#commodus fanart

[astrocatarcadia]

Emperor Commodus and his lover Marcia, who would later take part in a plot against him when she found out he had written her name (alongside others) in an ex3cution list.

Closeup and details explained under the cut!!🌞🏺

Closeup

The snakes (both on her earring and the background, for which I used a picture of a painted wall in Boscoreale) represent various things:

1. the imminent betrayal

2. A passage from Historia Augusta, where it's said that when Commodus' mother, Faustina, was pregnant with him and his twin brother, she dreamed that she birthed two snakes, though one was fiercer than the other.

3. Commodus' obsession with Hercules and, ancient hero that killed a snake as a baby.

I included Commodus' drinking wine because Herodian says in his History of Rome that Marcia poisoned Commodus' wine.

Finally, in the purple ring that Commodus wears I sneaked the engraving of this amethyst that's usually identified as Marcia

The sketch

[hyacyntart]

"stop it with the bitchsexual jokes" no because im right and apollo's taste in emperors is a disaster

[transmascghoul]

math class makes me get some questionable drawing ideas

[mantodea1701]

It Commodus. I LOVE DOING STUFF IN INK!