A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology. By various writers. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.

266` GETA. GETA.
by Stephanus Byzantinus (s. v. re'a) d rSepLrpavTCaZ- 1620, but the piece will be found complete in the
Tos-aaTpooeF'ro71s, was a native of Gea, a place near Anthologia Latina of Burmann, i. 178, or n. 235,
Petra, in Arabia, and lived in the reign of the em- ed. Meyer, and in the edition of the Poetae Latini
peror Zenon, A. D. 474-491. He was a pupil of Minores of Wernsdorf, as reprinted, with additios,
Domnus, whose reputation he eclipsed, and whose at Paris, 1826, by Lemaire, vol. vii. p. 441. It
scholars he enticed from him by his superior skill. was at one time absurdly enough supposed to be
He was an ambitious man, and acquired both riches the Medea of Ovid, a mistake which probably
and honours; but his reputation as a philosopher, arose from some ignorant confusion of the name
though he wished to be considered such, was not Hosidius or Osidius Geta with the banishment of
very great. (Damascius ap. Suid s. v. repros, and Ovidius to the country of the Getae. [W. R.]
Phot. Cod. 242. p. 352, b. 3, ed. Bekker.) He GETA, C. LICI'NIUS, consul B. c. 116, was
may perhaps be the physician mentioned by one of expelled from the senate by the censors of the folthe scholiasts on Hippocrates. (Dietz, Schol. in lowing year, who at the same time degraded thirtyHippocr. et Gal. vol. ii. p. 343, note.) The little one of the other senators. Geta was restored to
medical work that bears the name of Cassius Iatro- his rank at a subsequent census, and was himself
sophista has been by some persons attributed to censor in B. C. 108. (Cic. pro Cluent. 42; Val.
Gesius, but without sufficient reason. (Fabric. Bibl. Max. ii. 9. ~ 9.) [W. B. D.]
Graec. vol. xiii. p. 170, ed. Vet.) [W. A. G.] GETA, LU'SIUS, praetorian prefect under
A. GE'SSIUS, known only from coins, from Claudius I. A. D. 48. He was superseded during
which we learn that he was the chief magistrate at the arrest of the empress Messalina by the freedSmyrna during the latter end of the reign of Clau- man Narcissus, and deprived of his prefecture in
dins and the beginning of that of Nero. The fol- A. D. 52, by Agrippina, who regarded him as a
lowing coin has on the obverse the heads of Clan- creature of Messalina's, and attached to her son Bridius and Agrippina, the mother of Nero, and on tannicus. (Tac.Ann. xi. 31,33,xii.42.) [W.B.D.]
the reverse Nemesis, with A. rEE2IOl 4IACIIA- GETA, L. or P. SEPTI'MIUS, the second son
TPIZ. The coin was struck by the Smyrnacsns of Septimius Severus and Julia Domna, was born
to congratulate Claudius on his marriage with at Milan on the 27th of May, A. D. 189, three
Agrippina. 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,
l l gA awbwhen 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
COIN OF A. GESSIUS. struck before the beginning of 205, at which time
he entered upon his first consulship. His second
GESSIUS FLORUS. [FLORUS.] consulship belongs to 208, when he proceeded
GESSIUS MARCIA'NUS. [MARCIANus.] along with the army to Britain, and in the followGETA, HOSI'DIUS, the fabricator of a tra- ing year he received the tribunician power and the
gedy entitled Medea, extending to 462 verses, of title of Augustus, honours equivalent to a formal
which the, dialogue is in dactylic hexameters, the announcement that he was to be regarded as jointchoral portions in anapaestic dimeters cat., the heir to the throne. Upon the death of Severus,
whole, from beginning to end, being a cento Vir- at York, in 211, the brothers returned to Rome,
gilianus, and affording perhaps the earliest speci- and the rivalry, gradually ripening into hatred,
men in Roman literature of such laborious folly. which was well known to have existed between
Our knowledge of the compiler is derived exclu- them from their earliest years, was now developed
sively from the following passage in Tertullian (de with most unequivocal violence. Even during the
Praescript. Haeret. c. 39): " Vides hodie ex Vir-: journey the elder is said to have made several ingilio fabulam. in totum aliam componi, materia se- effectual attempts to assassinate his detested colcundum versus, versibus secundnum materiam league; but Geta was so completely aware of his
concinnatis. Denique IIosidius Geta Medeam danger, and took such effectual precautions, that
tragoediam ex Virgilio plenissime exsuxit." Al- he escaped their machinations, while the affection
though these words do not justify us in asserting entertained for his person by the soldiers rendered
positively that Geta was contemporary with Ter- open force impracticable. But, having been at
tullian, it is evident that they in no way support length thrown off his guard by the protestations of
the position assumed by some critics, that he must Caracalla, who feigned an earnest desire for a rebe considered as the same person with the Cn. conciliation, and persuaded their mother to invite
Hosidius Geta whose exploits during the reign of them both to meet in her chamber without attendClaudius in Mauritania and Britain are comme- ants, in order that they might exchange forgivemorated by Dion Cassius (lx. 9, 20), and who ness, he was murdered by some centurions who
appears from inscriptions to have been one of the had been placed in ambush for the purpose, in the
consules suffecti for A. D. 49. very arms of Julia, who, although covered with
The drama, as it now exists, was derived from the blood of her son, was obliged to smile approtwo MSS., one the property of Salmasius (see his bation of the deed, that she might escape a like
notes on Capitolin. Macrin. c. 11, and on Trebell. fate. Geta perished towards the end of February,
Poll. Gallien. c. 8), the other preserved at Leyden, A. D. 212, in the twenty-third year of his age.
merely a transcript of the former. The first 134 Although Geta was rough in his mariners and
lines were published by Scriverius, in his Collecta- profligate in his morals, he never gave any indinea Veteruam Tragicorumo, -c., 8vo. Lug. Bat. cation of those savage passions which have branded