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By these means, Cleander, in the space of three years, had accumulated more wealth than had ever yet been possessed by any
freedman.
22 Commodus was perfectly satisfied with the magnificent presents which the artful courtier laid at his feet in the
most seasonable moments. To divert the public envy, Cleander, under the emperor's name, erected baths, porticos, and places
of exercise, for the use of the people.
23 He flattered himself that the Romans, dazzled and amused by this apparent liberality,
would be less affected by the bloody scenes which were daily exhibited; that they would forget the death of Byrrhus, a senator
to whose superior
merit the late emperor had granted one of his daughters; and that they would forgive the
execution of Arrius
Antoninus, the last representative of the name and
virtues of the Antonines. The former, with more integrity than prudence, had
attempted to disclose, to his brother-in-law, the true character of Cleander. An equitable sentence pronounced by the latter,
when proconsul of Asia, against a worthless creature of the favorite, proved fatal to him.
24 After the fall of Perennis, the
terrors of
Commodus had, for a short time, assumed the appearance of a return to
virtue. He repealed the most odious of his
acts; loaded his memory with the public execration, and ascribed to the pernicious counsels of that wicked minister all the errors
of his inexperienced youth. But his repentance lasted only thirty days; and, under Cleander's
tyranny, the
administration of
Perennis was often regretted.
Footnote 22: Dion (l. lxxii. p. 12, 13) observes, that no freedman had possessed riches equal to
those of Cleander. The fortune of Pallas amounted, however, to upwards of five and twenty hundred thousand pounds; Ter
millies.
Footnote 23: Dion, l. lxxii. p. 12, 13. Herodian, l. i. p. 29. Hist. August. p. 52. These baths were situated near the
Porta Capena. See Nardini Roma Antica, p. 79.
Footnote 24: Hist. August. p. 79.
Pestilence and
famine contributed to fill up the measure of the calamities of Rome.
25 The first could be only imputed to the
just indignation of the gods; but a monopoly of corn, supported by the riches and
power of the minister, was considered as the
immediate cause of the second. The popular discontent, after it had long circulated in whispers, broke out in the assembled
circus. The people quitted their favorite amusements for the more delicious pleasure of revenge, rushed in crowds towards a
palace in the suburbs, one of the emperor's retirements, and demanded, with angry clamors, the head of the public enemy.
Cleander, who commanded the
Praetorian Guards,
26 ordered a body of cavalry to sally forth, and disperse the seditious
multitude. The multitude fled with precipitation towards the city; several were slain, and many more were trampled to death; but
when the cavalry entered the streets, their pursuit was checked by a shower of stones and darts from the roofs and windows of
the houses. The foot guards,
27 who had been long jealous of the prerogatives and insolence of the Praetorian cavalry,
embraced the party of the people. The tumult became a regular engagement, and threatened a general massacre. The
Praetorians, at length, gave way, oppressed with numbers; and the tide of popular
fury returned with redoubled violence against
the gates of the palace, where
Commodus lay, dissolved in luxury, and alone unconscious of the civil war. It was death to
approach his person with the unwelcome news. He would have perished in this supine security, had not two women, his eldest
sister Fadilla, and Marcia, the most favored of his
concubines, ventured to break into his presence. Bathed in tears, and with
dishevelled hair, they threw themselves at his feet; and with all the pressing eloquence of fear, discovered to the affrighted
emperor the crimes of the minister, the rage of the people, and the impending ruin, which, in a few minutes, would burst over his
palace and person.
Commodus started from his dream of pleasure, and commanded that the head of Cleander should be
thrown out to the people. The desired spectacle instantly appeased the tumult; and the son of
Marcus might even yet have
regained the affection and confidence of his subjects.
28
Footnote 25: Herodian, l. i. p. 28. Dion, l. lxxii. p. 1215. The latter says that two thousand persons died every day at Rome,
during a considerable length of time.
Footnote 26: Tuneque primum tres praefecti praetorio fuere: inter quos libertinus. From some remains of modesty, Cleander
declined the title, whilst he assumed the powers, of Praetorian praefect. As the other freedmen were styled, from their several
departments, a rationibus, ab epistolis, Cleander called himself a pugione, as intrusted with the defence of his master's person.
Salmasius and Casaubon seem to have talked very idly upon this passage.
Note: M. Guizot denies that Lampridius means Cleander as praefect a pugione. The Libertinus seems to me to mean him. - M.
Footnote 27: Herodian, l. i. p. 31. It is doubtful whether he means the Praetorian infantry, or the cohortes urbanae, a body of
six thousand men, but whose rank and discipline were not equal to their numbers. Neither Tillemont nor Wotton choose to
decide this question.
Footnote 28: Dion Cassius, l. lxxii. p. 1215. Herodian, l. i. p. 32. Hist. August. p. 48.
But every sentiment of
virtue and humanity was extinct in the mind of
Commodus. Whilst he thus abandoned the reins of empire
to these unworthy favorites, he valued nothing in sovereign
power, except the unbounded license of indulging his sensual
appetites. His hours were spent in a seraglio of three hundred beautiful women, and as many boys, of every rank, and of every
province; and, wherever the arts of seduction proved ineffectual, the brutal lover had recourse to violence. The ancient
historians
29 have expatiated on these abandoned scenes of prostitution, which scorned every restraint of nature or modesty;
but it would not be easy to translate their too faithful descriptions into the
decency of modern language. The intervals of lust
were filled up with the basest amusements. The influence of a polite age, and the labor of an attentive education, had never been
able to infuse into his rude and brutish mind the least tincture of learning; and he was the first of the Roman emperors totally
devoid of taste for the pleasures of the understanding.
Nero himself excelled, or affected to excel, in the
elegant arts of music
and poetry: nor should we despise his pursuits, had he not converted the pleasing relaxation of a leisure hour into the serious
business and ambition of his life. But
Commodus, from his earliest infancy, discovered an aversion to whatever was rational or
liberal, and a fond attachment to the amusements of the populace; the sports of the circus and
amphitheatre, the combats of
gladiators, and the hunting of wild beasts. The masters in every branch of learning, whom
Marcus provided for his son, were
heard with inattention and disgust; whilst the Moors and Parthians, who taught him to dart the javelin and to shoot with the bow,
found a disciple who delighted in his application, and soon equalled the most skilful of his instructors in the steadiness of the eye
and the dexterity of the hand.
Footnote 29: Sororibus suis constupratis. Ipsas concubinas suas sub oculis ...stuprari jubebat.
Nec irruentium in se juvenum carebat infamia, omni parte corporis atque ore in sexum utrumque pollutus. Hist. Aug. p. 47.
The
servile crowd, whose fortune depended on their master's vices, applauded these ignoble pursuits. The perfidious voice of
flattery reminded him, that by exploits of the same nature, by the defeat of the Nemaean lion, and the slaughter of the wild boar
of Erymanthus, the Grecian
Hercules had acquired a place among the gods, and an immortal memory among men. They only
forgot to observe, that, in the first ages of society, when the fiercer animals often dispute with man the possession of an unsettled
country, a successful war against those savages is one of the most innocent and beneficial labors of heroism. In the civilized state
of the Roman empire, the wild beasts had long since retired from the face of man, and the neighborhood of populous cities. To
surprise them in their solitary haunts, and to transport them to Rome, that they might be slain in pomp by the hand of an
emperor, was an enterprise equally ridiculous for the prince and oppressive for the people.
30 Ignorant of these distinctions,
Commodus eagerly embraced the glorious resemblance, and styled himself (as we still read on his medals
31) the Roman
Hercules.
* The club and the lion's hide were placed by the side of the
throne, amongst the ensigns of sovereignty; and statues
were erected, in which
Commodus was represented in the character, and with the attributes, of the god, whose valor and
dexterity he endeavored to emulate in the daily course of his ferocious amusements.
32
Footnote 30: The African lions, when
pressed by hunger, infested the open villages and cultivated country; and they infested them with impunity. The royal beast was
reserved for the pleasures of the emperor and the capital; and the unfortunate peasant who killed one of them though in his own
defence, incurred a very heavy penalty. This extraordinary game-law was mitigated by Honorius, and finally repealed by
Justinian. Codex Theodos. tom. v. p. 92, et Comment Gothofred.
Footnote 31: Spanheim de Numismat. Dissertat. xii. tom. ii. p. 493.
Footnote *: Commodus placed his own head on the
colossal statue of Hercules with the inscription, Lucius Commodus Hercules. The wits of Rome, according to a new fragment of
Dion, published an epigram, of which, like many other ancient jests, the point is not very clear. It seems to be a protest of the
god against being confounded with the emperor. Mai Fragm. Vatican. ii. 225. - M.
Footnote 32: Dion, l. lxxii. p. 1216. Hist. August. p. 49.
Elated with these praises, which gradually extinguished the innate sense of shame,
Commodus resolved to exhibit before the eyes of the Roman people those exercises, which till then he had decently confined within the walls of his palace, and to the presence of a few favorites. On the appointed day, the various motives of flattery, fear, and curiosity, attracted to the amphitheater an innumerable multitude of spectators; and some degree of
applause was deservedly bestowed on the uncommon skill of the
Imperial performer. Whether he aimed at the head or heart of
the animal, the wound was alike certain and mortal. With arrows whose point was shaped into the form of crescent,
Commodus
often intercepted the rapid career, and cut asunder the long, bony neck of the ostrich.
33 A panther was let loose; and the
archer waited till he had leaped upon a trembling malefactor. In the same instant the shaft flew, the beast dropped dead, and the
man remained unhurt. The dens of the amphitheater disgorged at once a hundred lions: a hundred darts from the unerring hand
of
Commodus laid them dead as they run raging round the Arena. Neither the huge bulk of the elephant, nor the scaly hide of
the rhinoceros, could defend them from his stroke. Aethiopia and India yielded their most extraordinary productions; and
several animals were slain in the amphitheater, which had been seen only in the representations of art, or perhaps of fancy.
34
In all these exhibitions, the securest precautions were used to protect the person of the Roman
Hercules from the desperate
spring of any savage, who might possibly disregard the dignity of the emperor and the
sanctity of the god.
35
Footnote 33: The ostrich's neck is three feet long, and composed of seventeen vertebrae. See Buffon, Hist. Naturelle.
Footnote 34: Commodus killed a camelopardalis or Giraffe, (Dion, l. lxxii. p. 1211,) the tallest, the most gentle, and the most
useless of the large quadrupeds. This singular animal, a native only of the interior parts of Africa, has not been seen in Europe
since the revival of letters; and though M. de Buffon (Hist. Naturelle, tom. xiii.) has endeavored to describe, he has not ventured
to delineate, the Giraffe. Note: The naturalists of our days have been more fortunate. London probably now contains more specimens of this animal than have been seen in Europe since the fall of the Roman empire, unless in the pleasure gardens of the emperor Frederic II., in Sicily, which possessed several. Frederic's collections of wild beasts were exhibited, for the popular amusement, in many parts of Italy. Raumer, Geschichte der Hohenstaufen, v. iii. p. 571. Gibbon, moreover, is mistaken; as a giraffe was presented to Lorenzo de Medici, either by the sultan of Egypt or the king of Tunis. Contemporary authorities are quoted in the old work, Gesner de Quadrupedibum p. 162. - M.
Footnote 35: Herodian, l. i. p. 37. Hist. August. p. 50.
But the meanest of the populace were affected with shame and indignation when they beheld their sovereign enter the lists as a
gladiator, and glory in a
profession which the laws and manners of the Romans had branded with the justest note of
infamy.
36 He chose the habit and
arms of the Secutor, whose combat with the Retiarius formed one of the most lively scenes in the bloody sports of the
amphitheatre. The Secutor was armed with a helmet, sword, and buckler; his naked antagonist had only a large net and a
trident; with the one he endeavored to entangle, with the other to despatch his enemy. If he missed the first throw, he was
obliged to fly from the pursuit of the Secutor, till he had prepared his net for a second cast.
37 The emperor fought in this
character seven hundred and thirty-five several times. These glorious achievements were carefully recorded in the public acts of
the empire; and that he might omit no circumstance of
infamy, he received from the common fund of
gladiators a stipend so
exorbitant that it became a new and most ignominious tax upon the Roman people.
38 It may be easily supposed, that in these
engagements the master of the world was always successful; in the
amphitheatre, his victories were not often sanguinary; but
when he exercised his skill in the school of
gladiators, or his own palace, his wretched antagonists were frequently honored with
a mortal wound from the hand of
Commodus, and obliged to seal their flattery with their blood.
39 He now disdained the
appellation of
Hercules. The name of Paulus, a celebrated Secutor, was the only one which delighted his ear. It was inscribed
on his colossal statues, and repeated in the redoubled acclamations
40 of the mournful and applauding senate.
41 Claudius
Pompeianus, the virtuous husband of Lucilla, was the only senator who asserted the honor of his rank. As a father, he permitted
his sons to consult their safety by attending the
amphitheatre. As a Roman, he declared, that his own life was in the emperor's
hands, but that he would never behold the son of
Marcus prostituting his person and dignity. Notwithstanding his manly
resolution Pompeianus escaped the resentment of the
tyrant, and, with his honor, had the good fortune to preserve his life.
42
Footnote 36: The virtuous and even the wise princes forbade the senators and knights to embrace this scandalous profession,
under pain of infamy, or, what was more dreaded by those profligate wretches, of exile. The tyrants allured them to dishonor by
threats and rewards. Nero once produced in the arena forty senators and sixty knights. See Lipsius, Saturnalia, l. ii. c. 2. He has
happily corrected a passage of Suetonius in Nerone, c. 12.
Footnote 37: Lipsius, l. ii. c. 7, 8. Juvenal, in the eighth satire,
gives a picturesque description of this combat.
Footnote 38: Hist. August. p. 50. Dion, l. lxxii. p. 1220. He received, for each time, decies, about 8000l. sterling.
Footnote 39: Victor tells us, that Commodus only allowed his antagonists a ...weapon, dreading most probably the
consequences of their despair.
Footnote 40: They were obliged to repeat, six hundred and twenty-six times, Paolus first of the
Secutors, &c.
Footnote 41: Dion, l. lxxii. p. 1221. He speaks of his own baseness and danger.
Footnote 42: He mixed, however, some prudence with his courage, and passed the greatest part of his time in a country
retirement; alleging his advanced age, and the weakness of his eyes. "I never saw him in the senate," says Dion, "except during
the short reign of Pertinax." All his infirmities had suddenly left him, and they returned as suddenly upon the murder of that
excellent prince. Dion, l. lxxiii. p. 1227.
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To cite original text:
Gibbon, Edward, 1737-1794.
The history of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. 1st ed. (London : Printed for W. Strahan ; and T. Cadell, 1776-1788.), pp. 92-98.