Commodus

Assassinated on 31 December 192 CE in Rome by strangulation after poison failed, in a palace conspiracy ending the Antonine dynasty.

Overview

Commodus, son of the philosopher emperor Marcus Aurelius, ruled from 180 CE with growing autocracy and spectacle, fighting as a gladiator in the arena, renaming Rome and the legions after himself, and purging court factions. The chamberlain Eclectus, the prefect Laetus, and his mistress Marcia, facing their own impending doom, first poisoned his food; when he vomited the dose, the athlete Narcissus was summoned to strangle him in his bath. His death ended nearly a century of stable adoption emperors and opened the year 193, when the throne was sold and fought over by rival armies. Later senatorial tradition damned him, and his fall confirmed that palace insiders, not institutions, could end a Roman emperor.