Today In History: The problem with dynasties...

On this date in 211, Roman emperor Septimius Severus, having spent the last couple years sorting things out in the north of Britannia, finally succumbed to the pleasant winter weather there and died.

Severus had been a competent general, and had seized the purple by main force after Didius Julianus had bought the crown at a garage sale held by the Praetorian Guard. Although Severus ruled by fiat and pretty much ignored the Senate, he was generally looked upon as an able and, if not "benevolent", then at least "competent" tyrant. His foreign wars were short and victorious, and he spent all his time off engaging in them, which left the citizenry pretty much alone.

Unfortunately, like benevolent tyrants often are, he was also benevolent toward his two sons, Caracalla and Geta, and he left them the empire to rule jointly. You can imagine how well this worked out.

They were not competent nor even faintly benevolent. Geta was a shallow, vain idiot. Caracalla was worse: Not only was he a shallow, vain idiot, he was also thoroughly evil. Rather than playing rock-paper-scissors with his brother over every imperial disagreement, he had him assassinated. In their mom's living room. That's cold.

Caracalla then spent the empire broke, devalued the currency, taxed everything that moved, and sent the economy into an inflationary death spiral. He left them nothing to show for it except a giant L.A. Fitness complex in the middle of Rome, where thousands of people could go take saunas and throw medicine balls at each other simultaneously. This was probably a tough sell to a grain merchant in Egypt. "Sure your taxes are through the roof and it takes a chariotload of sesterces to buy a jug of wine, but you should see the health club they built in Rome!"

He was finally whacked by a disgruntled bodyguard while he was taking a leak by the side of the road, which puts him at number seventeen on the list of History's Most Ignominious Endings.

Remember, history should be a lesson for us. It teaches us important things like "Unless you have an amazing quality control program in place for your offspring, maybe you shouldn't go into the monarching business."