Commodus in the context of "Marcus Aurelius Cleander"

In Greek mythology, Hector (/ˈhɛktər/; Ἕκτωρ, Hektōr, pronounced [héktɔːr]) was a Trojan prince, a hero, and the greatest warrior for Troy during the Trojan War. He is a major character in Homer's Iliad, where he leads the Trojans and their allies in the defense of Troy, killing countless Greek warriors. He is ultimately killed in single combat by the Greek hero Achilles, who proceeds to drag his dead body around the city of Troy behind his chariot.

Heracles (/ˈhɛrəkliːz/ Ancient Greek: Ἡρακλῆς, lit. 'glory/fame of Hera'), born Alcaeus (Ἀλκαῖος, Alkaios) or Alcides (Ἀλκείδης, Alkeidēs), was a divine hero in Greek mythology, the son of Zeus and Alcmene, and the foster son of Amphitryon. He was a descendant of Perseus, another son of Zeus.

He was the greatest of the Greek heroes, the ancestor of royal clans known as Heracleidae (Ἡρακλεῖδαι), and a champion of the Olympian order against chthonic monsters. In Rome and the modern West, he is known as Hercules, with whom the later Roman emperors, in particular Commodus and Maximian, often identified themselves. Details of his cult were adapted to Rome as well.

Athenaeus of Naucratis (/ˌæθəˈniːəs/, Ancient Greek: Ἀθήναιος ὁ Nαυκρατίτης or Nαυκράτιος, Athēnaios Naukratitēs or Naukratios; Latin: Athenaeus Naucratita) was an ancient Greek rhetorician and grammarian, flourishing about the end of the 2nd and beginning of the 3rd century AD. The Suda says only that he lived in the times of Marcus Aurelius, but the contempt with which he speaks of Commodus, who died in 192, implies that he survived that emperor. He was a contemporary of Adrantus.

Athenaeus himself states that he was the author of a treatise on the thratta, a type of fish mentioned by Archippus and other comic poets, and of a history of the Syrian kings. Both works are lost. Of his works, only the fifteen-volume Deipnosophistae mostly survives.

Lucius Septimius Severus (/səˈvɪərəs/; Latin: [ˈɫuːkiʊs sɛpˈtɪmiʊs sɛˈweːrʊs]; 11 April 145 – 4 February 211) was Roman emperor from 193 to 211. He was born in Leptis Magna, Libya in the Roman province of Africa. As a young man he advanced through the customary succession of offices under the reigns of Marcus Aurelius and Commodus. Severus was the final contender to seize power after the death of the emperor Pertinax in 193 during the Year of the Five Emperors.

After deposing and killing the incumbent emperor Didius Julianus, Severus fought his rival claimants, the Roman generals Pescennius Niger and Clodius Albinus. Niger was defeated in 194 at the Battle of Issus in Cilicia. Later that year Severus waged a short punitive campaign beyond the eastern frontier, annexing the Kingdom of Osroene as a new province. Severus defeated Albinus three years later at the Battle of Lugdunum in Gaul. Following the consolidation of his rule over the western provinces, Severus waged another brief, more successful war in the east against the Parthian Empire, sacking their capital Ctesiphon in 197 and expanding the eastern frontier to the Tigris. He then enlarged and fortified the Limes Arabicus in Arabia Petraea. In 202, he campaigned in Africa and Mauretania against the Garamantes, capturing their capital Garama, and expanding the Limes Tripolitanus along the southern desert frontier of the empire.

The Pax Romana (Latin for 'Roman peace'; IPA: [paːks rɔːˈmaːna]) is a roughly 200-year-long period of ancient Rome that is identified as a golden age of increased and sustained Roman imperialism, prosperous stability, hegemonic power, regional expansion, and relative peace and order, although it still featured a number of internal revolts and external wars, including the Roman–Persian wars. Traditionally, the onset is understood to be the ascent of Augustus, who also founded the Roman principate, in 27 BC. Conversely, the end of the era is considered as 180 AD with the death of Marcus Aurelius, the last of the "Five Good Emperors".

It was during this period that the Roman Empire achieved its greatest territorial extent under Trajan in 117. Additionally, the Roman Empire's population is estimated to have peaked at 70 million people during the Pax Romana, accounting for 33% of the world's population. Following the Pax Romana, and according to Cassius Dio, the dictatorial reign of Commodus, later followed by the Year of the Five Emperors and the Crisis of the Third Century, marked Rome's descent "from a kingdom of gold to one of iron and rust".

The Nerva–Antonine dynasty comprised seven Roman emperors who ruled from AD 96 to 192: Nerva (96–98), Trajan (98–117), Hadrian (117–138), Antoninus Pius (138–161), Marcus Aurelius (161–180), Lucius Verus (161–169), and Commodus (177–192). The first five of these are popularly known as the "Five Good Emperors".

The first five of the six successions within this dynasty were notable in that the reigning emperor did not have a male heir, and had to adopt the candidate of his choice to be his successor. Under Roman law, an adoption established a bond legally as strong as that of kinship.

Julius Pollux (Greek: Ἰούλιος Πολυδεύκης, Ioulios Polydeukes; fl. 2nd century AD) was a Greek scholar and rhetorician from Naucratis, Roman Egypt.Emperor Commodus appointed him a professor-chair of rhetoric in Athens at the Academy — on account of his melodious voice, according to Philostratus' Lives of the Sophists.