CARACALLA AND ‘ALEXANDER'S PHALANX’: CAUGHT AT A CROSSROADS OF EVIDENCE

Abstract

It is well known that Alexander the Great offered inspiration to successive monarchs and autocrats. Few of these, however, could claim to match the affection shown by the Roman emperor Caracalla (198–217 ce). Caracalla is said to have been an almost pathological aficionado of Alexander, constantly promoting a public association between himself and his idol. One aspect of Caracalla's imitatio Alexandri was allegedly the levy of a peculiar phalangite formation based on the arms and equipment of Alexander's time. For years it was impossible to gauge whether this was a real development or a hostile literary fabrication, but the discovery of funerary remains at Apamea in Syria, which appear to memorialize phalangites and lanciarii, confirmed to some the historicity of Caracalla's bizarre levy. This article argues, however, that the apparently convincing combination of evidence is illusory, and that Caracalla's ‘phalanx’ was rather a convenient label applied to an inherently Roman formation.