Hello, and welcome to the history of Rome, episode 98, Purchasing Power.

After numerous failed attempts, foil plots, and exposed conspiracies, someone finally managed

to kill Commodus.

That someone was a young athlete named Narcissus, who had been promised a huge reward by the Emperor's

inner circle, if he successfully strangled Commodus to death.

With the deed done and finally done right, phase two of the plan was then initiated.

One of the key conspirators, Praetorian prefect Quintus Letus, went and retrieved Publius

Helvius Perknex, who had been pacing around his house all night, waiting for either the

good news that the Emperor was dead, or the bad news that the plot had failed, and it was

time to get caught up in the never-ending cycle of purges.

When the knock on the door finally came, it was Letus announcing that the Emperor was

in fact dead, and phase two was at hand.

Phase two was hustling Perknex to the Praetorian camp, or Letus had arranged for the old senator

to be immediately proclaimed Emperor.

The troops were told that Commodus had died of an embolism, that Perknex was already

the consensus choice to succeed him, and that it was up to the rank and file Praetorians

to make it official.

They were uneasy about all of this, and were probably one of the few groups in the Empire

ready to shed tears for Commodus, but Letus promised them the world if they backed Perknex,

and so they did.

The point of all of this was to present the Senate with a fate of compilée, so that when

the Senators awakened on New Year's Day and found the old Emperor dead, a new one would

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