Commodus Antoninus

161 – 192 · Generation XI · Roman emperor (r. AD 177–192) · Nerva–Antonine

Commodus was born at Lanuvium, near Rome, on 31 August 161, a son of the emperor Marcus Aurelius and of Faustina the Younger, daughter of the emperor Antoninus Pius. A twin brother, Titus Aurelius Fulvus Antoninus, died in 165. Commodus was named Caesar at five and spent much of his youth with his father on the Marcomannic campaigns along the Danube, and in 176 he joined him on a tour of the eastern provinces. On 1 January 177, aged fifteen, he became the youngest consul Rome had yet seen, and that year he was raised to co-emperor. He married Bruttia Crispina soon afterwards.

When Marcus died on campaign on 17 March 180, the eighteen-year-old emperor quickly came to terms with the Danubian tribes and returned to Rome, entering the city in a triumphal procession on 22 October amid high popular hopes. Administration bored him. For most of the reign the real work of government was done by favourites: first the chamberlain Saoterus, then the praetorian prefect Perennis, then the Phrygian freedman Cleander, who sold Senate seats, army commands, governorships and consulships to the highest bidder.

Conspiracy shaped the reign. In 182 his eldest sister, Lucilla, plotted with a group of senators to kill him. The attempt failed, leading senators were executed, and Lucilla was exiled to Capri and later killed. Perennis fell in the mid-180s, when soldiers from Britain accused him of scheming to make his own son emperor and Commodus let them put him to death. Cleander fell in about 190, when a food shortage in Rome was blamed on him and a crowd rioted, and Commodus, urged on by his mistress Marcia, had him beheaded. After each crisis the emperor’s rule grew more arbitrary and more violent, and the Senate came to hate him.

In his last years Commodus presented himself as Hercules, son of Jupiter, appearing with lion skin and club, and as the new founder of Rome. He renamed the city Colonia Lucia Annia Commodiana, renamed the months after his own names and titles, and gave the name Commodiana to the legions, the African grain fleet and even the Senate. He fought as a gladiator and killed wild beasts in the arena. The ancient writers ridicule these performances, yet coins and other evidence suggest that he stayed popular with the army and the ordinary people of Rome, to whom he gave repeated cash handouts. He also relaxed the persecution of Christians, a policy that tradition credits to Marcia’s influence.

In November 192 he held the Plebeian Games, shooting animals every morning and fighting as a gladiator every afternoon, and he then announced that he would enter the consulship on 1 January dressed as a gladiator. According to the ancient accounts, Marcia, the prefect Laetus and the chamberlain Eclectus found their own names on a list of people he meant to execute and struck first. On 31 December 192 Marcia poisoned his food, he vomited it up, and the conspirators sent his wrestling partner Narcissus to strangle him in his bath. The Senate declared him a public enemy and acclaimed the city prefect Pertinax, the first claimant in the Year of the Five Emperors. In 195 Septimius Severus, seeking favour with the family of Marcus Aurelius, had Commodus rehabilitated and deified. His sole reign is commonly taken to mark the end of the Pax Romana.

Place in the family

Commodus Antoninus was the younger of 2 children of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus and Faustina the Younger recorded in this archive.

Images

Bust of Commodus as a youth (Romano-Germanic Museum, Cologne) (Naughtynimitz, CC BY-SA 3.0)
Bust of Commodus, about AD 180 (J. Paul Getty Museum) (J. Paul Getty Museum, Getty Open Content Program (no known copyright restrictions))
Bronze medallion struck late in AD 192 showing Commodus in Hercules’ lion-skin headdress (Classical Numismatic Group, CC BY-SA 2.5)

One of 12 people of Nerva–Antonine (30–192) in this archive. The adoptive emperors: for four reigns the purple passed to a chosen heir rather than a born one.

Line of descent: Nerva Cocceius → Trajan Optimus → Hadrian Aelius → Antoninus Pius → Marcus Aurelius Antoninus → Commodus Antoninus.

Parents

Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121 – 180)
Faustina the Younger (130 – 175)

Siblings

Lucilla Augusta (148 – 182)

Sources

Commodus (A.D. 180–192) · De Imperatoribus Romanis (Loyola University Chicago)
Commodus · Encyclopaedia Britannica
Commodus · Wikipedia