st of August 161. In spite of a careful
education he soon showed a fondness for low society and amusement. At
the age of fifteen he was associated by his father in the government. On
the death of Aurelius, whom he had accompanied in the war against the
Quadi and Marcomanni, he hastily concluded peace and hurried back to
Rome (180). The first years of his reign were uneventful, but in 183 be
was attacked by an assassin at the instigation of his sister Lucilla
and many members of the senate, which felt deeply insulted by the
contemptuous manner in which Commodus treated it. From this time he
became tyrannical. Many distinguished Romans were put to death as
implicated in the conspiracy, and others were executed for no reason at
all. The treasury was exhausted by lavish expenditure on gladiatorial
and wild beast combats and on the soldiery, and the property of the
wealthy was confiscated. At the same time Commodus, proud of his bodily
strength and dexterity, exhibited himself in the arena, slew wild
animals and fought with gladiators, and commanded that he should be
worshipped as the Roman Hercules. Plots against his life naturally began
to spring up. That of his favourite Perennis, praefect of the praetorian
guard, was discovered in time. The next danger was from the people, who
were infuriated by the dearth of corn. The mob repelled the praetorian
guard, but the execution of the hated minister Cleander quieted the
tumult. The attempt also of the daring highwayman Maternus to seize the
empire was betrayed; but at last Eclectus the emperor's chamberlain,
Laetus the praefect of the praetorians, and his mistress Marcia, finding
their names on the list of those doomed to death, united to destroy him.
He was poisoned, and then strangled by a wrestler named Narcissus, on
the 31st of December 192. During his reign unimportant wars were
successfully carried on by his generals Clodius Albinus, Pescennius
Niger and Ulpius Marcellus. The frontier of Dacia was successfully
defended against the Scythians and Sarmatians, and a tract of territory
reconquered in north Britain. In 1874 a statue of Commodus was dug up at
Rome, in which he is represented as Hercules--a lion's skin on his head,
a club in his right and the apples of the Hesperides in his left hand.

See Aelius Lampridius, Herodian, and fragments in Dio Cassius; H.
Schiller, _Geschichte der romischen Kaiserzeit_; J. Zurcher,
"Commodus" (1868, in Budinger's _Untersuchungen