# Commodus renames the twelve months after his names and titles as Dio prints it

Date: 192

## The fact

Dio records the renaming of all months after [Commodus](/people/commodus)’s titulature. The Historia Augusta independently (as a late unreliable compilation) also reports month-renaming.

It is one event.

## Context

Erasing common month-names for personal titulature is a polarization path: public time is captured by the emperor’s ego. Shared flatterers remain. Reversal after death is aftermath, not his act.

Commodus’s documented role is bounded by other offices and collaborators named in the sources below. Sharing a field with them is not a reason to drop a documented act, and it is not a reason to assign later consequences done in the name after death.

Dio lists the twelve renamed months (Amazonius, Invictus, Felix, Pius, Lucius, Aelius, Aurelius, Commodus, Augustus, Herculeus, Romanus, Exsuperatorius in the Loeb epitome’s order). Historia Augusta offers a sensational variant and must be labelled unreliable. Colonia Commodiana is a neighbouring rename of the city, already stored.

Named person as heading of the dated public instrument. Later editors, museums, printers, or offices share publication. Complex where later carriers are the surviving public file.

## Evidence and sources

Cassius Dio Book 73 (Loeb English) — Commodus and Historia Augusta, Commodus — LacusCurtius (unreliable late compilation) independently describe this instrument.

Official or archival record: Cassius Dio Book 73 (Loeb English) — Commodus (https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Cassius_Dio/73*.html; LacusCurtius / University of Chicago).

## Significance

Month-renaming is a polarization path of high confidence in Dio’s list, medium on everyday compliance across the empire.

## What is established and what is not

Established as a sourced public record of this instrument at the date assigned here.

What would change the picture: a contradictory original with a different date or name, or a measured series that can be argued, with lag and alternatives, as a consequence of this instrument rather than of later institutions.

The date is the date of this instrument, not a licence to back-date every later harm or benefit.

Established here: a sourced, dated public instrument with a named contribution by Commodus.

They are not a public rating.

The driver `political-polarization` is attached because the mechanism named in Significance follows from this instrument, not because a standing list of welfare headings needed another tick. Commodus did not file a later UNESCO form, a later Loeb colophon, or a later museum label as a personal act. A portrait or conventional bust is not this mechanism. Allegation, reconstruction, and established occurrence stay distinct. Label HA unreliable. Split from Colonia Commodiana. Keep the carrier date of later English distinct from the received historical year stored in the date field. Do not read a later English edition as a recovered autograph of Commodus.

## People

- Commodus: https://factrail.ai/people/commodus

## Drivers

- Political Polarization: https://factrail.ai/drivers/political-polarization

## Sources

- https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Historia_Augusta/Commodus*.html
- https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Cassius_Dio/73*.html

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/facts/com-month-renaming-192