A Bad New Year's to be a Roman Emperor

No matter how bad your New Year's Eve was, the ancient Roman emperor Commodus' was worse.

On New Year’s Eve AD 192, the Emperor Commodus was planning a celebration. The following day he would emerge to lead the New Year’s festivities not from the Imperial Palace but from the gladiatorial barracks, dressed not in the emperor’s purple toga but in the armour of a sectuor. He would make the inaugural sacrifices of the year AD 193 - the thirteenth year of his sole rule at Rome - not only as a consul but also as a gladiator.

It is hard to stress enough how perverse this would have seemed to the elite Roman eye. The gladiator, for all his strength, displayed none of the control proper to the Roman man: here was a man who subjected his body publicly to abuse and injury for a cause no more glorious than the entertainment of the public. Even those gladiators who became stars always remained sub-citizen; barred from public office, withheld certain rights, denied marriage with the better sort. It was an occupation associated with slavery, barbarity, and degradation and Commodus had already flirted with it far too closely for an emperor.

An exceptionally fine bust of the emperor Caligula wearing the distinctive attributes of Hercules - the club and lion skin. Now in the Capitoline Museum in Rome.

He had long rejected the philosophical image cultivated by his father, Marcus Aurelius, instead prioritising the projection of brute strength: there had been display fights, exotic animal hunts in the arena that autumn, he had even begun to assume the attributes of the hero Hercules. The coming of the New Year seemed the perfect time to tie these strands together and to promise more to come.

The emperor shared his plan with Marcia - his mistress in name, but in influence and honour something closer to a wife - who saw immediately that it boded badly. She threw herself at his feet, begged him not to go through with it, cried, said he was discrediting the regime and putting his life in danger. He sent her away, still in tears.

Then he summoned Laetus, the prefect of the praetorian guard, and Eclectus, an ex-slave of Egyptian origins who had risen to be the emperor’s chamberlain, and told them to make the arrangements for him to stay at the gladiatorial barracks that night and process from there to the New Year’s ceremonies the following day. They too tried to talk him out of it, and they too were summarily dismissed.

Commodus, now enraged, stormed to his rooms, snatched up a wax tablet and wrote down a ‘To Kill’ list - Marcia was at the top, then Laetus and Eclectus, and then a number of prominent senators for good measure - they were all to die that night. Then he lay down to nap.

When Commodus woke that afternoon he went on with his usual schedule - baths then hunting practice then drinking parties - leaving the tablet behind on his bed. Marcia was the emperor’s favourite mistress but she was far from his only bedfellow; Commodus also favoured a young boy named Philocommodus he kept as a sex slave.

While Commodus was busy Philocommodus played idly through the emperor’s rooms, picking up the tablet as a potential plaything as he went. On his way out he met Marcia who, stooping to hug him, saw the tablet and took it - worried that he might accidentally erase something important. It was only on second glance that she realised the handwriting was the emperor’s and the document was her death warrant.

A drawing of an engraved cameo sometimes posited to depict Marcia in the guise of an Amazon. Marcia was said to have been sympathetic to the Christian cause and to have interceded on their behalf with Commodus.

The contemporary Roman historian Herodian imagines Marcia speaking to herself as she reads: "So, Commodus, this is my reward for my love and devotion, after I have put up with your arrogance and your madness for so many years. But, you drunken sot, you shall not outwit a woman deadly sober!"

She immediately called Eclectus, with whom she was close enough that there were rumours of an affair. “Look what a party we’re set to enjoy tonight!” she said as she handed over the tablet. Eclectus was shocked into silence as he read, but only momentarily, then he sealed the tablet and had his most trusted slave take it directly to Laetus.

Laetus came straight to the palace - pleading the need to discuss arrangements for the following day - and the three decided swiftly that their current predicament could be rectified only by Commodus’ death.

Their initial plan was poison. Marcia ate with the emperor, so it would be no great difficulty for her to tamper with his food or his wine. But because their executions were scheduled for that night, it would have to be done now.

And so it was - as soon as the emperor returned.

When Commodus finished the dish or drained the cup (traditions vary) that Marcia had handed him, he began to feel very, very tired. As the emperor lay down to sleep, Marcia and Eclectus sent away all his other attendants, telling them their master had over drunk and needed to rest.

Commodus, imagined by Rubens, again with the attributes of Hercules.

For a little while Commodus lay peacefully. But then he began to retch. And then he began to vomit.

As the emperor brought up the contents of his stomach, the conspirators panicked. If he vomited up the poison and survived, their situation would be worse still.

Desperate, they summoned a young man named Narcissus renowned for his athletic strength, and promised him measureless rewards if he’d strangle the emperor. Narcissus, happy to help, went straight into the emperor’s room and, finding him already weakened by the poison, wrung his neck.

It was an ignominious end for the Nerva-Antonine dynasty, which had given Rome the succession of leaders who would later be identified as the ‘Five Good Emperors’. In the year following Commodus’ death, Rome had five emperors (none too good) in a year. When New Year’s Day dawned on AD 193 it marked the end of a century of wealth and stability, the likes of which Rome would never enjoy again.

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This account largely follows that of Herodian, a historian who lived through Commodus’ reign and who provides our most detailed narrative of his end (Herodian, History, 1.16-1.17).

Our other major narrative of these events was written by Cassius Dio - who was also present in Rome, and a senator, at the time of Commodus’ death (Cassius Dio, History, 73.22).

Dio’s account aligns with Herodian’s in general outline, although - as we would expect with any history of conspiracy and court intrigue - some of its details differ. He ascribes less agency to Marcia, for example, and places Commodus’ threats of execution after the initial poisoning attempt, making the primary motive for the assassination the conspirators’ shock at Commodus’ New Year plans.

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