Caracalla

Bald, short in stature, but endowed with a powerful physique, he combined extraordinary qualities – a remarkable resistance to heat and cold and an uncommon ability to undergo strenuous and prolonged exercise – with a sanguine temperament and little inclination to compromise. Greedy for power and therefore driven by deep hatred first against the praetorian prefect Plautian and then against his brother, he managed to maintain good relations with his mother even after Geta’s death, despite the fact that she had expressed her preference for the latter.

Although one is tempted to believe otherwise, Caracalla enjoyed great popularity: he was loved above all by the soldiers, legionaries and praetorians, with whom he was always very generous, but also by the plebs, as the success of the baths but also of the robe he patented, the caracallus, shows. This is why – also due to the paucity of his successor – he was deified at his death and was bitterly regretted.