Saturday, December 31, 2005
This Day in Ancient History
On this day in 192 AD, the bad Emperor Commodus is assassinated by the Palace Guards. Commodus was the bad guy in the film Gladiator. He was played by Joaquin Phoenix and died in the movie in the Coliseum at the hands of the Russell Crowe character (not quite history). Commodus, son of the good Emperor Marcus Aurelius, was 31 when he died and had for years been active in the sword fights in the arena. He was apparently not as skilled as he liked to think of himself and people suppressed laughing at him when he clumsily slaughtered men armed with wooden swords or repeatedly stabbed staked down leopards who bled out in agony. Commodus was replaced with Pertinax, aged 66, but he became unpopular with the Palace Guards and did not last 90 days before his bloody death at the hands of the Guards.
# posted by Roger Fraley @ 7:16 AM 
