The administrative accomplishments of Septimius Severus were of great importance: he clearly outlined the powers of the city prefect; he entrusted the praetorian prefecture to first-class jurists, such as Papinian; and he increased the number of procurators, who were recruited for financial posts from among Africans and Easterners and for government posts (praesides) from among Danubian officers. Italy lost its privileges and found itself subjected, like all the other provinces, to the new annona, a tax paid in kind, which assured the maintenance of the army and of the officials. The consequent increase in expenditures—for administration, for the salaries and the donativa of the soldiers, for the maintenance of the Roman plebs, and for construction—obliged the emperor to devalue the denarius in 194. But the confiscations increased his personal fortune, the res privata, which had been previously created by Antoninus.
Severus’ social policy favoured both the provincial recruitment of senators (Easterners, Africans, and even Egyptians), causing a sharp decrease in the percentage of Italian senators, and the elevation of the equestrian order, which began to fill the prince’s council with its jurists. The cities, which had been favoured by the Antonines, were more and more considered as administrative wheels in the service of the state: the richest decuriones (municipal councillors) were financially responsible for levying the taxes, and it was for this purpose that the towns of Egypt finally received a boulē (municipal senate).
The burden of taxes and forced government service was made weightier by numerous transport duties for the army and for the annona service and was regulated by the jurists through financial, personal, or mixed charges. The state was watchful to keep the decuriones in the service of their cities and to provide a control on their administration through the appointment of curatores rei publicae, or officials of the central government. The lower classes were, in principle, protected against the abuses of the rich, but in fact they were placed at the service of the state through the restrictions imposed on shipping and commercial corporations. Membership might entail forced contributions of capital or labour to such public necessities as the supply of food to Rome. The state became more and more a policeman, and the excesses of power of numerous grain merchants (frumentarii) weighed heavily on the little man.
Imperial power, without repudiating the ideological themes of the principate, rested in fact on the army and sought its legitimacy in heredity: the two sons of Septimius Severus, Caracalla and Geta, were first proclaimed Caesars, the former in 196, the latter in 198; later, they were directly associated with imperial power through bestowal of the title of Augustus, in 198 and 209, respectively. Thus, during the last three years of Septimius Severus’ reign, the empire had three Augusti at its head. Caracalla
Caracalla, the eldest son of Septimius Severus, reigned from 211 to 217, after having assassinated his younger brother, Geta. He was a caricature of his father: violent, megalomaniacal, full of complexes, and, in addition, cruel and debauched. He retained the entourage of the equites and jurists who had governed with his father but enforced to an even greater degree his father’s militaristic and egalitarian policy. He increased the wages of the army even further and, at the same time, began a costly building program that quickly depleted the fortune left him by his father. He forced the senators to pay heavy contributions, doubled the inheritance and emancipation taxes, and often required the aurum coronarium (a contribution in gold), thereby ruining the urban middle classes. To counter the effects of a general upward drift of prices and the larger and better-paid army of his own and his father’s making, he created a new silver coin, the antoninianus. It was intended to replace the basic denarius at double its value, though containing only about one and a half times its worth in precious metal. The only historical source to suggest Caracalla’s motive for his gift of universal citizenship, Dio Cassius, states that it was meant to increase revenues by bringing new elements of the population under tax obligations formerly limited to Romans only.
CaracallaCaracalla, marble, Roman, 212–217 ce; in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City.Photograph by Katie Chao. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, Samuel D. Lee Fund, 1940 (40.11.1a)
Although little endowed with military qualities, Caracalla adopted as his patron Alexander the Great, whom he admired greatly, and embarked on an active external policy. He fought successfully against the Teutonic tribes of the upper Danube, among whom the Alamanni, as well as the Capri of the middle Danube, appeared for the first time; he often prudently mixed military operations with negotiation and gave important subsidies and money (in sound currency) to the barbarians, thus arousing much discontent. His ambition was to triumph in the East like his hero of old and, more recently, Trajan and his own father. He invaded Armenia and Adiabene and annexed Osroëne in northwest Mesopotamia, joining it to the part of Mesopotamia taken by Septimius Severus. In April 217, while pursuing his march on the Tigris, he was assassinated on the order of one of his praetorian prefects, Marcus Opellius Macrinus. Macrinus
Macrinus was accepted as emperor by the soldiers, who were unaware of the role he had played in the death of his predecessor. For the first time an eques had acceded to the empire after having been no more than a manager of financial affairs. The senators reluctantly accepted this member of the equestrian order, who, nevertheless, proved to be moderate and conciliatory; but the armies despised him as a mere civilian, and the ancient authors were hostile to him. His reign was brief, and little is known of him. He concluded an inglorious peace with the Parthians, which assured Mesopotamia to Rome through the payment of large sums of money. And to make himself popular, he canceled Caracalla’s tax increases and reduced military expenditures. A plot against him was soon organized: two young grandnephews of Septimius Severus were persuaded by their mothers and especially by their grandmother, Julia Maesa, the sister of Julia Domna (who had recently died), to reach for imperial power. The eldest, Bassianus, was presented to the troops of Syria, who had been bought with gold, and was proclaimed in April 218. Shortly afterward, Macrinus was defeated and killed, as was his son (whom he had associated with him on the throne). Elagabalus and Severus Alexander
The new emperor was presented as the son of Caracalla, whose name he took (Marcus Aurelius Antoninus). He is better known, however, under the name Elagabalus, the god whose high priest he was and whom he quickly and imprudently attempted to impose on the Romans, in spite of his grandmother’s counsel of moderation. Fourteen years old, he caused himself to be detested by his heavy expenditures, his orgies, and the dissolute behaviour of his circle. The praetorians killed him in 222 and proclaimed as emperor his first cousin, Alexianus, who took the name of Severus Alexander.