The picture of this sculpture is a bust of Roman Emperor Commodus, styled as if he were similar to Hercules. Lucius Aurelius Commodus, born 161 A.D was a Roman emperor who ruled along with his father Marcus Aurelius and after the death of his father in 177 A.D. Based on the reading in Life of Commodus in Lampridius’s biography, at his young age Commodus is portrayed first just as a typical spoiled dishonorable, and cruel and lewd individual. In his biography, he portrayed the first act of his cruelty when his bath was drawn too cool, he ordered the bathkeeper to be cast into the furnace. Following this, there are many examples that prove that Commodus was indeed an evil and unbelievably wicked emperor. According to Historia Augusta, Commodus pretended that he was going to Africa, so that he could get funds for the journey, then spent them on banquets and gaming instead. “He allowed statues of himself to be erected with the accoutrements of Hercules and sacrifices were performed to him as to a god”. He disgraced every class of men in his company and was disgraced in turn by them. For fun, he would do despicable things such as placing a starling bird on a head of one man who had a few white hairs, resembling worms, and caused his head to fester through the continual pecking of the bird’s beak. He would murder many people, just because of the fact that they were handsome, pluck out the eye or cut off the foot of many others. It is also claimed that he often mixed human excrement with the most expensive foods, and he did not refrain others from tasting them.
