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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;GinoLR, post: 8133471, member: 128351&quot;]Commodus has been much criticized and even vilified by historical tradition. The fact is that the news of his death (assassinated, but by who?) was met with enthusiasm by the senators. He was hated by the Senate, but not by the People. The senators criticized him for his love of excessive luxury, for the terror he had spread among them (several senators had been executed) and ridiculed him for having personally performed in the arena or the circus. But this was the old and still efficient recipe of populism: he had been posing as siding with the people against the elites, and his showman talent as well as his lavish bling-bling lifestyle were popular. </p><p><br /></p><p>His identification with Hercules is the mark of his spiritual life. For Pagans of the time, Hercules was what Jesus Christ was for the Christians. Hercules was son of God (Jupiter), had escaped assassination when he was a baby, had devoted his life to fight evil on earth, had been to the underworld to resuscitate a dead person and bring her back to life, had suffered his painful passion, had died and become an immortal... Hercules was the god descended among us as a mortal everyone wanted to worship.</p><p><br /></p><p>The son of the stoician philosopher Marcus Aurelius was a kind of philosopher too, but more a mystic than a philosopher: he wanted to imitate Hercules: act for good, don&#039;t fear death and become immortal. After all, that&#039;s what the Christian message is about, isn&#039;t it? He was friendly with Christians, his mistress Marcia was probably herself a Christian, and to please her and her friend the bishop of Rome Victor I he pardoned and liberated Christian convicts.</p><p><br /></p><p>Commodus was not the only person who claimed to be like Hercules. There are statues of other unknown people represented as Hercules, even a lady! It was a spiritual movement of the late 2nd - early 3rd century.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1416914[/ATTACH]</p><p><font size="3">Commodus as Hercules. Bust found almost intact, it had been carefully hidden to avoid being smashed after Commodus&#039; death and official <i>damnatio memoriae</i>. Rome, Musei Capitolini.</font></p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1416915[/ATTACH]</p><p><font size="3">Funerary statue of a man from North Africa. Tunis, Bardo Museum.</font></p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1416916[/ATTACH]</p><p><font size="3">Statue of a high ranking lady dressed as Hercules. The Hercules religion was inclusive... Rome, Musei Vaticani. </font></p><p><br /></p><p><font size="4">All senators were not unanimous to condemn Commodus. Pertinax, his successor, managed to give him a decent (but unofficial) funeral to prevent those who demanded his rotting corpse being thrown to the sewer. Septimius Severus officially rehabilitated his memory, claimed he was Commodus&#039; brother and had him deified. Under Trajan Decius there were antoniniani minted with <i>Divo Commodo</i>. </font>[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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