memory

We’ve all had issues with family at one time or other. But the lengths taken by the Roman emperor Caracalla really take the biscuit. To ensure he would never again be reminded of his younger brother Geta, he used a tactic which has been defined in modern times with the Latin damnatio memoriae. When Emperor Septimius Severus died during his failed conquest of Caledonia (modern-day Scotland), he left the Roman Empire in the hands of his sons Caracalla and Geta. “Be harmonious, enrich the soldiers, and scorn all other men,” are said to have been his last words, a final appeal for them to be good to each other and rule as joint emperors. His elder son, Caracalla, was having