Caracalla honoured his father after his death. The Historia Augusta says: "There is a colonnade of Severus at Rome, I might mention, depicting his exploits, which was built by his son, or so most men say", and: "He left a portico, too, named after his father and intended to contain a record of his achievements, both his triumphs and his wars" (Septimius Severus 21,12; Caracalla 9,6). It has been suggested that this Porticus Severi was in fact the Porticus Octaviae (to the north-west of the Theatre of Marcellus), which was according to an inscription restored by Septimius Severus and Caracalla in 203 AD after a fire (incendio corruptam restituerunt). It is conceivable that Caracalla used the porticus later on, to commemorate his father. It may already have been used for that purpose by Septimius Severus: "Severus won the glory of a Parthian victory and ... he sent dispatches to the senate and the people, extolling his exploits, and he had paintings of his battles and victories put on public display" (Herodianus 3,9,12). Medieval sources seem to call this porticus Porticus Severianus, Porticus Severini and Templum Severianum, but those names may have been derived merely from a surviving inscription.
Remains of the Porticus of Octavia with the inscription of Septimius Severus and Caracalla.
EDR103455. Photo: Wikimedia, Hugo DK.After the death of Geta many people who had turned against Caracalla were also killed. Among them was Plautilla, former wife of Caracalla and in exile since the downfall and death of her father, Fulvius Plautianus, in 205 AD. Another famous victim was the jurist Papinianus. The Praetorian Guard in Rome played a decisive role in securing Caracalla's position.
Bronze portrait of Caracalla in military dress, with a laurel wreath and a beam of rays.
Said to be from the Castra Praetoria in Rome, the barracks of the Praetorian Guard.
Antikensammlung, Berlin. Arachne 2121. Diam. 18,4 cm. Photo: Antikensammlung.Inevitably a damnatio memoriae of Geta and Plautilla was ordained: their names were removed from inscriptions, depictions were erased. A good example is seen on the Arch of the Argentarii in Rome (to the north-west of the Circus Maximus). It had been erected in 204 AD by bankers and traders in honour of the Imperial family (EDR103504-5). On the reliefs of the arch three figures were deleted: next to Caracalla presumably Plautilla and her father Plautianus, Geta next to Septimius Severus and Julia Domna.
Reliefs on the Arch of the Argentarii. Left: Caracalla. Right: Septimius Severus and Julia Domna.
Photos: Wikimedia, Diletta Menghinello.We hear Caracalla speaking during an audience in Rome, in 212 AD:
Philiscus the Thessalian was a kinsman of Hippodromus and held the chair of rhetoric at Athens for seven years, but was deprived of the immunity that was attached to it. How this came about I must now relate. The Heordaean Macedonians had summoned Philiscus to perform public services in their city, as was their right in the case of all who on the mother's side were Heordaeans, and since he did not undertake them they referred the matter to the courts. Accordingly the suit came before the Emperor (this was Antoninus the son of the philosophic Julia); and Philiscus travelled to Rome to protect his own interests. There he attached himself closely to Julia's circle of mathematicians and philosophers, and obtained from her with the Emperor's consent the chair of rhetoric at Athens.
But the Emperor, like the gods in Homer who are portrayed as granting favours to one another, but sometimes against their will, nourished the same sort of resentment, and was ill-disposed to Philiscus because he thought that the latter had stolen a march on him. So when he heard that there was a suit brought against him and that he was to hear it tried, he ordered the official in charge of lawsuits to give notice to Philiscus that he must make his defence himself and not through another. And when Philiscus appeared in court he gave offence by his gait, he gave offence by the way in which he stood, his attire seemed far from suitable to the occasion, his voice effeminate, his language indolent and directed to any subject rather than to the matter in hand.
All this made the Emperor hostile to Philiscus, so that he kept pulling him up throughout the whole speech, both by interjecting his own remarks in the other's allotted time, and by interrupting with abrupt questions. And since the replies of Philiscus were beside the mark, the Emperor exclaimed: "His hair shows what sort of man he is, his voice what sort of orator!" And after cutting him short like this many times, he ranged himself on the side of the Heordaeans. And when Philiscus said: "You have given me exemption from public services by giving me the chair at Athens," the Emperor cried at the top of his voice: "Neither you nor any other teacher is exempt! Never would I, for the sake of a few miserable speeches, rob the cities of men who ought to perform public services." Nevertheless he did, even after this incident, decree for Philostratus of Lemnos, then aged twenty-four, exemption from public service as a reward for a declamation. These then were the reasons why Philiscus was deprived of the privilege of exemption.Philostratus, The Lives of the Sophists 2,30. Translation Wilmer Cave Wright. A poem has been preserved that was read to Caracalla in Rome. It begins as follows:
Divine mortal, it is for you that I sing,
glorious support of the earth,
darling star of the bellicose children of Aeneas,
tender offspring of Jupiter of Ausonia, Antoninus,
happy fruit of the fortunate hymen which unites with the illustrious Severus,
the illustrious Domna. Noble wife of a magnanimous husband,
this amiable mother of a son filled with grace, is the Venus of Assyria,
it is Phoebe, whose luminous radiance is never eclipsed.
O you! whose origin does not cede in any way to that of the son of Saturn,
deign to be favorable to me, Titan beaming with glory, and you brilliant Apollo,
who hold from your father the empire of the universe conquered by his powerful hands.
It is for you that the liberal earth produces fruit and greenery from its fertile bosom,
it is for you that the peaceful Ocean nourishes its monstrous inhabitants,
it is for you that all the rivers roll their limpid waters drawn from the bosom of the seas,
and may the graceful Aurora soar smilingly into the heavens.Pseudo-Oppianus, Cynegetica I, prooemium.
Translation after the French translation by
J.N. Belin de Ballu, 1787.It is the opening of a long poem on hunting, the Cynegetica. In antiquity the poet was called Oppianus, but that seems to be the result of confusion with an Oppianus who wrote somewhat earlier. A short biography of the poet has survived in the manuscripts, which says: "Septimius Severus was angered and banished his father to the island of Melite in the Adriatic. There the son accompanied his father and there he wrote these very notable poems. Coming to Rome in the time of Antoninus, son of Severus - Severus being already dead - he read his poetry and was bidden to ask anything he pleased. He asked and obtained the restoration of his father, and received further for each verse or line of his poetry a golden coin".
The first page of a manuscript of the Cynegetica (1554).
Image: Bibliothèque Nationale de France.
