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SEVERUS

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Originally appearing in Volume V24, Page 724 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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SEVERUS ,' See also:

LUCIUS SEPTIMIUS (A.D. 146-211), See also:Roman See also:emperor, was See also:born in 146 at See also:Leptis Magna on the See also:coast of See also:Africa. Punic was still the See also:language of this See also:district, and Severus was the first emperor who had learned Latin as a See also:foreign See also:tongue. The origin of his See also:family is obscure. Spartianus, his biographer in the Historia See also:Augusta, doubtless exaggerates his See also:literary culture and his love of learning; but the See also:taste for See also:jurisprudence which he exhibited as emperor was probably instilled into him at an See also:early See also:age. The removal of Severus from Leptis to See also:Rome is attributed by his biographer to the See also:desire for higher See also:education, but was also no doubt due in some degree to ambition. From the emperor See also:Marcus Aurelius he early obtained, by intercession of a consular ancle, the distinction of the broad See also:purple stripe. At twenty-six, that is, almost at the earliest age allowed by See also:law, Severus attained the quaestorship and a seat in the See also:senate, and proceeded as See also:quaestor militaris to the senatorial See also:province of Baetica, in the See also:Peninsula. While Severus was absent in Africa in consequence of the See also:death of his See also:father, the province of Baetica, disordered by Moorish invasions and See also:internal commotion, was taken over by the emperor, who gave the senate See also:Sardinia in See also:exchange. On this Severus became military quaestor of Sardinia. His next See also:office, in 174 or 175, was that of See also:legate to the proconsul of Africa, and soon after he was See also:tribune of the See also:plebs. This magistracy, though far different from what it had been in the days of the See also:republic, was still one of dignity, and brought promotion to a higher grade in the senate.

In 178 or 179 Severus became See also:

praetor by competition for the suffrages of the senators. Then, probably in the same See also:year, he went to Hispania Citerior as legatus juridicus; after that he commanded a See also:legion in See also:Syria. After the death of Marcus Aurelius he was unemployed for several years, and, according to his biographer, studied at See also:Athens. He became See also:consul about 189. In this See also:time also falls the See also:marriage with his second wife, afterwards famous as Julia Domna, whose acquaintance he had no doubt made when an officer in Syria. Severus was See also:governor in See also:succession of Gallia Lugdunensis, See also:Sicily and See also:Pannonia See also:Superior; but the See also:dates -at which he held these appointments cannot be determined. He was in command of three legions at See also:Carnuntum, the See also:capital of the province last named, when See also:news reached him that See also:Commodus had been murdered by his favourite concubine and his most trusted servants. Up to this moment Severus had not raised himself above the usual See also:official level. He had seen no warfare beyond the See also:petty border frays of frontier provinces. But the See also:storm that now tried all official See also:spirits found his alone powerful enough to brave it. Three imperial dynasties had been ended by assassination. The See also:Flavian See also:line had enjoyed much shorter duration and less See also:prestige than the other two, and the circumstances of its fall had been See also:peculiar in that it was probably planned in the See also:interest of the senate, and the senate reaped the immediate fruits.

But the crises which arose on the deaths of See also:

Nero and of Commodus were alike. In both cases it was See also:left to the See also:army to determine by a struggle which of the divisional commanders should succeed to the command-in-See also:chief, that is, to the imperial See also:throne.

End of Article: SEVERUS

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SEVERUS, SULPICIUS (c. 363–c. 425)

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