CARACALLA: A Military Biography

For all interested in the Roman Empire and military genius. ' From the illustrations to the diagrams that show how Caracalla tried to emulate the army of Alexander the Great, the information in the book is priceless.' A much-maligned character, Caracalla has one of the worst reputations of any Roman Emperor. Many ancient historians were very hostile, and Edward Gibbon later dubbed him 'the common enemy of mankind'. Yet his reign was considered by at least one Roman author to be the apogee of the Roman Empire. Guilty of many murders and massacres, including his own brother, ex-wife and daughter, he was however popular with the army, improving their pay and cultivating the image of sharing their hardships. Surprisingly this is the first full-length biography of this colourful character in English. Syvanne does an excellent job of reevaluating the traditional sources available to past generations of scholars, such as ancient Armenian and Georgian histories, and critically comparing them. He explains how the biased ancient sources in combination with the stern looking statues of the emperor have created a distorted image of the man. He reconstructs the actual events, particularly his military campaigns and reforms to offer the first complete overview of the politics, events and military campaigns of the time and how these contributed to the military crisis of the 3rd century. 348pp in very well illustrated large softback and 16 pages of colour images including the author's own coloured artworks of Roman soldiers and photos of statues plus dozens of diagrams and maps.