THE EDICT OF CARACALLA – A SEMI-BARBARIAN PAVES THE WAY FOR BARBARIANS
(Article by Giorgio Almirante written in 1938 for the “La Difesa della Razza” [In Defence of Race] Magazine)
«In 476 Anno Domini the Roman Empire collapsed. Odoacer deposed Romulus Augustulus…» This is what kids in the first years of high school learn from their arid historical summaries; and that 476, in which all of their mnemonic efforts concentrate, that poor, insignificant 476, gets so big to seem an emblem of destruction and decadence, a sort of year one thousand of Roman history, at the deadline of which, for mysterious reasons, the gigantic collapse was inevitable. Kids in the last years of high school learn something more. They learn that the infamous 476 does not mark the end of a long and great process; they learn that multiple causes contributed to the decadence and fall of the Roman Empire: the barbarians’ pressure, the barbarisation of the military, fiscalism, the economic crisis, military anarchy… The best, the top of the class, know how many soldiers Trajan and Diocletian had, they know to which interests money lent itself under Nero and Hadrian, they know the history of the aureus and the argenteus… but they know nothing of the only substantial cause that provoked all the others, and the fall of the Roman power with them. Will the few of them who choose to pursue literary studies learn it in University? If only! In Universities people are too worried about studying what did Mommsen, or Meyer, or Gino Segrè, or Aldo Segrè (all beautiful Italic names, as one can see) say about it, people are too worried about dividing, disintegrating, pulverizing culture… and naturally they have no time to go back to the general principles. The cause of the decadence and fall of the Roman Empire, which was (if considered in the reverse aspect) itself the cause of the birth and power of the Empire, remains in the shadows; while the aforementioned beautiful Italic names and their no less Italic theories spark of full light. And yet, it’s about a simple and clear cause, easily enunciable and even more easily comprehensible: it’s about the fading until disappearance of the sentiment of the Italic race and its traditional virtues. Let it not be said that there is a vicious circle in this argument; and that the fading of the sentiment of the race is itself an effect and not a cause; for none of the commonly given reasons, nor the set of such reasons, can explain such a complex and deep phenomenon as that of the progressive decadence of Ancient Rome is. A concrete example of one of the most resounding examples that Rome’s history has to offer about it, is worth more than any disquisition to help understand the enormous importance of the «race» factor in Romanity’s downward trajectory. We are talking about the «Constitutio Antoniniana» that is the famous edict through which Caracalla, in 212, granted citizenship to all provincials –– «Oh, the great emperor! Oh, the enlightened measure!» exclaim the usual historical critics, singing hymns to the Romans’ equalizing civilization, to Rome’s universal mission… We will later clarify what is meant by Rome’s universal mission; let’s now deal with the aforementioned enlightened measure and let’s try to establish its precedents, causes and consequences. Cassius Dio tells, in his Roman History, that when Maecenas recommended to Augustus something similar to the Edict of Caracalla, not only did he refuse to extend the Romans’ rights to provincials, but he also dissuaded Tiberius from embarking on such adventures. Dio’s testimony is particularly valuable, for it comes from a provincial (Dio was a Greek from Nicaea), who showed a lot of fondness towards the Edict of Caracalla;and who therefore would have been very glad to report such an illustrious precedent for it such as that of Augustus. An even more significant testimony is that of Seneca, who in his «Apocolocyntosis» or «Pumpkinification» mocks Claudius and thanks the Gods for making him die at the right time, for it seemed he expected to see «all Greeks, Gauls, Spaniards, Britons clothed in the toga». Claudius’ weakness is well known and such a purpose, coming from him, does not amaze us; but it is extremely relevant that such purpose was reported by Seneca, who could have been induced, by his provincial origins and the cosmopolitan premises of Stoicism, to cordially consider an equalizing policy. But the sentiment of the Roman race was, in Seneca’s time, still so alive and robust, that the extension of citizenship, that is, the race’s fundamental badge, must have seemed a ridiculous delirium even to a provincial stoic. The emperors of the Gens Julia, authentic representatives of the Italic race, kept themselves away – aside from Claudius’ purpose, which remained just a purpose – from the equalizing policy. The first severe step towards such policies was taken by Vespasian, who exonerated Italics from military service. The measure actually derived from a just concern: that of preventing Italy from continuously being the field for bloody civilian fights; and Vespasian was too good an emperor and in him the roots of the Roman lineage were too firm for him to take decisions conflicting with Rome’s prestige. But the exemption’s consequences were extremely serious for the Italics; for they alienated from the peninsula one of the greatest powers of the Empire and determined, in the long run, the weakening of the race, which had always stood out for its military virtues. Then the series of the provincial emperors began; and the crisis worsened. Hadrian, born from a Spanish family, decreed the establishment of territorial constituencies in the provinces, giving an autochthon armed force to each of them, way more willing to defend the interests of their own region and race than those of Rome. Marcus Aurelius, born from an Italic family, but steeped in Greekism, individually granted Roman citizenship to numerous provincials, favoring the gradual decentralization of power. The military was, by now, made up in great part of barbarians. Public offices were provincials’ easy prey. The Italic officer corps, which proved their worth in the wars fought by Marcus Aurelius, remained. Septimius Severus, born in Africa, in Leptis, barely capable of speaking Latin, brought to the throne by an army of boorish provincials, inhabitants of the Thraco-Illyrian region, gave the final blow to Roman officials, giving the privilege of covering military ranks to provincials. That was, as De Sanctis said, the decisive turning point of Rome’s history. The conflict between the badly romanized provincials of the military and the authentic Romans, which saw themselves deprived of their highest prerogatives, soonly became more pronounced. The Emperor, needing to impose himself by force, leveraged the military and thus the province; the Italics, deprived of weapons, had neither the possibility nor the capability to react; and the decline of the sentiment of the race became frighteningly pronounced. The Edict of Caracalla, son of the African Septimius Severus and born in Gaul’s Lyon, represents the logical conclusion of the Severan policy. Contingent factors, as in all events in history, contributed to provoke it. According to Cassius Dio, Caracalla was driven to grant citizenship to provincials by fiscal motives, and precisely by the desire of extending inheritance tax to the «novi cives». Another motive for the Edict was certainly the desire of gaining followers among the provincials, since the Italics’ opposition was increasingly clear and blatant.Finally, Caracalla wanted people to forget, through an act of apparent clemency, the tragic end of his brother Geta, murdered by him in his mother’s arms. None of the contingent reasons that can be given for the edict respond to any interest of the Roman Empire; all of them, on the contrary, either exposed or were destined to accentuate its weakness. Such observation has an even greater value, if we move on to the broader reasons. The edict, as we have said, falls within the Severan policy, therefore within a policy that, coming from provincials in order to exclusively rely on provincials, has the absolute equalization of the multitudes making up the Empire as its end. The Severan age is the age of religious and political syncretism: Caracalla, who introduced the cults of Isis and Serapis to Rome, was the faithful personification of such syncretism. African in race, Celtic in customs, he was in no way a Roman Emperor and could not behave as one. He behaved just as, in today’s so-called democratic countries, the deniers of racism behave; he turned Rome into a melting pot in which all peoples could mix with complete impunity; and, that way, he rushed the fall of ancient civilization, which is the Italic race’s civilization. He disowned, barbarian as he was, his own interests, for by granting citizenship to provincials en masse, equalizing all provinces in right, he lost the power of maneuvering one against the other, of winning them over with individual concessions, and made it so that their authority surmounted that of the Emperor. He favored, deprived as he was of the sentiment of the race, miscegenation; rendering Roman citizens the hybrids born from the mixture of the Roman soldiers with foreigners, to whom, up until then, by virtue of the providential Lex Minicia, citizenship was denied. He provoked the economic decline of the whole of Italy, the prosperity of which could not be disjointed from a position of absolute political dominance. He granted, in short, victory to interior barbarism, which, undermining the race’s sentiment, undermined the Empire’s own foundations; and he paved the way for the victory of exterior barbarism, which would wait two centuries and a half to be final, only thanks to the extraordinary resistance of the civil and political institutions created by Rome’s race. This was the most ruinous work of Emperor Caracalla: born in Lyon, as has been said, and so called because of his ridiculous craze of dressing in the Gauls’ fashion. France’s disease is, as one can see, ancient in its origins.