Birthday Greetings #80

Well enough of the plague updates for the moment.  I thought I'd lighten the mood a little by celebrating the birth of a homicidal maniac.  With that as an introduction, happy birthday to Caracalla, Roman emperor.

Caracalla's full name was Marcus Aurelius Severus Antoninus Augustus, Caracalla was a sort of nickname.  He was the son of the emperor Septimus Severus who had seized the throne some years earlier.  They pretended descent from the Antonine dynasty but in actual fact were just the latest in a list of ruthless military thugs who figured purple would hide the bloodstains of those they killed on the way up.

In 211AD Septimus Severus died of what looked suspiciously like natural causes.  On his deathbed he summoned his two sons, Caracalla and Geta, to him and with his dying breath gave them some advice.

"Stick together, honour the army, to hell with everyone else."

You note that Septimus had two sons, don't bother remembering the second one's name;  Caracalla only took two thirds of his father's advice.  Caracalla and Whatisname ruled jointly for a couple of years which basically meant each of them wore the imperial purple and glared at the other with paranoid suspicion.  They actually considered dividing the empire between them but their mother talked them out of it.  She arranged a meeting between the two so that they could reconcile.  This didn't go as well as she'd hoped.  Praetorian Guardsmen on Caracalla's orders murdered his brother during the course of the conversation.

With his rival out of the way Caracalla settled down to sole rule with the traditional "massacre of the opponents supporters".  Some twenty thousand corpses later he decided he had done enough to instill loyalty in the administration and set off on campaign.  Caracalla loved campaigning.  He saw himself as a "soldier's soldier" marching alongside the troops, eating standard legionary rations, sleeping on the rough ground alongside his men etc etc.  As a general rule the troops liked him.  He led from the front and paid them a bucket load of  cash. 

Caracalla headed north and beat up some barbarian tribes who were menacing the empire (or just hanging around next to it) after which he developed a serious obsession with Alexander the Great.  To be fair Alexander the Great was every military psychopath's pin up boy but Caracalla seems to have been more than a little bit nuts about it.  He persecuted Aristotelian philosophers because of the (false) rumour that Aristotle had had something to do with Alexander's death. 

It has to be said that the administration of the empire bored him.  As far as possible he left the job to his mother (who had done something similar for Septimus Severus).  For serious administrative initiatives Caracalla built some baths (admittedly really big ones) and granted citizenship to everyone (male) in the empire (except slaves).  This was a major initiative and cynics have long thought it was done largely to broaden the tax base as there were certain taxes that only Roman citizens paid.  However most of those enfranchised weren't exactly rich, in fact most of them were exactly poor.  Another theory is that it was an acknowledgement of the growing importance of the imperial periphery.  The best troops and toughest commanders were increasingly being sourced from border provinces a long way from Rome.

With huge baths under construction and mass citizenship proclaimed Caracalla invaded Parthia, as you do.  Invading Parthia was something that the Romans tended to do whenever they had a spare moment.  The Parthians returned the favour pretty frequently as well.  Caracalla's Alexander the Great obsession may have been a factor as well. 

Along the way he dropped in on the city of Alexandria.  After his brother's murder Caracalla had naturally claimed self defence saying that his brother had been plotting against him.  This is part of the standard script and nobody is really expected to believe it.  However the Alexandrians had done a little more than disbelieve it.  They had made jokes and performed satires on the subject.  Caracalla killed the dignitaries who came out to meet him and allowed his army to plunder the city just to prove to the inhabitants that one thing their emperor lacked was a sense of humour. 

Caracalla's war with the Parthians didn't go well.  It caused massive casualties on both sides without much advantage gained by either of them.  Caracalla probably lost interest with the outcome part way through for a very good reason.  He was popular with the army but "popular with the army" is a general term.  It's quite possible to be popular with the army and very unpopular with an individual soldier.  This becomes quite significant if said soldier happens to be standing nearby when you pop into the bushes for a piss.  Caracalla popped into said bushes and didn't come out again.  His praetorian prefect had the offending soldier executed which most people agreed wasn't so much punishing the guilty as tying up a loose end.