COMMODUS
AD 177-192
AR Denarius. 3.18g, 18.0mm
MINTED: Rome mint, AD 191-192
REF: RIC III 256 (rare)
OBVERSE: L AEL AVREL COMM AVG P FEL, laureate head right.
REVERSE: IOVI DEFENS SALVTIS AVG, Jupiter standing front and looking right, holding
thunderbolt aloft with right hand and sceptre with left, seven stars around.
 
Provenance:
Ex Severus Alexander Collection; ex Phil Peck Collection (CNG E-auction 463, part of lot 648)

Notes:
Toned. Rare. As this coin's former owner, "Severus Alexander", notes: 
"The IOVI DEFENS SALVTIS type is unique to Commodus. Coming near the end of his reign at the height of his paranoia, it indicates Jupiter’s protection of the emperor; RIC notes the coin types of this year show his “growing nervousness and insecurity.” The seven stars likely have astrological significance, mostly likely representing the seven “wanderers” in the sky (planets in the classical meaning of the term): the sun, the moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn."
 
Historical Notes:
Where his father, the philosophically minded Marcus Aurelius, was a dutiful, intelligent and enlightened ruler, Commodus was a vain, easily influenced, and cruel tyrant.  Once Aurelius died in 180, the 18-year old Commodus quickly rejected the austere lifestyle and Stoic philosophy of his father, indulging his personal passions and vices while allowing ambitious advisors and freedmen to run the government on his behalf. 
 
Towards the end of his reign, Commodus became mentally unstable and megalomaniacal in the extreme. He believed himself the reincarnation of the demigod Hercules, dressing up in a lionskin and carrying about a club in public. He scandalized the nobility of Rome by performing in public arenas naked as a gladiator, while threatening to execute any who offended him. In a bizarre act of egomania, he renamed Rome and all the months of the year after himself. Finally, in 192, a group of those closest to him, including his chamberlain Eclectus, his concubine Marcia, and the praetorian prefect Laetus, joined a conspiracy to murder him. On December 31, they poisoned his food and had his wrestling trainer, Narcissus, strangle him in his bath. 
 
In the 2000 film Gladiator, Commodus was the memorably villainous emperor.