Somebody got written out of the will there.
Damnatio memoriae - to have the evidence of one’s existence erased. The one erased is Geta - his brother, Caracalla, the one that you can still see, ordered his damnatio after their father died.
In 211 CE Caracalla became emperor along with his younger brother Geta. The relationship between the two did not resemble the loving one of Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus 50 years earlier, and it seems that both brothers were constantly conspiring against each other so that one of them could become sole emperor. When the two did try to make decisions together, they constantly bickered, disagreeing on everything from political appointments to legal decisions. Indeed, according to Herodian, things got so bad between the two brothers that not only did they divide the imperial palace between themselves but also tried to convince each other’s cooks to drop poison into the other’s food, it was also proposed that the empire be divided up between the two into eastern and western parts. According to Herodian, it was only the intervention of the boys’ mother, Julia Domna, that this plan was not realized.
