Marcus Aurelius’s Wife Cheated on Him With A Gladiator
Aurelius tried to heal his wife’s lust in the most unusual way
Marcus Aurelius is famous today as a Stoic philosopher. History remembers him also as one of the Five Good Roman Emperors. To a broader audience, he became known through the Hollywood movie — Gladiator.
In the movie, Aurelius had a son Commodus who eventually fights in Colosseum as a gladiator. Also, in reality, Commodus performed as a gladiator.
The Romans gossiped Commodus was not Aurelius’s biological son. They believed his true father was the gladiator who had been the lover of his mother, Faustina the Younger. How else they could explain Commodus’s obsession with the gladiator fights?
The affair with a gladiator
Faustina the Younger (130–175) was a daughter of Emperor Antoninus Pius (ruled 138–161). She was also a cousin and wife of Pius’s successor, Emperor Marcus Aurelius (ruled 161–180).
The Roman gossipers claimed Faustina cheated on her husband all the time. Supposedly, she had affairs with senators, soldiers, sailors, and gladiators.
In Roman times, the gladiators were sex symbols. The Romans believed the sweat and blood of the gladiators were an aphrodisiac. The rich…
