It sounds interesting, though exhausting. And of course in terms of learning about Roman history, one can get more reliable sources nowadays, I'm sure... for instance, I may be misremembering this, but I thought Commodus was actually not considered so very bad by modern historians.

Speaking of cultural historians, you may be interested to hear that I started reading Johan Huizinga's Herfsttij der Middeleeuwen (The Autumn of the Middle Ages), if I manage to finish it I'll post a review. But as I've got a lot of other books to read at the moment, it may take a while, if it ever happens.