Caracalla - Roman Emperor: 198-217 A.D.
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Caracalla (Latin:
Marcus Aurelius Severus Antoninus
Augustus;4 April 188 – 8 April 217) was
Roman emperor from 198 to 217 The
eldest son of
Septimius Severus, for a short time he
ruled jointly with his younger brother
Geta until he had him murdered in 211.
Caracalla is remembered as one of the most notorious and unpleasant of
emperors because of the massacres and persecutions he authorized and
instigated throughout the Empire.
Caracalla's reign was also notable for the
Constitutio Antoniniana (also
called the Edict of Caracalla), granting
Roman citizenship to all freemen
throughout the
Roman Empire, which according to
historian
Cassius Dio, was done for the purposes
of raising tax revenue. He is also one of the emperors who commissioned
a large public bath-house (thermae)
in Rome. The remains of the
Baths of Caracalla are still one of the
major tourist attractions of the Italian capital.
Early life
Caracalla, of mixed
Punic–Roman
and
Syrian descent, was born Lucius
Septimius Bassianus in
Lugdunum,
Gaul (now
Lyon,
France), the son of the later Emperor
Septimius Severus and
Julia Domna. At the age of seven, his
name was changed to Marcus Aurelius Septimius Bassianus Antoninus to
create a connection to the family of the philosopher emperor
Marcus Aurelius. He was later given the
nickname Caracalla,
which referred to the Gallic hooded tunic he habitually wore and which
he made fashionable.
Reign (211)
Murder of
brother (211)
His father died in 211 at
Eboracum (now
York) while on campaign in northern
Britain. Caracalla was present and was then proclaimed emperor by the
troops along with his brother
Publius Septimius Antoninus Geta.
Caracalla suspended the
campaign in Caledonia and soon ended
all military activity, as both brothers wanted to be sole ruler thus
making relations between them increasingly hostile. When they tried to
rule the Empire jointly they actually considered dividing it in halves,
but were persuaded not to do so by their mother.
Then in December 211 at a reconciliation meeting arranged by their
mother Julia, Caracalla had Geta assassinated by members of the
Praetorian Guard loyal to himself, Geta dying in his mother's arms.
Caracalla then persecuted and executed most of Geta's supporters and
ordered a
damnatio memoriae pronounced by the
Senate against his brother's memory.
Geta's image was simply removed from all coinage, paintings and
statues, leaving a blank space next to Caracalla's. Among those executed
were his former cousin-wife
Fulvia Plautilla, his unnamed daughter
with Plautilla along with her brother and other members of the family of
his former father-in-law
Gaius Fulvius Plautianus. Plautianus
had already been executed for alleged treachery against emperor Severus
in 205.
About the time of his accession he ordered the
Roman currency devalued, the silver
purity of the
denarius was decreased from 56.5% to
51.5%, the actual silver weight dropping from 1.81 grams to 1.66 grams –
though the overall weight slightly increased. In 215 he introduced the
antoninianus, a "double denarius"
weighing 5.1 grams and containing 2.6 grams of silver – a purity of 52%.[10]
In the Roman
provinces
In 213, Caracalla went north to the German frontier to deal with the
Alamanni tribesmen who were raiding in
the
Agri Decumates. The Romans did defeat
the Alamanni in battle near the river
Main, but failed to win a decisive
victory over them. After a peace agreement was brokered and a large
bribe payment given to the invaders, the Senate conferred upon him the
empty title of Germanicus Maximus. He also acquired the surname
Alemannicus at this time.[11]
The following year the tyrant traveled to the East, to Syria and Egypt
never to return to Rome.
Gibbon in his work describes Caracalla
as "the common enemy of mankind". He left the capital in 213, about a
year after the murder of Geta, and spent the rest of his reign in the
provinces, particularly those of the East. He kept the Senate and other
wealthy families in check by forcing them to construct, at their own
expense, palaces, theaters, and places of entertainment throughout the
periphery. New and heavy taxes were levied against the bulk of the
population, with additional fees and confiscations targeted at the
wealthiest families.[12]
When the inhabitants of
Alexandria heard Caracalla's claims
that he had killed Geta in self-defense, they produced a satire mocking
this as well as Caracalla's other pretensions. In 215, Caracalla
savagely responded to this insult by slaughtering the deputation of
leading citizens who had unsuspectingly assembled before the city to
greet his arrival, and then unleashed his troops for several days of
looting and plunder in Alexandria. According to historian Cassius Dio,
over 20,000 people were killed.[citation
needed]
Domestic Roman
policy
Affiliation
with the army
During his reign as emperor, Caracalla raised the annual pay of an
average legionary to 675
denarii and lavished many benefits
on the army which he both feared and admired, as instructed by his
father Septimius Severus who had told him on his deathbed to always mind
the soldiers and ignore everyone else. Caracalla did manage to win the
trust of the military with generous pay rises and popular gestures, like
marching on foot among the ordinary soldiers, eating the same food, and
even grinding his own flour with them.[13]
With the soldiers, "He forgot even the proper dignity of his rank,
encouraging their insolent familiarity," according to Gibbon.[12]
"The vigour of the army, instead of being confirmed by the severe
discipline of the camps, melted away in the luxury of the cities."
His official portraiture marks a break with the detached images of
the philosopher–emperors who preceded him: his close-cropped haircut is
that of a soldier, his pugnacious scowl a realistic and threatening
presence. This rugged soldier–emperor iconic archetype was adopted by
most of the following emperors who depended on the support of the troops
to rule, like his eventual successor
Maximinus Thrax.[14]
Seeking to secure his own legacy, Caracalla also commissioned one of
Rome's last major architectural achievements, the
Baths of Caracalla, the 2nd largest
public baths ever built in ancient Rome. The main room of the baths was
larger than
St. Peter's Basilica, and could easily
accommodate over 2,000 Roman citizens at one time. The bath house opened
in 216, complete with libraries, private rooms and outdoor tracks.
Internally it was lavishly decorated with gold-trimmed marble floors,
columns, mosaics and colossal statuary.
Edict of
Caracalla (212)
The
Constitutio Antoniniana (Latin:
"Constitution [or Edict] of Antoninus") (also called Edict of
Caracalla) was an edict issued in 212 by Caracalla which declared
that all free men in the Roman Empire were to be given full Roman
citizenship and all free women in the Empire were given the same rights
as Roman women.
Before 212, for the most part only inhabitants of Italia held full
Roman citizenship. Colonies of Romans established in other provinces,
Romans (or their descendants) living in provinces, the inhabitants of
various cities throughout the Empire, and small numbers of local nobles
(such as kings of client countries) held full citizenship also.
Provincials, on the other hand, were usually non-citizens, although many
held the
Latin Right.
The Roman Historian
Cassius Dio contended that the sole
motivation for the edict was a desire to increase state revenue.[15]
At the time aliens did not have to pay most taxes that were required of
citizens, so although nominally Caracalla was elevating their legal
status, he was more importantly expanding the Roman tax base. The effect
of this was to remove the distinction that citizenship had held since
the foundation of Rome and as such the act had a profound effect upon
the fabric of Roman society.[16]
War with Parthia
According to the historian Herodian, in 216, Caracalla tricked the
Parthians into believing that he accepted a marriage and peace proposal,
but then had the bride and guests slaughtered after the wedding
celebrations. The thereafter ongoing conflict and skirmishes became
known as the
Parthian war of Caracalla.[17]
Assassination
(217)
The Roman Empire during the reign of Caracalla.
While travelling from
Edessa to continue the war with
Parthia, he was assassinated while
urinating at a roadside near
Carrhae on 8 April 217 (4 days after
his 29th birthday), by Julius Martialis, an officer of his personal
bodyguard.
Herodian says that Martialis' brother
had been executed a few days earlier by Caracalla on an unproven charge;
Cassius Dio, on the other hand, says that Martialis was resentful at not
being promoted to the rank of centurion. The escort of the emperor gave
him privacy to relieve himself, and Martialis then ran forward and
killed Caracalla with a single sword stroke. While attempting to flee,
the bold assassin was then quickly dispatched by a Scythian archer of
the Imperial Guard.[12]
Caracalla was succeeded by his
Praetorian Guard Prefect,
Macrinus, who (according to Herodian)
was most probably responsible for having the emperor assassinated.
His nickname
According to
Aurelius Victor in his Epitome de
Caesaribus, the
agnomen "Caracalla" refers to a Gallic
cloak that Caracalla adopted as a
personal fashion, which spread to his army and his court.[18]
Cassius Dio[19]
and the
Historia Augusta[20]
agree that his nickname was derived from his cloak, but do not mention
its country of origin.
Legendary
king of Britain
Geoffrey of Monmouth's legendary
History of the Kings of Britain
makes Caracalla a king of Britain, referring to him by his actual name
"Bassianus", rather than the nickname Caracalla. In the story, after
Severus's death the Romans wanted to make Geta king of Britain, but the
Britons preferred Bassianus because he had a British mother. The two
brothers fought a battle in which Geta was killed and Bassianus
succeeded to the throne. He ruled until he was betrayed by his
Pictish allies and overthrown by
Carausius, who, according to Geoffrey,
was a Briton, rather than the historically much later
Menapian Gaul that he actually was.[21]
Beirut
Beirut's history goes back more than 5000 years. Excavations in the
downtown area have unearthed layers of
Phoenician, Hellenistic, Roman, Arab and Ottoman remains. The first
historical reference to Beirut dates from the 14th century BC, when it
is mentioned in the
cuneiform tablets of the "Amarna
letters."
Ammunira of Biruta[10]
(Beirut) sent three letters to the
pharaoh of Egypt. Biruta is also
referenced in the letters from
Rib-Hadda of
Byblos. The most ancient settlement was
on an island in the river that progressively silted up. The city was
known in antiquity as Berytus (Βηρυτός) (see also
List of traditional Greek place names);
this name was taken in 1934 for the archaeological journal published by
the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at the
American University of Beirut.
Hellenistic/Roman
period
In 140 BC, the city was destroyed by
Diodotus Tryphon in his contest with
Antiochus VII Sidetes for the throne of
the
Seleucid monarchy. Beirut was soon
rebuilt on a more regularized
Hellenistic plan, renamed Laodicea
in Phoenicia (Greek:
Λαοδικεια ή του Φοινίκη) or
Laodicea in Canaan, in honor of a Seleucid
Laodice. The modern city overlies the
ancient one and little archaeology had been accomplished until after the
end of the civil war in 1991; now large sites in the devastated city
center have been opened to archaeological exploration. A dig in 1994
established that one of Beirut's modern streets, Souk Tawile, still
follows the lines of an ancient Hellenistic and Roman one.
Mid-first century coins of Berytus bear the head of
Tyche, goddess of fortune; on the
reverse, the city's symbol appears: a dolphin entwines an anchor. This
symbol was taken up by the early printer
Aldus Manutius in 15th century
Venice. Beirut was conquered by Agrippa
in 64 BC and the city was renamed in honor of the emperor's daughter,
Julia; its full name became Colonia
Julia Augusta Felix Berytus. The
veterans of two
Roman legions were established in the
city: the fifth Macedonian and the third Gallic. The city quickly became
Romanized. Large public buildings and monuments were erected and Berytus
enjoyed full status as a part of the empire.
Under the Romans, it was enriched by the dynasty of
Herod the Great, and was made a
colonia, Colonia Iulia Augusta
Felix Berytus, in 14 BC. Beirut's school of law was widely known at
the time. Two of Rome's most famous jurists,
Papinian and
Ulpian, both natives of Phoenicia,
taught at the law school under the
Severan emperors. When
Justinian assembled his
Pandects in the 6th century, a
large part of the corpus of laws were derived from these two jurists,
and Justinian recognized the school as one of the three official law
schools of the empire (533). Within a few years, as the result of a
disastrous earthquake (551), the students were transferred to
Sidon. About 30,000 were killed in
Berytus alone and, along the Phoenician coast, total casualties were
close to 250,000.
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