Caracalla (211 - 217 AD)

Family and Background

Born on April 4, 188, the son of Septimius Severus, called Marcus Aurelius Antoninus because of his father's adoption of the family into the family of Marcus Aurelius, the name Caracalla comes from a Gallic cloak that he liked to wear.

Principal Events (Foriegn)

Campaign against the tribes along the Rhine (213)
Campaigns along the Danube (213-14)
Campaign against the Parthians (winter 216-217)

Principal Events (Domestic)

Murder of Geta, his brother and co-emperor (January 213)
The Constitutio Antoniana: grant of Roman Citizenship to most of the inhabitants of the empire (213)
Departure from Rome (shortly after the murder of Geta)
Journey from the Rhine to Alexandria, notable for his personal imitation of Alexander the Great (213-15)
Massacre of the citizens of Alexandria (March/April 216)
Murdered between Carrhae and Edessa (April 8, 217)

Outlines of Policy

The single most important event of the reign is the edict granting

citizenship to most of the inhabitants of the empire. Cassius Dio says that this was done to increase tax revenues from the inheritance tax (to which only Roman citizens were liable). This may be true (taxation is specifically mentioned in what survives of the edict), but the impact of this decision was enormous, the most immediately visible impact being the change in the names of all non-citizens to include the emperor's nomina. In legal terms, it may have spurred the intensive effort to clarify Roman law undertaken by the great jurist Ulpian.

Caracalla has traditionally been presented as a "soldier emperor" because of the amount of time that he spent with his troops. Closer inspection of his actions suggests quite a different picture, more of an antiquarian than a military man, but in either case he was plainly a master of court politics. His two great successes in this regard were arranging the execution of Plautianus in 205 and the murder of his brother, who appears to have had powerful support. He also seems to have been popular with the army.

Despite his ability to manipulate the institutions of the court, Caracalla does not seem to have been popular either with his senior officials (he murdered the praetorien prefect Papinian, a noted jurist) or with the administrative classes of the empire (Cassius Dio detested him), and this proved his undoing. The conspiracy that resulted in his assasination seems to have been quite extensive, involving many of his most senior officials. His personal brutality is likely to be responsible for this.