M. Antoninus Bassianus, emperor after his father Severus in 211, put the physicians to death for not dispatching his father, as he would have had them. He killed his brother Geta; and put Papinianus to death, because he would not defend nor excuse his parricide. In short, it is said that twenty thousand persons were massacred by his order. He married Julia, his father's widow. Going to Alexandria, he slew the inhabitants, and applied to the magicians and astrologers. At last, when travelling from Edessa to Mesopotamia, one of his captains slew him, by order of Macrinus, who succeeded him. He died after he had reigned somewhat more than six years.

in Antiquity, a long garment, having a sort of capuchin or hood a-top, and reaching to the heels; worn among the Romans by the men and the women, in the city as well as in the camp. Spartan and Xiphilian represent the emperor Caracalla as the inventor of this garment, and hence suppose the appellation Caracalla was first given him. Others, with more probability, make the caracalla originally a Gallic habit, and only brought to Rome by the emperor above mentioned, who first enjoined the soldiery to wear it. The people called it antoninian, from the same prince, who had borrowed the name of Antoninus. The caracalla was a sort of cassock or surtout. Salmasius, Scaliger, and after them Du Cange, even take the name casaque to have been formed from that of caraque, for caracalla. This is certain from St Jerome, that the caracalla, with a retrenchment of the capuchin, became an ecclesiastical garment. It is described as made of several pieces cut and sewed together, and hanging down to the feet; but it is more than probable some were made shorter, especially out of Rome, otherwise they could not have suited as a military dress.

CARACCAS was formerly a division of the Spanish dominions in South America, bounded on the north by the Caribbean Sea, from the Cape de la Vela on the west, to the point of Paria; on the east by the sea, from the twelfth to the eighth degree of north latitude; on the south by Dutch Guiana and Peru; and on the west by the kingdom of Santa Fé, another obsolete division of the Spanish territory. The captain generalship of the Caracas is now incorporated into the modern republic of Colombia, to which the reader is referred.