Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-75dct Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-13T05:04:25.494Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

CARACALLA AND ‘ALEXANDER'S PHALANX’: CAUGHT AT A CROSSROADS OF EVIDENCE

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 September 2021

Alex Imrie
Alex Imrie*
Affiliation:
University of Edinburgh, UK
*
a.imrie@ed.ac.uk
Get access
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

It is well known that Alexander the Great offered inspiration to successive monarchs and autocrats. Few of these, however, could claim to match the affection shown by the Roman emperor Caracalla (198–217 ce). Caracalla is said to have been an almost pathological aficionado of Alexander, constantly promoting a public association between himself and his idol. One aspect of Caracalla's imitatio Alexandri was allegedly the levy of a peculiar phalangite formation based on the arms and equipment of Alexander's time. For years it was impossible to gauge whether this was a real development or a hostile literary fabrication, but the discovery of funerary remains at Apamea in Syria, which appear to memorialize phalangites and lanciarii, confirmed to some the historicity of Caracalla's bizarre levy. This article argues, however, that the apparently convincing combination of evidence is illusory, and that Caracalla's ‘phalanx’ was rather a convenient label applied to an inherently Roman formation.

Type
Research Article
Information
Greece & Rome , Volume 68 , Issue 2 , October 2021 , pp. 222 - 238
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

The Roman emperor Caracalla (198–217 ce) is renowned as a forerunner to the soldier-emperors of the third century: military minded, favouring the army over the Senate, and ultimately at his happiest on campaign.Footnote 1 Allusions to his martial qualities and ambitions can be found throughout the surviving literature for the period, both contemporaneous and subsequent.Footnote 2 Foremost among these accounts is that of the contemporary senator Cassius Dio, who missed no opportunity to scorn and deride the emperor's militaristic persona. In the course of his Roman History, Dio claimed that Caracalla ran to the praetorians and soldiery in the aftermath of murdering his younger brother, Geta, at the close of 211.Footnote 3 Underlying this episode is the notion that the emperor identified himself as a comrade to his fighting men, rather than their commander, and that his imperial power was valuable primarily in that it allowed him to bestow favour onto them.Footnote 4

This was not the only time that Caracalla's military policy, such as we may label it, was scrutinized by Dio. During his account of the emperor's eastward travels throughout the empire, he also claimed that Caracalla ordered the raising of a peculiar formation for inclusion within his growing field army, specifically a phalangite formation inspired directly by the army of Alexander the Great:

φάλαγγά τέ τινα ἐκ μόνων τῶν Μακεδόνων ἐς μυρίους καὶ ἑξακισχιλίους συντάξαι, καὶ αὐτὴν Ἀλεξάνδρου τε ἐπονομάσαι καὶ τοῖς ὅπλοις οἷς ποτὲ ἐπ’ ἐκείνου ἐκέχρηντο ὁπλίσαι⋅ ταῦτα δ’ ἦν κράνος ὠμοβόεοιν, θώραξ λινοῦς τρίμιτος, ἀσπὶς χαλκῆ, δόρυ μακρόν, αἰχμὴ βραχεῖα, κρεπῖδες, ξίφος.

He organized a phalanx, composed entirely of Macedonians, sixteen thousand strong, named it ‘Alexander's phalanx’, and equipped it with arms that warriors had used in his day; these consisted of a helmet of raw ox-hide, a three-ply linen breastplate, a bronze shield, long pike, short spear, high boots and sword.Footnote 5

Viewed within the context of Dio's grand narrative, his excursus on the panoply of this apparently irregular levy is an uncharacteristically detailed account of military affairs. Later, when complaining of Caracalla's dismissive attitude towards his consilium, Dio further notes that the emperor devoted time to drilling and training his phalanx while wintering his army at Nicomedia in 214–15.Footnote 6 Beyond these two mentions, though, Dio does not broach the subject of the formation again, either in the context of Macrinus’ attempts to prosecute the campaign of his predecessor in Armenia, or in the civil conflict between Macrinus and the Severan faction under Julia Maesa.Footnote 7

Dio is not alone in describing Caracalla levying troops during his travels: Herodian similarly mentions formations being raised in Macedon and Sparta.Footnote 8 It remains possible, however, that this represents something of an echo of Dio's account.Footnote 9 In any event, the passing references to Caracalla's Alexandrian-style phalanxes might have been dismissed as a Dionian fantasy, were it not for the later discovery of a number of funerary stelae and altars at the legionary fortress site at Apamea in Syria.Footnote 10 Among the various commemorative inscriptions found across the site are records of discentes (trainees) in particular specializations: two ‘javelinmen’ (discentes lanchiarium) and a phalangite (discens phalangarium).Footnote 11

The discovery of these funerary artefacts appears, to some, to represent the missing piece in a puzzle that proves categorically the veracity of Caracalla's levy as recorded in the surviving literature. Balty, for example, claimed that the funerary inscription recording the trainee phalangarius ‘obviously belonged to the phalanx which Caracalla and Alexander Severus revived on the model of Alexander [the Great]’.Footnote 12 More recently, others have merely accepted the existence of a unique formation, including it in their accounts of Caracalla's campaigning army as a matter of fact.Footnote 13 Indeed, the two bodies of evidence here have been increasingly linked and viewed as complementary. There are problems with this interpretation.

As I have already noted, the literary record of the phalanx is limited in nature and derives from a hostile author. Added to this, the funerary evidence from Apamea is far from conclusive on what formation is being referred to. In this article, then, I will attempt to situate the anecdote of Caracalla's phalanx within two divergent narratives: first, as an example of alleged imitatio Alexandri, and secondly as indicative of a wider process of evolution in the Roman military equipment of the late second and early third century ce. I believe that the circumstantially persuasive combination of evidence noted above has led some to characterize Caracalla's ‘phalanx’ as a unique and anachronistic military experiment. The reality, however, is likely far more rational, grounded in the development in military technology occurring during the High Empire, and representing a point on a continuum rather than an aberration.

‘He suddenly became Alexander…’

Part of the appeal in viewing Caracalla's alleged Macedonian phalanx as a personal innovation lies in the fact that the emperor is infamous for his hero-worship of Alexander the Great, with some even going so far as to label it a pathological obsession.Footnote 14 This is a difficult allegation to assess. On the one hand, this extreme position arguably accepts too much of the surviving literature at face value, since there is actually a surprising dearth of Alexander iconography to be found in Caracalla's state media, such as official inscription or imperial coinage, for example.Footnote 15 On the other hand, there remains an inescapable likelihood that Caracalla drew considerable inspiration from the Macedonian king in his concepts of power and government regarding the Principate.Footnote 16

Central to this issue is the idealized Alexander presented by Plutarch in De Alexandri fortuna aut virtute.Footnote 17 By examining this work, it becomes possible to interpret a number of Caracalla's actions as a realization of the Plutarchan character found in the Moralia. Herodian, for example, makes much of the emperor adopting non-Roman forms of dress across his reign, whether Germanic, Macedonian, or Eastern.Footnote 18 While this is presented as a negative trait by hostile writers, comparison with Plutarch's declamation reveals that Caracalla may have been engaging in an earnest attempt at imitatio Alexandri, since Plutarch had lauded the Macedonian for his willingness to win hearts and minds through the use of local costume.Footnote 19 In fact, the emperor appears to have taken this one step further, with his signature caracallus forming a microcosm of this unifying ideology: a patchwork cloak, bringing together different cloths into one indivisible garment.Footnote 20

Similarly, Caracalla's great edict, the constitutio Antoniniana, can also be viewed as an act of imitatio on a monumental scale. If the surviving text of the proclamation is set against the De Alexandri fortuna, similarities in tone can be observed between the two documents. In the Plutarchan text, the author is explicit that Alexander the Great planned to ‘render all upon earth subject to one law of reason and one form of government and to reveal all men as one people’.Footnote 21 Sidestepping the question of whether the historical Alexander followed such an ideological ambition, Caracalla's constitutio certainly bears comparison to the literary incarnation of the king.Footnote 22 In relating the nature of his mass enfranchisement, the edict appears to contain the following (admittedly fragmentary) description:

This decree will spread the magnificence of the Roman people. For it now happens that the same greatness has occurred for everyone, by the honour in which the Romans have been preeminent since time immemorial, with no-one from any country in the world being left stateless or without honour.Footnote 23

The very act of mass enfranchisement, tying his populace together through a universal system of law, suggests a potentially Alexandrian inspiration, one that is only heightened when Caracalla's tone throughout the Giessen text is considered.Footnote 24

It seems highly likely, then, that the mythos of Alexander the Great played a significant role in the way that Caracalla conceived of his principate and, to some extent, in how he governed it and presented it. This is not surprising, given the prominence of Alexander in the literature and education of the mid to late second century ce, in the flourishing atmosphere of the Second Sophistic.Footnote 25 In the hands of the surviving literary sources, however, this inspiration is presented as a negative, one feature among many that testified to the irrational nature of the emperor. For example, as noted above, Herodian was critical of Caracalla's adoption of foreign costume. He is even more stinging when alleging that the emperor ordered janiform statues to be erected that carried a single body with the head split between likenesses of Caracalla and Alexander, calling them ‘ludicrous’ creations.Footnote 26 Herodian clearly mocks this synthesis of Caracallan and Alexandrian imagery, but he probably also reflects a wish on the part of the emperor to be connected intimately with the Macedonian king. While, as noted earlier, there is a dearth of surviving state media that promoted an association between Caracalla and Alexander, evidence of a response to such a message can be found in the provinces, most visibly in the case of the Aboukir medallions, upon which portraits of Caracalla and Alexander were paired.Footnote 27 Later, a comparable allegation is found in the Historia Augusta, that Caracalla's personality and visage changed from a friendly adolescent into a more stern and reserved adult; one of the author's explanations is that he did this somehow to ape Alexander.Footnote 28

The most vigorous of Caracalla's detractors remains Cassius Dio.Footnote 29 The author misses few chances to cast the emperor as a pathetically theatrical Alexander-fantasist.Footnote 30 Dio alleges, for example, that Caracalla was fond of using items and weapons that he believed had once belonged to Alexander.Footnote 31 The comment may be a fleeting one in the wider critique of the emperor's reign, but it is nevertheless pointed, echoing Dio's similar criticism of Caligula found earlier in the Roman History, thus casting the two rulers together.Footnote 32 The author goes on to recount episodes in which Caracalla acted irrationally on the basis of a perceived connection to Alexander. In one scene, the emperor promoted a Macedonian tribune based solely on the soldier's name being Antigonus (and his father's being Philip).Footnote 33 In another scene, Caracalla is accused of becoming enraged with a prosecutor for besmirching the good name of Alexander during a trial that he was arbitrating.Footnote 34 Indeed, almost every element of Caracalla's travels and military expedition that carried a potential link to the Macedonian conqueror was undercut by Dio.Footnote 35 Furthermore, while Dio himself did not refer to the Antonine Constitution in Alexandrian terms, he was no less damning of the legislation, claiming that, far from honouring his people, the emperor was simply pressing them for more money from taxation.Footnote 36

It is into this pattern of denigration that Dio's account of Caracalla's Macedonian phalanx fits. As noted above, the formation is presented in precise detail. He emphasizes its unusual panoply, including a linen breastplate, similar in style to the garment that he criticizes Caracalla for wearing while on campaign.Footnote 37 The formation is mentioned again in Dio's account of the army wintering at Nicomedia in 214 ce, included in a wider complaint of the emperor ignoring his senatorial council in favour of idle leisure or fraternizing with the soldiery.Footnote 38 While it might be tempting to dismiss the phalanx as a Dionian fiction designed to malign Caracalla's reputation, his repeated allusion to the formation in the specific context of the emperor's military preparations (which Dio was himself present to witness) leads me to doubt that it is entirely illusory. That said, the author clearly presents the phalanx as an ego trip on the part of an Alexander aficionado. This is an equally problematic conclusion, with Dio misinterpreting the role and significance of Caracalla's phalangarii.

The phalanx within the Roman army

It is hardly surprising, given the vivid descriptions offered by Dio and Herodian, that some should find the physical evidence of lanciarii and a phalangarius at Apamea tantalizing. The fact remains, however, that the archaeological finds in Syria are in some ways ambiguous and, ultimately, it is highly unlikely that they refer to an extraordinary formation raised by Caracalla. Problems surround the iconographic and epigraphic evidence from Apamea, at least when it comes to identifying them in association with Caracalla's Macedonian phalanx. The first of these concerns the difficulty in dating the remains in question with any certainty. Apamea was repeatedly, although not exclusively, employed as a base for the legio II Parthica during its time in the east, most notably during the eastern campaigns of Caracalla and Alexander Severus.Footnote 39 While some of the inscriptions at Apamea provide the legionary epithet that allows us to distinguish between the Caracallan incarnation (Antoniniana) and the later iteration (Severiana), unfortunately those recording the lanciarii and the phalangarius are not among them.Footnote 40 This means that the funerary artefacts in question have a terminus post quem of anywhere between 215 and 233 ce.Footnote 41

Whether we accept that the lanciarii and phalangarius commemorated at Apamea were members of the Caracallan or Alexandrian field army, however, one feature of the inscriptions that must be emphasized is their legionary nature. In each of the three funerary artefacts relating to the discentes in question, the men are recorded as soldiers within the legio II Parthica.Footnote 42 This might seem like an obvious point to make, but it is worth stressing since it has a bearing on how we perceive the emperors’ use of lanciarii and phalangarii during this period, especially if one believes that the remains date to the Caracallan principate.

Using the Apamea evidence as proof, Balty refers to the phalanx as a formation that ‘Caracalla and Severus Alexander revived on the model of Alexander [the Great]’.Footnote 43 This reading is rather opaque, however, and does not state sufficiently how the Dionian testimony fits with the archaeological evidence. While Dio's account casts the emperor's phalangarii as an extraordinary levy in the midst of his travel through Macedon and Thrace, the funerary evidence in Syria confirms that phalangarii served in the army as legionaries, rather than in an auxiliary capacity or as a regional numerus. The two sides to this case are difficult to reconcile. On the one hand, we may fairly conclude that Dio (and later writers) have miscast the phalanx as an irregular levy by Caracalla when, in reality, lanciarii and phalangarii appear to have been trained within at least some of the legions of this period. On the other hand, the question of how these legionaries were actually equipped, or how they operated, remains open, owing to a dearth of evidence outside Dio's excursus.

One factor that complicates this picture is the artistic nature of the sculptural evidence. On the funerary stela erected for Aurelius Mucianus, one of the lanciarii found at Apamea, the deceased is depicted standing frontally, wearing a soldier's tunic and cloak, and carrying shafted weapons and an oval shield.Footnote 44 This unarmoured style of depiction dominates the sculptural remains at Apamea and is, in fact, among the most common style of military funerary representation on stelae from the first century ce onwards, with a sudden increase in such stelae appearing in the early third century.Footnote 45 Moreover, the appearance of shafted weaponry is not unique to specialists, but forms another relatively mundane type of funerary depiction for the period.Footnote 46 The funerary evidence from Apamea is therefore almost entirely unhelpful in gauging the accuracy of Dio's testimony regarding the ‘phalanx’.Footnote 47

Returning to the description of the phalanx in the Roman History, there are a couple of potential oddities in Dio's description of the formation that must be addressed. The first of these concerns Dio's estimate of the formation's size. In claiming that Caracalla's phalanx was 16,000 strong, Dio offers a figure that is equivalent to more than three legions.Footnote 48 This figure is more than likely inflated for literary effect, especially considering that the region around Macedon and Thrace was already providing soldiery for the Danubian legions, if not also the eastern legions. In fact, Dio's figure may stem from earlier works, such as Livy or Appian, who offer the same figure in describing Hellenistic phalanxes, or from the writings of Asclepiodotus (Tact. 2.7), where the author arrives at an even more precise number of 16,384 men in a phalanx.Footnote 49

The second issue is more technical. In describing the armament of Caracalla's new troops, the author claimed that they were equipped with two shafted weapons and a sword. As seen above, the traditionally accepted translation is to distinguish between a long pike and a short spear.Footnote 50 There is an issue, however, in that Dio does not refer to the ‘pike’ in question as a sarissa, the term used to denote the weapon wielded by Macedonian forces that could range from four to six metres in length.Footnote 51 Instead, the author simply refers to the primary weapon as δόρυ μακρόν, a ‘long spear’. For a source so determined to draw a detailed picture of the emperor arming his phalanx in an anachronistic fashion, this seems like an oddly vague way to describe the Macedonians’ signature weapon. In fact, it might even suggest that the formation levied by Caracalla was not armed in the manner of Alexander's soldiery.Footnote 52

On the one hand, we must be careful to avoid reading too deeply into Dio's choice of words when describing the specifics of the panoply since, as Bishop and Coulston argue, ‘Artistic licence and the generous use of anachronisms means that it is usually hazardous to treat the material too literally.’Footnote 53 Indeed, it is possible that Dio was using this term while meaning to refer to the sarissa.Footnote 54 On the other hand, we may derive some indirect evidence regarding the nature of the phalanx from Herodian's account of the Battle of Nisibis (217 ce), in which the newly ascended emperor Macrinus was compelled to defend himself against an advance by the Parthian king Artabanus IV, inheriting the recently murdered Caracalla's campaign in the field. In his account of the battle, Herodian makes no reference to the phalangarii from Macedon, or indeed those formations raised in Greece that he had mentioned previously.Footnote 55 On the contrary, he describes Roman superiority at close quarters, but an abject inability to contend with the reach of the Parthian cataphracts and camel riders:

The barbarians caused heavy casualties with their rain of arrows and with the long spears of their heavy cavalry on horses and camels, as they wounded the Romans with downward thrusts. But the Romans easily had the better of those who came to close-quarter fighting.Footnote 56

While we must remain careful not to accept too much of the literary evidence at face value, the fact remains that neither Herodian nor Dio makes reference to pike-armed infantry in the course of their narratives of the war, despite the latter stating specifically that the formation was equipped to mimic the arms carried by the Panhellenic army. Added to this, in the only account we have of the Severan army in pitched battle during this campaign, the literature suggests that the Romans were unable to compete with the reach of the Parthian host.Footnote 57 The funerary evidence found at Apamea demonstrates that there were soldiers labelled as phalangarii in the Roman army of the period, but it seems likely that they were, in fact, equipped with a long spear more akin to the traditional hasta employed by the Republican triarii, rather than anything else: longer than the pilum, but still rendering them at a disadvantage against many of their Parthian adversaries. Where does this leave us regarding the ‘phalanx’ referred to by our literary sources, then?

Much of the mystery or controversy surrounding Caracalla's phalanx derives from viewing the phalangarii as a development unique to Caracalla himself, rather than a broader pattern of change in which Caracalla played a component part. While it is tempting to ascribe developments to individual rulers, there are inherent dangers in such an approach; the implications of conceiving of change in this manner can lead to an idiosyncratic understanding of the process and may even be entirely misleading.Footnote 58 There is no question that any military-minded princeps would have been interested in equipping his armies to counter the particular threats that they would face in any given theatre but, when analysed on a more holistic level, Caracalla's phalangarii appear to be less an individual innovation, and more a natural development on a continuum of Roman military technology. Indeed, the tactical problems faced by Caracalla could broadly be applied to any Roman emperor from Trajan to Gordian III.

It therefore appears that during the second century ce there was a general shift in the way that the Roman legionary force was equipped and tactically arrayed.Footnote 59 Of the myriad developments in arms and armour across this period, one of the most important for our purposes here concerns the evolution of the helmet employed by legionaries. During this period, the quintessential helmet of the Early Empire evolved into a more closed style: longer at the back, with a wide neck guard; bearing a peak over the brow, angled upwards to deflect blows; and carrying wider cheek-pieces on the sides.Footnote 60 The result was a far greater level of protection for the head and neck, at the expense of movement. This has led to the suggestion that such helmets were produced for legionaries fighting in close formation, be this with spears or with the long sword (spatha) that was becoming more and more common in various locations across the same period.Footnote 61 These contemporaneous developments suggest that Roman commanders were increasingly concerned with gaining reach, against enemies on both the northern and eastern frontiers.Footnote 62

Another development that must not be overlooked is that of ranged weaponry within the Roman army. Records of both sagittarii legionis and the scorpio siege engine are found among the Apamea inscriptions and elsewhere.Footnote 63 In fact, there appears to be a similar development of ranged troops across this period, integrating specialist archers to counter the Parthians’ and Sassanids’ renowned ranged specialists.Footnote 64 The widespread nature of this can be observed in Vegetius’ inclusion of archery training in De rei militari.Footnote 65 Given these simultaneous developments, it is perhaps wiser to dismiss completely the Dionian inference that the phalangarii were an irregular levy, instead viewing the term phalangarius as a more general designation for close order infantry.

From Caracalla's own lifetime, the Arch of Septimius Severus in the Forum Romanum may also prove helpful in demonstrating the increasing differentiation in equipment employed by legionaries of the period. The great panels of the arch are elaborately decorated with military and triumphal scenes, which draw together images relating to the Parthian campaigns waged by Severus in 195–6 and 197–8.Footnote 66 While the question remains of exactly how empirical or representative the imagery presented on a large-scale propaganda piece such as this truly is, it is striking that there is a degree of variation between the troops depicted, in terms of both weaponry carried and armour worn.Footnote 67 In among the siege engines and representations of members of the imperial family themselves, soldiers armed with long spears in a fashion similar to the basic description of Dio (notwithstanding his attempt to emphasize their Hellenistic appearance) can be observed.Footnote 68 Rather than Caracalla conceptualizing a new formation from scratch, then, the cumulative effect of the limited evidence that we have is to suggest that the emperor was enrolling men into a pre-existing structure that was characterized by differentiation in arms.

Conclusion

The ‘Macedonian phalanx’ of Caracalla is a phenomenon that has suffered through being caught at the crossroads of two competing bodies of evidence. On the one hand, there is the funerary archaeology from Apamea that, while undoubtedly tantalizing for some, displays an irritating lack of specificity in the important details. On the other hand, of course, there is the surviving literary record, sometimes lacunose and often characterized by an open hostility towards Caracalla, and a desire to blacken his legacy. While the surviving evidence therefore does not allow for a reconstruction with complete certitude, I suggest that the combined weight of the sources that we do possess nevertheless allows some conclusions to be drawn.

During the course of his travels throughout the provinces from 213 to early 216, Caracalla made an effort to bolster the number of troops under his command, in advance of his planned offensive against the Parthian Empire.Footnote 69 As part of this mission, the emperor levied a large number of men from Macedon and Thrace, shortly before crossing into Asia Minor.Footnote 70 Contrary to Dio's suggestion that these recruits were shaped into a separate formation of their own, it is more probable that they were enrolled into the legio II Parthica as phalangarii. This interpretation is preferable for three primary reasons: it fits more comfortably with the funerary evidence from Apamea that commemorates legionary discentes; it reflects a wider pattern of change observed in Roman military equipment that is itself suggestive of an increasing prevalence in close formation infantry tactics, paired with greater emphasis on Roman missile troops; and, finally, it makes sense in the prelude to a campaign against Parthia, whose forces were renowned for their cavalry and horse-archery. In effect, the levy recorded by Dio in Macedon is entirely explicable in rational terms and is, moreover, suggestive of a forward-thinking high command.

That said, the situation of this episode in a wider critique of Caracalla's imitatio Alexandri must also be addressed. I have already noted the prominent role that Alexander the Great occupied in both elite Roman education and the literary expressions of the Second Sophistic, but what is also significant within this matrix is the practice of imperial engagement with the legendary conqueror. From the very beginning of the Principate, emperors had found it profitable to associate themselves with Alexander in some way or another.Footnote 71 Augustus is said to have visited the king's tomb in Alexandria, and to have sealed official communications with a stamp bearing the Macedonian's image.Footnote 72 Dio depicts Trajan, whom he treats positively, both comparing his own imperial conquests with Alexander and visiting Babylon in reverence of the king.Footnote 73 Much later, the emperor Julian was also renowned for his admiration and veneration of the conqueror, especially in the context of his own campaign against Sassanid Persia.Footnote 74

In his youth, Caracalla would have witnessed the power of the Alexander mythos in the civil war waged between his father and the pretender Pescennius Niger, with the latter being hailed as a new Alexander by his followers.Footnote 75 Even following Severus’ victory against Niger in 195 ce, the emperor evidently appreciated the propagandistic value of Alexander's image, taking the extreme step of closing the king's tomb and removing a number of documents from it.Footnote 76 More than simple mimicry, then, imperial association with Alexander the Great represented an active political ideology.Footnote 77 This was particularly potent in the context of warfare against Parthia, when eastward expansion could be easily presented in Alexandrian terms.Footnote 78

Given these factors, Dio's account of the levy in Macedon may actually contain a kernel of truth, if we endeavour to move beyond the vitriol. It is entirely conceivable that, in raising a body of phalangarii for deployment against the Parthian Empire, Caracalla seized the chance to evoke the memory of Alexander the Great; it would arguably be more unusual if he had not taken this opportunity. Such a claim would likely have worked on two levels: first, it would have tied into the imperial tradition of glorifying one's own eastern wars by comparing them to those of Alexander; secondly, it may also be viewed as one of the emperor's attempts to win the favour of his provincial populations by invoking their famous heritage.

In the hands of Cassius Dio, Caracalla's sole reign is presented as a dark period for the empire. The contempt felt by the author towards his emperor is self-evident throughout the contemporary books of the Roman History. One of Dio's most vehement criticisms is the emperor's self-association with Alexander the Great, something that the author believed was excessive and unhinged. In Dio's mind, the raising of phalangarii in Macedon was merely another symptom of Caracalla's supreme vanity. In reality, however, far from dreaming up a new formation from thin air, we may interpret the emperor's actions as a simple step in an evolutionary process within the Roman military apparatus that was already long underway. Caracalla levied phalangarii as part of a wider effort to bolster his army against the threat he would face in the east. As it happens, however, it was an assassin's blade from his own side that was to fell him, rather than a cataphract's lance or a horse-archer's arrow.

Footnotes

I would like to thank Jon Coulston and Eberhard Sauer for sharing their thoughts on an early version of this article, and the anonymous reviewers for their generous feedback.

References

1 The near contemporary author Herodian (4.7.1) claimed that Caracalla loathed life in Rome and sought to leave the capital at his first convenience, ‘no doubt to deal with the military administration and to inspect the provincial territories’ (translation from C. R. Whittaker [ed. and trans.], Herodian. History of the Roman Empire from the Time of Marcus Aurelius, Books 1–4 [Cambridge, MA, 1969]).

2 Given this emphasis, it is hardly surprising that one of the most recent attempts to offer a biography of the emperor has been approached from a predominantly military angle. See I. Syvänne, Caracalla. A Military Biography (Barnsley, 2017).

3 Cass. Dio 78[77].3.1–2. All references to Dio utilize the Loeb numbering system.

4 How far this can be identified as a senatorial perspective on the matter, as opposed to a uniquely Dionian perspective, remains debatable. For opposing views, see Scott, A. G., ‘Cassius Dio, Caracalla and the Senate’, Klio 97.1 (2015), 157–75CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Davenport, C., ‘Cassius Dio and Caracalla’, CQ 62 (2012), 796–815CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 Cass. Dio 78[77].7.1–2 (translation from E. Cary [ed. and trans.], Dio Cassius. Roman History, Volume IX. Books 71–80 [Cambridge, MA, 1927]).

6 Cass. Dio 78[77].18.1.

7 The text of Dio's prose is admittedly fragmentary and lacunose, not to mention the potential impact of a later epitomator, but there does not appear to be any area where additional references to the phalanx might have naturally featured.

8 Hdn. 4.8.2–3. In addition, Herodian (4.9.4) and the author of the Historia Augusta (M. Ant. 6.2–3) refer to the raising of a phalanx, or at least the ruse of one, in the context of Caracalla's alleged massacre of the population of Alexandria in early 216.

9 Kemezis, A., Greek Narratives of the Roman Empire under the Severans. Cassius Dio, Philostratus and Herodian (Cambridge, 2014), 228CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 Bishop, M. C. and Coulston, J. C. N., Roman Military Equipment. From the Punic Wars to the Fall of Rome, second edition (Oxford, 2006), 12CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Strobel, K., ‘Strategy and Army Structure between Septimius Severus and Constantine’, in Erdkamp, P. (ed.), A Companion to the Roman Army (Oxford, 2007), 272Google Scholar; Balty, J. C., ‘Apamea in Syria in the Second and Third Centuries ad’, JRS 78 (1988), 97–104Google Scholar.

11 M. F. Schwarze, Römische Militärgeschichte, Band 2. Studie zur römischen Armee und ihrer Organisation im seschsten Jahrhundert n. Chr. (Norderstedt, 2017), 528; R. Cowan, ‘The Battle of Nisibis, ad 217: Last Battle of the Parthian Wars’, Ancient Warfare 3.5 (2009), 31; Balty (n. 10), 101. For the lanciarius Aurelius Mucianus, see AE 1993, 1575 = AE 2008, 1523 = AE 2013, 1695. For the lanciarius Lucius Septimius Viator, see AE 1993, 1574 = AE 2008, 1523. The inscription relating to the phalangarius is yet to be published formally, but for a credible restoration of the text, see Cowan (this note), 34. A third individual, Aurelius Zoilus, is recorded simply as a miles (soldier), but is observed carrying the same bundle of shafted weapons as the lanciarii: see J. C. Balty and W. Van Rengen, Apamea in Syria. The Winter Quarters of the Legio II Parthica. Roman Gravestones from the Military Cemetery (Brussels, 1993), pl. 3.

12 Balty (n. 10), 101.

13 P. A. García, Caracalla. La configuracion de un tirano (Madrid, 2009), 71; Syvänne (n. 2), 200–8.

14 A. R. Birley, Septimius Severus. The African Emperor (London, 1988), 194; D. Baharal, ‘Caracalla, Alexander the Great, and Education in Rome’, in P. Defosse (ed.), Hommages à Carl Deroux III. Histoire et epigraphie, Droit (Brussels, 2003), 27.

15 A. Imrie, The Antonine Constitution. An edict for the Caracallan Empire (Leiden, 2018), 105–7; D. Baharal, The Victory of Propaganda. The Dynastic Aspect of the Imperial Propaganda of the Severi. The Literary and Archaeological Evidence (London, 1996), 73–6.

16 Imrie (n. 15), 99–112; J. Langford, ‘Caracalla and Alexandri Imitatio: Self-Presentation and the Politics of Inclusion’, in J. Hawke (ed.), Hetairideia. Studies in Honour of W. Lindsay Adams on the Occasion of His Retirement (Chicago, IL, 2016), 305–38; Baharal (n. 14).

17 For a detailed examination of Plutarch's treatment of Alexander, see S. Asirvatham, ‘Plutatch's Alexander’, in K. R. Moore (ed.), Brill's Companion to the Reception of Alexander the Great (Leiden, 2018).

18 Hdn. 4.4.7 and 4.8.2.

19 Plut. De Alex. fort. 330A.

20 Cass. Dio 79[78].3.3. For more on the significance of this garment and its potential function as an act of imitatio Alexandri, see Langford (n. 16), 329–34.

21 Plut. De Alex. fort. 330D (translation from F. C. Babbit, Plutarch. Moralia, Volume IV [Cambridge, MA, 1936]).

22 For the controversy surrounding the erroneous assumptions of the historical Alexander's pursuit of a brotherhood of man, see W. W. Tarn, Alexander the Great, Vol. 2. Sources and Studies (Cambridge, 1948); E. Badian, ‘Alexander the Great and the Unity of Mankind’, Historia 7 (1958), 425–44; P. A. Brunt, ‘The Aims of Alexander’, G&R 12 (1965), 205–15; A. B. Bosworth, ‘Alexander and the Iranians’, JHS 100 (1980), 1–21.

23 P. Giess. 40.1, lines 11–14: [Τοῦτο δὲ τὸ διάτ]αγμα ἐ[ξαπ]λώσει [τὴν] μεγαλειότητα [το]ῦ Ῥωμα[ίων δήμου συμβαίνει γὰρ τὴν αὐτὴ]ν περὶ τοῦς [ἄλλο]υς γεγενῆσθα[ι] ᾗπερ δ[ι]α[πρέπουσιν ἀνέκαθεν Ῥωμαῖοι τιμῇ κα]ταλειφ[θέντων μηδέν]ων τῶ[ν] ἑκάστης [χώρας ἐν οἰκουμένῃ ἀπολιτεύτων ἢ ἀτιμ]ήτω[ν]. Author's own translation.

24 Imrie (n. 15), 100–4; A. B. Molina, ‘Relación entre la Constitutio Antoniniana y la imitatio Alexandri de Caracalla’, Revista de estudios histórico-jurídicos 22 (2000), 17–29.

25 T. Whitmarsh, The Second Sophistic (Oxford, 2005); Baharal (n. 14).

26 Hdn. 4.8.2: ἔσθ’ ὅπου δὲ καὶ χλεύς εἴδομεν ἀξίας εἰκόνας, ἐν γραγαῖς ἑνὸς σώματος ὑπὸ περιφερείᾳ κεφαλῆς μιᾶς ὄψεις ἡμιτόμους δύο, Ἀλεξάνδρου τε καὶ Ἀντωνίνου.

27 C. Rowan, Under Divine Auspices. Divine Ideology and the Visualisation of Imperial Power in the Severan Period (Cambridge, 2012), 154; K. Dahmen, ‘Alexander in Gold and Silver: Reassessing Third Century ad Medallions from Aboukir and Tarsos’, AJN 20 (2008), 493–546.

28 SHA, M. Ant. 2.1.

29 C. T. Mallan, ‘The Spectre of Alexander’, G&R 64 (2017), 132–44. For a general overview of Dio's approach as a historian, see A. G. Scott, Emperors and Usurpers. An Historical Commentary on Cassius Dio's Roman History, Books 79(78)–80(80) (Oxford, 2018), 3–17.

30 It should be noted that Caracalla is not the only emperor whom Dio depicts engaging in vigorous Alexander aemulatio. He describes Trajan (68[67].29.1–30.1) comparing his own eastern conquests with those of the Macedonian. While the emperor is seen lamenting, somewhat theatrically, his inability to press on to the Indus, Dio nevertheless offers this episode at the peak of Trajan's expansion. A comparison with Alexander the Great was, therefore, arguably appropriate. I will return to the general import of imperial imitatio Alexandri in the conclusion.

31 Cass. Dio 78[77].7.1.

32 Cass. Dio 59.17.3. This criticism of Caligula does not appear to be a Dionian invention, with a comparable passage found in Suetonius’ biography (Calig. 52). It is interesting that Caligula and Caracalla are compared directly in this manner, the only two emperors to bear nicknames based on items of military attire.

33 Cass. Dio 78[77].8.2.

34 Cass. Dio 78[77].8.3.

35 For example, the route of Caracalla's travels in Asia Minor is noted. For the emperor's visit to Ilium, see Cass. Dio 78[77].16.7. For more on reconstructing his route, see D. Boteva, ‘Following in Alexander's Footsteps: The Case of Caracalla’, in Ancient Macedonia. Sixth International Symposium, Vol. I (1999), 181–8; A. Johnston, ‘Caracalla's Path: The Numismatic Evidence’, Historia 32 (1983), 58–76; B. Levick, ‘Caracalla's Path’, in C. Deroux (ed.), Hommages à Marcel Renard (Brussels, 1969), 426–46.

36 Cass. Dio 78[77].9.5.

37 Cass. Dio 78[77].7.1. He expresses his disgust at the emperor for wearing a linen costume designed to appear like armour, undermining Caracalla's masculine fortitude and martial persona in one critique (79[78].3.2). This may, however, be yet another Dionian slight designed to denigrate Caracalla, since it has been shown that a linothorax might actually have provided comparable (and, in some cases, superior) protection, at least against ranged weapons, while weighing far less than a metal cuirass. See G. S. Aldrete, S. Bartell, and A. Aldrete, Reconstructing Ancient Linen Body Armour. Unravelling the Linothorax Mystery (Baltimore, MD, 2013), 125–8.

38 Cass. Dio 78[77].17–18.

39 Bishop and Coulston (n. 10), 12; Balty (n. 10), 97–99; also see Balty and Van Rengen (n. 11). For a general overview of the Roman army in Syria, see K. Butcher, Roman Syria and the Near East (London, 2003), 411–15.

40 Cowan (n. 11), 31; Balty (n. 10), 100.

41 It is further conceivable that the remains may denote an even later visit of the legio II Parthica Gordiana, travelling with Gordian III between 242 and 244 ce. See M. Rocco, L'Esercito Romano tardoantico. Persistenze e cesure dai Severi a Teodosio I (Padua, 2012), 58, n. 173.

42 AE 1993 1574; AE 1993 1575; Cowan (n. 11), 34.

43 Balty (n. 10), 101; Strobel (n. 10), 275. There is an irony in that evidence for Alexander Severus’ phalanx is often drawn from the Historia Augusta. Even a cursory reading of this text reveals a deliberately literary comparison between the emperor Alexander and his Macedonian namesake: see SHA, Alex. Sev. 50.4–5; 55.1. In this respect, even though the allusion reflects positively on him in this case, the final Severan emperor appears to be similarly at the mercy of sources concerned with the practice of imitatio Alexandri.

44 Balty (n. 10), pl. 14.2. The other lanciarii are presented in an almost identical fashion (ibid., pls. 3–4).

45 Balty (n. 10), 99; Bishop and Coulston (n. 10), 10–11.

46 ‘Ring-buckle gravestones’ of this kind are found in various locations all over the empire: see J. C. N. Coulston, ‘Art, Culture and Service: The Depiction of Soldiers on 3rd Century ad Military Gravestones’, in L. de Blois and E. Lo Cascio (eds.), The Impact of the Roman Army (200 bc–ad 476). Economic, Social, Political, Religious and Cultural Aspects (Leiden, 2007), 529–61.

47 It should be noted that the funerary altar to the phalangarius bears no sculptural feature at all. The iconographic evidence has been more useful in establishing the equipment of the lanciarii, though. See M. P. Speidel, The Framework of an Imperial Legion (Cardiff, 1992).

48 Y. Le Bohec, The Imperial Roman Army (London, 2000), 24.

49 Both Livy (37.40.1) and Appian (Syr. 32) claim that the Seleucid phalanx at the Battle of Magnesia (190 bce) numbered 16,000. Livy (33.4.4) offers an identical figure for the Macedonian phalanx at the Battle of Pydna (168 bce).

50 Cass. Dio 78[77].7.1.

51 C. A. Matthew, ‘The Length of the “Sarissa”’, Antichthon 46 (2014), 79–100.

52 Cowan (n. 11), 33–4. It is worth noting here that Dio's description of the soldiers wearing leather helmets in the same passage is doubly problematic, since this was not a feature in the panoply of either the Macedonian sarissaphoroi or Roman legionaries.

53 Bishop and Coulston (n. 10), 39.

54 The term δόρυ is certainly a far more commonly found term, albeit used in reference to a variety of shafted weaponry and projectiles. For examples, see Hom. Il. 5.666, 12.303; Od. 1.256; Hdt. 7.89; Xen. Eq. 8.10. Evidence remains, however, that σάρισα (or σάρισσα) was known in connection with the Macedonian pike specifically: see Polyb. 2.69.9, 18.29.2; Livy 9.19; Ov. Met. 12.466.

55 Hdn. 4.8.2–3.

56 Hdn. 4.15.2: καὶ οἱ μὲν βάρβαροι τῷ πλήθει τῶν τόξων τοῖς τε ἐπιμήκεσι δόρασι τῶν καταφράκτων ἀπό τε ἵππων καὶ καμήλων τιτρώσκοντες αὐτοὺς ἄνωθεν μεγάλως ἔβλαπτον⋅ οἱ δὲ Ῥωμαῖοι τῶν μὲν συστάδην μαχομένων ῥᾳδίως ἐκράτουν. Translation from Whittaker (n. 1).

57 Cassius Dio (79[78].1.3) considers little of value in reporting the campaign, while the only other large battle scene before Nisibis in Herodian (4.11.1–7) concerns the alleged massacre of Parthians by Caracalla, in which the emperor feigned a desire to marry the daughter of Artabanus. Herodian describes a Roman surprise attack during the reception, at which point the Parthian army was nearly entirely dismounted and unable to flee.

58 J. C. N. Coulston, ‘Late Roman Military Equipment Culture’, in A. Sarantis and N. Christie (eds.), War and Warfare in Late Antiquity. Current Perspectives (Leiden, 2013), 464; Bishop and Coulston (n. 10), 267–8.

59 As Bishop and Coulston (n. 10), 234, have argued, we must be very careful here not to presume that the manufacture of military materiel was ‘culturally homogenous’.

60 Bishop and Coulston (n. 10), 173–5. Both the Niederbieber and Niedermörmter types are excellent examples of this style of helmet.

61 Coulston (n. 58), 465; Strobel (n. 10), 277; Bishop and Coulston (n. 10), 156–7, 173–5. For a sense of how the evolutionary process continued, see Coulston (n. 58), 470–5. For more on the spatha, see M. C. Bishop, The Spatha. The Roman Long Sword (Oxford, 2020).

62 For an overview of the move towards phalangite formations within the legions, see E. Wheeler, ‘The Legion as Phalanx in the Late Empire, Part I’, in Y. Le Bohec and C. Wolff (eds.), L'armée romaine de Dioclétian à Valentinien Ier (Paris, 2004), 309–58; E. Wheeler, ‘The Legion as Phalanx in the Late Empire, Part II’, Revue des Études Militaires Anciennes 1 (2004), 147–75.

63 J. C. N. Coulston, ‘Roman Archery Equipment’, in M. C. Bishop (ed.), The Production and Distribution of Roman Military Equipment. Proceedings of the Second Roman Military Equipment Seminar (London, 1985), 220–366.

64 Bishop and Coulston (n. 10), 134–5; J. L. Davies, ‘Roman Arrowheads from Dinorben and the “Sagitarii” of the Roman Army’, Britannia 8 (1977), 257–70; A. D. H. Bivar, ‘Cavalry Equipment and Tactics on the Euphrates Frontier’, DOP 26 (1972), 271–91.

65 Veg. Mil. 1.15. For an earlier discussion of military tactics against an eastern enemy, in which the author also describes the need to deepen a phalanx against eastern cavalry, see Arr. Tact. 11.

66 S. S. Lusnia, Creating Severan Rome. The Architecture and Self-Image of L. Septimius Severus (Brussels, 2014), 78–80; R. Brilliant, The Arch of Septimius Severus in the Roman Forum (Rome, 1967).

67 Strobel (n. 10), 277; Bishop and Coulston (n. 10), 173. This image of a Roman force with varied arms and armour is not unique to the Severan period or the Eastern Empire. A similarly diverse distribution has been identified at Alchester during the Claudian period, for example: see E. W. Sauer, N. J. Cooper, G. B. Dannell, B. Dickinson, P. Erwin, A. Grant, M. Henig, A. W. McDonald, and M. Robinson, ‘Alchester, a Claudian “Vexillation Fortress” near the Western Boundary of the Catuvellauni: New Light on the Roman Invasion of Britain’, AJ 157 (2001), 1–78.

68 For a detailed breakdown of the content of each frieze, see M. Lloyd, ‘The Arch of Septimius Severus in the Roman Forum: A Reconsideration’, in E. C. De Sena (ed.), The Roman Empire during the Severan Dynasty. Case Studies in History, Art, Architecture, Economy and Literature (Piscataway, NJ, 2013).

69 R. Cowan, ‘Aspects of the Severan Field Army: The Praetorian Guard, Legio II Parthica and Legionary Vexillations ad 193–238’, PhD thesis, University of Glasgow (2002).

70 The precise number cannot be estimated but, as noted above, it is highly unlikely to have reached the 16,000 suggested by Dio (see n. 49). A similar pattern of recruitment can be observed later, with Gordian III said to have brought troops to the east from the Gothic front: see RG Sapor 6.

71 Kühnen, A., Die imitatio Alexandri in der römischen Politik (Münster, 2008)Google Scholar; D. Spencer, The Roman Alexander. Reading a Cultural Myth (Exeter, 2002), 29–38. Even before the Principate, figures such as Pompey and Caesar had engaged in acts of imitatio or veneratio: see D. Den Hengst, ‘Alexander and Rome’, in D. W. P. Burgersdijk and J. A. van Waarden (eds.), Emperors and Historiography. Collected Essays on the Literature of the Roman Empire by Daniël den Hengst (Leiden, 2010), 68–83; P. Green, ‘Caesar and Alexander: Aemulatio, Imitatio, Comparatio’, in Classical Bearings. Interpreting Ancient History and Culture (London, 1989), 193–209.

72 Suet. Aug. 50.1.

73 Cass. Dio 68.29.2; 68.30.1. See also n. 30.

74 Smith, R., ‘The Casting of Julian the Apostate “in the likeness” of Alexander The Great: A Topos in Antique Historiography and Its Modern Echoes’, Histos 5 (2011), 44–106Google Scholar.

75 Cass. Dio 75[74].6.2a.

76 Cass. Dio 76[75].13.2; K. Buraselis, ΘΕΙΑ ΔΩΡΕΑ. Das Gottlich-kaiserliche Geschenk. Studien zur Politik der Severer und zur Constitutio Antoniniana (Vienna, 2007), 29.

77 Buraselis (n. 76), 33.

78 Athanassiadi, P., Julian. An Intellectual Biography (London, 1992), 193Google Scholar. This is particularly well seen in the unlikely case of Nero, whom Suetonius (Ner. 19.2) records as having dubbed a newly formed legion ‘the phalanx of Alexander the Great’, before deploying them to the Caspian Gates.