102 - The Common Enemy of Mankind

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Hello and welcome to the History of Rome, episode 102, The Common Enemy of Mankind. Last week, we left off with the Imperial family packing for their camping trip to Britain. You will recall that in 208, Septimius Severus had seized on a relatively minor military uprising as an excuse to get himself and his sons out of Rome for a bit. Getting away from the capital would, for Severus, mean getting away from the banality and pettiness of government, while for his sons, it would mean getting away from the temptations that they had been all too recklessly indulging in. They were the co-heirs to the throne, and yet, so far, at 19 and 20, they knew far more about chariot racing and what the best kind of hangover cures were than they did about, say, running a multi-ethnic empire with mortal enemies surrounding it on all sides. Like many a stern father who had had to struggle for every dollar and honor that he had ever won, Severus was afraid that his sons were turning out soft and unserious, and he knew just how to cure that—a good old-fashioned military campaign. Up at dawn, Spartan meals, lots of marching, sleeping in tents with the ever-present threat of violent death hanging over your head—yes, sir, that was just what the doctor ordered.

They arrived in country in 209, after having raised a new legion to help them wage what Severus hoped would be a strenuous, but not necessarily difficult, war. After all, the emperor was, at this point, looking to add one more great victory to his resume before dying. So in picking to go out fighting in Britannia, it is probable that Severus thought the deck would be pretty much stacked in the Roman favor. And to further that point, there was no doubt in anyone's mind that this would be Severus's last campaign. He was suffering from the effects of old age, and in particular, an onset of gout that required him to be transported in a litter everywhere. His doctors cannot have been pleased that their patient was planning to go marching around Britain, but Severus, ready after a long and trying life for the sweet release of death, was no doubt looking to die with his boots on.

The particular natives in question, who had gotten restless, were a confederation of Caledonians living beyond Hadrian's Wall up in modern-day Scotland. They had been stirring up trouble for some time, but ever since Albinus had dragged the British legions away from their post, they had grown bolder still. Now, Severus had not neglected to set things back in place following his victory at Lugdunum, but still, Hadrian's Wall was crumbling and now manned mostly by new recruits. Severus and his sons arrived on the scene with backup, including a newly raised legion, a bunch of Gallic auxiliaries, and an offshore fleet to keep the Caledonians cut off from outside trade, and in mid-209, the Romans advanced north of Hadrian's Wall for the first time in a long time. They marched around doing their level best to draw the Caledonian army into battle, but there was just one problem with this strategy. The Caledonians refused to fight. Well, it's not that they refused to fight, it's just that they refused to fight in a big old battle that would look spiffy on another sever and triumphal arch. Instead, the Caledonian forces scattered to the hills, and embarked on a classic guerrilla campaign. They sprang up out of nowhere and disappeared just as quickly, picking off isolated Roman companies, harassing supply lines, interfering with communications, and generally making life miserable for the legions. Severus was looking for one last shot at glory, and what he got instead was a two-year war of attrition against an enemy he could never stop from poking him in the head whenever his back was turned.

Enraged at his own frustrated impotence, the Emperor responded to all of this by ordering genocide. The legions marched back and forth across the country, destroying whatever villages they came across, and killing every man, woman, and child they could find. Severus was mostly hoping his campaign would provoke the regular Caledonian forces enough that they would come out of hiding and battle him in the open. But if that didn't work, well, then eventually the Caledonian race would be exterminated and where the Romans made desert, they could once again call it a peace. But Severus would never get the chance to finish the job. While planning the next phase of his extermination campaign, the Emperor's real wish was finally granted and he died after a brief illness in February 211 AD. Septimius Severus was 65 years old and we say that he ruled the Empire for just about 18 years, even though his claim to the throne had been hotly disputed there at the beginning.

The final campaign in Caledonia had been a disaster. The Romans had lost something on the order of 50,000 men, and the Caledonians, while somewhat chastened, had by no means been brought to heel. The only lasting benefit of the war to the Empire was that along the way Hadrian's Wall had been reconstructed, a project that led later Romans to call the wall the Severan Wall rather than Hadrian's Wall as we know it today. But really, Severus could have just ordered that done without having to waste all the blood and treasure his war in the highlands had just cost the Empire. But speaking of that, I guess there was one other benefit to the failed campaign. At this point, the Romans stopped trying to conquer Scotland, which was probably a prudent move. As for Severus's other suspected motive for starting the war in the first place, so that his sons could have some sense beaten into them, well, that didn't work at all. Their friends back home were relieved to find Caracalla and Geta emerged from the war no worse for the wear. They were just as licentious, lazy, and shallow as they had been before they left.

Despite going out on such a low note, the reign of Septimius Severus has generally been viewed favorably by history. There is no getting around the fact that his militarization of the government would come back to haunt the Empire, especially the effect his wage increases and lavish donatives had on the discipline of the troops. But he also took over an empire that had been run into the ground fiscally, politically, and morally by Commodus, and he did a pretty good job stabilizing it. Aside from Plotianus, his administration was free of corruption, ran efficiently, and always tried to keep the overall health of the Empire as its primary object. In almost every way, Severus left Rome better than he found it. And though that's not necessarily saying much, after all, it's hard to do worse than Commodus, it is saying something. Severus ruled with an iron hand, but he was not a bloodthirsty tyrant. He left that to his sons, who soon enough just became the one son.

The feud between Caracalla and Geta, not unexpectedly, hit a rolling boil the minute Severus died. Fear of their father was just about the last thing keeping the boys in check, and without the old man around anymore, it was just a matter of time before the sons of Severus became the son of Severus, if you catch my drift. The dead emperor's body was still warm when Caracalla made the opening move. He tried to induce the legions to ignore Geta's claim to the throne, and instead hail him as sole emperor. But knowing that his younger brother, he was always going to be in the weaker position politically, Geta had for years cultivated the favor of the troops. Caracalla had always been a bit harsh and standoffish, so in contrast, Geta had styled himself as easygoing, generous, and a friend to the common soldier. His work paid off, and Caracalla's initial power grab was rebuffed. If Severus wanted both boys to rule, then by God, the legions were going to honor the dead emperor's final order. Geta joined a steaming mad Caracalla at the head of the legions, and together they were proclaimed Augustus.

Things only went downhill from there. With no desire to continue their father's futile campaign in the north, the new emperors canceled the war and headed back to Rome. While en route, they did not sleep under the same roof, nor did they ever eat at the same table. Colleagues in name only, in every other way they were bitter rivals. Back in Rome they took up residence in the imperial palace, and built a physical monument to their mutual enmity. After taking up residence in opposite wings of the palace, they divided their two halves with hastily constructed barricades, manned on each side by armed guards. The two brothers never met in private, and when they were forced to appear together in public, they were joined by a host of armed guards. There was absolutely no missing the point that each brother expected the other to try to kill him.

After a few months of this, it became clear to everyone that the mutual paranoia was simply not sustainable. The empire needed a functioning government, but its two leaders were so worried about each other that they had time for little else. Finally, a someone proposed a novel solution, that they simply divide up the empire the same way that they had divided up the palace. Ghetto would head east and set up court in Antioch or Alexandria, while Caracalla remained in Rome and governed the west. As a practical expedient it seemed like a great idea, but many old hands in the senate feared the next logical step in the process would be to break up the empire not just administratively, but literally. And a single unified empire was the whole point. It was what made Rome glorious, and what made it civilization, and everything else barbarism. To tear it asunder would be to destroy what every previous generation of Romans had worked so hard to establish in the first place. Plus, there was the added suspicion that such a tearing asunder would not come peacefully. In other words, that this great idea was nothing more than a recipe for brutal civil war between east and west.

Chief among the opponents to this plan was the co-emperor's own mother, Julia Domna. She was horrified, and not a little bit furious, that her two sons would be so immature and petty that they were basically contemplating wrecking the empire rather than face the horror of having to serve alongside one another. So in December of 211, she aimed to broker a peace between them.

Of all the crimes Caracalla committed in his six-odd years on the throne, I think that this first one was by far the most heinous. It's not just that he killed Geta, which, yeah, he's about to. It's the fact that he did it right in front of their mother, in her apartment, while at a meeting she had arranged to try to get them to work through their differences peacefully. I just cannot imagine how big of a bastard you'd have to be to use that occasion to kill your brother in front of your own mother. Caracalla and Geta agreed to the private meeting with their mother, agreed to come alone, and agreed to come unarmed. They were in the middle of hashing things out when an armed gang of Caracalla's men burst through the door and made straight for Geta. Julia tried to stand between the attackers and her youngest son, but was pushed aside, and in the process her hand was wounded. The assassins, because that's what they were, then stabbed Geta to death, at the clear urging of Caracalla. Julia, bleeding from her own hand and covered in her son's blood, thus had to face the further horror that her other son was the one who was behind it all.

Caracalla assassinating Geta was simply the logical conclusion to an irreconcilable feud, and probably, if Caracalla hadn't have gotten to Geta, Geta would eventually have gotten to Caracalla. But how he did it, and where he did it, and who was around when he did it, breaks every law of decency that I can think of. So I say boo to Caracalla, boo.

But now Caracalla had a bit of a problem. As I said, Geta was always more popular with the troops, and in particular, the men of the Praetorian Guard liked him a heck of a lot more than his dour older brother. So just as soon as he was sure Geta was dead, he ran down to the Praetorian camp, and the only thing he could think of to win their support, he lied his head off. He told the assembled guard that both he and his brother had been the target of an attack, and while he had managed to escape, that poor Geta was dead. Caracalla threw himself at the mercy of the Praetorians, and begged them to protect him from those dirty villains who had murdered his beloved brother. The guard was distraught over the news that Geta was dead, and, perhaps swallowing their own suspicions, agreed to keep the remaining son of Severus safe.

With the Praetorians having bought his story, Caracalla then set out to do everything he could to make them doubt whether he had been telling them the truth. Rather than simply letting his hatred of Geta die when Geta died, Caracalla became obsessed with erasing his brother from the history books. Coins that bore his brother's likeness were rounded up and recast, any statue or painting or mosaic of Geta was destroyed, and Caracalla even went so far as to deface the reliefs on the arch of Severus, literally scratching out Geta's face from any scene in which he appeared. But this, of course, was not enough. Geta had been popular across the social spectrum, and many in his inner circle would suspect Caracalla of treachery and be looking for revenge. So Geta's friends and associates, the families of Geta's friends and associates, and the friends and associates of Geta's friends and associates, all became caught up in one of the largest bloody purges in Roman history. Caracalla's purge, in both breadth and depth, far exceeded anything anyone had ever contemplated. Thousands and thousands and thousands of people died, most of them having been guilty of nothing more than being within six degrees of separation from his hated brother.

Things went on like that for about a year, but after he had sufficiently earned himself the fear and loathing of just about every citizen of Rome, Caracalla decided to take his show on the road. As Gibbon poetically noted, previous tyrants like Tiberius and Nero and Commodus had tended to stay put in and around Rome, which limited the scope of their depravity to the capital itself. But when Caracalla decided to tour the empire, he made himself the common enemy of mankind.

In 213, he traveled to the Rhine to put down a brief uprising of Germans, and after easily winning a series of skirmishes, he took the lofty title Germanicus Maximus. Caracalla's penchant for assuming such lofty titles would eventually rival that of Lucius Verus, and along the way, Caracalla would add Parthicus and Allomanicus to his list of names. One of the sons of Pertinax would actually find himself executed around this time, after punning on one of the Roman names for the Goths, suggesting that Caracalla should award himself the title of Geticus as well. The emperor was not amused.

Caracalla returned to Rome briefly, and then headed east to inspect the provinces. Along the way, it is reported that he demanded the cities and towns he passed through erect great buildings or theaters or baths in his honor, and at their expense. And then, after crippling the municipal budgets, he would either bypass them completely, or he would order the structure toppled for not being up to his standards. At every stop, he would suck up all the available money and food and drink, and then throw lavish parties that no one was invited to. One of his more charming habits was to refuse to eat seafood unless he was far enough inland that importing fish became very expensive. Then he'd demand the locals bring him oysters for dinner, or else.

By 215, Caracalla had cut a swath of destruction all the way across the empire, and had lately taken up residence in Alexandria. Now over the course of the last few years, what had once been a secret had become an open secret, and had once been an open secret was now a more or less acknowledged fact. After his terrifying purge of anyone connected to Geta, most people sort of took it for granted that Caracalla had been behind Geta's murder after all. Caracalla had steadfastly denied these charges, but as time went by, his story morphed into, well, yeah, I did it, but it was in self-defense. Basically, Geta had tried to kill me, but I killed him first instead. No one believed a word of it, and Caracalla was now as much mocked for his shifting alibi as he was feared for his cruelty.

Then the always independent-minded citizens of Alexandria decided to greet the arrival of the emperor with a little play satirizing the crime that had made Caracalla the sole emperor—a performance which sent him into an insane rage. In his fury, and basically to prove that his cruelty far outweighed his usefulness as a punchline, he ordered a general slaughter of the citizens. It is reported that before it was over, something on the order of 20,000 people lay dead in the streets. Caracalla justified this massacre to the senate by simply noting that he felt it was the whole city of Alexandria who was guilty, not just those who had performed the offensive show. He did not elaborate on how that could possibly be true.

Caracalla would do all this, be that evil basically, because he had taken to heart his father's dying advice—well, two-thirds of his father's advice, anyway. He had pretty well ignored the whole be harmonious with your brother thing. But enrich the soldiers? Scorn all other men? That Caracalla took almost too literally. He had increased the pay of the soldiers beyond even what his father had so recently raised it to, and took every opportunity he could think of to deliver to his troops lavish surprise bonuses. Whether or not they loved or even liked the emperor was now beside the point. There was no way they were going to revolt against him. The man was a living slot machine who paid out after every pull. No matter how vicious the emperor was—that would be the scorn all other men bit—the army was with him.

In time, though, the troops went from pleasantly accepting the bonuses to impatiently expecting them. While Caracalla was alive, they got what they expected. But once he was gone, the precedent set would prove to be devastating to his successors. The empire simply couldn't afford to pay the legions what Caracalla had taught them to expect. The coming crisis of the third century will in part anchor itself on this poisoned root planted by Caracalla.

Having tortured his own people enough for the time being, in 216 the emperor apparently decided to look beyond the frontiers of the empire for fresh victims. In a particularly galling incident, reported by Herodian, Caracalla appears to have accepted a peace offering from the Parthian king, and then went even further by agreeing to marry the king's daughter in order to secure a lasting friendship between the two great empires. Caracalla and his entourage then crossed the Euphrates and marched overland to an agreed-to meeting place where the couple would be wed. The Parthians had no reason to suspect treachery, and arrived ready to celebrate a marriage that would have profound, and hopefully happy, political implications. But Caracalla had never had any intention of marrying the foreign princess, and when the two families got together, Caracalla ordered his men to slaughter the Parthian wedding party and burn the city to the ground. The Parthian king managed to escape with his life, but everyone else was killed in the surprise attack. Caracalla then marched back across Mesopotamia, looting and burning the countryside on his way back to Syria. Then he fired off a dispatch to the senate, announcing that the entire Parthian empire now bowed at his feet. This was a bit of an overstatement to begin with, but beyond that, Caracalla neglected the whole part about his own murderous duplicity. Oh yeah, they should feel free to call him Parthicus from now on though.

Next week, a life of chilling sadism will finally catch up to Caracalla. He was simply too dangerous to too many people to not have one of them finally decide to knock him off. In the end, it will prove to be one of his Praetorian prefects, a man named Marcus Opelius Macrinus, who will turn to murder after finding himself in the rather uncomfortable position of having a soothsayer prophesize that he is destined to wear the purple one day. Since prophecies like that were liable to get a man killed, Macrinus will quickly decide to beat Caracalla to the punch. And the funny thing about it is that in trying to steer clear of the deadly implications of this prophecy, Macrinus would make it all come true.