Marcus Aurelius’s son styled himself as Hercules, fought staged gladiator bouts, and bled Rome’s treasury dry.
In this episode, we'll ask how Commodus became a symbol of tyranny and whether biased sources darkened his legend.
[00:00:05] Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English, the show where you can listen to fascinating stories and learn weird and wonderful things about the world at the same time as improving your English.
[00:00:21] I'm Alastair Budge, and today it’s part three of our three-part mini-series on “Tyrants Of The Roman Empire”.
[00:00:30] In case you missed them, part one was on Caligula, part two was on Nero, and we are going to round off the series by talking about Commodus, the so-called “Gladiator Emperor”.
[00:00:42] You can listen to this episode without having listened to the previous two, but it will make more sense if you’ve listened to those, as I’ll reference a few names and events from those periods.
[00:00:54] So, if you’d prefer to listen to those first and you haven’t done so already, now is the time to press pause.
[00:01:02] OK then, let’s get started and talk about Commodus.
[00:01:08] Millions of people around the world today turn to the musings of the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius.
[00:01:16] Although it’s almost 2,000 years old, his internal thoughts about “how to live a good life”, immortalised in Meditations, have become a sort of guidebook, a blueprint for how to be content and satisfied, even today, in a world that bears little similarity to the one in which Aurelius lived.
[00:01:40] As such, we think of Aurelius as a wise and thoughtful man, a man who carefully considered every decision, evaluating the advantages and disadvantages before choosing the wisest path.
[00:01:55] He was, undoubtedly, one of the better rulers of Rome and was praised both by his contemporaries and historians looking back on his 19-year stint in power.
[00:02:09] On a personal level, some decisions are more debatable, whether that’s his tolerance of his wife’s frequent infidelity, his willingness to turn a blind eye to court scandals, or even his habit of promoting his favourites over other, perhaps more talented, people.
[00:02:28] There is one decision, though, which has forever tarnished his legacy.
[00:02:34] He named as his successor his son Commodus, a man who has gone down in history as a tyrant, an imbecile, a sadist, a megalomaniac, a madman, and, to quote the Roman historian Cassius Dio, “a greater curse to the Romans than any pestilence or any crime”.
[00:02:57] Now, one can certainly argue that Marcus Aurelius had little choice but to nominate Commodus as his heir; he had no other surviving sons, and failing to name Commodus as his successor would have put his son’s life in danger.
[00:03:14] And Marcus Aurelius was human after all.
[00:03:19] Any parent’s first preoccupation is for the safety of their child, and it’s not difficult to see how Marcus Aurelius might have overlooked some early signs of Commodus’ insuitability for the top job, if indeed there were signs.
[00:03:36] So, perhaps he had no other option, or at least no other good options, but the choice to go with Commodus would forever be a black mark on the otherwise positive legacy of Marcus Aurelius.
[00:03:52] So, to the early life of Commodus.
[00:03:55] He was born in AD 161, the first emperor to be born “in the purple”, or born during his father’s reign.
[00:04:07] As you will remember from the previous two episodes, most Roman emperors didn’t have a clear successor; there was constant jockeying for power through affairs, marriages, divorces, adoptions and poisonings, and parents–often divorced or widowed mothers–tried to position their sons as first in line to the title of emperor.
[00:04:32] Marcus Aurelius was an exception, in that he had a relatively uncomplicated personal life.
[00:04:40] He was only married once, and the marriage bore at least 14 children. But only one son and four daughters were still alive at the time of their father’s death.
[00:04:52] The daughters, this being Ancient Rome, didn’t get a look in; they didn’t feature in the succession planning.
[00:05:02] This left the one and only son: Commodus.
[00:05:07] And from a very young age, he had been groomed for the role of Roman Emperor.
[00:05:14] He was officially made Caesar at the age of 5, together with his younger brother.
[00:05:20] Caesar, by the way, means the designated heir; the son who will become emperor on his father’s death.
[00:05:28] His younger brother, his co-Caesar, Marcus Annius Verus, died a few years later, which made Commodus the sole heir.
[00:05:38] He travelled around with his father, following his military campaign in Germany, and is thought to have received personal tuition from the best scholars at the time.
[00:05:49] As Marcus Aurelius grew older, and following a particularly threatening uprising by one of his governors, Avidius Cassius, he gave his son increasing responsibilities, making it abundantly clear that Commodus was his handpicked successor.
[00:06:07] First came the victory title of Germanicus, then the title of Imperator, then consul.
[00:06:15] And for a couple of years, he ruled jointly with his father, with Marcus Aurelius.
[00:06:22] And in March 180 AD, his father died, leaving the then 18-year-old Commodus the undisputed and official Roman Emperor.
[00:06:35] At first, the transition was smooth.
[00:06:39] Commodus inherited an empire that was stable, wealthy, and at relative peace, by Roman standards at least.
[00:06:48] His father’s long wars on the Danube frontier were effectively coming to an end.
[00:06:55] The Senate and the army accepted him without serious opposition.
[00:07:00] For many Romans, this looked like the best possible scenario: a young emperor, born into legitimacy, stepping into his father’s shoes without the messy power struggles that had accompanied so many of his predecessors.
[00:07:16] But the contrast between father and son soon became obvious.
[00:07:22] Marcus Aurelius was austere, philosophical, and endlessly patient.
[00:07:29] Commodus was none of these things.
[00:07:32] Ancient writers describe him as lazy, vain, and obsessed with personal pleasure.
[00:07:40] Where his father had spent years in muddy camps on the German frontier, fighting for the glory of Rome, Commodus preferred the comfort of the palace, the baths, and the arena.
[00:07:53] He made peace with the Germanic tribes almost immediately, abandoning his father’s planned campaigns.
[00:08:01] For Rome’s soldiers and generals, this felt like throwing away years of hard-won gains.
[00:08:08] For Commodus, it meant he could return to Rome, parade in triumph, and present himself as the bringer of peace.
[00:08:18] And once back in Rome, his reign began to take on a different tone.
[00:08:25] He delighted in public shows, extravagant spectacles, and above all, in himself.
[00:08:33] Coins were minted showing him as Hercules, draped in a lion-skin, carrying a club.
[00:08:40] Statues were erected portraying him as a demigod.
[00:08:46] He renamed months of the year after his own titles and would even go so far as to rename Rome itself the “Colonia Commodiana”, the Colony of Commodus.
[00:08:59] If Marcus Aurelius had been the model of self-restraint, Commodus was the model of self-indulgence.
[00:09:08] And soon, that indulgence would extend beyond self-glorification to something that horrified Rome’s elite, the emperor’s decision to step into the gladiatorial arena, not as a spectator, but as a participant. As a gladiator.
[00:09:28] Now, as you probably know, and as we touched on in previous episodes, gladiators were right at the bottom of the social pecking order in Ancient Rome.
[00:09:39] They were often slaves, criminals, or prisoners of war, trained to fight to the death for the amusement of the crowd.
[00:09:49] They might be admired for their bravery, and indeed, they could win their freedom if they were successful enough in the arena.
[00:09:56] But they were disposable. Their lives were cheap. They were entertainment, not citizens. And they certainly weren’t emperors.
[00:10:07] So when Commodus began not just sponsoring games, but also entering the arena himself, it was scandalous.
[00:10:17] He is described as having fought hundreds of times, with one account saying that he fought as a gladiator on more than 1,000 occasions.
[00:10:28] Of course, the fights were carefully staged. He never faced a serious opponent.
[00:10:34] He would, reportedly, start with birds or animals kept in nets or cages, so they couldn’t fight back. It wasn’t a “fight” so much as an execution.
[00:10:47] Then he would move on to more exotic animals, cheetahs, lions and even elephants.
[00:10:55] Again, this wouldn’t be a fair fight, man vs. beast. Commodus would stand high up in the gallery with a bow and arrow, and he would dispatch the animals from the comfort and safety of his private box.
[00:11:10] In a single day, he is reported to have killed 100 lions, which is, of course, no reflection on his talents as a marksman, as an archer, but rather of his insatiable thirst for blood.
[00:11:25] And he is also remembered for getting into the arena himself, for a “fight” with human gladiators.
[00:11:33] Again, his survival is no reflection of his skill with a sword, but rather of the fact that his opponents were instructed not to fight back and given blunt and ineffective weapons.
[00:11:48] In some cases, they were completely unarmed, unable to defend themselves, and Commodus merely played the role of public executioner.
[00:11:59] On one famous occasion, he is reported to have rounded up all men in Rome who had lost a foot and had them tied together to resemble giants, and he then clubbed them all to death.
[00:12:15] And to make matters worse, or even more bizarre, he demanded payment for his “victories”.
[00:12:24] Cassius Dio writes that he would charge the city one million sesterces for each appearance, a vast sum, practically bankrupting the treasury for what were essentially vanity performances.
[00:12:40] And it wasn’t just the financial cost.
[00:12:43] For Rome’s elite, this was humiliation.
[00:12:47] Nero had acted in plays, which was embarrassing, but an emperor as a gladiator was on another level altogether.
[00:12:57] The emperor, who was supposedly chosen by the gods to rule the world, now played the part of a common slave for cheers and applause.
[00:13:08] The ordinary people, however, loved it.
[00:13:12] They packed the Colosseum to watch their emperor dressed as Hercules, club in hand, boasting of his divine strength.
[00:13:21] Commodus leaned into this image, declaring himself not only Hercules reborn but also the new founder of Rome.
[00:13:31] And while Commodus was “busy” in the arena, lapping up the cheers of the audience or giggling at the sight of the bloodthirsty events unfolding below, the day-to-day business of running Rome was left in the hands of favourites and courtiers.
[00:13:50] First came a freedman called Saoterus, who acted as a chamberlain and enjoyed enormous influence.
[00:13:58] He only lasted a couple of years, as he was murdered in 182 AD by another freedman named Cleander, who assumed the roles and responsibilities previously held by Saoterus.
[00:14:13] Cleander effectively ran the empire for several years, selling offices, governorships, and even Senate seats to the highest bidder.
[00:14:24] It was government as an open auction, and it bred resentment and chaos.
[00:14:30] In AD 190, when a shortage of grain caused riots in Rome, the mob turned on Cleander, demanding his execution.
[00:14:41] Commodus, whose primary concern was self-preservation, had his former favourite killed, but the episode left the empire unstable, and the emperor even more isolated.
[00:14:56] And by this point, AD 192, Commodus was a man completely consumed by his delusions.
[00:15:05] He renamed the legions after himself, declared every day a holiday in his honour, and insisted that statues of himself as Hercules be erected across the empire.
[00:15:18] And while the emperor lived in this god-like fantasy, the city he ruled was sinking into misery.
[00:15:27] The treasury was empty, the Senate was humiliated, and the people of Rome, who might have once been entertained by his games, now only saw corruption and instability.
[00:15:41] And the final straw came with what he planned to do on New Year of AD 193.
[00:15:49] Now, New Year was an important day in the Roman calendar. It was when magistrates took office, sacrifices were made, and the emperor made public appearances to mark Rome’s continuation and stability.
[00:16:05] Commodus had an unusual idea.
[00:16:09] According to Cassius Dio, he announced that in the New Year’s festivities he would appear not as the emperor, but as a gladiator.
[00:16:20] For Rome’s ruling class, this was too much.
[00:16:24] The Senate might flatter an emperor, tolerate excess, even turn a blind eye to corruption, but the idea of the emperor reducing himself to a professional gladiator on this highly symbolic day, and dragging the empire down with him, was intolerable.
[00:16:43] And as with Caligula and Nero before him, plots began to form.
[00:16:49] There had, in fact, been multiple attempts to kill him, and it is in many respects surprising that he managed to hold onto power for as long as he did.
[00:17:00] Indeed, in AD 182, just a couple of years into his reign, he narrowly escaped an assassination attempt led not by senators or generals, but by his own sister, Lucilla.
[00:17:14] Lucilla was the widow of the former co-emperor Lucius Verus, and she had expected to play a significant role in Roman politics.
[00:17:24] She was older than Commodus and, according to Cassius Dio, she resented being sidelined.
[00:17:32] So, together with a group of senators, she hatched a plan to have him killed.
[00:17:39] It was a simple enough plan. Wait until he was coming into a theatre, and stab him.
[00:17:46] It should have worked, but it went disastrously, almost comically, wrong.
[00:17:54] One of the conspirators confronted Commodus in public with a dagger, but he couldn’t resist the urge to indulge in some Hollywood-style theatrics.
[00:18:05] So instead of stabbing him immediately, he declared “The Senate sends you this!”, and before he could plunge the dagger into the emperor, he was seized Commodus’ guards, and the whole conspiracy was unravelled.
[00:18:22] Lucilla was banished to Capri and later executed, while many of her allies were put to death.
[00:18:30] This was the most famous of the failed assassination attempts.
[00:18:35] The successful one came ten years later, on New Year’s Eve, AD 192.
[00:18:43] It’s not clear exactly what precipitated the plot, but it’s believed that it was in reaction to Commodus’ plan to arrest and execute three of his closest allies: his new chamberlain, Eclectus, the head of the Praetorian Guard, Laetus, and his mistress, Marcia.
[00:19:05] When Marcia got wind of this plan, and presumably realising “it’s either me or him”, she sent for the other two names on the “hit list”, and the three conspired to murder Commodus.
[00:19:20] There were frantic attempts to poison him during the day, but none of them succeeded.
[00:19:27] Eventually, they called upon a wrestler called Narcissus, who was actually one of Commodus’s wrestling partners.
[00:19:36] He was sent into Commodus’ chamber with instructions to kill him.
[00:19:41] He entered the emperor’s chamber and found him in the bath, where he proceeded to strangle him.
[00:19:49] Commodus might have been Rome’s most decorated and highly-paid gladiator, but there, naked in the bath, he was no match for a man armed only with his bare hands.
[00:20:03] The emperor, now ex-emperor, was thirty-one years old.
[00:20:08] And with his death, the dynasty of the philosopher-emperor Marcus Aurelius ended in blood and disgrace.
[00:20:16] There were calls for Commodus’ body to be dragged through the streets of Rome on hooks before being dumped into the Tiber, and it almost would have been, had it not been for the intervention of a consul called Pertinax, a man who would in fact go on to be Emperor, albeit only for 87 days.
[00:20:39] Although his body wasn’t dragged through the streets, the Senate wasted no time in condemning his memory. They declared a damnatio memoriae, erasing his name from inscriptions, tearing down his statues, and branding him a public enemy.
[00:20:58] To them, he was not just a bad emperor, but a tyrant who had nearly destroyed Rome.
[00:21:05] In the words of Cassius Dio, Commodus’ rule marked the descent "from a kingdom of gold to one of iron and rust".
[00:21:16] And Rome itself was left in chaos.
[00:21:19] Commodus’s death did not bring stability; instead, it plunged the empire into what historians have called the Year of the Five Emperors, a rapid succession of rulers backed by rival generals and factions.
[00:21:35] The imperial throne, which was handed on a silver plate to Commodus, became the most dangerous seat in the world.
[00:21:45] Now, as with the two other subjects of this mini-series, it’s important to remember that everything we know about them was written by men with an agenda, and was often written many years after their death.
[00:22:00] Cassius Dio, in particular, clearly loathed him.
[00:22:04] Yes, it seems very likely that Commodus was a pretty awful individual and a terrible emperor, but it was very convenient for him to be painted as such.
[00:22:16] And this is the thread that runs through all three of the tyrants we’ve covered in this series. Caligula, Nero, Commodus.
[00:22:26] Each of them is remembered as a monster, a caricature of cruelty and excess, albeit in different ways.
[00:22:35] Each of them was accused of madness, of megalomania, of treating Rome as their personal stage.
[00:22:44] And yet, in every case, the sources we rely on were written by senators, historians, or chroniclers who hated them, and who often had very good reasons to exaggerate their faults.
[00:22:59] So perhaps the question is not just “were they really this bad?” but “why were they remembered this way?”
[00:23:08] Part of it was certainly deserved; all three were tyrants in different ways.
[00:23:14] But part of it was also politics: it served the interests of their successors, and of Rome’s elite, to present them as villains so that later emperors might seem like saviours by comparison.
[00:23:30] In that sense, their reputations tell us as much about the anxieties and priorities of Roman society as they do about the emperors themselves.
[00:23:40] What was intolerable was not only cruelty or extravagance, which were both not uncommon in Rome, but the violation of expectations: emperors acting like gladiators, emperors singing on stage, and emperors humiliating the Senate.
[00:24:00] These were lines Rome’s ruling class could not accept, and so the rulers who crossed them became immortalised as bywords for tyranny.
[00:24:11] OK, then, that is it for today's episode on Commodus, and with that comes the end of this three-part mini-series on “Tyrants Of The Roman Empire”.
[00:24:21] I hope you enjoyed the mini-series and that it shone some light on these characters that you no doubt had heard of, but perhaps were not acquainted with every aspect of their life.
[00:24:32] To state the obvious, each of these episodes could have been ten times longer, and choosing what to include and what not to include was a task in itself.
[00:24:42] But we will probably return to some of the topics and stories in future episodes, like the story of the luckless eunuch, Sporus, so you have that to look forward to at some stage in the not-too-distant future.
[00:24:55] You've been listening to English Learning for Curious Minds by Leonardo English.
[00:25:01] I'm Alastair Budge, you stay safe, and I'll catch you in the next episode
[00:00:05] Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English, the show where you can listen to fascinating stories and learn weird and wonderful things about the world at the same time as improving your English.
[00:00:21] I'm Alastair Budge, and today it’s part three of our three-part mini-series on “Tyrants Of The Roman Empire”.
[00:00:30] In case you missed them, part one was on Caligula, part two was on Nero, and we are going to round off the series by talking about Commodus, the so-called “Gladiator Emperor”.
[00:00:42] You can listen to this episode without having listened to the previous two, but it will make more sense if you’ve listened to those, as I’ll reference a few names and events from those periods.
[00:00:54] So, if you’d prefer to listen to those first and you haven’t done so already, now is the time to press pause.
[00:01:02] OK then, let’s get started and talk about Commodus.
[00:01:08] Millions of people around the world today turn to the musings of the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius.
[00:01:16] Although it’s almost 2,000 years old, his internal thoughts about “how to live a good life”, immortalised in Meditations, have become a sort of guidebook, a blueprint for how to be content and satisfied, even today, in a world that bears little similarity to the one in which Aurelius lived.
[00:01:40] As such, we think of Aurelius as a wise and thoughtful man, a man who carefully considered every decision, evaluating the advantages and disadvantages before choosing the wisest path.
[00:01:55] He was, undoubtedly, one of the better rulers of Rome and was praised both by his contemporaries and historians looking back on his 19-year stint in power.
[00:02:09] On a personal level, some decisions are more debatable, whether that’s his tolerance of his wife’s frequent infidelity, his willingness to turn a blind eye to court scandals, or even his habit of promoting his favourites over other, perhaps more talented, people.
[00:02:28] There is one decision, though, which has forever tarnished his legacy.
[00:02:34] He named as his successor his son Commodus, a man who has gone down in history as a tyrant, an imbecile, a sadist, a megalomaniac, a madman, and, to quote the Roman historian Cassius Dio, “a greater curse to the Romans than any pestilence or any crime”.
[00:02:57] Now, one can certainly argue that Marcus Aurelius had little choice but to nominate Commodus as his heir; he had no other surviving sons, and failing to name Commodus as his successor would have put his son’s life in danger.
[00:03:14] And Marcus Aurelius was human after all.
[00:03:19] Any parent’s first preoccupation is for the safety of their child, and it’s not difficult to see how Marcus Aurelius might have overlooked some early signs of Commodus’ insuitability for the top job, if indeed there were signs.
[00:03:36] So, perhaps he had no other option, or at least no other good options, but the choice to go with Commodus would forever be a black mark on the otherwise positive legacy of Marcus Aurelius.
[00:03:52] So, to the early life of Commodus.
[00:03:55] He was born in AD 161, the first emperor to be born “in the purple”, or born during his father’s reign.
[00:04:07] As you will remember from the previous two episodes, most Roman emperors didn’t have a clear successor; there was constant jockeying for power through affairs, marriages, divorces, adoptions and poisonings, and parents–often divorced or widowed mothers–tried to position their sons as first in line to the title of emperor.
[00:04:32] Marcus Aurelius was an exception, in that he had a relatively uncomplicated personal life.
[00:04:40] He was only married once, and the marriage bore at least 14 children. But only one son and four daughters were still alive at the time of their father’s death.
[00:04:52] The daughters, this being Ancient Rome, didn’t get a look in; they didn’t feature in the succession planning.
[00:05:02] This left the one and only son: Commodus.
[00:05:07] And from a very young age, he had been groomed for the role of Roman Emperor.
[00:05:14] He was officially made Caesar at the age of 5, together with his younger brother.
[00:05:20] Caesar, by the way, means the designated heir; the son who will become emperor on his father’s death.
[00:05:28] His younger brother, his co-Caesar, Marcus Annius Verus, died a few years later, which made Commodus the sole heir.
[00:05:38] He travelled around with his father, following his military campaign in Germany, and is thought to have received personal tuition from the best scholars at the time.
[00:05:49] As Marcus Aurelius grew older, and following a particularly threatening uprising by one of his governors, Avidius Cassius, he gave his son increasing responsibilities, making it abundantly clear that Commodus was his handpicked successor.
[00:06:07] First came the victory title of Germanicus, then the title of Imperator, then consul.
[00:06:15] And for a couple of years, he ruled jointly with his father, with Marcus Aurelius.
[00:06:22] And in March 180 AD, his father died, leaving the then 18-year-old Commodus the undisputed and official Roman Emperor.
[00:06:35] At first, the transition was smooth.
[00:06:39] Commodus inherited an empire that was stable, wealthy, and at relative peace, by Roman standards at least.
[00:06:48] His father’s long wars on the Danube frontier were effectively coming to an end.
[00:06:55] The Senate and the army accepted him without serious opposition.
[00:07:00] For many Romans, this looked like the best possible scenario: a young emperor, born into legitimacy, stepping into his father’s shoes without the messy power struggles that had accompanied so many of his predecessors.
[00:07:16] But the contrast between father and son soon became obvious.
[00:07:22] Marcus Aurelius was austere, philosophical, and endlessly patient.
[00:07:29] Commodus was none of these things.
[00:07:32] Ancient writers describe him as lazy, vain, and obsessed with personal pleasure.
[00:07:40] Where his father had spent years in muddy camps on the German frontier, fighting for the glory of Rome, Commodus preferred the comfort of the palace, the baths, and the arena.
[00:07:53] He made peace with the Germanic tribes almost immediately, abandoning his father’s planned campaigns.
[00:08:01] For Rome’s soldiers and generals, this felt like throwing away years of hard-won gains.
[00:08:08] For Commodus, it meant he could return to Rome, parade in triumph, and present himself as the bringer of peace.
[00:08:18] And once back in Rome, his reign began to take on a different tone.
[00:08:25] He delighted in public shows, extravagant spectacles, and above all, in himself.
[00:08:33] Coins were minted showing him as Hercules, draped in a lion-skin, carrying a club.
[00:08:40] Statues were erected portraying him as a demigod.
[00:08:46] He renamed months of the year after his own titles and would even go so far as to rename Rome itself the “Colonia Commodiana”, the Colony of Commodus.
[00:08:59] If Marcus Aurelius had been the model of self-restraint, Commodus was the model of self-indulgence.
[00:09:08] And soon, that indulgence would extend beyond self-glorification to something that horrified Rome’s elite, the emperor’s decision to step into the gladiatorial arena, not as a spectator, but as a participant. As a gladiator.
[00:09:28] Now, as you probably know, and as we touched on in previous episodes, gladiators were right at the bottom of the social pecking order in Ancient Rome.
[00:09:39] They were often slaves, criminals, or prisoners of war, trained to fight to the death for the amusement of the crowd.
[00:09:49] They might be admired for their bravery, and indeed, they could win their freedom if they were successful enough in the arena.
[00:09:56] But they were disposable. Their lives were cheap. They were entertainment, not citizens. And they certainly weren’t emperors.
[00:10:07] So when Commodus began not just sponsoring games, but also entering the arena himself, it was scandalous.
[00:10:17] He is described as having fought hundreds of times, with one account saying that he fought as a gladiator on more than 1,000 occasions.
[00:10:28] Of course, the fights were carefully staged. He never faced a serious opponent.
[00:10:34] He would, reportedly, start with birds or animals kept in nets or cages, so they couldn’t fight back. It wasn’t a “fight” so much as an execution.
[00:10:47] Then he would move on to more exotic animals, cheetahs, lions and even elephants.
[00:10:55] Again, this wouldn’t be a fair fight, man vs. beast. Commodus would stand high up in the gallery with a bow and arrow, and he would dispatch the animals from the comfort and safety of his private box.
[00:11:10] In a single day, he is reported to have killed 100 lions, which is, of course, no reflection on his talents as a marksman, as an archer, but rather of his insatiable thirst for blood.
[00:11:25] And he is also remembered for getting into the arena himself, for a “fight” with human gladiators.
[00:11:33] Again, his survival is no reflection of his skill with a sword, but rather of the fact that his opponents were instructed not to fight back and given blunt and ineffective weapons.
[00:11:48] In some cases, they were completely unarmed, unable to defend themselves, and Commodus merely played the role of public executioner.
[00:11:59] On one famous occasion, he is reported to have rounded up all men in Rome who had lost a foot and had them tied together to resemble giants, and he then clubbed them all to death.
[00:12:15] And to make matters worse, or even more bizarre, he demanded payment for his “victories”.
[00:12:24] Cassius Dio writes that he would charge the city one million sesterces for each appearance, a vast sum, practically bankrupting the treasury for what were essentially vanity performances.
[00:12:40] And it wasn’t just the financial cost.
[00:12:43] For Rome’s elite, this was humiliation.
[00:12:47] Nero had acted in plays, which was embarrassing, but an emperor as a gladiator was on another level altogether.
[00:12:57] The emperor, who was supposedly chosen by the gods to rule the world, now played the part of a common slave for cheers and applause.
[00:13:08] The ordinary people, however, loved it.
[00:13:12] They packed the Colosseum to watch their emperor dressed as Hercules, club in hand, boasting of his divine strength.
[00:13:21] Commodus leaned into this image, declaring himself not only Hercules reborn but also the new founder of Rome.
[00:13:31] And while Commodus was “busy” in the arena, lapping up the cheers of the audience or giggling at the sight of the bloodthirsty events unfolding below, the day-to-day business of running Rome was left in the hands of favourites and courtiers.
[00:13:50] First came a freedman called Saoterus, who acted as a chamberlain and enjoyed enormous influence.
[00:13:58] He only lasted a couple of years, as he was murdered in 182 AD by another freedman named Cleander, who assumed the roles and responsibilities previously held by Saoterus.
[00:14:13] Cleander effectively ran the empire for several years, selling offices, governorships, and even Senate seats to the highest bidder.
[00:14:24] It was government as an open auction, and it bred resentment and chaos.
[00:14:30] In AD 190, when a shortage of grain caused riots in Rome, the mob turned on Cleander, demanding his execution.
[00:14:41] Commodus, whose primary concern was self-preservation, had his former favourite killed, but the episode left the empire unstable, and the emperor even more isolated.
[00:14:56] And by this point, AD 192, Commodus was a man completely consumed by his delusions.
[00:15:05] He renamed the legions after himself, declared every day a holiday in his honour, and insisted that statues of himself as Hercules be erected across the empire.
[00:15:18] And while the emperor lived in this god-like fantasy, the city he ruled was sinking into misery.
[00:15:27] The treasury was empty, the Senate was humiliated, and the people of Rome, who might have once been entertained by his games, now only saw corruption and instability.
[00:15:41] And the final straw came with what he planned to do on New Year of AD 193.
[00:15:49] Now, New Year was an important day in the Roman calendar. It was when magistrates took office, sacrifices were made, and the emperor made public appearances to mark Rome’s continuation and stability.
[00:16:05] Commodus had an unusual idea.
[00:16:09] According to Cassius Dio, he announced that in the New Year’s festivities he would appear not as the emperor, but as a gladiator.
[00:16:20] For Rome’s ruling class, this was too much.
[00:16:24] The Senate might flatter an emperor, tolerate excess, even turn a blind eye to corruption, but the idea of the emperor reducing himself to a professional gladiator on this highly symbolic day, and dragging the empire down with him, was intolerable.
[00:16:43] And as with Caligula and Nero before him, plots began to form.
[00:16:49] There had, in fact, been multiple attempts to kill him, and it is in many respects surprising that he managed to hold onto power for as long as he did.
[00:17:00] Indeed, in AD 182, just a couple of years into his reign, he narrowly escaped an assassination attempt led not by senators or generals, but by his own sister, Lucilla.
[00:17:14] Lucilla was the widow of the former co-emperor Lucius Verus, and she had expected to play a significant role in Roman politics.
[00:17:24] She was older than Commodus and, according to Cassius Dio, she resented being sidelined.
[00:17:32] So, together with a group of senators, she hatched a plan to have him killed.
[00:17:39] It was a simple enough plan. Wait until he was coming into a theatre, and stab him.
[00:17:46] It should have worked, but it went disastrously, almost comically, wrong.
[00:17:54] One of the conspirators confronted Commodus in public with a dagger, but he couldn’t resist the urge to indulge in some Hollywood-style theatrics.
[00:18:05] So instead of stabbing him immediately, he declared “The Senate sends you this!”, and before he could plunge the dagger into the emperor, he was seized Commodus’ guards, and the whole conspiracy was unravelled.
[00:18:22] Lucilla was banished to Capri and later executed, while many of her allies were put to death.
[00:18:30] This was the most famous of the failed assassination attempts.
[00:18:35] The successful one came ten years later, on New Year’s Eve, AD 192.
[00:18:43] It’s not clear exactly what precipitated the plot, but it’s believed that it was in reaction to Commodus’ plan to arrest and execute three of his closest allies: his new chamberlain, Eclectus, the head of the Praetorian Guard, Laetus, and his mistress, Marcia.
[00:19:05] When Marcia got wind of this plan, and presumably realising “it’s either me or him”, she sent for the other two names on the “hit list”, and the three conspired to murder Commodus.
[00:19:20] There were frantic attempts to poison him during the day, but none of them succeeded.
[00:19:27] Eventually, they called upon a wrestler called Narcissus, who was actually one of Commodus’s wrestling partners.
[00:19:36] He was sent into Commodus’ chamber with instructions to kill him.
[00:19:41] He entered the emperor’s chamber and found him in the bath, where he proceeded to strangle him.
[00:19:49] Commodus might have been Rome’s most decorated and highly-paid gladiator, but there, naked in the bath, he was no match for a man armed only with his bare hands.
[00:20:03] The emperor, now ex-emperor, was thirty-one years old.
[00:20:08] And with his death, the dynasty of the philosopher-emperor Marcus Aurelius ended in blood and disgrace.
[00:20:16] There were calls for Commodus’ body to be dragged through the streets of Rome on hooks before being dumped into the Tiber, and it almost would have been, had it not been for the intervention of a consul called Pertinax, a man who would in fact go on to be Emperor, albeit only for 87 days.
[00:20:39] Although his body wasn’t dragged through the streets, the Senate wasted no time in condemning his memory. They declared a damnatio memoriae, erasing his name from inscriptions, tearing down his statues, and branding him a public enemy.
[00:20:58] To them, he was not just a bad emperor, but a tyrant who had nearly destroyed Rome.
[00:21:05] In the words of Cassius Dio, Commodus’ rule marked the descent "from a kingdom of gold to one of iron and rust".
[00:21:16] And Rome itself was left in chaos.
[00:21:19] Commodus’s death did not bring stability; instead, it plunged the empire into what historians have called the Year of the Five Emperors, a rapid succession of rulers backed by rival generals and factions.
[00:21:35] The imperial throne, which was handed on a silver plate to Commodus, became the most dangerous seat in the world.
[00:21:45] Now, as with the two other subjects of this mini-series, it’s important to remember that everything we know about them was written by men with an agenda, and was often written many years after their death.
[00:22:00] Cassius Dio, in particular, clearly loathed him.
[00:22:04] Yes, it seems very likely that Commodus was a pretty awful individual and a terrible emperor, but it was very convenient for him to be painted as such.
[00:22:16] And this is the thread that runs through all three of the tyrants we’ve covered in this series. Caligula, Nero, Commodus.
[00:22:26] Each of them is remembered as a monster, a caricature of cruelty and excess, albeit in different ways.
[00:22:35] Each of them was accused of madness, of megalomania, of treating Rome as their personal stage.
[00:22:44] And yet, in every case, the sources we rely on were written by senators, historians, or chroniclers who hated them, and who often had very good reasons to exaggerate their faults.
[00:22:59] So perhaps the question is not just “were they really this bad?” but “why were they remembered this way?”
[00:23:08] Part of it was certainly deserved; all three were tyrants in different ways.
[00:23:14] But part of it was also politics: it served the interests of their successors, and of Rome’s elite, to present them as villains so that later emperors might seem like saviours by comparison.
[00:23:30] In that sense, their reputations tell us as much about the anxieties and priorities of Roman society as they do about the emperors themselves.
[00:23:40] What was intolerable was not only cruelty or extravagance, which were both not uncommon in Rome, but the violation of expectations: emperors acting like gladiators, emperors singing on stage, and emperors humiliating the Senate.
[00:24:00] These were lines Rome’s ruling class could not accept, and so the rulers who crossed them became immortalised as bywords for tyranny.
[00:24:11] OK, then, that is it for today's episode on Commodus, and with that comes the end of this three-part mini-series on “Tyrants Of The Roman Empire”.
[00:24:21] I hope you enjoyed the mini-series and that it shone some light on these characters that you no doubt had heard of, but perhaps were not acquainted with every aspect of their life.
[00:24:32] To state the obvious, each of these episodes could have been ten times longer, and choosing what to include and what not to include was a task in itself.
[00:24:42] But we will probably return to some of the topics and stories in future episodes, like the story of the luckless eunuch, Sporus, so you have that to look forward to at some stage in the not-too-distant future.
[00:24:55] You've been listening to English Learning for Curious Minds by Leonardo English.
[00:25:01] I'm Alastair Budge, you stay safe, and I'll catch you in the next episode
[00:00:05] Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English, the show where you can listen to fascinating stories and learn weird and wonderful things about the world at the same time as improving your English.
[00:00:21] I'm Alastair Budge, and today it’s part three of our three-part mini-series on “Tyrants Of The Roman Empire”.
[00:00:30] In case you missed them, part one was on Caligula, part two was on Nero, and we are going to round off the series by talking about Commodus, the so-called “Gladiator Emperor”.
[00:00:42] You can listen to this episode without having listened to the previous two, but it will make more sense if you’ve listened to those, as I’ll reference a few names and events from those periods.
[00:00:54] So, if you’d prefer to listen to those first and you haven’t done so already, now is the time to press pause.
[00:01:02] OK then, let’s get started and talk about Commodus.
[00:01:08] Millions of people around the world today turn to the musings of the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius.
[00:01:16] Although it’s almost 2,000 years old, his internal thoughts about “how to live a good life”, immortalised in Meditations, have become a sort of guidebook, a blueprint for how to be content and satisfied, even today, in a world that bears little similarity to the one in which Aurelius lived.
[00:01:40] As such, we think of Aurelius as a wise and thoughtful man, a man who carefully considered every decision, evaluating the advantages and disadvantages before choosing the wisest path.
[00:01:55] He was, undoubtedly, one of the better rulers of Rome and was praised both by his contemporaries and historians looking back on his 19-year stint in power.
[00:02:09] On a personal level, some decisions are more debatable, whether that’s his tolerance of his wife’s frequent infidelity, his willingness to turn a blind eye to court scandals, or even his habit of promoting his favourites over other, perhaps more talented, people.
[00:02:28] There is one decision, though, which has forever tarnished his legacy.
[00:02:34] He named as his successor his son Commodus, a man who has gone down in history as a tyrant, an imbecile, a sadist, a megalomaniac, a madman, and, to quote the Roman historian Cassius Dio, “a greater curse to the Romans than any pestilence or any crime”.
[00:02:57] Now, one can certainly argue that Marcus Aurelius had little choice but to nominate Commodus as his heir; he had no other surviving sons, and failing to name Commodus as his successor would have put his son’s life in danger.
[00:03:14] And Marcus Aurelius was human after all.
[00:03:19] Any parent’s first preoccupation is for the safety of their child, and it’s not difficult to see how Marcus Aurelius might have overlooked some early signs of Commodus’ insuitability for the top job, if indeed there were signs.
[00:03:36] So, perhaps he had no other option, or at least no other good options, but the choice to go with Commodus would forever be a black mark on the otherwise positive legacy of Marcus Aurelius.
[00:03:52] So, to the early life of Commodus.
[00:03:55] He was born in AD 161, the first emperor to be born “in the purple”, or born during his father’s reign.
[00:04:07] As you will remember from the previous two episodes, most Roman emperors didn’t have a clear successor; there was constant jockeying for power through affairs, marriages, divorces, adoptions and poisonings, and parents–often divorced or widowed mothers–tried to position their sons as first in line to the title of emperor.
[00:04:32] Marcus Aurelius was an exception, in that he had a relatively uncomplicated personal life.
[00:04:40] He was only married once, and the marriage bore at least 14 children. But only one son and four daughters were still alive at the time of their father’s death.
[00:04:52] The daughters, this being Ancient Rome, didn’t get a look in; they didn’t feature in the succession planning.
[00:05:02] This left the one and only son: Commodus.
[00:05:07] And from a very young age, he had been groomed for the role of Roman Emperor.
[00:05:14] He was officially made Caesar at the age of 5, together with his younger brother.
[00:05:20] Caesar, by the way, means the designated heir; the son who will become emperor on his father’s death.
[00:05:28] His younger brother, his co-Caesar, Marcus Annius Verus, died a few years later, which made Commodus the sole heir.
[00:05:38] He travelled around with his father, following his military campaign in Germany, and is thought to have received personal tuition from the best scholars at the time.
[00:05:49] As Marcus Aurelius grew older, and following a particularly threatening uprising by one of his governors, Avidius Cassius, he gave his son increasing responsibilities, making it abundantly clear that Commodus was his handpicked successor.
[00:06:07] First came the victory title of Germanicus, then the title of Imperator, then consul.
[00:06:15] And for a couple of years, he ruled jointly with his father, with Marcus Aurelius.
[00:06:22] And in March 180 AD, his father died, leaving the then 18-year-old Commodus the undisputed and official Roman Emperor.
[00:06:35] At first, the transition was smooth.
[00:06:39] Commodus inherited an empire that was stable, wealthy, and at relative peace, by Roman standards at least.
[00:06:48] His father’s long wars on the Danube frontier were effectively coming to an end.
[00:06:55] The Senate and the army accepted him without serious opposition.
[00:07:00] For many Romans, this looked like the best possible scenario: a young emperor, born into legitimacy, stepping into his father’s shoes without the messy power struggles that had accompanied so many of his predecessors.
[00:07:16] But the contrast between father and son soon became obvious.
[00:07:22] Marcus Aurelius was austere, philosophical, and endlessly patient.
[00:07:29] Commodus was none of these things.
[00:07:32] Ancient writers describe him as lazy, vain, and obsessed with personal pleasure.
[00:07:40] Where his father had spent years in muddy camps on the German frontier, fighting for the glory of Rome, Commodus preferred the comfort of the palace, the baths, and the arena.
[00:07:53] He made peace with the Germanic tribes almost immediately, abandoning his father’s planned campaigns.
[00:08:01] For Rome’s soldiers and generals, this felt like throwing away years of hard-won gains.
[00:08:08] For Commodus, it meant he could return to Rome, parade in triumph, and present himself as the bringer of peace.
[00:08:18] And once back in Rome, his reign began to take on a different tone.
[00:08:25] He delighted in public shows, extravagant spectacles, and above all, in himself.
[00:08:33] Coins were minted showing him as Hercules, draped in a lion-skin, carrying a club.
[00:08:40] Statues were erected portraying him as a demigod.
[00:08:46] He renamed months of the year after his own titles and would even go so far as to rename Rome itself the “Colonia Commodiana”, the Colony of Commodus.
[00:08:59] If Marcus Aurelius had been the model of self-restraint, Commodus was the model of self-indulgence.
[00:09:08] And soon, that indulgence would extend beyond self-glorification to something that horrified Rome’s elite, the emperor’s decision to step into the gladiatorial arena, not as a spectator, but as a participant. As a gladiator.
[00:09:28] Now, as you probably know, and as we touched on in previous episodes, gladiators were right at the bottom of the social pecking order in Ancient Rome.
[00:09:39] They were often slaves, criminals, or prisoners of war, trained to fight to the death for the amusement of the crowd.
[00:09:49] They might be admired for their bravery, and indeed, they could win their freedom if they were successful enough in the arena.
[00:09:56] But they were disposable. Their lives were cheap. They were entertainment, not citizens. And they certainly weren’t emperors.
[00:10:07] So when Commodus began not just sponsoring games, but also entering the arena himself, it was scandalous.
[00:10:17] He is described as having fought hundreds of times, with one account saying that he fought as a gladiator on more than 1,000 occasions.
[00:10:28] Of course, the fights were carefully staged. He never faced a serious opponent.
[00:10:34] He would, reportedly, start with birds or animals kept in nets or cages, so they couldn’t fight back. It wasn’t a “fight” so much as an execution.
[00:10:47] Then he would move on to more exotic animals, cheetahs, lions and even elephants.
[00:10:55] Again, this wouldn’t be a fair fight, man vs. beast. Commodus would stand high up in the gallery with a bow and arrow, and he would dispatch the animals from the comfort and safety of his private box.
[00:11:10] In a single day, he is reported to have killed 100 lions, which is, of course, no reflection on his talents as a marksman, as an archer, but rather of his insatiable thirst for blood.
[00:11:25] And he is also remembered for getting into the arena himself, for a “fight” with human gladiators.
[00:11:33] Again, his survival is no reflection of his skill with a sword, but rather of the fact that his opponents were instructed not to fight back and given blunt and ineffective weapons.
[00:11:48] In some cases, they were completely unarmed, unable to defend themselves, and Commodus merely played the role of public executioner.
[00:11:59] On one famous occasion, he is reported to have rounded up all men in Rome who had lost a foot and had them tied together to resemble giants, and he then clubbed them all to death.
[00:12:15] And to make matters worse, or even more bizarre, he demanded payment for his “victories”.
[00:12:24] Cassius Dio writes that he would charge the city one million sesterces for each appearance, a vast sum, practically bankrupting the treasury for what were essentially vanity performances.
[00:12:40] And it wasn’t just the financial cost.
[00:12:43] For Rome’s elite, this was humiliation.
[00:12:47] Nero had acted in plays, which was embarrassing, but an emperor as a gladiator was on another level altogether.
[00:12:57] The emperor, who was supposedly chosen by the gods to rule the world, now played the part of a common slave for cheers and applause.
[00:13:08] The ordinary people, however, loved it.
[00:13:12] They packed the Colosseum to watch their emperor dressed as Hercules, club in hand, boasting of his divine strength.
[00:13:21] Commodus leaned into this image, declaring himself not only Hercules reborn but also the new founder of Rome.
[00:13:31] And while Commodus was “busy” in the arena, lapping up the cheers of the audience or giggling at the sight of the bloodthirsty events unfolding below, the day-to-day business of running Rome was left in the hands of favourites and courtiers.
[00:13:50] First came a freedman called Saoterus, who acted as a chamberlain and enjoyed enormous influence.
[00:13:58] He only lasted a couple of years, as he was murdered in 182 AD by another freedman named Cleander, who assumed the roles and responsibilities previously held by Saoterus.
[00:14:13] Cleander effectively ran the empire for several years, selling offices, governorships, and even Senate seats to the highest bidder.
[00:14:24] It was government as an open auction, and it bred resentment and chaos.
[00:14:30] In AD 190, when a shortage of grain caused riots in Rome, the mob turned on Cleander, demanding his execution.
[00:14:41] Commodus, whose primary concern was self-preservation, had his former favourite killed, but the episode left the empire unstable, and the emperor even more isolated.
[00:14:56] And by this point, AD 192, Commodus was a man completely consumed by his delusions.
[00:15:05] He renamed the legions after himself, declared every day a holiday in his honour, and insisted that statues of himself as Hercules be erected across the empire.
[00:15:18] And while the emperor lived in this god-like fantasy, the city he ruled was sinking into misery.
[00:15:27] The treasury was empty, the Senate was humiliated, and the people of Rome, who might have once been entertained by his games, now only saw corruption and instability.
[00:15:41] And the final straw came with what he planned to do on New Year of AD 193.
[00:15:49] Now, New Year was an important day in the Roman calendar. It was when magistrates took office, sacrifices were made, and the emperor made public appearances to mark Rome’s continuation and stability.
[00:16:05] Commodus had an unusual idea.
[00:16:09] According to Cassius Dio, he announced that in the New Year’s festivities he would appear not as the emperor, but as a gladiator.
[00:16:20] For Rome’s ruling class, this was too much.
[00:16:24] The Senate might flatter an emperor, tolerate excess, even turn a blind eye to corruption, but the idea of the emperor reducing himself to a professional gladiator on this highly symbolic day, and dragging the empire down with him, was intolerable.
[00:16:43] And as with Caligula and Nero before him, plots began to form.
[00:16:49] There had, in fact, been multiple attempts to kill him, and it is in many respects surprising that he managed to hold onto power for as long as he did.
[00:17:00] Indeed, in AD 182, just a couple of years into his reign, he narrowly escaped an assassination attempt led not by senators or generals, but by his own sister, Lucilla.
[00:17:14] Lucilla was the widow of the former co-emperor Lucius Verus, and she had expected to play a significant role in Roman politics.
[00:17:24] She was older than Commodus and, according to Cassius Dio, she resented being sidelined.
[00:17:32] So, together with a group of senators, she hatched a plan to have him killed.
[00:17:39] It was a simple enough plan. Wait until he was coming into a theatre, and stab him.
[00:17:46] It should have worked, but it went disastrously, almost comically, wrong.
[00:17:54] One of the conspirators confronted Commodus in public with a dagger, but he couldn’t resist the urge to indulge in some Hollywood-style theatrics.
[00:18:05] So instead of stabbing him immediately, he declared “The Senate sends you this!”, and before he could plunge the dagger into the emperor, he was seized Commodus’ guards, and the whole conspiracy was unravelled.
[00:18:22] Lucilla was banished to Capri and later executed, while many of her allies were put to death.
[00:18:30] This was the most famous of the failed assassination attempts.
[00:18:35] The successful one came ten years later, on New Year’s Eve, AD 192.
[00:18:43] It’s not clear exactly what precipitated the plot, but it’s believed that it was in reaction to Commodus’ plan to arrest and execute three of his closest allies: his new chamberlain, Eclectus, the head of the Praetorian Guard, Laetus, and his mistress, Marcia.
[00:19:05] When Marcia got wind of this plan, and presumably realising “it’s either me or him”, she sent for the other two names on the “hit list”, and the three conspired to murder Commodus.
[00:19:20] There were frantic attempts to poison him during the day, but none of them succeeded.
[00:19:27] Eventually, they called upon a wrestler called Narcissus, who was actually one of Commodus’s wrestling partners.
[00:19:36] He was sent into Commodus’ chamber with instructions to kill him.
[00:19:41] He entered the emperor’s chamber and found him in the bath, where he proceeded to strangle him.
[00:19:49] Commodus might have been Rome’s most decorated and highly-paid gladiator, but there, naked in the bath, he was no match for a man armed only with his bare hands.
[00:20:03] The emperor, now ex-emperor, was thirty-one years old.
[00:20:08] And with his death, the dynasty of the philosopher-emperor Marcus Aurelius ended in blood and disgrace.
[00:20:16] There were calls for Commodus’ body to be dragged through the streets of Rome on hooks before being dumped into the Tiber, and it almost would have been, had it not been for the intervention of a consul called Pertinax, a man who would in fact go on to be Emperor, albeit only for 87 days.
[00:20:39] Although his body wasn’t dragged through the streets, the Senate wasted no time in condemning his memory. They declared a damnatio memoriae, erasing his name from inscriptions, tearing down his statues, and branding him a public enemy.
[00:20:58] To them, he was not just a bad emperor, but a tyrant who had nearly destroyed Rome.
[00:21:05] In the words of Cassius Dio, Commodus’ rule marked the descent "from a kingdom of gold to one of iron and rust".
[00:21:16] And Rome itself was left in chaos.
[00:21:19] Commodus’s death did not bring stability; instead, it plunged the empire into what historians have called the Year of the Five Emperors, a rapid succession of rulers backed by rival generals and factions.
[00:21:35] The imperial throne, which was handed on a silver plate to Commodus, became the most dangerous seat in the world.
[00:21:45] Now, as with the two other subjects of this mini-series, it’s important to remember that everything we know about them was written by men with an agenda, and was often written many years after their death.
[00:22:00] Cassius Dio, in particular, clearly loathed him.
[00:22:04] Yes, it seems very likely that Commodus was a pretty awful individual and a terrible emperor, but it was very convenient for him to be painted as such.
[00:22:16] And this is the thread that runs through all three of the tyrants we’ve covered in this series. Caligula, Nero, Commodus.
[00:22:26] Each of them is remembered as a monster, a caricature of cruelty and excess, albeit in different ways.
[00:22:35] Each of them was accused of madness, of megalomania, of treating Rome as their personal stage.
[00:22:44] And yet, in every case, the sources we rely on were written by senators, historians, or chroniclers who hated them, and who often had very good reasons to exaggerate their faults.
[00:22:59] So perhaps the question is not just “were they really this bad?” but “why were they remembered this way?”
[00:23:08] Part of it was certainly deserved; all three were tyrants in different ways.
[00:23:14] But part of it was also politics: it served the interests of their successors, and of Rome’s elite, to present them as villains so that later emperors might seem like saviours by comparison.
[00:23:30] In that sense, their reputations tell us as much about the anxieties and priorities of Roman society as they do about the emperors themselves.
[00:23:40] What was intolerable was not only cruelty or extravagance, which were both not uncommon in Rome, but the violation of expectations: emperors acting like gladiators, emperors singing on stage, and emperors humiliating the Senate.
[00:24:00] These were lines Rome’s ruling class could not accept, and so the rulers who crossed them became immortalised as bywords for tyranny.
[00:24:11] OK, then, that is it for today's episode on Commodus, and with that comes the end of this three-part mini-series on “Tyrants Of The Roman Empire”.
[00:24:21] I hope you enjoyed the mini-series and that it shone some light on these characters that you no doubt had heard of, but perhaps were not acquainted with every aspect of their life.
[00:24:32] To state the obvious, each of these episodes could have been ten times longer, and choosing what to include and what not to include was a task in itself.
[00:24:42] But we will probably return to some of the topics and stories in future episodes, like the story of the luckless eunuch, Sporus, so you have that to look forward to at some stage in the not-too-distant future.
[00:24:55] You've been listening to English Learning for Curious Minds by Leonardo English.
[00:25:01] I'm Alastair Budge, you stay safe, and I'll catch you in the next episode
