8th April Caracalla's favourite day?

Bad day for Caracalla!

The 8th of April AD 217 was not his best time. Marcus Aurelius Severus Antoninus Augustus appears in The Taexali Game, my time travel historical. His full name was a bit of a mouthful so, from my point of view, I'm glad that he went by a nickname. The caracalla may, or may not, have been a particular type of short hooded cloak that he favoured wearing, but it is a much easier name to remember than the man's full title. 

Did Caracalla get a 'bad rep'? I'm not so sure, but some historians believed he may have been made out to be much more horrible than he really was. 

Given the status of Caesar Augustus (joint ruler) by his emperor father - Septimius Severus - at the very young age of 10 years old, may have given the boy Antoninus ideas of grandeur that he did not deserve. It may also be true that he would have, at that time ,been 'guided' by men other than his father, who had ideas of improving their own status while the boy was still young.

Emperor Septimius Severus-
Wikimedia Commons

The man who became 'Caracalla' was born Lucius Septimius Bassianus, names inherited from both his mother and father's sides of the family. His mother, Julia Domna, may also have been a hugely influential guiding force when he was young, since she brought an elevated status to her marriage to Septimius Severus. The daughter of a family of Arab descent (Bassianus, part of the Emesan Dynasty - a client kingdom of Rome), who had links with the priesthood of Elagabalus, she came to Septimius Severus with a background of breeding and education.  

It was a few years after 'Caracalla's' birth in AD 188 that his father became Emperor of the Roman Empire in AD 193. Skip forward to AD 195 and his father Septimius Severus decided that both his sons (Geta born a short time after Caracalla) needed to have names that matched their new status as sons of the emperor. 'Caracalla' was renamed Marcus Aurelius Antoninus in AD 195, acquiring some highly revered Roman names.

Young Caracalla

Power at a young age, even if it was nominal at first, seemed to have been a corrupting force. Emperor Septimius Severus was a military man who spent a lot of his time around the Empire, so may not have been around to personally give guidance to his sons.  He may have wanted his sons to be strong, worthy, and upright rulers but it it seems his sons became reckless, cruel and tyrannical.

Forced to marry his second-cousin at 14, Caracalla was said to have detested his bride, Fulvia Plautilla. The reasons are unknown but the dynastic marriage never resulted in any official children. Her father, a well-known Roman was later executed for treason in AD 205 (probably on Caracalla's orders, aged 17). Fulvia Plautilla was banished at that point and was later murdered in AD 211 (also possibly on Caracalla's orders after his father Septimius Severus was dead).

In c. AD 208, Septimius Severus, possibly tired of his sons wild behaviour (Geta was said to be nearly as awful as his older brother), decided to take them to Britannia during his Caledonian campaigns. It was written by early historians that Geta was left to rule the settled parts of Britannia  (roughly everywhere south of a lateral line through York/ Eboracum) while Severus and Caracalla campaigned in the north to  quell those nasty barbarian Caledonians. 

Caracalla- Wikimedia Commons 

Caracalla and Severus feature as characters in my time travel novel set in north-east Caledonia (current Aberdeenshire) though Geta only gets a tiny mention. The novel is set around that drastic invasion of the area that some recent archaeologists and historians believe was a time of deliberate genocide on the part of Severus and Caracalla. No huge battles were recorded by ancient historians but current academics and soil scientists believed the landscape was so ravaged that genocide is a distinct possibility. 

My intrepid time travellers from Kintore, Aberdeenshire, become well acquainted with the nasty deeds of Caracalla as the adventure unfolds.

After Severus death in February AD 211 in Eboracum (York), it was written that Caracalla and Geta took the urn containing their father's ashes back to Rome pretty sharpish, after concluding some sort of treaties with the troublesome Caledonians. The boys did not like each other very much growing up and, by AD 211 and Severus death, they seemed to like each other a lot less. After Severus' death, Geta inherited the  joint rulership of the Roman Empire but it was not to last. Geta was dead by December 11th AD 211, said to have been at the hands of the Praetorian Guard, and cradled in the arms of their mother Julia Domna. The Praetorian guard, special forces to guard the emperor,  were probably acting under orders from Caracalla... and some historians wonder if also with collusion by Julia Domna? 

After Geta's death, Caracalla set in motion a purge to cleanse 'Rome' of friends of Geta, and pretty well anyone who would challenge Caracalla's authority. The name of 'Geta' was expunged from almost everywhere possible - statues, documents, official records. It was estimated that some 20,000 people were killed as having been somehow tainted by association to Geta.

However nasty that was, Caracalla instituted some important reforms which were said to have been better received by the 'common folk' which included: a new army pay structure; an official grant of citizenship to all free men across the empire; and he made it official that a soldier could take a wife. Unfortunately, he had also accumulated many enemies and opposers, and he was assassinated on the 8th of April AD 217, aged 29. There are rumours abounding that his death was not heroic and that he performing  a 'delicate bodily function' situation when assassinated. 

Whatever his actual end, the 8th April AD 217 was not a good day for Caracalla. 

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Slàinte!