The beginning of the end of Rome
In 177 CE, through a philosopher's love, idiocy reached the throne. Marcus Aurelius' biggest blunder was to choose Commodus as his successor. An emperor of unbelievable cruelty, who lived in the gladiator school for a time. He fought others and even animals. In one event he killed 100 tigers with 100 arrows. And in another, he fought a hippopotamus, an elephant, and a tiger, unaided and before breakfast. He drank, gambled, and kept a harem of 300 women and 300 boys. He also cross-dressed. Politically, he was caught in a perfect storm of provincial uprising and frontier troubles, and neglecting his responsibilities, assigned prefects to rule for him. These eventually turned on him and assassinated him in 192 AD.
Source: Durant, Will, The Story of Civilization, Vol. 3: Caesar and Christ Simon and Schuster, 1944.
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Full disclosure, I may occasionally borrow a sentence from Will Durant's Story of Civilization. I absolutely love that collection!