After the death of Septimius Severus (211), M. Bassianus, as he is called after his maternal grandfather,—or M. Antoninus as he is called in consequence of the fiction of his adoption; or Caracalla, as he is called by the moderns; had together with his brother, Geta, taken upon himself the government; the younger, however, being subordinate to the elder. Neither of them was noble-hearted or praiseworthy; yet Geta excites the greater interest of the two, because of his having become the victim: still, it is not at all clear that he was better than the other. It is hardly possible to form an opinion of him. The hostility between the two brothers broke out soon after the death of their father: their feelings towards each other became very bad, which was chiefly owing to the malice of the elder one, and they were already about to divide the empire. But as this would have been to the disadvantage of the younger, who was to have had a far smaller empire in the East; their mother made a last attempt to bring about a reconciliation between them, but in vain. Caracalla seemed to listen to her proposals; but this was only a stratagem to entice his brother into a place where he could murder him. In the apartments of the mother, the reconciliation was to have been brought about: Geta was stabbed in her arms. By this murder, the minds of men, which even then had begun to be quite Asiatic in feeling,—inconceivably so indeed,—were not much affected. Even the mother, although Geta had been her darling son, did not, after what had happened, change in her behaviour to her elder one; but she seemed to look upon Geta’s death as an unavoidable dispensation of fate.

In the year 212, Caracalla gave himself up to the most wanton cruelties and extortions: these last were still more systematic than those of Commodus, who practised them in Rome only, whereas Caracalla carried them on at the same time in the provinces. It is a very just remark of Gibbon’s, that the tyranny of the Roman emperors weighed most heavily on Rome, and was less felt in the rest of Italy, and least of all in the provinces, which were sometimes worse off under the good emperors than under the bad ones. Caracalla, however, unfortunately for the provinces, travelled through them, and there his savage rage was yet greater than at Rome itself; he brought with him fell bloodshed into those hapless countries,—into Greece, Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt,—and drove the inhabitants to despair: the only thing that he cared for, was to satisfy his soldiers. The prætorians had been re-established by Severus, but on quite a different footing. Whereas formerly they had been a sort of janissaries, only that they did not leave Rome, it being even doubtful whether they ever accompanied the emperors in their wars; Severus now formed an entirely new guard, of three or four times the strength of the old one, as many indeed as thirty or forty thousand men; these he picked out from the legions, and he gave them double pay and higher rank. Under Severus and Caracalla they were no longer left behind in Rome, but they accompanied the emperors on their journeys and expeditions: thus Caracalla took them with him to the East. The most dreadful of Caracalla’s deeds was the massacre at Alexandria, where he enticed the inhabitants to come out of their city; made them feel quite secure; and then ordered his soldiers to slaughter them all. The people of Alexandria had provoked him, as they had done almost all the emperors, even the best of them: Alexandria and Antioch were the seats of wit, which spoke out in the theatres, or was placarded in pasquinades. They had now lashed the Roman tyrant for the murder of Geta, and this he never forgave.

Caracalla granted the right of citizenship to all the subjects of the Roman empire; that is to say, the peregrinitas was abolished throughout the whole of it: thus the vicesima hereditatum, which had until then been raised from Roman citizens, was made general, and he moreover raised it into a decima. Yet the Latini still remained after this; only there was no more peregrinitas for communities: in the case of freedmen, however, a different law might apply. Caracalla raised the taxes to an intolerable height, merely that he might have the means of winning the hearts of the soldiers: Severus had already said that the emperor who was sure of the army had nothing to fear.

Like Commodus, Caracalla had a taste for gladiatorial arts; but he was small in size, and not so handsome as Commodus. He had a silly kind of fondness for Alexander the Great; and if we may judge from the busts, it must be acknowledged that there was some likeness between them: the province of Macedon was, therefore, the only one to which he did any good. He formed a phalanx of Macedonians, and also assumed the name of Magnus: in the law books, he is often spoken of as Magnus Antoninus. Led by this feeling, he also went like Alexander to the East, to overthrow the Parthian empire; and he had his Macedonian phalanx with him. Everywhere he showed a very strong leaning towards anything that was Greek, a taste which may have been very much owing to the fact of his having a Syrian mother. The war against the Parthians he brought on, without having real cause for it. According to Herodian, he was guilty of an act of monstrous treachery: he invited Artabanus to a conference, and then tried to surprise him, and murdered a number of Parthians. These accounts, however, are all of them very doubtful in their details. Severus had already taken possession of Osroëne, where the reigning dynasty had been established for three hundred years: in the legend, an Abgarus betakes himself to our Saviour, beseeching him for his aid in a sickness. The king Abgarus at this time, was a vassal of the Parthians: Caracalla expelled him, and converted Osroëne into a Roman province. Whilst he was engaged here in preparations for a war against the Parthians themselves, he was murdered, in the year 217, at the instigation of the præfectus prætorio M. Macrinus, who had found his own life to be threatened. The soldiers, however, heard of the death of their emperor with indignation, and Macrinus had to try every means to deceive them as to his share in it; whereupon he was proclaimed emperor.

Dio’s and Herodian’s accounts of Macrinus, which are in his favour, may be much better relied upon than the nonsense of the Scriptores Historiæ Augustæ. Yet if Macrinus wished to be a praiseworthy prince, his character as such depended upon his getting the mastery over his soldiers: for their lawlessness had frightfully increased under Caracalla, as he let them do what they listed without punishing them. Macrinus, therefore, began to reform them, introducing discipline, and trying by degrees to lessen the concessions of Caracalla; and thus he either disbanded whole legions as veterans, and enlisted new ones on fairer conditions, or, which seems to me more likely, he merely filled up the old ones by new recruits. By this, however, he made himself hateful to them. They would not put up with it; and hence arose a rebellion. Hereupon young Avitus came forth. They might, however, have found another leader, Maximin perhaps, if Avitus had not presented himself.

Julia Domna had, after the death of her son, been condemned to seclusion by Macrinus, and she had herself put an end to her own life. Her sister Mæsa also had been banished. The latter had two daughters, both of them married in Syria: the names of the husbands were Roman, but the children were thorough Syrians, or Syrian-Greeks. The husband of Soæmis, the elder sister, was Sextus Varius Marcellus: this name, and the high offices which he held, lead to the conclusion that he was a Roman. The husband of the younger sister, Mamæa, was called Gessius Macrianus. Soæmis had a son and several daughters; Mamæa, a son and a daughter. The son of Soæmis was Avitus, afterwards M. Aurelius Antoninus, generally known by us as Elagabalus (corruptly Heliogabalus, as the name has nothing whatever to do with ἥλιος): he also bore the name of Bassianus, as people at that time often dropped their names, and as often took new ones. This Elagabalus was now seventeen years of age at most, quite a Syrian, and priest to the god Elagabalus at Emesa, where some aerolites which had fallen in the neighbourhood were worshipped. This young man, Mæsa and his own mother Soæmis declared to have been the offspring of an adulterous intercourse with Caracalla. Mæsa collected her immense riches at Emesa, and taking advantage of the discontent of the soldiers began to bribe them. Very many of them espoused her cause. Macrinus at first held this defection to be of no consequence; but quite contrary to all expectation, the fondness of the soldiers for Caracalla was transferred to Elagabalus, from whom besides they looked for a new donation. Had Macrinus now acted at once, he might yet have had the best of it; for in the decisive battle, the prætorians displayed greater bravery than was thought to be in them. But he gave himself up too soon for lost; and he fled from the fight with his son Antoninus Diadumenianus to Asia Minor, where he was overtaken and beheaded by the order of the young tyrant (218).

The name of Elagabalus is branded in history: even Caligula and Nero, when compared with him, appear in a favourable light. Caligula was not a beast like him; Nero undoubtedly had talents; but there is nothing whatever to redeem the vices of Elagabalus. The infamy of his reign is appalling. His extortions, which were spent on the gratification of the maddest fancies, were beyond everything; and yet the Roman world might have deemed itself happy, if he had only extorted. There were fewer actual cruelties; but he was ready for any wickedness: his only real passion, and one which ruled him, was zeal for the glorification of his idol Elagabalus, whom, as the god of the Sun, he wanted to place instead of Jupiter Capitolinus on the throne of the gods in Rome, and whom he exclusively worshipped. Even the soldiers were so disgusted with him, as to execrate him; and they would have murdered him as early as in 221, had he not, by the advice of his grandmother Mæsa, adopted as Cæsar his cousin Alexianus, who was afterwards called Alexander Severus.

This Alexander, if Lampridius is correct, was now no longer a child, being seventeen years old: according to Herodian, he was but thirteen or fourteen. He was the very reverse of his cousin: for his was a noble soul, like that of Marcus, the only difference being that of a fine Asiatic disposition when compared with an European one. He was a thorough Asiatic: being born in Phœnicia, he had first to learn Latin at Rome; so that he was always looked upon there as a Græculus, as one who was not a Latin. It is impossible to have a better will and a more beautiful mind than this young man had: the innocence which beamed forth from his countenance, gained him even the hearts of the soldiers, who, rough as they were, seemed to have a sincere regard for him. When Elagabalus now tried to get rid of him, and at the same time sought his life, a rebellion arose, owing to a report having been spread of Alexander’s death; and even when the mistake had been cleared up, the riot was put down only with difficulty. But as Elagabalus, conscious of his own worthlessness, could not disguise from himself that Alexander was far more liked than he was, he took steps in right earnest, to destroy his cousin; whereupon the rebellion broke out afresh with irresistible fury, and Elagabalus was killed (222). His dead body was flung into the river, and his memory cursed.

The reign of Alexander Severus lasted thirteen years, until 235. It is one which we are in danger of representing in too fair a light, as it seems that several authors have written a sort of Cyropædia on him. His personal amiability and kindness, his zeal to do his duty, cannot be called into doubt: his model was Marcus. But as Marcus was weak towards Faustina, so Alexander was still weaker towards his mother. We read, on the one hand, that he lightened the taxes; but on the other, exempla avaritiæ are told of Mamæa. Now, although this avaritia may perhaps have consisted in her hoarding treasure and jewels after the manner of the East, the reproaches against her, and the complaints of his weakness for her, were loud and general.

In the reign of Hadrian, we already meet with a council of state; and though in the days of Septimius Severus it seems to have again fallen into oblivion, we now see it completely organized as a regular branch of the government, a standing board which had the management of every matter of importance: its chief minister was the great Domitius Ulpianus. This man was perhaps a kinsman of the emperor’s, as he was of Tyrian origin, and he may thus have risen: he was not, however, born in Tyre, as I have shown in another place.^[55] A Syrian could not have written as he did, nor have made himself such a master of the science of Roman law. He might however have been indeed related to the imperial family, and yet have now been living at Rome for a long time.

Alexander’s rule, and his endeavours for the general good, were thwarted by insurmountable obstacles, owing to the power of the soldiers. These he had to bring under control: but they were mutineers like the janissaries; and this was now the case with the whole army, and no longer with the prætorians alone. If we may believe some scattered anecdotes, Alexander with all his gentleness displayed great firmness on many occasions; yet he tried in vain to protect Ulpian. Papinian had been murdered by Caracalla; Ulpian was slain by the soldiers before the eyes of the emperor, who could hardly succeed in bringing Epagathus, the ringleader of the mutiny, to punishment.

Marcus had driven back the German nations; in the reign of Commodus, peace had been made with them; and in that of Severus, we also find nothing about German wars; the Romans seem to have been in possession of the limes (the palisadoed ditch). But now the Germans began to advance; and I am inclined to believe that the pale was broken through in the time of Alexander Severus, as at the close of the war against them, its seat was on the Rhine, and they must therefore have forced the outworks. Unfortunately, we know next to nothing of the geography of those parts: in many places in Swabia, we meet with remains of Roman fortresses, the names of which are quite unknown to us. But even before this, a great revolution had called away the emperor to the East. This was the downfall of the Parthian dynasty, one of the unluckiest things that could have happened to the Roman empire. The catastrophe is easily accounted for. When a nation of shepherds gets the rule over a cultivated region, as was often the case in Asia, it gradually loses its bravery and sinks down to the level of those whom it has enslaved; yet its sway will still last for some time. Parthia was a feudal kingdom, of which Media, Babylonia, and other countries were fiefs with dynasties of their own. In former times, the Parthians were very unequal enemies to the Romans; but since the days of Marcus and Septimius Severus, their power was broken: probably the conquest of Ctesiphon in the year 198, had shaken the empire so much that its subjects thought of freeing themselves from its yoke. Our chief guide here is the most authentic history of Agathias. The Parthians must have utterly lost their nationality: their light cavalry, for instance, is but very seldom spoken off in their later times. We generally deem the insurrection of the Persians against the Parthians to have been like that of the Persians under Cyrus; but there was the same difference between the Parthians and the other races, as there is at present between nomads and the inhabitants of towns. The Persians who now shake off the yoke of the Parthians, must therefore have been chiefly the Tadjicks (inhabitants of towns) of the Iran race, whose abodes began at the Oxus. In Cyrus’ times, the Medes and Persians were two essentially distinct nations; but the Medes must since then have become quite Persians, as they had now one and the same language: Irak Ajemi has in all likelihood still preserved the language of the Medes. A research as to this matter, would be exceedingly interesting. In the struggle, the particulars of which are altogether unknown to us, the Persians succeeded in shaking off the thraldom of the Parthians; and these last vanish away, and we know not what has become of them. On this, the Persian empire came forth anew, and the old institutions were many of them restored: the Parthians had ruled like barbarians over a civilized nation, oppressing it, checking the exercise of its religion, and troubling the Persian worship of the elements by their promiscuous idolatry. The Persians who restored the empire, were headed by Ardaschir, son of Babek, who reckoned himself one of the race of Sassan, which gave rise to the silly story. The departure of the Parthians has been commemorated by a bas relief and an inscription. Ardaschir also restored the old fire-worship, but, to the great deterioration of its pristine purity, with a number of foreign rites; and therefore the Byzantines are quite right in saying that the later worship of the Persians was very different from the former one. The centre of the empire also was no longer the province of Persis: it was, on the contrary, removed from the Tigris to Ctesiphon, although Ardaschir and others after him have set up monuments at Persepolis. Susa had perished; Ecbatana was insignificant. Ardaschir, called by the Greek Artaxerxes, now that the empire was restored, and the nation was conscious of having achieved a great deed, at once asserted his claims against the Romans, whose decline could not have escaped his notice: he demanded the cession of all the countries to the Hellespont, because Asia belonged to the Persians, just as Europe might to the Romans: the answer of the Romans, of course, was war. In the issue of it, we have a remarkable example of the little reliance which we can place on the details of this history. Herodian’s account,—which is borne out by its intrinsic probability,—is that the Romans undertook the war with three armies; the first, on the right banks of the Euphrates; the second in Media; the third in Mesopotamia, to keep up the connexion between the two. He also says that the first, after a brave fight, had been obliged to retreat owing to the difficulty of the country; that the second had been entirely destroyed; and that the third moreover, which the emperor himself commanded, had not achieved its purpose. This statement is contradicted by an official letter of the emperor to the senate, wherein he boasts of the greatest successes over the enemy, for which the senate awarded him the honour of a triumph. Gibbon and Eckhel are quite of different opinions here. Eckhel takes a very high stand among the critical historians of our time, both for his learning and the excellence of his judgment. His works are far from being appreciated as they ought to be. His chronological criticisms have done much for the history of the Roman emperors, and there are few of the modern labourers in the field of ancient history to whom I owe so much as to Eckhel. Still, I am compelled to agree with Gibbon’s opinion. Eckhel deems it impossible that the report to the senate should have been a figment; but the vague and ambiguous expressions of this document tell very strongly against him: they are only meant to cover the defeat of the emperor. Herodian lived so shortly after that time, and in all that he really knows, he is a writer of so much judgment, that it would be wrong in this not to believe him rather than the bulletin of the emperor. As Severus returned to Rome for his triumph, he must have concluded a peace with the Persians, in which Rome certainly made a sacrifice: for until the time of Gordian there is actually peace, and Maximin moreover engaged in no undertaking on the eastern frontier.