Commodus
- a Roman cognomen; so L. Aelius Aurelius Commodus, Roman emperor, Lampr. Commod. 1 sq.; Eutr. 8, 15 al.—Hence,
- 1 Commŏdĭā-nus, a, um, adj., of or pertaining to Commodus: horti, Lampr. Commod. 8: thermae, Spart. Nigid. 6 al.—
- 2 Commŏ-dĭus, a, um, adj., the same: Nonae, Lampr. Commod. 12; cf. id. ib. 11.—
- 3 Commŏ-dus, a, um, adj., the same: mensis, i. e. August, which Commodus wished to name after himself, Lampr. Commod. 11.
the name of a family of the Ceionii under the emperors.
1. L. Ceionius Commodus, appears in the Fasti as consul under Vespasian, A. D. 78.
2. Ceionius Commodus, who according to some was named also Verus, according to others L. Aurelius, according to many Annius, descended from a noble family of Etruria or Faventia (Spartian. Ael. Ver. 2), was the father of
3. L. Ceionius Commodus, otherwise called L. Aurelius Verus, who was adopted by Hadrian when that emperor, feeling that his health was sinking under the attacks of protracted disease, deemed it expedient to select an assistant and successor. The new prince from that time forward, as we infer from inscriptions and Fasti, laid aside his former appellations, and, passing into the gens Aelia, was styled L. Aelius Verus * Spartianus in several passages gives him the name of Verus and so Hadrian (ap. Vopisc. Saturn. 100.8); but Cardinal Noris rejects Verus, because it does not appear in inscriptions and Fasti. Caesar, being the first individual on whom the title of Caesar was bestowed to indicate the next heir to the imperial throne. Of the early life of Aelius Caesar we know nothing except that he attracted the attention and gained the favour of Hadrian by his personal beauty and literary accomplishments, although the son-in-law of Nigrinus, who was put to death as a traitor. The precise date of his adoption is a disputed point among chronologers (see Tillemont and Eckhel), some, on the authority of Spartianus, declaring for A. D. 135; while others with greater probability conclude, from inscriptions and coins, that it took place the year following. He is set down in the Fasti as consul for A. D. 136, under the name of Ceionius Commodus, which seems to prove that the ceremonies of adoption had not at all events been completed at the commencement of that year; while on the coins of his second consulship, which belongs to A. D. 137, we find him designated as L. Aelius Caesar, and invested with the tribunicia potestas. Soon after his elevation, he was nominated governor of Pannonia, returned from his province in the course of 137, died suddenly on the 1st of January, 138, and was interred in the mausoleum of Hadrian.
Aelius Caesar, according to the testimony of his biographer, Spartianus, was a man of comely features, graceful bearing, and noble aspect, but in all other respects deeply stamped with the impress of mediocrity. He displayed moderate abilities as a statesman, governed his province respectably, was considered a tolerably good general, and although somewhat addicted to the pleasures of the table and other luxurious indulgences, maintained a decent character in his private life and social relations. His health was so wretched, that Hadrian is said to have speedily repented of the choice he had made, declaring that he had leaned for support upon a falling wall, and had thrown away the large sums lavished on the soldiers and people in largesses and shows in honour of the adoption. Aelius Caesar left behind him one daughter, Fabia, and one son, namely
4. L. Ceionius Commodus, who was born at Rome on the 15th of December, A. D. 130. Upon the adoption of his father by Hadrian, he passed into the gens Aelia, and was entitled L. Ceionius Aelius Aurelius Commodus. Again, after the death of his father, he was, in pursuance of the command of Hadrian, adopted, along with M. Aurelius, by Antoninus Pius on the 25th of February, A. D. 138, and thus became L. Ceionius Aelius Aurelius Commodus Antoninus. During the lifetime of Pius he enjoyed no peculiar distinction except the appellation filius Augusti; in 156 he was quaestor, and in the year following consul, an honour which he enjoyed for a second time, along with his brother by adoption, in 161. After the death of Antoninus Pius, which took place in March, 161, he was invested with the titles of Caesar and Augustus, and by the favour of the new sovereign admitted to a full participation in all the imperial dignities. At the same time, M. Aurelius transferred to him the name of Verus, which he had himself borne up to this time, and the designation of Commodus being altogether dropped, the younger of the two Augusti was addressed as the emperor L. Aurelius Verus. His journey to the East; his conduct during the campaign against the Parthians; his marriage with Lucilla, the daughter of M. Aurelius; his return to Rome; the joint triumph of the two princes; their expedition into Germany, and the sudden death of Verus at Altinum in the country of the Veneti, towards the close of A. D. 169, in the 39th or 40th year of his age and the 9th of his reign, are fully detailed in the biography of M. Aurelius, to which the reader is referred.
It may be remarked, that there is some question as to the various names enumerated above. In opposition to the clear and explicit testimony of Spartianus, Lampridius, and Capitolinus, it has been doubted whether he was ever called Antoninus, because it never appears upon any public monument of unquestionable authority. But if we suppose it to have been assumed, as appears most natural, at the period of his adoption by Pius, and dropped after his elevation to the purple, the difficulty will be in a great measure removed, although it must be confessed, that the Augustan historians represent him as having received the designations of Antoninus and Verus at the same time from M. Aurelius.
(D. C. 69.17, 20, 21, 71.1, &c.; Spartian. Hadrian. 23, Ael. Ver.; Capitolin. Ver. Imp. Anton. Pius, 4, M. Aurel. 4, 5, 7, &c.) [W.R]
son of M. Aurelius and the younger Faustina (see genealogical table prefixed to Antoninus Pius), was born at Lanuvium on the last day of August, A. D. 161, a few months after the death of Antoninus Pius, and this was the first of the Roman emperors to whom the title of Porphyrogenitus could be correctly applied. Faustina at the same time gave birth to a twin son, known as Antoninus Geminus, who died when four years old. The nurture and education of Commodus were watched and superintended from infancy with anxious care; and from a very early age he was surrounded with the most distinguished preceptors in the various departments of general literature, science, and philosophy. The honours heaped upon the royal youth as he advanced towards manhood have been accurately chronicled by his biographers. He received the appellation of Caesar along with his younger brother Annius Veras on the 12th of October, A. D. 166, at the time when M. Aurelius and L. Verus celebrated their triumph over the Partians; he was styled Germanicus on the 15th of October, 172; in 175, on the 20th of January, he was admitted a member of all the sacerdotal colleges; on the 19th of May he left the city, having been summoned in all haste to Germany in consequence of the news which had arrived from Syria of the rebellion of Avidius Cassius; on the 7th of July he was invested with the manly gown, proclaimed Princeps Juxentutis, and nominated consul-elect; he then accompanied his father to the East, and, during his absence from Rome, Sarmaticus was added to his other titles; on the 27th of November, 176, he was saluted Imperator ; on the 23rd of December, he shared in,the triumph celebrated over the Germans, and was assumed as colleague in the tribunician power; on the 1st of January, 177, he entered on his first consulship; in the same year he married Bruttia Crispina, daughter of Bruttius Praesens, was hailed as Augustus and Pater Patriae, and thus at the age of 16 was admitted to a full participation in all the imperial dignities except the chief pontificate, which, according to the principle maintained inviolate until the reign of Balbinus and Pupienus [Balbinus], could be held by one individual only. On the 5th of August he set forth to take part in the war then raging on the Upper Danube, which, as is mentioned elsewhere [M. Aurelius], was prosecated with signal success until the death of M. Aurelius, on the 17th of March, 180.
Impatient of hardship and eager to indulge without restraint in the pleasures of the capital, Commodus, disregarding alike the last injunctions of his sire and the earnest advice of the trusty counsellors to whose care he had been consigned, concluded a hasty and therefore uncertain peace with the barbarians, who in their depressed and enfeebled condition might by a vigorous effort have been crushed for ever. In autumn he reached Rome, where his authority was as fully and freely acknowledged by the senate, the praetorians, and the people, as it had been by the legions which he commanded in person and the armies of the distant provinces. No prince ever commenced a career of power under fairer auspices. The love and veneration entertained by men of every condition for the father had descended like an inheritance on the son, and although some who knew him well and had marked his boyhood might whisper distrust and fear, such murmurs were drowned by the general acclamations which greeted his first appearance as emperor. Nor were the hopes of men for a while disappointed. Grave and calculating statesmen might feel displeasure and alarm at the reckless profusion which characterised the very commencement of the new reign; but since a large portion of the sums squandered was lavished upon the soldiers and the people, the lower orders at least of the community were enthusiastic in their attachment to the new ruler. This state of things did not endure long. A formidable plot against his life was organised (A. D. 183) by his sister Lucilla, jealous, it was believed, of the superior influence and position of Crispina; but the scheme failed in consequence of the awkwardness of the assassin, who, instead of dealing the fatal blow at the proper moment, put the prince upon his guard by exclaiming as he rushed forward, "The senate sends thee this." The event seems to have awakened the slumbering ferocity of a temper which now burst forth with frightful vehemence, and raging from that time forward without controul, especially against the members of that body in which the conspiracy was said to have originated, rendered the remainder of his life an unbroken tissue of sanguinary excesses. Every pretext was seized for the exhibition of the most savage cruelty; false accusations, vague suspicions, great wealth, high birth, distinguished learning, or any conspicuous virtue, were sufficient to point out and doom his victims, long lists of whom have been preserved by Lampridius, including nearly all who had risen to fame and fortune under M. Aurelius, with the exception of Pertinax, Pompeianus, and Victorinus. [Pertinax; Pompeianus; Victorinus.] All other passions were indulged with the same freedom as the thirst for blood. Resigning the reins of government into the hands of the various favourites who followed each other in rapid succession [see Perennis; Cleander; Laetus; Eclectus], he abandoned himself without interruption to the most shameless and beastly debauchery. But while devouring in gluttony the resources of the empire and wallowing in every description of sensual fifth, he was at the same time the slave of the most childish vanity, and sought for popular applause with indefatigable activity. He disdained not to dance, to sing, to play the charioteer and the buffoon, to disguise himself as a pedlar or a horse-dealer, and to essay his skill in the practical pursuits of the humble artizan. Frequently he would appear and officiate as a sacrificing priest, and eagerly assisted in all the orgies of foreign superstition, celebrating the rites of Isis, of Anubis, of Serapis, or of Mithra, in all their folly and all their horror. His pride and boast, however, was his skill in the use of martial weapons. This he sought not to display against the enemies of his country in the field, but he fought as a gladiator upwards of seven hundred times, and slew many thousands of wild beasts in the amphitheatre with bow and spear. Other emperors had sought or accepted the compliment of having one month named after themselves, but Commodus decreed that the whole twelve should be designated by the epithets and titles which he had at different periods assumed, and that they should be arranged and enumerated in the following order :--Amazonius, Invictus, Felix, Pius, Lucius, Aelius, Aurelius, Commodus, Augustus, Herculeus, Romanus, Exsuperatorius, ordaining also that the happy epoch during which he had sojourned on earth should be distinguished as Seculum aureum Commodianum, the nation as Commodiana, the senate as Commodianus, the armies as Commodiani, and the eternal city itself as Colonia Commodiana. At length the miserable craving could be no longer appeased by the homage and flatteries which a more mortal might claim. Long ere this, indeed, the Greeks had been wont to compare their rulers, both domestic and foreign, to deities, and the Romans had sometimes delicately hinted at some such resemblance by the devices stamped on the reverse of the coins of their Augusti. But as yet no inscription had appeared openly ascribing divine attributes to living princes, nor had any symbol appeared on their medals which could openly and directly convey such impious meaning. It was left for Commodus to break through these decent restrictions; his exploits in the slaughter of wild beasts suggested an analogy with the Tirynathian hero; he demanded that he should be worshipped as Hercules, and hence from the year 191 we find a multitude of coins on which he is represented in the attire of the immortal son of Alcmena, with the epigraph of Hercules Commodianus or Hercules Romanus. His statues also, we are told by the historians of the day, were clad in the appropriate robes; sacrifices were publicly offered as to a present God; when he went abroad the lion's hide and other insignia were borne before him; and, to crown the whole, a number of unhappy wretches were inclosed in cases terminating in serpent-tails, and these he slaughtered with his club, as if they had been the giants warring against heaven.
After having escaped many plots provoked by atrocious tyranny, he at length cane to a fitting end. He had a mistress named Marcia, to whom he was deeply attached, and whom he especially loved to behold equipped as an Amazon. Hence the epithet Amazonius was frequently assumed by himself: the name Amazonius, as we have already seen, was attached to the first month, and he displayed his own person in the amphitheatre arrayed in the Amazonian garb. The first of January, 193, was to have been signalized by a spectacle which would have thrown into the shade the insults previously heaped upon the senate and the people, for Commodus had determined to put to death the two consuls-elect, Q. Sosius Falco and C. Julius Erucius Clarus, and to come forth himself as consul at the opening of the year, not marching in robes of state from the palace to the capitol at the head of the senate, but in the uniform of a secutor, followed by a band of gladiators issuing from their training-school. This project he communicated to Marcia, who earnestly implored him to abandon a design so fraught with disgrace and danger, and her remonstrances were warmly seconded by Laetus and Eclectus, the one praefect of the praetorians, the other imperial chamberlain. These counsellors were dismissed with wrath from the presence of the prince, who retired to indulge in his wanted siesta, having previously inscribed on his tablets a long catalogue of persons who were to be put to death that night, the names of Marcia, Laetus, and Eclectus appearing at the head of the list. This document was found by a favourite child, who entered the apartment while Commodus was asleep, and was carried by him in sport to Marcia, who at once perceived its import. She immediately communicated the discovery to Laetus and Eclectus. The danger was imminent, and, unless promptly met, inevitable. Their plans were quickly matured and quickly executed. That evening poison was administered, and its operation proving so slow as to excite apprehensions of its efficacy, Narcissus, a celebrated athlete, was introduced, and by him Commodus was strangled on the night of December the 31st, A. D. 192, in the thirty-second year of his age and the thirteenth of his reign. When the news of his death, at first cautiously attributed to apoplexy, was spread abroad, the intelligence diffused universal joy among all ranks except the guards, who had been permitted to revel in indolence and luxury and could scarcely expect again to find a master so indulgent and liberal. When his successor, Pertinax [Pertinax], repaired next morning before daylight to the senate, that venerable body, while greeting their new sovereign, poured forth a string of curses upon the dead tyrant in a sort of strange chaunt, the words of which have been preserved by Lampridius, declared him a public enemy, and, being unable to vent their rage upon the living man, begged that his body might be dragged, like that of a criminal, through the streets with a hook, and cast into the Tiber,--a request with which Pertinax, to his credit, refused to comply, and the corpse was decently interred in the mausoleum of Hadrian.
We seldom meet in history with a character which inspires such pure and unmixed detestation as that of Commodus. While his vices and crimes were inexpressibly revolting, they were rendered if possible more loathsome by his contemptible meanness and weakness. The most grinding oppression was combined with the most childish vanity, the most savage cruelty with the most dastardly cowardice. He hated, persecuted, and massacred the senate and the nobles, and at the same time eagerly drank in their most disgusting flatteries. He slew thousands and tens of thousands of wild beasts, but his arrows were shot and his darts were hurled from behind a screen of network which protected his person from the possibility of risk. He butchered hundreds of his fellow-men in gladiatorial combats; but while he was clad in the impenetrable armour and wielded the heavy blade of a sector, his antagonists had no defences except weapons of lead or tin; and when as, Hercules, he crushed with his club the unhappy creatures dressed up to resemble the monstrous progeny of Earth, the rocks which they hurled at their assailant were formed of sponge. After examining the ample records preserved of his career, we shall be unable to find a trace of one generous action or one kindly feeling, to discern a single ray of human sympathy to relieve the portentous blackness of his guilt. Dion, indeed, represents him as naturally of a weak and extremely simple temper; as one who easily received impressions, and whose crimes were to be attributed rather to the artful advice of evil counsellors acting upon a timid and yieldnig disposition, than to any inherent depravity; and imagines that he erred at first from ignorance of what was rigllt, and gliding by degrees into a habit of doing evil, became gradually faniliar with deeds of shame and wickedness. But had this been the case. the lessons so carefully inculcated in early life would never have been so rapidly and for ever obliterated. We feel more inclined to give credit to the assertion of Lampridius, who declares that from his earliest boyhood he displayed evident proofs of dark passions and a corrupt heart, a propensity to indulge freely in every low and dissolute pleasure, and utter indifference to human suffering and life.
It is almost needless to remark, that Commodus paid no attention to foreign policy nor to the government and regulation of the provinces, except in so far as they might be made to minister to his profusion and profligacy. The integrity of the empire was however maintained, and the barbarians repulsed from the Dacian frontier by the skill and valour of Clodius Albinus and Pescennius Niger, the same who after the death of Pertinax contested the throne with Septimius Severus. A still more serious disturbance arose in Britain; for the northern tribes having forced a passage across the wall of Antonine, defeated the Roman troops who opposed their progress, slew their leader, and laid waste the more peaceful districts far and wide. But Ulpius Marcellus having assumed the chief command, the Caledonians were speedily driven back, the war was successfully terminated about A. D. 1814, Commodus was saluted Imperator for the seventh time, and added Britannicus to his other titles.
(Dio Cass. lib. lxxii. and Excerpta Vaticana, p. 121, ed. Sturz; Herodian. 1.10-55; Capitolin. M. Aurel. ; Lamprid. Commod. ; and the minor Roman historians.) [W.R]
The son and successor of M. Aurelius Antoninus, who ascended the imperial throne A.D. 180. The reign of this prince is a scene of guilt and misery, which the historian is glad to dismiss with brevity. He appears, indeed, to have inherited all the vices of his mother, Faustina; and his father, in selecting him for his successor, allowed the feelings of the parent to triumph over the wisdom of the magistrate. He had accompanied his father on the expedition against the Marcomanni and the Quadi, but no sooner was Aurelius dead than his son became anxious to proceed to Rome, and soon concluded a hasty and disgraceful peace with the barbarians whom his father had been on the point of completely subjugating when he was cut off by disease. Notwithstanding the care which Aurelius had bestowed on his education, Commodus was ignorant to an extreme degree, having neither abilities nor inclination for profiting by the paternal example and instruction. On his return to Rome he speedily showed the bias of his natural disposition, giving himself up to unrestrained indulgence in the grossest vices. That he might do so without impediment, he intrusted all power to Perennis, praefect of the Praetorian Guard, a man of stern and cruel temper, who was at last slain by the soldiers for his severity.
A conspiracy against the life of Commodus having failed, it was followed by a long succession of judicial murders to gratify the vengeance of the cowardly and vindictive tyrant. He was next threatened by a new danger: disaffection had spread over the legions; and an attempt of Maternus, a private soldier, who headed a band of deserters and projected the assassination of Commodus during the celebration of the festival of Cybelé, was so ably conceived that it must have been successful but for the treachery of an accomplice. But neither duty nor danger could draw Commodus from the sports of gladiators or the pleasures of debauchery. Cleander, a Phrygian slave, soon succeeded to the place and influence of Perennis, and for three years the Empire groaned beneath his cruelty and rapacity. At length a new insurrection burst forth, which nothing could allay, the praetorian cavalry being defeated in the streets by the populace, until the unworthy favourite was, by the emperor's command, delivered to the insurgents. In the meantime, Commodus was indulging his base tastes and appetites, not only by gross sensuality, but by attempting to rival the gladiators. Being a very skilful archer and of great personal strength, he delighted in killing wild beasts in the amphitheatre, and thus pretending to rival the prowess of Hercules. In the gladiatorial contests, he publicly engaged so often that he was the conqueror in 735 combats. Though luxurious in his dress, frequently resorting to the baths eight times in the day, scattering gold dust in his hair, and, from the fear of admitting the approach of a razor in the hand of another, singeing off his beard, he was especially proud of exhibitions of personal strength, and frequently, in the garb of a priest, butchered victims with his own hands. Among the flatteries of the obsequious Senate none pleased him more than the vote which styled him the “Hercules of Rome,” not even that which decreed to him the titles of Pius and Felix, or which offered to abolish the name of the Eternal City and substitute for it the title Colonia Commodiana. After thirteen years of unmitigated oppression, his favourite, Marcia, ultimately became the instrument by which the Roman world was delivered from its odious master. She discovered, from some private notes of Commodus, that herself, Laetus the praetorian praefect, and Eclectus the chamberlain, were on the list devoted to death. A conspiracy was immediately formed, Marcia administered poison to the emperor, and, lest the measure should not prove effectual, the deed was completed by suffocation, in A.D. 192. The life of Commodus has come down to us, written by Lampridius, in the Historia Augusta.