8 So much have we learned
concerning
Avidius Cassius.
Historia Augusta
5 The estimated cost of the whole banquet, it is reported, was six million sesterces.
6 And when Marcus heard of this dinner, they say, he groaned and bewailed the fate of the empire.
7 After p219 the banquet, moreover, they diced until dawn.
8 And all this was done after the Parthian war, whither Marcus had sent him, it is said, either that he might commit his debaucheries away from the city and the eyes of all citizens, or that he might learn economy by his travels, or that he might return reformed through the fear inspired by war, or, finally, that he might come to realize that he was an emperor.
9 But how much good all this did is shown not only by the rest of his life, but also by this banquet of which we have just told.
6 1 Such interest did Verus take in the circus-games that frequently even in his province he despatched and received letters pertaining to them. 2 And finally, even at Rome, when he was present and seated with Marcus, he suffered many insults from the "Blues,"39 because he had outrageously, as they maintained, taken sides against them. 3 For he had a golden statue made of the "Green" horse Volucer,40 and this he always carried around with him; 4 indeed, he was wont to put raisins and nuts instead of barley in this horse's manger and to order him brought to him, in the House of Tiberius,41 covered with a blanket dyed with purple, and he built him a tomb, when he died, on the Vatican Hill. 5 It was because of this horse that gold pieces and prizes first began to be demanded for horses, 6 and in such honour was this horse held, that frequently a whole peck of gold pieces was demanded for him by the faction of the "Greens".
7 When Verus set out for the Parthian war, Marcus accompanied him as far as Capua;42 from there on he gorged himself in everyone's villa, and in consequence he was taken sick at Canusium, becoming very ill, so that his brother hastened thither to see him. 8 And p221 now in the course of this war there were revealed many features of Verus' life that were weak and base. 9 For while a legate was being slain,43 while legions were being slaughtered, while Syria meditated revolt, and the East was being devastated, Verus was hunting in Apulia, travelling about through Athens and Corinth accompanied by orchestras and singers, and dallying through all the cities of Asia that bordered on the sea, and those cities of Pamphylia and Cilicia that were particularly notorious for their pleasure-resorts. 7 And when he came to Antioch, there he gave himself wholly to riotous living. His generals, meanwhile, Statius Priscus, Avidius Cassius, and Martius Verus44 for four years conducted the war until they advanced to Babylon and Media, and recovered Armenia. 45 2 He, however, gained the names Armeniacus, Parthicus, and Medicus; and these were proffered to Marcus also, who was then living at Rome. 3 For four years, moreover, Verus passed his winters at Laodicea, his summers at Daphne, and the rest of the time at Antioch. 46 4 As far as the Syrians were concerned, he was an object for ridicule, and many of the jibes which they uttered against him on the stage are still preserved. 5 Always, during the Saturnalia and on holidays he admitted his more pampered slaves to his dining-room. 6 Finally, however, at the insistence of his staff he set out for the Euphrates, 7 but soon, in order to receive his wife Lucilla, who had been sent thither by her father Marcus,47 he returned to Ephesus, going there chiefly in order that Marcus might not come to Syria with p223 her and discover his evil deeds. For Marcus had told the senate that he himself would conduct his daughter to Syria. 8 Then, after the war was finished,48 he assigned kingdoms49 to certain kings, and provinces to certain members of his staff, to be ruled, 9 and returned to Rome for a triumph,50 reluctantly, however, since he was leaving in Syria what almost seemed his own kingdom. His triumph he shared with his brother, and from the senate he accepted the names which he had received in the army. 51 10 It is said, furthermore, that he shaved off his beard while in Syria to humour the whim of a low-born mistress;52 and because of this many things were said against him by the Syrians.
8 1 It was his fate to seem to bring a pestilence with him to whatever provinces he traversed on his return, and finally even to Rome. 53 2 It is believed that this pestilence originated in Babylonia, where a pestilential vapour arose in a temple of Apollo from a golden casket which a soldier had accidentally cut open, and that it spread thence over Parthia and the whole world. 3 Lucius Verus, however, is not to blame for this so much as Cassius, who stormed Seleucia in violation of an agreement, after it had received our soldiers as friends. 4 This act, indeed, many excuse, and among them Quadratus,54 the historian of the Parthian war, who blames the Seleucians as the first to break the agreement.
5 Such respect did Verus have for Marcus, that on p225 the day of the triumph, which they celebrated together, he shared with his brother the names which had been granted to himself. 55 6 After he had returned from the Parthian war, however, Verus exhibited less regard for his brother; for he pampered his freedmen56 shamefully, and settled many things without his brother's counsel. 7 Besides all this, he brought actors out of Syria57 as proudly as though he were leading kings to a triumph. The chief of these was Maximinus, on whom he bestowed the name Paris. 8 Furthermore, he built an exceedingly notorious villa on the Clodian Way,58 and here he not only reviled himself for many days at a time in boundless extravagance together with his freedmen and friends of inferior rank in whose presence he felt no shame, but he even invited Marcus. 9 Marcus came, in order to display to his brother the purity of his own moral code as worthy of respect and imitation, and for five days, staying in the same villa, he busied himself continuously with the examination of law-cases, while his brother, in the meantime, was either banqueting or preparing banquets. 10 Verus maintained also the actor Agrippus, surnamed Memphius, whom he had brought with him from Syria, almost as a trophy of the Parthian war, and named Apolaustius. 59 11 He had brought with him, too, players of the harp and the flute, actors and jesters from the mimes, jugglers, and all kinds of slaves in whose entertainment Syria and Alexandria find pleasure, and in such numbers, indeed, that he seemed to have concluded a war, not against Parthians, but against actors.
p227 9 This diversity in their manner of life, as well as many other causes, bred dissensions between Marcus and Verus — or so it was bruited about by obscure rumours although never established on the basis of manifest truth. 2 But, in particular, this incident was mentioned: Marcus sent a certain Libo,60 a cousin of his, as his legate to Syria, and there Libo acted more insolently than a respectful senator should, saying that he would write to his cousin if he happened to need any advice. But Verus, who was there in Syria, could not suffer this, and when, a little later, Libo died after a sudden illness accompanied by all the symptoms of poisoning, it seemed probable to some people, though not to Marcus, that Verus was responsible for his death; and this suspicion strengthened the rumours of dissensions between the Emperors.
3 Verus' freedmen, furthermore, had great influence with him, as we related in the Life of Marcus,61 namely Geminas and Agaclytus. 4 To the latter of these he gave the widow of Libo in marriage against the wishes of Marcus; indeed, when Verus celebrated the marriage ceremony Marcus did not attend the banquet. 5 Verus had other unscrupulous freedmen as well, Coedes and Eclectus and others. 6 All of these Marcus dismissed after Verus' death, under pretext of doing them honour, with the exception of Eclectus, and he afterwards slew Marcus' son, Commodus. 62
7 When the German war broke out, the two Emperors went to the front together, for Marcus wished neither to send Lucius to the front alone, nor yet, because of his debauchery, to leave him in the city. 8 When they had come to Aquileia,63 they proceeded to cross the Alps, though this was contrary to Lucius' p229 desire; for as long as they remained in Aquileia he did nothing but hunt and banquet while Marcus made all the plans. 9 As far as this war was concerned, we have very fully discussed in the Life of Marcus64 what was accomplished by the envoys of the barbarians when they sued for peace and what was accomplished by our generals. 10 When the war in Pannonia was settled, they returned to Aquileia at Lucius' insistence, and then, because he yearned for the pleasures of the city, they hastened cityward. 11 But not far from Altinum, Lucius, while in his carriage, was suddenly stricken with the sickness which they call apoplexy, and after he had been set down from his carriage and bled, he was taken to Altinum,65 and here he died, after living for three days unable to speak.
10 1 There was gossip to the effect that he had violated his mother-in‑law Faustina. And it is said that his mother-in‑law killed him treacherously by having poison sprinkled on his oysters, because he had betrayed to the daughter66 the amour he had had with the mother. 2 However, there arose also that other story related in the Life of Marcus,67 one utterly inconsistent with the character of such a man. 3 Many, again, fastened the crime of his death upon his wife, since Verus had been too complaisant to Fabia, and her power his wife Lucilla could not endure. 4 Indeed, Lucius and his sister Fabia did become so intimate that gossip went so far as to claim that they had entered into a conspiracy to make away with Marcus, 5 and that when this was betrayed to Marcus by the freedman Agaclytus, Faustina circumvented p231 Lucius in fear that he might circumvent her. 68
6 Verus was well-proportioned in person and genial of expression. His beard was allowed to grow long, almost in the style of the barbarians; he was tall, and stately in appearance, for his forehead projected somewhat over his eyebrows. 7 He took such pride in his yellow hair, it is said, that he used to sift gold-dust on his head in order that his hair, thus brightened, might seem even yellower. 8 He was somewhat halting in speech, a reckless gambler, ever of an extravagant mode of life, and in many respects, save only that he was not cruel or given to acting, a second Nero. 9 Among other articles of extravagance he had a crystal goblet, named Volucer after that horse of which he had been very fond,69 that surpassed the capacity of any human draught.
11 1 He lived forty-two years,70 and, in company with his brother, reigned eleven. 71 His body was laid in the Tomb of Hadrian,72 where Caesar, his real father, was also buried.
2 There is a well-known story,73 which Marcus' manner of life will not warrant, that Marcus handed Verus part of a sow's womb which he had poisoned by cutting it with a knife smeared on one side with poison. 3 But it is wrong even to think of such a deed in connection with Marcus, although the plans and deeds of Verus may have well deserved it; 4 nor shall we leave the matter undecided, but rather reject it discarded and disproved, since from the time of Marcus onward, with the exception of your Clemency, Diocletian Augustus, not even flattery, it seems, has been able to fashion such an emperor.
The Life of Avidius Cassius
1 1 [Legamen ad paginam Latinam] Avidius Cassius is said, according to the statements of some, to have belonged to the family of the Cassii, but only on his mother's side. His father was Avidius Severus,1 the first of the family to hold public office, who at first commanded in the ranks,2 but later attained to the highest honours of the state. 2 Quadratus3 mentions him in his history, and certainly with all respect, for he declares that he was a very distinguished man, both indispensable to the state and influential with Marcus himself; 3 for he succumbed to the decrees of fate, it is said, when Marcus had already begun to rule.
4 Now Cassius, sprung, as we have said, from the family of the Cassii who conspired against Gaius Julius,4 secretly hated the principate and could not brook even the title of emperor, saying that the name of empire was all the more onerous because an p235 emperor could not be removed from the state except by another emperor. 5 In his youth, they say, he tried to wrest the empire from Pius too, but through his father, a righteous and worthy man, he escaped detection in this attempt to seize the throne, though he continued to be suspected by Pius' generals. 6 Against Verus he organized a genuine conspiracy, as a letter of Verus' own, which I append, makes clear. 7 Extract from the letter of Verus:5 "Avidius Cassius is avid for the throne, as it seems to me and as was well-known in the reign of my grandfather,6 your father; I wish you would have him watched. 8 Everything we do displeases him, he is amassing no inconsiderable wealth, and he laughs at our letters. He calls you a philosophical old woman, me a half-witted spendthrift. Consider what should be done. 9 I do not dislike the man, but look to it lest you take too little heed for yourself and for your children when you keep in active service a man whom the soldiers are glad to hear and glad to see. " [Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 2 1 Marcus' answer concerning Avidius Cassius: "I have read your letter, which is that of a disquieted man rather than that of a general, and one not worthy of our times. 2 For if the empire is divinely decreed to be his, we cannot slay him even should we so desire. Remember what your great-grandfather7 used to say, 'No one ever kills his successor'. And if this is not the case, he will of himself fall into the toils of fate without any act of cruelty on our part. 3 Add that we cannot judge a man guilty whom no one has accused, and whom, as you say yourself, the soldiers love. 4 Furthermore, p237 in cases of treason it is inevitable that even those who have been proved guilty seem to suffer injustice. 5 ºFor you know yourself what your grandfather Hadrian said, 'Unhappy is the lot of emperors, who are never believed when they accuse anyone of pretending to the throne, until after they are slain'. 6 I have preferred, moreover, to quote this as his, rather than as Domitian's,8 who is reported to have said it first, for good sayings when uttered by tyrants have not as much weight as they deserve. 7 So let Cassius keep his own ways, especially as he is an able general and a stern and brave man, and since the state has need of him. 8 And as for your statement that I should take heed for my children by killing him, by all means let my children perish, if Avidius be more deserving of love than they and if it profit the state for Cassius to live rather than the children of Marcus. " Thus did Verus, thus did Marcus, write about Cassius.
[Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 3 1 But let us briefly portray the nature and character of the man; for not very much can be known about those men whose lives no one has dared to render illustrious through fear of those by whom they were overcome. 2 We will add, moreover, how he came to the throne, and how he was killed, and where he was conquered. 3 For I have undertaken, Diocletian Augustus, to set down in writing the lives of all who have held the imperial title9 whether rightfully or without right, in order that you may become acquainted with all the emperors that have ever worn the purple.
4 Such was his character, then, that sometimes he seemed stern and savage, sometimes mild and gentle, often devout and again scornful of sacred things, addicted to drink and also temperate, a lover of eating p239 yet able to endure hunger, a devotee of Venus and a lover of chastity. 5 Nor were there lacking those who called him a second Catiline,10 and indeed he rejoiced to hear himself thus called, and added that he would really be a Sergius if he killed the philosopher, meaning by that name Antoninus. 6 For the emperor was so illustrious in philosophy that when he was about to set out for the Marcomannic war, and everyone was fearful that some ill-luck might befall him, he was asked, not in flattery but in all seriousness, to publish his "Precepts of Philosophy";11 7 and he did not fear to do so, but for three days discussed the books of his "Exhortations" one after the other. 8 Moreover, Avidius Cassius was a strict disciplinarian and wished to be called a Marius. 12
[Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 4 1 And since we have begun to speak of his strictness, there are many indications of what must be called savagery, rather than strictness, on his part. 2 For, in the first place, soldiers who had forcibly seized anything from the provincials he crucified on the very spot where they had committed the crime. 3 He was the first, moreover, to devise the following means of punishment: after erecting a huge post, •180 feet high, and binding condemned criminals on it from top to bottom, he built a fire at its base, and so burned some of them and killed the others by the smoke, the pain, and even by the fright. 4 Besides this, he had men bound in chains, ten together, and thrown into rivers or even the sea. 5 Besides this, he cut off the hands of many deserters, and broke the legs and hips of others, saying that a criminal alive and p241 wretched was a more terrible example than one who had been put to death. 6 Once when he was commanding the army, a band of auxiliaries, at the suggestion of their centurions and without his knowledge, slaughtered 3,000 Sarmatians, who were camping somewhat carelessly on the bank of the Danube, and returned to him with immense plunder. But when the centurions expected a reward because they had slain such a host of the enemy with a very small force while the tribunes were passing their time in indolence and were even ignorant of the whole affair, he had them arrested and crucified, and punished them with the punishment of slaves, for which there was no precedent; "It might," he said, "have been an ambush, and the barbarians' awe for the Roman Empire might have been lost. " 7 And when a fierce mutiny arose in the camp, he issued forth clad only in a wrestler's loin-cloth and said: "Strike me if you dare, and add the crime of murder to breach of discipline". 8 Then, as all grew quiet, he was held in well deserved fear, because he had shown no fear himself. 9 This incident so strengthened discipline among the Romans and struck such terror into the barbarians, that they besought the absent Antoninus for a hundred years' peace, since they had seen even those who conquered, if they conquered wrongfully, sentenced to death by the decision of a Roman general.
[Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 5 1 Many of the stern measures he took to put down the licence of the soldiers are recorded in the works of Aemilius Parthenianus,13 who has related the history of the pretenders to the throne from ancient times even to the present. 2 For example, after openly beating them with the lictors' rods in the forum and p243 in the midst of the camp, he beheaded those who deserve it with the axe, and in numerous instances cut off his soldiers' hands. 3 He forbade the soldiers, moreover, to carry anything when on the march save lard and biscuit and vinegar, and if he discovered anything else he punished the breach of discipline with no light hand. 4 There is a letter concerning Cassius that the Deified Marcus wrote to his prefect, running somewhat as follows: 5 "I have put Avidius Cassius in command of the Syrian legions, which are running riot in luxury and conducting themselves with the morals of Daphne; concerning these legions Caesonius Vectilianus has written that he found them all accustomed to bathe in hot water. 14 6 And I think I have made no mistake, for you too know Cassius, a man of true Cassian strictness and rigour. 7 Indeed, the soldiers cannot be controlled except by the ancient discipline. You know what the good poet says, a line universally quoted:
'The state of Rome is rooted in the men and manners of the olden time. '15
8 Do you take care only that provisions are abundantly provided for the legions, for if I have judged Avidius correctly I know that they will not be wasted. " The prefect's answer to Marcus runs: 9 "You planned wisely, Sire, when you put Cassius in command of the Syrian legions. 10 Nothing benefits Grecianized soldiers like a man who is somewhat strict. 11 He will certainly do away with all warm baths, and will strike all the flowers from the soldiers' heads and necks and breasts. 12 Food for the soldiers is all provided; and nothing is lacking under an able general, for but little is either asked or expended. " [Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 6 1 And p245 Cassius did not disappoint the expectation that had been formed of him, for he immediately had the proclamation made at assembly, and posted notices on the walls, that if any one were discovered at Daphne in his uniform he would return without it. 16 2 Regularly once a week he inspected his soldiers' equipment, even their clothes and shoes and leggings, and he banished all dissipation from the camp and issued an order that they would pass the winter in their tents if they did not mend their ways; and they would have done so, had they not conducted themselves more respectably. 3 Once a week there was a drill of all the soldiers, in which they even shot arrows and engaged in contests in the use of arms. 4 For he said that it was shameful that soldiers should not be trained, while athletes, wild beast fighters and gladiators were, for the soldiers' future labours, if familiar to them, would be less onerous.
5 And so, having stiffened military discipline, he conducted affairs in Armenia and Arabia and Egypt with the greatest success. 17 6 He was well loved by all the eastern nations, especially by the citizens of Antioch, who even acquiesced in his rule, as Marius Maximus relates in his Life of the Deified Marcus. 7 And when the warriors of the Bucolici did many grievous things in Egypt, they were checked by Cassius,18 as Marius Maximus also relates in the second book of those he published on the Life of Marcus.
[Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 7 1 Finally, while in the East,19 he proclaimed himself p247 emperor, some say, at the wish of Faustina,20 who now despaired of Marcus' health and was afraid that she would be unable to protect her infant children by herself, and that some one would arise and seize the throne and make away with the children. 2 Others, however, say that Cassius employed an artifice with the soldiers and provincials to overcome their love for Marcus so that they would join him, saying that Marcus had met his end. 3 And, indeed, he called him "the Deified,"21 it is said, in order to lessen their grief for him.
4 When his plan of making himself emperor had been put into effect, he forthwith appointed prefect of the guard the man who had invested him with the imperial insignia. This man was later put to death by the army22 against the wishes of Antoninus. The army also slew Maecianus, in whose charge Alexandria had been placed; he had joined Cassius23 in the hope of sharing the sovereignty with him, and he too was slain against the wishes and without the knowledge of Antoninus.
5 For all that, Antoninus was not seriously angered on learning of this revolt, nor did he vent his rage on Cassius' children or on his kin. 6 The senate, however, pronounced him a public enemy and confiscated his property. 24 But Antoninus was unwilling that this should be forfeited to the privy-purse, and so, at the bidding of the senate, it was delivered to the public treasury. 7 And there was no slight consternation at Rome; for many said that Avidius Cassius would advance on the city in the absence of p249 Antoninus, who was singularly loved by all but the profligates, and that he would ravage it like a tyrant, especially because of the senators who had declared him an enemy to the state and confiscated his property. 8 The love felt for Antoninus was most clearly manifested in the fact that it was with the consent of all save the citizens of Antioch that Avidius was slain. 9 Antoninus, indeed, did not so much order his execution as suffer it; for it was clear to all that he would have spared him had it been in his power. [Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 8 1 And when his head was brought to Antoninus he did not rejoice or exult,25 but rather was grieved that he had lost an opportunity for showing mercy; for he said that he had wished to take him alive, so that he might reproach him with the kindness he had shown him in the past, and then spare his life. 2 Finally, when some one said that Antoninus deserved blame because he was so indulgent toward his enemy and his enemy's children and kin, and indeed toward every one whom he had found concerned in the outbreak, and added furthermore, "What if Cassius had been successful? " the Emperor said, it is reported: "We have not worshipped the gods in such a manner, or lived such lives, that he could overcome us". 3 Thereupon he pointed out that in the case of all the emperors who had been slain there had been reasons why they deserved to die, and that no emperor, generally recognized as good, had been conquered or slain by a pretender, 4 adding that Nero had deserved to die and Caligula had forfeited his life, while neither Otho nor Vitellius had really wished to rule. 26 5 He expressed similar p251 sentiments concerning Galba also, saying that in an emperor avarice was the most grievous of all failings. 27 6 And lastly, he said, no rebels had succeeded in overcoming either Augustus, or Trajan, or Hadrian, or his own father, and, although there had been many of them, they had been killed either against the wishes or without the knowledge of those emperors. 7 Antoninus himself, moreover, asked the senate to refrain from inflicting severe punishment on those men who were implicated in the rebellion; he made this request at the very same time in which he requested that during his reign no senator be punished with capital punishment28 — an act which won him the greatest affection. 8 Finally, after he had punished a very few centurions, he gave orders that those who had been exiled should be recalled. 29 [Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 9 1 The citizens of Antioch also had sided with Avidius Cassius, but these, together with certain other states which had aided Cassius, he pardoned, though at first he was deeply angered at the citizens of Antioch and took away their games and many of the distinctions of the city, all of which he afterwards restored. 2 To the sons of Avidius Cassius Antoninus heº presented half of their father's property,30 and his daughters he even graced with gold and silver and jewels. 3 To Alexandria, Cassius' daughter, and Druncianus, his son-in‑law, he gave unrestricted permission to travel wherever they liked. 4 And they lived not as the children of a pretender but as members of the senatorial order and in the greatest security, as was shown by orders he gave that not even in a law-suit should they be taunted with the fortunes of their family, and by his convicting certain people of personal affront who p253 had been insulting to them. He even put them under the protection of his uncle by marriage.
5 If any one wishes, moreover, to know the whole of this story, let him read the second book of Marius Maximus on the life of Marcus, in which he relates everything that Marcus did as sole emperor after the death of Verus. 6 For it was during this time that Cassius rebelled, as a letter written to Faustina shows, from which the following is an extract:31 7 "Verus told me the truth about Avidius, that he desired to rule. For I presume you heard what Verus' messengers reported about him. 8 Come, then, to our Alban villa, so that with the help of the gods we may prepare for everything, and do not be afraid. " 9 It would appear from this that Faustina knew nothing of the affair, though Marius Maximus, wishing to defame her, says that it was with her connivance that Cassius attempted to seize the throne. 32 10 Indeed, we have also a letter of hers to her husband in which she urged Marcus to punish Cassius severely. 11 A copy of Faustina's letter to Marcus reads: "I shall come to our Alban villa to‑morrow, as you command. Yet I urge you now, if you love your children, to punish those rebels with all severity. 12 For soldiers and generals have an evil habit of crushing others if they are not crushed themselves. " [Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 10 1 Another letter of this same Faustina to Marcus reads similarly: "When Celsus revolted,33 my mother, Faustina, urged your father, Pius, to deal righteously first with his own kin, and then with strangers. 2 For no emperor is righteous who does not take thought for his wife and children. 3 You can see how young our son Commodus is; our son-in‑law Pompeianus34 is an elderly man and a foreigner besides. p255 4 Consider well what you will do about Avidius Cassius and his accomplices. 5 Do not show forbearance to men who have shown no forbearance to you and would show none either to me or to your children, should they be victorious. 6 I shall follow you on your way presently; I have not been able to come to the Formian villa because our dear Fadilla35 was ill. 7 However, if I shall fail to find you at Formiae, I will follow on to Capua, a city which can furnish help to me and our children in our sickness. 8 Please send the physician Soteridas to Formiae. I have no confidence in Pisitheus, who does not know how to treat a young girl. 9 Calpurnius has brought me a sealed letter: I shall reply to it, if I linger on here, through Caecilius, the old eunuch, a man to be trusted, as you know. 10 I shall also report through him, in a verbal message, what Cassius' wife and children and son-in‑law are said to be circulating about you. "
[Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 11 1 From these letters it can be seen that Faustina was not in collusion with Cassius, but, on the contrary, earnestly demanded his punishment; for, indeed, it was she who urged on Antoninus the necessity of vengeance when he was inclined to take no action and was considering more merciful measures. 2 The following letter tells what Antoninus wrote to her in reply: 3 "Truly, my Faustina, you are over-anxious about your husband and children. For while I was at Formiae I re-read the letter wherein you urged me to take vengeance on Avidius' accomplices. 4 I, however, shall spare his wife and children and son-in‑law, and I will write to the senate forbidding any immoderate confiscation or cruel punishment. 5 For there is nothing which endears a Roman emperor to p257 mankind as much as the quality of mercy. 6 This quality caused Caesar to be deified and made Augustus a god, and it was this characteristic, more than any other, that gained your father his honourable name of Pius. 36 7 Indeed, if the war had been settled in accordance with my desires, Avidius would not have been killed. 8 So do not be anxious;
'Over me the gods keep guard, the gods hold dear my righteousness. '37
I have named our son-in‑law Pompeianus consul for next year. "38 Thus did Antoninus write to his wife.
[Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 12 1 It is of interest, moreover, to know what sort of a message he sent to the senate. 2 An extract from the message of Marcus Antoninus: "So then, in return for this manifestation of joy at our victory, Conscript Fathers, receive my son-in‑law as consul — Pompeianus, I mean, who has come to an age that were long since rewarded with the consulship, had there not stood in the way certain brave men, to whom it was right to give what was due them from the state. 3 And now, as to Cassius' revolt, I pray and beseech you, Conscript Fathers, lay aside your severity, and preserve the righteousness and mercy that are mine — nay rather I should say, yours — and let the senate put no man to death. 4 Let no senator be punished; let the blood of no distinguished man be shed; let those who have been exiled return to their homes; let those who have been outlawed recover their estates. 5 Would that I could also recall many from the grave! Vengeance for a personal wrong is never pleasing in an emperor, for the juster the vengeance is, the harsher it seems. 6 Wherefore, you will grant pardon to the sons and son-in‑law and wife of Avidius Cassius. For that matter, p259 why should I say pardon? They have done nothing. 7 Let them live, therefore, free from all anxiety, knowing that they live under Marcus. Let them live in possession of their parents' property, granted to each in due proportion; let them enjoy gold, silver, and raiment; let them be rich; let them be free from anxiety; let them, unrestricted and free to travel wheresoever they wish, carry in themselves before the eyes of all nations everywhere an example of my forbearance, an example of yours. 8 Nor is it any great act of mercy, Conscript Fathers, to grant pardon to the wives and children of outlawed men. 9 I do beseech you to save these conspirators, men of the senatorial and equestrian orders, from death, from proscription, from terror, from disgrace, from hatred, and, in short, from every harm, and to grant this to my reign, 10 that whoever, in the cause of the pretender, has fallen in the strife may, though slain, still be esteemed. "
[Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 13 1 The senate honoured this act of mercy with these acclamations:39 2 "God save you, righteous Antoninus. God save you, merciful Antoninus. 3 You have desired what was lawful, we have done what was fitting. We ask lawful power for Commodus. Strengthen your offspring. Make our children free from care. No violence troubles righteous rule. 4 We ask the tribunician power40 for Commodus Antoninus. We beseech your presence. 5 All praise to your philosophy, your patience, your principles, your magnanimity, your innocence! You conquer your foes within, your prevail over those without, the gods are watching over you," and so forth.
6 And so the descendants of Avidius Cassius lived unmolested and were admitted to offices of honour. p261 7 But after his deified father's death Commodus Antoninus ordered them all to be burned alive, as if they had been caught in a rebellion.
8 So much have we learned concerning Avidius Cassius. 9 His character, as we have said before,41 was continually changing, though inclined, on the whole, to severity and cruelty. 10 Had he gained the throne, he would have made not a merciful and kind emperor but a beneficent and excellent one. [Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 14 1 For we have a letter of his, written to his son-in‑law after he had declared himself emperor, that reads somewhat as follows: 2 "Unhappy state, unhappy, which suffers under men who are eager for riches and men who have grown rich! 3 Marcus is indeed the best of men, but one who wishes to be called merciful and hence suffers to live men whose manner of life he cannot sanction. 4 Where is Lucius Cassius,42 whose name we bear in vain? Where is that other Marcus, Cato the Censor? Where is all the rigour of our fathers? Long since indeed has it perished, and now it is not even desired. 5 Marcus Antoninus philosophizes and meditates on first principles, and on souls and virtue and justice, and takes no thought for the state. 6 There is need, rather, for many swords, as you see for yourself, and for much practical wisdom, in order that the state may return to its ancient ways. 7 And truly in regard to those governors of provinces — can I deem proconsuls or governors those who believe that their provinces were given them by the senate and Antoninus only in order that they might revel and grow rich? 8 You have heard that our philosopher's p263 prefect of the guard was a beggar and a pauper three days before his appointment, and then suddenly became rich. How, I ask you, save from the vitals of the state and the purses of the provincials? Well then, let them be rich, let them be wealthy. In time they will stuff the imperial treasury;43 only let the gods favour the better side, let the men of Cassius restore to the state a lawful government. " This letter of his shows how stern and how strict an emperor he would have been.
The Life of Commodus
1 1 [Legamen ad paginam Latinam] The ancestry of Commodus Antoninus has been sufficiently discussed in the life of Marcus Antoninus. 1 2 As for Commodus himself, he was born, with his twin brother Antoninus, at Lanuvium — where his mother's father was born, it is said2 — on the day before the Kalends of September, while his father and uncle were consuls. 3 Faustina, when pregnant with Commodus and his brother, dreamed that she gave birth to serpents, one of which, however, was fiercer than the other. 4 But after she had given birth to Commodus and Antoninus, the latter, for whom the astrologers had cast a horoscope as favourable as that of Commodus, lived to be only four years old. 5 After the death of Antoninus, Marcus tried to educate Commodus by his own teaching and by that of the greatest and the best of men. 6 In Greek literature he had Onesicrates as his teacher, in Latin, Antistius Capella; his instructor in rhetoric was Ateius Sanctus.
7 However, teachers in all these studies profited him not in the least — such is the power, either of natural character, or of the tutors maintained in a palace. For even from his earliest years he was base and dishonourable, and cruel and lewd, defiled of mouth, moreover, p267 and debauched. 3 8 Even then he was an adept in certain arts which are not becoming in an emperor, for he could mould goblets and dance and sing and whistle, and he could play the buffoon and the gladiator to perfection. 9 In the twelfth year of his life, at Centumcellae,4 he gave a forecast of his cruelty. For when it happened that his bath was drawn too cool, he ordered the bathkeeper to be cast into the furnace; whereupon the slave who had been ordered to do this burned a sheep-skin in the furnace, in order to make him believe by the stench of the vapour that the punishment had been carried out.
10 While yet a child he was given the name of Caesar,5 along with his brother Verus,6 and in his fourteenth year he was enrolled in the college of priests. 7 Legamen ad paginam Latinam 2 1 When he assumed the toga,8 he was elected one of the leaders of the equestrian youths,9 the trossuli, and even while still clad in the youth's praetexta he gave largess10 and presided in the Hall of Trajan. 11 2 He assumed the toga on the Nones of July — the day on which Romulus vanished from the earth — at the time when Cassius revolted from Marcus. 3 After he had been commended to the favour of the soldiers he set out with his father for Syria12 and Egypt, and with him he returned to Rome. 13 4 Afterward he was p269 granted exemption from the law of the appointed year and made consul,14 and on the fifth day before the Kalends of December, in the consulship of Pollio and Aper, he was acclaimed Imperator together with his father,15 and celebrated a triumph with him. 16 5 For this, too, the senate had decreed. Then he set out with his father for the German war. 17
6 The more honourable of those appointed to supervise his life he could not endure, but the most evil he retained, and, if any were dismissed, he yearned for them even to the point of falling sick. 7 When they were reinstated through his father's indulgence, he always maintained eating-houses and low resorts for them in the imperial palace. He never showed regard for either decency or expense. 8 He diced in his own home. He herded together women of unusual beauty, keeping them like purchased prostitutes in a sort of brothel for the violation of their chastity. He imitated the hucksters that strolled about from market to market. 9 He procured chariot-horses for his own use. He drove chariots in the garb of a professional charioteer,18 lived with gladiators, and conducted himself like a procurer's servant. Indeed, one would have believed him born rather to a life of infamy than to the high place to which Fortune advanced him.
Legamen ad paginam Latinam 3 1 His father's older attendants he dismissed,19 and any friends20 that were advanced in years he cast aside. p271 2 The son of Salvius Julianus, the commander of the troops,21 he tried to lead into debauchery, but in vain, and he thereupon plotted against Julianus. 22 3 He degraded the most honourable either by insulting them directly or giving them offices far below their deserts. 4 He was alluded to by actors as a man of depraved life, and he thereupon banished them so promptly that they did not again appear on the stage. 5 He abandoned the war which his father had almost finished and submitted to the enemy's terms,23 and then he returned to Rome. 24 6 After he had come back to Rome he led the triumphal procession25 with Saoterus, his partner in depravity,a seated in his chariot, and from time to time he would turn around and kiss him openly, repeating this same performance even in the orchestra. 7 And not only was he wont to drink until dawn and squander the resources of the Roman Empire, but in the evening he would ramble through taverns and brothels. 26 8 He sent out to rule the provinces men who were either his companions in crime or were recommended to him by criminals. 9 He became so detested by the senate that he in his turn was moved with cruel passion for the destruction of that great order,27 and from having been despised he became bloodthirsty.
Legamen ad paginam Latinam 4 1 Finally the actions of Commodus drove Quadratus and Lucilla,28 with the support of Tarrutenius p273 Paternus, the prefect of the guard,29 to form a plan for his assassination. 2 The task of slaying him was assigned to Claudius Pompeianus, a kinsman. 30 3 But he, as soon as he had an opportunity to fulfil his mission, strode up to Commodus with a drawn sword, and, bursting out with these words, "This dagger the senate sends thee," betrayed the plot like a fool, and failed to accomplish the design, in which many others along with himself were implicated. 4 After this fiasco, first Pompeianus and Quadratus were executed, and then Norbana and Norbanus and Paralius; and the latter's mother and Lucilla were driven into exile. 31
5 Thereupon the prefects of the guard, perceiving that the aversion in which Commodus was held was all on account of Saoterus, whose power the Roman people could not endure, courteously escorted this man away from the Palace under pretext of a sacrifice, and then, as he was returning to his villa, had him assassinated by their private agents. 32 6 But this deed enraged Commodus more than the plot against himself. 7 Paternus, the instigator of this murder, who was believed to have been an accomplice in the plot to assassinate Commodus and had certainly sought to prevent any far-reaching punishment of that conspiracy, was now, at the instigation of Tigidius,33 dismissed from the command of the praetorian guard by the expedient of conferring on him the honour of the broad stripe. 34 8 And a few days thereafter, Commodus accused him of plotting, saying that the daughter of Paternus had been betrothed to the son of Julianus35 with the understanding p275 that Julianus would be raised to the throne. On this pretext he executed Paternus and Julianus, and also Vitruvius Secundus, a very dear friend of Paternus, who had charge of the imperial correspondence. 9 Besides this, he exterminated the whole house of the Quintilii,36 because Sextus, the son of Condianus,37 by pretending death, it was said, had made his escape in order to raise a revolt. 10 Vitrasia Faustina, Velius Rufus,38 and Egnatius Capito, a man of consular rank, were all slain. 11 Aemilius Iuncus and Atilius Severus, the consuls,39 were driven into exile. And against many others he vented his rage in various ways.
Legamen ad paginam Latinam 5 1 After this Commodus never appeared in public readily, and would never receive messages unless they had previously passed through the hands of Perennis. 40 2 For Perennis, being well acquainted with Commodus' character, discovered the way to make himself powerful, 3 namely, by persuading Commodus to devote himself to pleasure while he, Perennis, assumed all the burdens of the government — an arrangement which Commodus joyfully accepted. 4 Under this agreement, then, Commodus lived, rioting in the Palace amid banquets and in baths along with 300 concubines, gathered together for their beauty and chosen from both matrons and harlots, and with minions, also 300 in number, whom he had collected by force and by purchase indiscriminately from the common people and the nobles p277 solely on the basis of bodily beauty. 5 Meanwhile, dressed in the garb of an attendant at the sacrifice, he slaughtered the sacrificial victims. He fought in the arena with foils, but sometimes, with his chamberlains acting as gladiators, with sharpened swords. By this time Perennis had secured all the power for himself. 6 He slew whomsoever he wished to slay, plundered a great number, violated every law, and put all the booty into his own pocket. 41 7 Commodus, for his part, killed his sister Lucilla, after banishing her to Capri. 8 After debauching his other sisters, as it is said, he formed an amour with a cousin of his father,42 and even gave the name of his mother to one of his concubines. 9 His wife,43 whom he caught in adultery, he drove from his house, then banished her, and later put her to death. 10 By his orders his concubines were debauched before his own eyes, 11 and he was not free from the disgrace of intimacy with young men, defiling every part of his body in dealings with persons of either sex.
12 At this time Claudius also, whose son had previously come into Commodus' presence with a dagger, was slain,44 ostensibly by bandits, and many other senators were put to death, and also certain women of wealth. 13 And not a few provincials, for the sake of their riches, were charged with crimes by Perennis and then plundered or even slain; 14 some, against whom there was not even the imputation of a fictitious crime, were accused of having been unwilling to name Commodus as their heir.
p279 6 1 Legamen ad paginam Latinam About this time the victories in Sarmatia won by other generals were attributed by Perennis to his own son. 45 2 Yet in spite of his great power, suddenly, because in the war in Britain46 he had dismissed certain senators and had put men of the equestrian order in command of the soldiers,47 this same Perennis was declared an enemy to the state, when the matter was reported by the legates in command of the army, and was thereupon delivered up to the soldiers to be torn to pieces. 48 3 In his place of power Commodus put Cleander,49 one of his chamberlains.
4 After Perennis and his son were executed, Commodus rescinded a number of measures on the ground that they had been carried out without his authority, pretending that he was merely re-establishing previous conditions. 5 However, he could not maintain this penitence for his misdeeds longer than thirty days, and he actually committed more atrocious crimes through Cleander than he had done through the aforesaid Perennis. 6 Although Perennis was succeeded in general influence by Cleander, his successor in the prefecture was Niger, who held this position as prefect of the guard, it is said, for just six hours. 7 In fact, prefects of the guard were changed hourly and p281 daily, Commodus meanwhile committing all kinds of evil deeds, worse even than he had committed before. 8 Marcius Quartus was prefect of the guard for five days. Thereafter, the successors of these men were either retained in office or executed, according to the whim of Cleander. 9 At his nod even freedmen were enrolled in the senate and among the patricians, and now for the first time there were twenty-five consuls in a single year. Appointments to the provinces were uniformly sold; 10 in fact, Cleander sold everything for money. 50 He loaded with honours men who were recalled from exile; he rescinded decisions of the courts. 11 Indeed, because of Commodus' utter degeneracy, his power was so great that he brought Burrus,51 the husband of Commodus' sister, who was denouncing and reporting to Commodus all that was being done, under the suspicion of pretending to the throne, and had him put to death; and at the same time he slew many others who defended Burrus. 12 Among these Aebutianus was slain, the prefect of the guard; in his place Cleander himself was made prefect, together with two others whom he himself chose. 13 Then for the first time were there three prefects of the guard, among whom was a freedman, called the "Bearer of the Dagger". 52
Legamen ad paginam Latinam 7 1 However, a full worthy death was at last meted out to Cleander also. For when, through his intrigues, Arrius Antoninus53 was put to death on false charges as a favour to Attalus, whom Arrius had condemned p283 during his proconsulship in Asia, Commodus could not endure the hatred of the enraged people and gave Cleander over to the populace for punishment. 54 2 At the same time Apolaustus55 and several other freedmen of the court were put to death. Among other outrages Cleander had debauched certain of Commodus' concubines,56 and from them had begotten sons, 3 who, together with their mothers, were put to death after his downfall.
4 As successors to Cleander Commodus appointed Julianus and Regillus, both of whom he afterwards condemned. 57 5 After these men had been put to death he slew the two Silani, Servilius58 and Dulius, together with their kin, then Antius Lupus59 and the two Petronii, Mamertinus and Sura,60 and also Mamertinus' son Antoninus, whose mother was his own sister;61 6 after these, six former consuls at one time, Allius Fuscus, Caelius Felix, Lucceius Torquatus, Larcius Eurupianus, Valerius Bassianus and Pactumeius Magnus,62 all with their kin; 7 in Asia Sulpicius Crassus, the proconsul, Julius Proculus, together with their kin, and Claudius Lucanus, a man of consular rank; and in Achaia his father's cousin, Annia Faustina,63 and innumerable others. 8 He had intended to kill fourteen others also, since the revenues of the Roman empire were insufficient to meet his expenditures.
p285 8 1 Legamen ad paginam Latinam Meanwhile, because he had appointed to the consulship a former lover of his mother's,64 the senate mockingly gave Commodus the name Pius;65 and after he had executed Perennis, he was given the name Felix,66 as though, amid the multitudinous executions of many citizens, he were a second Sulla. 2 And this same Commodus, who was called Pius, and who was called Felix, is said to have feigned a plot against his own life, in order that he might have an excuse for putting many to death. 3 Yet as a matter of fact, there were no rebellions save that of Alexander,67 who soon killed himself and his near of kin, and that of Commodus' sister Lucilla. 68 4 He was called Britannicus by those who desired to flatter him, whereas the Britons even wished to set up an emperor against him. 69 5 He was called also the Roman Hercules,70 on the ground that he had killed wild beasts in the amphitheatre at Lanuvium; and, indeed, it was his custom to kill wild beasts on his own estate. 6 He had, besides, an insane desire that the city of Rome should be renamed Colonia Commodiana. 71 This mad idea, it is said, was inspired in p287 him while listening to the blandishments of Marcia. 72 7 He had also a desire to drive chariots in the Circus, 8 and he went out in public clad in the Dalmatian tunic73 and thus clothed gave the signal for the charioteers to start. 9 And in truth, on the occasion when he laid before the senate his proposal to call Rome Commodiana, not only did the senate gleefully pass this resolution, but also took the name "Commodian" to itself, at the same time giving Commodus the name Hercules, and calling him a god.
Legamen ad paginam Latinam 9 1 He pretended once that he was going to Africa, so that he could get funds for the journey, then got them and spent them on banquets and gaming instead. 2 He murdered Motilenus, the prefect of the guard, by means of poisoned figs. He allowed statues of himself to be erected with the accoutrements of Hercules;74 and sacrifices were performed to him as to a god. 3 He had planned to execute many more men besides, but his plan was betrayed by a certain young servant, who threw out of his bedroom a tablet on which were written the names of those who were to be killed.
4 He practised the worship of Isis and even went so far as to shave his head and carry a statue of Anubis. 75 5 In his passion for cruelty he actually ordered the votaries of Bellona to cut off one of their arms,76 6 and as for the devotees of Isis, he forced them to beat p289 their breasts with pine-cones even to the point of death. While he was carrying about the statue of Anubis, he used to smite the heads of the devotees of Isis with the face of the statue. He struck with his club, while clad in a woman's garment or a lion's skin,77 not lions only, but many men as well. Certain men who were lame in their feet and others who could not walk, he dressed up as giants, encasing their legs from the knee down in wrappings and bandages to make them look like serpents,78 and then despatched them with his arrows. He desecrated the rites of Mithra79 with actual murder, although it was customary in them merely to say or pretend something that would produce an impression of terror.
Legamen ad paginam Latinam 10 1 Even as a child he was gluttonous and lewd. 80 While a youth, he disgraced every class of men in his company and was disgraced in turn by them. 2 Whosoever ridiculed him he cast to the wild beasts. And one man, who had merely read the book by Tranquillus81 containing the life of Caligula, he ordered cast to the wild beasts, because Caligula and he had the same birthday. 82 3 And if any one, indeed, expressed a desire to die, he had him hurried to death, however really reluctant.
In his humorous moments, too, he was destructive. 4 For example, he put a starling on the head of one p291 man who, as he noticed, had a few white hairs, resembling worms, among the black, and caused his head to fester through the continual pecking of the bird's beak — the bird, of course, imagining that it was pursuing worms. 5 One corpulent person he cut open down the middle of his belly, so that his intestines gushed forth. 6 Other men he dubbed one-eyed or one-footed, after he himself had plucked out one of their eyes or cut off one of their feet. 7 In addition to all this, he murdered many others in many places, some because they came of his presence in the costume of barbarians, others because they were noble and handsome. 8 He kept among his minions certain men named after the private parts of both sexes, and on these he liked to bestow kisses. 9 He also had in his company a man with a male member larger than that of most animals, whom he called Onos. 83 This man he treated with great affection, and even made him rich and appointed him to the priesthood of the Rural Hercules. 84 Legamen ad paginam Latinam 11 1 It is claimed that he often mixed human excrement with the most expensive foods, and he did not refrain from tasting them, mocking the rest of the company, as he thought. 2 He displayed two misshapen hunchbacks on a silver platter after smearing them with mustard, and then straightway advanced and enriched them. 3 He pushed into a swimming-pool his praetor prefect Julianus,85 although he was clad in his toga and accompanied by his staff; and he even ordered this same Julianus to dance naked before his concubines, clashing cymbals and making grimaces. 4 The various kinds of cooked vegetables he rarely admitted to his banquets, his purpose being to preserve unbroken the succession of dainties. 5 He used to bathe seven and p293 eight times a day, and was in the habit of eating while in the baths. 6 He would enter the temples of the gods defiled with adulteries and human blood. 7 He even aped a surgeon, going so far as to bleed men to death with scalpels. 86
8 Certain months were renamed in his honour by his flatterers; for August they substituted Commodus, for September Hercules, for October Invictus, for November Exsuperatorius, and for December Amazonius, after his own surname. 87 9 He had been called Amazonius, moreover, because of his passion for his concubine Marcia,88 whom he loved to have portrayed as an Amazon, and for whose sake he even wished to enter the arena of Rome dressed as an Amazon.
10 He engaged in gladiatorial combats,89 and accepted the names usually given to gladiators90 with as much pleasure as if he had been granted triumphal decorations. 11 He regularly took part in the spectacles, and as often as he did so, ordered the fact to be inscribed in the public records. 91 12 It is said that he engaged in gladiatorial bouts seven hundred and thirty-five times. 92
13 He received the name of Caesar on the fourth day before the Ides of the month usually called October, which he later named Hercules,93 in the consulship of Pudens and Pollio. 94 14 He was called Germanicus95 on the Ides of "Hercules" in the consulship of Maximus p295 and Orfitus. Legamen ad paginam Latinam 12 1 He was received into all the sacred colleges as a priest on the thirteenth day before the Kalends of "Invictus," in the consulship of Piso and Julianus. 2 He set out for Germany on the fourteenth day before the Kalends of the month which he later named Aelius, 3 and assumed the toga in the same year. 4 Together with his father he was acclaimed Imperator on the fifth day before the Kalends of "Exsuperatorius," in the year when Pollio and Aper served their second consulships, 5 and he celebrated a triumph on the tenth day before the Kalends of January in this same year. 6 He set out on his second expedition on the third day before the Nones of "Commodus" in the consulship of Orfitus and Rufus. 7 He was officially presented by the army and the senate to be maintained in perpetuity in the Palatine mansion,96 henceforth called Commodiana,97 on the eleventh day before the Kalends of "Romanus," in the year that Praesens was consul for the second time. 8 When he laid plans for a third expedition, he was persuaded by the senate and people to give it up. 9 Vows98 were assumed in his behalf on the Nones of "Pius," when Fuscianus was consul for the second time. 10 Besides these facts, it is related in records that he fought 365 gladiatorial combats in his father's reign. 11 Afterwards, by vanquishing or slaying retiarii,99 he won enough gladiatorial crowns to bring the number up to a thousand. 100 12 He also killed with his own hand thousands of wild beasts of all kinds, even elephants. And he frequently did these things before the eyes of the Roman people. 101
Legamen ad paginam Latinam 13 1 But, though vigorous enough for such exploits, he was otherwise weak and diseased; indeed, p297 he had such a conspicuous growth on his groin that the people of Rome could see the swelling through his silken robes. 2 Many verses were written alluding to this deformity; and Marius Maximus prides himself on preserving these in his biography of Commodus. 3 Such was his prowess in the slaying of wild beasts, that he once transfixed an elephant with a pole, pierced a gazelle's horn with a spear, and on a thousand occasions dispatched a mighty beast with a single blow. 4 Such was his complete indifference to propriety, that time and again he sat in the theatre or amphitheatre dressed in a woman's garments and drank quite publicly.
5 The Moors102 and the Dacians103 were conquered during his reign, and peace was established in the Pannonias,104 but all by his legates, since such was the manner of his life. The provincials in Britain,105 Dacia, and Germany106 attempted to cast off his yoke, 6 but all these attempts were put down by his generals. 7 Commodus himself was so lazy and careless in signing documents that he answered many petitions with the same formula, while in very many letters he merely wrote the word "Farewell". 8 All official business was carried on by others, who, it is said, even used condemnations to swell their purses. Legamen ad paginam Latinam 14 1 And because he was so careless, moreover, a great famine arose in p299 Rome, not because there was any real shortage of crops, but merely because those who then ruled the state were plundering the food supply. 107 2 As for those who plundered on every hand, Commodus afterwards put them to death and confiscated their property; 3 but for the time he pretended that a golden age had come,108 "Commodian" by name, and ordered a general reduction of prices, the result of which was an even greater scarcity.
4 In his reign many a man secured punishment for another or immunity for himself by bribery. 5 Indeed, in return for money Commodus would grant a change of punishment, the right of burial, the alleviation of wrongs, and the substitution of another for one condemned to be put to death. 6 He sold provinces and administrative posts, part of the proceeds accruing to those through whom he made the sale and part to Commodus himself. 7 To some he sold even the lives of their enemies. Under him the imperial freedmen sold even the results of law-suits. 8 He did not long put up with Paternus and Perennis as prefects;109 indeed, not one of the prefects whom he himself had appointed remained in office as long as three years. 110 Most of them he killed, some with poison, some with the sword. Legamen ad paginam Latinam 15 1 Prefects of the city he changed with equal readiness. He executed his chamberlains with no compunctions whatever, even though all that he had done had been at their bidding. 2 One of these chamberlains, however, Eclectus by name,111 forestalled him when he saw how ready Commodus was to put the chamberlains to death, and took part in a conspiracy to kill him. 112
3 At gladiatorial shows he would come to watch and stay to fight, covering his bare shoulders with a purple p301 cloth. 4 And it was his custom, moreover, to order the insertion in the city-gazette113 of everything he did that was base or foul or cruel, or typical of a gladiator114 or a procurer — at least, the writings of Marius Maximus so testify. 5 He entitled the Roman people the "People of Commodus,"115 since he had very often fought as a gladiator in their presence. 116 6 And although the people regularly applauded him in his frequent combats as though he were a god, he became convinced that he was being laughed at, and gave orders that the Roman people should be slain in the Amphitheatre by the marines who spread the awnings. 7 He gave an order, also, for the burning of the city,117 as though it were his private colony, and this order would have been executed had not Laetus,118 the prefect of the guard, deterred him. 8 Among other triumphal titles, he was also given the name "Captain of the Secutores"119 six hundred and twenty times.
Legamen ad paginam Latinam 16 1 The prodigies that occurred in his reign, both those which concerned the state and those which affected Commodus personally, were as follows. A comet appeared. 2 Footprints of the gods were seen in the Forum departing from it. Before the war of the deserters120 the heavens were ablaze. On the Kalends p303 of January a swift coming mist and darkness arose in the Circus; and before dawn there had already been fire-birds121 and ill-boding portents. 3 Commodus himself moved his residence from the Palace to the Vectilian Villa122 on the Caelian hill, saying that he could not sleep in the Palace. 4 The twin gates of the temple of Janus123 opened of their own accord, and a marble image of Anubis124 was seen to move. 5 In the Minucian Portico125 a bronze statue of Hercules sweated for several days. An owl, moreover, was caught above his bed-chamber both at Lanuvium and at Rome. 6 He was himself responsible for no inconsiderable an omen relating to himself; for after he had plunged his hand into the wound of a slain gladiator he wiped it on his own head, and again, contrary to custom, he ordered the spectators to attend his gladiatorial shows clad not in togas but in cloaks, a practice usual at funerals,126 while he himself presided in the vestments of a mourner. 7 Twice, moreover, his helmet was borne through the Gate of Libitina. 127
8 He gave largess to the people, 725 denarii to each man. 128 Toward all others he was close-fisted to a degree, since the expense of his luxurious living had drained the treasury. 9 He held many races in the Circus,129 but rather as the result of a whim than as p305 an act of religion, and also in order to enrich the leaders of the factions. 130
Legamen ad paginam Latinam 17 1 Because of these things — but all too late — Quintus Aemilius Laetus, prefect of the guard, and Marcia, his concubine, were roused to action and entered into a conspiracy against his life. 2 First they gave him poison; and when this proved ineffective they had him strangled by the athlete with whom he was accustomed to exercise. 131
3 Physically he was very well proportioned.
6 1 Such interest did Verus take in the circus-games that frequently even in his province he despatched and received letters pertaining to them. 2 And finally, even at Rome, when he was present and seated with Marcus, he suffered many insults from the "Blues,"39 because he had outrageously, as they maintained, taken sides against them. 3 For he had a golden statue made of the "Green" horse Volucer,40 and this he always carried around with him; 4 indeed, he was wont to put raisins and nuts instead of barley in this horse's manger and to order him brought to him, in the House of Tiberius,41 covered with a blanket dyed with purple, and he built him a tomb, when he died, on the Vatican Hill. 5 It was because of this horse that gold pieces and prizes first began to be demanded for horses, 6 and in such honour was this horse held, that frequently a whole peck of gold pieces was demanded for him by the faction of the "Greens".
7 When Verus set out for the Parthian war, Marcus accompanied him as far as Capua;42 from there on he gorged himself in everyone's villa, and in consequence he was taken sick at Canusium, becoming very ill, so that his brother hastened thither to see him. 8 And p221 now in the course of this war there were revealed many features of Verus' life that were weak and base. 9 For while a legate was being slain,43 while legions were being slaughtered, while Syria meditated revolt, and the East was being devastated, Verus was hunting in Apulia, travelling about through Athens and Corinth accompanied by orchestras and singers, and dallying through all the cities of Asia that bordered on the sea, and those cities of Pamphylia and Cilicia that were particularly notorious for their pleasure-resorts. 7 And when he came to Antioch, there he gave himself wholly to riotous living. His generals, meanwhile, Statius Priscus, Avidius Cassius, and Martius Verus44 for four years conducted the war until they advanced to Babylon and Media, and recovered Armenia. 45 2 He, however, gained the names Armeniacus, Parthicus, and Medicus; and these were proffered to Marcus also, who was then living at Rome. 3 For four years, moreover, Verus passed his winters at Laodicea, his summers at Daphne, and the rest of the time at Antioch. 46 4 As far as the Syrians were concerned, he was an object for ridicule, and many of the jibes which they uttered against him on the stage are still preserved. 5 Always, during the Saturnalia and on holidays he admitted his more pampered slaves to his dining-room. 6 Finally, however, at the insistence of his staff he set out for the Euphrates, 7 but soon, in order to receive his wife Lucilla, who had been sent thither by her father Marcus,47 he returned to Ephesus, going there chiefly in order that Marcus might not come to Syria with p223 her and discover his evil deeds. For Marcus had told the senate that he himself would conduct his daughter to Syria. 8 Then, after the war was finished,48 he assigned kingdoms49 to certain kings, and provinces to certain members of his staff, to be ruled, 9 and returned to Rome for a triumph,50 reluctantly, however, since he was leaving in Syria what almost seemed his own kingdom. His triumph he shared with his brother, and from the senate he accepted the names which he had received in the army. 51 10 It is said, furthermore, that he shaved off his beard while in Syria to humour the whim of a low-born mistress;52 and because of this many things were said against him by the Syrians.
8 1 It was his fate to seem to bring a pestilence with him to whatever provinces he traversed on his return, and finally even to Rome. 53 2 It is believed that this pestilence originated in Babylonia, where a pestilential vapour arose in a temple of Apollo from a golden casket which a soldier had accidentally cut open, and that it spread thence over Parthia and the whole world. 3 Lucius Verus, however, is not to blame for this so much as Cassius, who stormed Seleucia in violation of an agreement, after it had received our soldiers as friends. 4 This act, indeed, many excuse, and among them Quadratus,54 the historian of the Parthian war, who blames the Seleucians as the first to break the agreement.
5 Such respect did Verus have for Marcus, that on p225 the day of the triumph, which they celebrated together, he shared with his brother the names which had been granted to himself. 55 6 After he had returned from the Parthian war, however, Verus exhibited less regard for his brother; for he pampered his freedmen56 shamefully, and settled many things without his brother's counsel. 7 Besides all this, he brought actors out of Syria57 as proudly as though he were leading kings to a triumph. The chief of these was Maximinus, on whom he bestowed the name Paris. 8 Furthermore, he built an exceedingly notorious villa on the Clodian Way,58 and here he not only reviled himself for many days at a time in boundless extravagance together with his freedmen and friends of inferior rank in whose presence he felt no shame, but he even invited Marcus. 9 Marcus came, in order to display to his brother the purity of his own moral code as worthy of respect and imitation, and for five days, staying in the same villa, he busied himself continuously with the examination of law-cases, while his brother, in the meantime, was either banqueting or preparing banquets. 10 Verus maintained also the actor Agrippus, surnamed Memphius, whom he had brought with him from Syria, almost as a trophy of the Parthian war, and named Apolaustius. 59 11 He had brought with him, too, players of the harp and the flute, actors and jesters from the mimes, jugglers, and all kinds of slaves in whose entertainment Syria and Alexandria find pleasure, and in such numbers, indeed, that he seemed to have concluded a war, not against Parthians, but against actors.
p227 9 This diversity in their manner of life, as well as many other causes, bred dissensions between Marcus and Verus — or so it was bruited about by obscure rumours although never established on the basis of manifest truth. 2 But, in particular, this incident was mentioned: Marcus sent a certain Libo,60 a cousin of his, as his legate to Syria, and there Libo acted more insolently than a respectful senator should, saying that he would write to his cousin if he happened to need any advice. But Verus, who was there in Syria, could not suffer this, and when, a little later, Libo died after a sudden illness accompanied by all the symptoms of poisoning, it seemed probable to some people, though not to Marcus, that Verus was responsible for his death; and this suspicion strengthened the rumours of dissensions between the Emperors.
3 Verus' freedmen, furthermore, had great influence with him, as we related in the Life of Marcus,61 namely Geminas and Agaclytus. 4 To the latter of these he gave the widow of Libo in marriage against the wishes of Marcus; indeed, when Verus celebrated the marriage ceremony Marcus did not attend the banquet. 5 Verus had other unscrupulous freedmen as well, Coedes and Eclectus and others. 6 All of these Marcus dismissed after Verus' death, under pretext of doing them honour, with the exception of Eclectus, and he afterwards slew Marcus' son, Commodus. 62
7 When the German war broke out, the two Emperors went to the front together, for Marcus wished neither to send Lucius to the front alone, nor yet, because of his debauchery, to leave him in the city. 8 When they had come to Aquileia,63 they proceeded to cross the Alps, though this was contrary to Lucius' p229 desire; for as long as they remained in Aquileia he did nothing but hunt and banquet while Marcus made all the plans. 9 As far as this war was concerned, we have very fully discussed in the Life of Marcus64 what was accomplished by the envoys of the barbarians when they sued for peace and what was accomplished by our generals. 10 When the war in Pannonia was settled, they returned to Aquileia at Lucius' insistence, and then, because he yearned for the pleasures of the city, they hastened cityward. 11 But not far from Altinum, Lucius, while in his carriage, was suddenly stricken with the sickness which they call apoplexy, and after he had been set down from his carriage and bled, he was taken to Altinum,65 and here he died, after living for three days unable to speak.
10 1 There was gossip to the effect that he had violated his mother-in‑law Faustina. And it is said that his mother-in‑law killed him treacherously by having poison sprinkled on his oysters, because he had betrayed to the daughter66 the amour he had had with the mother. 2 However, there arose also that other story related in the Life of Marcus,67 one utterly inconsistent with the character of such a man. 3 Many, again, fastened the crime of his death upon his wife, since Verus had been too complaisant to Fabia, and her power his wife Lucilla could not endure. 4 Indeed, Lucius and his sister Fabia did become so intimate that gossip went so far as to claim that they had entered into a conspiracy to make away with Marcus, 5 and that when this was betrayed to Marcus by the freedman Agaclytus, Faustina circumvented p231 Lucius in fear that he might circumvent her. 68
6 Verus was well-proportioned in person and genial of expression. His beard was allowed to grow long, almost in the style of the barbarians; he was tall, and stately in appearance, for his forehead projected somewhat over his eyebrows. 7 He took such pride in his yellow hair, it is said, that he used to sift gold-dust on his head in order that his hair, thus brightened, might seem even yellower. 8 He was somewhat halting in speech, a reckless gambler, ever of an extravagant mode of life, and in many respects, save only that he was not cruel or given to acting, a second Nero. 9 Among other articles of extravagance he had a crystal goblet, named Volucer after that horse of which he had been very fond,69 that surpassed the capacity of any human draught.
11 1 He lived forty-two years,70 and, in company with his brother, reigned eleven. 71 His body was laid in the Tomb of Hadrian,72 where Caesar, his real father, was also buried.
2 There is a well-known story,73 which Marcus' manner of life will not warrant, that Marcus handed Verus part of a sow's womb which he had poisoned by cutting it with a knife smeared on one side with poison. 3 But it is wrong even to think of such a deed in connection with Marcus, although the plans and deeds of Verus may have well deserved it; 4 nor shall we leave the matter undecided, but rather reject it discarded and disproved, since from the time of Marcus onward, with the exception of your Clemency, Diocletian Augustus, not even flattery, it seems, has been able to fashion such an emperor.
The Life of Avidius Cassius
1 1 [Legamen ad paginam Latinam] Avidius Cassius is said, according to the statements of some, to have belonged to the family of the Cassii, but only on his mother's side. His father was Avidius Severus,1 the first of the family to hold public office, who at first commanded in the ranks,2 but later attained to the highest honours of the state. 2 Quadratus3 mentions him in his history, and certainly with all respect, for he declares that he was a very distinguished man, both indispensable to the state and influential with Marcus himself; 3 for he succumbed to the decrees of fate, it is said, when Marcus had already begun to rule.
4 Now Cassius, sprung, as we have said, from the family of the Cassii who conspired against Gaius Julius,4 secretly hated the principate and could not brook even the title of emperor, saying that the name of empire was all the more onerous because an p235 emperor could not be removed from the state except by another emperor. 5 In his youth, they say, he tried to wrest the empire from Pius too, but through his father, a righteous and worthy man, he escaped detection in this attempt to seize the throne, though he continued to be suspected by Pius' generals. 6 Against Verus he organized a genuine conspiracy, as a letter of Verus' own, which I append, makes clear. 7 Extract from the letter of Verus:5 "Avidius Cassius is avid for the throne, as it seems to me and as was well-known in the reign of my grandfather,6 your father; I wish you would have him watched. 8 Everything we do displeases him, he is amassing no inconsiderable wealth, and he laughs at our letters. He calls you a philosophical old woman, me a half-witted spendthrift. Consider what should be done. 9 I do not dislike the man, but look to it lest you take too little heed for yourself and for your children when you keep in active service a man whom the soldiers are glad to hear and glad to see. " [Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 2 1 Marcus' answer concerning Avidius Cassius: "I have read your letter, which is that of a disquieted man rather than that of a general, and one not worthy of our times. 2 For if the empire is divinely decreed to be his, we cannot slay him even should we so desire. Remember what your great-grandfather7 used to say, 'No one ever kills his successor'. And if this is not the case, he will of himself fall into the toils of fate without any act of cruelty on our part. 3 Add that we cannot judge a man guilty whom no one has accused, and whom, as you say yourself, the soldiers love. 4 Furthermore, p237 in cases of treason it is inevitable that even those who have been proved guilty seem to suffer injustice. 5 ºFor you know yourself what your grandfather Hadrian said, 'Unhappy is the lot of emperors, who are never believed when they accuse anyone of pretending to the throne, until after they are slain'. 6 I have preferred, moreover, to quote this as his, rather than as Domitian's,8 who is reported to have said it first, for good sayings when uttered by tyrants have not as much weight as they deserve. 7 So let Cassius keep his own ways, especially as he is an able general and a stern and brave man, and since the state has need of him. 8 And as for your statement that I should take heed for my children by killing him, by all means let my children perish, if Avidius be more deserving of love than they and if it profit the state for Cassius to live rather than the children of Marcus. " Thus did Verus, thus did Marcus, write about Cassius.
[Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 3 1 But let us briefly portray the nature and character of the man; for not very much can be known about those men whose lives no one has dared to render illustrious through fear of those by whom they were overcome. 2 We will add, moreover, how he came to the throne, and how he was killed, and where he was conquered. 3 For I have undertaken, Diocletian Augustus, to set down in writing the lives of all who have held the imperial title9 whether rightfully or without right, in order that you may become acquainted with all the emperors that have ever worn the purple.
4 Such was his character, then, that sometimes he seemed stern and savage, sometimes mild and gentle, often devout and again scornful of sacred things, addicted to drink and also temperate, a lover of eating p239 yet able to endure hunger, a devotee of Venus and a lover of chastity. 5 Nor were there lacking those who called him a second Catiline,10 and indeed he rejoiced to hear himself thus called, and added that he would really be a Sergius if he killed the philosopher, meaning by that name Antoninus. 6 For the emperor was so illustrious in philosophy that when he was about to set out for the Marcomannic war, and everyone was fearful that some ill-luck might befall him, he was asked, not in flattery but in all seriousness, to publish his "Precepts of Philosophy";11 7 and he did not fear to do so, but for three days discussed the books of his "Exhortations" one after the other. 8 Moreover, Avidius Cassius was a strict disciplinarian and wished to be called a Marius. 12
[Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 4 1 And since we have begun to speak of his strictness, there are many indications of what must be called savagery, rather than strictness, on his part. 2 For, in the first place, soldiers who had forcibly seized anything from the provincials he crucified on the very spot where they had committed the crime. 3 He was the first, moreover, to devise the following means of punishment: after erecting a huge post, •180 feet high, and binding condemned criminals on it from top to bottom, he built a fire at its base, and so burned some of them and killed the others by the smoke, the pain, and even by the fright. 4 Besides this, he had men bound in chains, ten together, and thrown into rivers or even the sea. 5 Besides this, he cut off the hands of many deserters, and broke the legs and hips of others, saying that a criminal alive and p241 wretched was a more terrible example than one who had been put to death. 6 Once when he was commanding the army, a band of auxiliaries, at the suggestion of their centurions and without his knowledge, slaughtered 3,000 Sarmatians, who were camping somewhat carelessly on the bank of the Danube, and returned to him with immense plunder. But when the centurions expected a reward because they had slain such a host of the enemy with a very small force while the tribunes were passing their time in indolence and were even ignorant of the whole affair, he had them arrested and crucified, and punished them with the punishment of slaves, for which there was no precedent; "It might," he said, "have been an ambush, and the barbarians' awe for the Roman Empire might have been lost. " 7 And when a fierce mutiny arose in the camp, he issued forth clad only in a wrestler's loin-cloth and said: "Strike me if you dare, and add the crime of murder to breach of discipline". 8 Then, as all grew quiet, he was held in well deserved fear, because he had shown no fear himself. 9 This incident so strengthened discipline among the Romans and struck such terror into the barbarians, that they besought the absent Antoninus for a hundred years' peace, since they had seen even those who conquered, if they conquered wrongfully, sentenced to death by the decision of a Roman general.
[Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 5 1 Many of the stern measures he took to put down the licence of the soldiers are recorded in the works of Aemilius Parthenianus,13 who has related the history of the pretenders to the throne from ancient times even to the present. 2 For example, after openly beating them with the lictors' rods in the forum and p243 in the midst of the camp, he beheaded those who deserve it with the axe, and in numerous instances cut off his soldiers' hands. 3 He forbade the soldiers, moreover, to carry anything when on the march save lard and biscuit and vinegar, and if he discovered anything else he punished the breach of discipline with no light hand. 4 There is a letter concerning Cassius that the Deified Marcus wrote to his prefect, running somewhat as follows: 5 "I have put Avidius Cassius in command of the Syrian legions, which are running riot in luxury and conducting themselves with the morals of Daphne; concerning these legions Caesonius Vectilianus has written that he found them all accustomed to bathe in hot water. 14 6 And I think I have made no mistake, for you too know Cassius, a man of true Cassian strictness and rigour. 7 Indeed, the soldiers cannot be controlled except by the ancient discipline. You know what the good poet says, a line universally quoted:
'The state of Rome is rooted in the men and manners of the olden time. '15
8 Do you take care only that provisions are abundantly provided for the legions, for if I have judged Avidius correctly I know that they will not be wasted. " The prefect's answer to Marcus runs: 9 "You planned wisely, Sire, when you put Cassius in command of the Syrian legions. 10 Nothing benefits Grecianized soldiers like a man who is somewhat strict. 11 He will certainly do away with all warm baths, and will strike all the flowers from the soldiers' heads and necks and breasts. 12 Food for the soldiers is all provided; and nothing is lacking under an able general, for but little is either asked or expended. " [Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 6 1 And p245 Cassius did not disappoint the expectation that had been formed of him, for he immediately had the proclamation made at assembly, and posted notices on the walls, that if any one were discovered at Daphne in his uniform he would return without it. 16 2 Regularly once a week he inspected his soldiers' equipment, even their clothes and shoes and leggings, and he banished all dissipation from the camp and issued an order that they would pass the winter in their tents if they did not mend their ways; and they would have done so, had they not conducted themselves more respectably. 3 Once a week there was a drill of all the soldiers, in which they even shot arrows and engaged in contests in the use of arms. 4 For he said that it was shameful that soldiers should not be trained, while athletes, wild beast fighters and gladiators were, for the soldiers' future labours, if familiar to them, would be less onerous.
5 And so, having stiffened military discipline, he conducted affairs in Armenia and Arabia and Egypt with the greatest success. 17 6 He was well loved by all the eastern nations, especially by the citizens of Antioch, who even acquiesced in his rule, as Marius Maximus relates in his Life of the Deified Marcus. 7 And when the warriors of the Bucolici did many grievous things in Egypt, they were checked by Cassius,18 as Marius Maximus also relates in the second book of those he published on the Life of Marcus.
[Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 7 1 Finally, while in the East,19 he proclaimed himself p247 emperor, some say, at the wish of Faustina,20 who now despaired of Marcus' health and was afraid that she would be unable to protect her infant children by herself, and that some one would arise and seize the throne and make away with the children. 2 Others, however, say that Cassius employed an artifice with the soldiers and provincials to overcome their love for Marcus so that they would join him, saying that Marcus had met his end. 3 And, indeed, he called him "the Deified,"21 it is said, in order to lessen their grief for him.
4 When his plan of making himself emperor had been put into effect, he forthwith appointed prefect of the guard the man who had invested him with the imperial insignia. This man was later put to death by the army22 against the wishes of Antoninus. The army also slew Maecianus, in whose charge Alexandria had been placed; he had joined Cassius23 in the hope of sharing the sovereignty with him, and he too was slain against the wishes and without the knowledge of Antoninus.
5 For all that, Antoninus was not seriously angered on learning of this revolt, nor did he vent his rage on Cassius' children or on his kin. 6 The senate, however, pronounced him a public enemy and confiscated his property. 24 But Antoninus was unwilling that this should be forfeited to the privy-purse, and so, at the bidding of the senate, it was delivered to the public treasury. 7 And there was no slight consternation at Rome; for many said that Avidius Cassius would advance on the city in the absence of p249 Antoninus, who was singularly loved by all but the profligates, and that he would ravage it like a tyrant, especially because of the senators who had declared him an enemy to the state and confiscated his property. 8 The love felt for Antoninus was most clearly manifested in the fact that it was with the consent of all save the citizens of Antioch that Avidius was slain. 9 Antoninus, indeed, did not so much order his execution as suffer it; for it was clear to all that he would have spared him had it been in his power. [Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 8 1 And when his head was brought to Antoninus he did not rejoice or exult,25 but rather was grieved that he had lost an opportunity for showing mercy; for he said that he had wished to take him alive, so that he might reproach him with the kindness he had shown him in the past, and then spare his life. 2 Finally, when some one said that Antoninus deserved blame because he was so indulgent toward his enemy and his enemy's children and kin, and indeed toward every one whom he had found concerned in the outbreak, and added furthermore, "What if Cassius had been successful? " the Emperor said, it is reported: "We have not worshipped the gods in such a manner, or lived such lives, that he could overcome us". 3 Thereupon he pointed out that in the case of all the emperors who had been slain there had been reasons why they deserved to die, and that no emperor, generally recognized as good, had been conquered or slain by a pretender, 4 adding that Nero had deserved to die and Caligula had forfeited his life, while neither Otho nor Vitellius had really wished to rule. 26 5 He expressed similar p251 sentiments concerning Galba also, saying that in an emperor avarice was the most grievous of all failings. 27 6 And lastly, he said, no rebels had succeeded in overcoming either Augustus, or Trajan, or Hadrian, or his own father, and, although there had been many of them, they had been killed either against the wishes or without the knowledge of those emperors. 7 Antoninus himself, moreover, asked the senate to refrain from inflicting severe punishment on those men who were implicated in the rebellion; he made this request at the very same time in which he requested that during his reign no senator be punished with capital punishment28 — an act which won him the greatest affection. 8 Finally, after he had punished a very few centurions, he gave orders that those who had been exiled should be recalled. 29 [Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 9 1 The citizens of Antioch also had sided with Avidius Cassius, but these, together with certain other states which had aided Cassius, he pardoned, though at first he was deeply angered at the citizens of Antioch and took away their games and many of the distinctions of the city, all of which he afterwards restored. 2 To the sons of Avidius Cassius Antoninus heº presented half of their father's property,30 and his daughters he even graced with gold and silver and jewels. 3 To Alexandria, Cassius' daughter, and Druncianus, his son-in‑law, he gave unrestricted permission to travel wherever they liked. 4 And they lived not as the children of a pretender but as members of the senatorial order and in the greatest security, as was shown by orders he gave that not even in a law-suit should they be taunted with the fortunes of their family, and by his convicting certain people of personal affront who p253 had been insulting to them. He even put them under the protection of his uncle by marriage.
5 If any one wishes, moreover, to know the whole of this story, let him read the second book of Marius Maximus on the life of Marcus, in which he relates everything that Marcus did as sole emperor after the death of Verus. 6 For it was during this time that Cassius rebelled, as a letter written to Faustina shows, from which the following is an extract:31 7 "Verus told me the truth about Avidius, that he desired to rule. For I presume you heard what Verus' messengers reported about him. 8 Come, then, to our Alban villa, so that with the help of the gods we may prepare for everything, and do not be afraid. " 9 It would appear from this that Faustina knew nothing of the affair, though Marius Maximus, wishing to defame her, says that it was with her connivance that Cassius attempted to seize the throne. 32 10 Indeed, we have also a letter of hers to her husband in which she urged Marcus to punish Cassius severely. 11 A copy of Faustina's letter to Marcus reads: "I shall come to our Alban villa to‑morrow, as you command. Yet I urge you now, if you love your children, to punish those rebels with all severity. 12 For soldiers and generals have an evil habit of crushing others if they are not crushed themselves. " [Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 10 1 Another letter of this same Faustina to Marcus reads similarly: "When Celsus revolted,33 my mother, Faustina, urged your father, Pius, to deal righteously first with his own kin, and then with strangers. 2 For no emperor is righteous who does not take thought for his wife and children. 3 You can see how young our son Commodus is; our son-in‑law Pompeianus34 is an elderly man and a foreigner besides. p255 4 Consider well what you will do about Avidius Cassius and his accomplices. 5 Do not show forbearance to men who have shown no forbearance to you and would show none either to me or to your children, should they be victorious. 6 I shall follow you on your way presently; I have not been able to come to the Formian villa because our dear Fadilla35 was ill. 7 However, if I shall fail to find you at Formiae, I will follow on to Capua, a city which can furnish help to me and our children in our sickness. 8 Please send the physician Soteridas to Formiae. I have no confidence in Pisitheus, who does not know how to treat a young girl. 9 Calpurnius has brought me a sealed letter: I shall reply to it, if I linger on here, through Caecilius, the old eunuch, a man to be trusted, as you know. 10 I shall also report through him, in a verbal message, what Cassius' wife and children and son-in‑law are said to be circulating about you. "
[Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 11 1 From these letters it can be seen that Faustina was not in collusion with Cassius, but, on the contrary, earnestly demanded his punishment; for, indeed, it was she who urged on Antoninus the necessity of vengeance when he was inclined to take no action and was considering more merciful measures. 2 The following letter tells what Antoninus wrote to her in reply: 3 "Truly, my Faustina, you are over-anxious about your husband and children. For while I was at Formiae I re-read the letter wherein you urged me to take vengeance on Avidius' accomplices. 4 I, however, shall spare his wife and children and son-in‑law, and I will write to the senate forbidding any immoderate confiscation or cruel punishment. 5 For there is nothing which endears a Roman emperor to p257 mankind as much as the quality of mercy. 6 This quality caused Caesar to be deified and made Augustus a god, and it was this characteristic, more than any other, that gained your father his honourable name of Pius. 36 7 Indeed, if the war had been settled in accordance with my desires, Avidius would not have been killed. 8 So do not be anxious;
'Over me the gods keep guard, the gods hold dear my righteousness. '37
I have named our son-in‑law Pompeianus consul for next year. "38 Thus did Antoninus write to his wife.
[Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 12 1 It is of interest, moreover, to know what sort of a message he sent to the senate. 2 An extract from the message of Marcus Antoninus: "So then, in return for this manifestation of joy at our victory, Conscript Fathers, receive my son-in‑law as consul — Pompeianus, I mean, who has come to an age that were long since rewarded with the consulship, had there not stood in the way certain brave men, to whom it was right to give what was due them from the state. 3 And now, as to Cassius' revolt, I pray and beseech you, Conscript Fathers, lay aside your severity, and preserve the righteousness and mercy that are mine — nay rather I should say, yours — and let the senate put no man to death. 4 Let no senator be punished; let the blood of no distinguished man be shed; let those who have been exiled return to their homes; let those who have been outlawed recover their estates. 5 Would that I could also recall many from the grave! Vengeance for a personal wrong is never pleasing in an emperor, for the juster the vengeance is, the harsher it seems. 6 Wherefore, you will grant pardon to the sons and son-in‑law and wife of Avidius Cassius. For that matter, p259 why should I say pardon? They have done nothing. 7 Let them live, therefore, free from all anxiety, knowing that they live under Marcus. Let them live in possession of their parents' property, granted to each in due proportion; let them enjoy gold, silver, and raiment; let them be rich; let them be free from anxiety; let them, unrestricted and free to travel wheresoever they wish, carry in themselves before the eyes of all nations everywhere an example of my forbearance, an example of yours. 8 Nor is it any great act of mercy, Conscript Fathers, to grant pardon to the wives and children of outlawed men. 9 I do beseech you to save these conspirators, men of the senatorial and equestrian orders, from death, from proscription, from terror, from disgrace, from hatred, and, in short, from every harm, and to grant this to my reign, 10 that whoever, in the cause of the pretender, has fallen in the strife may, though slain, still be esteemed. "
[Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 13 1 The senate honoured this act of mercy with these acclamations:39 2 "God save you, righteous Antoninus. God save you, merciful Antoninus. 3 You have desired what was lawful, we have done what was fitting. We ask lawful power for Commodus. Strengthen your offspring. Make our children free from care. No violence troubles righteous rule. 4 We ask the tribunician power40 for Commodus Antoninus. We beseech your presence. 5 All praise to your philosophy, your patience, your principles, your magnanimity, your innocence! You conquer your foes within, your prevail over those without, the gods are watching over you," and so forth.
6 And so the descendants of Avidius Cassius lived unmolested and were admitted to offices of honour. p261 7 But after his deified father's death Commodus Antoninus ordered them all to be burned alive, as if they had been caught in a rebellion.
8 So much have we learned concerning Avidius Cassius. 9 His character, as we have said before,41 was continually changing, though inclined, on the whole, to severity and cruelty. 10 Had he gained the throne, he would have made not a merciful and kind emperor but a beneficent and excellent one. [Legamen ad paginam Latinam] 14 1 For we have a letter of his, written to his son-in‑law after he had declared himself emperor, that reads somewhat as follows: 2 "Unhappy state, unhappy, which suffers under men who are eager for riches and men who have grown rich! 3 Marcus is indeed the best of men, but one who wishes to be called merciful and hence suffers to live men whose manner of life he cannot sanction. 4 Where is Lucius Cassius,42 whose name we bear in vain? Where is that other Marcus, Cato the Censor? Where is all the rigour of our fathers? Long since indeed has it perished, and now it is not even desired. 5 Marcus Antoninus philosophizes and meditates on first principles, and on souls and virtue and justice, and takes no thought for the state. 6 There is need, rather, for many swords, as you see for yourself, and for much practical wisdom, in order that the state may return to its ancient ways. 7 And truly in regard to those governors of provinces — can I deem proconsuls or governors those who believe that their provinces were given them by the senate and Antoninus only in order that they might revel and grow rich? 8 You have heard that our philosopher's p263 prefect of the guard was a beggar and a pauper three days before his appointment, and then suddenly became rich. How, I ask you, save from the vitals of the state and the purses of the provincials? Well then, let them be rich, let them be wealthy. In time they will stuff the imperial treasury;43 only let the gods favour the better side, let the men of Cassius restore to the state a lawful government. " This letter of his shows how stern and how strict an emperor he would have been.
The Life of Commodus
1 1 [Legamen ad paginam Latinam] The ancestry of Commodus Antoninus has been sufficiently discussed in the life of Marcus Antoninus. 1 2 As for Commodus himself, he was born, with his twin brother Antoninus, at Lanuvium — where his mother's father was born, it is said2 — on the day before the Kalends of September, while his father and uncle were consuls. 3 Faustina, when pregnant with Commodus and his brother, dreamed that she gave birth to serpents, one of which, however, was fiercer than the other. 4 But after she had given birth to Commodus and Antoninus, the latter, for whom the astrologers had cast a horoscope as favourable as that of Commodus, lived to be only four years old. 5 After the death of Antoninus, Marcus tried to educate Commodus by his own teaching and by that of the greatest and the best of men. 6 In Greek literature he had Onesicrates as his teacher, in Latin, Antistius Capella; his instructor in rhetoric was Ateius Sanctus.
7 However, teachers in all these studies profited him not in the least — such is the power, either of natural character, or of the tutors maintained in a palace. For even from his earliest years he was base and dishonourable, and cruel and lewd, defiled of mouth, moreover, p267 and debauched. 3 8 Even then he was an adept in certain arts which are not becoming in an emperor, for he could mould goblets and dance and sing and whistle, and he could play the buffoon and the gladiator to perfection. 9 In the twelfth year of his life, at Centumcellae,4 he gave a forecast of his cruelty. For when it happened that his bath was drawn too cool, he ordered the bathkeeper to be cast into the furnace; whereupon the slave who had been ordered to do this burned a sheep-skin in the furnace, in order to make him believe by the stench of the vapour that the punishment had been carried out.
10 While yet a child he was given the name of Caesar,5 along with his brother Verus,6 and in his fourteenth year he was enrolled in the college of priests. 7 Legamen ad paginam Latinam 2 1 When he assumed the toga,8 he was elected one of the leaders of the equestrian youths,9 the trossuli, and even while still clad in the youth's praetexta he gave largess10 and presided in the Hall of Trajan. 11 2 He assumed the toga on the Nones of July — the day on which Romulus vanished from the earth — at the time when Cassius revolted from Marcus. 3 After he had been commended to the favour of the soldiers he set out with his father for Syria12 and Egypt, and with him he returned to Rome. 13 4 Afterward he was p269 granted exemption from the law of the appointed year and made consul,14 and on the fifth day before the Kalends of December, in the consulship of Pollio and Aper, he was acclaimed Imperator together with his father,15 and celebrated a triumph with him. 16 5 For this, too, the senate had decreed. Then he set out with his father for the German war. 17
6 The more honourable of those appointed to supervise his life he could not endure, but the most evil he retained, and, if any were dismissed, he yearned for them even to the point of falling sick. 7 When they were reinstated through his father's indulgence, he always maintained eating-houses and low resorts for them in the imperial palace. He never showed regard for either decency or expense. 8 He diced in his own home. He herded together women of unusual beauty, keeping them like purchased prostitutes in a sort of brothel for the violation of their chastity. He imitated the hucksters that strolled about from market to market. 9 He procured chariot-horses for his own use. He drove chariots in the garb of a professional charioteer,18 lived with gladiators, and conducted himself like a procurer's servant. Indeed, one would have believed him born rather to a life of infamy than to the high place to which Fortune advanced him.
Legamen ad paginam Latinam 3 1 His father's older attendants he dismissed,19 and any friends20 that were advanced in years he cast aside. p271 2 The son of Salvius Julianus, the commander of the troops,21 he tried to lead into debauchery, but in vain, and he thereupon plotted against Julianus. 22 3 He degraded the most honourable either by insulting them directly or giving them offices far below their deserts. 4 He was alluded to by actors as a man of depraved life, and he thereupon banished them so promptly that they did not again appear on the stage. 5 He abandoned the war which his father had almost finished and submitted to the enemy's terms,23 and then he returned to Rome. 24 6 After he had come back to Rome he led the triumphal procession25 with Saoterus, his partner in depravity,a seated in his chariot, and from time to time he would turn around and kiss him openly, repeating this same performance even in the orchestra. 7 And not only was he wont to drink until dawn and squander the resources of the Roman Empire, but in the evening he would ramble through taverns and brothels. 26 8 He sent out to rule the provinces men who were either his companions in crime or were recommended to him by criminals. 9 He became so detested by the senate that he in his turn was moved with cruel passion for the destruction of that great order,27 and from having been despised he became bloodthirsty.
Legamen ad paginam Latinam 4 1 Finally the actions of Commodus drove Quadratus and Lucilla,28 with the support of Tarrutenius p273 Paternus, the prefect of the guard,29 to form a plan for his assassination. 2 The task of slaying him was assigned to Claudius Pompeianus, a kinsman. 30 3 But he, as soon as he had an opportunity to fulfil his mission, strode up to Commodus with a drawn sword, and, bursting out with these words, "This dagger the senate sends thee," betrayed the plot like a fool, and failed to accomplish the design, in which many others along with himself were implicated. 4 After this fiasco, first Pompeianus and Quadratus were executed, and then Norbana and Norbanus and Paralius; and the latter's mother and Lucilla were driven into exile. 31
5 Thereupon the prefects of the guard, perceiving that the aversion in which Commodus was held was all on account of Saoterus, whose power the Roman people could not endure, courteously escorted this man away from the Palace under pretext of a sacrifice, and then, as he was returning to his villa, had him assassinated by their private agents. 32 6 But this deed enraged Commodus more than the plot against himself. 7 Paternus, the instigator of this murder, who was believed to have been an accomplice in the plot to assassinate Commodus and had certainly sought to prevent any far-reaching punishment of that conspiracy, was now, at the instigation of Tigidius,33 dismissed from the command of the praetorian guard by the expedient of conferring on him the honour of the broad stripe. 34 8 And a few days thereafter, Commodus accused him of plotting, saying that the daughter of Paternus had been betrothed to the son of Julianus35 with the understanding p275 that Julianus would be raised to the throne. On this pretext he executed Paternus and Julianus, and also Vitruvius Secundus, a very dear friend of Paternus, who had charge of the imperial correspondence. 9 Besides this, he exterminated the whole house of the Quintilii,36 because Sextus, the son of Condianus,37 by pretending death, it was said, had made his escape in order to raise a revolt. 10 Vitrasia Faustina, Velius Rufus,38 and Egnatius Capito, a man of consular rank, were all slain. 11 Aemilius Iuncus and Atilius Severus, the consuls,39 were driven into exile. And against many others he vented his rage in various ways.
Legamen ad paginam Latinam 5 1 After this Commodus never appeared in public readily, and would never receive messages unless they had previously passed through the hands of Perennis. 40 2 For Perennis, being well acquainted with Commodus' character, discovered the way to make himself powerful, 3 namely, by persuading Commodus to devote himself to pleasure while he, Perennis, assumed all the burdens of the government — an arrangement which Commodus joyfully accepted. 4 Under this agreement, then, Commodus lived, rioting in the Palace amid banquets and in baths along with 300 concubines, gathered together for their beauty and chosen from both matrons and harlots, and with minions, also 300 in number, whom he had collected by force and by purchase indiscriminately from the common people and the nobles p277 solely on the basis of bodily beauty. 5 Meanwhile, dressed in the garb of an attendant at the sacrifice, he slaughtered the sacrificial victims. He fought in the arena with foils, but sometimes, with his chamberlains acting as gladiators, with sharpened swords. By this time Perennis had secured all the power for himself. 6 He slew whomsoever he wished to slay, plundered a great number, violated every law, and put all the booty into his own pocket. 41 7 Commodus, for his part, killed his sister Lucilla, after banishing her to Capri. 8 After debauching his other sisters, as it is said, he formed an amour with a cousin of his father,42 and even gave the name of his mother to one of his concubines. 9 His wife,43 whom he caught in adultery, he drove from his house, then banished her, and later put her to death. 10 By his orders his concubines were debauched before his own eyes, 11 and he was not free from the disgrace of intimacy with young men, defiling every part of his body in dealings with persons of either sex.
12 At this time Claudius also, whose son had previously come into Commodus' presence with a dagger, was slain,44 ostensibly by bandits, and many other senators were put to death, and also certain women of wealth. 13 And not a few provincials, for the sake of their riches, were charged with crimes by Perennis and then plundered or even slain; 14 some, against whom there was not even the imputation of a fictitious crime, were accused of having been unwilling to name Commodus as their heir.
p279 6 1 Legamen ad paginam Latinam About this time the victories in Sarmatia won by other generals were attributed by Perennis to his own son. 45 2 Yet in spite of his great power, suddenly, because in the war in Britain46 he had dismissed certain senators and had put men of the equestrian order in command of the soldiers,47 this same Perennis was declared an enemy to the state, when the matter was reported by the legates in command of the army, and was thereupon delivered up to the soldiers to be torn to pieces. 48 3 In his place of power Commodus put Cleander,49 one of his chamberlains.
4 After Perennis and his son were executed, Commodus rescinded a number of measures on the ground that they had been carried out without his authority, pretending that he was merely re-establishing previous conditions. 5 However, he could not maintain this penitence for his misdeeds longer than thirty days, and he actually committed more atrocious crimes through Cleander than he had done through the aforesaid Perennis. 6 Although Perennis was succeeded in general influence by Cleander, his successor in the prefecture was Niger, who held this position as prefect of the guard, it is said, for just six hours. 7 In fact, prefects of the guard were changed hourly and p281 daily, Commodus meanwhile committing all kinds of evil deeds, worse even than he had committed before. 8 Marcius Quartus was prefect of the guard for five days. Thereafter, the successors of these men were either retained in office or executed, according to the whim of Cleander. 9 At his nod even freedmen were enrolled in the senate and among the patricians, and now for the first time there were twenty-five consuls in a single year. Appointments to the provinces were uniformly sold; 10 in fact, Cleander sold everything for money. 50 He loaded with honours men who were recalled from exile; he rescinded decisions of the courts. 11 Indeed, because of Commodus' utter degeneracy, his power was so great that he brought Burrus,51 the husband of Commodus' sister, who was denouncing and reporting to Commodus all that was being done, under the suspicion of pretending to the throne, and had him put to death; and at the same time he slew many others who defended Burrus. 12 Among these Aebutianus was slain, the prefect of the guard; in his place Cleander himself was made prefect, together with two others whom he himself chose. 13 Then for the first time were there three prefects of the guard, among whom was a freedman, called the "Bearer of the Dagger". 52
Legamen ad paginam Latinam 7 1 However, a full worthy death was at last meted out to Cleander also. For when, through his intrigues, Arrius Antoninus53 was put to death on false charges as a favour to Attalus, whom Arrius had condemned p283 during his proconsulship in Asia, Commodus could not endure the hatred of the enraged people and gave Cleander over to the populace for punishment. 54 2 At the same time Apolaustus55 and several other freedmen of the court were put to death. Among other outrages Cleander had debauched certain of Commodus' concubines,56 and from them had begotten sons, 3 who, together with their mothers, were put to death after his downfall.
4 As successors to Cleander Commodus appointed Julianus and Regillus, both of whom he afterwards condemned. 57 5 After these men had been put to death he slew the two Silani, Servilius58 and Dulius, together with their kin, then Antius Lupus59 and the two Petronii, Mamertinus and Sura,60 and also Mamertinus' son Antoninus, whose mother was his own sister;61 6 after these, six former consuls at one time, Allius Fuscus, Caelius Felix, Lucceius Torquatus, Larcius Eurupianus, Valerius Bassianus and Pactumeius Magnus,62 all with their kin; 7 in Asia Sulpicius Crassus, the proconsul, Julius Proculus, together with their kin, and Claudius Lucanus, a man of consular rank; and in Achaia his father's cousin, Annia Faustina,63 and innumerable others. 8 He had intended to kill fourteen others also, since the revenues of the Roman empire were insufficient to meet his expenditures.
p285 8 1 Legamen ad paginam Latinam Meanwhile, because he had appointed to the consulship a former lover of his mother's,64 the senate mockingly gave Commodus the name Pius;65 and after he had executed Perennis, he was given the name Felix,66 as though, amid the multitudinous executions of many citizens, he were a second Sulla. 2 And this same Commodus, who was called Pius, and who was called Felix, is said to have feigned a plot against his own life, in order that he might have an excuse for putting many to death. 3 Yet as a matter of fact, there were no rebellions save that of Alexander,67 who soon killed himself and his near of kin, and that of Commodus' sister Lucilla. 68 4 He was called Britannicus by those who desired to flatter him, whereas the Britons even wished to set up an emperor against him. 69 5 He was called also the Roman Hercules,70 on the ground that he had killed wild beasts in the amphitheatre at Lanuvium; and, indeed, it was his custom to kill wild beasts on his own estate. 6 He had, besides, an insane desire that the city of Rome should be renamed Colonia Commodiana. 71 This mad idea, it is said, was inspired in p287 him while listening to the blandishments of Marcia. 72 7 He had also a desire to drive chariots in the Circus, 8 and he went out in public clad in the Dalmatian tunic73 and thus clothed gave the signal for the charioteers to start. 9 And in truth, on the occasion when he laid before the senate his proposal to call Rome Commodiana, not only did the senate gleefully pass this resolution, but also took the name "Commodian" to itself, at the same time giving Commodus the name Hercules, and calling him a god.
Legamen ad paginam Latinam 9 1 He pretended once that he was going to Africa, so that he could get funds for the journey, then got them and spent them on banquets and gaming instead. 2 He murdered Motilenus, the prefect of the guard, by means of poisoned figs. He allowed statues of himself to be erected with the accoutrements of Hercules;74 and sacrifices were performed to him as to a god. 3 He had planned to execute many more men besides, but his plan was betrayed by a certain young servant, who threw out of his bedroom a tablet on which were written the names of those who were to be killed.
4 He practised the worship of Isis and even went so far as to shave his head and carry a statue of Anubis. 75 5 In his passion for cruelty he actually ordered the votaries of Bellona to cut off one of their arms,76 6 and as for the devotees of Isis, he forced them to beat p289 their breasts with pine-cones even to the point of death. While he was carrying about the statue of Anubis, he used to smite the heads of the devotees of Isis with the face of the statue. He struck with his club, while clad in a woman's garment or a lion's skin,77 not lions only, but many men as well. Certain men who were lame in their feet and others who could not walk, he dressed up as giants, encasing their legs from the knee down in wrappings and bandages to make them look like serpents,78 and then despatched them with his arrows. He desecrated the rites of Mithra79 with actual murder, although it was customary in them merely to say or pretend something that would produce an impression of terror.
Legamen ad paginam Latinam 10 1 Even as a child he was gluttonous and lewd. 80 While a youth, he disgraced every class of men in his company and was disgraced in turn by them. 2 Whosoever ridiculed him he cast to the wild beasts. And one man, who had merely read the book by Tranquillus81 containing the life of Caligula, he ordered cast to the wild beasts, because Caligula and he had the same birthday. 82 3 And if any one, indeed, expressed a desire to die, he had him hurried to death, however really reluctant.
In his humorous moments, too, he was destructive. 4 For example, he put a starling on the head of one p291 man who, as he noticed, had a few white hairs, resembling worms, among the black, and caused his head to fester through the continual pecking of the bird's beak — the bird, of course, imagining that it was pursuing worms. 5 One corpulent person he cut open down the middle of his belly, so that his intestines gushed forth. 6 Other men he dubbed one-eyed or one-footed, after he himself had plucked out one of their eyes or cut off one of their feet. 7 In addition to all this, he murdered many others in many places, some because they came of his presence in the costume of barbarians, others because they were noble and handsome. 8 He kept among his minions certain men named after the private parts of both sexes, and on these he liked to bestow kisses. 9 He also had in his company a man with a male member larger than that of most animals, whom he called Onos. 83 This man he treated with great affection, and even made him rich and appointed him to the priesthood of the Rural Hercules. 84 Legamen ad paginam Latinam 11 1 It is claimed that he often mixed human excrement with the most expensive foods, and he did not refrain from tasting them, mocking the rest of the company, as he thought. 2 He displayed two misshapen hunchbacks on a silver platter after smearing them with mustard, and then straightway advanced and enriched them. 3 He pushed into a swimming-pool his praetor prefect Julianus,85 although he was clad in his toga and accompanied by his staff; and he even ordered this same Julianus to dance naked before his concubines, clashing cymbals and making grimaces. 4 The various kinds of cooked vegetables he rarely admitted to his banquets, his purpose being to preserve unbroken the succession of dainties. 5 He used to bathe seven and p293 eight times a day, and was in the habit of eating while in the baths. 6 He would enter the temples of the gods defiled with adulteries and human blood. 7 He even aped a surgeon, going so far as to bleed men to death with scalpels. 86
8 Certain months were renamed in his honour by his flatterers; for August they substituted Commodus, for September Hercules, for October Invictus, for November Exsuperatorius, and for December Amazonius, after his own surname. 87 9 He had been called Amazonius, moreover, because of his passion for his concubine Marcia,88 whom he loved to have portrayed as an Amazon, and for whose sake he even wished to enter the arena of Rome dressed as an Amazon.
10 He engaged in gladiatorial combats,89 and accepted the names usually given to gladiators90 with as much pleasure as if he had been granted triumphal decorations. 11 He regularly took part in the spectacles, and as often as he did so, ordered the fact to be inscribed in the public records. 91 12 It is said that he engaged in gladiatorial bouts seven hundred and thirty-five times. 92
13 He received the name of Caesar on the fourth day before the Ides of the month usually called October, which he later named Hercules,93 in the consulship of Pudens and Pollio. 94 14 He was called Germanicus95 on the Ides of "Hercules" in the consulship of Maximus p295 and Orfitus. Legamen ad paginam Latinam 12 1 He was received into all the sacred colleges as a priest on the thirteenth day before the Kalends of "Invictus," in the consulship of Piso and Julianus. 2 He set out for Germany on the fourteenth day before the Kalends of the month which he later named Aelius, 3 and assumed the toga in the same year. 4 Together with his father he was acclaimed Imperator on the fifth day before the Kalends of "Exsuperatorius," in the year when Pollio and Aper served their second consulships, 5 and he celebrated a triumph on the tenth day before the Kalends of January in this same year. 6 He set out on his second expedition on the third day before the Nones of "Commodus" in the consulship of Orfitus and Rufus. 7 He was officially presented by the army and the senate to be maintained in perpetuity in the Palatine mansion,96 henceforth called Commodiana,97 on the eleventh day before the Kalends of "Romanus," in the year that Praesens was consul for the second time. 8 When he laid plans for a third expedition, he was persuaded by the senate and people to give it up. 9 Vows98 were assumed in his behalf on the Nones of "Pius," when Fuscianus was consul for the second time. 10 Besides these facts, it is related in records that he fought 365 gladiatorial combats in his father's reign. 11 Afterwards, by vanquishing or slaying retiarii,99 he won enough gladiatorial crowns to bring the number up to a thousand. 100 12 He also killed with his own hand thousands of wild beasts of all kinds, even elephants. And he frequently did these things before the eyes of the Roman people. 101
Legamen ad paginam Latinam 13 1 But, though vigorous enough for such exploits, he was otherwise weak and diseased; indeed, p297 he had such a conspicuous growth on his groin that the people of Rome could see the swelling through his silken robes. 2 Many verses were written alluding to this deformity; and Marius Maximus prides himself on preserving these in his biography of Commodus. 3 Such was his prowess in the slaying of wild beasts, that he once transfixed an elephant with a pole, pierced a gazelle's horn with a spear, and on a thousand occasions dispatched a mighty beast with a single blow. 4 Such was his complete indifference to propriety, that time and again he sat in the theatre or amphitheatre dressed in a woman's garments and drank quite publicly.
5 The Moors102 and the Dacians103 were conquered during his reign, and peace was established in the Pannonias,104 but all by his legates, since such was the manner of his life. The provincials in Britain,105 Dacia, and Germany106 attempted to cast off his yoke, 6 but all these attempts were put down by his generals. 7 Commodus himself was so lazy and careless in signing documents that he answered many petitions with the same formula, while in very many letters he merely wrote the word "Farewell". 8 All official business was carried on by others, who, it is said, even used condemnations to swell their purses. Legamen ad paginam Latinam 14 1 And because he was so careless, moreover, a great famine arose in p299 Rome, not because there was any real shortage of crops, but merely because those who then ruled the state were plundering the food supply. 107 2 As for those who plundered on every hand, Commodus afterwards put them to death and confiscated their property; 3 but for the time he pretended that a golden age had come,108 "Commodian" by name, and ordered a general reduction of prices, the result of which was an even greater scarcity.
4 In his reign many a man secured punishment for another or immunity for himself by bribery. 5 Indeed, in return for money Commodus would grant a change of punishment, the right of burial, the alleviation of wrongs, and the substitution of another for one condemned to be put to death. 6 He sold provinces and administrative posts, part of the proceeds accruing to those through whom he made the sale and part to Commodus himself. 7 To some he sold even the lives of their enemies. Under him the imperial freedmen sold even the results of law-suits. 8 He did not long put up with Paternus and Perennis as prefects;109 indeed, not one of the prefects whom he himself had appointed remained in office as long as three years. 110 Most of them he killed, some with poison, some with the sword. Legamen ad paginam Latinam 15 1 Prefects of the city he changed with equal readiness. He executed his chamberlains with no compunctions whatever, even though all that he had done had been at their bidding. 2 One of these chamberlains, however, Eclectus by name,111 forestalled him when he saw how ready Commodus was to put the chamberlains to death, and took part in a conspiracy to kill him. 112
3 At gladiatorial shows he would come to watch and stay to fight, covering his bare shoulders with a purple p301 cloth. 4 And it was his custom, moreover, to order the insertion in the city-gazette113 of everything he did that was base or foul or cruel, or typical of a gladiator114 or a procurer — at least, the writings of Marius Maximus so testify. 5 He entitled the Roman people the "People of Commodus,"115 since he had very often fought as a gladiator in their presence. 116 6 And although the people regularly applauded him in his frequent combats as though he were a god, he became convinced that he was being laughed at, and gave orders that the Roman people should be slain in the Amphitheatre by the marines who spread the awnings. 7 He gave an order, also, for the burning of the city,117 as though it were his private colony, and this order would have been executed had not Laetus,118 the prefect of the guard, deterred him. 8 Among other triumphal titles, he was also given the name "Captain of the Secutores"119 six hundred and twenty times.
Legamen ad paginam Latinam 16 1 The prodigies that occurred in his reign, both those which concerned the state and those which affected Commodus personally, were as follows. A comet appeared. 2 Footprints of the gods were seen in the Forum departing from it. Before the war of the deserters120 the heavens were ablaze. On the Kalends p303 of January a swift coming mist and darkness arose in the Circus; and before dawn there had already been fire-birds121 and ill-boding portents. 3 Commodus himself moved his residence from the Palace to the Vectilian Villa122 on the Caelian hill, saying that he could not sleep in the Palace. 4 The twin gates of the temple of Janus123 opened of their own accord, and a marble image of Anubis124 was seen to move. 5 In the Minucian Portico125 a bronze statue of Hercules sweated for several days. An owl, moreover, was caught above his bed-chamber both at Lanuvium and at Rome. 6 He was himself responsible for no inconsiderable an omen relating to himself; for after he had plunged his hand into the wound of a slain gladiator he wiped it on his own head, and again, contrary to custom, he ordered the spectators to attend his gladiatorial shows clad not in togas but in cloaks, a practice usual at funerals,126 while he himself presided in the vestments of a mourner. 7 Twice, moreover, his helmet was borne through the Gate of Libitina. 127
8 He gave largess to the people, 725 denarii to each man. 128 Toward all others he was close-fisted to a degree, since the expense of his luxurious living had drained the treasury. 9 He held many races in the Circus,129 but rather as the result of a whim than as p305 an act of religion, and also in order to enrich the leaders of the factions. 130
Legamen ad paginam Latinam 17 1 Because of these things — but all too late — Quintus Aemilius Laetus, prefect of the guard, and Marcia, his concubine, were roused to action and entered into a conspiracy against his life. 2 First they gave him poison; and when this proved ineffective they had him strangled by the athlete with whom he was accustomed to exercise. 131
3 Physically he was very well proportioned.
