Septimius Severus: First African Emperor
Septimius Severus won the civil war of 193 and told his sons to enrich the soldiers and despise everyone else. The Praetorian Guard had murdered Pertinax in March and then auctioned the empire from the walls of their camp, selling it to a wealthy senator named Didius Julianus who outbid a rival by promising 25,000 sesterces a man. Three provincial commanders refused to accept the sale — Severus on the Danube, Pescennius Niger in Syria, and Clodius Albinus in Britain. Severus had the shortest road. He bought off Albinus with the title of Caesar and the succession, marched on Rome in about three weeks, had Julianus executed by the senate, and disbanded the Praetorian Guard entirely — parading them unarmed, stripping their uniforms and forbidding them within a hundred miles of the city. He replaced them with men drawn from his own Danubian legions. He destroyed Niger at Issus in 194 and then turned on Albinus, whom he had never intended to keep, and beat him at Lugdunum in 197 in a battle of perhaps 300,000 men. Some twenty-nine senators were executed afterwards. He then governed for the army. He raised its pay by a third, permitted soldiers to marry legally, opened the centurionate to promotion from the ranks, and created three new legions — and paid for it by confiscation and by debasing the coinage. He was African, from Leptis Magna, and spoke Latin with an accent Romans noticed. He died at York in 211 campaigning in Scotland. His advice to his sons was followed by neither, and the elder murdered the younger within a year.
- Year: 193 CE
- Category: Political
