In 213 he had campaigned on the Rhine and in the following year moved to the Danube. Both frontiers show signs of substantial reorganisation and the construction of new military bases. It may have been during these campaigns that he took to wearing a version of the Gallic hooded cloak (caracalla), which gave him his nickname. In 215 he went to the east and remained there for the rest of his life, following in the footsteps of his hero Alexander. He raised - or perhaps reorganised existing legions into - a force modelled on the ancient Macedonian phalanx. That winter he was in Alexandria and summoned the young men of the city to a parade, declaring that he wanted to recruit them as soldiers. Instead, he ordered his troops to kill them - a massacre that has never been satisfactorily explained. He also began a series of campaigns against Parthia, which was split in a civil war between two brothers vying for the throne. Caracalla asked to marry the daughter of one of the claimants, just as Alexander had married Roxanne. His offer was refused and some saw this as no more than a pretext for war.'
At the beginning of 217 a large army was concentrated at Edessa in preparation for a fresh invasion. On 8 April Caracalla travelled to visit a shrine near Carrhae - in 53 BC the site of a great defeat at the hands of the Parthians, but now within a province and recently granted the status of a Roman colony. When the emperor stopped to relieve himself by the roadside, he was stabbed to death by one of his own military household, Julius Martialis. The assassin was a former praetorian who had re-enlisted, but was bitter because he had been denied a centurion's commission by Caracalla. Within minutes Martialis was himself cut down by the emperor's `lions' and died before he could reveal any details of the plot. This was a great relief to its leader, Marcus Opellius Macrinus, one of the two praetorian prefects, who was thereby able to plead complete ignorance. Caracalla was still popular with the guard, and the rest of the army showed no great enthusiasm for his murder. In fact, Macrinus had recently discovered that a message was on its way to the emperor accusing him of disloyalty and decided to strike before he was himself condemned.'°
There was no heir. Caracalla's marriage had been unhappy and childless - it was generally believed that illness rendered him impotent in his last years. He had not marked out a successor, mainly because he did not trust anyone, but given his youth this had not seemed important. For two days the empire had no emperor, as Macrinus sounded out the mood of the senior officers. Then he declared himself as the new ruler, assuming all the imperial titles and powers without waiting for the formality of a vote in the Senate. Armies had made emperors in the past - it was only twenty years since Severus had defeated Clodius Albinus - but this was different. Macrinus was not a senator, but an equestrian, who had risen to his position through loyalty and legal skill. Praetorian prefects had always been chosen from amongst the knights precisely because it was believed that they could not aspire to the supreme office. Even Sejanus, who had come close to supplanting Emperor Tiberius in 31, had worked at gradually acquiring offices, including the consulship. At the age of fifty-five, Macrinus leaped straight to supreme power. It was doubtless easier because there were no senators nearby, who might have been considered suitable candidates for the throne. Mesopotamia had from the beginning been an equestrian province, and Caracalla had never been in the habit of taking senior senators with him on campaign. The few that did travel with him were tainted by his favour. The recent division of provinces into smaller units also meant that there was no governor anywhere in the empire who controlled as large a force as that concentrated at Edessa. The other praetorian prefect pleaded advanced age and stood aside in favour of his colleague.
When the Senate received news of the coup there was relief at the demise of the unpopular and unpredictable Caracalla. Acceptance of the new emperor was more grudging and largely for the want of any obvious alternative. The senators were less bothered by his Mauretanian ancestry and pierced ear - although it is noticeable that all images of the emperor are highly traditional and very Roman in appearance - than his lack of social rank. It did not help that he made no effort to hurry to Rome and win them over. Worse was the appointment of men of similarly undistinguished background to high office, including another equestrian to the post of urban prefect at Rome itself - the city's effective chief magistrate in the emperor's absence. Macrinus tended to appoint men he knew and so inevitably these were mainly from the imperial administration just like himself. Caracalla had given rapid promotion to men he trusted regardless of their social background and had used a lot of equestrians in posts of considerable responsibility, sometimes after a rapid elevation to the Senate. Senators had disliked this, and had no great enthusiasm for a new regime that further promoted many of the same people. Macrinus ruled because he had arranged the death of the last emperor, was able to control the troops on the spot and, for the moment at least, also received the loyalty of the army as a whole."
The Severan Women
Caracalla's mother had accompanied him on most of his travels. Julia Domna had had a prominent public role during Severus' reign, when she received titles such as Augusta and `The Mother of the camp', and had travelled with him around the empire. Intelligent and capable, she had also worked hard behind the scenes to help her husband with the great task of administering the empire. Augustus' wife, the formidable Livia - called `Ulysses in a frock' by Caligula - had similarly worked hard to assist him, dealing with correspondence, advising and watching events. In spite of her horror at the murder of Geta, Julia Domna continued to offer the same support to her older son. If anything, her responsibilities increased because Caracalla became so easily bored with mundane tasks. She was in Antioch when he was murdered, tasked amongst other things with opening and reading correspondence to the emperor, so that she could `sort everything that arrived and prevent a mass of unimportant letters from being sent to him while he was in the enemy's country'.'2 Ironically, the message warning Caracalla about Macrinus was diverted to Antioch in this way, while another went directly to the praetorian prefect himself and prompted him to act. The new emperor treated Julia Domna well until he discovered that she was intriguing against him, after which she was placed under house arrest. In protest she starved herself to death, her end hastened by a long-term illness that may have been breast cancer. She was probably still short of her fiftieth year."
There it might have ended, for both Severus' children were now dead and the dynasty seemed over. Yet Julia Domna had a sister, Julia Maesa, who had usually accompanied her and helped her work, and she in turn had two daughters. All three women were now widows, and the daughters - Soaemias and Mamaea - both had young sons. Maesa returned to her family's home city of Emesa after her sister's death, where it was said that she fretted at no longer living in the imperial household. Emesa (near modern Homs) was in the province of Syria Phoenice, which was garrisoned by a single legion, III Gallica, an easy journey to the north at Raphaneae. The origins of the city are obscure, as indeed is the ethnic background of its population. They seem to have been considered Phoenician by some, although there is no evidence for Phoenician settlement there. The bulk of the population spoke Aramaic, but virtually all inscriptions were in Greek, and presumably most official business was conducted in the same language. Trade contributed to Emesa's prosperity, but it was most famous for the great temple of the god Elagabalus (`LHGBL' in Aramaic), whose image was a black, conical stone, said to have fallen from heaven, and who was associated with the Sun.
Soaemias' fourteen-year-old son was the high priest of the cult. His name was Bassianus, but he has gone down in history by the name of his deity, Elagabalus - sometimes in the corrupted and inaccurate later form `Heliogabalus' used by Gibbon and others. A handsome boy, he cut an especially impressive figure in the regalia of his priesthood. One fourth-century source claims that his grandfather had also been high priest, and it may be that the office ran in the family. The extension of this to assume that Julia Domna and her sister were descendants of the old ruling dynasty of priest-kings is far more questionable
than is usually claimed. Their father was a Roman citizen, and they were clearly a wellestablished and prominent family amongst the local aristocracy. Julia Domna was the wife of a senator - it was said that Severus was attracted because her horoscope predicted that she would be the wife of a king - and Maesa and her daughters had all married equestrians following a public career. They were Romans, and they were also very prominent locally, with influence and family connections in Emesa and throughout the wider region. Already wealthy, the family had grown even richer through close association with the Severan dynasty.14
The young Elagabalus was highly visible to the many pilgrims who visited the famous temple. Quite a few men - probably particularly officers - came to the shrine from III Gallica and are said to have been especially impressed by the boy. Maesa encouraged a rumour that he was in fact Caracalla's illegitimate son, for he and Soaemias were widely believed to have been lovers before the child's birth. Some claimed that they could spot a physical resemblance. Illegitimate children had few rights in Roman law, and never before had anyone suggested that a bastard son should succeed to the throne, but no one seemed to question this now. Macrinus remained an unknown, and although he grew his beard long to look like Marcus Aurelius and named his son Antoninus, he had no connection with a legitimate dynasty. He had also inherited some major problems from his murdered predecessor. The war with Parthia continued, the enemy only being encouraged when Roman envoys told them that the man who started the war was dead. Macrinus had no experience as a general and may have suffered a defeat before the war was ended by negotiation. The terms were certainly not humiliating for the Romans, but they were far less than the unambiguous military success that his new regime desperately needed. No territory was lost, but the Parthians received a substantial subsidy. The cost of this, added to the expense of paying the army at the rate set by Caracalla, threatened to overburden the emperor's available funds. Macrinus realised that his power to rule relied upon the obedience of the army and knew that reducing the pay scale to the level set by Severus would be hugely unpopular. Instead, he announced that existing soldiers would continue to receive the higher rate, but that all new recruits would be paid the old salary. If the compromise made financial sense, it left the troops suspicious that all pay would be reduced as soon as the emperor felt more secure."
On 16 May 218 the young Elagabalus was taken to the camp of III Gallica and proclaimed emperor by the legion. He took the name Antoninus - later Marcus Aurelius Antoninus - to demonstrate his supposed relationship with Caracalla, who in turn had been given the name by his father following his `adoption' into the family of Marcus Aurelius. Macrinus was at Antioch, but had few troops at his immediate disposal, for the army had dispersed to winter quarters and some detachments may already have started travelling back to their home provinces. He visited II Parthica, but failed to win the soldiers over. Soon after he left, the legion declared for the usurper. A scratch force was sent under the command of the praetorian prefect to besiege III Gallica at Raphaneae. An initial attack failed, despite the courage shown by some Mauretanian troops who fought well for their countryman. However, when Elagabalus was paraded on the walls of the camp in imperial regalia - and the promise was made that anyone killing a superior officer would assume his rank - the besiegers changed sides. Macrinus was sent the head of his prefect.
With an army that consisted mainly of the units of the guard, he met the advancing enemy not far from Antioch - perhaps near the village of Immae. The praetorians fought well and broke through the enemy line, but the fourteen-year-old boy, his mother and grandmother personally helped to rally the troops and drove the guardsmen back. Macrinus despaired and fled the field - an unforgivable crime for a Roman general. He was hunted down and killed, as was his young son, who had been elevated to imperial rank in an attempt to create a new dynasty. It is doubtful that either army numbered much more than 10,000 men at Immae - far smaller than the armies which had fought between 193 and 197. Almost as importantly, there may have been no senators present at the battle, and certainly none played a significant role. The fate of the empire had been decided in a tiny battle fought far from Rome and with little or no participation by the Senate.'6
The Boy Emperors
Few mourned Macrinus when news of his death reached Rome, but it was some months before the new emperor arrived. Paintings had been sent ahead, showing him in his full regalia as high priest. Two years younger even than Nero when he had come to power, Elagabalus took his duties to the deity very seriously, and his sense of a special relationship with the god can only have been enhanced by his sudden elevation. Theatrical by nature, he clearly revelled in the very public role of emperor, while showing little taste for the mundane work of administration. In some ways he was little more than a figurehead, while his mother, grandmother and various favourites made decisions behind the scenes. Sometimes their importance was made very public - both women were admitted to at least one meeting of the Senate and may have attended on other occasions. The only woman to have done this before was Nero's mother Agrippina, although even then she had stayed hidden behind a curtain. Senators disliked this breach of tradition, and even more resented the continued promotion of favourites from humble backgrounds to high office. Yet in the main their hatred focused on the emperor himself, whose behaviour became steadily more bizarre .17
Elagabalus spent the greater part of his four-year reign in or near Rome and his main concern was to enjoy himself. The stories told of his antics are wild, and doubtless grew in the telling. Yet both Dio and Herodian lived through the reign and we would be rash to ignore their testimony, even though both men hated the emperor. Probably they repeat gossip as well as fact, but it is significant that such stories were circulating - and doubtless being credited. The teenage emperor was married perhaps as many as six times, twice to the same woman. This was the Vestal Virgin Aquilia Severa, whom he divorced his first wife to marry, apparently seeing it as a sacred union appropriate for his status as priest. There was such outrage at his shattering of an ancient taboo, that even the emperor realised his mistake and divorced her. Oddly, after divorcing his third wife, a descendant of Marcus Aurelius, there was no protest when he married Aquilia again, presumably because she was considered to have lost any sacred status. (Curiously his taste for Vestals may have been shared by his alleged father Caracalla, who is supposed to have tried to rape one and was only thwarted by his impotence. The woman was later tried for breaking her vow of chastity and defended herself by saying that the emperor himself could vouch that her virginity was intact in spite of his best efforts. She still suffered the traditional punishment of being entombed alive.)
As well as his marriages, the young emperor made frequent use of prostitutes, although allegedly never the same one twice. He also openly took many male lovers, and like Nero before him, he is said to have been the bride at a wedding ceremony and then lived with his `husband'. It was even said that he had asked doctors whether they could use surgery to give him a vagina. Roman attitudes to homosexuality were complex, but - in spite of some modern claims - it was always seen as vice. If carried on discreetly it was a minor one, perhaps understandable and easily outweighed by a man's better characteristics. Emperor Trajan was said to have been too fond of boys, but had never let any favourite gain an unhealthy influence over him or persuade him to act wrongly. Elagabalus blatantly paraded and promoted his lovers. It was said that appointments to provincial commands were being allocated to the man with the largest penis. The emperor's behaviour in public was shocking - perhaps deliberately so - and rumours of his antics in private were rife."
The emperor continued to play an active part in the cult of his god, which involved very public dancing and devotees working themselves into a frenzy. The Romans had adopted many foreign deities over the centuries, but usually in a sanitised form. These new rituals shocked them, particularly because the emperor was at the centre of things and expected senators to take part. The senatorial class as a whole hated
him for this, even though they took part, the most ambitious of them doing so with great enthusiasm. Daily animal sacrifices on an extravagant scale were carried out, and Dio believed that there were secret ritual killings of children. The teenage emperor changed the cult into something it had never been before, intimately linking it with himself and the empire. The black stone had been brought with the imperial party and installed in the Temple of Jupiter on the Capitol, replacing Jupiter as the most important god of Rome. In 220 the sun god was `married' to the Roman goddess Minerva, and a very ancient and highly sacred statue physically brought from her temple to join him. Again opinion was outraged, particularly amongst the aristocracy, and a year later the god divorced his wife as too warlike for his nature, and instead `married' Astarte, whose image was brought from Carthage.''
Elagabalus was not a tyrant, but he was an incompetent, probably the least able emperor Rome had ever had. That the empire continued to function was due mainly to the efforts of his grandmother. Never more than a figurehead, he soon became an embarrassment. There were several mutinies in which elements of the army raised rival candidates to the throne, but none had so far gathered enough momentum to mount a serious threat. Even the legion that had first supported him, III Gallica, declared for another emperor and seems to have been disbanded, although it was subsequently re-formed. Maesa's skill, money and connections had made Elagabalus emperor. Her other grandson, Alexander, the son of Mamaea, was five years younger than his cousin and had been too young in 218 to be a viable candidate. Now, a little older, he was becoming an alternative, and Elagabalus was made to adopt him in 221. Realising what this meant, the emperor dismissed anyone he felt favoured Alexander, but was aware that the boy was popular with many, including the praetorian guard. On ii March 222 the thirteen-year-old cousin disappeared from public view and the guardsmen rioted, fearing that he had been murdered. Elagabalus went to the praetorian camp to calm them, but failed and was stopped from leaving. When Maesa and Alexander appeared, the emperor hid. During the night some praetorians found him hiding in a basket or box and beheaded him. His mother was also killed."
How Rome Fell: Death of a Superpower Page 10
