This beautifully-rendered marble portrait head
has been identified as a childhood depiction of
Publius Septimius Antoninius Geta, the Roman
co-emperor who ruled for less than a year in
211 AD before being murdered by his brother
and co-regent, Caracalla.
Born in 189 AD, Geta was the second son of
Septimius Severus, who was abruptly elevated
from Consul to Emperor upon the death of
Didius Iulianus in 193. Official contemporary
sources describe an idyllic childhood and a
cohesive imperial family; more realistic accounts,
state that the family unit was far from stable,
and that the brothers squabbled throughout
their lives. Caracalla had ruled as co-regent with
his father from 198 to 209 AD, a state of affairs
that Geta viewed with resentment. In an attempt
to appease him and bring their fraternal
animosity to an end, Geta was promoted to rule
alongside his father and brother, and was
awarded the name “Augustus” in 209 (his
brother’s official name was Marcus Aurelius
Septimius Bassianus Antoninus) in order to raise
his public profile during the invasion of Britain.
However, Geta was always aware of his
secondary status, for while he had a regal title
his role was administrative; his brother,
meanwhile, was second-in-command of the
Roman military campaign. Matters peaked
when his father died in early 211, leaving the
brothers as co-regents.
The brothers returned to Italy and promptly
started fighting over the distribution and
exercise of power. Later sources suggest that
they even debated dividing the Empire in two
halves, but were dissuaded from this course of
action by their politically-aware and controlling
mother, Julia Domna. Caracalla tried to murder
his brother at a festival in autumn 211, but
failed. He involved his mother in his subsequent,
successful attempt, and had Geta stabbed to
death while meeting with him at their mother's
apartments. He subsequently issued a damnatio
memoriae against Geta and systematically
murdered his family, friends and acquaintances.
He also used this as an excuse to wipe out any
political opponents; some 20,000 people died in
the subsequent holocaust. His rule was a military
dictatorship that was adored by the soldiery and
abhorred by all others; he is generally agreed to
be one of the most malevolent of Roman
emperors. He died in 217, run through with a
sword while urinating at a roadside in rural
Germany; his mother subsequently committed
suicide.
Comparatively little is known of Geta, thanks to
the effectiveness of his brother's purge of all
iconographic and historical references to him. He
has certainly acquired an almost mythical status
as a romantic Classical prince. The extent to
which he deserved his almost deified reputation
is uncertain, and it is probable that the doomed
youth was subsequently endowed with qualities
longed for by critics of his brother's brutality. He
was
restored to the public memory in 219 with the
arrival of the Emperor Elagabalus, and his
remains were moved from their hidden location
and placed in the Mausoleum of Hadrian to rest
with those of his father and brother.
This likeness matches Geta’s face on the few
items depicting him to have survived the
damnatio memoriae. It depicts a solemn, rather
intense-looking child with full cheeks, tousled
hair, a determined chin and a set mouth that all
lend an impression of composure far beyond
what might be expected for a boy his age. The
carving is exquisite and diagnostic of the mid-
late Roman Imperial period, even picking out
such tiny details as the lidding of the placid eyes,
the curve of flesh beneath the chin, and the
dimples above and beneath the lips. Yet the
carving is also cleverly impressionistic and not as
formally constrained as the rather cold court
portraits of Roman matrons and patriarchs, with
overly-ornate drapery, or in the image of deities
or aspired-to personages. While traditionally
austere in the sculptural sense, this piece also
manages to be informal and fluid.
