Identifier: historyofromeofr06duru (find matches)
Title: History of Rome, and of the Roman people, from its origin to the invasion of the barbarians
Year: 1883 (1880s)
Authors: Duruy, Victor, 1811-1894 Ripley, M. M Clarke, W. J Mahaffy, John Pentland, Sir, 1839-1919
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Publisher: Boston : C. F. Jewett
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Internet Archive

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s the court instructors 4 quickly obtained control over this 1 The title of this chapter must not be taken strictly. Commodus, Pertinax, andJulianus are neither African nor Syrian. But the former does not deserve being rankedwith the Antonines, and the two latter, who reigned so short a time, are connected by theirhistory with the first African Emperor. 2 Born, that is to say. during his fathers reign. 8 Marcus Lucius Aelius Aurelius Commodus Antoninus was born August 31st, 161, andsucceeded Marcus Aurelius on the 17th of March, 180. For the history of his reign we haveonly the shapeless abridgment of Dion by Xipbilin (book lxxii.), the first book of Herodian,which is the work of a rhetorician, and the confused biography of Lampridius. 4 . . . Qui in aula institutores habenlvr (Lamp.. Comm. 1). Dion, who knew him well,says of him, however (lxxii. 1), that, he was not an evil-disposed person, but extremely timid,and so simple-minded that he became the slave of those who surrounded him.
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^ ^iiiirv COMMODUS IN HUNTING COSTUME (STATUE OF PENTELIC MARBLE. VATICAN, BRACCIO NUOVO, NO. 8). COMMODUS, PERTINAX, JULIANUS, SEVEEUS, 180 TO 211 a. d. 443 feeble intellect. His bust and medals represent him with thebrutalized look of a man whose mind has never cherished oneworthy thought.1 Being, as he was, both vicious and timid, liewas sure to be also cruel, now that a, word or even a gesturesufficed to rid him of those who caused him alarm. The imperial power was not hereditary, but the Emperorsalways wished to make it so, and in the absence of all great in-stitutions of government, it inevitably became so. The imperialchildren found in their cradles titles and honors which would havebeen to a citizen the reward of a long life in the public service.At the age of five, Commodus was made Caesar; at fourteen,member of all the sacred colleges and princeps juventutis, althoughhe had not yet assumed the toga; at sixteen he was consul, impera-tor, and invested with the tribunitian powe

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