Rome, Early Roman Empire, Nervan-Antonine Dynasty (96-193): Commodus; Conspiracies, Dacia and Britain

18 *COMMODUS (31; r.177-192)

Commodus ignored his father’s wishes and negotiated a peace with the northern tribes (180). North of the Danube the Roman forts were dismantled and a five-mile demilitarised strip enforced. The Quadi and Marcomanni were to return all prisoners and deserters, promise not to make war on the Iazyges, Buri or Vandals; provide a fixed quantity of corn each year; restrict their assemblies to once a month and in the presence of a centurion; and thirteen thousand soldiers to be supplied by the Quadi, less by the Marcomanni. Similar terms were concluded with the Iazyges, Buri and Vandals.

• Conspiracies 

Commodus seems to have had little interest in the administration of the Empire and throughout his reign he tended to leave the practical running of the state to a succession of favourites, beginning with Saoterus, a Bithynian freedman, who served as the emperor’s cubicularius (chamberlain: manager of the household). Relations between the court and the aristocracy degenerated. Some of those who felt that they had been excluded from their rightful places in the councils of the emperor began to think of conspiracies and coups.

In 182 a plot to murder Commodus was formed by Commodus’ sister ⁰¹Aurelia Galeria Lucilla (c.33; fl.161-182); her cousins Ummidius Quadratus (44; fl.167-182) and Appius ³⁸Claudius Quintianus; two other young men, Norbanus and Paralius; Norbanus’ sister and Paralius’ mother. Quintianus was supposed to stab the emperor but at the critical moment he hesitated and was seized by the guards. The four male conspirators and Norbanus’ sister were executed; Lucilla was exiled to Capri where she was later murdered. 

In the confusion that followed the failed plot, the praetorian prefect Tarutenius Paternus (probably a sympathiser but not detected) and his colleague Tigidius Perennis had the frumentarii (secret police) murder Saoterus. 

At Perennis’ instigation Paternus was retired, thus removing him from the protection of the guard. A few days later he was arrested for his part in an improbable plot to make his son-in-law, Salvius Julianus (cos.175), the commander of an army in Germania, emperor. Julianus was executed as were two of the consuls of 182 and two ex-consuls. 

Commodus found a new chamberlain and favourite in ¹⁰Aurelius Cleander (fl.182-190), a Phrygian freedman who had married one of the emperor’s mistresses, Demostratia; and Perennis now became the effective ruler of the Empire for the next three years.

• Dacia and Britain (182-184)

Commodus left frontier defence to his lieutenants. Of these, the future usurpers Pescennius Niger (c.56; fl.191-193) and ⁰³Clodius Septimius ⁰⁴Albinus (c.47; fl.175-197) successfully protected Dacia during the renewed attacks of the barbarians in 182 and 183; and Ulpius (3) Marcellus put down an insurrection of the Caledonians (181-184), but then abandoned the Scottish lowland forts and retired to Hadrian’s Wall.