He gripped the iron bars in front of him and was pushed back by one of the guards. 6.7M views 8 years ago #Gladiator #Oscars #RussellCrowe After Emperor Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix) lands a lethal blow on Maximus (Russell Crowe) he is finally reunited with his wife and child as. Commodus ruled with chaos and left chaos in his wake. Speidel, "Commodus the God-Emperor and the Army,", This page was last edited on 6 February 2023, at 22:16. On 31 December 192 AD, Commodus's concubine[2] and conspirator Marcia poisoned Commodus's wine. Moreover, as Hercules, he could claim to be the son of Jupiter, the supreme god of the Roman pantheon. Upon his ascension, Commodus devalued the Roman currency. The assassination attempt marked a turning point in Commodus reign, for once [he had] tasted human blood, he became incapable of pity or remorse. He began executing people without regard for rank, wealth, or sex. ( Naughtynimitz/CC BY-SA 3.0 ). The movie doesn't answer this, and we never got to see "Gladiator 2." This biographical article related to crime is a stub. A bust of Roman Emperor Commodus, styled as if he were a reincarnation of Hercules, which is precisely what he believed himself to be. Cornelius Scipio Salvidienus Orfitus. Hercules and the Hydra (ca. The Romans were outraged when Commodus would order wounded soldiers and amputees into the arena to be slayed. At the outset of his reign, Commodus, aged 18, inherited many of his father's senior advisers, notably Tiberius Claudius Pompeianus (the second husband of Commodus's eldest sister Lucilla), his father-in-law Gaius Bruttius Praesens, Titus Fundanius Vitrasius Pollio, and Aufidius Victorinus the Prefect of the City of Rome. Cleander was in fact the person who had murdered Saoterus. The character is, however, portrayed fictionally in Gladiator, and. On 20 January 175, Commodus entered the College of Pontiffs, the starting point of a career in public life. The second, the freeman Cleander, he allowed to be torn apart by a mob who were outraged at the freemans abuses. It appears that Aurelius was desperate to have a son of his own bloodline succeed him. 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. In 166, at the age of five, Commodus was made Caesar, along with his younger brother Marcus Annius Verus. His father was Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius , and his mother was Faustina the Younger. [30] On his father's death in 180, Commodus changed this to Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Commodus, before changing back to his birth name in 191.[1]. Commoduss father was Marcus Aurelius, an emperor who presided over what has been regarded as one of ancient Romes golden ages. Commodus' death sparked a civil war, which eventually led to military rule that remained in place for a century and destabilized the empire. The first, Sextus Tigidius Perennis, Commodus put to death after becoming convinced he was conspiring against him. Unrest around the empire increased, with large numbers of army deserters causing trouble in Gaul and Germany. We will never see the like of the Roman Empire ever again. The three of them plotted to assassinate the emperor. Commodus's assassination in 192, by a wrestler in the bath, marked the end of the NervaAntonine dynasty. Anyone who caught the emperors attention risked also inadvertently invoking his wrath. Maximus defeat of Commodus provides a dramatic conclusion to Gladiator, but the depiction of the malevolent emperors death is historically inaccurate. 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 a theater. While the true story behind his reign and death are fascinating, I prefer the fictional story, where he is killed in the arena before thousands of subjects by a gladiator whose family was ordered killed by the emperor. The Emperor and his son then travelled to Athens, where they were initiated into the Eleusinian Mysteries. After the murder of the powerful Saoterus, Perennis easily 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. His tale was not believed and he was immediately put to death. Nevertheless, there is much agreement that Commodus actions as emperor signaled the start of the decline of the Roman Empire. By 192 A.D., the Roman people had had enough. English translation) UCLA Press, Berkeley CA (1961), 1.15.1-9, Dio Cassius 73.20.3, Loeb edition translated E. Cary, Gibbon p. 106 "disgorged at once a hundred lions; a hundred darts". Commodus was a greater curse to the Romans than any pestilence or any crime and the city had descended into bankruptcy and chaos. The 2000 film, directed by Ridley Scott, is steeped in the culture of ancient Rome. He is based in the UK and studied English at Kings College London. Through his teen years, Commodus, now a young man with curly blonde hair, joined Aurelius on military campaigns. On November 27, 176, Aurelius promoted 15-year-old Commodus to the rank of Imperator, which some say is a role similar to commander. 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 he claimed two additional titles: Pacator Orbis (pacifier of the world) and Dominus Noster (Our Lord). As disgusted as the senators were by the sight of their emperor running around half-naked in the sands of the amphitheater, they were too terrified to do anything but play along. Sporting critical wounds after enacting his vengeance at the end of Gladiator, Maximus dies moments after Commodus. Commodus was the tenth of fourteen children born to Aurelius and was ultimately the only surviving son. Other victims at this time were the praetorian prefect Julius Julianus, Commodus's cousin Annia Fundania Faustina, and his brother-in-law Mamertinus. On the other hand, the real Emperor Commodus was even more outlandish than Gladiator's version in some ways, as he renamed Rome "the Colony of Commodus" at one point. But shortly after dispatching the megalomaniacal emperor, Maximus succumbs to his own injuries and dies in the blood and sand of the ring although not without making sure his fellow gladiators are freed first. By December of that year, he declared that he would inaugurate the New Year on January 1, 193 as a gladiator in the arena. Ancient Chinese Earthquake Detector Invented 2,000 Years Ago Really Worked! He assassinated the Roman emperor Commodus in 192 AD. His death in history marks the end of the Nerva-Antonine dynasty; in the movie, his death marks the retributive end of Maximus Gladiator story. Are the Misty Peaks of the Azores Remnants of the Legendary Atlantis? Julia Balbilla a possible lover of Sabina: A. R. Birley (1997). Only a famous death will do. The real Commodus was also taken out by a Senate plot, although less publicly: After a few unsuccessful attempts, he was strangled to death in his bathroom by a professional wrestler moonlighting as an assassin. Maximus is a powerful Roman general, loved by the people and the aging Emperor, Marcus Aurelius. The climax came in the year 190, which had 25 suffect consuls a record in the 1,000-year history of the Roman consulshipall appointed by Cleander (they included the future Emperor Septimius Severus). This horrified the Roman people. 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. Faustina was the daughter of Roman Emperor Antoninus Pius and was Aurelius first cousin. During the preparations for the campaign against Cassius, Commodus assumed his toga virilis on the Danubian front on 7 July 175, thus formally entering adulthood. The movie is far from historically accurate. 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. His fictionalized depiction as a mad emperor in the film Gladiator actually plays down some of his less believable excesses while giving him a nobler death. Commodus's death marked the end of the NervaAntonine dynasty. In the view of Dio Cassius, his accession marked the descent "from a kingdom of gold to one of iron and rust".[20]. ", Roman coins featuring Commodus. He showed no interest in government or military matters and was consumed by self-indulgence. As Greek mythology goes, the universe was once a big soup of nothingness. He is viewed as having been an inept emperor, his megalomaniac tendencies leading to odd behaviors which frustrated and upset the Roman people. View GLADIATOR - CHW3M.docx from HIS CHW3M at Wexford Collegiate School for the Arts. The first crisis of the reign came in 182, when Lucilla engineered a conspiracy against her brother. Commodus is known to have been at Carnuntum, the headquarters of Marcus Aurelius during the Marcomannic Wars, in 172. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. Political influence then passed to the emperors mistress and two advisers. A small group of conspirators, including the emperors chamberlain and mistress, Marcia, decided to kill him. Maximus is given a very clear ending, but what about the rest of Rome? The pivotal 2000 historical drama follows the betrayed general, Maximus, on a quest for revenge against Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix), the usurper emperor of Rome, who murdered his wife and son. But wait, wasn't Commodus killed by a Gladiator? Gibbon p. 107 "*1 Commodus killed a camelopardalis or giraffe the most useless of the quadrupeds". Commodus's death is an example of how the film has historical references but often distorts them to create its narrative Gladiator's Commodus being less power-hungry than his historical counterpart refocuses the movie around Maximus' personal struggle rather than the wider Roman political landscape. Commodus was inaugurated in 183 as consul with Aufidius Victorinus for a colleague and assumed the title Pius. 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. It worked and the Nerva-Antonine dynasty which had ruled Rome for nearly a century had come to an end and the city soon descended into civil war. He was appointed co-emperor of Rome and ruled alongside his father when he Marcus Aurelius is famed for various accomplishmentshis title as the last of the Five Good Emperors; his extensive study of and literary accomplishments in the field of Stoicism; and, last but not Long bouts of bad weather have been blamed as a cause for the downfall of ancient civilizations around the world. But does this mean Lucius, who is only a child, will be the next emperor? His victories were often welcomed by his bested opponents, as bearing scars dealt by the hand of an emperor was considered a mark of fortitude. Marcus Aurelius died there on 17 March 180, leaving the 18-year-old Commodus as sole emperor.[18]. On 12 October 166, Commodus was made Caesar together with his younger brother, Marcus Annius Verus. The film stars Russell Crowe as General Maximus Decimus Meridius, who is forced into the life of a gladiator after his family is murdered by the Emperor's son, Commodus. Ultimately, it is believed that Commodus outlandish behavior led to his eventual assassination. Aurelius physician, Galen, was tasked with looking after Commodus to ensure that he stayed healthy and well. Be warned, though:If you thought Maximus's death was sad, you really won't like this. Composite Character: Maximus, compared to real life. Commodus received extensive tutoring by a multitude of teachers with a focus on intellectual education. But in reality, it was marked the end of the promise of Rome. The gladiator who defied an emperor. wahrscheinlich aber erfand Commodus diese Geschichte selber, um seine Sonderrolle zu unterstreichen. It's a great story of revenge but the character of Maximus is entirely made up. after executing a double-sword beheading on an unfortunate opponent, delivering an iconic moment in movie and internet history. This caused much outrage, and inspired prefect Laetus to start a conspiracy to assassinate the emperor. Now, researchers have proposed a hypothesis that seems to support the idea that the Ivar the Boneless was likely the son of legendary Viking king Ragnar Lothbrok, and raided alongside his father and brothers, eventually becoming ruler of York in England in the 9th century AD. They then sent in an athlete to strangle the 31-year old emperor in his bath. Did you realise that "Gladiator" was a revamp of the 1960's movie "THE FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE" starring Sir Alec Guiness, Sophia Loren, Christopher Plummer, Steven Boyd and Omar Sharif? Unlike Maximus, they all let him win, letting him injure them to a non-fatal degree and then conceding, per LA Times. First, she attempted to kill him by poisoning his food. Cornelius Scipio Salvidienus Orfitus, Ti. [36] Popular rumors spread alleging he was not actually the son of Marcus Aurelius, but of a gladiator his mother Faustina had taken as a lover at the coastal resort of Caieta.[37]. Cassius Dio recorded one incident where, after becoming tired out, Commodus ordered a cup of chilled wine to him and drank it at one gulp. In an amusing anecdote, Dio continued, At this both the populace and we senators all immediately shouted out the words so familiar at drinking-bouts, Long life to you!'. [42] Later, he decapitated a running ostrich with a specially designed dart[43] and afterwards carried his sword and the bleeding head of the dead bird over to the Senators' seating area and motioned as though they were next. Only a famous death will do. A former Roman General sets out to exact vengeance against the corrupt emperor who murdered his family and sent him into slavery. Cookies help us deliver our Services. 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. However, in private practice fights, Commodus would slay his opponents. From 180 to his death in 192, Commodus was the only emperor.. His accession as emperor was the first time a son had succeeded his father since Titus succeeded Vespasian in 79. They then returned to Rome in the autumn of 176. With each breathtaking scene, the complex culture of world that created and adored these bloody games between man and beast comes into clear focus. Wife of M. Annius Libo: Levick (2014), p. 163. In hindsight, he should have kept the tradition of adopting his successor, which would have resulted in an appointment based on merit. Commodus orders 150 days of gladiatorial combat, ostensibly to commemorate his late father, while in reality attempting to distract the populace from the Senate's corruption and the rampant plague epidemics. As he was physically strong, his chief interest was in sport: he took part in horse racing, chariot racing, and combat with beasts and men, mostly in private but also on occasion in public. Only a famous death will do. Commodus remained with the Danube armies for only a short time before negotiating a peace treaty with the Danubian tribes. 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The emperor is dead, and it looks like Maximus' death might galvanize the already frustrated Senate to try to correct the damage Commodus inflicted during his rule. It's fair to say the audience is pretty attached to Maximus by the end of "Gladiator." Commodus reign is commonly regarded as the beginning of the Roman Empires decline, and he is a natural choice for the primary antagonist of Gladiator. He also had the head of the Colossus of Nero adjacent to the Colosseum replaced with his own portrait, gave it a club, placed a bronze lion at its feet to make it look like Hercules Romanus, and added an inscription boasting of being "the only left-handed fighter to conquer twelve times one thousand men".[23]. [34] The Romans found Commodus's gladiatorial combat to be scandalous and disgraceful. Was this German silver mine really defended by two Roman forts and a line of "spike defenses? Ancient Origins 2013 - 2023Disclaimer- Terms of Publication - Privacy Policy & Cookies - Advertising Policy -Submissions - We Give Back - Contact us. Commodus was a terrible ruler by virtually any standard. In the story of Gladiator, the Roman general Maximus is betrayed by the evil Emperor Commodus. 1. The Eastern Tour - Chapter II: 4:01. 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. Commodus was also known for fighting exotic animals in the arena, often to the horror and disgust of the Roman populace. Commode-Hercule et l'anthropologie hercalenne,", M.P. We'll explain. The ancient Greek city of Delphi, located on the slopes of Mount Parnassus, was home to the main Temple of Apollo and the renowned Oracle of Delphi. Sources diverge on the origins of the conspiracy, with some claiming Lucilla was jealous of Commodus wife Crispina (incest between Commodus and Lucilla is suggested in Gladiator) while others maintain she saw the first warning signs of her brothers mental instability. He also reduced the silver purity from 79percent to 76percent the silver weight dropping from 2.57grams to 2.34grams. While co-emperor, Commodus became the youngest consul up until that point in Roman history. Commodus : The general who became a slave. It is the type of death indicative of Commodus notoriety as an emperor, which is fundamental to Gladiators plot, but the film is imaginative in its depiction of his death to provide closure to Maximus. The fall of Perennis brought a new spate of executions: Aufidius Victorinus committed suicide. In 186 he further reduced the purity and silver weight to 74percent and 2.22grams respectively, being 108 to the Roman pound. To help answer that question, here are five of the key elements of the story and their historical precedents. [44] Dio notes that the targeted senators actually found this more ridiculous than frightening, and chewed on laurel leaves to conceal their laughter. His brutal misrule precipitated civil strife that ended 84 years of stability and prosperity within the empire. Ridley Scott's Gladiator famously kills off Maximus (Russell Crowe) at the end, but the original plan for the ending was very different. Available from: http://www.roman-empire.net/highpoint/commodus.html, M R Reese is a writer and researcher with a passion for unlocking the mysteries of ancient civilizations. On 31 December, Marcia poisoned Commodus's food, but he vomited up the poison, so the conspirators sent his wrestling partner Narcissus to strangle him in his bath.[24]. Gladiator: How Commodus Died In Real Life & Who Killed Him, Gladiator: What Happened To Every Historical Character In Real Life. Commodus had an elder twin brother, Titus Aurelius Fulvus Antoninus, who died in 165. 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. Roman Emperor Lucius Aurelius Commodus was a corrupt ruler who was not well-received by the Roman people during his reign. He kept most of the advisers from his fathers regime in place and the first three years of his reign ran as smoothly as that of his father with the added benefit that Rome was no longer fighting any wars. Top Image: Bust of Commodus, 17th Emperor of the Roman Empire. 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