We’ve all had issues with family at one time or other. But the lengths taken by the Roman emperor Caracalla really take the biscuit. To ensure he would never again be reminded of his younger brother Geta, he used a tactic which has been defined in modern times with the Latin damnatio memoriae .
When Emperor Septimius Severus died during his failed conquest of Caledonia (modern-day Scotland), he left the Roman Empire in the hands of his sons Caracalla and Geta. “Be harmonious, enrich the soldiers, and scorn all other men,” are said to have been his last words, a final appeal for them to be good to each other and rule as joint emperors. His elder son, Caracalla, was having none of it.
Caracalla had become co-emperor with his father in 198 AD, enjoying the power of being second-in-command. Septimius Severus promoted the image of his Severan Dynasty as a happy family working together to rule the empire. But when he promoted his youngest son Geta to augustus, forging a ruling trio in 209, their sibling rivalry came to a head.
After their father’s death in 211, the two brothers were unable to meet without the presence of their mother, Julia Domna, and that of an armed escort. In true fratricide fashion, Caracalla arranged peace talks and had Geta murdered in his mother’s arms. Nice.
Not content with killing his brother, Caracalla decided to have his memory erased in what has, since the 17th century, been dubbed damnatio memoriae . This “condemnation of memory” included the removal of…
