Yet he may perhaps have been content to pass his reign besotted in his "seraglio of three hundred beautiful women, and as many boys, of every rank, and of every province," had not an assassination attempt in 182 or 183 sent the unbalanced emperor into that downward spiral in which "every sentiment of virtue and humanity [became] extinct in the mind of Commodus.". "Having killed an ostrich and cut off its head, he came up to where we [Senators] were sitting, holding the head in his left hand and in his right hand raising aloft his bloody sword; and although he spoke not a word, yet he wagged his head with a grin, indicating that he would treat us in the same way."

Gladiator (continued...) Commodus - Fact Commodus was nineteen when his father's death left him sole emperor of the Roman world. His ascension was uneventful in that there were no challengers to the imperial throne. The German wars, however, were soon abandoned. Commodus arranged a hasty peace with the barbarian chieftains that relinquished the gains of two years' campaigning and returned to the luxuries and pleasures of Rome in the autumn of 180. The son had his father deified on his return, and held a triumph, which, although it undoubtedly featured some spectacles, was something less than the hundred-some days of gladiatorial combats so central to the film. Through the first three years of his twelve-year reign, Commodus was dissolute and idle, but not yet a bloodthirsty monster. While outwardly handsome, his appearance was nonetheless odd: "Commodus had something wrong with him in the groin, which stuck out so much that the Roman people could detect the swelling through his silk clothing. Many verses were written on this subject.[But] physically, at least, he was well proportioned. His expression was vacant as is usual with drunkards, and his speech disordered. His hair was always dyed and made to shine with gold dust. He used to singe his hair and beard from fear of the barber." Historia Augusta: Commodus. He was also petulant, spoiled, stupid, and easily influenced by his questionable friends: "Commodus was not naturally wicked, but, on the contrary, as guileless as any man that ever lived. His great simplicity, however, together with his cowardice, made him the slave of his companions, and it was through them that he at first, out of ignorance, missed the better life and then was led into lustful and cruel habits which soon became second nature." Cassius Dio (trans. E. Cary). Yet he may perhaps have been content to pass his reign besotted in his "seraglio of three hundred beautiful women, and as many boys, of every rank, and of every province," had not an assassination attempt in 182 or 183 sent the unbalanced emperor into that downward spiral in which "every sentiment of virtue and humanity [became] extinct in the mind of Commodus." (E. Gibbon). Lucilla and the Senate - A Brief Interlude Annia Aurelia Galeria Lucilla was the third child of Marcus Aurelius and Faustina, and twelve years older than Commodus. In 164, at the age of sixteen, she was married to Marcus' co-emperor, Lucius Verus; it is thought that Verus was the lover of both the mother and the daughter. After Verus' death, the young widow was compelled to marry Tiberius Claudius Pompeianus, a highly competent military governor who served with Marcus on the German frontier. The marriage was unhappy, and like her mother, Lucilla took numerous lovers. She also seems to have been unhappy that the imperial succession should have passed her by in favor of her incompetent, and possibly deranged, younger brother. She hatched a plot with a number of young senators who were probably her paramours. One of them, Quintianus, volunteered to stab Commodus as he left the Colosseum after a day spent indulging in the venations, the wild beast hunt. The plot was foiled when Quintianus gave away his intentions by shouting at Commodus that he had been sent by the senate to do him in. Quintianus was promptly cut down by the emperor's guards. The conspirators were soon discovered and executed, including Lucilla herself, who was first banished to Capri before receiving the coup de grace. But the killing went beyond the conspirators. Commodus at least pretended to take the assassin's words to heart and chose to interpret the attack as coming from the senate as a whole; he thus developed an abiding hatred of the senate and used the occasion to purge the senatorial ranks of many distinguished men and their families. The murders of so many prominent men was a disaster for the governance of the empire, and established in Commodus a taste for public violence that he was only too ready to indulge. Commodus Redux - The Gladiator For some reason Commodus, although an enthusiastic charioteer, was embarrassed to display his skill in the Circus Maximus, and confined exhibitions of his horsemanship to the palace. The same could not be said for the sports of the amphitheatre. The Colosseum was not known by that name until the middle ages; the name derived from a colossus of the emperor Nero that stood nearby. The emperors Vespasian and Titus built the four-tiered, sixty thousand-seat structure over the course of nearly a decade on what had been a small lake on the grounds of Nero's palace, the Domus Aurea. The largest amphitheatre in the Roman world was inaugurated in 80 AD. Before Commodus, the prospect of an emperor appearing as a combatant in the games would have been scandalous: the Roman nobility was forbidden from taking up as professional gladiators. The slaves and criminals that made up the rest of the performers lent the games a notoriety and infamy that their undoubted popularity did not dispel. Commodus fought in the amphitheatre as a gladiator seven hundred and thirty-five times during the course of his reign. He invariably appeared in the guise of his favorite character, the Secutor, who, armed with helmet, sword and shield, did battle against the Retiarius, and his net and trident. Each time the emperor set foot in the arena the public paid him the exorbitant sum of a million sesterces for the privilege of witnessing Commodus and his antagonist do battle with wooden weapons. For although within the confines of the palace he would sometimes slay his antagonist, in public Commodus was usually reluctant to spill human blood. But not always: "But of the populace in general, many did not enter the amphitheatre at all, and others departed after merely glancing inside, partly at shame for what was going on, partly also from fear, inasmuch as a report spread abroad that he would want to shoot a few of the spectators in imitation of Hercules and Stymphalian birds. And this story was believed, too, because he had once got together all the men in the city who had lost their feet as a result of disease or some accident, and then, after fastening about their knees some likenesses of serpents' bodies, and giving them sponges to throw instead of stones, had killed them with blows of a club, pretending that they were giants." Cassius Dio. In his madness and pathological brutality, Commodus styled himself the Roman Hercules. A bust preserved in the Capitoline Museum in Rome gives a clear reflection of the man's delusions: wielding a club and cloaked in the pelt of the nemean lion, the head and god-like torso of the emperor hovers above the inscription "Conqueror of the World." Thus, while he relished his role as Secutor, his passion, in imitation of his hero, was as a slayer of wild beasts. From the safety of the imperial dais, Commodus cut down the most exotic fauna that the ample resources of the empire could procure for his amusement. No commercial motion picture would dare depict this orgy of slaughter. On one occasion he slew a hundred bears, on another a hundred lions. One of his favorite escapades was to kill a panther with his bow just as it leapt on a man chained to a stake. Elephants, rhinoceri, giraffes, and ostriches all perished: "Having killed an ostrich and cut off its head, he came up to where we [Senators] were sitting, holding the head in his left hand and in his right hand raising aloft his bloody sword; and although he spoke not a word, yet he wagged his head with a grin, indicating that he would treat us in the same way." Cassius Dio. The death of this hero was as ignominious as his pursuits. When they began to fear for their own lives, he was poisoned by his favorite concubine and his chamberlain, and strangled in his bath by a wrestler. The news of his death was greeted with joy. The senate repealed his acts and condemned his memory. And as to the fickle crowds: "all the shouts that they had been accustomed to utter with a kind of rhythmic swing in the amphitheatre, by way of paying court to Commodus, they now chanted with certain changes that made them utterly ridiculous." Cassius Dio. Fade to black. Roll Credits.