# Commodus holds the ordinary consulship in 177 as the youngest consul in the received Roman file

Date: 177

## The fact

Livius records the 177 consulship. Dio’s [Commodus](/people/commodus) book independently treats early offices inside the joint-rule narrative.

It is one event.

## Context

A teenage consulship keeps republican form while accelerating hereditary rule. Continuity and strain both sit here as a [democratic-resilience](/drivers/democratic-resilience) heading. Marcus remains the senior author of the promotion.

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.

Livius lists 177 as consul (youngest in Roman history as that page frames it). This is a republican-form office under Marcus, not the 180 sole rule. Split from the co-Augustus row: one is the imperial title, one is the consulship year.

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

Livius — Commodus and Cassius Dio Book 73 (Loeb English) — Commodus independently describe this instrument.

Official or archival record: Livius — Commodus (https://www.livius.org/articles/person/commodus/; Livius.org).

## Significance

The 177 consulship is a continuity path of high confidence on the year in Livius’s chronology.

## 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 `democratic-resilience` 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. Do not treat ‘youngest consul’ as a modern child-rights claim. Split from co-Augustus. 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

- Democratic Resilience: https://factrail.ai/drivers/democratic-resilience

## Sources

- https://www.livius.org/articles/person/commodus/
- https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Cassius_Dio/73*.html

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/facts/com-youngest-consul-177