Reading this now. I could be a contrarian and say it's overrated,

He was the emperor of Rome, he probably couldn't be near his son given all the governing and warring that comes with the job

>>2158244
A great deal of people are nothing like their parents and in fact purposely try to be as unlike them as possible.

Also something to consider is Marcus Aurelius spent a great deal of time either governing or up in Germania fighting the Marcomanni. He never really had the time to raise a child.

Commodus was a spoiled brat who had no interest in the job of being emperor but loved the power it brought.

I can hardly blame Marcus for not being a better father and I think he can only be partially blamed for not adopting a son, as had been tradition.

>>2158244
The guy spent like 20 years on the shitty swampy frontier of Slovakia. I don't think he had much time to rear his son well.

>>2158278
This, Marcus Aurelius spent a lot of time in war against Germanic tribes after Lucius managed to die and suppressing a rebellion in syria; he would be largely absent from commodus life since he was eight.

>>2158244
imagine growing up in that environment
of course he resented it

Sometimes it's not the parent's fault if the kid ends up being a terrible person. Some people are born bad.

>>2158244
I had this conversation with someone in another thread, in that case it was to do with wealth.

Just because parents are rich/smart etc. absolutely doesn't guarantee that their offspring will be. I use the example of being at Uni with spoiled rich kids who don't make any effort and are just there for "the experience" - their families are wealthy, no doubt, but the kids are dumb as bricks, and the family's wealth probably won't last long with them around.

Anyway, do you ever hear about the children of famous intellectuals or other successful people? Not really. Otherwise we'd have family lines of geniuses.

tl;dr genetics, and even to a degree environment, doesn't absolutely guarantee that someone will turn out like their parents.

Plato tackled this sort of problem in his Meno and Laches. Although he didn't really expound properly on it, I believe he did hit the essential mark of why it occurred--that being a good person is it-self unique from other stuff, but at the same time occurs from the conglomeration of good things. Pericles and Themistocles were great men, but he discusses how their sons were average or fuck-ups. Commondus had the potential to be great as his father, but perhaps Aurelius's non-monarch upbringing and rise to power is what made him unique to being not-an-asshole (I don't know, I haven't read him yet or looked too much into him), while Commondus was spoiled. Seems to be a reoccurring thing with great Emperors (except for Caesar and Phillip 2). Sargon's dad was a nobody but he created a great empire but left no notable successor that we know of. Achaemenid legend has Cyrus's father being a highwayman, but founds the Persian Empire just to have the dynasty end with his son. Darius revives and further expands it, while Xerxes doesn't really build much on it. Socrates was great enough for Socratic dialogues being a major genre in Athenian prose after his death that figures like Plato, Xenophon, Antisthenes, Aeschines, and Aristotle did; but his 3 sons apparently grew up to be fools (coming straight from Aristotle btw).