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Historical person

Commodus

161–192

Commodus was Roman emperor from AD 180 to 192 and son of Marcus Aurelius. His reign is remembered for court intrigue, autocratic display, military insecurity and his assassination, which opened a period of civil conflict.

Commodus was born in Lanuvium and died in Rome. Commodus also held the offices or ranks of Augustus, Roman emperor, and Roman consul. Commodus belonged to the Nerva–Antonine dynasty and operated within Ancient Rome.

Simon Turney’s Commodus makes the emperor’s growing isolation the centre of the story, with Marcia trying to reach a ruler increasingly driven toward fear, cruelty and spectacle. Steven Saylor’s Dominus places Commodus’s reign in the long decline from the Antonine age toward the political fragmentation of the third century. Richard Foreman’s Emperor shows him earlier as the dangerous future successor around whom loyalties to Marcus Aurelius begin to fracture, while Turney’s Praetorian takes a conspiracy investigation into the emperor’s immediate circle. L. J. Trafford’s Ancient Rome’s Worst Emperors reassesses the hostile tradition that made Commodus one of Rome’s standard examples of disastrous imperial rule.

Periods

Periods linked to Commodus

Reign of Commodus180–192 CE Severan Dynasty193–235 CE

Series

Historical novels and book series featuring Commodus (7 series)

Praetorian in Order

by Simon Turney 8 books 4.5(14,984)

The Praetorian series centres on Gnaeus Marcius Rustius Rufinus, a legionary drawn into the Praetorian Guard and the lethal politics of Commodus’s court. Investigations, covert missions and frontier commands expose him to conspiracies involving imperial relatives, prefects, freedmen, senators and rival claimants to the throne. As Commodus’s reign…

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Empire in Order

by Anthony Riches 16 books 4.5(20,598)

The Empire series follows Marcus Valerius Aquila, a Roman aristocrat forced into hiding after his family is destroyed under Commodus. Serving under an assumed name with the Tungrian auxiliaries, he moves from Hadrian’s Wall and the Rhine to Rome, Egypt and the eastern civil wars that follow the…

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Path of Nemesis in Order

by Adam Lofthouse 3 books 4.3(3,177)

Path of Nemesis follows Albinus Silus from unwilling recruit to experienced Roman officer during the Marcomannic Wars. Set under Marcus Aurelius and the young Commodus, the series moves between frontier campaigns, family loss and the political future of the Nerva–Antonine dynasty.

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The Damned Emperors in Order

by Simon Turney 4 books 4.3(4,884)

The Damned Emperors series retells the reigns of Caligula, Commodus, Domitian and Caracalla through people close enough to witness their private fears and public violence. Each novel sets later hostile traditions against the personal, dynastic and political pressures that shaped an emperor condemned by Roman memory. Rather than…

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Roma Trilogy in Order

by Steven Saylor 3 books 4.0(15,200)

The Roma Trilogy follows generations of the fictional Pinarius family across the long history of Rome. Roma begins with the city’s legendary foundation and continues through the Republic and the rise of Augustus; Empire carries the family through the Julio-Claudian, Flavian and adoptive-emperor periods; Dominus follows the later…

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The Dream of Rome in Order

by Richard Foreman 5 books 4.1(3,394)

The Dream of Rome is an omnibus collection rather than a single continuous saga. Its volumes gather the complete Sword of Rome campaigns, the two Augustus novels, the first three Spies of Rome investigations, the complete Sword of Empire sequence and three later Rufus Varro novellas. The collection…

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Sword of Empire in Order

by Richard Foreman 3 books 2.5(15)

Sword of Empire follows the praetorians Gaius Maximus and Rufus Atticus during the Marcomannic Wars and the final years of Marcus Aurelius. Missions on the Danube frontier, conspiracy in Rome and a final assassination order expose the dependence of imperial strategy on officers who must act beyond ordinary…

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Non Fiction

Non Fiction featuring Commodus (3 books)

Biographies, histories and other non-fiction are listed separately from the historical novels above.