Editing Caracalla (section)

== Legacy ==

=== Damnatio memoriae ===
Caracalla was not subject to a proper ''[[damnatio memoriae]]'' after his assassination; while the Senate disliked him, his popularity with the military prevented [[Macrinus]] and the Senate from openly declaring him to be a ''hostis''. Macrinus, in an effort to placate the Senate, instead ordered the secret removal of statues of Caracalla from public view. After his death, the public made comparisons between him and other condemned emperors and called for the horse race celebrating his birthday to be abolished and for gold and silver statues dedicated to him to be melted down. These events were, however, limited in scope; most erasures of his name from inscriptions were either accidental or occurred as a result of re-use. Macrinus had Caracalla deified and commemorated on coins as ''Divus Antoninus''. There does not appear to have been any intentional mutilation of Caracalla in any images that were created during his reign as sole emperor.{{sfn|Varner|2004|p=184}}

[[File:Caracalla con le decorazioni militari, forse dai castra praetoria, bronzo, 212-217 ca.JPG|thumb|Bronze portrait of Caracalla ([[Antikensammlung Berlin]])]]

=== Classical portrayal ===
Caracalla is presented in the ancient sources of [[Cassius Dio]], [[Herodian]], and the ''[[Historia Augusta]]'' as a cruel tyrant and savage ruler.{{sfn|Manders|2012|p=226}} This portrayal of Caracalla is only further supported by the murder of his brother Geta and the subsequent massacre of Geta's supporters that Caracalla ordered.{{sfn|Manders|2012|p=226}} Alongside this, these contemporary sources present Caracalla as a "soldier-emperor" for his preference of the soldiery over the senators, a depiction that made him even less popular with the senatorial biographers.{{sfn|Manders|2012|p=226}} Dio explicitly presented Caracalla as an emperor who marched with the soldiers and behaved like a soldier. Dio also often referred to Caracalla's large military expenditures and the subsequent financial problems this caused.{{sfn|Manders|2012|p=226}} These traits dominate Caracalla's image in the surviving classical literature.{{sfn|Manders|2012|p=227}} The Baths of Caracalla are presented in classical literature as unprecedented in scale, and impossible to build if not for the use of reinforced concrete.<ref>{{Cite book|title=A History of Roman Art|last=Tuck|first=Steven L.|publisher=Wiley-Blackwell|year=2014|isbn=978-1-4443-3026-7|pages=28}}</ref> The Edict of Caracalla, issued in 212, however, goes almost unnoticed in classical records.{{sfn|Manders|2012|p=227}}

The ''Historia Augusta'' is considered by historians as the least trustworthy for all accounts of events, historiography, and biographies among the ancient works and is full of fabricated materials and sources.<ref name=":26">{{Cite book|title=Roman Historiography|last=Mehl|first=Andreas|publisher=John Wiley & Sons|year=2011|pages=171}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=Breisach|first1=Ernst|title=Historiography: Ancient, Medieval, and Modern, Third Edition|date=2008|publisher=University of Chicago Press|isbn=978-0-226-07284-5|page=75}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=Hadas|first1=Moses|title=History of Latin Literature|date=2013|publisher=Columbia University Press|isbn=978-0-231-51487-3|page=355}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=Leistner|first1=M. W. L.|title=The Greater Roman Historians|date=1966|publisher=University of California Press|page=180}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=Schäfer|first1=Peter|title=The Bar Kokhba War Reconsidered: New Perspectives on the Second Jewish Revolt Against Rome|date=2003|publisher=Mohr Siebeck|isbn=3-16-148076-7|page=55}}</ref> The works of Herodian of Antioch are, by comparison, "far less fantastic" than the stories presented by the ''Historia Augusta''.<ref name=":26" /> Historian Andrew G. Scott suggests that Dio's work is frequently considered the best source for this period.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Cassius Dio, Caracalla, and the Senate|last=Scott|first=Andrew G.|publisher=De Gruyter Publishers|year=2015|pages=157}}</ref> However, historian Clare Rowan questions Dio's accuracy on the topic of Caracalla, referring to the work as having presented a hostile attitude towards Caracalla and thus needing to be treated with caution.{{sfn|Rowan|2012|p=113}} An example of this hostility is found in one section where Dio notes that Caracalla is descended from three different races and that he managed to combine all of their faults into one person: the fickleness, cowardice, and recklessness of the Gauls, the cruelty and harshness of the Africans, and the craftiness that is associated with the Syrians.{{sfn|Rowan|2012|p=113}} Despite this, the outline of events as presented by Dio are described by Rowan as generally accurate, while the motivations that Dio suggests are of questionable origin.{{sfn|Rowan|2012|p=113}} An example of this is his presentation of the Edict of Caracalla; the motive that Dio appends to this event is Caracalla's desire to increase tax revenue. Olivier Hekster, Nicholas Zair, and Rowan challenge this presentation because the majority of people who were enfranchised by the edict would have been poor.{{sfn|Hekster|Zair|2008|pp=47–48}}{{sfn|Rowan|2012|p=113}} In her work, Rowan also describes Herodian's depiction of Caracalla: more akin to a soldier than an emperor.{{sfn|Rowan|2012|p=114}}

=== Medieval legends ===
[[Geoffrey of Monmouth]]'s pseudohistorical ''[[Historia Regum Britanniae|History of the Kings of Britain]]'' makes Caracalla a king of Britain, referring to him by his actual name "Bassianus", rather than by the nickname Caracalla. In the story, after Severus' death the Romans wanted to make Geta king of Britain, but the Britons preferred Bassianus because he had a British mother. The two brothers fought until Geta was killed and Bassianus succeeded to the throne, after which he ruled until he was overthrown and killed by [[Carausius]]. However, Carausius' revolt actually happened about seventy years after Caracalla's death in 217.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Ashley|first1=Mike|title=The Mammoth Book of British Kings and Queens|date=2012|publisher=Hachette UK|isbn=978-1-4721-0113-6|page=B21;P80}}</ref>

=== Eighteenth-century artworks and the French Revolution ===
[[File:Jean-Baptiste Greuze - Septimius Severus and Caracalla - WGA10673.jpg|thumb|''Septimius Severus and Caracalla'', [[Jean-Baptiste Greuze]], 1769 ([[Louvre]])]]
Caracalla's memory was revived in the art of late eighteenth-century French painters. His tyrannical career became the subject of the work of several French painters such as [[Jean-Baptiste Greuze|Greuze]], {{ill|Julien de Parme|fr|Julien de Parme}}, [[Jacques-Louis David|David]], [[Jean Bonvoisin|Bonvoisin]], [[Jacques-Augustin-Catherine Pajou|J.-A.-C. Pajou]], and [[Guillaume Guillon-Lethière|Lethière]]. Their fascination with Caracalla was a reflection of the growing discontent of the French people with the [[List of French monarchs|monarchy]]. Caracalla's visibility was influenced by the existence of several literary sources in French that included both translations of ancient works and contemporary works of the time. Caracalla's likeness was readily available to the painters due to the distinct style of his portraiture and his unusual soldier-like choice of fashion that distinguished him from other emperors. The artworks may have served as a warning that [[absolute monarchy]] could become the horror of tyranny and that disaster could come about if the regime failed to reform. Art historian Susan Wood suggests that this reform was for the absolute monarchy to become a [[constitutional monarchy]], as per the original goal of revolution, rather than the [[republic]] that it eventually became. Wood also notes the similarity between Caracalla and his crimes leading to his assassination and the eventual uprising against, and death of, King Louis XVI: both rulers had died as a result of their apparent tyranny.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Wood|first=Susan|date=2010|title=Caracalla and the French Revolution: A Roman tyrant in eighteenth-century iconography|journal=Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome}}</ref>

=== Modern portrayal ===
Caracalla has had a reputation as being among the worst of Roman emperors, a perception that survives even into modern works.<ref name=":28">{{Cite book|title=Quinquennium in provinciis: Caracalla and Imperial Administration 212–217|last=Sillar|first=Shamus|year=2001|page=iii}}</ref> The art and linguistics historian John Agnew and the writer Walter Bidwell describe Caracalla as having an evil spirit, referring to the devastation he wrought in Alexandria.<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Eclectic Magazine: Foreign Literature, Volume 2|last1=Agnew |first1=John |last2=Bidwell|first2=Walter|publisher=Leavitt, Throw and Company|year=1844|pages=217}}</ref> The Roman historian David Magie describes Caracalla, in the book ''Roman Rule in Asia Minor'', as brutal and tyrannical and points towards psychopathy as an explanation for his behaviour.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Roman Rule in Asia Minor|last=Magie|first=David|publisher=Princeton University Press|year=1950|pages=683}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|title=Quinquennium in provinciis: Caracalla and Imperial Administration 212–217|last=Sillar|first=Shamus|year=2001|pages=127}}</ref> The historian Clifford Ando supports this description, suggesting that Caracalla's rule as sole emperor is notable "almost exclusively" for his crimes of theft, massacre, and mismanagement.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Ando|first1=Clifford|title=Imperial Rome AD 193 to 284: The Critical Century|date=2012|publisher=Edinburgh University Press|isbn=978-0-7486-5534-2|page=57}}</ref>

18th-century historian [[Edward Gibbon]], author of ''[[The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire]]'', takes Caracalla's reputation, which he had received for the murder of Geta and subsequent massacre of Geta's supporters, and applied it to Caracalla's provincial tours, suggesting that "every province was by turn the scene of his rapine and cruelty".<ref name=":28" /> Gibbon compared Caracalla to emperors such as [[Hadrian]] who spent their careers campaigning in the provinces and then to tyrants such as [[Nero]] and [[Domitian]] whose entire reigns were confined to Rome and whose actions only impacted upon the senatorial and equestrian classes residing there. Gibbon then concluded that Caracalla was "the common enemy of mankind", as both Romans and provincials alike were subject to "his rapine and cruelty".{{sfn|Dunstan|2011|p=406}}

This representation is questioned by the historian Shamus Sillar, who cites the construction of roads and reinforcement of fortifications in the western provinces, among other things, as being contradictory to the representation made by Gibbon of cruelty and destruction.<ref>{{cite book |title=Quinquennium in provinciis: Caracalla and Imperial Administration 212–217 |last=Sillar|first=Shamus|year=2001|pages=46–47 }}</ref> The history professors Molefi Asante and Shaza Ismail note that Caracalla is known for the disgraceful nature of his rule, stating that "he rode the horse of power until it nearly died of exhaustion" and that though his rule was short, his life, personality, and acts made him a notable, though likely not beneficial, figure in the Roman Empire.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Asante |first1=Molefi K.|last2=Ismail|first2=Shaza|date=2016|title=Interrogating the African Roman Emperor Caracalla: Claiming and Reclaiming an African Leader|journal=[[Journal of Black Studies]]|volume=47|doi=10.1177/0021934715611376|pages=41–52 |s2cid=147256542}}</ref>