Obama and Commodus

On the frontier, the Emperor decided to let others fight the war. He left the war “in the hands of leaders he deemed capable and trustworthy.” And they chose to avoid a fight. It was easier to buy the barbarians off, even though they sold “peace at a huge price.” But this approach was preferable to Commodus too: he “bargained for release from care and gave the barbarians everything they demanded.”

Of course, the abdication of leadership on the frontier has its security consequences. The Roman army, and presumably the allied forces with it, were not eager to remain on the frontier. “All the soldiers wanted to leave with him [Commodus], so that they might stop wasting their time in the war and enjoy the pleasures at Rome.” Wars cannot be led from well-appointed tables in Rome.

We do not know much about how that war ended. But Commodus’s disengagement from the frontier, contrary to the strategy pursued by his predecessor and father, left a vast region of instability that a few years later ended up demanding even larger numbers of Roman soldiers and manpower. Commodus merely postponed a problem, aggravating it in the process.