Caracalla's campaigns of 214–216

Caracalla's campaigns of 214–216 AD
Part of the Roman–Persian wars
Kingdom of Osroene (gray shade) and Kingdom of Adiabene, with the surrounding region (c. 1st century AD.)
Date c. 214[1]–216 AD Location Adiabene and Osroene, Upper Mesopotamia Result Caracalla's Victory Fall of the Parthian client states
Belligerents
Roman Empire	Kingdom of Osroene Kingdom of Adiabene Supported by: Parthian Empire[1][2]
Commanders and leaders
Caracalla	Abgar IX [3]

Caracalla's campaigns of 214–216 AD were a string of successful military campaigns led by Roman emperor Caracalla against Parthian client states in Upper Mesopotamia, of which the kingdoms of Adiabene and of Osroene.

Historical context

Caracalla's ascension to power

On 4 February 211 AD, Roman emperor Septimius Severus died at Eboracum (modern York, England) while on campaign in Caledonia, to the north of Roman Britain.[4]

Without choosing a successor himself, his two sons, Caracalla and Geta, took power. To avoid hostilities between the two new joint emperors, they decided to divide the empire in half and set the border at the Bosphorus.[5]

Geta Dying in his Mother's Arms, Jacques-Augustin-Catherine Pajou, 1766–1828 (Staatsgalerie Stuttgart)

On 26 December 211, at a reconciliation meeting arranged by their mother, Geta was assassinated by members of the Praetorian Guard loyal to the 23-year-old Caracalla. Geta died in his mother's arms. It is widely accepted, and clearly most likely, that Caracalla ordered the assassination himself, as the two had never been on favourable terms with one another, even after having split the empire, and much less after succeeding their father.[4]

Caracalla then persecuted and executed most of Geta's supporters and ordered a damnatio memoriae pronounced by the Senate against his brother's memory.[6][7] Geta's image was removed from all paintings, coins were melted down, statues were destroyed, his name was struck from papyrus records, and it became a capital offence to speak or write Geta's name.[8] In the aftermath of the damnatio memoriae, an estimated 20,000 people were massacred.[7][8] Those killed were Geta's inner circle of guards and advisers, friends, and other military staff under his employ.[8]

Prelude

The Roman Empire during the reign of Caracalla.

In spring 214, Caracalla departed for the eastern provinces, travelling through the Danubian provinces and the Anatolian provinces of Asia and Bithynia.[9] He spent the winter of 214/215 in Nicomedia. By 4 April 215 he had left Nicomedia, and in the summer he was in Antioch on the Orontes.[9] By December 215 he was in Alexandria in the Nile Delta, where he stayed until March or April 216,[9] preparing for a campaign against Parthia and its client states.[10]

The campaigns

Fall of Edessa and Osroene, c. 214 AD

Edessa, capital of the Kingdom of Osroene under Abgar IX[11][12] of the Abgarid dynasty,[13][14][15] fell in around 214 AD after a lengthy siege by Caracalla. The city was plundered and abandoned, and its ruler Abgar IX was deposed[16] and later assassinated to Caracalla's orders.[3]

The Kingdom of Osroene was subsequently dissolved[16] and reunified into a roman province,[17][1] thus forming the Roman province of Osroene.

Fall of Arbela and Adiabene, c. 216 AD

The Kingdom of Adiabene had scored good relations with the Parthian Empire since they helped "king of kings" (Shahanshah) Parthian king Artabanus II (r. 12–40) gaining his throne in the 1st century.[18][19]

According to Roman historian Cassius Dio, Caracalla took Arbela in 216 AD, and searched all the graves there, wishing to ascertain whether the Arsacid kings were buried there.[20][21] Many of the ancient royal tombs were destroyed.[19]

The Kingdom of Adiabene was then annexed by Rome and reincorporated into the province of Assyria.[22][23]

Notes

References

1. Segal 1982, pp. 210–213.
2. Lieu 1997, pp. 174–175.
3. Ball 2000.
4. Goldsworthy 2009, pp. 68–69
5. Goldsworthy 2009, pp. 70.
6. Dunstan 2011, pp. 405–406.
7. Goldsworthy 2009, pp. 70–71
8. Varner, Eric R. (2004). Mutilation and transformation: damnatio memoriae and Roman imperial portraiture. Brill Academic. p. 168. ISBN 90-04-13577-4.
9. Kienast, Dietmar (2017) [1990]. "Caracalla". Römische Kaisertabelle: Grundzüge einer römischen Kaiserchronologie (in German). Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft. pp. 156–161. ISBN 978-3-534-26724-8.
10. Scott, Andrew G. (2008). Change and Discontinuity Within the Severan Dynasty: The Case of Macrinus. p. 27. ISBN 9780549890416.
11. Bowman, Alan; Garnsey, Peter; Cameron, Averil (2005). The Cambridge Ancient History: Volume 12, The Crisis of Empire, AD 193-337. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521301992.
12. "Osroëne | ancient kingdom, Mesopotamia, Asia | Britannica".
13. Skolnik, Fred; Berenbaum, Michael (2007). Encyclopaedia Judaica. Macmillan Reference USA. ISBN 9780028659435.
14. Roberts, John Morris; Westad, Odd Arne (2013). The History of the World. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199936762.
15. Laet, Sigfried J. de; Herrmann, Joachim (1996). History of Humanity: From the seventh century B.C. to the seventh century A.D. UNESCO. ISBN 9789231028120.
16. Sartre 2005, p. 508.
17. Sartre 2005, pp. 508–509.
18. Frye, Richard Nelson (1984). The History of Ancient Iran. C.H.Beck. p. 279. ISBN 9783406093975.
19. Sellwood, D. (1983). "Adiabene". Encyclopaedia Iranica, Vol. I, Fasc. 5. pp. 456–459.
20. Gottheil, Richard. "Adiabene". Jewish Encyclopedia. Funk and Wagnalls, 1901-1906.
21. Hoffmann, "Akten," pp. 259 et seq.^[clarification needed]
22. C.S. Lightfoot, "Trajan's Parthian War and the Fourth-Century Perspective," The Journal of Roman Studies, Volume 80, (1990), p. 121.
23. David Magie, Roman Rule in Asia Minor to the End of the Third Century After Christ, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1950: p. 608.

Sources

• Segal, Judah (1982). "Abgar". In Yarshater, Ehsan (ed.). Encyclopædia Iranica. Vol. I/2: ʿAbd-al-Hamīd–ʿAbd-al-Hamīd. London and New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul. pp. 210–213. ISBN 978-0-71009-091-1.
• Sartre, Maurice (2005). "The Arabs and the desert peoples". In Bowman, Alan K.; Garnsey, Peter; Cameron, Averil (eds.). The Cambridge Ancient History: Volume 12, The Crisis of Empire, AD 193-337. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521301992.
• Ball, Warwick (2000). Rome in the east: The Transformation of an empire. Routledge. ISBN 0-415-11376-8.
• Ross, S.K. (2000). Roman Edessa: Politics and Culture on the Eastern Fringes of the Roman Empire, 114 - 242 C.E. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-1-134-66063-6.
• Lieu, Samuel (1997). "EDESSA". In Yarshater, Ehsan (ed.). Encyclopædia Iranica. Vol. VIII/2: Economy V–Education XX. London and New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul. pp. 174–175. ISBN 978-1-56859-051-6.
• Dunstan, William (2011). Ancient Rome. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-0-7425-6832-7.
• Goldsworthy, Adrian (2009). How Rome Fell: death of a superpower. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-16426-8.