[music playing]
[cheering]
NARRATOR: By 192 AD, the Colosseum is over a century
old.
[music playing]
Emperor Commodus has a surprise.
He's the headline bout, fighting as a gladiator.
[crowd chanting "caesar"]
COREY BRENNAN: Gladiators were at the lowest
stratum of free Romans.
They had no legal personality.
They were in the same category as prostitutes and pimps.
So for a Roman emperor to try to leverage
the popularity of gladiators by becoming one is a shock.
[cheering]
BARRY STRAUSS: For Commodus, the Colosseum
would become an obsession, a place
that would play a pivotal role in his rise and fall.
NARRATOR: After inheriting a vast and powerful empire
from his father, the great Marcus Aurelius,
Commodus is at odds with the ruling
class of Rome, the Senate.
SIMON SEBAG MONTEFIORE: The senators
remain the most powerful body of people, the very embodiment
of the elite, of Rome.
The Senate would always be the rallying place of opposition.
PATRICK WYMAN: The Roman elite was
ashamed of Commodus' actions.
They felt that to fight as a gladiator was
to willingly debase himself.
This was the tipping point in an already fractured relationship
between the two most powerful forces in Rome,
the emperor and the Senate.
Every one of these senatorial families
has holdings all over the Roman Empire.
They're the equivalent of small multinational corporations.
They are wealthy in a way that is impossible for us
to understand.
So even if the heart of political power
has moved elsewhere, these are still
tremendously important people.
And so the Senate is dangerous.
NARRATOR: Several emperors had previously
been destroyed by their enemies in the Senate,
including the notorious leaders Caligula, Nero, and Domitian.
COREY BRENNAN: The history of Rome's emperors
shows that it's pretty dangerous to cross the Senate.
But Commodus had a plan, and it really was to ignore the Senate
and to appeal directly to the people.
To win the people over, Commodus has an incredible tool
at his disposal.
He has the games.
NARRATOR: Less than a year into his reign,
Commodus throws lavish games to celebrate the end
of his father's barbarian wars.
[crowd chanting "caesar"]
ALEXANDER MARIOTTI: Because it was such an important event,
the imperial family, such as his sister Lucila, would be there.
And, of course, the Senate themselves.
So they would have been witness to this event.
For the Senate, they understand that this is an absolute joke.
Travel games were put on at the end of great wars,
fought for many years, wars that established the power of Rome.
This was the opposite of that, and yet
here he was, parading himself as some sort
of triumphant general.
NARRATOR: But it's not the Senate
Commodus is trying to impress.
SIMON SEBAG MONTEFIORE: Emperors could
communicate with the people in the Colosseum.
In those days, you didn't see the emperor
very much except at triumphs after great victories
abroad, and in the Colosseum, where he appeared in his box.
And the crowd had a chance to express
what they thought of him, too.
ALISON FUTRELL: The Colosseum fostered
an active, dynamic relationship between the people
and the emperor.
And one can imagine thousands and thousands of people
chanting what they want, encouraging the emperor in what
he's doing, in sponsoring and being generous
and putting on a show for them.
It was kind of like a contract.
I am giving these games to you.
You need to honor me.
ALISON FUTRELL: It's extraordinary for an emperor
to take to the stands himself.
This is not something that's expected of elites,
let alone the emperor.
[cheering]
[gladiators grunting]
Gladiators use their bodies to please the masses.
So they are like prostitutes.
They are like actors.
[gladiators grunting]
ALEXANDER MARIOTTI: It would have
been hard for the ruling class to accept
any of Commodus' actions.
They were cultured people.
They were educated people.
And so the fact that one of them, with the grade
himself to that degree, that he's
going to present himself in the same profession
of the scum of the scum.
NARRATOR: According to Cassius Dio,
Commodus charges the bankrupt Roman treasury
1 million sesterces for his appearance, almost $10 million
in today's money.
[gladiator panting and grunting]
[gladiator coughing]
[crowd chanting "caesar"]
[cheering]
[music playing]
After the games, Commodus embarks
on a still-grander project.
He intends to rebuild Rome with himself at the center.
[music playing]
COREY BRENNAN: He renames Rome Colonia Commodiana,
a colony of Commodus.
And we wouldn't believe that this was true if were not
for the fact that the coins of Commodus' era
show that this was the case.
He really did name it after himself.
ALEXANDER MARIOTTI: Commodus goes into overdrive.
The Romans are going to be called Commodiani.
The Senate is going to be called the Fortunate
Commodiani Senate.
He fills the city with statues of himself
dressed as the god Hercules.
One was a giant figure of an archer,
looking very much like the emperor himself,
with a arrow aimed right at the front door of the Roman Senate.
And if there was ever a louder political message,
well, I'm not aware of it.
ALISON FUTRELL: That could not be tolerated, even by Commodus'
world-weary contemporaries.
NARRATOR: When Commodus announces yet
another games with himself as the star,
the Senate know they must act.
No.
[grunting]
[music playing]
PATRICK WYMAN: Commodus meets his end
at the hands of his gladiatorial trainer,
at the hands of Narcissus, acting
on the orders of the Senate.
ALEXANDER MARIOTTI: There's a sort of poetic irony
that in the end, it was the very figure that he so admired,
so wanted to be, that put an end to his life.