(3) GETA –
SEVERAN DYNASTY
(211 AD: 10 MONTHS AND 15/22 DAYS)

Caracalla lite – as bad as his older brother, just not as good at being bad. Hence one of my special mention entries you could arguably swap into the ten worst emperors, similar to that other bad brother Constantine II.

The younger of two brothers who hated each other even before they became co-emperors upon their father’s death – technically Geta was emperor from 209, as Caracalla was from 198, but both were junior or subordinate emperors to their father, Septimus Severus, the first time the empire was ruled by multiple emperors.

That extended to dividing the palace between them, each with guards to prevent assassination by the other, and literally only meeting in the presence of their mother in attempts to mediate their rivalry. Roman historian Herodian asserted that their rivalry even extended to plans to split the empire between them in two halves (foreshadowing the empires’ subsequent division into eastern and western halves) but their mother sensibly quashed those plans.

Caracalla was more ruthless and hence got the jump on Geta, assassinating the latter under pretext of a ‘peace meeting’ in their mother’s quarters to deprive Geta of his guards, with Geta dying in her arms.

There’s not much more to say – as Spectrum pointed out, Geta ranks somewhat above Caracalla because history was spared Geta inflicting himself on it too long. “Apparently he (Geta) was just like him (Caracalla) and therefore terrible both as a person and as a ruler. He comes out as the better one just because he didn’t live as long so…yay?”

As usual, Gibbon summed it up best – “In the anguish of a disappointed father, Severus foretold that the weaker of his sons would fall a sacrifice to the stronger; who, in his turn, would be ruined by his own vices.”

RATING: 1 STAR*
F-TIER (WORST TIER)
EMPIRE-DEBASER