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{{Villain Infobox|fullname=Lucius Aelius Aurelius Commodus|alias=Caesar Lucius Marcus Aurelius Commodus Antoninus Augustus<br>Germanicus Maximus<br>Britannicus Maximus<br>The Roman Hercules<br>Pater Patrie<br>Germanicus<br>Commodus<br>Sarmaticus<br>Pius<br>Felix|origin=Lanuvium, near Rome, Roman Empire (current Italy)|occupation=Tribune of the plebs (176 a.C.-192 a.C.)<br>Emperor (177 a.C.-192 a.C.)<br>Console (177 a.C.-192 a.C.)|skills=Strategy<br>Charisma<br>Leadership<br>Intimidation<br>Brute strenght<br>Swordsmanship|name=Evil-doer|hobby=Creating monuments to commemorate your father<br>Fighting in gladiator arenas<br>Train with Narcissus<br>Being with prostitues<br>Playing dace|goals=Ascend to power (succeeded)<br>Defeat the Marcomannis and the Quadis (succeeded)<br>Start a [[cult of personality]] of your father (succeeded)<br>Maintain your power (briefly succeeded, but failed after)<br>Win on the Sarmatic front (failed)|crimes=[[Persecution of Christians]]<br>[[Cruelty to animals]]<br>[[Authoritarianism]]<br>Abuse of power<br>Sexual abuse<br>Mutilation<br>[[Murder]]<br>[[Incest]]|type of villain=Depraved roman emperor|image=Commodus.jpg}}
'''Commodus '''([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_language Latin]: ''Marcus Aurelius Commodus Antoninus Augustus)'' (August 31st, 161 AD - December 31st, 192 AD) was a Roman Emperor who ruled from 177 to 192 AD. He was renowned for ending the Reign of the Seven good emperors, and through misuse of power and civil strife ended 84 years of stability and prosperity for the people of Rome.


He was the son of Marcus Aurelius, who made him coruler towards the end of his reign, one of his first acts was negotiating peace with the German tribes. In 182, his sister Lucilla and several senators conspired to have him assassinated. Following the failure of this act, he executed the senators and stole their property. Following his rule became harsher and crueler.
'''Commodus'''  was a Roman Emperor who ruled from 177 to 192 a.C.  


Commodus became obsessed with organizing Gladiatorial tournaments, to the point where he would sometimes have his guards drive the spectators into the arena to watch them die. Its said he had the wounded chained together to make them easier to exercute. He enjoyed acting like a Gladiator in the arena, thus embarrassing the royal family, as most Gladiators were slaves. His actions in doing this often meant his offical duties were ignored, and he left much in the way of running to his officals, his actions devalued the currancy and caued the steady decay into anarchy. Although trained to fight, he would only face opponents which couldn't hurt him, such as harmless animals, animals who had had there claws and teeth removed before the fight. He would spear animals from a platform or face opponents who had orders not to harm him. In one fight, to make the Emperor look good, the Gladiator fell to the ground as if the Emperor had knocked him down. Commodus drew a knife and stabbed the man to death.
== Biography ==
[[File:YC.jpg|left|thumb|Statue rappresenting a young Commodus.]]


As Commodus went on, he lapsed into insanity. In 186 he executed his chief minister to appease his army, then three years later, allowed his advisors to be killed by the rioting crowd. He renamed Rome Colonia Commodiana (Colony of Commodus), renamed the months of the year, the senate, the army and even the people of Rome after him, and dressed like Hercules, imagining he was the god. Finally having enough, the Senate had a professional wrestler and Commodus trainer to stranger him to death in the Bath, following his announcement he would assume the consulship dressed as a Gladiator. Following this, the country quickly erupted into civil war, due to disagreements who should succeed Commodus.
=== Early life ===
Commodus was born on the 31st August 161 a.C. in Lanuvimium. He was the son of Marcus Aurelius.
 
He received a good education from a of teachers in the words. In April 175, Avidius Cassius, governor of Syria, declared himself emperor following the rumor that Marcus Aurelius was dead. Having been recognized as emperor by Syria, Palestine and Egypt, Cassius carried on his rebellion despite Marcus Aurelius being still alive.
 
During preparations for the campaign against Cassius, Commodus assumed his toga on the Danube front on the 7th July 175. Cassius, on the other hand, was killed by one of his centurions before the campaign against him began. Commodus accompanied his father on a long journey to the eastern provinces, during which he visited Antioch. The emperor and his son also went to Athens, then returned to Rome in the autumn of 176.
 
On the 27th  November 176, Marcus Aurelius conferred on Commodus the rank of Imperator, and in 177, the title of Augustus, giving his son the same position as him and sharing power with him. On the 23rd December of the same year, he obtained the tribunicia potestas. On the st1 January 177, Commodus became consul for the first time, at the age of 15, the youngest consul in Roman history up to that time. He then married Bruzia Crispina.
[[File:MA.jpg|left|thumb|Eugène Delacroix, "Last Words of Emperor Marcus Aurelius".]]
After a new series of decisive victories in the years 178-179 against Marcomanni and Quadi, his father, Marcus Aurelius, fell seriously ill in 180, perhaps also struck by the plague that had plagued the empire for years. Marcus Aurelius died on the 17th March 180, at about fifty-nine, according to Aurelio Vittore in the city-encampment of Vindobona (current Vienna).
 
=== Ascension to power ===
After that, he intelligently secured the loyalty of the Roman army and people immediately with large donations, thus ruling as a true absolute monarch, protected from the continuous conspiracies of the Senate and maintaining power for twelve long years.
 
==== Marcomannic Wars ====
He began his reign with an unfavorable peace treaty agreed with the tribes of the Germans, who had been at war with Marcus Aurelius. Later he himself waged wars against the Germans, often winning partial victories, for which he also demanded honors from the Senate.
[[File:CG.jpg|left|thumb|378x378px|Painting rappresenting Commodus dressed as Hercules in an Arena.]]
 
==== Career as a gladiator ====
Commodus had a passion for gladiator fights and those against beasts, to the point of descending himself into the arena dressed as the Roman Hercules wearing a lion's skin and being trained by Narcissus, one of the strongest in those times in gladiator fights. . He participated in 735 games, claiming to be duly registered and paid as a normal gladiator, but of course no one could beat him. In the melee he had chosen the figure of the Secutor, facing his opponents with helmet, shield and sword, at the epilogue he often pretended to pardon them and then mutilate or scar them. He also killed thousands of wild animals including elephants, rhinos, hippos, lions, bears, leopards and ostriches, the latter a passion of him, since after being beheaded they continued to run for a few seconds.
 
==== Abuses of power ====
Commodus' instability was not limited to this "hobby". In 190 a part of the city of Rome was destroyed by a fire and Commodus took the opportunity to "refound it", calling it a Commodian Colony in his honor. Even the months of the calendar were renamed in honor of him, and even in the Senate he changed the name to the Senate of Commodian Fortune, while the army became Commodian Army and so did the Classis Commodian fleet.
 
He also had a penchant for what was sexually extravagant or insane. He abused all his sisters, imposed on his concubines to put the name of his mother Faustina during embraces, he had set up a sort of harem composed of three hundred girls and three hundred boys for the use of his circle of friends and courtiers, staging orgiastic shows in theme, such as, for example, the Rustic Hercules.
 
==== The conspiracy ====
In 182, a group of members of the imperial family gathered around their sister Annia Aurelia Galeria Lucilla (the daughter of her first marriage, a nephew, her paternal cousin Marcus Numidio Quadratus and the sister of the latter Numidia Cornificia Faustina) planned the assassination of Commodus imagining to see Lucilla and her husband as the new rulers of Rome. Quintinian's nephew broke from his hiding place with a dagger trying to hit Commodus revealing his intention before he even acted. then, the guards overwhelmed him and disarmed him without even being able to hurt the emperor. Commodus ordered his death sentence and that of Marco Numidio Quadrato. Lucilla, her daughter and Numidia Cornificia Faustina were exiled to the island of Capri (a year later Commodus sent a centurion to Capri to kill the three women).
 
=== Death ===
Faced with the growing discontent with Commodus' excesses, the prefect of the Praetorium Quintus Emilio Leto and the cubicularius Ecletto, fearing for their own lives after opposing the latest extravagances of the emperor and being placed on a ban list, organized a conspiracy with Cassio Dione and numerous other senators. The concubine Marcia, a favorite of Commodus, was soon involved, so that she was able to poison him in order to kill him secretly.
[[File:Commodus is strangled by Narcissus.png|left|thumb|Narcissus strangling Commodus.]]
The attack was carried out on the 31st December 192, during a banquet his wine was poisoned. The emperor, however, believing he felt weighed down by the lavish meal, retired to his apartments and asked the servants to help him vomit, thus saving himself unwittingly. At that point, having failed the poisoning and fearing that they could soon be discovered, the conspirators turned to the champion of gladiators Narcisso, the emperor's personal instructor, giving him a sword. The gladiator, driven by the promise of a rich reward and personal revenge for being placed on a ban list, killed Commodus that same evening in the baths, perhaps by strangling or stabbing him.
 
== Private life and persona ==
 
=== Sexual relationships ===
He was married with Bruzia Crispina, but he divorced from her and exiled her for adultery. With the imperial court, he had various private vices. One was his penchant for what was sexually extravagant or insane. He abused all his sisters, imposed on his concubines to put the name of his mother Faustina during embraces, he had set up a sort of harem composed of three hundred girls and three hundred boys for the use of his circle of friends and courtiers, staging orgiastic shows in theme, such as, for example, the Rustic Hercules.
 
=== Personality ===
Before he came to power, Commodus didn't show no sign of violence, but after he came to power he started to show his depraved nature.
 
Commodus was cruel and arbitrary like [[Caligula]] and [[Emperor Nero|Nero]]. And just like them, he was sadists and his attitude can be associeted with sociopathic manner. Also, he was, like any average roman emperor, a megalomaniac and extremely egocentric, since he tried to make Rome and everything else something focused on him.
 
His sexual desires were described as completely insane and extravagant.
 
== Gallery ==
 
=== Images ===
<gallery mode="nolines" widths="240" heights="240" perrow="4">
File:Commodus in hunting costume – Statue of Pentelic marble – Musei vaticani – in History of Rome, and of the Roman people (1883) (14800219473).jpg|Commodus in hunting costume.
File:Commodus Musei Capitolini MC1120.jpg|Capitoline Museums, Commodus's bust.
File:Statue of Commodus (Galleria Borghese).jpg|Bourgeois Gallery, statue of Commodus.
File:Commodus by Rubens.jpg|Drawing of [https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pieter_Paul_Rubens Pieter Paul Rubens] rappresenting Commodus in his Hercules costume.
File:Commodus Aureus CNG.jpg|Golden coin with the face of Commodus on it.
File:Commodus, Hermitage Museum.JPG|Hermitage Museum, Coin portraying Commodus.
File:Commodus and Marcia.jpg|Bronze Medalliom portraying Commodus and Marcia.
</gallery>
 
== Trivia ==
 
* He is one of the villains in the book series "Trials of Apollo" along with [[Caligula]] and [[Emperor Nero|Nero]].
* In the arenas, he liked to get dressed like Hercules.
* He is cited in the song of Franco Battiato "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire", that cames from one of the poems of  Manlio Sgalambro.
* One of the most famous impersonation of Commodus in fiction is the one in the movie "Gladiator" (2000), as he is portrayed by Jacquin Phoenix.
* He was renowned for ending the Reign of the Seven good emperors.
* Through misuse of power and civil strife, he ended 84 years of stability and prosperity for the people of Rome.
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