Edward Gibbon thought that the decline of the Roman Empire began with Severus (b. AD 145). He came from Leptis Magna, a thriving port with a fine natural harbour in what is now Libya, near Tripoli. His mother belonged to an influential Roman family, but his father was Carthaginian. The future emperor grew up speaking Latin with a provincial accent and his biographer Anthony Birley called him Rome's 'first truly provincial emperor'. He went to Rome in his teens and his mother's family helped him on his ambitious way up until in 191 he was made governor of Upper Pannonia, covering parts of today's Hungary, Austria and Bosnia. In 193, at his suggestion and promises of reward, his troops proclaimed him emperor after the murder of the Emperor Pertinax by the Praetorian Guard. Severus led his army swiftly to Italy, took Rome and over the next four years crushed the rival claimants.
He ruled Rome as a military dictator, with his sons Caracalla and Geta as Caesars. At substantial expense he beautified his native city of Leptis Magna, whose ruins are considered the most impressive in Roman Africa and include a triumphal arch in his honour as well as an arena that seats 50,000 spectators. He built a new forum as well as the 'hunting baths' decorated with scenes including a leopard hunt.
After successful campaigns in the Near East and Africa, in 208 he took Caracalla and Geta with him to Britain. Though by this time suffering agonies from gout, or perhaps arthritis, he led an invasion of Caledonia (Scotland), whose inhabitants, according to the contemporary historian Dio Cassius, lived naked in tents and had their women in common. The mythical Celtic hero Fingal was afterwards credited with defeating the Romans in battle, but in fact, naked or not, the Caledonians avoided battles. They excelled in guerrilla warfare and they led the Romans a dance all the way up to the Moray Firth or beyond until a temporary peace was organised in 210.
Exhausted, ill and ready to die, Severus returned to York and ordered himself a cremation urn. When he saw it, he told it: 'You will hold a man that the world could not hold.'
There was a story that Caracalla tried to bribe the doctors to hasten his father's end. When the emperor did expire, aged 65, the troops acclaimed his two sons as joint emperors. The brothers went back to Rome where Caracalla had Geta murdered the following year.Emperor Septimius Severus dies at York February 4th, AD 211 | Richard Cavendish | Published in History Today Volume 61 Issue 2 February 2011
“Lived naked in tents and had their women in common”
Ohhhhhh.....like Northwestern University.
“Naked or not, the Caledonians avoided battles”
“Run boys! Show them your cheeks!”
“And they led the Romans a dance”
I kind of like these guys.
Running from the enemy with no clothes on while doing The Hustle with all the girls in the camp.
I think that’s my family’s Coat-Of-Arms.
The larger story arc is purely speculative, but IMHO, the details stoke the atmosphere for what it must have been like on a remote outpost on the outer frontier of civilisation and beyond. The primary plot line, a young centurion redeeming his family name and the honor of his father and father's legion was well written and acted.
“where Caracalla had Geta murdered the following year.’
I keep seeing that as “Greta”.
thanx again
Writers knowingly use “African” to imply images of “black” Africans, when what the world knew and understood most about Africa 2,000 years ago, was North Africa, which was Carthaginian, Egyptian, Greek-Egytian, Berber, Arab and a minority of “blacks” up from Chad and places just south of the Sahara. That was most of Africa to the world of the ages of the Greek and Roman empires.
Severus was part Roman and part Carthaginian, and not representative of what readers today would equate with “African”, though from North Africa he was.