Geta as Pontif, Denarius - Museum Gallery

Geta (198 - 209 A.D.); P SEPTIMIVS GETA CAES. Reverse: Geta standing left as Pontif, holds Patera, but no Tripod altar, holds short scepter [PONTIF COS II], struck 209 AD. SR 1917, RIC IV.1# 62b, C.117, RIC 18, BMC 586.
aracalla's father, Septimius Severus, died on 4 February 211 at Eboracum (present day York, England) while on campaign in Caledonia, north of Roman Britannia. Caracalla and his brother, Geta, jointly inherited the throne upon their father's death. Caracalla and Geta ended the campaign in Caledonia after concluding a peace with the Caledonians that returned the border of Roman Britain to the line demarcated by Hadrian's Wall. During the journey back to Rome with their father's ashes, Caracalla and his brother continuously argued with one another, making relations between them increasingly hostile. Caracalla and Geta considered dividing the empire in half along the Bosphorus to make their co-rule less hostile. Caracalla was to rule in the west and Geta was to rule in the east. They were persuaded not to do this by their mother.
On 26 December 211, at a reconciliation meeting arranged by their mother, Geta was assassinated by members of the Praetorian Guard loyal to Caracalla. Geta died in his mother's arms. It is widely accepted, and clearly most likely, that Caracalla ordered the assassination himself, as the two had never been on favourable terms with one another, much less after succeeding their father. Caracalla then persecuted and executed most of Geta's supporters and ordered a damnatio memoriae pronounced by the Senate against his brother's memory. Geta's image was removed from all paintings, coins were melted down, statues were destroyed, his name was struck from papyrus records, and it became a capital offence to speak or write Geta's name. In the aftermath of the damnatio memoriae, an estimated 20,000 people were massacred. Those killed were Geta's inner circle of guards and advisers, friends, and other military staff under his employ.

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