Why Was Commodus Such an Absolute Bastard?
The Historia Augusta has a perfect excuse for why Commodus was nothing like his father. He wasn't!
Commodus turned out to be nothing at all like his father, and this rather does beg the question of why the ancient sources let Marcus off so completely. Marcus was, of course, the philosopher king, whose works are still read and genuinely admired two thousand years later, whilst Commodus was a brutish buffoon who liked nothing more than a good bit of sex and violence. But did Marcus actually have any choice in making Commodus his heir? What does Cassius Dio think really happened, and what is he too polite to say outright? How did Gibbon manage to make all of this cohere into something respectable? And how did a private philosophical notebook that was never meant to be published become the perfect alibi for a father who may simply have raised a catastrophic heir by mistake?
