WI: Marcus Aurelius sucessor continues the 'adopted trend'

WI: Marcus Aurelius sucessor continues the 'adopted trend' or he dies later and Commondus gains some more wisdom (learning from father), anyway the main point is could a more computent sucessor stablise the Geramnic border.
 
WI: Marcus Aurelius sucessor continues the 'adopted trend' or he dies later and Commondus gains some more wisdom (learning from father), anyway the main point is could a more computent sucessor stablise the Geramnic border.

Aurelius did; at least, Commodus never had any trouble with the border. The crucial thing is keeping the army in check and the treasury solvent.
 
I blame Gibbon. Commodus was not in any way the disastrous ruler he is commonly made out to be. During his reign there were no major crises in the Empire, with only a few minor disturbances in the British and Danube frontiers. Commodus' major faults were his insane gladiatorial antics and his dependence on the Imperial freedmen, neither of which was a problematic beyond limits of the Imperial household. The only faults of his reign were the increasing sidelining of the Roman city aristocracy and the Senate, and an increasing trend towards military autocracy, which only became problematic during the greater stresses of the third century crisis.
 
Commodus does tend to have a worse reputation than he deserves (Blame Gibbon and Gladiator for that). Really, his only flaw was being a mostly competent Emperor who followed a line of five brilliant Emperors.
 
Anyone got some reading suggestions regarding this re-evaluation of Commodus? - as the last thing I read that related to him more than tangentially still was rather dismissive of Commodus and IIRC the author was very much of the opinion that Gibbon was the blame for a lot of things wrong with Roman history (predated Gladiator too I think)
 
Top