CARACALLA AND DACIA. IMPERIAL VISIT, A REALITY OR ONLY RUMOUR?

Abstract

The author is challenging the Romanian historiography’s interpretation concerning the visit in 213 of the emperor Caracalla in Dacia, until to the northern frontier at Porolissum, where three inscriptions with identical text were considered as the building inscriptions of the stone fortifications of the fort from Pomet Hill. He is mentioning the new inscriptions from different part of the Roman Empire that offer today a better knowledge of the emperor’s actions and journeys during year 213. The conclusion is that he travelled to Orient after October 213 when defeated the Alamanns over the border of Raetia, along the Danube frontier visiting military bases. The journey was probably on the same route as he already done in 202 with his father, but in the other direction, returning from Orient. That time is possible Septimius Severus, Caracalla and Geta were in Dacia, at Drobeta, Tibiscum and Ulpia Traiana Sarmizegetusa, as several inscriptions attest. For this reason, it is possible that in 213 Caracalla stopped for a short period at Drobeta and maybe went to Tibiscum to pray in the temple of Apollo. However, continuing the trip to Porolissum is impossible to imagine, the time being too short, as he arrived at Nicomedia on the 17 th of December 213. At the end of the article, the author rejects the theory of any connection between the tile-stamps of the seventh legion Gemina Felix from Leon and those of the third legion Gallica found at Porolissum with Caracalla’s journey. Furthermore, the author also dismisses the idea that these vexillations were taken to Dacia to replace Dacian vexillations involved in the eastern expedition of Caracalla, as there is neither no any positive evidence nor other evidence for similar examples in the history of the Roman military expeditions (e.g., Trajan’s Parthian war).