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Updated: May 31, 2025
Who would not be apt to impute insanity to Caligula or Domitian or Caracalla or Commodus or Heliogabalus? Here were six Roman emperors, not connected in blood, nor by descent, who, each of them, possessing arbitrary power, had been so distinguished for cruelty, that nothing short of insanity could be imputed to them.
A better régime for the Dalmatians followed the peace which was made, and from that time onward Dalmatia furnished many distinguished men, who rose to high office in the empire, several, indeed, wearing the imperial purple. Lampridius notes that Commodus sometimes wore it at special solemnities.
The classical impulse was exhausted; the attempts made towards founding a new Latin bore, for the time, little fruit. Before this period of exhaustion and reaction could come to a natural end, two changes of momentous importance had overtaken the world. The imperial system broke down under Commodus.
They will catch it again when Commodus turns on his mistress Marcia; he will harry them all the more when that day comes as it is sure to. Marcia is a Christian; when he tires of her he will use her Christianity for the excuse and throw the Christians to the lions by the thousand in order to justify himself for murdering the only decent woman of his acquaintance. Sic semper tyrannus.
That a ruler of such noble character as the Roman philosopher Marcus Aurelius should have had for his son and successor a man like Commodus is one of the strange contrasts of history. The succession of Commodus, marking as it does the beginning of the decline of the great empire, may be regarded as one of the most critical moments in the existence of Rome.
That is Palus!" to recognize this Prince of Charioteers. The descriptions I had heard were enough to have told me who he was. For at even a distant sight of him I did not wonder at the tales which gave out that he was a half brother of Commodus, or Commodus in disguise.
"And are accordingly alive, not crucified!" said Galen. "The praetorian guard is well able to slaughter any thousand men, to uphold Commodus or to put Pertinax in the place of Commodus. Your thousand men would only decorate a thousand gibbets, whether Pertinax should win or lose.
I know that is true; it was told me by the steward of the bedchamber, who saw it, and who helped to dispose of the body. Commodus swore that such a creeping spy as Livius, who could be true to nobody but scribbled, scribbled, scribbled in a journal all the scandal he could learn in order to betray anybody when it suited him, was unfit to live.
The Army made Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius and Nero, the Julian Emperors; then destroyed Nero and set up Vespasian after one or two experiments. The Army chose such men as Trajan and Marcus Aurelius, and such monsters as Domitian and Commodus; the Army conquered the world, held the world and gave the world to whomsoever it pleased.
"Wherever you are," said Cicero to the exiled Marcellus, "remember that you are equally within the power of the conqueror." Part I. The Cruelty, Follies, And Murder Of Commodus. Election Of Pertinax His Attempts To Reform The State His Assassination By The Prætorian Guards.
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