Biography of Commodus, Roman Emperor (180â€192)

Commodus (August 31, 161–December 31, 192 CE) was the emperor of Rome between 180–192 CE. As the son of emperor Marcus Aurelius, Commodus was the first Roman emperor to have been born in the purple, and thus dynastically selected to be his successor. He was also a dangerously deranged man who forced the Senate to name him a demi-god and eventually assassinate him.   Key Takeaways: Commodus Known For: Emperor of Rome 180–192Alternate Names: Marcus Aurelius Commodus Antoninus, Lucius Aelius Aurelius Commodus Augustus Pius Felix, Conqueror of the World, Roman Hercules, All-SurpasserBorn: August 31, 161, LanuviumParents: Marcus Aurelius and Annia Galeria FaustinaDied: December 31, 192, RomeSpouse: Bruttia Crispina, m. 178Children: None Early Life Lucius Aurelius Commodus was born on August 31, 161 in Lanuvium, the ancient city of Latium. He was the son of the last of the Good Emperors, the philosopher Marcus Aurelius (121–180, ruled 161–180) and his wife Annia Galeria Faustina. He was one of eight brothers, including a twin, and the only one to survive past his youth.   Commodus was given the title of Caesar in 166—this would establish him as Marcus successor at the age of eight. He was tutored in Latin, Greek, and rhetoric, but not military skills, and not much physical education either.   Co-Ruler and Marriage At the age of 15, Commodus received the title of imperium and tribunicia potestas positions. In early 175, he was rushed to his fathers side at the Pannonian front of the Marcomannic Wars (166–180) between Rome and the Germanic Marcomanni and Quadi tribes. There was a coup detat when rumors about Marcus death arose, and the governor of Syria Avidius Cassius proclaimed himself emperor. Commodus assumed the toga virilis signifying his adulthood and Marcus introduced him to the soldiers in Pannonia. While they were still there, news came that Cassius had been assassinated. After Cassius was killed, Marcus and Commodus toured the provinces that had aligned themselves with Cassius—Egypt, Syria, and Palestine—re-establishing a connection with them. In 177, at the age of 16, Commodus was named consul and took the honorific Augustus, acting from now on as co-ruler with his father.   In 178, Commodus married Bruttia Crispina but soon left Rome with Marcus for the second Marcomannic War. They would have no surviving children.   Becoming Emperor   Marcus had been ill when the rumors of his death began circling, and he died, a victim of the plague, in March of 180. At the time of his death, Marcus may or may not have been considering taking new provinces, but the 18-year-old Commodus had no interest in that. He rapidly ended the Marcomannic Wars, making peace with the Germanic tribes, and returned to Rome.   During the first two years of Commodus rule, major wars were avoided. He stopped consulting with the Senate and ceased state dinners. He allowed freedmen to become senators—patricians could buy a seat on the Senate only if they paid everything they owned to him. Displeasure in his rule mounted, and in 182 his sister Lucilla joined in a conspiracy to have him killed, but it failed. She was banished and the co-conspirators were executed.   Becoming a God   Around the time of the assassination attempt, Commodus retreated from governing, passing along responsibility for his government to a string of consuls and indulging in a fabled level of debauchery, including 300 concubines and fighting wild beasts in the Roman Circus Maximus.   His co-regents included Tigidius Perennis 182–185 (lynched by mutinous troops) and the freedman M. Aurelius Cleander 186–190 (killed during a riot in Rome). After Cleanders death, Commodus began to broadcast his superhuman status, fighting in the arena as a gladiator dressed as the hero demi-god Hercules. By 184/185 onward, he started calling himself Pius Felix and began promoting himself as divinely chosen.   Emperor Commodus (160–192) dressed as Hercules. Marble statue, in the Capitoline Museums, Rome. DEA / G. DAGLI ORTI / De Agostini Picture Library / Getty Images Plus At first, Commodus aligned himself with four gods—Janus, Jupiter, Sol, and Hercules—and announced he was leading a Golden Age in Rome. He gave himself a string of new titles (Conqueror of the World, All-Surpasser, the Roman Hercules), renamed the months of the year after himself, and renamed the Roman legions the Commodianae. Descent Into Madness In 190, Commodus began associating himself only with the semi-divine Hercules, calling himself Herculi Commodiano and then Herculi Romano Commodiano on medallions and coins. His official name was changed to Lucius Aelius Aurelius Commodus Augustus Pius Felix, and many of his official portraits show him wearing a bearskin and carrying a club in the guise of Hercules.   By 191 he appeared to be dangerously deranged, obsessively performing in the arena dressed as Hercules. He demanded that the Senate name him semi-divine and they agreed, possibly because numerous senators had been executed in exceedingly gory fashion. In 192, Commodus renamed the city of Rome, which was now to be known as the Colonia Antoniniana Commodiana. Death and Legacy In late December 192, Commodus concubine Marcia discovered a tablet on which was written plans to kill her and leading men in the Senate on January 1. She attempted to poison Commodus, but he drank too much wine offsetting the poison, so the conspirators had the celebrated athlete Narcissus strangle him while he slept on December 31, 192.  Ã‚   The year 193 is called the Year of the Five Emperors, and Rome would not settle down to dynastic leadership until the last of these, Septimus Severus ruled (193–211). Sources and Further Reading Birley, Anthony R. Commodus, Lucius Aurelius. The Oxford Classical Dictionary. Eds. Hornblower, Simon, Antony Spawforth, and Esther Eidinow. 4th ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. 360.  Hekster, Olivier Joram. Commodus: An Emperor at the Crossroads. University of Nijmegen, 2002.  Smith, William, and G.E. Marindon, eds. A Classical Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography, Mythology, and Geography. London: John Murray, 1904. Print.Speidel, M. P. Commodus the God-Emperor and the Army. The Journal of Roman Studies 83 (1993): 109–14.

Personal Leadership Experience At A Toronto District...

It has been previously thought that leadership skills were innate, however on the contrary it is truly a learned skill that requires development to master. Nurses are the largest health care profession in Canada, and the majority are at the forefront of direct patient care. With that being said, their position and numbers in health care enables them to improve patient outcomes, transform the health care system, and to build individual and community capacities through the use of leadership. By developing and acquiring leadership skills through experiences, training, and education, nurses are capable of facilitating such. This paper aims to explore how I have displayed leadership in my third year placement through analysis and literature†¦show more content†¦The topics that are fundamental to this age group are injury prevention, dental hygiene, hand hygiene, and healthy eating based on the Canada s Food Guide and Dieticians of Canada recommendations. These issues among stu dents have been addressed through health promotion, and capacity building according to the students health literacy skills through lessons, workshops, and activities. Sigma Theta Tau International (2005) explains that evidence based practice is composed of research findings, patient preferences, and clinicians experiences (as cited in Cullen Adams, 2010). This leadership experience is related to the topic of evidence based practice as my role in health promotion, childhood education, health literacy and capacity building within the school has been based upon research findings, client inputs, and my experiences. For instance, how germs are spread, when hand washing is appropriate, and the length of hand washing. I have incorporated research findings, client preferences in teaching (e.g. experiments, and hands on activities), as well as my personal experiences (e.g. how to motivate and inspire children to change behaviours) into content of my lessons. In addition, I have been able t o apply evidence based practice and other literature findings related to my topics through presentations and activities, such as preventative interventions for cavities, illnesses, injury, and obesity. This topic is significant for nursing leadership and

Living in Sin Free Essays

The poem tells the story of the lovers that starts just after the fairytale of their lives has ended. Actually, it reveals the continuation of relationship where fairytale usually cuts the story at the kisses and declaration of love followed by â€Å"The End† (a story of a Princess which has to wash dishes on a day after a romantic ball). It is important to point out that the speaker is not actually the woman spoken of in the poem. We will write a custom essay sample on Living in Sin or any similar topic only for you Order Now The narrator here depicts the events in this couple’s daily life. Yet, it is obviously a woman, due to the tone of the poem: how she sees the careless husband and notices household disorder. Being in variance with many modern text analysts, I must say that the poem ‘Living in Sin’ is completely autobiographic. It has been written by Adrienne Rich during the first months of her own marriage and conveys her own disappointment in what is left after the romantic prelude. To understand the poem one must notice that it is wholly built on the contrasts the author uses from sentence to sentence. The most evident contrast resides in the mood of the heroes: the indifferent, careless husband (‘he, with a yawn†¦Ã¢â‚¬â„¢) who seems not to notice the miserable surroundings and only shrugs his shoulders at the mirror admitting the piano out of tune, and the pensive and sad wife who is distressed with the routine circle of everyday cleaning and watching the back of her lover leaving each morning for the trivial cigarettes: â€Å" [he] rubbed at his beard, went out for cigarettes; while she, jeered by the minor demons, pulled back the sheets and made the bed and found a towel to dust the table-top†¦Ã¢â‚¬  . Adrienne Rich has been influenced by the popular image contrast of artist and his woman (generally, a family). Their married life goes in the studio, a huge room without walls or borders, without anything to confirm one’s privacy. Here we obviously see a family of artists where the woman has to play the subordinate role imposed by the society. As means to manipulate women into submitting to housekeeping roles, society promotes a male-dominant view. Most traditional societies expect all women to feign fulfillment in this biological role of a domestic apparatus. Therefore, like the woman in the poem, many women in society accept (although, quite reluctantly) this role of a home caretaker. The images of dusted furniture, dried cheese and empty bottles, overboiled pot etc. produce low, pessimistic tones of the poem – all these trifle seems to be powerful enough to spoil woman’s life and even to kill love: â€Å"By evening she was back in love again, though not so wholly but throughout the night she woke sometimes to feel the daylight coming like a relentless milkman up the stairs†. Here appears another pair of contrasting images: Day and Night that are parallel to Reality and Dream. This woman actually lives double life, enjoying night demonstrations of love and being not able to change the obtrusive tedium of the day which comes like the â€Å"relentless milkman† upon the creaking stair and ruins the fragile dreams of the romantic supper. The piano (summoned by him) seems to be out of tune just like their love. The grime at their window panes is as hard to remove as to bring back the brightness and romantics to the life. Comparatively, each of the household items is dingy. Everything illuminated by the day is out of this light in a paradoxical way – on the contrary, it strives for the night unconsciousness and inempiricalness. So, now it is possible to explain the name of the poem. â€Å"Living in Sin† means to face the day and not to do anything about it, just to see the things go on and to be afraid to make any changes. The woman submits to this role of absolute responsibility without resistance, keeping her resentment and anger to herself. Her constant expenditure of energy with no satisfactory results leads to disappointment. The heroine of the poem is completely unsatisfied but what with she is not quite sure†¦ We, as a reader, can only guess what exactly bothers her: a bunch of disappointing details or the whole picture of their relationship. I think that the last thing does. Everyday dusting, which she has to take around the studio, symolizes the ‘dusting’ of the relationship that is also needed to keep the love alive. Undoubtedly, family life needs refreshment not to be sepulchered by the lay of ‘dust’ and similar days. The woman’s futile efforts result in her â€Å"living in sin†. She sinfully accepts what society dictates and does not try to escape and improve her circumstances. By lettig this miserable life to continue, she denies herself and her individuality. And such self-sacrifice is the biggest sin for an artistic and thoughtful woman. How to cite Living in Sin, Essay examples