Commodus

With Commodus we find ourselves at the start of ‘The Fall of the Roman Empire’, which is also literally the case if you pick up the book of the same name by Edward Gibbon.

He’s truly one of the best examples that if you stroke something for long enough, you’re going to have a mess. He inherits the empire at arguably its peak, following what history refers to as the period of ‘The Four Good Emperors’. In the 206 years of the Roman Empire, he was the first person actually born into the role as the biological son of the previous emperor. Where the previous Emperors had a slightly more informed policy of “oh you’re a good candidate, how about I adopt you as my son”.

Born to Marcus Aurelius, somewhat ironically one of Rome’s best regarded emperors, Commodus never really wanted to rule. Naturally, his rule starts with total ambivalence, allowing his random pals to poorly rule in his place. Oh wait, Commodus has friends? Not really, his ‘random pals’ were actually his former slaves who latched on to him in order to essentially escape slavery.

Whilst doing nothing is a bold move as emperor, this did allow Commodus to focus on his true passion, Commodus. This involved drinking, lazing around, and screwing everything he possibly could in the Imperial Palace, including aforementioned random pals. This led to, amongst other things, a food crisis in Rome, and a general disdain from the ruling elite.

The food crisis and his general attitude to the administration of Rome didn’t go so well with the ruling elite of Rome. Therefore, as was custom at the time, an assassination plot was put in place to rid the world of this poorly thought out Emperor.

Unfortunately it was a failed assassination plot. This leads us to Commodus phase 2, which is the part of the story where he loses the plot entirely and begins haphazardly murdering the senate and ruling elite. In Rome, this was known as a good old fashioned ‘Purge’. Some of those Purged were actually involved in said plot, but most were likely enemies for some other reason and conveniently removed from the picture.

What is left of the senate is then purged a bit more, humiliated when possible, and generally replaced by people who will do what Commodus says. This transformation is likely responsible for the completely unchecked dictatorships that would go on to plague Rome. A key example of this is the chaotic ‘Year of the 5 emperors’, which takes place coincidentally the year after Commodus dies. This plays out as a gigantic pissing contest to see who will be emperor in the year that follows Commodus’ death. Seriously, the very first year after his rule brings an end to over 100 years of domestic peace with a round of civil wars. Civil wars plural.

Whilst he had an obvious obsession with dismantling perfectly functional empires, Commodus also had a bizarre love for gladiator games at the arena and would host non-stop games to the detriment of the treasury. What’s more he fancied himself a gladiator and would even jump into the arena himself and fight those with handicaps and/or those he had wounded backstage and/or those equipped with crappy/heavy swords and armour. He engaged in these kinds of battles over 700 times. What a guy!

Due to his prowess at killing exotic animals and people at a clear disadvantage, he naturally considered himself the second coming of Hercules and demanded to be referred to as such. We then continue down into his sheer insanity phase, where he goes on to rename Rome, as well as all of the months after himself. Rome becomes known as ‘Commodiana’, with Romans known ‘Commodiani’. The months became his nicknames ‘Commodus’, ‘Hercules’, ‘Invictus’ (latin for undefeated), ‘pius’, and so on.

Eventually the stroke became a choke, and his wrestling trainer Narcissus did the honours of finally stopping the blood flow through this massive dick.

Art by Jenna Dickles