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The Emperor Commodus: God and Gladiator
This historical biography goes beyond popular legend to present a nuanced portrait of the first century Roman emperor.Commodus, who ruled over Rome from 177 to 192, is generally remembered as a debaucherous megalomaniac who fought as a gladiator. Ridiculed and maligned by historians since his own time, modern popular culture knows him as the patricidal villain in Ridley Scott’s film Gladiator. Much of his infamy is clearly based on fact, but John McHugh reveals a more complex story in the first full-length biography of Commodus to appear in English. McHugh sets Commodus’s twelve-year reign in its historical context, showing that the ‘kingdom of gold’ he supposedly inherited was actually an empire devastated by plague and war. Openly autocratic, Commodus compromised the privileges and vested interests of the senatorial clique, who therefore plotted to murder him. Surviving repeated conspiracies only convinced Commodus that he was under divine protection, increasingly identifying himself as Hercules reincarnate. This and his antics in the arena allowed his senatorial enemies to present Commodus as a mad tyrant—thereby justifying his eventual murder.
518 pages, Kindle Edition
Published August 31, 2015
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
January 17, 2019
I thought this was highly detailed and very informative.Unfortunately,I just wish it had been a bit more focused on Commodus himself as the title suggests.I felt lots of it pertained to the various people in the senate and Commodus's father more then him so slightly disappointed but overall I was happy with the book.It was rather text book like with the writing which I usually enjoy but not in this.I am however giving points for being so well researched.The book was basically an evaluation of the times rather than on any one person but I learned a lot and it just reinforced my love of learning about this period.As for Commodus I think I'll keep looking for a much more focused bio.
January 15, 2020
DNF - I stuck it out till page 150 but I simply can't continue to read this ill edited, ill argued book.
Pen & Sword should be ashamed of themselves allowing such an atrociously edited manuscript see the light of day. Not only is the copy poor but the substantive editing is nonexistent. There is not a page that doesn't have a typo, a fragment or a nonsensical sentence. The author is unable to distinguish between minutiae and substantive facts and his arguments are scattershot. All things a halfway decent editor should have addressed and corrected.
Which is a shame because McHugh's call to re-evaluate Commodus' reign is a valid one. This book is, however, not the vehicle for it.
Pen & Sword should be ashamed of themselves allowing such an atrociously edited manuscript see the light of day. Not only is the copy poor but the substantive editing is nonexistent. There is not a page that doesn't have a typo, a fragment or a nonsensical sentence. The author is unable to distinguish between minutiae and substantive facts and his arguments are scattershot. All things a halfway decent editor should have addressed and corrected.
Which is a shame because McHugh's call to re-evaluate Commodus' reign is a valid one. This book is, however, not the vehicle for it.
September 15, 2018
After having taken a few classes on the Roman Republic and Roman Empire in my undergrad it is fair to say I caught the Roman bug. Like Ecbert from Vikings would say "the tales of the Caesars, the fall of Roman Britain of kings and Empires, it's the stuff of dreams Athelstan, it's the very fabric of dreams".
What I knew about Commodus prior to my class was only what I had seen in Gladiator, which is basically where everyone knows him from at least a little, but I knew that this wasn't true so I wanted to get to the bottom of it. Also having taken my courses on the Roman Empire I quickly learned that the so called "Good Emperors" were largely only named that based on their relationship with the Roman Senate, hence Marcus Aurelius and Trajan who tried to stay in their good graces and now posterity knows them to be among that list. Granted they did have their accomplishments aside from pleasing the senate that warranted their title so I have to give them that, but if you wanted to be a successful ruler in Rome, you had to play the Senates game.
However, going into this I was hoping for a more, unbiased view of Commodus which is what I got. This book did not set out to make excuses for everything that Commodus did, but it tried to peel away the criticisms and biases against him, where it could while also not shying away from pointing out his shortfalls. For example, much of what we know of Commodus comes to us from Cassius Dio, the Historia Augusta and Herodian. Cassius Dio had a very biased and poor opinion of Commodus and essentially wrote a smear campaign on his life. The Historia Augusta is a highly unreliable source to say the least, primarily relying on court gossip and extreme exaggeration, even in class we were told it was not to be taken too literally.
Going into this book I had seen previous reviewers mentioning that some names were hard to keep track of, especially if you're not used to them, but if you can get past that and only try and hold onto the really important names, it wasn't a distraction. The fact that there were also no footnotes bothered me a little but there was a bibliography at the back so I let it slide, I knew what I was getting going into this book as it is not a scholarly work coming from the Roman Emperors series but it is largely the only work of Commodus in English.
Largely I find that Commodus is very poorly understood and history has not treated him very fairly, my and large I don't think he deserves the reputation he received from posterity, he certainly wasn't his father or Augustus or Trajan by any stretch of the imagination but he wasn't Nero either. He became Emperor at a poor time in my opinion, the treasury was nearly empty because of his fathers wars with the Marcomanni which were entirely necessary of course, so he had to struggle from the beginning with money. He also had to face the issue of plague that was sweeping through the Roman empire largely due to his uncle Lucius Verus coming back from the East and bringing it with him. On top of this Commodus had to deal with famine and the difficulty of getting shipments to Rome which he left in the hands of Marcus Aurelius Cleander who was his amicus and was not terribly popular, but who was a brilliant political thinker and a schemer who played Commodus well.
Unfortunately for Commodus, he was also plagued by assassination attempt after assassination attempt both by members of the senate and from his sister Lucilla who was not happy that Commodus had married Bruttius Crispina who was below Lucilla in status but became Commodus wife and thus put above her, while Commodus also forced her to marry someone she was not at all interested in so she set a trap for him where a member of the senate would meet him outside of the Coliseum or the Circus Maximus and stab him but instead simply stood in front of Commodus and said "this is what the senate has brought you". Commodus could not trust anyone and therefore began to persecute people and hold trials called majoritas where all hell broke loose in Rome from this.
Commodus's paranoia reached such a point where he would make a tunnel from his villa to the coliseum where he could go train as a gladiator in case further attempts were put to his life and he was successful to the point where conspirators realized they could not try and out-muscle him any longer and had to try and kill him by other means. The senate also criticized him for training as a gladiator which was extremely hypocritical of them as they would often train as gladiators themselves.
Arguably Commodus's biggest issue and blunder was that he did not follow the tradition of appointing the high ranking men of the senate and aristocracy to important posts but instead tried to diminish their importance to belittle them and instead saw more merit in placing people who would be loyal to him and actually had the aptitude to do the job well, so he would hire them based on merit -this didn't make him any friends. However there is some logic to this risky move as he believed they would not betray him as they owed their wealth and status and station to him.
Commodus's best man famous Cleander would eventually die when a mob came asking for his head and Commodus, who was tricked by his sister Faustina and her husband told Commodus that Cleander intended to overthrow him, which was not true but Commodus gave into the whims of the mob and the thought of treachery and how Cleander killed.
Toward the end of his life, Commodus became unhinged, killing his wife after sending her to exile and fighting as a gladiator. Eventually he would be killed by strangulation by Narcissus.
To conclude I did learn a tremendous amount about Commodus and I think I have a much better understanding of the man and while he was by far not a perfect emperor and perhaps he did not always play the situation in front of him the best he could have and should have had a better relationship with the Senate he was a paranoid ruler with a Roman state that was in poor condition for three reasons, so I do believe he was treated rather unfairly by history and I am quite happy that this book was released and sincerely hope that his reputation does at least improve to some degree and the record changes for his name and we don't all see him as a terrible ruler any longer.
What I knew about Commodus prior to my class was only what I had seen in Gladiator, which is basically where everyone knows him from at least a little, but I knew that this wasn't true so I wanted to get to the bottom of it. Also having taken my courses on the Roman Empire I quickly learned that the so called "Good Emperors" were largely only named that based on their relationship with the Roman Senate, hence Marcus Aurelius and Trajan who tried to stay in their good graces and now posterity knows them to be among that list. Granted they did have their accomplishments aside from pleasing the senate that warranted their title so I have to give them that, but if you wanted to be a successful ruler in Rome, you had to play the Senates game.
However, going into this I was hoping for a more, unbiased view of Commodus which is what I got. This book did not set out to make excuses for everything that Commodus did, but it tried to peel away the criticisms and biases against him, where it could while also not shying away from pointing out his shortfalls. For example, much of what we know of Commodus comes to us from Cassius Dio, the Historia Augusta and Herodian. Cassius Dio had a very biased and poor opinion of Commodus and essentially wrote a smear campaign on his life. The Historia Augusta is a highly unreliable source to say the least, primarily relying on court gossip and extreme exaggeration, even in class we were told it was not to be taken too literally.
Going into this book I had seen previous reviewers mentioning that some names were hard to keep track of, especially if you're not used to them, but if you can get past that and only try and hold onto the really important names, it wasn't a distraction. The fact that there were also no footnotes bothered me a little but there was a bibliography at the back so I let it slide, I knew what I was getting going into this book as it is not a scholarly work coming from the Roman Emperors series but it is largely the only work of Commodus in English.
Largely I find that Commodus is very poorly understood and history has not treated him very fairly, my and large I don't think he deserves the reputation he received from posterity, he certainly wasn't his father or Augustus or Trajan by any stretch of the imagination but he wasn't Nero either. He became Emperor at a poor time in my opinion, the treasury was nearly empty because of his fathers wars with the Marcomanni which were entirely necessary of course, so he had to struggle from the beginning with money. He also had to face the issue of plague that was sweeping through the Roman empire largely due to his uncle Lucius Verus coming back from the East and bringing it with him. On top of this Commodus had to deal with famine and the difficulty of getting shipments to Rome which he left in the hands of Marcus Aurelius Cleander who was his amicus and was not terribly popular, but who was a brilliant political thinker and a schemer who played Commodus well.
Unfortunately for Commodus, he was also plagued by assassination attempt after assassination attempt both by members of the senate and from his sister Lucilla who was not happy that Commodus had married Bruttius Crispina who was below Lucilla in status but became Commodus wife and thus put above her, while Commodus also forced her to marry someone she was not at all interested in so she set a trap for him where a member of the senate would meet him outside of the Coliseum or the Circus Maximus and stab him but instead simply stood in front of Commodus and said "this is what the senate has brought you". Commodus could not trust anyone and therefore began to persecute people and hold trials called majoritas where all hell broke loose in Rome from this.
Commodus's paranoia reached such a point where he would make a tunnel from his villa to the coliseum where he could go train as a gladiator in case further attempts were put to his life and he was successful to the point where conspirators realized they could not try and out-muscle him any longer and had to try and kill him by other means. The senate also criticized him for training as a gladiator which was extremely hypocritical of them as they would often train as gladiators themselves.
Arguably Commodus's biggest issue and blunder was that he did not follow the tradition of appointing the high ranking men of the senate and aristocracy to important posts but instead tried to diminish their importance to belittle them and instead saw more merit in placing people who would be loyal to him and actually had the aptitude to do the job well, so he would hire them based on merit -this didn't make him any friends. However there is some logic to this risky move as he believed they would not betray him as they owed their wealth and status and station to him.
Commodus's best man famous Cleander would eventually die when a mob came asking for his head and Commodus, who was tricked by his sister Faustina and her husband told Commodus that Cleander intended to overthrow him, which was not true but Commodus gave into the whims of the mob and the thought of treachery and how Cleander killed.
Toward the end of his life, Commodus became unhinged, killing his wife after sending her to exile and fighting as a gladiator. Eventually he would be killed by strangulation by Narcissus.
To conclude I did learn a tremendous amount about Commodus and I think I have a much better understanding of the man and while he was by far not a perfect emperor and perhaps he did not always play the situation in front of him the best he could have and should have had a better relationship with the Senate he was a paranoid ruler with a Roman state that was in poor condition for three reasons, so I do believe he was treated rather unfairly by history and I am quite happy that this book was released and sincerely hope that his reputation does at least improve to some degree and the record changes for his name and we don't all see him as a terrible ruler any longer.
February 17, 2023
I consider myself an Ancient Roman-phile, and as much as I know about certain aspects of Emperor Commodus' life, this book was very enlightening. I still remember Joaquim Phoenix's performance as this emperor in the film "Gladiator" which was superb. I also knew he was one of the many crazy and insane emperors, but not until reading this biography did I realize how nuts he truly was. The son of one of the few "normal" emperors, Marcus Aurelius, he had the chance of continuing Rome's glory, but totally fell short. It all got to his head too fast and he became yet another paranoid leader (though considering how many were murdered I cannot say I am surprised or even fault him) but, not happy enough with being an autocratic ruler, he also wanted fame and glory as a gladiator and he didn't play fairly (without giving too much away). I think he really got what he deserved. Very well researched and brought this psycho to life.
August 16, 2024
I actually read the hardcover, not the Kindle Edition. I found the book well-researched and entertaining. It was a nice, non-stereotypical presentation of Commodus.
March 3, 2019
On the downside, this is possibly the worst edited book I have seen in a while. There are misprints on every page (on average), which is a crying shame. Why? Because it distracts from a considerable amount of research that went into this book and the interesting arguments (all supported by references) put forward. As such is it is miles better than Hekster's book, although admittedly that was never intended to be a straight forward biography.
If you can overlook the misprints, this is a book worth reading.
If you can overlook the misprints, this is a book worth reading.
January 30, 2020
Having read this the second time around I enjoyed it much the same but this time the grammatical errors and syntax did take away from the experience a fair amount. With that said, it still is among one of the only biographies of Commodus out there, and it is quite good but would definitely have benefited from some improved editing.
February 23, 2022
I recommend this book for anyone interested in Roman history.
To become a Emperor of Rome was hazardous to that individuals health.
I would never aspire to become one. I am amazed how many people
did so. As far as I know; none of them died of old age. Except for
Colombia's father.
To become a Emperor of Rome was hazardous to that individuals health.
I would never aspire to become one. I am amazed how many people
did so. As far as I know; none of them died of old age. Except for
Colombia's father.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews