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Lucius Septimius
Severus restored stability to the Roman empire
after the tumultuous reign of the emperor
Commodus and the civil wars that erupted
in the wake of
Commodus' murder. However, by giving
greater pay and benefits to soldiers and
annexing the troublesome lands of northern
Mesopotamia into the Roman empire, Septimius-Severus brought increasing financial and
military burdens to Rome's government. His
prudent administration allowed these burdens to
be met during his eighteen years on the throne,
but his reign was not entirely sunny. The
bloodiness with which Severus
gained and maintained control of the empire
tarnished his generally positive reputation. Severus was born
on 11 April 145 in the African
city of Liptes- Magna, whose magnificent ruins
are located in modern Libya, 130 miles east of
Tripoli. Septimius-Severus came from a
distinguished local family with cousins who
received suffect consulships in Rome under
Antoninus Pius. |
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The future
emperor's father seems not to have held any
major offices, but the grandfather may have been
the wealthy equestrian Septimius-Severus commemorated by the Flavian-era poet
Statius. The
future emperor was helped in his early career by
one of his consular cousins, who
arranged entry into the senate and the favor of
the emperor
Marcus Aurelius.
Life as a senator meant a life of travel from
one government posting to another.
Moorish
attacks
on his intended post of Baetica (southern Spain)
forced Severus to serve his quaestorship in
Sardinia.
He then traveled to Africa as a legate and
returned to Rome to be a tribune of the plebs.
Around the year 175 he married Paccia Marciana,
who seems also to have been of African origin.
The childless marriage lasted a decade or so
until her death.
Severus' career continued to
flourish as the empire passed from
Marcus to
Commodus. The young senator
held a praetorship, then served in Spain,
commanded a legion in Syria and held the
governorships of Gallia Lugdunensis (central
France), Sicily and Upper Pannonia (easternmost
Austria and western Hungary). While in Gallia Lugdunensis in 187, the now-widowed
future emperor married
Julia
Domna, a woman from a prominent family of the Syrian city of Emesa. Two sons
quickly arrived, eleven months apart:
Bassianus
(known to history
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as
Caracalla) in April of the year
188, and
Geta in March 189.
News of
Pertinax's assassination 28
March 193 in an uprising by the
praetorian guard quickly reached
Pannonia, and only twelve days later on
9 April 193, Severus was proclaimed
emperor. Septimius-
Severus had the strong support of the
armies along the Rhine and Danube, but
the loyalty of the governor of Britain,
Clodius Albinus, was in doubt.
Severus'
envoys from Pannonia offered
Albinus the title of Caesar,
which he accepted. More information about
Septimius-Severus |
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