Caracalla

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Caracalla[1] (born Lucius Septimius Bassianus, 4 April 188 – 8 April 217 AD) was the nickname of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus who was Roman emperor from 198 to 217. Caracalla was a member of the Severan dynasty. He had a slightly younger brother, Geta, with whom Caracalla briefly ruled as co-emperor.[2]

Jat clans

Early life

Caracalla was born in Lugdunum, Gaul (now Lyon, France), on 4 April 188 to Septimius Severus (r. 193–211) and Julia Domna, thus giving him Punic paternal ancestry and Arab maternal ancestry.[4] He had a slightly younger brother, Geta, with whom Caracalla briefly ruled as co-emperor.[5] Caracalla was five years old when his father was acclaimed Augustus on 9 April 193.[6]

Names

Caracalla's name at birth was Lucius Septimius Bassianus. He was renamed Marcus Aurelius Antoninus at the age of seven as part of his father's attempt at union with the families of Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius.[7][8][9] According to the 4th century historian Aurelius Victor in his Epitome de Caesaribus, he became known by the agnomen "Caracalla" after a Gallic hooded tunic that he habitually wore and made fashionable. [10] He may have begun wearing it during his campaigns on the Rhine and Danube.[11] Cassius Dio, who was still writing his Historia romana during Caracalla's reign,[12] generally referred to him as "Tarautas", after a famously diminutive and violent gladiator of the time, though he also calls him "Caracallus" in various occasions.[13]

History

Caracalla was a member of the Severan dynasty, the elder son of Emperor Septimius Severus and Empress Julia Domna. Proclaimed co-ruler by his father in 198, he reigned jointly with his brother Geta, co-emperor from 209, after their father's death in 211. His brother was murdered by the Praetorian Guard later that year under orders from Caracalla, who then reigned afterwards as sole ruler of the Roman Empire. Caracalla found administration to be mundane, leaving those responsibilities to his mother. Caracalla's reign featured domestic instability and external invasions by the Germanic peoples.

Caracalla's reign became notable for the Antonine Constitution (Latin: Constitutio Antoniniana), also known as the Edict of Caracalla, which granted Roman citizenship to all free men throughout the Roman Empire. The edict gave all the enfranchised men Caracalla's adopted praenomen and nomen: "Marcus Aurelius". Domestically, Caracalla became known for the construction of the Baths of Caracalla, which became the second-largest baths in Rome; for the introduction of a new Roman currency named the antoninianus, a sort of double denarius; and for the massacres he ordered, both in Rome and elsewhere in the empire. In 216, Caracalla began a campaign against the Parthian Empire. He did not see this campaign through to completion due to his assassination by a disaffected soldier in 217. Macrinus succeeded him as emperor three days later.

The ancient sources portray Caracalla as a tyrant and as a cruel leader, an image that has survived into modernity. 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 12th century, Geoffrey of Monmouth started the legend of Caracalla's role as king of Britain. Later, in the 18th century, the works of French painters revived images of Caracalla due to apparent parallels between Caracalla's tyranny and that ascribed to king Louis XVI (r. 1774–1792). Modern works continue to portray Caracalla as an evil ruler, painting him as one of the most tyrannical of all Roman emperors.

Severan dynasty

The Severan dynasty was a Roman imperial dynasty that ruled the Roman Empire between 193 and 235, during the Roman imperial period. The dynasty was founded by the emperor Septimius Severus (r. 193–211), who rose to power after the Year of the Five Emperors as the victor of the civil war of 193–197, and his wife, Julia Domna. After the short reigns and assassinations of their two sons, Caracalla (r. 198–217) and Geta (r. 209–211), who succeeded their father in the government of the empire, Julia Domna's relatives themselves assumed power by raising Elagabalus (r. 218–222) and then Severus Alexander (r. 222–235) to the imperial office.

The dynasty's control over the empire was interrupted by the joint reigns of Macrinus (r. 217–218) and his son Diadumenian (r. 218). The dynasty's women, including Julia Domna, the mother of Caracalla and Geta, and her nieces Julia Soaemias and Julia Mamaea, the mothers respectively of Elagabalus and Severus Alexander, and their own mother, Julia Maesa, were all powerful augustae and instrumental in securing their sons' imperial positions.

Although Septimius Severus restored peace following the upheaval of the late 2nd century, the dynasty was disturbed by highly unstable family relationships and constant political turmoil,[14] which foreshadowed the imminent Crisis of the Third Century. In particular, the discord between Caracalla and Geta and the tension between Elagabalus and Severus Alexander added to the turmoil.[15]

References

  1. ↑ "Caracalla". The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (5th ed.). HarperCollins.
  2. ↑ Gagarin, Michael (2009). Ancient Greece and Rome. Oxford University Press. p. 51.
  3. ↑ डॉ पेमाराम:राजस्थान के जाटों का इतिहास, 2010, पृ.298
  4. ↑ Shahid, Irfan (1984). Rome and the Arabs. Georgetown, Washington D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection. p. 33. ISBN 0-88402-115-7.
  5. ↑ Gagarin, Michael (2009). Ancient Greece and Rome. Oxford University Press. p. 51.
  6. ↑ Cooley, Alison E. (2012). The Cambridge Manual of Latin Epigraphy. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-84026-2. pp. 495–496
  7. ↑ Gagarin, Michael (2009). Ancient Greece and Rome. Oxford University Press. p. 51.
  8. ↑ Tabbernee, William; Lampe, Peter (2008). Pepouza and Tymion: The Discovery and Archaeological Exploration of a Lost Ancient City and an Imperial Estate. Walter de Gruyter. ISBN 978-3-11-020859-7.
  9. ↑ Hammond, Mason (1957). "Imperial Elements in the Formula of the Roman Emperors during the First Two and a Half Centuries of the Empire". Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome. 25: 19–64. doi:10.2307/4238646. JSTOR 4238646.pp.35-36
  10. ↑ Dunstan, William (2011). Ancient Rome. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-0-7425-6832-7.pp. 405–406.
  11. ↑ Goldsworthy, Adrian (2009). How Rome Fell: death of a superpower. New Haven: Yale University Press. pp. 74. ISBN 978-0-300-16426-8.
  12. ↑ Swan, Michael Peter (2004). The Augustan Succession: An Historical Commentary on Cassius Dio's Roman History. Oxford University Press. pp. 1–3, 30. ISBN 0-19-516774-0.
  13. ↑ Cassius Dio, Book 79
  14. ↑ "Severan Dynasty · Arch for Septimius Severus · Piranesi in Rome". omeka.wellesley.edu.
  15. ↑ Scott, Andrew (May 2008). Change and discontinuity within the Severan dynasty: the case of Macrinus. New Brunswick, New Jersey, United States.
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