Erasing Geta: anatomy of a damnatio memoriae
In December 211 Caracalla had his brother murdered in their mother's arms, then ordered his name erased everywhere. It is the best documented case of official erasure, and the coins carry its trace.
Two heirs
Septimius Severus left the empire to his two sons, who were meant to reign together. The understanding lasted less than a year. According to Herodian, the brothers even considered dividing the empire in two before Julia Domna opposed it.
Caracalla moved first and had Geta killed during a meeting arranged for their reconciliation.
Erasing a man
Damnatio memoriae was not simple forgetting: it was a procedure. The name was chiselled off inscriptions, the face scraped away on official portraits — the Berlin tondo, where Geta's figure has been erased and the other three members of the family left, is the most famous example.
On the papyri of Egypt, scribes struck out the mentions. One surviving contract still bears the correction.
The case of the coins
Coins already struck went on circulating and were not systematically withdrawn: one could not recall a money supply in 211. The issues in Geta's name simply stopped, and his coinage as Augustus, confined to the last months, remains distinctly rarer than Caracalla's.
For a collector this translates into a stable hierarchy: Geta as Caesar is affordable, Geta as Augustus much less so, and the carefully styled adolescent portraits fetch more than contemporary Caracallas.
Further reading
Herodian, History of the Roman Empire, book IV.
E. R. Varner, Mutilation and Transformation. Damnatio Memoriae and Roman Imperial Portraiture, Leiden, 2004.