Desmontando un tirano perfecto: caracalla y la imitatio Alexandri

Abstract

Caracalla is well-known because of his imitatio Alexandri, however there is a contradiction between the material and written sources, what shows this question in a rather different light. In fact, most of the data about his Alexandermania must be dated after his death or shortly before of his expedition against the Persians. All of this leads us to conclude that the relationship between Caracalla and Alexander should be revised in detail. The primary focus of this article is to show how ancient and modern approaches about Caracalla want to find things in common with Alexander of Macedonia. In our opinion the main reason of the connection between both of them was the Alexander Romance.