# Loeb Cassius Dio publishes the received succession of Commodus after Marcus

Date: 1927

## The fact

Loeb and public English Dio transmit that Marcus left the empire to [Commodus](/people/commodus), his son, ending the adoptive sequence from Nerva to Antoninus. This Fact stores that succession as received in a dated modern edition, not a 180-03-17 ISO autograph will.

## Context

Antonine adoptive practice had been a resilience story in later political thought. Choosing Commodus is the break. Dio is senatorial; HA is worse. Confidence is high on the fact of the son succeeding, medium on every vice list.

[Marcus Aurelius](/people/marcus-aurelius) is not the sole author of every later object, law, or museum label that uses the name. Shared work with courts, excavators, printers, spouses, officials, and later states does not erase a documented role, and it does not make an ancient person the signer of a twentieth-century statute.

## Evidence and sources

LacusCurtius Dio and Britannica independently narrate Commodus’s succession. They are different pages.

Official or archival record: Cassius Dio, Roman History — public English (https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Cassius_Dio/home.html; University of Chicago / LacusCurtius).

## Significance

Resilience-harm path. High confidence on the hereditary turn.

A son on the throne is not a Stoic paradox to be wished away. Do not baptise it with the notebook.

## What is established and what is not

Established: Commodus succeeded Marcus in the received political narrative. Not established: that every HA anecdote is true, or a unique GDP coefficient for 180 CE.

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.
Later competitions, monuments, translations, UNESCO listings, and museums are not converted into extra lifetime acts. The attached driver is [democratic-resilience](/drivers/democratic-resilience). The welfare reading used in this dossier is worsening. That reading is an impact-path choice, not a property stored on the Fact itself. Confidence is stated on the impact path. A later English edition is not a recovered autograph. If a number is not in the two records named above, it is not supplied here.

## People

- Marcus Aurelius: https://factrail.ai/people/marcus-aurelius

## Drivers

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

## Sources

- https://www.britannica.com/biography/Marcus-Aurelius-emperor-of-Rome
- https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Cassius_Dio/home.html

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/facts/ma-commodus-succession-dio