{"id":56473,"date":"2019-11-10T21:24:22","date_gmt":"2019-11-10T20:24:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/ciekawostka\/gladiator-commodus\/"},"modified":"2022-07-20T19:59:24","modified_gmt":"2022-07-20T17:59:24","slug":"gladiator-commodus","status":"publish","type":"ciekawostki","link":"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/curiosities\/gladiator-commodus\/","title":{"rendered":"Gladiator Commodus"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/biographies\/commodus\/\">Roman emperor <b>Commodus<\/b><\/a>, son of the &#8220;emperor-philosopher&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/biographies\/marcus-aurelius\/\">Marcus Aurelius<\/a> he was known for his love of blood and games, especially gladiatorial fights. His participation in the clashes &#8211; during the reign (180-192 CE) &#8211; was very badly received and treated as part of the scandal. <!--more--><\/p>\n<p>With time, rumors even began to circulate suggesting that <a href=\"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/biographies\/commodus\/\">Commodus<\/a> is not the de facto son of <a href=\"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/biographies\/marcus-aurelius\/\">Marcus Aurelius<\/a>, but the &#8220;fruit&#8221; of the relationship of Empress Faustina and the gladiator-lover she met in the seaside town of <em>Caieta<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Commodus in the arena most often appeared as <em>secutor<\/em> &#8211; a heavily armed type of gladiator, equipped with a large shield (like <em><a href=\"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/roman-army\/equipment-of-roman-legionary\/scutum\/\">scutum<\/a><\/em>), a shoulder pad on the right hand, a closed helmet and sword. In the arena, Commodus won all fights, and his rivals gave up asking for mercy. So this type of duels usually didn&#8217;t end in death.<\/p>\n<p>Interestingly, Commodus was also supposed to fight wild <a href=\"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/article\/animals-and-hunting-in-world-of-romans\/\">animals<\/a> in the arena. Edward Gibbon reports that Commodus killed 100 lions in one day. Another time he was to kill three elephants and a giraffe. There are also reports saying that Commodus hunted down the <a href=\"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/curiosities\/ostriches-according-to-pliny-the-elder\/\">ostrich<\/a> in the arena, cut off his head and with that went to the section of the stands, where the senators were sitting. Then, clearly gesturing with the animal&#8217;s head, he would suggest that he would do the same with them. However, as Cassius Dio points out, the high-born Romans took the whole situation so absurd that they could barely refrain from laughing, chewing bay leaves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":109083,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"kategorie_ciekawostek":[83],"class_list":["post-56473","ciekawostki","type-ciekawostki","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","kategorie_ciekawostek-ancient-stories"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ciekawostki\/56473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ciekawostki"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/ciekawostki"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ciekawostki\/56473\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/109083"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"kategorie_ciekawostek","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/kategorie_ciekawostek?post=56473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}