| Septimius Severus | |||||
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| Roman emperor | |||||
| Reign | 9 April 193 – 4 February 211[1] | ||||
| Predecessor | Didius Julianus | ||||
| Successors | Caracalla and Geta | ||||
| Co-emperors |
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| Born | Lucius Septimius Severus[2] 11 April 145[3] Leptis Magna, Libya | ||||
| Died | 4 February 211 (aged 65)[4] Eboracum, Britain | ||||
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| Dynasty | Severan | ||||
| Father | Publius Septimius Geta | ||||
| Mother | Fulvia Pia | ||||
| Roman imperial dynasties | ||
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| Severan dynasty | ||
| Chronology | ||
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193–211 |
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with Caracalla 198–211 |
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with Geta 209–211 |
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211–217 |
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211 |
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Macrinus' usurpation 217–218 |
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with Diadumenian 218 |
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218–222 |
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222–235 |
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| Dynasty | ||
| Severan dynasty family tree | ||
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All biographies |
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| Succession | ||
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Lucius Septimius Severus (Latin: [ˈɫuːkiʊs sɛpˈtɪmiʊs sɛˈweːrʊs]; 11 April 145 – 4 February 211) was a Roman politician who served as emperor from 193 to 211. He was born in Leptis Magna (present-day Al-Khums, Libya) in the Roman province of Africa.[5][6] As a young man he advanced through the customary succession of offices under the reigns of Marcus Aurelius and Commodus. Severus was the final contender to seize 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.
With his second wife, Julia Domna, Severus had two sons; the elder, Caracalla, was proclaimed Augustus, or co-emperor, in 198, and the younger, Geta, in 209. 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[7] but his ambitions were cut short when he died of an infectious disease in early 211 at Eboracum (modern York). His sons, advised by Julia Domna, succeeded him, thus founding the Severan dynasty. It was the last dynasty of the Roman Empire before the Crisis of the Third Century.
- ^ Kienast, Dietmar (2017) [1990]. "Septimius Severus (9 Apr. 193–4 Febr. 211)". Römische Kaisertabelle Grundzüge einer römischen Kaiserchronologie (6th ed.). Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft. pp. 149–159. ISBN 978-3-534-07532-4. OCLC 75671165.
- ^ a b Cooley, Alison E. (2012). The Cambridge Manual of Latin Epigraphy. Cambridge University Press. p. 495. ISBN 978-0-521-84026-2.
- ^ Birley (1999), p. 1.
- ^ Birley (1999), p. 187.
- ^ Anthony Richard Birley, Septimius Severus: the African emperor, Yale University Press, 1988, pp2,18-32
- ^ Craig Simpson, "Roman emperor hailed as 'black Briton' – even though he wasn't black", Daily Telegraph, 30 October 2023
- ^ Elliott, Simon (2018). Septimius Severus in Scotland: The Northern Campaigns of the First Hammer of the Scots. Greenhill Books. p. 147. ISBN 978-1-78438-204-9.