18. Caracalla Murdered His Brother in the Arms of Their Mother
When Roman emperor Septimius Severus died in Britain in 211, the throne was jointly inherited by his sons, Caracalla and Geta. Severus had been a generally capable emperor, who had unified the empire and restored order after a period of chaos following the death of emperor Commodus (the demented ruler from Gladiator). However, handing the empire over to his sons to rule jointly was not one of Severus’ better ideas. Even during their father’s life, the siblings had been bitter rivals, and things only got worse when they became co-emperors.
Throughout the journey back to Rome with their father’s ashes, Caracalla and Geta squabbled nonstop, and their already tense relationship steadily grew more toxic. At some point, they decided to avert open conflict by splitting the empire between themselves, with Caracalla ruling the west and Geta the east. However, their mother talked them out of it, and arranged a reconciliation meeting between them for December 26th, 211. She probably should have let them go their separate ways. At the meeting, Caracalla ordered his henchmen to murder his sibling. A grievously wounded Geta fell into his mother’s bosom, and she begged Caracalla to call off his men. He ignored her pleas, and personally finished off his brother with a knife while Geta cowered in their mother’s arms.