Hello, and welcome to the history of Rome, episode 103, The Equestrian.

Karakawa had dawned the purple in early 211 AD at the age of 23, and from that moment

on, he dedicated himself to the task of being a brutal, unforgiving and moody tyrant towards

everyone except his soldiers.

He was as bad as they come, and I think the only reason we don't put him down is the worst

emperor of all time, as that, for one, he wasn't emperor for that long, and two, most

of the really terrible things he did were merely exaggerated extensions of what his father

had already done.

He didn't have the time or the imagination to take a healthy empire and really wreck it

the way that say, a cometis had done, which is what it takes if you want to be considered

the worst of the worst.

I don't see Karakawa's reign then representing a turning point in the history of Rome, but

I do see it as representing a breaking point.

His time on the throne became a sort of malevolent high watermark that future emperors alternatively

tried to dial back from, or ratchet back up to, depending on their dispositions.

Karakawa, in his enrichment of the soldiers and his scorning of all other men, inadvertently

set a standard that everyone would point to down the road as either a cautionary tale

or as a shining beacon of light.

Things can never again be like they were under Karakawa.

Things must go back to the way they were under Karakawa.

The former argued by the old men of the senate, the latter by the hard men of the army.

This running argument was a major current in the tension that would define the coming

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