Caracalla (4 April 188-8 April 217) was Emperor of the Roman Empire from 211 to 217, succeeding Geta and preceding Macrinus.
Biography[]
A statue of Caracalla as pharaoh
Lucius Septimius Bassianus was the son of Septimius Severus and the brother of Geta, and he was born in Lugdunum, Gaul (Lyon, France) of Berber and Punic descent. He was nicknamed "Caracalla" after a Gallic hooded tunic that he wore. He accompanied his father on his campaigns against the Picts, and when his father died in 211 AD in Eburacum, Roman Britain (York, England), Caracalla was proclaimed emperor by his father's legions. Caracalla and Geta bickered over how to rule the empire jointly or divide it, so Caracalla had Geta killed by the Praetorian Guard in his mother's apartment that same year. Caracalla had 20,000 men and women proscribed or murdered after this, and he was known to murder political opponents.
Caracalla won the trust of the military by increasing their pay, walking with them, eating the same food as the troops, and grinding flour with them. He built the Terme di Caracalla, the second-largest public baths in the city of Rome, one of the last great pieces of architecture built by the Roman Empire. In 212, he gave citizenship to all free men and women across the empire. Caracalla later led a campaign against a dying Parthia in 216 AD, but in April 217 he made the mistake of executing a Roman soldier on an unproven charge. The man's brother rushed Caracalla as he was urinating on the road from Emesa to Carrhae and cut him down with a single sword stroke; his men gave him privacy while he was doing so. The attacker was killed by a Scythian archer, and Caracalla's Praetorian Guard prefect Macrinus succeeded him.