Cleander, now at the zenith of his power, continues to sell public offices as his private business.

The climax comes in the year 190, which has twenty-five suffect consuls—a record in the thousand-year history of the Roman consulship—all appointed by Cleander (they include the future Emperor Septimius Severus).

In the spring of 190, Rome is afflicted by a food shortage, for which the praefectus annonae Papirius Dionysius, the official actually in charge of the grain supply, contrives to lay the blame on Cleander.

At the end of June, a mob demonstrates against Cleander during a horse race in the Circus Maximus: he sends the praetorian guard to put down the disturbances, but Pertinax, who is now City Prefect of Rome, dispatches the Vigiles Urbani to oppose them.

Cleander flees to Commodus, who is at Laurentum in the house of the Quinctilii, for protection, but the mob follows him, calling for his head.

At the urging of his mistress Marcia, Commodus has Cleander beheaded and his son killed.

Other victims at this time are the praetorian prefect Julius Julianus, Commodus's cousin Annia Fundania Faustina, and his brother-in-law Mamertinus.

Papirius Dionysius is executed too.

The emperor now changes his name to Lucius Aelius Aurelius Commodus and, at twenty-nine, takes over more of the reins of power, though he continues to rule through a cabal consisting of Marcia, his new chamberlain Eclectus, and the new praetorian prefect Quintus Aemilius Laetus, who about this time also has many Christians freed from working in the mines in Sardinia.

Marcia, the widow of Quadratus, who had been executed in 182, is alleged to have been a Christian.

In opposition to the Senate, in his pronouncements and iconography, Commodus has always laid stress on his unique status as a source of godlike power, liberality and physical prowess.

Innumerable statues around the empire are set up portraying him in the guise of Hercules, reinforcing the image of him as a demigod, a physical giant, a protector and a battler against beasts and men.

Moreover, as Hercules, he can claim to be the son of Jupiter, the representative of the supreme god of the Roman pantheon.

These tendencies now increase to megalomaniac proportions.

Far from celebrating his descent from Marcus Aurelius, the actual source of his power, he stresses his own personal uniqueness as the bringer of a new order, seeking to recast the empire in his own image.