Geta
Conjecta, Collecta, contributio.
Gotthus. Gloss. Isid.
the fabricator of a tragedy entitled Medea, extending to 462 verses, of which the dialogue is in dactylic hexameters, the choral portions in anapaestic dimeters cat., the whole, from beginning to end, being a cento Virgilianus, and affording perhaps the earliest specimen in Roman literature of such laborious folly. Our knowledge of the compiler is derived exclusively from the following passage in Tertullian (de Praescript. Haeret. 100.39): Vides hodie ex Virgilio fabulam in totum aliam componi, materia secundum versus, versibus secundum materiam concinnatis. Denique Hosidius Geta Medeam tragoediam ex Virgilio plenissime exsuxit. Although these words do not justify us in asserting positively that Geta was contemporary with Tertullian, it is evident that they in no way support the position assumed by some critics, that he must be considered as the same person with the Cn. Hosidius Geta whose exploits during the reign of Claudius in Mauritania and Britain are commemorated by Dio Cassius (60.9, 20), and who appears from inscriptions to have been one of the consules suffeeti for A. D. 49. MSS
The drama, as it now exists, was derived from two MSS., one the property of Salmasius (see his notes on Capitolin. Macrin. 100.11, and on Trebell. Poll. Gallien. 100.8), the other preserved at Leyden. merely a transcript of the former. Editions
The first 134 lines were published by Scriverius, in his Collectanea Veterum Tragicorum, &c., 8vo. Lug. Bat. 1620, but the piece will be found complete in the Anthologia Latina of Burmann, 1.178, or n. 235, ed. Meyer, and in the edition of the Poetae Latini Minores of Wernsdorf, as reprinted, with additions, at Paris, 1826, by Lemaire, vol. vii. p. 441. Confusion with the Medea of Ovid
It was at one time absurdly enough supposed to be the Medea of Ovid, a mistake which probably arose from some ignorant confusion of the name Hosidius or Osidius Geta with the banishment of Ovidius to the country of the Getae. [W.R]
consul B. C. 116, was expelled from the senate by the censors of the following year, who at the same time degraded thirty-one of the other senators. Geta was restored to his rank at a subsequent census, and was himself censor in B. C. 108. (Cic. Clu. 42; V. Max. 2.9.9.) [W.B.D]
praetorian prefect under Claudius I. A. D. 48. He was superseded during the arrest of the empress Messalina by the freedman Narcissus, and deprived of his prefecture in A. D. 52, by Agrippina, who regarded him as a creature of Messalina's, and attached to her son Britannicus. (Tac. Ann. 11.31.33, 12.42.) [W.B.D]
or P. SEPTI'MIUS SEPTI'MIUS, the second son of Septimius Severus and Julia Domna, was born at Milan on the 27th of May, A. D. 189, three years before the elevation of his parents to the purple, and is said to have been named after his paternal grandfather or paternal uncle. Geta accompanied his father to the Parthian war, and, when Caracalla was declared Augustus in 198, received from the soldiers the appellation of Caesar, which was soon after confirmed by the emperor and the senate. We find him styled Caesar, Pontifex, and Princeps Juventutis, on the medals struck before the beginning of 205, at which time he entered upon his first consulship. His second consulship belongs to 208, when he proceeded along with the army to Britain, and in the following year he received the tribunician power and the title of Augustus, honours equivalent to a formal announcement that he was to be regarded as jointheir to the throne. Upon the death of Severus, at York, in 211, the brothers returned to Rome, and the rivalry, gradually ripening into hatred, which was well known to have existed between them from their earliest years, was now developed with most unequivocal violence. Even during the journey the elder is said to have made several ineffectual attempts to assassinate his detested colleague; but Geta was so completely aware of his danger, and took such effectual precautions, that he escaped their machinations, while the affection entertained for his person by the soldiers rendered open force impracticable. But, having been at length thrown off his guard by the protestations of Caracalla, who feigned an earnest desire for a reconciliation, and persuaded their mother to invite them both to meet in her chamber without attendants, in order that they might exchange forgiveness, he was murdered by some centurions who had been placed in ambush for the purpose, in the very arms of Julia, who, although covered with the blood of her son, was obliged to smile approbation of the deed, that she might escape a like fate. Geta perished towards the end of February, A. D. 212, in the twenty-third year of his age.
Although Geta was rough in his manners and profligate in his morals, lie never gave any indication of those savage passions which have branded the name of Caracalla with infamy, but, on the contrary, he took delight in the liberal arts and in the society of learned men, and was generally accounted upright and honourable.
After the murder of his brother, Caracalla ordered all his statues to be broken, all inscriptions in his honour to be erased, and all coins bearing his effigy or designation to be melted down. Notwithstanding these measures, many of Geta's medals have come down to us, and the obliteration of a portion of the legend upon some great public monuments, such as the arch of Severus, has served, by attracting attention and inquiry, to keep alive his memory.
As in the case of Commodus, we find a variation in the praenomen The earlier coins exhibit Lucius and Publius indifferently, but the former disappears from all the productions of the Roman mint after his first consulship, while both are found together on some of the pieces struck in Greece and Asia. The cause of these changes is quite unknown.
(D. C. 76.2, 7, 11, 77.1_3, 12; Spartian. Sever. 8, 10, 14, 16, 21, Caracall.; Geta; Herodian. 3.33, 46, 4.4-10; Vict. Caes. 20, Epit. 20, 21; Eutrop. 8.10.) [W.R]
a brother of Septimius Severus, after having held the offices of quaestor, praetor of Crete, and of Cyrene, was elevated to the consulship in A. D. 203, along with Plautianus [Plautianus], and appears at one time to have entertained hopes of being preferred to his nephews. He is said to have revealed to the emperor with his dying breath the ambitious schemes of Plautianus, whom he hated, but no longer feared; and it is certain that from this period the influence of the favourite began to wane. (D. C. 76.2; Spartian. Sept. Sev. 8, 10, 14; Gruter, Corpus Inscripp. mxcix. 7.) [W.R]
The brother of Caracalla, by whom he was assassinated, A.D. 212. See Caracalla.