The Two Republics, or Rome and the United States of America

COMMODUS.

This emperor, instead of being a persecutor of the Christians, was rather a friend to them, if such a man could be counted the friend of anybody. Commodus, for the first three years of his reign, was a monster in vice, and after that a monster in cruelty as well as in vice. One evening in the third year of his reign, as he was returning from the amphitheater through the dark passage to the imperial palace, he was attacked by an assassin who felt so certain of accomplishing his bloody purpose that with a drawn sword he exclaimed, “The Senate sends you this.” The attempt failed, however. The guards protected the emperor and captured the assassin. He confessed that his act was the culmination of a conspiracy which had originated with the emperor’s sister Lucilla, who hoped to become empress by the death of Commodus. The conspirators were punished, Lucilla being first banished and afterwards put to death. But the words which the assassin had uttered—“the Senate sends you this”—still rung in the emperor’s ears; and by it he was caused to think that the Senate was in some way connected with the attempt upon his life. The whole body of the Senate became subject to his bitter and abiding enmity. But as he had nothing more tangible than suspicion to guide him, his course was necessarily uncertain, until a horde of informers had arisen and turned his suspicions into facts. TTR 122.2

This event, however, was not long delayed; because as soon as it was learned that the emperor desired to detect treason in the senators, the informers, whose trade had been abolished in the mild and just reign of Antoninus Pius, readily reappeared in numbers sufficient to satisfy the desire of the emperor. “Distinction of every kind soon became criminal. The possession of wealth stimulated the diligence of the informers; rigid virtue implied a tacit censure of the irregularities of Commodus; important services implied a dangerous superiority of merit; and the friendship of the father always insured the aversion of the son. Suspicion was equivalent to proof; trial to condemnation. The execution of a considerable senator was attended with the death of all who might lament or revenge his fate; and when Commodus had once tasted human blood, he became incapable of pity or remorse.... 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 intervals of lust were filled up with the basest amusements.”—Gibbon. ¹⁰ TTR 123.1

Wild beasts were brought from far countries that the emperor might have the honor of slaying them with his own hand. The African lion, in his native haunts, men were forbidden under heavy penalty to kill even in self-defense, that he might be reserved for the sport of the emperor. At last he entered the arena in the character of a gladiator, armed with a helmet, a sword, and a buckler, and obliged gladiators to fight with him, armed only with a net and a leaden trident. He thus fought (?) seven hundred and thirty-five times, and each contest meant the death of his antagonist. The list of senators sacrificed to his suspicions continued still to lengthen. His cruelty at last arrived at that pitch where nobody within his reach could feel secure for an hour; and that they might certainly escape his furious caprice, Marcia his favorite concubine, Eclectus his chamberlain, and Laetus his praetorian prefect, formed a conspiracy to kill him. Marcia gave him a drink of poisoned wine, and the poison was assisted in its work by a professional wrestler who strangled him. Yet Commodus was not a persecutor of the Christians; but with this exception, there were few people in all the empire whom he did not persecute. For some reason Marcia was friendly to the Christians, and her influence with Commodus, as well as his disposition to be as unlike his father as possible, inclined him to be favorable to them. TTR 124.1