268
Cabacalla.
the jurisdiction, over a district of 100 miles around the capital.
Antoninus Pius, who was for a time appointed to this office,
kept up the same Systemjbutafterwardsitwasdiscontinued.
After the reign of Severus, the correctores are regularly
mentioned, and they must have been instituted by him. The
question, as to what was the extent of the power of a corrector
in his district, is a different and very uncertain one.
LECTUEE cxxiv.
In A.D. 212, Caracalla became the sole master of the empire,
and henceforth abandoned himself to the most reckless cruelties
and extortions. His cruelty was of the same kind as that of
Commodus; but his extortions were carried on even more
systematically, for Commodus had confined himself to Eome,
which he never quitted ; but Caracalla committed his acts of
extortion and fury just as much in the provinces which he
visited as in the capital. It is a good remark of Gibbon’s that
the tyranny of the emperors was felt chiefly at Eome, less in
Italy, and that the provinces had but seldom to suffer from it.
Under good emperors the provinces were often worse off than
under bad ones; but Caracalla unfortunately travelled from
one province to another; he traversed the whole of the East;
Greece, Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt, were the scenes of wild
bloodshed, and the population of those countries was driven to
despair. His only care was to satisfy the soldiers. After dis-
banding the praetorians whom he had found on his accession,
Severus had placed the new corps which he formed on a differ-
ent footing. Whether they had before always remained in
their praetorian camp and at Eome, or whether they had
accompanied the emperors on their expeditions, I cannot say;
but they were at all events very unwarlike. Severus raised
their number to 30,000 or 40,000 men, whom he selected
from the legions: they now received larger pay, and were
also considered to be of higher rank than before.1 In his
reign, and in that of his son Caracalla, they did not all remain
1 Dion Cass. lxxiv, 2; Herodian, ιii. 15,
BEIGN OF CARACALLA.
269
at Rome, but accompanied the emperors : accordingly we find
them with Caracalla on his travels through the eastern provinces.
Among the enormities which occurred during his progress,
none was more horrible than the massacre of Alexandria.
Having led the people out of their city, and lulled them into
security, the emperor surrounded them with his soldiers, and
ordered them to be cut down. The Alexandrines had impru-
dently provoked him, as they had provoked even the best of
emperors.2 Antioch and Alexandria were the seats of wit;
and there seldom passed a day without some witty joke being
made or placarded in the theatres: the one which had been
made upon Caracalla alluded to his having murdered his
brother, and he took bloody vengance for it.3
Caracalla gave the Roman franchise to all the subjects of the
empire, and thus put an end to the peregrinitas throughout the
Roman world. What induced him to do this was the imposi-
tion of a new tax, for which he probably wanted to make up
by conferring the honour of citizenship upon all his subjects.
This tax was the increase of the vicesima hereditatum, to a
decima∖ which was imposed on Roman citizens only. But
there still remained persons who were not Roman citizens;
for Ulpian speaks5 of Latini colonarii as still existing: it was
only the peregrinitas that was abolished, but freedmen might
have entered into a quite different relation. Caracalla raised
the taxes to an unbearable height; and his only object in doing
so was to win the favor of the soldiers, whom alone he thought
worthy of his attention. Severus himself had said that an
emperor who was sure of the soldiers had no reason to fear.
This was a truth indeed, but a fearful one.
In many points, Caracalla resembled Commodus, such as his
fondness for gladiatorial exhibitions and the like ; but he was
of smaller stature, and not so strong ' and handsome as Com-
modus. He had a strange partiality for Alexander the Great;
if the bust of Alexander which we possess is not a forgery
there was some resemblance between Caracalla and the Mace-
donian conqueror; and it may have been this resemblance that
gave rise to his foolish desire to imitate Alexander. The
province of Macedonia was, for this reason, the only one in
2 J. Capitolin. Λf. Antonin. Philos. 25.
3 Herodian, iv. 9; Dion Cass. Ixxvii. 23; Spartian. Antonin. Carac. 6.
4 Dion Cass. Ixxvii. 9. 5 xix, 4.