If only Marcus Aurelius had bothered to form an opinion on whether or not Commodus would make a decent successor as emperor.
I mean it was understandable— everyone praises the five good emperors for choosing successors but none of them actually had biological kids, and there was no precedent that the successor would be chosen. Realistically, Aurelius wanted to avoid a civil war and wasn’t like entirely throwing, I think I saw like a story about how he like. Didn’t want to do it but it was like the only good outcome or optimal at least
Commodus doesn’t appear to have descended into megalomania until a few years into his sole rule. One expects the power got to his head rather than him simply being born wrong. C’est la vie!
Was he even as bad as they say? I mean, probably, absolute power and all that, but from what I hear the madness of Caligula is severely overblown since the main sources we have on him are the Roman versions of tabloids, so maybe it’s similar with Commodus.
Never really looked into it too closely though, and it’s probably safe to err on the side of “absolutist ruler was an asshole”.
