COMMODUS 177AD Nicopolis ad Istrum Dionysus Bacchus Ancient Roman Coin i57257

Item: i57257

Authentic Ancient 

Coin of:

Commodus
–

Roman Emperor: 177-192 A.D.
Bronze 17mm (4.64 grams) of
Nicopolis ad Istrum in Moesia 
Inferior
Reference: Varbanov (see 2260 &2192 for related types); AMNG I – possibly 
unpublished
Laureate head right.

Dionysus
standing left, holding        thyrsos and kantharos.

You are bidding on the exact item pictured, 
provided with a Certificate of Authenticity and Lifetime Guarantee of 
Authenticity.

Nicopolis ad Istrum was a
Roman
and Early
Byzantine
town founded by Emperor
Trajan
around 101–106, at the junction of the 
Iatrus (Yantra) 
and the Rositsa
rivers, in memory of his victory over 
the Dacians
. Its ruins are located at the village 
of
Nikyup
, 20 km north of
Veliko Tarnovo
in northern
Bulgaria
. The town reached its apogee during 
the reigns of Trajan,
Hadrian
, the
Antonines
and the
Severan dynasty
.

The classical town was planned according to the orthogonal system. The 
network of streets, the forum surrounded by an Ionic colonnade and many 
buildings, a two-nave room later turned into a basilica and other public 
buildings have been uncovered. The rich architectures and sculptures show a 
similarity with those of the ancient towns in Asia Minor. Nicopolis ad Istrum 
had issued coins, bearing images of its own public buildings.

In
447 AD
, the town was destroyed by
Attila’s

Huns. Perhaps it was already abandoned before the early 400s. In the 
6th century, it was rebuilt as a powerful fortress enclosing little more than 
military buildings and churches, following a very common trend for the cities of 
that century in the Danube area.The largest area of the extensive ruins (21.55 
hectares) of the classical Nicopolis was not reoccupied since the fort covered 
only one fourth of it (5.75 hectares), in the southeastern corner. The town 
became an episcopal centre during the early Byzantine period. It was finally 
destroyed by the Avar invasions at the end of the 6th century. A Bulgarian 
medieval settlement arose upon its ruins later (10th-14th century).

Nicopolis ad Istrum can be said to have been the birthplace of
Germanic
literary tradition. In the 4th 
century, the Gothic
bishop, missionary and translator
Ulfilas
(Wulfila) obtained permission from 
Emperor
Constantius II
to immigrate with his flock of 
converts to Moesia and settle near Nicopolis ad Istrum in 347-8. There, he 
invented the
Gothic alphabet
and translated the
Bible
from
Greek
to
Gothic
.

Dionysus
is the god of the 
grape harvest, winemaking and wine, of ritual madness, fertility, theatre and 
religious ecstasy in
Greek mythology
. Alcohol, especially

wine, played an important role in Greek


culture 
with Dionysus being an important reason for this life style. His name, thought 
to be a theonym
in
Linear B
tablets as di-wo-nu-so (KH 
Gq 5 inscription), shows that he may have been worshipped as early as c. 
1500–1100 BC by
Mycenean Greeks
; other traces of the 
Dionysian-type cult have been found in ancient
Minoan Crete
. His origins are uncertain, and 
his cults took many forms; some are described by ancient sources as Thracian, 
others as Greek. In some cults, he arrives from the east, as an Asiatic 
foreigner; in others, from
Ethiopia
in the South. He is a god of
epiphany
, “the god that comes”, and his 
“foreignness” as an arriving outsider-god may be inherent and essential to his 
cults. He is a major, popular figure of
Greek mythology
and
religion
, and is included in some lists of the
twelve Olympians
. Dionysus was the last god to 
be accepted into Mt. Olympus. He was the youngest and the only one to have a 
mortal mother. His festivals were the driving force behind the development of
Greek theatre
. He is an example of a
dying god
.

The earliest cult images of Dionysus show a mature male, bearded and robed. 
He holds a fennel
staff, tipped with a pine-cone and known 
as a thyrsus
. Later images show him as a 
beardless, sensuous, naked or half-naked androgynous youth: the literature 
describes him as womanly or “man-womanish”. In its fully developed form, his 
central cult imagery shows his triumphant, disorderly arrival or return, as if 
from some place beyond the borders of the known and civilized. His procession
(thiasus) 
is made up of wild female followers (maenads) 
and bearded
satyrs
with
erect penises
. Some are armed with the
thyrsus, some dance or play music. The god himself is drawn in a chariot, 
usually by exotic beasts such as lions or tigers, and is sometimes attended by a 
bearded, drunken Silenus
. This procession is presumed to be the 
cult model for the human followers of his
Dionysian Mysteries
. In his
Thracian
mysteries, he wears the bassaris 
or
fox-skin, symbolizing a new life. Dionysus is represented by city 
religions as the protector of those who do not belong to conventional society 
and thus symbolizes everything which is chaotic, dangerous and unexpected, 
everything which escapes human reason and which can only be attributed to the 
unforeseeable action of the gods.

Also known as Bacchus, the name adopted by the
Romans
and the frenzy he induces, bakkheia. 
His thyrsus is sometimes wound with ivy and dripping with honey. It is a 
beneficent wand but also a weapon, and can be used to destroy those who oppose 
his cult and the freedoms he represents. He is also called Eleutherios 
(“the liberator”), whose wine, music and ecstatic dance frees his followers from 
self-conscious fear and care, and subverts the oppressive restraints of the 
powerful. Those who partake of his mysteries are possessed and empowered by the 
god himself. His cult is also a “cult of the souls”; his maenads feed the dead 
through blood-offerings, and he acts as a divine communicant between the living 
and the dead.

In Greek mythology, he is presented as a son of

Zeus and the mortal
Semele
, thus semi-divine or

heroic: and as son of Zeus and
Persephone
or
Demeter
, thus both fully divine, part-chthonic 
and possibly identical with
Iacchus
of the
Eleusinian Mysteries
. Some scholars believe 
that Dionysus is a
syncretism
of a local Greek nature deity and a 
more powerful god from
Thrace
or
Phrygia
such as
Sabazios
or
Zalmoxis
.

A
kantharos or cantharus is a type of
Greek pottery
used for drinking. In its iconic 
“Type A” form, it is characterized by its deep bowl, tall pedestal foot, and 
pair of high-swung handles which extend above the lip of the pot. The Greek 
words kotylos (κότῦλος, masculine) and kotyle (κοτύλη, feminine) 
are other ancient names for this same shape.

The kantharos is a cup used to hold

wine, possibly for drinking or for
ritual
use or
offerings
. The kantharos seems to be an 
attribute of
Dionysos
, the god of wine, who was associated 
with
vegetation
and
fertility
.

It may not be a banquet-cup, but rather a vessel used in pagan cult as a 
symbol of
rebirth or resurrection
, the
immortality
offered by wine, “removing in 
moments of ecstasy the burden of self-consciousness and elevating man to the 
rank of deity.”

A
thyrsus or thyrsos was a wand or staff of giant fennel (Ferula 
communis) covered with
ivy
vines and leaves, sometimes wound with
taeniae
and always topped with a

pine
cone
.

Symbolism

The thyrsus, associated with
Dionysus
(or Bacchus) and his followers, the
Satyrs
and
Maenads
, is a symbol of
prosperity
,
fertility
,
hedonism
, and pleasure/enjoyment in general. It 
has been suggested that this was specifically a fertility
phallus
, with the fennel representing the shaft 
of the penis and the pine cone representing the “seed” issuing forth. The 
thyrsus was tossed in the Bacchic dance:

Pentheus: The thyrsus— in my right hand shall I hold it?

Or thus am I more like a Bacchanal?

Dionysus: In thy right hand, and with thy right foot raise it”.

Sometimes the thyrsus was displayed in conjunction with a
kantharos
wine cup, another symbol of Dionysus, 
forming a male-and-female combination like that of the royal scepter and orb.

Use

In
Greek religion
, the staff was carried by the
votaries
of Dionysus.
Euripides
wrote that
honey
dripped from the thyrsos staves that the 
Bacchic maenads
carried. The thyrsus was a sacred 
instrument at religious
rituals
and

fêtes.

The fabulous history of Bacchus relates that he converted the thyrsi carried 
by himself and his followers into dangerous weapons, by concealing an iron point 
in the head of leaves. Hence his thyrsus is called “a spear enveloped in 
vine-leaves”, and its point was thought to incite to madness.

Literature

In the Iliad
,
Diomedes
, one of the leading warriors of the
Achaeans
, mentions the thyrsus while speaking 
to
Glaucus
, one of the
Lycian
commanders in the

Trojan army, about
Lycurgus
, the king of
Scyros
:

He it was that/drove the nursing women who were in charge/of frenzied 
Bacchus through the land of Nysa,/and they flung their thyrsi on the 
ground as/murderous Lycurgus beat them with his ox-/goad. (Iliad, 
Book VI.132-37)

The thyrsus is explicitly attributed to Dionysus in
Euripides
‘s play
The Bacchae
as part of the costume of the 
Dionysian cult.

…To raise my Bacchic shout, and clothe all who respond/ In fawnskin 
habits, and put my thyrsus in their hands–/ The weapon wreathed with 
ivy-shoots…” Euripides also writes, “There’s a brute wildness in the 
fennel-wands—Reverence it well.” (The Bacchae and Other Plays, trans. 
by Philip Vellacott, Penguin, 1954.)

Plato
writes in
Phaedo
:

I conceive that the founders of the mysteries had a real meaning and were 
not mere triflers when they intimated in a figure long ago that he who 
passes unsanctified and uninitiated into the world below will live in a 
slough, but that he who arrives there after initiation and purification will 
dwell with the gods. For “many,” as they say in the mysteries, “are the
thyrsus bearers, but few are the mystics,”–meaning, as I interpret the 
words, the true philosophers.

In Part II of
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
‘s
Faust
,
Mephistopheles
tries to catch a
Lamia
, only to find out that she is an 
illusion:

Well, then, a tall one I will catch…/And now a thyrsus-pole I 
snatch!/Only a pine-cone as its head. (7775-7777)

Robert Browning
mentions the thyrsus in passing 
in The Bishop Orders His Tomb at St Praxed’s Church, as the dying bishop 
confuses Christian piety with classical extravagance:

The bas-relief in bronze ye promised me,/Those
Pans
and
nymphs
ye wot of, and perchance/Some
tripod
, thrysus, with a vase or so, 
(56-58)

Commodus, 
emperor 177-192 A.D.

Caesar: 166-177 A.D. (under Marcus Aurelius) | (166-169/170 A.D. with Annius 
Verus) | (169/170-177 Alone) |
Augustus: 177-192 A.D. (177-180 A.D. with Marcus Aurelius) (180-192 A.D. Sole 
Reign)

Son of Marcus Aurelius and Faustina Junior | Husband of Crispina | Brother of 
Annius Verus, Lucilla and Aurelius Antoninus | Grandson of Antoninus Pius and 
Faustina Senior |

Commodus (Latin:
Marcus Aurelius Commodus Antoninus Augustus; 
31 August, 161 AD – 31 December, 192 AD), was
Roman Emperor
from 180 to 192. He also ruled as 
co-emperor with his father
Marcus Aurelius
from 177 until his father’s 
death in 180.

His accession as emperor was the first time a son had succeeded his father 
since Titus
succeeded
Vespasian
in 79. He was also the first Emperor 
to have both a father and grandfather as the two preceding Emperors. Commodus 
was the first (and until 337 the only) emperor “born 
in the purple“; i.e. during his father’s reign.

Commodus was assassinated in 192.

Early life and rise to power (161–180)

Early life

Commodus was born on 31 August 161, as Commodus, in
Lanuvium
, near
Rome
. He was the son of the reigning emperor, 
Marcus Aurelius, and Aurelius’s first cousin, Faustina the Younger; the youngest 
daughter of
Roman Emperor

Antonius Pius
. Commodus had an elder twin 
brother, Titus Aurelius Fulvus Antoninus, who died in 165. On 12 October 166, 
Commodus was made
Caesar
together with his younger brother,
Marcus Annius Verus
. The latter died in 169 
having failed to recover from an operation, which left Commodus as Marcus 
Aurelius’ sole surviving son.

He was looked after by his father’s physician,
Galen
, in order to keep Commodus healthy and 
alive. Galen treated many of Commodus’ common illnesses. Commodus received 
extensive tuition at the hands of what Marcus Aurelius called “an abundance of 
good masters.” The focus of Commodus’ education appears to have been 
intellectual, possibly at the expense of military training.

Commodus is known to have been at
Carnuntum
, the headquarters of Marcus Aurelius 
during the
Marcomannic Wars
, in 172. It was presumably 
there that, on 15 October 172, he was given the victory title Germanicus, 
in the presence of the
army
. The title suggests that Commodus was 
present at his father’s victory over the
Marcomanni
. On 20 January 175, Commodus entered 
the
College of Pontiffs
, the starting point of a 
career in public life.

In April 175,
Avidius Cassius
, Governor of
Syria
, declared himself Emperor following 
rumors that Marcus Aurelius had died. Having been accepted as Emperor by Syria,
Palestine
and
Egypt
, Cassius carried on his rebellion even 
after it had become obvious that Marcus was still alive. During the preparations 
for the campaign against Cassius, the Prince assumed his
toga virilis
on the
Danubian
front on 7 July 175, thus formally 
entering
adulthood
. Cassius, however, was killed by one 
of his centurions
before the campaign against him 
could begin.

Commodus subsequently accompanied his father on a lengthy trip to the Eastern 
provinces, during which he visited
Antioch
. The Emperor and his son then traveled 
to Athens
, where they were initiated into the
Eleusinian mysteries
. They then returned to 
Rome in the Autumn
of 176.

Joint rule 
with father (177)

Marcus Aurelius was the first emperor since
Vespasian
to have a biological son of his own 
and, though he himself was the fifth in the line of the so-called
Five Good Emperors
, each of whom had adopted 
his successor, it seems to have been his firm intention that Commodus should be 
his heir. On 27 November 176, Marcus Aurelius granted Commodus the rank of
Imperator
and, in the middle of 177, the 
title
Augustus
, giving his son the same status as 
his own and formally sharing power.

On 23 December of the same year, the two Augusti celebrated a joint
triumph
, and Commodus was given
tribunician
power. On 1 January 177, Commodus 
became consul
for the first time, which made him, aged 
15, the youngest consul in Roman history up to that time. He subsequently 
married
Bruttia Crispina
before accompanying his father 
to the Danubian front once more in 178, where Marcus Aurelius died on 17 March 
180, leaving the 18-year-old Commodus sole emperor.

Sole reign 
(180–192)

Upon his accession Commodus devalued the
Roman currency
. He reduced the weight of the
denarius
from 96 per
Roman pound
to 105 (3.85 grams to 3.35 grams). 
He also reduced the silver purity from 79 percent to 76 percent – the silver 
weight dropping from 2.57 grams to 2.34 grams. In 186 he further reduced the 
purity and silver weight to 74 percent and 2.22 grams respectively, being 108 to 
the Roman pound. His reduction of the denarius during his rule was the largest 
since the empire’s first devaluation during

Nero‘s reign.

Whereas the reign of
Marcus Aurelius
had been marked by almost 
continuous warfare, that of Commodus was comparatively peaceful in the military 
sense but was marked by political strife and the increasingly arbitrary and 
capricious behaviour of the emperor himself. In the view of
Dio Cassius
, a contemporary observer, his 
accession marked the descent “from a kingdom of gold to one of rust and iron” – 
a famous comment which has led some historians, notably
Edward Gibbon
, to take Commodus’s reign as the 
beginning of the
decline of the Roman Empire
.

Despite his notoriety, and considering the importance of his reign, 
Commodus’s years in power are not well chronicled. The principal surviving 
literary sources are Dio Cassius (a contemporary and sometimes first-hand 
observer, but for this reign, only transmitted in fragments and abbreviations),
Herodian
and the
Historia Augusta
(untrustworthy for its 
character as a work of literature rather than history, with elements of fiction 
embedded within its biographies; in the case of Commodus, it may well be 
embroidering upon what the author found in reasonably good contemporary 
sources).

Commodus remained with the Danube armies for only a short time before 
negotiating a peace treaty with the Danubian tribes. He then returned to Rome 
and celebrated a triumph for the conclusion of the wars on 22 October 180. 
Unlike the preceding Emperors
Trajan
,
Hadrian
,
Antoninus Pius
and Marcus Aurelius, he seems to 
have had little interest in the business of administration and tended throughout 
his reign to leave the practical running of the state to a succession of 
favourites, beginning with
Saoterus
, a freedman from
Nicomedia
who had become his
chamberlain
.

Dissatisfaction with this state of affairs would lead to a series of 
conspiracies and attempted coups, which in turn eventually provoked Commodus to 
take charge of affairs, which he did in an increasingly dictatorial manner. 
Nevertheless, though the
senatorial order
came to hate and fear him, the 
evidence suggests that he remained popular with the army and the common people 
for much of his reign, not least because of his lavish shows of largesse 
(recorded on his coinage) and because he staged and took part in spectacular
gladiatorial
combats.

One of the ways he paid for his donatives and mass entertainments was to tax 
the senatorial order, and on many inscriptions, the traditional order of the two 
nominal powers of the state, the Senate and People (Senatus Populusque 
Romanus) is provocatively reversed (Populus Senatusque…).

The conspiracies of 
182

A bust of Commodus as a youth (Roman-Germanic 
Museum, Cologne).

At the outset of his reign, Commodus, age 18, inherited many of his father’s 
senior advisers, notably
Tiberius Claudius Pompeianus
(the second 
husband of Commodus’s sister
Lucilla
), his father-in-law
Gaius Bruttius Praesens
, Titus Fundanius 
Vitrasius Pollio, and
Aufidius Victorinus
, who was
Prefect of the City of Rome
. He also had five 
surviving sisters, all of them with husbands who were potential rivals. Four of 
his sisters were considerably older than he; the eldest, Lucilla, held the rank 
of
Augusta
as the widow of her first husband,
Lucius Verus
.

The first crisis of the reign came in 182, when Lucilla engineered a 
conspiracy against her brother. Her motive is alleged to have been envy of the
Empress
Crispina. Her husband, Pompeianus, was 
not involved, but two men alleged to have been her lovers,
Marcus Ummidius Quadratus Annianus
(the consul 
of 167, who was also her first cousin) and
Appius Claudius Quintianus
, attempted to murder 
Commodus as he entered the theatre. They bungled the job and were seized by the 
emperor’s bodyguard.

Quadratus and Quintianus were executed. Lucilla was exiled to
Capri
and later killed. Pompeianus retired from 
public life. One of the two
praetorian prefects
,
Tarrutenius Paternus
, had actually been 
involved in the conspiracy but was not detected at this time, and in the 
aftermath, he and his colleague
Sextus Tigidius Perennis
were able to arrange 
for the murder of Saoterus, the hated chamberlain.

Commodus took the loss of Saoterus badly, and Perennis now seized the chance 
to advance himself by implicating Paternus in a second conspiracy, one 
apparently led by
Publius Salvius Julianus
, who was the son of 
the jurist
Salvius Julianus
and was betrothed to 
Paternus’s daughter. Salvius and Paternus were executed along with a number of 
other prominent consulars and senators.
Didius Julianus
, the future emperor, a relative 
of Salvius Julianus, was dismissed from the governorship of
Germania Inferior
.

Cleander

Perennis took over the reins of government and Commodus found a new 
chamberlain and favourite in
Cleander
, a
Phrygian

freedman
who had married one of the emperor’s 
mistresses, Demostratia. Cleander was in fact the person who had murdered 
Saoterus. After those attempts on his life, Commodus spent much of his time 
outside Rome, mostly on the family estates at Lanuvium. Being physically strong, 
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.

Dacia and Britain

A bust of Commodus (Kunsthistorisches 
Museum, Vienna). According to
Herodian
he was well proportioned 
and attractive, with naturally blonde and curly hair.

Commodus was inaugurated in 183 as consul with Aufidius Victorinus for a 
colleague and assumed the title

Pius. War broke out in
Dacia
: few details are available, but it 
appears two future contenders for the throne,
Clodius Albinus
and
Pescennius Niger
, both distinguished themselves 
in the campaign. Also, in
Britain
in 184, the governor
Ulpius Marcellus
re-advanced the Roman frontier 
northward to the
Antonine Wall
, but the
legionaries
revolted against his harsh 
discipline and acclaimed another legate, Priscus, as emperor.

Priscus refused to accept their acclamations, but Perennis had all the 
legionary legates
in Britain
cashiered
. On 15 October 184 at the
Capitoline Games
, a
Cynic
philosopher publicly denounced Perennis 
before Commodus, who was watching, but was immediately put to death. According 
to Dio Cassius, Perennis, though ruthless and ambitious, was not personally 
corrupt and generally administered the state well.

However, the following year, a detachment of soldiers from Britain (they had 
been drafted to
Italy
to suppress brigands) also denounced 
Perennis to the emperor as plotting to make his own son emperor (they had been 
enabled to do so by Cleander, who was seeking to dispose of his rival), and 
Commodus gave them permission to execute him as well as his wife and sons. The 
fall of Perennis brought a new spate of executions: Aufidius Victorinus 
committed suicide. Ulpius Marcellus was replaced as
governor of Britain
by
Pertinax
; brought to Rome and tried for 
treason, Marcellus narrowly escaped death.

Cleander’s zenith and fall (185–190)

Cleander proceeded to concentrate power in his own hands and to enrich 
himself by becoming responsible for all public offices: he sold and bestowed 
entry to the Senate, army commands,
governorships
and, increasingly, even the
suffect consulships
to the highest bidder. 
Unrest around the empire increased, with large numbers of army deserters causing 
trouble in Gaul
and
Germany
. Pescennius Niger mopped up the 
deserters in Gaul in a military campaign, and a revolt in
Brittany
was put down by two
legions
brought over from Britain.

In 187, one of the leaders of the deserters, Maternus, came from Gaul 
intending to assassinate Commodus at the Festival of the Great Goddess in March, 
but he was betrayed and executed. In the same year,
Pertinax
unmasked a conspiracy by two enemies 
of Cleander – Antistius Burrus (one of Commodus’s brothers-in-law) and Arrius 
Antoninus. As a result, Commodus appeared even more rarely in public, preferring 
to live on his estates.

Early in 188, Cleander disposed of the current praetorian prefect,
Atilius Aebutianus
, 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. Now at the 
zenith of his power, Cleander continued to sell public offices as his private 
business. The climax came in the year 190, which had 25 suffect consuls – a 
record in the 1000-year history of the Roman consulship—all appointed by 
Cleander (they included the future Emperor
Septimius Severus
).

In the spring of 190, Rome was afflicted by a food shortage, for which the
praefectus annonae
Papirius Dionysius
, the official actually in 
charge of the
grain supply
, contrived to lay the blame on 
Cleander. At the end of June, a mob demonstrated against Cleander during a horse 
race in the
Circus Maximus
: he sent the praetorian guard to 
put down the disturbances, but Pertinax, who was now City Prefect of Rome, 
dispatched the
Vigiles Urbani
to oppose them. 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.

At the urging of his mistress
Marcia
, Commodus had Cleander beheaded and his 
son killed. Other victims at this time were the praetorian prefect Julius 
Julianus, Commodus’s cousin
Annia Fundania Faustina
, and his brother-in-law 
Mamertinus. Papirius Dionysius was executed too.

The emperor now changed his name to Lucius Aelius Aurelius Commodus. At 29, 
he took over more of the reins of power, though he continued to rule through a 
cabal consisting 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
. Marcia, the widow of Quadratus, who 
had been executed in 182, is alleged to have been a Christian.

Megalomania 
(190–192)

In opposition to the Senate, in his pronouncements and
iconography
, Commodus had always laid stress on 
his unique status as a source of god-like power, liberality and physical 
prowess. Innumerable statues around the empire were set up portraying him in the 
guise of Hercules
, reinforcing the image of him as a 
demigod, a physical giant, a protector and a battler against beasts and men (see 
“Commodus and Hercules” and “Commodus the Gladiator” below). Moreover, as 
Hercules, he could claim to be the son of
Jupiter
, the representative of the supreme god 
of the Roman
pantheon
. These tendencies now increased to
megalomaniac
proportions. Far from celebrating 
his descent from Marcus Aurelius, the actual source of his power, he stressed 
his own personal uniqueness as the bringer of a new order, seeking to re-cast 
the empire in his own image.

During 191, the city of Rome was extensively damaged by a fire that raged for 
several days, during which many public buildings including the
Temple of Pax
, the
Temple of Vesta
and parts of the imperial 
palace were destroyed.

Perhaps seeing this as an opportunity, early in 192 Commodus, declaring 
himself the new
Romulus
, ritually re-founded Rome, renaming the 
city Colonia Lucia Annia Commodiana. All the months of the year were 
renamed to correspond exactly with his (now twelve) names: Lucius,
Aelius, Aurelius, Commodus, Augustus, Herculeus,
Romanus, Exsuperatorius, Amazonius, Invictus,
Felix, Pius. The legions were renamed Commodianae, the fleet 
which imported grain from
Africa
was termed Alexandria Commodiana 
Togata, the Senate was entitled the Commodian Fortunate Senate, his palace 
and the Roman people themselves were all given the name Commodianus, and 
the day on which these reforms were decreed was to be called Dies Commodianus.

Thus he presented himself as the fountainhead of the Empire and Roman life 
and religion. He also had the head of the
Colossus of Nero
adjacent to the
Colosseum
replaced with his own portrait, gave 
it a club and placed a
bronze

lion at its feet to make it look like Hercules, and added an 
inscription boasting of being “the only left-handed fighter to conquer twelve 
times one thousand men”.

Character and 
physical prowess

Character and 
motivations

Dio Cassius, a first-hand witness, describes him as “not naturally wicked 
but, on the contrary, as guileless as any man that ever lived. His great 
simplicity, however, together with his cowardice, made him the slave of his 
companions, and it was through them that he at first, out of ignorance, missed 
the better life and then was led on into lustful and cruel habits, which soon 
became second nature.”

His recorded actions do tend to show a rejection of his father’s policies, 
his father’s advisers, and especially his father’s austere lifestyle, and an 
alienation from the surviving members of his family. It seems likely that he was 
brought up in an atmosphere of
Stoic

asceticism
, which he rejected entirely upon his 
accession to sole rule. After repeated attempts on Commodus’ life,
Roman citizens
were often killed for raising 
his ire. One such notable event was the attempted extermination of the house of 
the Quinctilii. Condianus and Maximus were executed on the pretext that, while 
they were not implicated in any plots, their wealth and talent would make them 
unhappy with the current state of affairs.

Changes of name

On his accession as sole ruler, Commodus added the name Antoninus to his 
official nomenclature. In October 180 he changed his
praenomen
from Lucius to Marcus, presumably 
in honour of his father. He later took the title of Felix in 185. In 191 
he restored his praenomen to Lucius and added the family name Aelius, 
apparently linking himself to Hadrian and Hadrian’s adopted son
Lucius Aelius Caesar
, whose original name was 
also Commodus.

Later that year he dropped Antoninus and adopted as his full style Lucius 
Aelius Aurelius Commodus Augustus Herculeus Romanus Exsuperatorius Amazonius 
Invictus Felix Pius (the order of some of these titles varies in the sources). “Exsuperatorius” 
(the supreme) was a title given to Jupiter, and “Amazonius” identified him again 
with Hercules.

An inscribed altar from
Dura-Europos
on the Euphrates shows that 
Commodus’s titles and the renaming of the months were disseminated to the 
furthest reaches of the Empire; moreover, that even auxiliary military units 
received the title Commodiana, and that Commodus claimed two additional titles:
Pacator Orbis (pacifier of the world) and Dominus Noster (Our 
Lord). The latter eventually would be used as a conventional title by Roman 
emperors, starting about a century later, but Commodus seems to have been the 
first to assume it.

Commodus and Hercules

Disdaining the more philosophic inclinations of his father, Commodus was 
extremely proud of his physical prowess. He was generally acknowledged to be 
extremely handsome. As mentioned above, he ordered many statues to be made 
showing him dressed as Hercules with a lion’s hide and a club. He thought of 
himself as the reincarnation of Hercules, frequently emulating the legendary 
hero’s feats by appearing in the arena to fight a variety of wild animals. He 
was left-handed, and very proud of the fact. Cassius Dio and the writers of the

Augustan History
say that Commodus was a 
skilled archer, who could shoot the heads off
ostriches
in full gallop, and kill a
panther
as it attacked a victim in the arena.

Commodus the gladiator

Commodus also had a passion for gladiatorial combat, which he took so far as 
to take to the arena
himself, dressed as a gladiator. The 
Romans found Commodus’s naked gladiatorial combats to be scandalous and 
disgraceful. It was rumoured that he was actually the son, not of Marcus 
Aurelius, but of a gladiator whom his mother Faustina had taken as a lover at 
the coastal resort of
Caieta
.

In the arena, Commodus always won since his opponents always submitted to the 
emperor. Thus, these public fights would not end in death. Privately, it was his 
custom to slay his practice opponents. For each appearance in the arena, he 
charged the city of Rome a million
sesterces
, straining the Roman economy.

Commodus raised the ire of many military officials in Rome for his Hercules 
persona in the arena. Often, wounded soldiers and amputees would be placed in 
the arena for Commodus to slay with a sword. Commodus’s eccentric behaviour 
would not stop there. Citizens of Rome missing their feet through accident or 
illness were taken to the arena, where they were tethered together for Commodus 
to club to death while pretending they were giants. These acts may have 
contributed to his assassination.

Commodus was also known for fighting exotic animals in the arena, often to 
the horror of the Roman people. According to Gibbon, Commodus once killed 100 
lions in a single day. Later, he decapitated a running ostrich with a specially 
designed dart and afterwards carried the bleeding head of the dead bird and his 
sword over to the section where the Senators sat and gesticulated as though they 
were next. On another occasion, Commodus killed three
elephants
on the floor of the arena by himself. 
Finally, Commodus killed a
giraffe
, which was considered to be a strange 
and helpless beast.

Assassination (192)

In November 192 Commodus held Plebian Games, in which he shot hundreds of 
animals with arrows and javelins every morning, and fought as a gladiator every 
afternoon, winning all the bouts. In December he announced his intention to 
inaugurate the year 193 as both consul and gladiator on 1 January.

At this point, the prefect Laetus formed a conspiracy with Eclectus to 
supplant Commodus with Pertinax, taking Marcia into their confidence. On 31 
December Marcia poisoned his food but he vomited up the poison; so the 
conspirators sent his wrestling partner
Narcissus
to strangle him in his bath. Upon his 
death, the Senate declared him a public enemy (a de facto
damnatio memoriae
) and restored the 
original name to the city of Rome and its institutions. Commodus’s statues were 
thrown down. His body was buried in the
Mausoleum of Hadrian
. In 195 the emperor
Septimius Severus
, trying to gain favour with 
the family of Marcus Aurelius, rehabilitated Commodus’s memory and had the 
Senate deify him.

Commodus was succeeded by
Pertinax
, whose reign was short lived, being 
the first to fall victim to the
Year of the Five Emperors
. Commodus’s death 
marked the end of the
Nervan-Antonian dynasty
.