Septimius Severus

Reece Period attributed: Period 10

Member of the The Severans dynasty.

Coins for this issuer were issued from 193 until 211.

Lucius Septimius Severus was born in AD 145 in Lepcis Magna, Libya; he was the first African-born Roman emperor. He came to Rome shortly after turning 18 and Marcus Aurelius made him a senator.

News of the deaths of Commodus and Pertinax reached Severus while he was in Upper Pannonia. The Danube troops hailed him as imperator and he headed for Rome. The Senate realized that his accession was inevitable and hailed him as Caesar. Severus then executed or expelled all those of the Praetorian Guard for taking part in the murder of Pertinax.

Severus had to deal with uprisings and civil war on all sides of the empire; he consolidated his power, but began ailing as he aged. He chose his son Caracalla as successor and married him to the daughter of the leader of the Praetorian Guards.

Severus died at York, while trying for the conquest of Scotland. His sons, with whom he was on the campaign, abandoned the project and took his cremated ashes back to Rome. He was soon deified and fondly remembered as a successful consolidator of Roman power. According to the historian Dio, Severus’ last words to his sons were:

Agree with each other, make the soldiers rich, and ignore everybody else.

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Other resources about Septimius Severus

• Dbpedia: http://dbpedia.org/resource/Septimius_Severus
• Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Septimius_Severus
• VIAF: http://viaf.org/viaf/36952961

View all coins recorded by the scheme attributed to Septimius Severus.

Information from Wikipedia

• Preferred label: Septimius Severus
• Full names:
  • Septimius Severus
• Title: Consul of the Roman Empire
• Predecessor: Didius Julianus
• Successor: Caracalla, Geta (emperor)
• Definition: Lucius Septimius Severus (Latin: [sɛˈweːrʊs]; 11 April 145 – 4 February 211) was Roman emperor from 193 to 211. He was born in Leptis Magna (present-day Al-Khums, Libya) in the Roman province of Africa. As a young man he advanced through the customary succession of offices under the reigns of Marcus Aurelius and Commodus. Severus seized power after the death of the emperor Pertinax in 193 during the Year of the Five Emperors. After deposing and killing the incumbent emperor Didius Julianus, Severus fought his rival claimants, the Roman generals Pescennius Niger and Clodius Albinus. Niger was defeated in 194 at the Battle of Issus in Cilicia. Later that year Severus waged a short punitive campaign beyond the eastern frontier, annexing the Kingdom of Osroene as a new province. Severus defeated Albinus three years later at the Battle of Lugdunum in Gaul. Following the consolidation of his rule over the western provinces, Severus waged another brief, more successful war in the east against the Parthian Empire, sacking their capital Ctesiphon in 197 and expanding the eastern frontier to the Tigris. He then enlarged and fortified the Limes Arabicus in Arabia Petraea. In 202, he campaigned in Africa and Mauretania against the Garamantes, capturing their capital Garama and expanding the Limes Tripolitanus along the southern desert frontier of the empire. He proclaimed as augusti (co-emperors) his elder son Caracalla in 198 and his younger son Geta in 209, both born of his second wife Julia Domna. Severus travelled to Britain in 208, strengthening Hadrian's Wall and reoccupying the Antonine Wall. In 209 he invaded Caledonia (modern Scotland) with an army of 50,000 men but his ambitions were cut short when he fell fatally ill of an infectious disease in late 210. He died in early 211 at Eboracum (today York, England), and was succeeded by his sons, who were advised by their mother and his powerful widow, Julia Domna, thus founding the Severan dynasty. It was the last dynasty of the Roman Empire before the Crisis of the Third Century.
• Parents:
  • Father: Publius Septimius Geta (father of Septimius Severus)
  • Mother:
• Birth place: Africa (Roman province), Leptis Magna
• Death place: Eboracum, Roman Britain
• Spouse:
• Other title(s):
  • Consul of the Roman Empire
  • List of Roman Emperors
• Came After:
  • and Gaius Cassius Regallianus
  • Titus Murrenius Severus
• Came before:
• Subjects on wikipedia:
  • Septimius Severus
  • 3rd-century Roman emperors
  • 2nd-century Roman emperors
  • 211 deaths
  • Burials at the Castel Sant'Angelo
  • Septimii
  • 145 births
  • Ancient Libyans
  • Romans from Africa
  • 2nd-century Punic people
  • 3rd-century Punic people
  • Roman governors of Gallia Lugdunensis
  • Ancient Romans in Britain
  • Imperial Roman consuls
  • Deified Roman emperors
  • People of the Roman–Parthian Wars
  • Roman pharaohs
  • Severan dynasty