Dr. Alex Imrie
speaker
219 appearances
2 recordings
1 series
first heard Nov 2024
last heard Nov 2024
Dr. Alex Imrie’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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These two tearaways not really caring whose way they get in or what they damage or destroy as long as they get to have their little competition with one another. This is becoming a much more public embarrassment for Severus that he has to do something about.
At least partially, it's this animosity between his two sons that seems to prompt his decision to take the entire imperial court, along with a huge army, over to Northern Britain when the governor writes to Severus and claims that there's some trouble on the frontier. He takes an expeditionary force of about 50,000 men. This is a ridiculously large force.
for what is ultimately, sorry Britain, a relatively insignificant frontier at this point. And it seems to be partly to remove his sons from the corrupting influence of Rome and to expose them to austerity and military life so that they might start to behave like emperors.
Yeah, I mean, I tend to obviously think that the British campaign has a little bit more complexity to it than the likes of Dyer wants to tell us.
But I am tickled by the fact that this old soldier who has spent a lot of his reign at war in a kind of military context thinks that that might be the answer, to get his boys out of the city, away from the soft life and make them live in a tent for a few years and come to their senses.
So if Severus's intention was to get the boys to see sense and work together, he doesn't seem to go about it in a tremendously effective manner. When they're in Britain from 208 until just after Severus's death in 211, the pair of them seem to have completely different remits. So Caracalla, as a co-emperor from the outset, is given command at least of part of the military.
He seems to go on campaign with his father in the year 208-209. And in 210, when Severus, it seems, is becoming increasingly ill and physically unable to lead a force himself, Caracalla seems to be handed the mantle of command and takes an expeditionary force into what is now modern-day Scotland. So he's very much the military one of the pair.
Geta, by contrast, seems to be getting trained, at least, in a much more administrative capacity. From all accounts, we don't get a sense that Geta ever leaves the imperial headquarters at Ibarakum in modern York. This situation is complicated, of course, though. It's never just as simple as that, because Severus does something else when the family's over in Britain.
I've said how Geta basically gets no slice of the cake. He's made Caesar in 198. In that intervening decade, he basically gets nothing more. He's made a pontifex, so he's made a priest. Some people want to mistakenly call that, oh, well, he's made Pontifex Maximus. He's not. He's not. He's not made the head priest. He has made a priest.
In 209, however, Severus makes the decision that the time has come and that Geta will also be elevated to the rank of Augustus. So you've got three now. Wow. So in 209, we have a tripartite principate. And for me, that is one of the core moments for understanding this pair of brothers.
Not just how Geta might feel, finally being given a bit of a share in the Imperial power alongside his brother, who he's had to be in the shadow of for the best part of a decade. I also try to think about it from the perspective of Caracalla. I can only imagine that being really a jarring moment.
He has assumed, perhaps, that he is going to share Imperial power with his father for all of his father's life. he will succeed his father and then he'll decide what happens. Whereas no, in 209, he is forced to share the imperial mantle with his brother, who we've just said he's fought hammer and tongs with for the best part of a decade. This is a very interesting constitutional move.
I'm still not sure I understand Severus's logic, to be honest, but it does change the dynamic within the Severan imperial household.
There's no doubt about the fact that she is a pivotal figure in both young men's lives at that point. In Britain, given that she's a member of the imperial court but obviously would be in no way attached to the military, it's more likely that she spent more time with Geta during that campaign.
Now that said, Julia's role in our literary reconstructions of the period is fascinating because it shifts everything. depending on the source. Dio very much has Julia as an ambitious political operative in her own right. We get the sense that she is hungry for power behind the scenes and that this kind of characterizes all of her decisions. In Herodian,
we get what I tend to think is probably the most likely relationship between Caracalla and Geta and their mother, that Julia Domna is the voice of reason. She is the rational one within the household and is always trying to bring her wayward sons together.
After Severus dies, we have this allegation in Herodian that Caracalla and Geta loathe each other so much that they just decide they want to split the empire in two. And that Caracalla will rule from the west and Geta will rule from the east. Caracalla in Rome, Geta probably in Alexandria.
And that the two armies will almost face off against each other at the Hellespont so that they can monitor each other's movements. It's a kind of wacky situation if you sit down and analyze it.
It's an extraordinary proposition. There's no real reality to it, probably, but it's a very good vehicle for Herodian to show what kind of character Juliet is, because Juliet is the voice of reason who stops her sons from this course of action. emotionally appealing to them that they can't divide their mother into.
So that's the kind of thing that they would be doing by carving up the empire in doing this. So Julia is very much this voice of reason, it seems, within the imperial household. And the Senate, it's not just the literary, the Senate also seemed to want to believe this as well.
Showing 161–180 of 219 · page 9 of 11
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