Commodus

So that should we ever find these weaklings attempting anything, we may commend their courage rather than their prudence.

We see, however, that the great majority of conspirators have been persons of position and the familiars of their prince, and that their plots have been as often the consequence of excessive indulgence as of excessive injury, as when Perennius conspired against Commodus, Plotianus against Severus, and Sejanus against Tiberius.

all of whom had been raised by their masters to such wealth, honours, and dignities that nothing seemed wanting to their authority save the imperial name.

That they might not lack this also, they fell to conspiring against their prince, but in every instance their conspiracies had the end which their ingratitude deserved.

A case nearly resembling that just now noticed is where an emergency, so urgent as to leave you no time to provide otherwise for your safety, constrains you to do to a prince what you see him minded to do to you.

A necessity of this sort leads almost always to the end desired, as two instances may suffice to show.

Among the closest friends and intimates of the emperor Commodus were two captains of the praetorian guards, Lettus and Electus, while among the most favored of his distresses was a certain Martia.

But because these three often reproved him for his manner of living, as disgraceful to himself and to his station, he resolved to rid himself of them, and so wrote their names, along with those of certain others whom he meant should be put to death the next night, in a list which he placed under the pillow of his bed.

nevertheless they have lost their empire or have been killed by subjects who have conspired against them wishing therefore to answer these objections i will recall the characteristics of some of the emperors and will show that the causes of their ruin were not different to those alleged by me at the same time i will only submit for consideration those things that are noteworthy to him who studies the affairs of those times It seems to me sufficient to take all those emperors who succeeded to the empire after Marcus the Philosopher down to Maximinus.

They were Marcus and his son Commodus, Pertinax, Julian, Severus and his son Antoninus Caracalla, Macrinus, Heliogabalus, Alexander, and Maximinus.

there is first to note that whereas in other principalities the ambition of the nobles and the insolence of the people only have to be contended with the roman emperors had a third difficulty in having to put up with the cruelty and avarice of their soldiers a matter so beset with difficulties that it was the ruin of many for it was a hard thing to give satisfaction both to soldiers and people because the people loved peace and for this reason they loved the unaspiring prince whilst the soldiers loved the warlike prince who was bold cruel and rapacious which qualities they were quite willing he should exercise upon the people so that they could get double pay and give vent to their own greed and cruelty hence it arose that those emperors were always overthrown who either by birth or training had no great authority and most of them especially those who came new to the principality recognizing the difficulty of these two opposing humors were inclined to give satisfaction to the soldiers caring little about injuring the people which course was necessary because as princes cannot help being hated by some one they ought in the first place to avoid being hated by every one and when they cannot compass this they ought to endeavor with the utmost diligence to avoid the hatred of the most powerful therefore those emperors who through inexperience had need of special favor adhered more readily to the soldiers than to the people a course which turned out advantageous to them or not accordingly as the prince knew how to maintain authority over them from these causes it arose that marcus pertinax and alexander being all men of modest life lovers of justice enemies to cruelty humane and benignant came to a sad end except marcus He alone lived and died honored because he had succeeded to the throne by hereditary title and owed nothing either to the soldiers or the people.

Happy birthday, America!

It was probably some combination of opium with various aromatics and stimulants, for antidotes of many different kinds were habitually taken by the Romans to preserve them from the ill effects of poison and the bites of the venomous animals.

With the emperor Marcus Aurelius he returned to Rome, and became afterwards doctor, to the young emperor Commodus.

He did not, however, remain for a long period at Rome, and probably passed the greater part of the rest of his life in his native country.

Although the date of his death is not positively known, yet it appears from a passage in his writings that he was living in the reign of Septimus Severus, and Suidas seems to have reason for asserting that he reached his seventieth

But an evil time for Byzantium, as for all the other parts of the civilized world, began when the golden age of the Antonines ceased and the epoch of the military emperors followed.

In one ninety-two AD, Commodus, the unworthy son of the great and good Marcus Aurelius, was murdered, and ere long three military usurpers were wrangling for his bloodstained diadem.

Most unhappily for itself, Byzantium lay on the line of division between the eastern provinces, where Pescennius Niger had been proclaimed, and the Illyrian provinces, where Severus had assumed the imperial style.

The city was seized by the army of Syria and strengthened in haste.

okay.

And then he would just ascend mid-fight or something, similar to how he came into his power fighting against Commodus in the second one?

Either ascend mid-fight, or maybe she commands it of him with his power, or maybe...

That would

He often says that one of the greatest times to live is the time of the Antonines, you know, the time of Marcus Aurelius.

And after Marcus Aurelius, he looks at the decline really happening with Commodus.

Well, that's... 193, that's almost 300 years till the Western Empire kind of really ceases to exist as an entity.

So I think when we look at things such as collapse or even the American Revolution, the American Revolution was generations.