HW#1

       The Bust of Commodus as Hercules is showing how Commodus wanted power. On the sculpture, Commodus is covered by lion skin. There is a mace on his right hand and some fruits on his left. And the sculpture was finely sculpted muscle texture. Symbols of power are everywhere. According to “the Life of Commodus in Lampridius’s biography Historia Augusta”, shows how Commodus did every sort of evil thing. He got the fund for gaming but lying to people. In Section 10, “For example, he put a starling on the head of one man who, as he noticed, had a few white hairs, resembling worms, among the black, and caused his head to fester through the continual pecking of the bird’s beak — the bird, of course, imagining that it was pursuing worms. One corpulent person, he cut open down the middle of his belly, so that his intestines gushed forth.” He arbitrarily killed people. He was vicious and didn’t care about people’s life. Therefore, Commodus grew weary of the emperor’s work and suspected the upper classes of plotting against him. He asked the prefect of the guards to take care of his affairs. But He indulged in hunting and recreation and was quite keen on gladiatorial activities. I think that the twilight of Commodus’s reign was the prelude to the fall of the Roman empire.