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All images © by Roberto Piperno, owner of the domain. Write to romapip@quipo.it. Text edited by Rosamie Moore.
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AN ABRIDGED HISTORY OF ROME - PART I
X - A CENTURY OF TURMOIL (180-285)
In this page:
Commodus
Septimius Severus
Caracalla
Heliogabalus (Mithraeum)
Alexander Severus
Military Anarchy
Iconography
Commodus
Marcus Aurelius' son Commodus became emperor at the age of 19; he had accompanied his father on his
last campaigns, but he had not his father's sense of duty and he preferred to reach a peace
agreement with the Marcomanni and return to Rome.
He was a strongly built man and he identified himself with Hercules; he soon became popular among the
lower classes as he enjoyed taking part personally in the fights between gladiators.
Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius had both at least formally
respected the role of the Senate and had ruled the empire with the support of the
Roman aristocracy. Commodus gradually lost this support and over the years
became more and more isolated; his hard reaction to unrest in various provinces of the Empire
and grievances in Rome and his claim of being a god increased the number of those who plotted against him.
In 192 praetorians, members of the emperor's inner circle and of the Roman aristocracy,
commanders of legions all took part in a conspiracy to kill Commodus.
His lover Marcia poisoned him and then he was strangled by a wrestler.
The Senate decreed his damnatio memoriae and
this may explain why the memory of Commodus is so bleak.
Colonna Antonina: Roman infantry and cavalry; two portraits of Marcus Aurelius
Commodus celebrated his father by erecting in Campo Marzio a column similar to that of Trajan: its reliefs portray the two campaigns conducted by Marcus Aurelius against the Marcomanni. The column was located on a high base next
to Via Flaminia (today's Via del Corso): the street level was some 20 feet lower
than it is today; the reliefs were therefore very high reliefs, with the sculptures almost fully
projecting out of the background, so that they could be seen from a great distance.
An interesting
comparison between the two columns shows that while Trajan is always portrayed in a side view, in
some instances Marcus Aurelius is portrayed frontally: this is regarded as a first sign of the move from a true to
life (side view) representation of the emperor to a (frontal) symbolic one which will become more evident in the next centuries. The following external links show a coin of Trajan and a coin of Honorius (Vth century);
they explain better than words how the representation of the emperor became an icon.
Commodus erected also an arch to celebrate his father: the arch is lost, but some of its reliefs were used to
decorate Arco di Costantino.
Septimius Severus
The death of Commodus was followed in the next six months by that of his two successors
(Pertinax and Didius Giulianus): in Britain, Syria and Pannonia (Hungary) the legions elected their own emperors;
eventually Septimius Severus, the commander of the legions in Pannonia, managed to defeat his
opponents and become the sole emperor.
One of his first decisions was to limit the power of the praetorians by locating in
Albano a legion of trusted soldiers.
Septimius Severus was born in Leptis Magna (in today's Libya), a major trading post of Roman Africa.
He strongly relied on the army to retain his power and to maintain the
support of his legionaries in 197 he waged war against the Parthians.
He sacked their capital Ctesiphon and briefly restored the authority of Rome
over Mesopotamia. It was one of the last Roman campaigns which yielded a
large number of slaves.
Septimius Severus associated his two sons Marcus Aurelius Antoninus
(known as Caracalla, after caracallus, a short Gaul tunic he used to wear)
and Publius Septimius Geta with the throne .
In 208, accompanied by his two sons, he started a campaign in Britain to quell the rebellion of some local
tribes and to protect that province from Caledonian raids. He died at Eboracum (York) in 211, possibly poisoned by his own son Caracalla.
Arco di Settimio Severo: detail of the western side.
Septimius Severus spent most of his time in power outside Rome, but he nevertheless
promoted an enlargement of the
imperial palace;
he also placed at its entrance from Via Appia the Septizodium,
a sort of gigantic façade, part of which still stood until 1586 when Pope Sixtus V
pulled it down to use its columns and marbles for the decoration of the many monuments he built in Rome.
A large arch was erected in the Forum to celebrate his campaign against the Parthians:
the quality of the decoration shows that, notwithstanding the economic crisis and the decrease in population which had hit the empire in the last decades
of the IInd century, the quality of the works of art in Rome was still high.
Caracalla
Septimius Severus had endeavoured to publicize his family as a happy one
where all members (including his wife) shared the responsibilities of rule.
This portrait soon proved to be false as Caracalla hastened to arrange the assassination of
his brother Geta, accusing him of having made an attempt on his life. He decreed his
brother's damnatio memoriae and had his name erased
from all inscriptions.
Caracalla understood that by killing his brother he had undermined his own power and
to restore his popularity he issued the Constitutio Antoniniana,
granting Roman citizenship to freemen throughout the Roman Empire; there were also economic
causes behind this decree as it enlarged the number of taxpayers.
Caracalla, following his father's policy, tried to maintain the support of the army by increasing
the legionary pay and by providing the soldiers with benefits and facilities, including
baths for the legion located in Albano.
In an attempt to gain his father's military reputation, he waged war against the Parthians, but his campaign was inconclusive and
eventually Macrinus, head of the praetorian guard, relying on the growing
dissatisfaction with Caracalla's leadership, managed to have him killed at Carrhae and to be proclaimed the new
emperor by the troops.
Arco degli Argentieri: reliefs from which Geta was
removed: inscriptions on the same arch (first line) and in Arco di Settimio Severo (fourth line)
where the name of Geta was replaced by other words.
In 204 the guild of the Argentari erected a small arch in honour of Septimius
Severus; knowing that his two sons would have been the next emperors and that
Septimius Severus had already given them wide responsibilities, these shrewd
tradesmen thought it wise to decorate the arch
with portraits of both Caracalla and Geta.
In 212 they had to quickly erase all references to Geta, even though this meant
damaging the symmetry of the decoration and rewording (using narrower letters) the inscription.
The Senate
took care
of doing the same on the Arch dedicated to Septimius Severus:
the holes of the erased bronze letters which do not match the inscription are evidence of the change required by Caracalla.
The emperor built baths which were one of the most
gigantic monuments of Ancient Rome.
Heliogabalus
Macrinus continued without success the campaign against the Parthians; in the meantime
the financial situation of the Roman Treasury had so worsened that he had to reduce the benefits
granted to the army by Caracalla. By doing this Macrinus signed his death sentence:
in 218 at the instigation of Giulia Soemia, Caracalla's niece, the troops rebelled and
killed him. Varius Antoninus, the fourteen year old son of Giulia Soemia, became the
new emperor .
The young emperor was a follower of the cult of Elegabal, a black stone (most likely a meteorite)
worshipped in Syria: Varius added to his name that of Heliogabalus and tried to
impose on the whole empire the same faith: the old gods were replaced by just one deity, Sol Invictus (Invincible Sun),
with the aim of having this god accepted by the several monotheist beliefs
(including the Christian one) which especially in the eastern provinces of the
empire were already prevailing on the traditional Greek and Roman polytheism.
This was neither the first nor the last attempt made by an emperor to promote the amalgamation of the
different religions and cultures of the empire.
The implementation of this cult was based on orgiastic ceremonies,
which, although not uncommon in the Ancient World, had aspects which alienated Heliogabalus the support of both the Senate and the army.
He was forced by his grandmother to adopt as co-emperor his younger cousin
Alexander Severus. Heliogabalus apparently had in mind to assassinate his cousin, but his plan was discovered and
he was killed by the praetorians, together with his mother and those who had taken part in his
wild ceremonies.
The memory of Heliogabalus was for centuries that of a madman; towards the end
of the XIXth century his extravagances attracted the
attention of the painter Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, who saw in the
young emperor a precursor of the Decadent movement.
Mithraeum of S. Clemente: altar to the god and reliefs
on its sides portraying the two torch bearers Cautes and Cautopates; by holding their
torch up or down they indicated the rise and fall of the sun and more in general the cycle of life.
Mithraism, the cult of the Persian god Mithras, is one of the
oriental religions which became popular in Rome,
especially among members of the armed forces.
Its Roman version had points in common with Freemasonry: it was a fraternal organization
which required its members to abide by some basic moral standards and to keep secrecy
about the ceremonies; there were
seven grades of initiation associated with the planets. The members regularly met in small
rooms having the aspect of a cave and long benches on both sides; there they had a common meal and attended their rites: a significant
difference from what occurred in the temples where the ceremonies took place outside the god's cell.
Other aspects of Mithraism had points in common with the Christian faith: a
concept of resurrection, distribution of bread and water (or wine),
fast as a mean of purification and a sort of baptism.
For their meetings the followers of this belief built many Mithraea, some of which
have been discovered under churches or other Roman buildings.
The most interesting of these halls are under S. Clemente, S. Prisca,
Circo Massimo,
Palazzo Barberini and
Caracalla's Baths.
Alexander Severus
Alexander Severus was just thirteen year old when he became emperor;
the Senate provided him with a group of advisors who helped him in gradually
restoring an effective administration and the authority of the central government.
At the age of 22 Alexander Severus thought the time had come to show his ability
to lead the Roman legions. In 231 he waged war against the Sassanids who in 224
had defeated the Parthians and by 226 had definitely replaced them as the new eastern
neighbour of the Roman Empire. The campaign was inconclusive; the Sassanids preferred to
retreat and eventually the cost of the expedition was such that Alexander Severus had to levy
new taxes; he had also to face a threat from the Marcomanni on the German border.
In 235 Alexander Severus was killed by his own soldiers at Moguntiacum (today's Mainz)
where he was coordinating the defence of the Roman fortified towns along the Rhine.
Pantheon: the two columns added by Gian Lorenzo Bernini in 1660 and which came
from Thermae Alexandrinae.
Alexander Severus built the last Roman aqueduct,
named after him Aqua Alexandriana. The aqueduct supplied
water to baths built by Nero in Campo Marzio and which were restored by
Alexander Severus and renamed after him Thermae Alexandrinae.
Of these baths very little is left: two columns now in Piazza de' Crescenzi and
two columns used by Bernini to complete the portico of the Pantheon.
Military Anarchy
The fifty years which followed the killing of Alexander Severus are called by
historians the period of the military
anarchy because during it 22 emperors were acclaimed by the troops.
They often ruled for just a few months and on a limited part of the empire.
When eventually this troubled period came to an end, the nature of the
Roman Empire and the role of Rome had dramatically changed: the Senate and the Roman aristocracy
lost their political influence; they had no say in financial matters as the Senate had
been deprived of the right of issuing new coins: the emperor was no longer the
highest institution of the Republic, but a monarch: while Augustus and
the other great emperors were portrayed wearing a wreath of laurel,
the emperors of the late
IIIrd century wore a crown of solid gold. Rome became just one of the cities of the empire and many emperors
did not even care to visit it.
The weakness of the empire borders became evident in 267
when the Heruli, a small tribe living along the Lower Danube crossed the river,
raided Greece and sacked Athens.
In the east the Sassanids conquered Antiochia, the capital of Syria.
In 271 the Alamanni, a German tribe, crossed the Alps and raided
northern Italy threatening Rome before being repelled by Emperor Aurelian.
(left) Porta Latina seen from Rome; (right) Porta Appia (S. Sebastiano): detail of the opening
for lifting the sliding door.
There is little evidence of Roman monuments built by the emperors of this period.
Emperor Decius (249-251) (who ordered one of the most severe persecutions of the Christians,
whom he charged with spreading a pestilence) built on the Aventine new baths, which most likely
made use of existing buildings (the only remaining traces of these baths are underground).
Emperor Gallienus (260-68) is remembered by a small arch dedicated to him (but the arch was already in place) and
by the ruins of a funerary monument along Via Appia.
The only significant addition to the monuments of Rome reflected the need to provide
the city with a defence in
case of attack: Emperor Aurelian (270-75) a valiant general, who managed to restore
the unity of the empire, felt that, after nearly 500 years during which no enemy
had threatened Rome, the city needed the protection of defensive walls.
It was a decision difficult to accept and maybe for this reason many gates reduced its
negative impact: often the gates were larger than they are now: the image above (left) shows
the original size of Porta Latina (side towards Rome) and how its ceiling was
lowered in the Vth century (outer side); Porta Appia had two gates; in addition
to the traditional doors the gates were closed (in case of threat) by a
vertical sliding door.
Iconography
The following external links show works of art portraying characters and events
mentioned in this page:
Bust of Commodus as Hercules in Musei Capitolini - Rome.
Bust of Septimius Severus in Musei Capitolini.
Septimius Severus reproaches Caracalla of having plotted to kill him by Jean-Baptiste Greuze (1725-1805)
Caracalla and Geta by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1907).
The Baths of Caracalla by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1899).
The Roses of Heliogabalus by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1888).
Relief showing Mithras at the Louvre in Paris.
Next page:
XI - From Diocletian to Constantine
Previous pages:
I - The foundation and the early days of Rome
II - The early republican period
III - The Romans meet the elephants
IV - Expansion in the eastern Mediterranean
V - Pompey and Caesar
VI - Augustus
VII - From Tiberius to Nero
VIII - The Flavian Dynasty
IX - From Nerva to Marcus Aurelius
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