The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Roman Empire (43 page)

Septimius Severus was born in Leptis Magna (a spectacular site in Libya) and spoke Latin with a recognizable African accent to his death. Emperors of the provinces to the last, the Severans governed Rome from the periphery, as Rome itself and the senate slid into increasing irrelevance. The provinces and provincials became more important than Italy and the Italians, and the army of the borders was held together, not from the center, but from around the edges. These developments proved nearly fatal to the integrity of the Empire once the Severans passed from the stage.

The Severan dynasty.

Septimius had come up under Marcus Aurelius and profited from the patronage of other influential Africans in Marcus's circle. He married Julia Domna, the daughter of a powerful Syrian family in Emesa. Highly educated, he was nevertheless extremely superstitious. Septimus reportedly married Domna because an astrologer told him that she would wed a king. The wedding ceremony took place in Britain—how much more multicultural can you get!

When Septimius got to Rome, he dispatched the disloyal praetorian guards in the name of avenging Pertinax and replaced them with troops loyal to himself. He then defeated Niger, the rival governor of Syria, in 194 and quelled an uprising supporting Albinus, governor of Britain, by 197. Both of these men had supporters in the senate, and Septimius purged them all by execution.

220

 
Great Caesar's Ghost!
Julia Domna and her sister Julia Maesa were the daughters of a powerful Syrian high priest of Elagabalus in Emesa, Julius Bassianus. This family played an influential and sometimes controlling role in the Severan dynasty. The women became infamous for their ambitions, their plots, and their adulteries. Domna, in the last stages of breast cancer, starved herself to death instead of surrendering to Macrinus (you'll find out more about Macrinus later in this chapter). Maesa ruled the Empire after the death of her grandson Elagabalus until she died in 226 and her daughter, Julia Mamaea, ruled the Empire as the mother of the young Alexander Severus until both Julia and Alexander were killed together in 235.

Septimius was a brutal man, and he earned the name “Punic Sulla” both for executing his enemies and for confiscating their estates. However, unlike Sulla, Severus was not about building up senatorial power. He made extensive use of equestrians, ended the distinction between senatorial and imperial provinces, and added many provincials from the east to the senate. He was about increased military pay and privileges and promoted the idea of imperial divinity, portraying both himself and members of his family in connection with gods.

Gout and other illnesses plagued Septimius, but he was a restless commander and expanded Roman territory in the east by conquering parts of Parthia and Mesopotamia. He returned to Rome, but soon headed back to the frontiers with his sons Caracalla and Geta. The brothers were bitter rivals, as were their respective supporters. Septimius had elevated Caracalla to co-emperor and Geta to Caesar in 198. He left Geta in Gaul in charge of the Empire while he took Caracalla with him to Britain. Septimius hoped to bring about a conquest of all Britain, but died in York (Eburnacum).

 
Veto!
Caracalla
is a nickname. The emperor's full name was Imperator Caesar Marcus Aurelius Severus Antoninus Pius Augustus. Caracalla got his name from the hooded Gallic overcoat (
caracalla
) that he wore, which became a fashion during his reign.

Septimius's death reportedly came none too soon for Caracalla, who was tired both of fighting Scots and of waiting for his old man to die while his brother gained power. Septimius's parting advice
to his sons was, “Get along, enrich the soldiers, and to hell with everyone else.” Caracalla apparently missed the first part of that advice.

 
Roamin' the Romans
The most impressive remains of Caracalla's reign are the immense Baths of Caracalla in Rome, which were begun by Septimius and completed under Caracalla. These baths were already a wonder in their own times. The circular
calderium
(hot room) is about the same size as the Pantheon and far taller. The impressive ruins serve as a backdrop for contemporary musical and operatic engagements (such as “The Three Tenors”).

 
When in Rome
Caracalla's
Constitutio Antoniniana
in 212 is one of his most historically noted actions. This proclamation gave equal citizen rights to all free men in the Roman Empire. While this was an important development in the recognition of fundamental human rights, it was probably motivated more at the time by a desire to increase the tax base.

The brothers were supposed to rule jointly, but their bitter rivalry led to their splitting the imperial palace into two separate houses (kind of like the movie
War of the Roses
). They contemplated splitting the Empire, but their mother put the nix on that by asking them how they intended to split
her.
According to the historian Dio (who is not always the most trustworthy source), Caracalla eventually lured Geta into their mother's apartment and killed him. That solved
that.
He then engaged on a ruthless purge of upward of 20,000 of Geta's supporters. Whatever the case and the actual numbers were, Geta's murder seems to have become a dark cloud that hung over Caracalla's reign and his conscience.

Things were shot with the senate, and following his father's advice, Caracalla concentrated on the military and the provinces. He left for Germany, where he was generally successful in defending and securing the borders, and became very popular with the soldiers as “one of the guys.” He issued a declaration of universal citizen rights to all free people of the empire, the
Constitutio Antoniniana.
But as he worked his way down toward the east, Caracalla became entranced with fashioning himself as another Alexander the Great. He began emulating Achilles (Alexander's role model) with a visit to Troy, and made a great show of visiting Alexander's grave in Alexandria. In Alexandria, criticism (probably concerning his murder of Geta) seems to have led him to emulate his role models' worst traits by having his men murder scores of civilians.

Caracalla also tried to revive a version of the Macedonian phalanx for the army before attempting to conquer the Parthians. It was during these
campaigns that Macrinus, the praetorian prefect, hatched a plot against him. Caracalla was 29, nearly the same age Alexander the Great was when he died at 32, but Caracalla didn't go very heroically. While the army had discreetly turned its back, a paid assassin stabbed the emperor as he was relieving himself. (I wonder if that's where the phrase “caught with your pants down” comes from?)

Macrinus was a Moor and the first to attain the emperorship without even having been elected or appointed to the senate. He was campaigning with Caracalla in the east and took control of the army there. At first, he left mommy dearest, Julia Domna, alone in her palace at Antioch, but she started conspiring to regain control for her family before she died from advanced breast cancer. Macrinus finally ordered her to leave, but she starved herself to death instead.

Macrinus became unpopular with the soldiers, both for negotiating with the Parthians and for failing to heed Severus's deathbed advice as much as he should have. Rumors started that the grandson of Julia Domna's sister Julia Maesa was really Caracalla's. Maesa's lover and supporters smuggled the boy, named Varius Avitus but known as Elagabalus, into a legion who proclaimed him emperor. Things started to fall apart from there for Macrinus, who shaved his hair and tried to flee to the Parthians in disguise. He was betrayed, caught, and executed in 218.

Elagabalus was 14, and the hereditary high priest of the Syrian sun god, Elagabal. The five years of his rule were bizarre, to say the least. Before coming to Rome, his mother (Julia Soaemias) and grandmother (Julia Maesa) made sure that they were in control of things. Rome was shocked by the arrival in the capital of what was, for all purposes, the entourage of its eastern monarchy and priesthood.

Elagabalus tried to compel the Romans to make Elagabal their supreme deity. He built a magnificent new temple, treated Roman gods as subordinate to Elagabal, and carried out daily rituals and sacrifices that the Romans found strange and creepy. More that that, he was notorious for his sexual practices. Leaving aside the number of his marriages (five in three years), he was a cross-dresser who reportedly frequented smarmy clubs where he prostituted himself in drag. He fell in love with and “ married” a slave who was allowed to beat his “wife” (the emperor). He sought out the possibilities of a sex-change operation from doctors. He was also charged with promoting lowlifes to high places, such as the Praetorian Guard commander Comazon, whose family were cabaret dancers. Who would put up with this? No one, eventually.