It wasn’t total BS Graniteguy. There were a few small details Hollywood managed to get correct whether by accident or dumb luck. The part about Commodus loving to fight gladiators was accurate as was the fact that he was killed by a Gladiator.

Ryanp225, I’ve actually wondered about that. I don’t know much about his wife. I suppose it is possible.

When I look at my younger brothers political and philosophical beliefs and compare them to my own we are pretty damn different for being raised in the same household. So different we stopped talking to each other for a while over a political disagreement.

Interesting thing is we grew up in a household with a leftist/liberal mother and a libertarian/conservative leaning father. Every election cycle brought with it strife and disagreements that we both observed and still observe to this day. Over time I have noticed my brother seems to have adopted many beliefs in line with my mother while I am politically more like my father.

It is one of the hardest things in the world is to raise a child right. Marcus was an incredibly disciplined and intelligent person. I suppose it is probably impossible to understand exactly why Commodus was so different from his father.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: stickman428,

Side Bar:

Check out the series “Eight Days That Made Rome” with Bettany Hughes produced by the Smithsonian Channel.

Fascinating stuff.

I really enjoy this channel. Simon Whistler gives a great little history lesson in about 20 minutes. Simon's take on Commodus:

quote:

How could one of the last great rulers of Rome and one of the most influential people associated with stoicism raise a leader like Commodus?

Well, he did name his son after a toilet, so …

Interesting topic.

As a simple answer: Commodus wasn't as bad a ruler as tends to be claimed, at least not for the entirety of his reign. In fact, the early years of his reign were quite good. The same is true of the consistently maligned Nero, who was actually just fine for the first five years of his reign, which was good enough that it was deemed the quinquennium Neronis by Trajan and held up as an example of good imperial rule.

Both Nero and Commodus reigned well during their early years because of strong advisors, Burrus and Seneca in the case of Nero, and Praesens and Victorinus, among others, in the case of Commodus. (Not to mention that Commodus was joint emperor with his father for a few years before Aurelius' death.)

Both of them went downhill when forces within the palace moved against the young rulers. In Nero's case, his mom was a manipulative psychopath, and in Commodus' case, his own sister tried to have him killed a year or two into his rule. The fallout in both cases lead to the young emperors becoming increasingly paranoid of conspiracies because, well, people were actually out to get them.

Outside of senatorial politics, which usually colors what "history" thinks about an emperor, Commodus' reign was actually pretty peaceful, unlike his father's, who was always on campaign against some tribe or another. At the beginning of his reign and as a general trend, he gave lots of largess to the people at the expense of increasing senatorial taxes...which didn't earn him a lot of friends at the top (and it's their voices we hear in the historical sources, of course).

In the early portion of his reign, the worst thing Commodus did was debase the currency, which was pretty much the go-to move for a Roman emperor with budgetary shortfalls. The fact that pretty much everyone after Commodus continued to debase the currency was, quite frankly, what really brought the Roman Empire down two hundred years later. (Build back better, anyone?)

Although the sources are hostile to him, they generally paint a picture of a kid who didn't actually want to rule, regardless of what his dad had taught him. After Aurelius' death, Commodus largely left the administration of the Empire up to his major domos. (By this time, the position of a cubiculo and ab epistulis, the chamberlain and secretary of the emperor, were essentially the most powerful people in the Empire, who, oddly enough, were usually slaves or freedmen.) In Commodus' case, the palace intrigue around these offices was like a La Carre novel. The first guy was murdered and it turns out it was the second guy who had murdered him. With an assassination attempt already made on the emperor and then his major domo also getting murdered, Commodus just left Rome and more or less didn't come back.

With Commodus out of the city, the new major domo was running the Empire and did some real shady shit. Then the Dacians got all uppity and there was famine in the city. Things went downhill from there and eventually Commodus went nuts for whatever reason, not unlike Nero.

It's worth noting that the sources we have tend to be very biased against the emperors in question: Tacitus and Suetonius were writing under Trajan, who had a general beef against both the Julio-Claudians and the Flavians, so no fair shakes there; and Cassius Dio was of the senatorial order, so he's not particularly fond of Commodus, and the Historia Augusta is nothing but tabloid trash.

And as a TLDR, Commodus wasn't always that bad a ruler, but, I'd hazard a guess that it's not at all unusual that a teenager who's given unlimited power and money is on a knife edge at any moment. It shouldn't be surprising when they go bad, and it's pretty clear that, with good advisors, both Nero and Commodus were fine rulers, but absent those advisors--and when people are actually trying to murder you--these teenagers with absolute power tend to go bad.

quote:

Originally posted by Strambo:
This is commonly seen today and as I’m reading through the Old Testament again now the same question struck me. There were very few Godly kings of Israel. Most were wicked. Every few generations a good one would come along and set everything right again. Then one of his sons would take over and go back to being wicked. Like slaughtering innocent people, “shrine prostitution” at the temple and sacrificing their own children to idols wicked.

Did a study once and there are all examples in the Bible: Good parent - bad kid; good parent - good kid; bad parent - good kid; bad parent - bad kid.
I'm sure parenting matters; but maybe not quite as much as we'd like to think it does.

Oat_Action_Man,

EXCELLENT POST! Thank you for your detailed and very informative answer. You make a dang good point. I don’t think many 18 year olds would be capable of leading a nation and doing a good job. There is just not enough maturity at that age.

I suppose maybe I was being too harsh to judge Marcus Aurelius as failing to raise Commodus properly. The timing of his death didn’t exactly set his son up for an ideal time to ascend to the throne.



Thank you everyone who responded. The wealth of knowledge available in this forum by its members is a big part of what makes this place so special.


I don’t now how I am just now discovering the Stoic philosophers or how they flew under my radar for so long. I am reading Marcus Aurelius’s book Meditations and learning about Stoicism. It’s changing the way I look at a lot of things.

Oat Action Man, great explanation of the issues. Personally, I believe decades of life experience is almost a prerequisite before they could be a great leader.

JFK, at only 45 years old, was unique in that way. However unlike Trump he was probably too trusting. Trump really understands that those who want power will do ANYTHING to gain or keep it.

quote:

Originally posted by Tirod:
If you need a more modern context, you might ask Joe Biden the next time you see him.

I don’t know how this relates. If you have a father taking your sister into the shower, and smelling touching women all the time how do you think he would turn out. To start out I don’t think Joe fits the bill as a strong, good leader.

quote:

Originally posted by Rey HRH:

quote:

Originally posted by ZSMICHAEL:
It is a psychological question really. I see this all the time in business. The kid never had to struggle like the old man. Very few leaders have sons that fill their shoes. The old expression of shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in a generation.

In business, they trace it to a desire (subconscious or not) to find a successor who won't be better than them to show how great they are.

interesting. I never thought of it that way.

I always wondered how Jack Welch could lead General Electric through two decades of extraordinary prosperity and became perhaps the most successful CEO of his generation, only to watch the company totally go downhill shortly after he left.

I always argued that if he was *really* that great, he would have built something that would have lasted longer, and mentored/groomed others along to way to ensure continued success.

So a rich powerful man has a kid that is raised in the lap of luxury, with everything at his finger tips that turns out to be a useless playboy? We've never heard that story before (or, really, in this case, since.)

Oat Action Man - great piece of historical info.

I always thought Commodus killed his father after the defeat of the barbarian hordes.

^^^ Yes; thank you Oat!