Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Caracalla (/krkl/; 4 April 188 8 April 217) was Roman emperor from 198 to 217. He even profaned the House of the Vestal Virgins in the Forum by taking one of the sacred virgins as his wife. [22], Caracalla then persecuted and executed most of Geta's supporters and ordered a damnatio memoriae pronounced by the Senate against his brother's memory. [27] He went north to the German frontier to deal with the Alamanni, a confederation of Germanic tribes who had broken through the limes in Raetia. According to one account, he captured the attention of the Roman soldiers stationed there. His contemporaries Cassius Dio (c. 155 c. 235) and Herodian (c. 170 c. 240) present him as a soldier first and an emperor second. In the view of Cassius Dio, his accession marked the descent "from a kingdom of gold to one of iron and rust".[22]. Press ESC to cancel. Caligula: 37 - 41 AD.A bust of Caligula. They were sometimes referred to as the "shadow emperors." Honorius did not even live in Rome but had a palace at Ravenna. Ser. They famously auctioned the emperorship to the highest bidder. [34] As mentioned above, he ordered many statues to be made showing him dressed as Hercules with a lion's hide and a club. Escorted by a large imperial guard, exceeding that provided even for visiting dignitaries, Zoticus arrived at the palace for his assignation with the emperor. See, Dio, Cassius, 73.1.2, Loeb edition, translated E. Cary, Dio, Cassius, 73.5.3, Loeb edition, translated E. Cary. [13] His colleague was his father, serving his own third consulship. [32] On his father's death in 180, Commodus changed this to Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Commodus, before changing back to his birth name in 191.[1]. [75] Between 209 and their father's death in February211, both brothers are shown as mature young men who were ready to take over the empire. [23] His name became Imperator Caesar Marcus Aurelius Severus Antoninus Pius Augustus. Macrinuss popularity took another hit when he signed an ignominious peace treaty with Parthia, leading to more discontent among his eastern troops. Then, the Roman general Marcus Fulvius Nobilior celebrated his victories in Greece by setting up a staged hunt. What was Lucius Septimius bassianus nickname? [26] In the aftermath of the damnatio memoriae, an estimated 20,000 people were massacred. During the preparations for the campaign against Cassius, Commodus assumed his toga virilis on the Danubian front on 7 July 175, thus formally entering adulthood. This list may not reflect recent changes. Giessen Papyrus, 40,7-9 "I grant to all the inhabitants of the Empire the Roman citizenship and no one remains outside a civitas, with the exception of the dediticii", The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, "The Spread of Roman Citizenship, 14212 CE: Quantification in the face of high uncertainty", "Metropolitan Museum of Art: Portrait head of the Emperor Caracalla". Other victims at this time were the praetorian prefect Julius Julianus, Commodus' cousin Annia Fundania Faustina, and his brother-in-law Mamertinus. War broke out in Dacia: few details are available, but it appears two future contenders for the throne, Clodius Albinus and Pescennius Niger, both distinguished themselves in the campaign. [74] On the coins, Caracalla was shown laureate after becoming augustus in 197; Geta is bareheaded until he became augustus himself in 209. Spanning over a thousand years, ancient Rome was a civilization of constant evolution. [17] On 1 January 177, Commodus became consul for the first time, which made him, aged 15, the youngest consul up to that time (the minimum age for the consulship was around 30). Commodus' assassination in 192, by a wrestler in the bath who held him underwater, marked the end of the NervaAntonine dynasty. [10] He had a slightly younger brother, Geta, with whom Caracalla briefly ruled as co-emperor. Caracalla's name at birth was Lucius Septimius Bassianus. This was done through the granting of citizenship. On March 15, 44 B.C.E., Julius Caesar was stabbed to death in Rome, Italy. The other eastern legions were quick to follow in recognizing him. Coloniae were cities of Roman citizens founded in conquered provinces. Thirteen years later in 235 CE, after unsuccessful assaults . One day it might be a fine piece of steak, another day a dead dog, or hundreds of gold coins, so that he could amuse himself watching the people scramble for them. Future US, Inc. Full 7th Floor, 130 West 42nd Street, [28][29] While there, Caracalla strengthened the frontier fortifications of Raetia and Germania Superior, collectively known as the Agri Decumates, so that it was able to withstand any further barbarian invasions for another twenty years. [58][59][60] The reduced silver purity of the coins caused people to hoard the old coins that had higher silver content, aggravating the inflation problem caused by the earlier devaluation of the denarii. After realizing the possible consequences of his actions, he planned for the young Caesar's execution. [7] After stopping briefly to urinate, Caracalla was approached by a soldier, Justin Martialis, and stabbed to death. Commodus' death marked the end of the NervaAntonine dynasty. The climax came in the year 190, which had 25 suffect consuls - a record in the 1,000-year history of the Roman consulshipall appointed by Cleander (they included the future Emperor Septimius Severus). [14][2] This was the day Septimius Severus's triumph was celebrated, in honour of his victory over the Parthian Empire in the RomanPersian Wars; he had successfully sacked the Parthian capital, Ctesiphon, after winning the Battle of Ctesiphon, probably in October 197. Share. For starters, it's relatively simple to find a correlation between two things using statistics, he said. 6. [35] They were the second largest public baths built in ancient Rome and were complete with swimming pools, exercise yards, a stadium, steam rooms, libraries, meeting rooms, fountains, and other amenities, all of which were enclosed within formal gardens. Modern works continue to portray Caracalla as an evil ruler, painting him as one of the most tyrannical of all Roman emperors. [99], This article is about the Roman emperor. One of the ways he paid for his donatives (imperial handouts) and mass entertainments was to tax the senatorial order. Commodus received extensive tutoring by a multitude of teachers with a focus on intellectual education. [93] The art and linguistics historian John Agnew and the writer Walter Bidwell describe Caracalla as having an evil spirit, referring to the devastation he wrought in Alexandria. His outrageous tactics, such as slaying people with disabilities and slaughtering wild beasts in the arena . Take, for instance, Emperor Vitellius. His reign is commonly thought as marking the end of a golden age of peace and prosperity in the history of the Roman Empire (the Pax Romana). [38], Caracalla also erected a temple on the Quirinal Hill in 212, which he dedicated to Serapis. Vespasian was the last of the four emperors who governed the Roman Empire in the year 69 CE. Laura is the archaeology/history and Life's Little Mysteries editor at Live Science. To put her family back on the throne, she conspired to have Macrinus overthrown. acc. On one occasion, Elagabalus dressed as a woman and rallied Rome's prostitutes in the Forum. From there, "it was really just a question of piecing together these different pieces of information," Christian said. Commodus was inaugurated in 183 as consul with Aufidius Victorinus as colleague and assumed the title Pius. Elagabaluss body was tossed into the Tiber where it was carried by the waters from the Cloaca Maxima sewer, passing into history as the stereotype of the decadent Roman emperor. An emblem of Roman decadence, an aura of fascination clings to this teenage emperor who, because of his association with the cult of Elah-Gabal, came to be known as Elagabalus. His troops revolted, and eventually he was assassinated in Rome.". "Vitellius was an acclaimed emperor by his troops," Christian said. Also, in Britain in 184, the governor Ulpius Marcellus re-advanced the Roman frontier northward to the Antonine Wall, but the legionaries revolted against his harsh discipline and acclaimed another legate, Priscus, as emperor. [39], The Constitutio Antoniniana (lit. He served jointly with his father Marcus Aurelius from 177 until the latter's death in 180, and thereafter he reigned alone until his assassination. Pescennius Niger dealt with the deserters in Gaul in a military campaign. All rights reserved. Husband of Salonia Matidia: Levick (2014), p. 161. [78], Caracalla is presented in the ancient sources of Dio, Herodian, and the Historia Augusta as a cruel tyrant and savage ruler. "Constitution of Antoninus", also called "Edict of Caracalla" or "Antonine Constitution") was an edict issued in 212 by Caracalla declaring that all free men in the Roman Empire were to be given full Roman citizenship,[40] with the exception of the dediticii, people who had become subject to Rome through surrender in war, and freed slaves. [50] The edict widened the obligation for public service and gave increased revenue through the inheritance and emancipation taxes that only had to be paid by Roman citizens. Gibbon, p. 107: "*1 Commodus killed a camelopardalis or giraffe the most useless of the quadrupeds". Livius in The Fall of the Roman Empire and Maximus in Gladiator kill Commodus in single combat, Livius to save Lucilla and Maximus to avenge the murder of his wife and son, and both do it for the greater good of Rome.. The man who became infamous as Elagabalus was born Varius Avitus Bassianus in Emesa, the city of Homs in Syria today. Cruel and tyrannical Emperor Caligula ruled Ancient Rome through fear and terror. Just as impressive were the elaborate processions in which chariots pulled by elephants, tigers, and lions scaled the Vatican Hill, trampling any tomb that lay in their path. On coins, the stone figure is adorned with crowns and garlands and escorted by an eagle, symbol of his celestial power. Cleander proceeded to concentrate power in his own hands and to enrich himself by taking responsibility for all public offices. [37] According to Herodian, spectators of Commodus thought it unbecoming of an emperor to take up arms in the amphitheater for sport when he could be campaigning against barbarians among other opponents of Rome. [23], Priscus refused to accept their acclamation, and Perennis had all the legionary legates in Britain cashiered. [22], This left his two sons and co-augusti, Caracalla and his brother, Geta, as joint inheritors of their father's throne and empire. But, given the promise of this preliminary research, it's worth the effort to dig into this hypothesis to determine whether climate data actually jibes with assassination dates, from the empire's start in 27 B.C. [16] It was then that he banished his wife, whose later killing might have been carried out under Caracalla's orders. Just as she had engineered the beginning of his career, Julia Maesa masterminded the end of Elagabaluss controversial rule. Upon Caracalla's ascension to being sole ruler in 212, the imperial mint began striking coins bearing Serapis' image. His chief interest was sport: he took part in horse racing, chariot racing, and combat with beasts and men, mostly in private but occasionally in public. [51] The conspiracy in question was in response to Caracalla's murder of Geta and the subsequent slaughter of his followers; fratricide would only have been condoned if his brother had been a tyrant. "In turn, that would have pushed them over the edge to potentially mutiny," said study lead researcher Cornelius Christian, an assistant professor of economics at Brock University in Ontario, Canada. Additional archaeological evidence exists for this in the form of two papyri that have been dated to the Severan period and also two statues associated with the temple that have been dated to around 200AD. [13], When the inhabitants of Alexandria heard of Caracalla's claims that he had killed his brother Geta in self-defence, they produced a satire mocking this as well as Caracalla's other pretensions. Why were so many Roman emperors assassinated? Backed by the military and false claims of parentage, Julia Maesa managed to get her way. Pompeianus retired from public life. And finally, with his older brothers out of the way, Aurangzeb graciously stepped aside and allowed Murad to take the throne. Eastern troops ascension to being sole ruler in 212, the Roman stationed... 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