Septimius Severus – Roman Emperor: 193-211 A.D.
Bronze 25mm (10.24 grams) of Marcianopolis in Moesia Inferior.
Flavius Ulpianus, legatus consularis (consular legate).
AV K Λ CЄΠ CЄVHPO, Laureate, draped, and cuirassed bust of Septimius Severus right.
ΥΦΛ OVΛΠIANOV MAPKIANOΠOΛITΩΝ, Magna Mater (Cybele) seated left on throne, holding patera and resting elbow upon drum; lion reclining to left and right.

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Rhea (known by Romans as Cybele), an ancient Greek goddess, appears to have been a goddess of the earth. She is represented as a daughter of Uranus and Ge, and the wife of Cronos, by whom she became the mother of Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades, Poseidon and Zeus. Cronos devoured all his children by Rhea, hut when she was on the point of giving birth to Zeus, she went to Lyctus in Crete, by the advice of her parents. When Zeus was born she gave to Cronos a stone wrapped up like an infant, which the god swallowed supposing it to be his child. Crete was undoubtedly the earliest seat of the worship of Rhea; though many other parts of Greece laid claim to the honor of being the birth-place of Zeus. Rhea was afterwards identified by the Greeks in Asia Minor with the Great Asiatic goddess, known under the name of ” the Great Mother,”‘ or the ” Mother of the Gods,” and also bearing other names such as Cybele, Agdistis, Dindymene. Hence her worship became of a wild and enthusiastic character, and various Eastern rites were added to it, which soon spread throughout the whole of Greece. From the orgiastic nature of these rites, her worship became closely connected with that of Dionysus (Dionysos). Under the name of Cybele her worship was universal in Phrygia. Under the name of Agdistia, she was worshipped with great solemnity at Pessinus in Galatia, which town was regarded as the principal seat of her worship. Under different names we might trace the worship of Rhea even much further east, as far as the Euphrates and even Bactriana. She was, in fact, the great goddess of the Eastern world, and we find her worshipped there under a variety of forms and names. As regards the Romans, they had from the earliest times worshipped Jupiter and his mother Ops, the wife of Saturn. During the war with Hannibal (2nd Punic War) the Romans fetched the image of the Mother of the Gods from Pessinus ; but the worship then introduced was quite new to them, and either maintained itself as distinct from the worship of Ops, or became united with it. A temple was built to her on the Palatine, and the Roman matrons honored her with the festival of the Megalesia. In all European countries Rhea was conceived to be accompanied by the Curetes, who are inseparably connected with the birth and bringing up of Zeus in Crete, and in Phrygia by the Corybantes, Atys, and Agdistis. The Corybantes were her enthusiastic priests, who with drums, cymbals, horns, and in full armor, performed their orgiastic dances in the forests and on the mountains of Phrygia. In Rome the Galli were her priests. The lion was sacred to her. In works of art she is usually represented seated on a throne, adorned with the mural crown, from which a veil hangs down. Lions appear crouching on the right and left of her throne, and sometimes she is seen riding in a chariot drawn by lions.

Septimius Severus – Roman Emperor: 193-211 A.D.

Augustus: 193-211 A.D. | 193-198 A.D. Sole reign; 195-198 A.D. Caracalla as Caesar | 198-209 A.D. with Caracalla; Geta as Caesar | 209-211 A.D. with Caracalla and Geta

Husband of Julia Domna | Father of Caracalla and Geta | Uncle of Julia Soaemias and Julia Mamaea | Great-uncle of Elagabalus and Severus Alexander | Brother-in-law of Julia Maesa | Father-in-law of Plautilla |

Lucius Septimius Severus (or rarely Severus I) (April 11, 145/146-February 4, 211) was a Roman general, and Roman Emperor from April 14, 193 to 211. He was born in what is now the Berber part of Rome’s historic Africa Province.

Septimius Severus was born and raised at Leptis Magna (modern Berber, southeast of Carthage, modern Tunisia). Severus came from a wealthy, distinguished family of equestrian rank. Severus was of Italian Roman ancestry on his mother’s side and of Punic or Libyan-Punic ancestry on his father’s. Little is known of his father, Publius Septimius Geta, who held no major political status but had two cousins who served as consuls under emperor Antoninus Pius. His mother, Fulvia Pia’s family moved from Italy to North Africa and was of the Fulvius gens, an ancient and politically influential clan, which was originally of plebeian status. His siblings were a younger Publius Septimius Geta and Septimia Octavilla. Severus’s maternal cousin was Praetorian Guard and consul Gaius Fulvius Plautianus.

In 172, Severus was made a Senator by the then emperor Marcus Aurelius. In 187 he married secondly Julia Domna. In 190 Severus became consul, and in the following year received from the emperor Commodus (successor to Marcus Aurelius) the command of the legions in Pannonia.

On the murder of Pertinax by the troops in 193, they proclaimed Severus Emperor at Carnuntum, whereupon he hurried to Italy. The former emperor, Didius Julianus, was condemned to death by the Senate and killed, and Severus took possession of Rome without opposition.

The legions of Syria, however, had proclaimed Pescennius Niger emperor. At the same time, Severus felt it was reasonable to offer Clodius Albinus, the powerful governor of Britannia who had probably supported Didius against him, the rank of Caesar, which implied some claim to succession. With his rearguard safe, he moved to the East and crushed Niger’s forces at the Battle of Issus. The following year was devoted to suppressing Mesopotamia and other Parthian vassals who had backed Niger. When afterwards Severus declared openly his son Caracalla as successor, Albinus was hailed emperor by his troops and moved to Gallia. Severus, after a short stay in Rome, moved northwards to meet him. On February 19, 197, in the Battle of Lugdunum, with an army of 100,000 men, mostly composed of Illyrian, Moesian and Dacian legions, Severus defeated and killed Clodius Albinus, securing his full control over the Empire.

Emperor

Severus was at heart a soldier, and sought glory through military exploits. In 197 he waged a brief and successful war against the Parthian Empire in retaliation for the support given to Pescennius Niger. The Parthian capital Ctesiphon was sacked by the legions, and the northern half of Mesopotamia was restored to Rome.

His relations with the Roman Senate were never good. He was unpopular with them from the outset, having seized power with the help of the military, and he returned the sentiment. Severus ordered the execution of dozens of Senators on charges of corruption and conspiracy against him, replacing them with his own favorites.

He also disbanded the Praetorian Guard and replaced it with one of his own, made up of 50,000 loyal soldiers mainly camped at Albanum, near Rome (also probably to grant the emperor a kind of centralized reserve). During his reign the number of legions was also increased from 25/30 to 33. He also increased the number of auxiliary corps (numerii), many of these troops coming from the Eastern borders. Additionally the annual wage for a soldier was raised from 300 to 500 denarii.

Although his actions turned Rome into a military dictatorship, he was popular with the citizens of Rome, having stamped out the rampant corruption of Commodus’s reign. When he returned from his victory over the Parthians, he erected the Arch of Septimius Severus in Rome.

According to Cassius Dio, however, after 197 Severus fell heavily under the influence of his Praetorian Prefect, Gaius Fulvius Plautianus, who came to have almost total control of most branches of the imperial administration. Plautianus’s daughter, Fulvia Plautilla, was married to Severus’s son, Caracalla. Plautianus’s excessive power came to an end in 205, when he was denounced by the Emperor’s dying brother and killed. The two following praefecti, including the jurist Aemilius Papinianus, received however even larger powers.

Campaigns in Caledonia (Scotland)

Starting from 208 Severus undertook a number of military actions in Roman Britain, reconstructing Hadrian’s Wall and campaigning in Scotland.

He reached the area of the Moray Firth in his last campaign in Caledonia, as was called Scotland by the Romans.. In 210 obtained a peace with the Picts that lasted practically until the final withdrawal of the Roman legions from Britain, before falling severely ill in Eboracum (York).

Death

He is famously said to have given the advice to his sons: “Be harmonious, enrich the soldiers, and scorn all other men” before he died at Eboracum on February 4, 211. Upon his death in 211, Severus was deified by the Senate and succeeded by his sons, Caracalla and Geta, who were advised by his wife Julia Domna. The stability Severus provided the Empire was soon gone under their reign.

Accomplishments and Record

Though his military expenditure was costly to the empire, Severus was the strong, able ruler that Rome needed at the time. He began a tradition of effective emperors elevated solely by the military. His policy of an expanded and better-rewarded army was criticized by his contemporary Dio Cassius and Herodianus: in particular, they pointed out the increasing burden (in the form of taxes and services) the civilian population had to bear to maintain the new army.

Severus was also distinguished for his buildings. Apart from the triumphal arch in the Roman Forum carrying his full name, he also built the Septizodium in Rome and enriched greatly his native city of Leptis Magna (including another triumphal arch on the occasion of his visit of 203).

Severus and Christianity

Christians were persecuted during the reign of Septimus Severus. Severus allowed the enforcement of policies already long-established, which meant that Roman authorities did not intentionally seek out Christians, but when people were accused of being Christians they could either curse Jesus and make an offering to Roman gods, or be executed. Furthermore, wishing to strengthen the peace by encouraging religious harmony through syncretism, Severus tried to limit the spread of the two quarrelsome groups who refused to yield to syncretism by outlawing conversion to Christianity or Judaism. Individual officials availed themselves of the laws to proceed with rigor against the Christians. Naturally the emperor, with his strict conception of law, did not hinder such partial persecution, which took place in Egypt and the Thebaid, as well as in Africa proconsularis and the East. Christian martyrs were numerous in Alexandria (cf. Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, ii. 20; Eusebius, Church History, V., xxvi., VI., i.). No less severe were the persecutions in Africa, which seem to have begun in 197 or 198 (cf. Tertullian’s Ad martyres), and included the Christians known in the Roman martyrology as the martyrs of Madaura. Probably in 202 or 203 Felicitas and Perpetua suffered for their faith. Persecution again raged for a short time under the proconsul Scapula in 211, especially in Numidia and Mauritania. Later accounts of a Gallic persecution, especially at Lyon, are legendary. In general it may thus be said that the position of the Christians under Septimius Severus was the same as under the Antonines; but the law of this Emperor at least shows clearly that the rescript of Trajan had failed to execute its purpose.