Caracalla was the son of the Emperor Septimius Severus and his wife, Julia Domna, and raised by him to be co-emperor at the age of 10 in 198 AD. Three years earlier, his name had been changed from Lucius Septimius Bassianus to Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, following his father's rise to power three years before that. The name Caracalla, by which we know him today, is derived from the style of cloak he wore. When Septimius Severus died in 211, Caracalla became joint-senior emperor with his brother, Geta. The power share did not work out, however, and Geta was murdered just months after their father's demise.

Caracalla's reign is most noted for his edict expanding Roman citizenship, but he is numismatically best known for the introduction of the antoninianus, a silver coin larger than the traditional denarius, which the antoninianus would briefly replace before the debasement of the silver coinage during the 'third century crisis'. Caracalla was murdered in 217 and replaced by the Prefect Macrinus, though Caracalla's mother, Julia Domna, and her sister, Julia Maesa, conspired to successfully replace Macrinus with Caracalla's cousins, Elagabalus and Severus Alexander.

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