Why did Marcus Aurelius insist on making his son , Commodus, his successor? In every practical sense...

1. Why wouldn't he? It's the throne not a presidency. And 2. It's his blood. That's important.

>tfw no Marcus Aurelius emperor for dad who loves you despite your persistent fuckups

So that Maximus could kill his son and remove all threat to his dream of a new republic

I dunno man but it made for a pretty great film

because stoicism is a meme

He didn't insist, there just was not any doubt over this. The reason the other Emperors adopted their successors is that they didn't have sons.

Trajan and Hadrian were gay, for example.

If Aurelius did anything else, a Civil War would happen, since whoever would oppose his successor would likely rally around Commodus.

He probably tried to push his stoicism on the guy.

If your dad spends your entire life telling you to fuck the gods and focus on repressing your baser emotions, you're going to go crazy. Stoicism, or any ideology, is one you have to find for yourself.

He loved his son. Shocking, I know.

He want Maximus to be his heir, Commudus known the plan, therefore killed his daddy.

Kind of, considering his philosophy

...

If you study dynasties, you will see that very rarely you have two consecutive great rulers .

Think about Longshanks, Isabella of Castille, etc.

And there are many other examples: Catherine the Great, Henry V.

Pretty much everyone that could be considered great had weak sons.
The few exceptions were Genghis, the Prussians on their rise, Charles Martel/Peppin/Charlemagne.

What happens to kids that have parents that restrict every little thing about their lives and force them to live in gated communities and tell them to come home at 6PM every day and don't forget about the sunday school?

They grow up into complete monsters and run wild when they're finally free of the yoke.

Aurelius and Commodus.

Do you have statistics on this or is this just Hippie theory? Frankly, my impression is that on the average, kids of permissive parents end up worse.

Loose parents end up with slut daughters and druggie sons.

Judging by Aurelius writings, he was not very pushy on his son, but liberal. He believed in teaching by example.

Commodus was probably a legit Schizophrenic, on top of being a pampered lil' shit.

The Carolingians weren't really an exception.

The failing lines don't tend to happen until after the really great figure reigns.

Martel wasn't really king, and there was still a lot to do after Pepin died.

Of course, Charlemagne's rule could have been an utter shitshow, had he not been able to secure power for himself.

Seriously, why were the Franks so retarded in terms of succession?

Aurelius didn't try to push stoicism on his son. Or anything else. He was a soft on others.

Had Commodus been raised by some hardass teacher, like Aurelius himsef was raised by Hadrians orders, he would probably end up better.

Because he had two other choices. Kill his son or civil war

This, can you really blame the guy for not killing his son? Romans had a justified fear of civil war.

Guys, Commodus was a madman.
Yeah, we know that as an emperor was rather bad but... He won the favor of almost all the population and even sometimes go down the Arena and fought.
Sources depict him like he used tricks or cheats to win easily on the colisseum but I want to belive those are haters and he actually fought one to one and he was the best duelist-emperor ever.

...

>Sources depict him like he used tricks or cheats to win easily on the colisseum but I want to belive those are haters and he actually fought one to one and he was the best duelist-emperor ever.
I can't fucking tell if people are giving troll Gladiator answers or not.

It was what all his forefathers before him have done

Lol ya that's what happened to me

keeeeeeeek

Because all his other heirs died, and he was left with the weakest and most retarded one.

Since 99 percent of the answers in this thread are shitposting, I'll give you a real answer.
He wanted to prevent a civil war (at least to my knowledge), if he didn't appoint a legitimate successor, civil war would erupt in Rome between rich families clamoring for the throne, and obviously the last thing you want is for the delicate stability of such an important state like Rome to be disturbed, and thus he appointed Commodus.
Perhaps it wasn't the best decision he could have made, but in his eyes, it was obviously the most practical one, it helped that he loved his son I suppose.

Adopting someone with an heir apparant around beckons a civil war, unless Marcus was willing (he wouldn't have been) to have Commodus murdered.

So who the fuck is Maximus then? And where does he fit into the story?

>> Fuck the emperor is again doing his cosplay shit

Maybe he didn't think that choosing your adopted son was a tradition to be upheld, considering the presence of batshit crazy emperors like Nero or Caligula. Just a thought.

The Ottomans has like eight great sultans in a row during their rise.

yea thats how a barbaric migratory civilization became the strongest empire in the world.
One great man is enough to bring a nation to greatness, two to make it stand out among the strongest, 3+ and you build a fucking empire.

>Trajan and Hadrian were gay, for example.
We know Hadrian was gay, but Trajan had a wife, who was the person who basically got Hadrian his job.

Yeah but Karma bit them in the ass later by literally giving them literal whores as rulers

this was one of the best scenes in the movie though
youtube.com/watch?v=C5j1wduFWl0

Hadrian had a wife too, but he hated her, and loved that fuckboy Antinous.

I have no idea where he got Trajan being gay from, maybe because he had no kids.