The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001-07.
Commodus
(Lucius Aelius Aurelius Commodus) (km´ds) (KEY) , 161–192, Roman emperor (180–192), son and successor of Marcus Aurelius. In 180, reversing his father’s foreign policy, he concluded peace with the German and the Sarmatian tribes and returned to his licentious pleasures in Rome. There he vaunted his strength in gladiatorial combats and decreed that he should be worshiped as Hercules Romanus. He changed his own name to Marcus Commodus Antoninus and wanted to rename the city of Rome after himself. Many plots to assassinate him failed, but eventually, on the order of his advisers, he was strangled by a wrestler. Pertinax succeeded him.
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