Season 13 · 6 Feb 2025On the anti-Sovietism of the Khmer Rouge-Greens- 53:34The emperor who played gladiator in the arena against geese, applauded under the constraint of the lictors.
Commode
Appears in 5 videos · 5 passages, 2 of them in depth.
What Dominique Pagani says
Dominique Pagani always evokes Commodus through the same image: the emperor who goes down into the arena to fight, or to strangle, geese12. The anecdote recurs from 2016 to 2025 with little variation. In 2016, he links it to Rimbaud, whose "bêtes de luxe" ("luxury beasts") are said to allude to this scene3. He also dwells on the applause that greets these feats. In 2016, he simply says that the emperor had himself applauded. In 2025, he specifies that this applause was obtained under the coercion of the lictors, the emperor "playing the gladiator"4. The name comes up in sessions on varied subjects: Hegel, crisis and war, revolutionary thought, the reconstitution of Nazism, anti-Sovietism5. The passages develop neither the figure nor his reign. It is a brief reference, repeated from one session to the next in an almost identical form.
- 1Hegel Plage 2/51 Feb 2016 · 46:57
- 2#5.2 L’Odyssée du philosophe : La pensée révolutionnaire21 Nov 2018 · 1:02:13
- 3#2.4 Entre crise et guerre : Philosopher ?10 Mar 2016 · 1:25:47
- 4De l'anti-soviétisme des khmers rouges-vert6 Feb 2025 · 53:34
- 5#6.6 • La Logique du Sujet face à la reconstitution du nazisme29 Mar 2020 · 36:23
Summary produced automatically from 5 of the passages below, to be reviewed; the numbers link to the moment in the session.
Who is this?Commodus (; Latin:; 31 August 161 – 31 December 192) was Roman emperor from 177 to 192, first serving as nominal co-emperor under his father Marcus Aurelius and then ruling alone from 180. Commodus's sole reign is commonly thought to mark the end of the Pax Romana, a golden age of peace and prosperity in the history of the Roman Empire. […]
Read the article on WikipediaText: Wikipédia, CC BY-SA 4.0, excerpt · Portrait: Public domain
Season 13 · 6 Feb 2025On the anti-Sovietism of the Khmer Rouge-Greens
Series · 1 Feb 2016Hegel on the Beach 2/5- 46:57Used to go down into the arena to strangle geese; Rimbaud alludes to this with the luxury animals.
Season 6 · 29 Mar 2020#6.6 • The Logic of the Subject in the face of the reconstitution of Nazism- 36:23Went down into the arena to fight geese.
Season 5.1 · 21 Nov 2018#5.2 The philosopher's Odyssey: Revolutionary thought- 1:02:13Emperor who went down into the arena to fight geese.
Season 2 · 10 Mar 2016#2.4 Between crisis and war: Philosophising?- 1:25:47He had himself applauded for strangling geese in the arena; he echoes Rimbaud's "beasts of luxury."