Geta

Emperor A.D 209 - 212

&quotTreat the army well, and don' bother with anyone else." It is with these words that Geta' father, Septimius Severus admonished him and his brother Caracalla as he lay on his death bed at York. Septimius Severus also earnestly desired that his two sons work together and embrace each other in brotherly love. It was his plan that they rule the vast Roman Empire together in harmony. This was not to be the case, however. Even before their father had died, the two boys had been bitter rivals. Though they had coins minted in their names proclaiming Agreement between the emperors, they each occupied separate areas of the palace and each was constantly on the lookout for treachery from the other. Geta was a favorite of the soldiers, having been popular when he had his father were on the march with them in Britain and elsewhere. Though both Geta and Caracalla took great precautions against ambush, it was Caracalla who struck first. At a supposed peace conference held in the apartments of their mother, Julia Domna, soldiers sent by Caracalla cruelly cut Geta down from ambush. Even as he fled to the arms of his mother, the soldiers slew him as Caracalla supposedly egged them on. The blood of Geta was to haunt Caracalla for the rest of his life, eventually driving him to become a cruel, insane emperor who murdered many innocent people. Caracalla met his death while on a pilgrimage to the temple of the moon at Carrhae. He was stabbed to death with a dagger by a common soldier as he stopped to relieve himself along the side of the road. He had planned to have his Praetorian Prefect, Opelius Macrinus, killed because he thought Macrinus was guilty of plotting against him. Instead, Macrinus had Caracalla murdered to protect his own life.

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