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Historical person
c. 2nd century–193
Marcia was a woman at the court of Commodus and is traditionally associated with the conspiracy that led to his assassination in AD 192. Her story belongs to the dangerous inner politics of the Roman imperial household.
Marcia was born in Anagni and died in Rome. Marcia was the mistress of Commodus and is portrayed in ancient sources as having substantial access to the emperor; she joined the conspiracy that killed Commodus in 192 and was herself executed soon afterwards by Pertinax’s successor Didius Julianus.
In Simon Turney’s Commodus, Marcia, first dismissed as an imperial favourite, becomes the person most able to reach Commodus when fear and isolation drive him towards cruelty and spectacle.
Series
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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