Caracalla

Caracalla

real name Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, original name Bassianus. 188--217 ad, Roman emperor (211--17): ruled with cruelty and extravagance; assassinated

Collins Discovery Encyclopedia, 1st edition © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

Caracalla

Roman emperor (211–217) massacred many thousands [Rom. Hist.: EB (1963) IV, 825]

See: Brutality

Allusions—Cultural, Literary, Biblical, and Historical: A Thematic Dictionary. Copyright 2008 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.

The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Caracalla

 

(also Septimius Bassianus Caracalla; imperial name, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus). Born 186, in Lugdunum; died 217, near Edessa. Roman emperor from 211.

At first Caracalla ruled jointly with his brother Geta, but after murdering his brother in 212, he ruled alone. Gaining the loyalty of the soldiers by raising their pay and giving them rewards, he exerted pressure on the senatorial and municipal leaders. He instituted a reign of terror, during which there took place the execution of aristocrats and the famous jurist Papinian and the massacre of the inhabitants of Alexandria, who opposed a supplementary conscription into the army. In 212 he issued the Constitutio Antoniniana, an edict which granted citizenship to almost all the inhabitants of the provinces, making them equal to the Romans as subjects and taxpayers. In 213 he undertook a campaign against the Germanic tribes of the Chatti and Ala-manni on the Rhine and then moved against the Iazyges and Carpi on the Danube. These were followed by a successful campaign into Parthia in 215. During a new Parthian campaign, in 217, he was killed by conspirators led by the Praetorian prefect Opellius Macrinus.

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.