A Brief Introduction of Septimiu Severus

Lucius Septimius Severus was the emperor of the Roman Empire 193 from April to February11February. He came from the Libyan-born Grand Leptis, came to the Carthaginian family, and has risen to the Senate and the history of consular status.

His first visit to Rome was in A.D. 163, during the reign of Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus. He was protected by his cousin Caius Septimius Severus and entered the Roman Senate in 170. In about 173- 174, his cousin went to Africa as a governor, and he chose Septimius Severus as his special envoy. L. Septimius married Paccia Marciana around A.D. 175, and Paccia Marciana, like him, is a descendant of Punic people. However, she died ten years later. When he was the governor of Gaul and lived in Lugdunum (Lyon), he married Julia Domna from Amesa (Syria) around AD 187. She comes from a senior pastor's family in Eligaba.

On the last day of A.D. 192, the dissolute ruler Commodus was murdered, and Septimius began to rise. The respected Pertinax, the direct heir of Commodus, was soon made emperor. However, Publius Helvius Pertinax's behavior as emperor angered the guards, who didn't like his efforts to strengthen discipline. In addition, Pertinax failed to meet the guards' demands for salary refund, which led them to resist and eventually ended in the assassination of the emperor. The guards cynically auctioned the throne to the highest bidder, and the person who was willing to bid the highest would get the support of the guards and get the throne. A rich and outstanding senator, m. At first, Didis Julius may be a joke. He outbid all the others at the auction, so he was declared emperor by the guards simply because he promised to pay the most money. This incident caused great dissatisfaction among the Roman people, who condemned Julius Annous and the way he gained the throne. News of the Roman unrest spread to the provinces, which led to the emergence of three possible candidates to challenge the rule of Julius Annous.

After ensuring that the 16 legions of the Rhine and Danube were loyal to his cause, Septimius marched into Italy and was recognized as the emperor by the Senate.

The first candidate is British Governor Claudius Albinus, the second is Syrian Governor percy Nius Niger, and the third, of course, is Septimius Severus, who rules the province of Panonyashu on the Danube. These three governors are all possible candidates, mainly because they all have a province defended by three legions. This not only provided each governor with a powerful military base composed of three legions, but also ensured that neighboring provinces would often join their cause if they decided to compete for imperial power. Albinus and Niger have already done so. Septimiu has an advantage over these two men in putting forward his ideas. He not only has an advantage in propaganda (Septimiu served in Publius Helvius Pertinax before, and successfully portrayed himself as the "Avenger of Publius Helvius Pertinax", and even adopted the name of the slain emperor), but also has an advantage in geographical position, because Pannonia is the closest province among these provinces to Italy and Rome. In order to prevent conflict with Clodius Albinus, he won Albinus's support mainly by promising the title of Albinus. If Septimus succeeds, Caesar will have a place in the inheritance of the empire. After ensuring that the 16 legions of the Rhine and Danube were loyal to his cause, Septimius marched into Italy and was recognized as emperor by the Senate 60 miles from Rome. Julie Annous was executed, and Septimius was welcomed to Rome on June 9th, 1993. With his accession to the throne, A.D. 193 was called the "Year of Five Emperors".

Septimiu quickly dissolved the existing guard and replaced it with a larger guard recruited from the Danube Corps under his command. In order to strengthen his rule in Italy, he also formed three new legions (I-III Parthica), the second of which was located in Alba, not far from Rome, and greatly increased the night watchman and city queues in Rome. Expand the overall garrison in Rome.

Now that Rome (now Albinus's loyalty in the west) is firmly established, Septimiu organized a campaign to March into the eastern provinces to destroy his rival Niger. Seville's army defeated Niger one after another, driving his army out of Thrace, then defeated him in Cyzicus and Nicaea in Asia Minor in 193, and finally defeated him in Isus in 194. During his stay in the east, Severus turned his army to support the Parthian vassal of Niger. He quickly conquered the kingdom of Oslon and Beni in Adia, and commemorated these victories with the titles of Patikus Arabikus and Patikus Adia Benikous. In order to consolidate his reputation, he tried to link his new dynasty with Antony's dynasty. He declared that he was the son of the now deified former emperor Marcus Aurelius and the brother of the deified Commodus. In addition, he awarded the title of Caesar to his eldest son, M. Aurelius Antoninus (later Emperor caracalla). This last step led to a direct conflict with his former ally Claudius Albinus, who was originally awarded the title in exchange for his loyalty. Realizing Severus was going to abandon him, Albinus rose up and led his army across Gaul. Severus rushed west to join forces with Albinus in the battle of Lugdunum, and defeated him in a bloody and arduous battle in February 197. After defeating Albinus, Severus became the only emperor of the Roman Empire.

/kloc-in the summer of 0/97, Severus went to the eastern provinces again, and the Parthian Empire took advantage of his absence to besiege Nicebius, which was occupied by Rome in Mesopotamia. After breaking the siege of the rest of the people there, he continued to advance along the Euphrates River, attacked and looted the rest of the people's cities in Seleucia and Babylon, and finally captured cte sink, the capital of the rest of the people. He had hoped to continue his campaign in the Parthian Empire, although Dior said he could not do so because of the lack of Roman military intelligence and knowledge about the Parthian Center. Septimiu then turned to attack the Iraqi Khatla fortress, but failed to capture it after two attempts at siege. After reaching a face-to-face agreement with Hatra, Septimiu declared victory in the East and won the title of Paticus Maximus (in fact, the Arc de Triomphe voted for him by the Senate in Rome Square still exists today). It was during this period that he organized the land in northern Mesopotamia seized from the Parthians and became a new province in Rome Mesopotamia. Dior said Severus hoped that the province would become a "fortress of Syria" and resist any invasion by Parthians in the future (how effective was this policy? But in the years after Severus' rule, it was a controversial issue.

Severus then went to Egypt in A.D. 199 to reorganize the provinces. One year after returning to Syria (from the end of 2000 to the beginning of 2002), Severus finally returned to Rome in the summer of 2002, celebrated his tenth birthday with a winning game, and married his son Anthony to his daughter. His confidant, the leader of the Guards, Lautia Yunus (later murdered for Anthony's plot). In the autumn of the same year, Severus went to his native Africa and visited Severus' hometown of Lepsis Magna, Utica and Carthage. In Lepcis Magna, he launched a vigorous monument construction plan, providing colonnade streets, new forums, cathedrals and new ports for his hometown. He also used this time to crush the desert tribes (the most famous ones are Galamantes) that have been harassing the Roman-African border. Severus expanded and re-reinforced the African border, and even extended the presence of Rome to the Sahara desert, thus reducing the attacks of these border tribes. They can no longer attack Roman land without scruple and then flee back to the desert.

Severus then returned to Italy in 203 AD, where he stayed until 208 AD, and held a secular sports meeting in 204 AD. With the murder of his consul, PuLautia Yunus, Severus replaced him with the jurist Papinian. His support for the new governor and jurists Urbian and Paul made Seville the golden age of Roman jurisprudence.

In 208 AD, a small-scale battle on the Roman-British border provided Severus with an excuse to launch a campaign there, which lasted until his death. AD 2 1 1。 Through this campaign, Severus hopes to have the opportunity to win military honor. Moreover, he also took his sons Anthony and Gaeta, hoping to provide them with some administrative and military experience needed to master the imperial power (until now, the two sons have been spending a lot of time in fierce quarrels and manners). Like a slut partying in an unknown place in Rome.

Severus' intention in England was almost certainly to conquer the whole island and put it under Roman rule. In order to do this, Severus completely repaired and renovated many fortresses along Hadrian's Great Wall, with the aim of launching a campaign to conquer the northern part of the British Island based on the Great Wall. Leaving the south of Gaeta (it is said that he was appointed to be in charge of British civil affairs south of the Great Wall), Severus and his son Anthony fought in the north, especially in Scotland today. The course of this battle was a melee for the Romans: the local Caledonian tribe did not meet the Romans in an open battle, but adopted guerrilla tactics to confront them, causing heavy casualties to the Romans. However, in 2 10 AD, the northern tribes demanded peace. Severus took advantage of this opportunity to set up a new forward base in Taihe Boca to prepare for future election activities. He also crowned himself and his sons with the title of Britain to commemorate this victory. However, this success was short-lived, because the tribe soon revolted. By this time (AD 2 1 1), Severus was unable to continue his campaign against them. He suffered from gout for a long time, which seems to have hurt him: he died in Abramoff (York) on February 4, 21/kloc-0.

Severus' rule witnessed the implementation of the reform of the provinces and the army, which had a long-term impact. After his opponent was defeated, Severus was determined not to have the same strength as him. So he separated Pannonia province from Syrian province to prevent the future governor's uprising (Pannonia is divided into new Pannoni province and lower Pannonia province; Syria is divided into Kohler Syria and Phoenix Syria. Britain is also divided into two provinces (Upper Britain and Lower Britain), although it is controversial that Severus or his son and heir caracalla did so.

Severus is also famous for his military reform. He not only greatly increased the size of the army, but also increased the annual salary of soldiers from 300 dinars to 500 dinars in order to ensure the loyalty of soldiers (many people will think that this salary increase is long overdue because it is the last salary increase for soldiers). In 84 AD, Emperor Titus Flavius Domitianus granted him a salary. Severus had to devalue the silver coin in order to pay these salary increases. This seems to have no long-term impact on inflation, although Severus set a precedent for the future emperor, constantly devaluing coins to pay for military expenses. Historians Dior and Herod criticized Severus for these salary increases, mainly because it brought greater financial pressure on civilians to maintain a larger army. In addition, Severus ended the marriage ban that existed in the Roman army. Give soldiers the right to marry. Some people think this measure is a positive reform, because it gives the wives of soldiers who had no legal recourse before the ban was promulgated, because their relationship is informal and not legally binding. Severus was very concerned about the loyalty of the army. It is said that before his death, he advised his two sons to "be kind to each other, enrich the soldiers and curse others".

Severus may be cruel to his enemies. When he defeated Niger in the east, he not only attacked many cities in the region that supported his opponents, but also surrendered Antioch (the base of Niger's action) to his main rival Laodicea. After defeating Albinus in the Battle of Lugdunum, Severus vented his anger on the Roman Senate, and many members of the Senate either silently or openly supported Albinus. Severus announced in a speech in 197 that he intended to clear the Senate, and then went on to execute 29 Senate members of this institution because they supported his opponents (many other non-Senate supporters in Albinus also suffered the same fate).

Despite the victory during the civil war, which brought stability to the empire, Severus' sense of accomplishment may be mixed. According to various historians, his last words seem to imply that he felt that his work might not be finished. Aurelius Victor reported that Severus declared in despair before his death that "I used to be everything, but there was no benefit." Dior, who knew Severus himself, wrote that when the emperor died, he gasped, "Come on, if we have anything to do, give it to me!" " "