally
acknowledged to be extremely handsome. As mentioned above, he ordered many
statues to be made showing him dressed as Hercules with a lion's hide and a
club. He thought of himself as the reincarnation of Hercules, frequently
emulating the legendary hero's feats by appearing in the arena to fight a
variety of wild animals. He was left-handed, and very proud of the fact. Cassius
Dio and the writers of the
Augustan History say that Commodus was a skilled archer, who could shoot the
heads off
ostriches in full gallop, and kill a
panther as it attacked a victim in the arena.
Commodus
the gladiator
The emperor also had a passion for gladiatorial combat, which
he took so far as to take to the
arena himself,
dressed as a gladiator. The Romans found Commodus' naked gladiatorial combats to
be scandalous and disgraceful.[8]
It was rumoured that he was actually the son, not of Marcus, but of a gladiator
whom his mother Faustina had taken as a lover at the coastal resort of
Caieta.[9]
In the arena, Commodus always won since his opponents always submitted to the
emperor. Thus, these public fights would not end in a death. Privately, it was
his custom to slay his practice opponents.[10]
For each appearance in the arena, he charged the city of Rome a million
sesterces,
straining the Roman economy.
Commodus raised the ire of many military officials in Rome
for his Hercules persona in the arena. Often, wounded soldiers and amputees
would be placed in the arena for Commodus to slay with a sword. Commodus'
eccentric behaviour would not stop there. Citizens of Rome missing their feet
through accident or illness were taken to the arena, where they were tethered
together for Commodus to club to death while pretending they were giants.[11]
These acts may have contributed to his assassination.
Commodus was also known for fighting exotic animals in the
arena, often to the horror of the Roman people. According to Gibbon, Commodus
once killed 100 lions in a single day.[12]
Later, he decapitated a running ostrich with a specially designed dart[13]
and afterwards carried the bleeding head of the dead bird and his sword over to
the section where the Senators sat and gesticulated as though they were next.[14]
On another occasion, Commodus killed three
elephants
on the floor of the arena by himself.[15]
Finally, Commodus killed a
giraffe which
was considered to be a strange and helpless beast.[16]
The
end of the reign (192)
In November 192, Commodus held Plebian Games in which he shot
hundreds of animals with arrows and javelins every morning, and fought as a
gladiator every afternoon, naturally winning all the bouts. In December he
announced his intention to inaugurate the year 193 as both consul and gladiator
on 1 January.
At this point, the prefect Laetus formed a conspiracy with
Eclectus to supplant Commodus with Pertinax, taking Marcia into their
confidence. On 31 December Marcia poisoned his food, but he vomited up the
poison and the conspirators therefore sent the wrestler
Narcissus to strangle him in his bath. Upon his death, the Senate declared
him a public enemy (a de facto
damnatio memoriae) and restored the original name to the city of Rome
and its institutions. Commodus' statues were thrown down. His body was buried in
the
Mausoleum of Hadrian. However, in 195, the emperor
Septimius Severus, trying to gain favour with the family of Marcus Aurelius,
rehabilitated Commodus's memory and had the Senate deify him.
Commodus was succeeded by
Pertinax,
whose reign was short lived, being the first to fall victim to the
Year of the Five Emperors. Commodus's death marked the end of the
Nervan-Antonian dynasty.
Commodus
in popular culture
Film
Both films are fictional works and do not depict actual
history.
Other
-
British adventure writer Talbot Mundy's novel Caesar
Dies deals with Commodus' murder and events leading up to it.
-
The video game
Colosseum: Road to Freedom included Commodus as an opponent in the
Colosseum.
-
Along with other contemporary figures, Commodus also
features prominently in the historically authentic
MMORPG
Roma
Victor, which is set in the 180s.
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