Caracaita 



CAR 



to apprehend and imprison a debtor, who has dis- 

 obeyed the charge given him on letters of horning. 

 These letters pass on the warrant of a bill to the court. 

 Peers and married women are by law secured 

 against personal execution by caption upon civil 

 debts ; and pupils, by special statute, 1696, c. 4L 

 No caption can be executed against a debtor within 

 the precincts of Holyrood house. 



Letters of caption contain an express warrant to 

 the messenger, if he cannot get access, to break 

 open doors, and other lock-fast places, where he 

 suspects the debtor may lie concealed. See Erskine's 

 Institutes, b. iv. tit. iii. 12, 13. ; Bell's Diet, of the 

 Law of Scot, (z) 



CAPUA, a city of Naples, in the province of La- 

 vora, is situated in a pleasant and fertile country, on 

 the left bank of the Volturno, about 12 miles from 

 the sea. The present town occupies a site about two 

 miles distant from that of ancient Capua, which stood 

 near to Mount Tifata. The streets are more spacious 

 and airy, and the houses, many of which are built 

 from the materials of the ancient city, are more elegant 

 than those in other parts of the kingdom. As Capua is 

 the only fortification that covers the approach to 

 Naples, it has been rendered a pretty strong place. 

 Its fortifications, which are good, consist of bastions, 

 ravelines, and other works, and are covered with free- 

 stone. The river and the castle likewise contribute 

 greatly to its strength. Besides the cathedral, which 

 contains two fine pieces of sculpture by Bernier, Ca- 

 pua has one collegiate church, 16 parish churches, 

 and 12 convents. There is a great number of an- 

 cient inscriptions, which have probably been brought 

 from the ruins of the ancient towns. The population 

 is about 8000. East long. 14 9' 30", North lat. 4-0 

 7'. See CARTHAGE, (w) 



CAPURA, a genus of plants of the class Hex.- 

 andria, and order Monogynia. See BOTANY, p. 184. 

 CARABAYA. See BUENOS AYRES, p. 48, 52. 

 CARABUS. See ENTOMOLOGY. 

 CARACALLA, the appellation by which Mar- 

 cus Aurelius Antoninus, a Roman emperor, is gene- 

 rally known, though it was given to him as a mark 

 of reproach, on account of his silly fondness for a 

 Gaulish robe called by that name, which he himself 

 usually wore, and which he distributed gratuitously 

 among the soldiers and inhabitants of Rome, This 

 infamous person was the son of Severus and Julia 

 Domna. He was born in A. D. 1 88 ; invested with the 

 dignity of Caesar in 197 ; proclaimed " Augustus" in 

 199; and in 202, when he was only 14 years of age, 

 in consequence of a successful war against the Jews, 

 in which he held the title of commander, he had a 

 triumph decreed him by the senate, he put on the 

 toga virills, and was appointed colleague to his fa- 

 ther in the consulship. In the following year he 

 married, contrary to his inclination, the daughter of 

 Plautianus, the praetorian prefect, whose abuse of 

 the power with which, as a favourite, he was intrust- 

 ed, was ultimately the cause of his own death, and of 

 the ruin of his whole family. 



Severus died A. D. 211, and was succeeded by 

 Caracalla and his other son Geta, both of whom he 

 had raised to the sovereign power during his life- 

 time, and whom he nominated in his last will as his 



CAR 



joint successors on the imperial throne. The ambi- Caracalla, 

 tion of Caracalla had scarcely allowed him to wait > " "V"*' 

 for this event. He hated Geta, who also hated him 

 in return. Indeed, this mutual antipathy had begun 

 when they were children : it increased as they grew 

 up; and gave much distress to Severus, who adopt- 

 ed, but in vain, every method of promoting between 

 them, if not a complete reconciliation, at least a mu- 

 tual forbearance. It was for the purpose of allaying 

 the animosity which he could not remove, that he 

 took them along with him in his military expedition 

 into Britain. But Caracalla, whose dark and savage 

 mind was wholly unsusceptible of generous emotions, 

 disappointed the expectations of his father, and, 

 equally unmoved by the scenes of martial glory in 

 which he acted, and by the continual expressions of 

 parental affection which he experienced, he thought 

 of nothing but of raising himself to the supreme 

 power, by the destruction both of Severus and Geta. 

 He endeavoured to prevail upon the army to acknow- 

 ledge him as sole emperor. He attempted to mur- 

 der his father. He then intrigued with the officers 

 and soldiers to get him deposed. And failing in all 

 these infamous measures, finally tried to hasten his 

 death, by bribing the physician who attended him 

 in his last illness. 



No sooner had Severus expired, than Caracalla re- 

 newed his unjust and diabolical acts against Geta. 

 But the army, from respect for the appointment of 

 their late emperor, refused to enter into his views ; 

 and two violent attempts to murder Geta, one of 

 them made during their progress homeward, and the 

 other during the Saturnalian festival, proved unsuc- 

 cessful. At length, however, he accomplished his 

 guilty purpose, under the mask of returning friend- 

 ship. Having persuaded Geta to meet with him in 

 a private apartment on terms of peace, he introduced 

 some centurions, who had been previously hired and 

 tutored, and who assassinated Geta in the very arms 

 of his mother ; Caracalla himself standing by and in- 

 stigating them to the bloody deed, or rather assist- 

 ing in the perpetration of it, as appears from his af- 

 terwards consecrating, in the temple of Serapis at 

 Alexandria, the very sword which he had used on 

 that occasion. 



The remainder of Caracalla's life was characterised 

 by the same infamous duplicity and savage cruelty 

 which had thus enabled him to attain the sovereign 

 power. He persuaded the army, by the most un 

 founded pretences, that he had acted in self-defence ; 

 and compelled the senate, by demonstrations of vio- 

 lence, if not to believe in his false statements, at least to 

 approve of his conduct. And in order to satisfy the peo- 

 ple, he, with a strange inconsistency, permitted the me- 

 mory of his brother to be so highly honoured, that by 

 a decree of the senate, who were ready for every base 

 compliance, he was enrolled among the gods ! His 

 detestation of Geta, however, appeared in a thousand 

 ways. Not only was all the money bearing Geta's 

 name melted down, and the inscriptions erased, but 

 all his domestics and friends, some say to the number 

 of 20,000, were inhumanly massacred, without re- 

 gard to age, or rank, or sex ; and the mere mention 

 of his name, even on the stage, where it was familiarly 

 applied to slaves, was punished as a capital crime. 



