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.
