How was he as an emperor?
How could he have been better?
Many consider his reign to be among the best the Roman Empire ever had, right up there with the Augustus. I'd say the biggest fault you can pin on him is the succession, because it was clear from early on that Commodus was a fucking idiot.
>>381746
Commodus was not as heinous as literally every emperor between Septimius and Constantine tho. He was also the first one "born in purple" right?
The other 5 Good Emperors were as good as he was. The Commodus problem was that he was the only one of the 5 Good Emperors that had a male son reaching adulthood. The other ones were gay and had to adopt their successors, since the few times they bothered to have sex with their wives, daughters were born.
>>381758
>He was also the first one "born in purple" right?
No, that was Titus.
>>381835
>titus: born 39, father started reign in 69
>commodus: born in 161, father started reign in 161
Get some knowledge son.
>>381758
>born in purple
Considering that's a purely Eastern Roman concept, no.
Marcus began his reign with a younger and more flamboyant colleague, Lucius Verus. Verus was known for his decadence, but he was a talented military man who won victories in Parthia throughout the 160s.
Verus and his soldiers returned from Parthian in triumph in 168. They brought with them thousands of slaves, prisoners, and enormous ammounts of booty. They also brought plague. Within a few years, it is estimated that five-million inhabitants of the Roman Empire were dead, rich and poor, soldier and civilian. Entire towns and villages in Italy and Gaul were depopulated; Cassius Dio claims that two-thousand perished a day in Rome alone, let alone the rest of the Empire. Entire legions worth of soldiers were dead in their barracks, their brightly-polished weapons already prepared for combat with the barbarians. Verus himself was among the victims, as were thousands of his Parthian veterans.. The Empire was hardly in the position to face the onslaught of resurgent Germanic warbands.
>>382133
Cassius Dio was certain that the barbarians had formed a vast conspiracy. It was no coincidence that thousands of warriors - many coming from pacified, even Romanized, tribes - should suddenly be crossing both the Rhine and the Danube, cutting down all who resisted them. If there was indeed a barbarian conspiracy, it was likely headed by Bellomerus, a politician and an intriguer as well as a warlord. He led an army of 20,000 Germans to a crushing victory over a legionary army at Carnutum in 169, before sacking all the cities of Noricum. From here, Bellomerus and his army descended on Aquilea and besieged the temporary seat of the Roman government.
Marcus Aurelius' Praetorian prefect Furius Victorinus attempted to relieve Aquilea, but acheived nothing more than the rout of his army, and his own bloody death. Bellomerus' warriors had obviously learned much from the years spent as neighbors of Rome. Their arrogance was tempered with definite skill not only on the battlefield, but even at maintaining a siege of a well fortified city - something barbarians were previously unable to do.
>>382161
Bellomerus and his army were eventually driven from Aquilea in 171, after a long and gruelling siege. Marcus responded by taking the war to the Germans. Peace agreements were made with the Vandals and Quadi, both of whom were hastily declared "friends of the Roman people". Marcus focused on the Marcomanni, Bellomerus' people.
Legend says that the Marcomanni were in fact descended from a Roman legionary deserter named Marcus, and his following of Germanic outlaws. Whatever their origins, they had gained both wealth and great confidence after several years of campaigning on the Roman side of the Rhine, and they proved a tenacious enemy.
The Romans particularly came to fear and respect the Naristi, a tribe that were allied with the Marcomanni. Valerius Maximianus became a celebrity on both sides of the Rhine by slaying the chieftain of the Naristi in single combat; several legionary tombstones have been discovered that specifically state that the deceased was killed fighting the Naristi.
>>382183
Marcus and his generals spent 173 and 174 campaigning against a number of tribes in the Rhineland, having tamed the Marcomanni and Naristi only after a year of brutal campaigning in miserable conditions. The Quadi revolted at least once during these two years, under the leadership of a fiercely anti-Roman warlord named Ariogaesus. Marcus captured Ariogaesus, but in a display of clemency that surprised men on both sides, the Emperor sent him into comfortable exile in Alexandria. Perhaps he sent this forest warrior to the most civilized city in the Greek East as a sort of cynical joke.
Having subdued the Quadi, Marcus and his army descended on the Sarmatians, defeating the Iazgyes and Rhoxolani at the famous Battle of the Frozen Danube in the winter of 175-176. Even if Cassius Dio's unlikely figures are wild exaggerations, the aftermath of this battle still shows how bad of a beating the Romans had taken at the hands of the barbarians; Dio claims that the Sarmatian warlord Zantikos grudgingly handed over 100,000 soldiers and civilians that he had captured after five years of raiding in Moesia, Pannonia, and Dacia. Marcus had to use large numbers of Germanic and Sarmatian captives to replace the Roman army's losses
>>382192
Marcus arrived back in Rome in 177 to find a city covered in sickly despair. The plague in Italy had only gotten worse over the course of the 170s. Young men healthy enough to replace the vast number of casualities from a decade of warfare were scarce.
Marcus was supposedly planning to rebuild the city but this was cut short by more upsetting news. The Quadi and Marcomanni had both risen in revolt, driving out the garrisons that Marcus had placed in their lands.
In a desperation, Marcus recruited every surviving gladiator, athlete, and slave in Italy, giving them a smidge of legionary training and drafting them into ad hoc military units. These men were promised freedom upon the War's successful conclusion
>>382214
The revolt of the Marcomanni was put down in a short but sharp campaign that was over before the winter of 178-179. Marcus and his generals Maximianus, Didius Julianus, and Pertinax, as well as his Praetorian prefect Tarutenius Paternus, focused all of their efforts on the Quadi, who remained strong in population and determination.
The war against the Quadi 179-180 was a bitter one accompanied by more outbreaks of plague in the Germanic and Gaulish provinces. The gladiators and slaves that Marcus had recruited into his army proved unreliable; many of them deserted and became brigands. Even as late as the 190s CE, Gaul was plagued by legionary deserters turned mercenary gangs, many of whom were capable of besieging small townships and sacking them in detail.
The plague hit Rhaetia hard in the winter of 179-180. One of the victims was Marcus Aurelius Antoninus himself, who died at Vindobona on March 17th of 180. He was succeeded by his son Commodus, who disregarded the advice of Paternus, Pompeianus, and Maximianus by making peace with the Quadi and returning to Rome. The Antonine Plague seems to have finally died down shortly after the passing of Marcus.
Do you have any stuff on his reign that isn't just military history shit?
>>382230
No, since the most important aspect of his reign is how he stopped the roman empire being destroyed by barbarian invasions.
>>382239
Ah, you are one of those cunts. Nevermind I guess.
>>382242
Yea, find another thread to bitch
Very interesting, thanks man.
I hate to sound like one of those cunts, but how accurate was the movie Gladiator in regards to Marcus' death and Commudus' subsequent reign?
>>381758
>not as heinous as literally every emperor between Septimius and Constantine tho
Aurelian and Diocletian were good emperors
>>383211
Not very.
But Marcus did die on campaign against the G*rmans, Commodus did waste fortunes on gladiator games and get killed by a gladitor.
Also Russel Crowe was based on Trajan.
>>385309
>G*rmans
Haha you're too funny m8
