Alexander Reincarnate

Dio Cassius ( Roman History , 77.7) describes how Caracalla modelsed himself after Alexander the Great: “He was so enthusiastic about Alexander that he used certain weapons and cups which he believed had once been his, and he also set up many likenesses of him both in the camps and in Rome itself. He organized a phalanx, composed entirely of Macedonians, sixteen thousand strong, named it ‘Alexander’s phalanx,’ and equipped it with the 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. Not even this, however, satisfied him, but he must call his hero ‘the Augustus of the East’; and once he actually wrote to the senate that Alexander had come to life again in the person of the Augustus, that he might live on once more in him, having had such a short life before.”

Caracalla took this identification seriously enough to attack Aristotelians because of Aristotle’s supposed complicity in Alexander’s death. Dio again: “Toward the philosophers who were called Aristotelians he showed bitter hatred in every way, even going so far as to desire to burn their books, and in particular he abolished their common messes in Alexandria and all the privileges that they had enjoyed; his grievance against them was that Aristotle was supposed to have been concerned in the death of Alexander. Such was his behaviour in these matters; nay more, he even took about with him numerous elephants, that in this respect, also, he might seem to be imitating Alexander, or rather, perhaps, Dionysus.”

Herodian ( History , 4.9) confirms that the emperor was willing to deploy the resources of the empire to support his identification. When the residents of Alexandria began insulting him during a visit there in 215, he sent the troops in. According to Herodian: “Particularly galling are quips that reveal one’s shortcomings. Thus they made many jokes at the emperor’s expense about his murdering his brother, calling his aged mother Jocasta, and mocking him because, in his insignificance, he imitated the bravest and greatest of heroes, Alexander and Achilles. But although they thought they were merely joking about these matters, in reality they were causing the naturally savage and quick-tempered Caracalla to plot their destruction.”