N/A

Just something that has been bothering me over the past few days. WI Caracalla wasnt murdered by that javelin? WI the man that threw the javelin tripped? Would Caracalla get murdered down the line anyway? Or could he realistically achieve his dream of a Roman East?

Well the only good thing Caracalla did in his reign were the building of his Baths... (We could mention the Constitutio Antoniana though but this was purely for taxation reasons... just impose more and heavier taxation)
He killed his brother Geta, killed 20000 Alexandrians for mocking him, failed to defeat the Allemani decively etc.
While travelling from Edessa to begin a war with Parthia, he was assassinated while urinating at a roadside near Carrae on 8 April, 217 by Julius Martialis, an officer in the imperial bodyguard. Either because that Martialis' brother had been executed a few days earlier by Caracalla on an unproven charge... Or on the other hand, because that Martialis was resentful at not being promoted to the rank of centurion. The escort of the emperor gave him privacy to take a piss, and Martialis ran forward and killed Caracalla with a single sword stroke. He immediately fled on horseback, but was killed by a bodyguard archer. Kinda ignomious death for an Emperor...
Caracalla was succeeded by the Praetorian Prefect of the Guard Macrinus, who almost certainly was part of the conspiracy against the emperor...
If it wasnt Martialis there would be someone else... Caracalla himself was afraid a potential overthrow and raised the pay of an average legionary to 675 denarii and lavished many benefits on the army which he both feared and admired, as instructed by his father Septimius Severus who had told him to always mind the soldiers and ignore everyone else....
 
Actually tradition is much more comical... An unfounded legend says that the first thrust was through his ass and the tip of the sword went through his genitals...
Anyway the conspiracy against Caracalla started shortly after the massacre of Alexandria... He was considered paranoid and the only thing that saved him for 2 years was the fact that he frequently "bought" the loyalty of the Legions by large donativums...
 
Carus died from natural causes actually...
The facts that he was leading a victorious campaign, and that his son Numerian succeeded him without opposition, suggest that his death may have been due to natural causes as one source, Cedrenus, suggest.
Either its disease or lightning...
 
Last edited:
Top