He changed the name of Rome to 'Colonia Lucia Annia Commodiana.' Papirius Dionysius was executed too. Others argue, however, that his father may have died of a contagious disease, possibly the plague. Content of this web page is sourced from wikipedia ( http://simple.wikipedia.org). This campaign was unique, as it presented two distinguished military leaders, Clodius Albinus and Pescennius Niger, who would later become contenders for the throne of the Roman Empire. In the second year of his reign, his sister, Lucilla, led a conspiracy to execute him. He changed the name of Rome to 'Colonia Lucia Annia Commodiana.' She realised that if she didn’t do something, then she was doomed. Gladiator painting by Jean-Leon Gerome, 1872. Contrary to preceding emperors who maintained a strong influence on the governance of the empire, Commodus always came across as disinterested in the details of the administration. However it happened, he was overpowered by the Emperor’s bodyguards, and captured alive. His assassination was believed to have been arranged by two praetorian prefects: Tarrutenius Paternus and Sextus Tigidius Perennis. In fact a lot of our knowledge of this school of philosophy comes from his writings. We're all about the quality, and support good writing and reading. It was later revealed that it was Cleander who had put the final nail in Saoterus's coffin. He was replaced by his second in command, Tigidius Perennis, who managed to cover up his own involvement in the conspiracy. But he also probably doesn’t deserve to be given sole credit for destroying the Roman Empire, as some historians claim. However, he did not stop there. The Senate was informed that his name would no longer be Commodus; he was to be called Hercules, son of Zeus. Early in 188, Cleander disposed of the current praetorian prefect, 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. Commodus (Lucius Aurelius Commodus Antoninus, 31 August 161 – 31 December 192) was Roman Emperor from 180 to 192. Of these six children, Commodus was the only son. Lucius Aurelius Commodus was born in 161 AD, to the erstwhile Roman emperor, Marcus Aurelius, in Lanuvium, near Rome. Following this consulship Marcus made his son co-Emperor. Pertinax, the military leader of the Roman army, succeeded Commodus but managed to keep the throne only for a few weeks. His justification was that the holy games of Jupiter were going on, and it was his sacred duty as Emperor to officiate. The conspirators struck on New Year’s Eve, the last day of 192 AD. Commodus beheaded the unconquered sun and replaced it with his own visage. Perennis had all the legionary legates in Britain dismissed. His assassination was believed to have been arranged by two praetorian prefects: Tarrutenius Paternus and Sextus Tigidius Perennis. It drastically alters the death of Commodus, of course. He was immediately put to death. But the real reason Commodus should not get that blame for “destroying” Rome is that it would not be until 400 years after his death that the Western Empire finally fell. [2] Herodian was writing about fifty years later, and his accuracy has been hotly debated over the years. When he was sixteen, his father declared him co-Emperor. Photo by PierreSelim CC BY-SA 3.0, Commodus married Bruttia Crispina when she was sixteen years old. Gladiators Were Chained Together, Fought in Pairs. His reduction of the denarius during his rule was the largest since the empire's fir… Often, wounded soldiers and amputees would be placed in the arena for Commodus to slay with a sword. Trajan was succeeded by Hadrian, who Trajan’s widow claimed had been adopted by Trajan on his deathbed. Meanwhile three governors in different parts of the empire went into rebellion.

So he summoned all of his friends and kinsmen, told them to remember all that he had done for them and asked them in memory of him to act as fathers to his son after he was gone. Cleander fled to Commodus, who was at Laurentum in the house of the Quinctilii, for protection, but the mob followed him calling for his head. “Borat” star Sacha Baron Cohen said on “Good Morning America” that he was concerned for actress Maria Bakalova during her scene with Rudy Giuliani.
In December he announced his intention to inaugurate the year 193 as both consul and gladiator on 1 January.
Marcus Aurelius had done a good job of clearing out any potential rivals to his son, with the result that Commodus got away with his laissez-faire approach for the first two years of his reign. Then they returned to Rome. He also taxed the Senate heavily, which made people happier. Taken as “who was worst for Rome”, though, the answer becomes simpler. Though he did live through the times he wrote about, like most contemporary writers he did have his own politics that he brought to the table. Rome’s first gladiators (from the Latin gladius, “sword”) fought in 264 BC. The emperor, however, chose to listen to his mistress, Marcia, who urged Commodus to have Cleander and his son executed. Pompeianus retired from public life.

Commodus was murdered on New Year’s Eve of 192. Commodus, Roman emperor from 177 to 192 (sole emperor after 180). They attempted to kill Commodus again by sending his wrestling partner Narcissus to strangle him. His reign signaled the turning point of Rome’s greatness--the beginning of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. In 180 AD, Marcus Aurelius died, leaving Commodus as sole Emperor of Rome. He changed the names of the calendar months after himself, renamed Rome to Colonia Lucia Annia Commodiana and erected statues of himself around the city. Despite all of this Commodus remained very popular with the people of Rome, which is why when there was a food shortage in 190 AD they didn’t blame him for it.

In 190 AD, an incident of grain shortage became the undoing of Cleander. The Romans found Commodus' naked gladiatorial combats to be scandalous and disgraceful. The prefect of Rome, a well-respected general named Pertinax, decided that this was an illegal use of the guard and sent the Vigiles Urbani (the City Watch, a combination of firemen and police) to prevent them from interfering with the rioters. On one occasion, using crescent-headed arrows, he shot off the heads of a large flock of ostriches that, although decapitated, continued to run about the arena as the crowd cheered. They poisoned Commodus’s food. A small group of conspirators, including the emperor’s chamberlain and mistress, Marcia, decided to kill him. His next advisor, Cleander, was forced to take the blame when a food shortage occurred, and, in order to appease the protesting citizens, Commodus had Cleander executed along with his wife and children and his closest friends. Cleander took power into his own hands and enriched himself by selling public offices: he sold and gave entry to the Senate, army commands, governorships, and even replacement consulships, to the highest bidder. One historian wrote, “Never did he appear in public without being stained with blood.”, Cities, Days of Week Renamed in ‘Golden Age’. Commodus fought against professional gladiators as well as wild beasts. In fact the first trouble came not from his rival, but from his wife Crispina’s. Besides changing names, he also instituted several statues of himself around the city. 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. The job was finished a little later by one of his so-called friends, a wrestler named Narcissus, who strangled him while he was in his tub bathing. We get up every morning to make your daily journey through the internet more interesting and productive. This was one of the most sacred occasions in the Roman calendar, and his plan was to commemorate it with a procession of gladiators from the Colosseum to the Imperial Palace. In 166 AD, Commodus was accorded the title of “Caesar,” an honor reserved for the children of the royal family.

After Rome was ravaged by a fire in 191 AD and needed extensive rebuilding, he decided it was no longer Rome. After those attempts on his life, Commodus spent much of his time outside Rome, mostly on the family estates at Lanuvium. Commodus as a child. Commodus continued to rule through a cabal, which now consisted 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. Commodus' statues were thrown down. At 19, according to historian and Commodus contemporary Dion Cassius, Commodus became the head of state by having his saintly father poisoned. Unsurprisingly this was the point at which Commodus’ popular support began to fade. He was also provided with the services of his father's physician, Galen, to make sure he remained healthy, as he was the only remaining son of the emperor. He ran the empire as a bandit king, seeking only to extract the maximum amount of profit he could out of it. 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). With the mob after him, Cleander scurried to Commodus in the hope of being saved from the angry mob. This news struck Commodus who immediately ordered the beheading of Perennis and the killing of Perennis’s wife and sons. His cavalier attitude toward ruling brought a series of disasters, the first of which began in 182 AD.

What was Commodus doing while his empire was falling apart? He arrived in Rome amidst much fanfare, as his effort to maintain peace was perceived as a triumph. With Perennis gone, the entire responsibility of handling government and public affairs fell into Cleander's lap. Commodus's death marked the end of the Nervan-Antonian dynasty, and the beginning of the end for the Western Roman Empire.[2]. This might even have been true.

Public offices had always informally been sold off, but Cleander raised it to an art form. This time, the plan worked, as Narcissus strangled Emperor Commodus in his bath. That made twelve names, the same as the number of months in the year. Unlike when his son had died, Marcus did grieve deeply for his wife’s death. But thought they loved the games, the Romans in general had little but contempt for the actual gladiators themselves. This event saddened Commodus greatly, as he had grown fond of Saoterus. Records indicate that as many as 11,000 animals were slaughtered on a single occasion. That’s one story of events, at least. [7] For each appearance in the arena, he charged the city of Rome a million sesterces, straining the Roman economy. Commodus' favorite mistress. The Praetorians decided to auction off the throne, and it was bought by a senator named Didius Julianus. Specifically he had decided that he was the god Hercules reborn. Commodus gave the soldiers permission to execute Perennis and his wife and sons. The long-term worst decision he made was probably to abandon the northern campaign, as that left barbarians who would ravage and eventually destroy the Western Empire. Nevertheless, none of this stopped his successor, Severus, from finally fulfilling the lifelong dream of this despot and, by official edict, declaring that Commodus was now to be worshiped as a god. Born Lucius Aurelius Commodus, he is known as a ruler who designed a major turning point in Roman history. [2]p106 Later, he decapitated a running ostrich with a specially designed dart. The next day he died, and Commodus became emperor. Playing at being a gladiator, of course. His extravagance was such that, upon his death, the Roman treasury was found to be almost empty. The movie is far from historically accurate.