Septimius Severus was born in the Roman province of Africa in Leptis Magna. Today Leptis Magna is located in Libya and features some of the most impressive and well preserved Roman ruins anywhere. Some tours and holiday packages are available to visit this historic and unspoiled site on the Mediterranean.

THE LIFE AND REIGN OF THE EMPEROR

LUCIUS SEPTIMIUS SEVERUS

AD 146-211

BY

MAURICE PLATNAUER

I.        Early Life

II.      The War of Accession

III.     The War against Niger

IV.     The War against Albinus

V.      Severus in the East

VI.     The Last Phase

VII.    Philosophy and Religion

I

EARLY LIFE

From the year of his birth to that of his accession Septimius may be said to have lived the ordinary life of the provincial Roman of the upper classes. His ancestors had belonged to the equestrian order, but two of his great-uncles (on his father's side) had been consulars. A maternal uncle, one Fulvius Pius, seems to have incurred the censure of Pertinax during the latter’s governorship of Africa. In this same province, on the 11th of April, 146, was born, of parents whose names Spartian gives as Geta and Fulvia Pia, the future Emperor Lucius Septimius Severus. His birthplace was Leptis Magna. Of his boyhood we know little save for such accretions of fable as tend to gather round the youth of the great. It seems curious to think of Septimius studying Latin; still more so to hear that, in spite of the proficiency in its literature for which Spartian vouches, he was cursed all his life long with an African accent. His prowess indeed as a scholar is more than doubtful, and Dio Cassius expressly tells us that in this department his aspirations were much in advance of his achievements. A far more congenial subject to the young statesman must have been the Law. In pursuit of this study he left the ‘nutricula causidicorum’ and came to Rome, abandoning the legal games of his childhood for the serious business of legal apprenticeship. The exact year of this journey we do not know, but we may safely take it to have been between 164 and 170. Once in Rome he set himself to study under the famous jurist Q. Cervidius Scaevola, and seems to have had as a fellow pupil the still more famous Papinian.

The amusements with which he enlivened this period of study were not of so innocent a character as those which had graced his childhood, and, if we may believe his biographer, his sedulous pursuit of the ‘broad way and the green led’ the young jurist into serious trouble. The story, however, of his accusation for adultery and of his acquittal therefrom by the proconsul Didius Iulianus contains such inaccuracies as to discredit the whole account; for when Julianus was proconsul of Africa Septimius was in Pannonia, while, supposing the scene to be in Rome, how could a proconsul be there at all? Whatever his excesses were they do not seem to have interfered with his rapid advancement. Through the influence of his uncle, a man of high standing, he received from the Emperor Marcus Aurelius the latus clavus, having previously held the equestrian  post of advocatus fisci.

Our knowledge of his subsequent career is spoilt by the fact that the passage in Spartian dealing with the subject is hopelessly corrupt. Eutropius says to the effect that Septimius was a military tribune. It is, of course, not impossible that Eutropius is confusing the posts of military and plebeian tribune, but in the present state of our knowledge on the point any very definite statement is to be deprecated. Another difficulty is to be found in the question, what was the exact position of Septimius in Baetica. Apparently that of quaestor, as we read that he was transferred from Baetica to Sardinia, where he certainly held that post. We must suppose, then, that Septimius held an urban quaestorship, possibly in the year 171, and went out to Baetica in the year following as a proquaestor. During his period of office in Spain Septimius’ father died, and Septimius himself journeyed to Africa to set his house in order. In his absence the Moors overran Spain, and Baetica became an imperial province, the emperor taking it in exchange for Sardinia, to which province, accordingly, Septimius betook himself on his return from Africa. He seems to have acquitted himself with peculiar distinction during this period of his official career, and was given as a reward the post of legatus on the staff of the African proconsul, though of his precise duties in the province we are in ignorance, as we are of the exact year in which he fulfilled them. We may suppose him to have governed one of the three main ‘dioceses’. We are not told with what success the legate performed his functions, but from his treatment of an old friend whose respect for office was not all that Septimius desired, we should infer that if he erred at all it was not on the side of slackness. One of Spartian’s characteristic horoscope stories makes its appearance at this point; otherwise we know nothing of his doings.

On the 10th of December, 174 or 175, Septimius entered upon the office of plebeian tribune. The tribunate now was but a nomnis umbra, its former powers were vested in the emperor by virtue of his tribunicia potestas, and it is typical of its lack of any real importance that a man of twenty-five years of age could hold it, while neither it nor yet the aedileship formed any longer a necessary step between quaestorship and praetorship. But whatever were the duties of the office, they were fulfilled by the future emperor with characteristic vigor and severity.

It was in the course of this year that he married his first wife Marcia, a lady of whom we know very little. Septimius himself, indeed, seems to have been reticent upon the subject in his memoirs, though he had the grace to erect various statues to her after his assumption of the purple.

In 178, that is to say in his thirty-third year, Septimius became a praetor, elected, seemingly, to this office rather than nominated for it by Marcus.

His sphere of duties, however, was not Rome but the province of Spain, and he was obliged to give the games expected of a newly appointed praetor during his absence. In Spain his position was very similar to that held by him previously in Africa. He was certainly not the legatus propraetore of the province, for in this case his subsequent appointment to the command of the fourth legion would have been a step backwards in the cursus honorum. Spain, like Africa, was divided for administrative purposes into three districts, and over one of them, most probably the dioecesis Tarraconensis, Septimius was set. It was an important post, but its holder was, of course, answerable to, and under the orders of, the legatus propraetore Hispaniae Tarraconensis.

The next year, 179, saw Marcus Aurelius succeeded by his worthless son, and Septimius given command of the Syrian legion, IV Scythica; but his sojourn in the far East does not seem to have been of long duration, and we hear of his retire­ment to Athens. Only three years before had died the famous Herodes Atticus, and we may suppose his pupil and successor, Chrestus, had at least some share in directing the studies of an illustrious pupil.

Of Septimius’ life as an elderly undergraduate we know little except the fact that the Athenians succeeded somehow in offending his dignity: conduct for which, if we are to believe his biographer, the emperor made them atone subsequently by the withdrawal of certain privileges. Ceuleneer raises the interesting question whether the retirement of Septimius to Athens was or was not the result of strained relations between himself and the government. His Grecian visit certainly seems to correspond in time to the rule of Perennis in Rome, and his return to public life is probably to be attributed to the very year following that minister’s death. In this year, 186, Oleander succeeded Perennis, and Septimius was appointed legatus propraetore of Gallia Lugdunensis. His administration seems to have been just and beneficent; so much so that Spartian assures us that few governors were ever more popular. The ardor, however, with which Lugdunum subsequently embraced the cause of Albinus may justify our suspicions of the credibility of this passage, especially as there is no epigraphic evidence to back it up.

Two important events in the life of the future emperor occurred during his tenure of this Gallic office: the first was his second marriage, the second the revolt of Maternus. The causes and origins of this revolution are shrouded in mystery: even for any detailed account we are beholden only to Herodian, and yet both the boldness of its design and the extent of its influence should have ensured it a more thoroughgoing treatment. All we know is that somewhere during the years 186 to 188 (the very date is a matter of uncertainty) one Maternus collected a body of deserters and brigands, overran Gaul and Spain, and even penetrated into Italy. Not content with this Maternus planned a deliberate attempt on the life of Commodus, which was to take place during the license afforded by the spring festival of Cybele. Jealousy among his followers, however, betrayed him, and he was captured and executed. Meanwhile Commodus, alarmed at so wide a spread of disaffection, dispatched Pescennius Niger into Gaul to deal with revolt there. In Gaul, therefore, the future rivals met, and Severus seems to have been much struck by the capability and energy displayed by Niger in dealing with the crisis. Not content with writing home to Commodus to the effect that Niger was a man necessary to the state, he treasured the memory of Niger’s capacity in this and other spheres of office when he himself was emperor, and wrote to one Ragonius Celsus, himself governor of Gaul, lamenting an inability to imitate one whom he has defeated.

A similar uncertainty of date attaches to the celebration of his second marriage. Caracalla we know to have been born on April 4, 188. We should conclude therefore that the marriage took place sometime in the year 187. The lady whom he married was the famous Julia Domna, born at Emesa on the Orontes, and the daughter of one Julius Bassianus, priest of Baal in that city. An interesting and suggestive story is connected with this incident. Ever prone to superstition, in spite of his Athenian schooling, the widowed governor of Gaul found his second wife in one whose horoscope foretold that she should wed a king, and, though we may suppose a previous meeting in the East, this seems to have been the chief reason for his choice.

Of Julia herself we shall have occasion to speak more fully hereafter: for the present it is enough to say of her what Tacitus said of Poppaea, that she lacked nothing but virtue.

Septimius' next step in the cursus honorum was the proconsulate of Sicily, during the tenure of which he rendered himself liable to an impeachment for having consulted magicians, a step which any creature of Commodus would hasten to consider treasonable. Oleander, however, who was losing the favor of the emperor, resolutely acquitted the defendant and had the accuser crucified. The proconsulship belongs to the year 189, the impeachment doubtless to the early months of the following year.

On the 1st of April, 190, Septimius became consul suffectus, with Apuleius Rufinus as his colleague, but he seems to have made no greater mark on history in his first tenure of this office than the other twenty-four on whom Commodus thought good to bestow the doubtful honor. We cannot suppose Septimius’ consulship to have lasted for more than a month, and so from about the beginning of May until the end of the year he remained without office; he was, in fact, to quote his biographer, ‘anno ferme otiosus’.

The next post which he held was, thanks to the influence of the praetorian prefect Laetus, that of legatus of Pannonia, where, with three legions at his disposal and with Carnuntum for his headquarters, he had the duty of holding the line of the middle Danube. Here then, for two years and more, Septimius remained settling the province, which had been so shaken by the recent wars under Marcus Aurelius and his son, and doubtless winning-by his capable management of, and politic care for, his troops that popularity which was to stand him in such good stead in his bid for empire.

II

THE WAR OF ACCESSION

We have now reached the point at which the fortunes of Septimius are synonymous with those of the empire, but before we follow them farther we must turn back and review the state of affairs in Rome, to see in what manner preparation was being made (unconsciously) for the reception of a new dynasty.

If material prosperity is in any measure the criterion of a nation’s greatness we may not unnaturally see in the reign of Antoninus Pius the zenith of Roman power. Long before the end of his successor’s reign storm-clouds had begun to gather on the northern horizon, and neither the brave wars of a philosopher nor the shameful peace of a profligate could do more than postpone the coming danger. Trouble from the peoples from without the empire, seditions within it, a madman at its head—everything called for a new regime; but the daggers of Laetus, Narcissus, and their fellow conspirators offered no more than a very practical piece of destructive criticism.

On December 31, 192, Commodus was murdered. The praetorian prefect, Laetus, was the protagonist in the drama, but he had behind him the firm support of the Senate, whom the insults of the emperor had galvanized, for once, into something more than mere spitefulness. Whether or not Septimius was privy to the scheme seems to me a question which, in default of positive evidence on the point, it is more advisable to shelve than to answer. That Pertinax was not altogether without a shrewd suspicion of what was going to take place, nor entirely surprised by the deputation that offered him the crown on that New Year’s morning, is a supposition wanting neither evidence nor probability. The tyrant once dead, the Senate showed its spirit by an order that all his statues and inscriptions should be destroyed, and so thoroughly was this command carried out that even Hercules, with whom Commodus had identified himself, fell, in one instance, a victim to popular fury, real or simulated.

Of Publius Helvius Pertinax, the senatorial nominee in succession to Commodus, there is no need to speak at great length. His origin was humble, but lowly birth had long ceased to be a bar even to imperial honors, and a striking diversity of accomplishments compensated for any deficiency in this respect. Born on August 1, 126, his earliest occupation was his father’s, where his assiduity earned for him his cognomen: his next profession, that of a schoolmaster, he relinquished on his appointment to the praefecture of a cohort in Syria. Here he served in the Parthian war of Lucius Verus (162); with some distinction, it seems. On his return he was appointed curator or sub-curator of the Via Aemilia, was subsequently placed in command of the Rhine fleet, and finally made procurator of Dacia. The goodwill of the Emperor Marcus, to which he owed this last post, seems to have been suddenly withdrawn, and a short period of retirement or even disgrace supervened, from which he was rescued by the kind offices of Claudius Pompeianus, son-in-law of Marcus, and possibly a personal friend of his own. He served in the German war in some subsidiary position, was meanwhile given senatorial insignia, raised to praetorian rank, and then put in command of a legion. His sphere of action was Raetia and Noricum. In 175 he was appointed to the consulship, in which office he possibly had Didius Julianus for a colleague. After his consulship he seems to have fought (in what capacity we do not know) against the pretender, Avidius Cassius, in Syria, towards the end of the year 176. His next office was that of governor of the two Moesias, then of Dacia, and afterwards of Syria, where he was at the time of Marcus’ death (180). Ex-governor of four consular provinces, he returned to Rome in 181 a rich man and entered the Senate an unpopular one. Perennis typified and voiced this unpopularity, and Pertinax, bowing before the storm, retired to his native Liguria. On the death of the minister in 185 he was recalled and sent to Britain, where he quelled a rebellion of the legions. Presumably in 187 he became praefectus alimentornm; then proconsul of Africa; next praefectus urbi, and finally, in 192, consul for the second time with Commodus.

On January 1, 193, as we have seen, Pertinax exchanged the consular for the imperial robes; but he was not destined to wear them long. Nothing is stranger or more indicative of the precarious position of an emperor than the rapidity with which his fate overtook one whose accession was hailed with such universal joy. Like Galba, whom in his short imperial career he strikingly resembles, he had a senatorial majority at his back, while the coins and inscriptions of his three months’ reign attest a provincial loyalty not wholly time-serving. After a vain attempt to thrust the reins of government into the hands of his old general, Claudius Pompeianus, Pertinax set himself to remedy some at least of the abuses introduced by his predecessor. Like Galba, again, his reforming zeal carried him too far, and Capitolinus expressly notes that the law concerning praetors earned him much unpopularity. National bankruptcy, too (yet another echo of 69), stared him in the face; and though he sought to meet the emergency by such legitimate measures as the sale of Commodus’ instruments of luxury and vice (Capitolinus characteristically gives us a veritable sale catalogue), yet he is not free from the accusation of having had recourse to the less creditable method of raising the wind by means of the sale of offices and appointments. Laetus, we are told, repented bitterly of his choice, and one of the consuls of the year broke into open revolt; nor did the consequent execution of many soldiers on insufficient (i. e. servile) evidence serve to increase the loyalty of the army. To cut a long story short the well-meaning emperor took but two months completely to alienate the sympathies of most of his quondam supporters, whose hatred found expression in the spear of one Tausius, a Tungrian of the guard. The murder took place on March 28, 193.

If the murderers of Commodus had no other constructive scheme than the delegation of the supreme authority to an honest but tactless sexagenarian, how much more unprepared were the next imperial assassins? The empire lay without a master; and, as on the decease of Galba, three candidates, one put forward by the soldiery of Rome, the other two by provinces respectively of the east and the west, were found ready to bid for empire. Once more, as in the year 69, his position enabled the Roman pretender to forestall his provincial competitors, and on the same day as had seen the murder of Pertinax, the rich senator M. Didius Julianus assumed the purple, an honor for which he is said to have paid 25,000 sesterces to each man of the praetorians, and which he enjoyed for some sixty-four days. But though Julianus was the successful praetorian candidate he was not, if we may believe our authorities, the only one. Two claimants appeared, the other of whom was Flavius Sulpicianus, the city prefect and father-in-law of the dead Pertinax. He it was who was acclaimed, or at least on the point of being acclaimed, emperor within the walls of the praetorian camp, when Julianus, encouraged alike by his ambition and his family, approached the walls from the outside and started to outbid Sulpicianus. How far this extraordinary story of the auction of the empire is true or not is hard to say. Spartian, untrue to his character, treats the sensational incident very cursorily, though giving us a picture of Julianus ‘e muro ingentia pollicentem’; and adds that it was not until the latter had warned the praetorians that Sulpicianus would undoubtedly avenge his son-in-law’s death, whereas himself would restore the Commodan regime, that the gates were opened to the successful claimant. Herodian gives a much fuller account, including a picturesque description of Julianus in a state of intoxication, mounting on to the wall by means of a ladder; while even the staid Dio admits most distinctly the fact that some form of sale by auction did take place. Startling, therefore, though the story is, we are bound, in face of the evidence, to accept it.

But though money raised Julianus to the throne of the Caesars, it could not keep him there. The plebs hated him because they had recognized in Pertinax a possible restorer of constitutional government, and saw in Julianus the dashing of their hopes. They evinced, too, a pharisaic inconsistency in objecting alike to the parsimony of Pertinax and the suspected luxury of his successor; so unpopular indeed was he that the soldiers were obliged to escort him to the palace ‘holding their shields over his head, lest any should stone him from the houses’. The Senate both loathed and feared him, for had he not come, a second Commodus, to supersede the senatorial Pertinax? Dio gives a realistic picture of the nervousness of that august body when the new emperor entered the Senate-house to obtain the fathers’ ratification of his position, which ratification he showed himself not unwilling to extract by force of arms should it be refused. Even the soldiers, as we shall see later, were unwilling to fight for one who owed his election at their hands rather to his money than his merits.

Meanwhile, at least one more would-be emperor was not idle. Whether or not Severus foresaw and worked for his elevation during Commodus’ life, at least the death of Pertinax afforded him an opening and a pretext of which he was not slow to avail himself. To pose as the avenger of a constitutional emperor would win him the affections of both Senate and people, while with a superior force at his back he had little need to consult the wishes of the praetorians. Pertinax, as we have seen, fell on March 28. On April 13 Septimius addressed a meeting of his troops in Carnuntum, the chief city of Pannonia and his own head-quarters, told them of the murder, reminded them of the sterling character of the dead emperor as shown there among them in the Illyrian wars of Marcus, depicted the effeminacy of the praetorians, contrasting it with their own hardihood, and finally, if we can believe Herodian, who of course gives the speech in extenso, exhorted them to march on Rome before his rival Niger, of whose defection he must have heard, could cover the longer distance which separated him from the capital. His speech was enthusiastically received, himself acclaimed emperor, and preparations begun for the southern march. And, indeed, he started with fair promise of success. With the exception of Byzantium, which adhered to Niger, and of Britain, which might reasonably be expected to follow Albinus should he dissociate himself from Septimius, all Europe was on his side.

Niger had as yet made no move, and Albinus he had mollified by the offer of Caesarship and the promise of a consulship. Besides his own three legions (or four if we include II adiutrix, the legion of Lower Pannonia, stationed at Aquineum) he could count on the support of the four in Germany, the two in Raetia and Noricum, the two in Dacia, and four in Moesia. The African legion, moreover, was favorable to him, as the event proved.

Leaving some troops (perhaps only auxiliaries) to guard the frontier, Severus hastened to Rome by forced marches: no soldier took off his breastplate between Carnuntum and Rome, says Dio. His route seems to have been that followed by Vespasian’s general, Antonius Primus, and he entered Italy by the passes of the Julian Alps, outstripping, so at least says Herodian, the news of his approach. His first success was the defection of the Ravenna fleet and the voluntary surrender of the town. The praetorian prefect, Tullius Crispinus, sent by Julianus to guard against this mishap, arrived too late and was forced to retire.

At this point the emperor seems to have lost his head: first he declared Septimius a public enemy and sent an embassy to recall his troops to allegiance; many of the embassy seceded, and one, Vespronius Candidus, who remained faithful, barely escaped with his life. Then he endeavored to ensure the continued loyalty of the guards by enormous bribes, but, as he seems not to have paid up his 25,000 sesterces per man, the money was taken as a debt paid rather than an obligation incurred. He next suggested an appeal ad misericordiam by means of a deputation of vestal virgins, but was sharply reprimanded by the augur Plautius Quintillus, who reminded him that he could be no emperor who could not support his claims with the sword. Julianus was, however, averse to violent measures. He appointed a third praetorian prefect, one Veturius Macrinus, a nominee of Septimius; and, after a preliminary and abortive attempt on Septimius’ life, offered to share the empire with him. The one thing he does not seem to have done is to have fought, although certain authorities make mention of a battle at the Milvian bridge. Some martial preparations, however, were made, trenches were dug before the city, and circus elephants were requisitioned for war purposes with the intention of striking amazement into the unsophisticated Illyrian. In this they would probably have succeeded. A de­tachment from the fleet at Misenum was summoned, but, according to Dio, the sailors were as unused to military discipline as the elephants, and as useless. Laetus and Marcia, two of Commodus’ murderers, were next sacrificed, presumably to enlist still further the goodwill of the praetorians. Deserted of men the bewildered emperor had recourse to the gods, or at least to the art of magic, and sought to avert by child-sacrifice the doom prophesied by maniac children. As for Tullius Crispinus, entrusted with Julianus’ offer to Septimius of half the empire, he not only failed in his object but also lost his life. Meanwhile, the disgust at the incompetence and cowardice of the emperor, voiced by Quintillus, found still more definite expression in the desertions of his troops in Umbria and in the consequent throwing open of the Apennine passes to Septimius. Julian’s counterstroke was to entrust Lollianus Titianus with the arming of a school of gladiators, and to offer a share of empire to Marcus’ old general and son-in-law, Claudius Pompeianus. The latter refused the doubtful honor, pleading old age and defective sight; and, just when the emperor’s cup of sorrows seemed full, the praetorians, his last and only hope, went over to his rival. Hereupon the Senate took action. Notice of the praetorians’ defection had been duly given to the consul Silius Messala, who accordingly summoned the fathers to a meeting in the Athenaeum. Here the unhappy Julian was condemned to death and Septimius declared emperor in his stead.

So on the 1st of June perished the luckless emperor, an example ready to hand for all who would preach on the vanity of riches. His character is difficult to estimate, so quickly is he flashed upon the screen of history and so quickly withdrawn. His vacillation, to call it by no harsher name, cannot be denied, yet a firm and consistent policy in the face of so many difficulties might have been looked for in vain from many a man the world has called hero, had he been situated as was Julian. The morbid interest attaching to the last words of a man of note is one which the historiographers of the late empire ever found irresistible. Those of Julian were, so Dio informs us, a pitiful appeal to the assassin, not a convincing one to the historian: the cry of a negative spirit. Circumstanced as Otho had been, he lacked the resolution of that prince, and cannot like him be said to have atoned for the ineffectiveness of his life by his manner of leaving it.

The Senate had made away with an emperor, and their next care was to welcome his successor. Septimius’ pose as the avenger of their representative Pertinax clearly counted for something, but it is more than doubtful whether the governor of Pannonia would have exercised a higher claim than a member of their own body, or even than the popular candidate Niger, had it not been for his actual presence in the peninsula.

Conveniently forgetting, therefore, that some week or so ago they had declared Septimius a public enemy, an embassy of one hundred senators set out to meet him. Septimius was at Interamna. The reception accorded them was scarcely encouraging, as they were submitted to a preliminary search for concealed arms, a proceeding which the previous attempt on Septimius’ life fully justified and for which he could have found precedent, had he so wished, in the similar action of Vespasian and Claudius. The present of ninety aurei apiece and the offer of a place in his triumphal entry into Rome may have been considered by some as a compensation for the indignity. Three other events seem to have happened prior to Septimius’ arrival in Rome. One was the mission of L. Fulvius Plautianus to the capital, with orders to secure Niger’s sons as hostages for their father’s loyalty to the new emperor; another the appointment of Flavius Juvenalis to the praefecture of the praetorians; and the third, the punishment of that body for their murder of Pertinax. This last occurrence was of a somewhat dramatic character. The soldiers were summoned to the Campus Martins, unarmed and in civilian dress; arrived, they were at once surrounded by the Illyrians and harangued by the emperor. Herodian does not fail to give the speech. He would inaugurate his reign by no bloodshed, yet could not pardon so dastardly a crime: the praetorians might therefore consider themselves as exiles whose lives would be safe if, and only if, they advanced no nearer the city than the hundredth milestone. Thus the king-makers left Rome. Quite clearly, however, a new guard had to be formed. Of the formation of this guard we find the fullest information in the pages of Dio. According to this writer eligibility for admission into the guard had been previously restricted to Italians, Spaniards, Macedonians, and Noricans: this special privilege was now done away with, and. any soldier of the empire, no matter from what province he came, might be advanced to the position of a praetorian. This circumstance has been pointed to, together with certain others, as indicative of a clearly marked tendency towards the Barbarisierung of the Roman army of the third century, but with very little justification. The spread of Roman civilization from Rome itself as a centre to the outer­most provinces was a mere matter of time, and by the close of the second century there is no reason to suppose even the Spaniard more Roman than the Syrian, the Macedonian than the Dacian. According, then, as this civilization spread, so spread the privi­leges it entailed. In the time of Tiberius the dignity of the praetorian guard was reserved for Italians alone, and indeed not for all of them: the ex-legate of Lower Germany, Vitellius, was the first emperor to admit soldiers from the distant legions into that elite body, and it is only a natural extension of this very obvious principle that led Septimius to take the step he did. If the Roman army was barbarized by this measure then the Roman Empire was barbarized by Caracalla’s gift of universal citizenship.

Septimius’ entry into Rome must have been an impressive spectacle. The emperor advanced on horseback attired as a general as far as the gates: here, as Vitellius had done before him, he dismounted, and entered the city on foot and in civilian dress. At the gates, too, the Senate met and welcomed him, while the people flocked round him wearing laurel-wreaths on their heads. The whole town indeed was decorated with laurel and with flowers, the streets were packed, one man climbing on another’s shoulders the better to see the new emperor and to hear his voice. Senators mingled freely with the mob.    The procession went first to the Capitol, where sacrifice was offered: then to the palace, the soldiers carrying before Septimius the standards taken from the disgraced and dismissed guard. The wildest enthusiasm prevailed, nor were dissentient voices raised in opposition to the general rejoicing; only a few Christians refused resolutely to illuminate their houses. It was not until Severus had been in Rome some days that the populace began to view the presence of the Illyrian soldiery in the capital with perhaps not ungrounded suspicion.

On the next day Septimius entered the Senate-house attended by soldiers and friends. He was tactful enough to swear the oath sworn by all ‘good’ emperors, as Dio calls them, to the effect that he would put to death no senator, though he never considered himself in the least bound by it in theory or in practice. Indeed, he seems to have made a very specious oration, in which, as Herodian tells us, he vindicated his position as Pertinax’ avenger, held out the brightest hopes for the future, professed an energetic anti-delatores policy, and promised to take Marcus Aurelius as a pattern for all his actions.

One of the new emperor’s first acts was the funeral and deification of the murdered Pertinax. The first scene was enacted in the Forum. Upon a platform, ostensibly of stone, but in reality of wood, was placed a highly ornamented couch, covered with purple and gold brocade, on which lay a waxen image of the dead emperor, as though he were not dead but slept; the pretence being heightened by the presence of a beautiful slave, who, with a fan of peacock's feathers, kept the flies from off the sleeper’s face. When all were assembled, the senators seated in the open, their ladies in the basilicae hard by, there advanced a chorus of men and boys singing a dirge for Pertinax. A strange procession folio wed—lictors, knights, imagines of famous Romans, after which was carried an altar adorned with gold and ivory and precious stones. When all had filed past Septimius ascended the rostrum and delivered an encomium on the murdered emperor, frequently interrupted by the applause or the tears of the assembled senators. On the conclusion of the speech the multitude followed the bier to the Campus Martius, whither it was carried by the priests and the knights, the emperor himself bringing up the rear of the procession. Here a gorgeous pyre had been erected, made of gold and ivory, and decorated with statues; on it stood the gilded chariot Pertinax had been wont to drive. Into this chariot were thrown the funeral gifts, and on it was placed the couch containing the figure. After Septi­mius and the relatives of Pertinax had kissed this waxen image, and the senators had taken their seats on benches provided for them, the consuls applied torches to the pyre, released from which, as it burned, an eagle flew up to heaven, thereby typifying the addition of yet another deity to the elastic Roman pantheon. Other marks of honor were the erection of a temple, and of a golden statue which was set up in the circus, and the institution of a religious guild and priesthood dedicated to the service of the dead emperor. Of Septimius’ adoption of the name Pertinax we have already spoken.

The new emperor had entered his capital: it now remained for him to see that no rival claimed a like entrance, and to crush Eastern and Western sedition ere either gathered strength and overwhelmed him. But before he could turn his eyes abroad he felt it incumbent upon him to establish in Rome a position which he himself would have been the last to consider secure. The Senate, it is true, was on his side, but there had been too much sitting on the fence for very much sympathy or mutual trust to exist between the emperor and his advisory board. Those who, at the instigation of Julian, had declared Septimius a public enemy could scarcely be considered loyal adherents of dead or living prince. The city mob, too, were, as we have seen, pro-Nigerian in sentiment, nor was their confidence in Septimius increased when they saw Pannonian soldiers issuing from the barracks in place of the tame praetorians to whom they had grown accustomed. Accordingly, during the brief thirty days spent by the emperor in Rome before setting out' for the East, measures were taken by him more completely to secure his position. First of all he sought to win the favor of the populace by means of a congiarium and a series of costly games. Further, he bettered the city’s corn supply in some way, and showed himself an energetic and a stern administrator of justice. Besides these bids for popularity he endeavored to crush any sympathy that might still be felt for the cause of Julian by a systematic persecution of that luckless prince’s known or suspected adherents, together with an abortive attack on his measures. To secure partisans in high places he gave his two daughters by his first wife Marcia in marriage respectively to Aetius and Probus, whom he also appointed consuls, and the latter of whom he would have made city prefect had not that post been refused with the tactful remark that to accept it after becoming son-in-law of an emperor would be a degradation. The post refused by Probus was bestowed upon Domitius Dexter, who thus succeeded Bassus. All was now ready, and before the end of July Septimius set out against his first rival; but the causes and the manner of his going demand a separate chapter for their treatment.

V

SEVERUS IN THE EAST

After a short stay in Rome Severus received once more the call to arms. Taking advantage of the emperor’s absence in Gaul, the Parthians had crossed the Tigris and invaded Mesopotamia. Nisibis, the importance of which as a Roman stronghold we noticed in the first Eastern war, felt the brunt of their attack, and would have fallen but for the sturdy defense offered by its garrison under Laetas.

Leaving Brundisium some time in the late summer or early autumn of 197 Septimius reached Antioch, accompanied by the generals Statilius Barbaras, Lollianus Gentianus, L. Fabius Cilo, and C. Fulvius Plautianus, his praetorian prefect, together with a detachment of praetorians. Here he was probably joined by the major portion of the African legion, III Augusta. It is very doubtful whether the Western legions were requisitioned for this war, or were likely to be, considering the still unsettled state of such provinces as Gaul and Spain, in the latter of which Candidus seems yet to have had the last remnants of the revolt of Albinus on his hands. On hearing of the arrival of Septimius in Syria the Parthian king (Vologeses V) hastily raised the siege of Nisibis and recrossed the Tigris. The emperor wasted no time. Leaving Antioch he marched probably to Edessa, where he received the submission of Abgarus, king of Osrhoene, whose wavering loyalty he secured by a recognition of that monarch’s autonomy, together with the bestowal on him of the title ‘king of kings’. This being the appellation arrogated to themselves by the Parthian emperors, its transference to the Osrhoenian king was indicative of the fact that in Roman eyes the hege­mony of the East was taken from the Parthians and given to another. The grateful monarch adopted the name Septimius, and subsequently visited Rome on the invitation of his patron. In pursuance of this policy of securing the country in his rear by means of concessions to native princes, Severus bestowed the ius coloniae upon the state of Palmyra, then in the hands of the influential Odaenathi family. Among other advantages derived from this politic generosity were guides with a thorough knowledge of the country, and a sprinkling of native troops.

Leaving Edessa Septimius advanced to Nisibis, only to find that the enemy had flown. He accordingly marched south, probably following the course of the Mygdonius as far as its confluence with the Euphrates near the ancient (Biblical) Carchemish. Here, following the example of his predecessor Trajan, he caused a fleet to be constructed on the river and continued his advance southward, attended by the newly built vessels, and under the guidance of a certain Tiridates and a cynic philosopher Antiochus, the latter of whom was useful, not only by reason of his knowledge of the country, but also in that he offered an example of endurance to the dispirited troops by rolling himself about in the snow, for which service he received so much money at the emperor’s hands that he soon deserted with his gains to the Parthians.

On reaching the Euphrates end of the royal canal connecting that river with the Tigris it seems probable that Septimius divided his forces, sending or leading some farther south to capture Babylon, which city the enemy did not seek to defend, whilst the rest went by boat down the royal canal and disembarked at the Tigris end near to Seleucia, which city they proceeded to take, deserted as it also was by the Parthians. The next objective of the reunited army was the town of Ctesiphon, some few miles farther down stream. Here some slight resistance was met with and a feeble attempt made by the Parthians to defend the city, though the disintegration of the waning Arsacid empire, of which the presence of Vologeses’ brother in Septimius’ camp was typical, was too far advanced to allow of any effectively concerted action being taken against the invader. The fall of Ctesiphon occurred in or about November, 198, and the emperor advertised the fact by a new (eleventh) imperial salutation.

The city was given to the soldiery to sack, and we may judge of its size when we read in Dio that in spite of indiscriminate slaughter some 100,000 prisoners were taken.

No attempt was made on Severus’ part to pursue Vologeses, who had succeeded in making good his escape from his fallen capital. Why this was so we are not informed with much certitude. By supposing synchronous Dio’s two statements that no further advance was made, and that his guides forsook him some time during the war, we get a reason, but a more likely one is to be seen in the fact—known to us from other sources—that the army suffered severely from dysentery during this and other campaigns.

The strategy of the war up to the fall of Ctesiphon in the winter of 198 is easily comprehended; after that event both the motives and the actions of the emperor become wrapped in some obscurity. It seems to have been Severus’ intention to return, as he had come, along the Euphrates bank, but to such an extent had the army denuded the country through which it had marched that a different return route was rendered imperative. Accordingly fleet and army moved northwards along the Tigris, though whether the objective was Hatra, Armenia, or merely Syria it is impossible to say. Armenia, however, we know to have shown herself friendly to Rome, while an invasion of the Khazars must have checked any possible desire on her part to embroil herself with a Western en embroil herself with a western enemy.

The next occurrence of which we read is the siege of Hatra, which we may reasonably suppose to have taken place some time in the summer and autumn of 199. Once more we are at a loss to understand the emperor’s motives or his anxiety to capture the town, unless indeed it be on the supposition that his intention was to punish all who had in any way assisted his rival Niger.

Hatra, the modern el-Hadr, lies about midway between the Euphrates and the Tigris in the middle of the desert of Sendjah. It was a fairly populous city and one of some importance as an avenue for trade, besides being blessed with an excellent water-supply: the wealth it had accumulated was very considerable. Like Trajan before him, however, Septimius was unable to make any impression upon the sturdy city, whose double circuit of walls was probably an asset less valuable in its defense than the sun-scorched sand which surrounded it on all sides, making life in a beleaguering camp unhealthy if not impossible. The ingenuity of the besieged, too, seems to have been not inconsiderable: burning naphtha was thrown from the walls upon the Roman siege-engines, of which all but those of the famous engineer Priscus were destroyed; while, still more ingenious, venomous winged insects were collected in pots, and showered down upon the heads of the besiegers, whose eyes and the uncovered parts of whose bodies they so stung as to force them to retire. The siege was finally raised owing to dysentery attacking the Roman camp.

His ill success does not seem to have improved the emperor’s temper, for we read of two apparently reasonless executions during the siege. One was that of the general Laetus, the gallant defender of Nisibis, whose sole offence seems to have been his popularity with the soldiery. The other victim of the emperor’s rancor was one Julius Crispus, a tribune of the praetorian guard, whom a felicitous quotation brought to so unhappy an end. His accuser Valerius, who succeeded to his office, charged him with the words of Drances in the eleventh Aeneid:

Scilicet ut Turno contingat regia coniunx,

nos, animae viles, inhumata infletaque turba,

sternamur campis;

and in spite of the disloyalty implied in the parable, one cannot but recognize a considerable amount of justification for it.

The first attempt on Hatra had failed, but the emperor was not the man to acknowledge defeat. In the winter of 199 or the early spring of 200 he returned from Nisibis, whither he had presumably retired, and renewed his attack on the town. An investment was obviously impossible, thanks to the barren nature of the surrounding country, and accordingly for some twenty days the city was made to feel the full force of the Roman siege-engines. Once more, however, the strenuousness of the defense defied the attacks of the besiegers, the more distant being struck down by catapult shots, the nearer overwhelmed by the ignited naphtha. At one point, indeed, the Romans succeeded in effecting a breach in the outer wall, and things might have gone ill for the besiege but for the strange action of Severus himself. Knowing that a vast quantity of treasure lay stored up in the temple of Bel and elsewhere in the city, the emperor hoped for a capitulation whereby the money would fall into his hands and not into those of his soldiers. No sooner, therefore, did he see the breach made, than he gave orders for the signal of retreat to be sounded, expecting from the inhabitants an offer of surrender at discretion. Instead of this the besieged employed the ensuing night in repairing their shattered wall and prepared to face the Romans again the next day. Once more the order for advance was sounded, but the European troops of Severus’ army refused to attack. Determining that rebellion on the part of the troops should not frustrate his plans, the emperor hurled his Syrians at the wall, only to witness their ignominious repulse. “Whence shall I get so many soldiers?” was his sarcastic reply to the offer of a member of his staff who engaged to capture the town, should he be entrusted with but an odd 500 European troops.

This time Septimius admitted himself beaten, and withdrew to Nisibis, whence, after a short stay, he betook himself to Antioch. We may suppose him back in Syria by October, 200. From Antioch the emperor journeyed south with the intention of visiting Egypt. To do this it was necessary for him to cross Palestine, which country he found in a state of some unrest, though we are ignorant alike of the causes of this disquietude and of the means adopted by Severus for allaying it. The Jews had always been a seditious people, and a somewhat oppressive taxation of which they had complained before, or a feeling of sympathy with their co-religionists among the Parthians, was sufficient to rouse some small revolt which the presence of the tenth legion (Fretensis) at Elath was enough to check. Any outbreak of importance would not have been passed over by the ancient historians—at least not by Dio,—while the mere mention by Eusebius of a ‘bellum Iudaicum et Samariticum’ and of a ‘triumphus Iudaicus’ as celebrated by Caracalla need not lead us to suppose more than a slight commotion.

Some time probably about March, 201, Septimius left Palestine and entered Egypt. That, as Dio said of him, he could leave nothing uninvestigated, whether human or divine, may give us one reason for his visit, but it was probably not, as that historian suggests, the only, nor indeed the chief, one. Egypt undoubtedly required the presence of Septimius to secure its loyalty, for its previous partisanship of Niger had been unanimous and wholehearted. In the province of his earlier years of office the Syrian legate was definitely regarded as emperor, not usurper, and deeds are extant dated in the first and even the second year of his reign.

Naturally Alexandria was the first city he visited, and of his entry into it we possess a strange story, interesting as indicative of the complete acceptance of Niger’s brief principate there. Lord Niger’s City was the inscription which the emperor observed upon the gate. Justifiably angry, he asked for the explana­tion of so disloyal a welcome, nor were the witty Alexandrians unprepared with their answer. Septimius, we learn, accepted their explanation.

Of Severus’ actions in the Egyptian capital we hear of but two. One was the closing of the tomb of Alexander in the quarter of the city known as Neapolis. The superstitious emperor wished to be the last to view the embalmed body of the Macedonian conqueror and to pry into the sacred books kept in the precincts of the tomb. The other is of more importance. Unlike the other larger cities of the empire, Alexandria had never been granted a municipal autonomy; it had no town council, but obeyed implicitly the word of the imperially appointed iuridicus. To this state of things Septimius put an end by the bestowal of the ‘ius buleutarum’, the right, that is to say, of being governed by a local governor.

Leaving Alexandria Septimius sailed down the Nile in his tour of investigation. He visited Memphis and Thebes, at which latter place he displayed no small interest in the famous statue of Memnon which he heard ‘sing’ at dawn. Such was his enthusiasm that he caused the neck and head to be restored, after which, unfortunately, the statue ‘sang’ no more. Advanc­ing still farther south, possibly with the intention of exploring the upper waters of the Nile, and of discovering its source, Severus was checked on the borders of Ethiopia by an attack of small-pox, on recovery from which he turned northward again. Either on his return or perhaps before he started south Septimius paid funeral honors to Pompey, who lay buried in a humble tomb near to Pelusium, where he had met his death.  

Some time towards the end of the year 201 the emperor left Egypt for Rome. He reached Antioch, probably by sea, before the close of December, and it was in that city that he entered upon his third consulship on the first day of the new year. His colleague was his son Caracalla, who was now to hold the office for the first time. It may here be added that in the year 198, possibly in commemoration of the fall of Ctesiphon on the occasion of his own eleventh imperial acclamation, Septimius caused his troops to salute his elder son as imperator and Augustus. Geta also seems to have accompanied his father on this expedition, and it is probable that he received the title Caesar at the same time as his brother received that of Augustus.

From Antioch the Augusti journeyed to Thrace, though whether they adopted the land or sea route we do not really know. By the middle of March they had reached Sirmium, having passed through Moesia, in which province, as well as in that of Pannonia, Severus inspected the various camps. From Sirmium it seems probable that the emperor passed through Siscia and Aquileia, finally reaching Rome either by taking ship from Aquileia to Ancona and so on to the capital, or else by the more usual land route. He probably entered Rome about May.

The return of the victorious emperor was celebrated with the utmost magnificence. Sacrifices, shows, and games were held, and as much as fifty million drachmae distributed as largess, each praetorian receiving ten gold pieces in commemoration of Septimius’ ten years of reign. The celebration of the Decennalia (June 2-8) indeed may have taken the place of the more usual triumph, which, if we may believe his biographer, the emperor refused on account of a bad attack of gout which rendered him unable to stand up in the triumphal car. One witness to his triumph at least stands yet for all the world to see—the huge Arch of Severus erected in the following year in the north-east corner of the Roman forum. Here may still be seen reliefs depicting the defeat and submission of the Parthians, and the triumph of Septimius and his two sons.

In criticizing the Parthian war and its results we must of course bear in mind the fact that our knowledge of its details is, when all is said and done, very meager. Yet, so far as a judgment is possible, it is hard to pass a favorable one. In a sense, the main object of the war was effected before it was begun, if it be true (and we have no reason for doubting the fact) that the Parthians raised the siege of Nisibis and evacuated Mesopotamia on the mere news of Severus’ approach. Doubtless a punitive expedition was necessary, but why no effort was made to capture Vologeses, in spite of dysentery or lack of guides, is all the more surprising in that Septimius had before him the example of Alexander, who spared no pain and trouble in the pursuit of Darius. Farther, the siege of Hatra seems to have been point­less; even Septimius recognized that, given the fact that Vologeses was not to be pursued, the war was over by 199, for a good number of troops were sent home that year. No new territory was acquired, and the fact that the Parthians remained quiet during the remainder of Septimius’ reign seems due not so much to the campaigns of the emperor, nor yet to his possession of the young Chosroes as hostage, as to the fact that, what with sedition at home and Persian pressure abroad, the Arsacid empire was tottering to its fall.

VI

THE LAST PHASE

OF the six years which elapsed between the completion of the Eastern and the outbreak of the British war we possess singularly meager records. The emperor himself, essentially a man of war, drops very much into the background, and his place is taken by the far less agreeable figures of his wife, his sons, and his praetorian prefect. Of Julia Domna and her study circle we shall have occasion to speak later at greater length: suffice it here to say that an empress who added the political caprice of a Catherine de' Medici to the intellectualism of a Christina of Sweden and the vices of a Messalina was not likely to conduce to the harmony of any government. At the same time it is as well to remember that history, ever chivalrous, has tended to exaggerate her importance in the political world even as surely as, with less delicacy of taste, it has over-colored the delinquencies of her private life. The statement that she was the cause of the wars against Niger and Albinus is as little likely to be true as the accusation of incest with a son whom she heartily detested.

As far as one can see, however, Julia Domna never deliberately set her will against that of her imperial husband, and Spartian’s statement that she conspired against him deserves even less attention than most of that historian’s remarks. It was not from his wife but from his sons that Septimius learnt the lesson that a man’s foes are only too often those of his household.

It has been the habit among ancient historians—and to a certain extent among the moderns also—to paint Caracalla black and Geta white, and there may be some truth in the distinction thus made. Be this as it may, one thing at least is certain, and that is that the dissension between the brothers waxed so hot that they could not endure the sight of each other, and that, as a consequence, the declining years of the emperor were made a burden to him, so that, if report speak true, he was driven to war as a solace to himself, and a possible means of healing that long-protracted fraternal strife.

But more surprising than the indiscretions of his wife or the quarrels of his sons was the career of Gaius Fulvius Plautianus, the prefect of the praetorian guard. Little or nothing is known of the antecedents or early career of this remarkable man. Like Severus himself, Plautian was of African birth, and was apparently exiled from his native country by Pertinax, the then proconsul, on a charge of sedition and rebellion. Where or when he first formed the acquaintance of the emperor is uncertain, as is also the exact relationship obtaining between the two. That ties of blood besides those of marriage united the pair seems to me an entirely unwarrantable assumption, while Herodian’s insinuation with regard to the cause and nature of their friendship may or may not be a piece of idle gossip. Whatever the reason, the fact is indisputable. Never, perhaps, since the days of Seianus did favorite exercise more complete control of a master, and contemporary historians never tire of descanting on his power, his cupidity, and his riches. There is Dio’s story of the "tiger-like horses" from the East, dedicated to the Sun, which the sacrilegious hands of centurions bore away at the orders of the greedy prefect. The story, too, of how, when Plautian lay sick at Tyana and the emperor came to visit him, the prefect’s bodyguard would not suffer Severus to enter with his suite; and of how, on another occasion, the official ‘a cognitionibus’ refused to call a case that the emperor wished to judge, “for”, said he, “I dare not do so without the orders of Plautianus”

Naturally enough this influence over Septimius was much resented by Julia Domna, between whom and the prefect there seems to have been constant bickering, breaking out at times into open enmity; as, for instance, when Plautian dared to bring certain specific charges against the empress, during the examination of which several Roman ladies suffered torture at the emperor’s orders. Still, Septimius’ indulgence had its limits. Buildings and statues erected in honor of Plautian in the provinces, and even in Rome, were outnumbering those inscribed to the emperor himself, but when the prefect caused his own image to be placed among those of the imperial family he found himself sharply reprimanded, and orders given for the demolition of his statues wheresoever set up. His disgrace, however, was short-lived, and an evil fate attended those who, in his hour of abasement, had presumed to scorn the favorite, for banishment was decreed to all such as had called him a public enemy. Among others so to suffer was Racius Constans, governor of Sardinia.

Reinstated in imperial favor, the power and arrogance of Plautian assumed still larger proportions. By the murder of his colleague Aemilius Saturninus he had succeeded in grasping all the power of both the praetorian prefects in his own hands, and such designations as vir clarissimus, nobilisimus, Augustorum necessarius attest the extent of his dignity, as does the existence after his downfall of a procurator ad bona Plautiani that of his opulence. The year 202 marks his zenith, when was solemnized the marriage between his daughter Fulvia Plautilla and the heir-apparent Caracalla; and in the year following he became consul for the second time with the emperor’s brother Geta. Great indignation was caused by this last assumption of office, partly because the sword of the praetorian prefect and the broad stripe of the senator were unconstitutionally vested in the same man, partly also because the prefect’s first consulship had been no more than the gift by Septimius of consular insignia, and the office of 203 should therefore have counted as the first and not the second.

But Plautian’s position contained the seeds of its own undoing. Whether or not we can credit the then current rumor that the prefect was destined by Severus as his successor, it is at least certain that he was not long in gaining the cordial hatred of Caracalla. The year 204 passed without mishap, but early in 205 the storm broke. Weary of the arrogance, or, as Spartian suggests, of the cruelties, of his father-in-law, Caracalla devised the following plot for his destruction. He suborned a certain centurion, by name Saturninus, to warn the emperor of a con­spiracy against his life of which he, Saturninus, together with nine other centurions, were to be the instruments, the praetorian prefect being the moving spirit. Septimius, believing the fabrica­tion, sent for Plautian, who, suspecting nothing, repaired to the palace with such haste that the mule he was riding fell under him in the courtyard—an evil omen of which Dio recognizes the full significance. The emperor received the supposed culprit leniently enough, merely reproaching him for his ingratitude and asking the reason for his wish to kill him, and Plautian might even have got off had it not been for the action of Cara­calla. The latter, foreseeing the possibility of his prey’s escaping, rushed forward and struck him, and was with difficulty restrained by his father from delivering the coup de grâce with his own sword. The emperor’s hand had been forced, and a soldier was bidden kill the fallen favorite. So on the 22nd of January in the year 205 ended the career of Plautianus.

On the day which followed Plautianus death Septimius made a speech before the Senate, in which he abstained from all recrimination, lamenting merely the fact that mortals could not bear more than a certain measure of success, and blaming himself for his excessive affection for, and indulgence towards, the dead favorite. Plautilla and her brother Plautius, whom Caracalla in his rage would have had murdered, Severus banished to Lipari, nor were they the only ones involved in the prefect’s fall. Dio devotes some pages to the punishment by banishment or death of Caecilius Agricola, Coeranus, and others, besides that of many in no way connected with the conspiracy, such as Quintillus Plautianus, Pedo Apronianus, Baebius Marcellinus, and Pollenius Sebennus.

For the rest of the year and during the two following the emperor lived in retirement, chiefly, if we may believe Herodian, in the neighborhood of the capital and on the Campanian coast, endeavoring, so far as in him lay, to distract his pleasure-loving sons from the snares of Roman life. Political and judicial affairs occupied most of his time.

But events were happening in one of the outlying provinces which did not give the aged emperor much leisure for such pursuits of peace. For some time, in fact since the Albinian war, the state of Britain had been one of constant uneasiness. Albinus’ successor, the legate Virius Lupus, had been obliged to buy peace from the Maeatae, which northern tribe had taken advantage of the absence of the British legions in Gaul to push their way farther south. Eight years later we again get a glimpse of the unsettled state of affairs in that province, when the then legate, Alfenius Senecio, fought with success against the Britons. Add to these disturbances the fact, if it be one, that Septimius looked forward to a war as the best, perhaps the one, means of healing the strife between his two sons, and one sees cause enough for the expedition (destined to be his last) which the old emperor undertook in the spring of the year 208.

It is possible that Severus, who was attended by his family and relations as well as by the new praetorian prefect, Papinian, did not hurry on his way to Britain, though we have no records of his journey save for the vague remark of Herodian that he crossed the ocean, and for the still vaguer rumor that on his passing through Lyon he ordered a persecution of the Christians there.

The autumn and winter of the year seem to have been spent by the emperor in making preparations for the campaign, which preparations appear to have consisted chiefly in the filling up of marshes and the bridging of rivers. There is, in fact, a coin of 208 which pictures a bridge, and another of 209 bearing the legend TRAIECTVS. It may also have been during this first winter spent in Britain that the Caledonians (the other tribe besides the Maeatae concerned in the war) sent a deputation to Septimius seeking to obtain terms of truce. To this the emperor lent an apparently willing ear, but meanwhile continued his preparations for war. The first campaign was fought in 209. The natural difficulties of the country seem to have caused the Romans more trouble than did the enemy, whose methods of warfare, as barbarous as their existence in peace, of which both Dio and Herodian give so thrilling a picture, consisted mainly in night attacks on the Roman convoys or ambushes laid for them while on the march. It would be nothing more than waste labor to attempt to describe this campaign, or indeed the whole war, in any detail. We are entirely ignorant even of the route by which Severus marched north, or of the farthest point he reached. Dio mentions his arrival at the extreme north of Scotland, where he seems to have verified Ptolemy’s calculations as to the solar parallax, but it is doubtful whether he really ever crossed the Forth. The bridges mentioned by our two authorities may possibly refer to this estuary, or they may possibly have spanned the Solway Firth; while Herodian’s mention suggests at once the turf walls of Hadrian and Antoninus Pius.

Whether Septimius retired south for the winter of 209-10 or remained in Scotland is another point on which we must be content to remain in ignorance. He seems to have spent two summers in the field, carried about from place to place in a litter, for the gout, to which he eventually succumbed, had long claimed him as a victim. Geta he left in England to attend to the government of the province, while he himself, together with Caracalla, engaged in the actual fighting. On several occasions, according at least to Dio, Caracalla attempted his father’s murder, but was as often pardoned by the emperor.

In the autumn of 210 some sort of a peace seems to have been arranged, in which considerable concessions were made by the Roman to the Briton. Indeed, no marked success had crowned the Roman arms and, if we can believe Dio, no fewer than 50,000 had succumbed to the hardihood of the natives or the rigors of the climate. In consequence, however, of this peace Septimius assumed the title of Britannicus Maximus and Caracalla that of Britannicus. Geta seems to have been raised to the dignity of an Augustus some two years previously: he also now bears the title Britannicus. But this triumph was short-lived.

The Caledonians had probably little further object in making peace than the wish to gain time for more hostile preparations, and no sooner were the terms settled than they were broken. Once more the enemy poured south into Roman territory, and once more the old emperor roused himself from a bed of sickness to repel them. He was not, however, destined to fight a third campaign.

Broken in body by the weight of years and by illness, as in soul by the unfilial conduct of his eldest son, Septimius died at York on the 4th of February, 211.

His last words were addressed to his sons, and nothing perhaps is more remarkable than the soundness of the advice unless it be the thoroughness with which it was disregarded. No attempt was made on the part of Caracalla or Geta to continue the war. After celebrating their father’s obsequies in York they returned with his ashes to Rome, where divine honors and a flamen were accorded to him. Septimius was sixty-five years old at the time of his death.

VIII

PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION

To the student of what, for want of a better term, may be called Sittengeschickte there is ever present the temptation to regard the period under consideration as a time of intellectual flux—of transition—between two periods of comparative intellectual stagnation; the truth being that it is only a more careful examination that discloses motion in the mental or psychic life of a people. Nevertheless there may be some truth in the view that the century and a half which elapsed between the death of Marcus Aurelius and the founding of Constantinople does form such a period of transition.

The years which saw the death of the republic and the birth of the empire saw also the superseding of religion, in the form of the Olympian gods, by philosophy, and the further introduction of those Eastern or mystic cults by means of which the less intellectual sought to express their higher aspirations.

“From the time of Cicero to that of Marcus Aurelius Roman society advanced from unbelief to belief” says Boissier.

Skepticism both in the region of morality and that of religion and metaphysics was steadily declining during the first century and a half of the Christian Era, nor is the superficial Voltairianism of Lucian typical of an age which realized with growing clearness the moral superiority of the barbarians who were knocking at the door not necessarily of a degenerate but certainly of an intellectually disintegrated empire. The Stoic emperor may be said to mark the zenith of that philosophic religion of which Cleanthes had sowed the first seeds in Rome, and not only was he the last Stoic—he was the last emperor before Constantine resolutely to accept a creed in its entirety, and with that intolerance of other creeds and fear of the contamination of his own without which a man or a nation so often passes through broad-mindedness into skepticism. After Marcus Aurelius we come upon a period of eclecticism and syn­cretism, moral, philosophic, and religious—a state of flux in fact out of which may be said to have crystallized but two religions, Mithraism and Christianity.

In matters purely religious syncretism was indeed inevitable. The actual number of deities worshipped in the Roman empire must have been something stupendous; and the growing frequency of feast-days shows that this tendency was on the increase. Not without reason did mortals legislate against the introduction of new divinities, or the gods themselves determine upon an Alien Act in Olympus.

It is only natural that this unwieldy concourse of gods should lead to that identification of the divinities of one nationality with those of another until there dawned upon the minds of men the conception of one God of whom all these objects of worship were but the forms. As a preliminary step, therefore, towards the unification of the conception of God we get this period of syncretism. There is no need to multiply instances. The identification of Cybele with Bona Dea and Ops, and her later connection with Bellona, with whom was identified the Carthaginian goddess Ma; the confusion of Mithras with Sabazios; the various forms and activities of Serapis, who appears now as the god of healing, and as such represents Aesculapius or Apollo Salutaris, now as the god of the underworld, the Egyptian Pluto, and now as the sun-god, in which capacity he melts on the one hand into Mithras, and on the other into Jupiter. The Emperor Tacitus marks a still more advanced stage, for with a most laudable economy of space and money he erected a templum deorum, nd even in Christian times an emperor would not disdain the office of pontifex maximus, nor would a pope hesitate to convert a pagan festival into a feast of the church.

The reign of Septimius, then, marks the beginning of this period of progressive religious syncretism: its typical philosophy is neo-pythagoreanism, and perhaps its most typical figure that of the Empress Julia Domna. Although history, as has been suggested above, has tended to over-emphasize the importance of Julia in the sphere of politics, it would be hard to make a similar mistake with regard to her in the domain of philosophy and religion; nor must we forget that the   superposition of Western culture upon a character essentially Eastern won for the empress such a world-wide popularity as would ensure everywhere the publication and acceptance of her opinions. Greece worshipped her as Demeter or Hera, and under the former name was built to her a temple at Aphrodisias in Caria, while the town of Plotinopolis in Thrace seems at this period to have adopted the name Domnopolis. After her deification by Heliogabalus she possessed a priestess at Naples. In private life she must have been a woman of strong and imperious character, deeply imbued with that rather credulous mysticism so typical of the East, yet not without the ballast of calm reasoning which a philosophical training gave.

Not less interesting than the empress herself was the circle of savants which she gathered round her. Of its members may be mentioned her sister Julia Moesa, and her nieces Julia Soemias and Mammea: another woman associate was that Arria to whom Diogenes Laertius thought of dedicating his book on the lives of the philosophers, and who seems to have inspired such affection and admiration in the breast of the doctor Galen. Dio­genes and Galen themselves belonged to the circle, as also did another doctor, Serenus Sammonicus, the naturalists Aelian and Oppian, the lawyers Papinian, Ulpian, and Paul, and Antipater of Hierapolis, to whom Julia entrusted the education of her sons and who compiled a history of Severus himself.    Besides these it is at least possible that the learned author of the Deipno-sophistae was a member, and we may suppose that such famous rhetoricians as Apollonius of Athens, Heraclides, and Hermocrates would not be unwelcome guests on their visits to Rome; Alexander of Aphrodisias was also a contemporary. He seems indeed to have owed his position as head of the Aristotelian school at Athens to the patronage of Septimius and Caracalla. To them at least he dedicates one of his works in gratitude for his appointment. Last, and perhaps most important, must be mentioned Philostratus.

The characteristics of this assembly are clearly marked. To begin with we notice the excess of erudition over purely literary gifts. If we discount the medical verses of Serenus, Oppian is its only poet, nor can the prose style of any of its members be said to struggle above the level of mediocrity. In the second place its productions are essentially artificial and ‘precious’; and thirdly, the Latin element gives way very much to the Syrian. This last characteristic is of course particularly visible in the most important work to which the circle gave birth—the Life of Apollonius by Philostratus. In its nature the book is neither a novel nor yet a history: it is a gospel. Written at the instigation of the empress it sought to create a hero half human, half divine, who should not be too philosophically minded to alienate the sympathies of the many, nor yet too mythological to offend the susceptibilities of the learned. There is no need to see in the publication any direct attack upon Christianity, except in so far as any such attempt to give society a religious ideal is of necessity a form of attack on all current religions and philosophies. Apollonius himself is an historical figure. He was a Pythagorean thaumaturge who lived at Tyana in the second half of the first century of the Christian era, and Philostratus’ life contains references to all the emperors from Nero to Nerva inclusive. The account given is founded on the diary of Apollonius’ disciple Damis, which purports to have got into Julia Domna’s hands and to have been handed on by her to Philostratus for re-edition. It bears striking resem­blances to the New Testament, except that the style is more pretentious, and indeed better, the general tone infinitely more erudite, and the matter still more miraculous. Everywhere one comes upon echoes of classical authors, and not infrequently are to be found sentences of which Plato need not have been ashamed and aphorisms which would not disgrace a Rochefoucauld. Most striking, however, are the constant likenesses, verbal or material, to the New Testament story. Of such may be men­tioned the theory of a virgin birth; the story of an ‘annunciation’; the parable of the sower; the healing of a demoniac child; the preaching of forbearance and broad-mindedness on the occasion of a woman taken in adultery; the metaphor of a ‘light under a bushel’, and that of the dogs and the ‘food which falleth from the master's table’; the appearance of Apollonius, as of Christ, before a judgment seat; the refusal of the disciple Damis, like that of Peter, to desert his master; and, most striking of all, a story like to that of Jairus’ daughter in almost all its details.

Taking the book as a whole one cannot wonder that the religion of Apollonius of Tyana fell upon the ears of a heedless world. Failing by reason of its obvious artificiality in that simple directness which has won for the Gospel of Christ so many adherents, it yet lacks the logical cohesion of a philosophic system, and in fact, while aiming at giving birth at once to a religion and a philosophy, it succeeded in producing both still­born. Literature has preserved for us the mention only of three imperial devotees: Caracalla, who built for Apollonius a heroon; Alexander Severus who, with a vagueness of sentiment typical of the man and of the age, found for the thaumaturge’s image a place with those of Orpheus, Abraham, and Christ; and Aurelian, who, warned by Apollonius’ ghost, abstained from packing the town of Tyana.

In a city such as Rome, where, as Athenaeus said, one might see whole peoples dwelling together, Cappadocians, Scythians, and men from Pontus, it is not surprising to find adherents of every form of creed, nor can we be much astonished to discover that that with perhaps the fewest followers was the State, or Olympian, religion. And yet this was by no means defunct even at the turn of the second and third centuries. Especially do we notice a sort of old-fashioned revival of the specific Italian deities such as Silvanus and Minerva, to the latter of whom Septimius himself appears to have built a temple. The semi-private worship of the Lares, Manes, and Penates seems also to have flourished with almost undiminished vigor, while the religious guilds, such as the Salii, the Arval brothers (of which the emperor became a member in 195), and the Fetiales, continued at least until the fourth century.

In connection with these may also be mentioned the genii and daemons, who, attendant upon every man in his lifetime, were credited with some sort of nebulous existence after his death, and, after the manner of the old chthonic deities, required at times some mollifying or apotropaeic treatment. The belief in the existence and power of these supernatural beings was very widespread, and that not only among the unenlightened. Even so excellent a philosopher as Plotinus imagined the space midway between heaven and earth as peopled by demons; while the Christians, who were not above such intellectual weaknesses, repudiated genii and preferred to believe in evil spirits.

But of the State religion, properly so called, Caesar worship still continued the most vital element. Not only was the reigning emperor adored, but all, right back to Augustus, received some meed of honor: the worshipper was free to exercise some discretion in his choice, and Capitolinus (whoever he was and whenever he wrote) testifies to the evergreen popularity of the image of Marcus Aurelius even in his day. The binding nature of an oath taken on the genius of an emperor is made the subject of scornful comment by Tertullian.

Of far more widely spread popularity, however, than either the national or the established religion were those Eastern cults, of which undoubtedly that of the Persian sun-god Mithras was the chief. This religion, as is well known, had been established in Rome since the earlier years of the first century of the Christian Era, but it was not until the closing decades of the second that the cult can be said to have shown any marked predominance over other Eastern creeds. In the reign of Severus Mithraic inscriptions are of no uncommon occurrence, and a sacrarium of the god seems to have been built in Rome to commemorate that emperor’s Eastern victories. In some features Mithraism seems closely to have resembled Christianity. It recognized a baptism, a sacrament, a mediation, and a regeneration wrought by the cleansing blood of the god; its chief feast-day was December 25, when the new birth of the sun was celebrated. Like Christianity it preached the doctrine of immortality, and again like that religion claimed sole validity for its doctrines. The initiated took upon themselves strange names, being known as lions, hyenas, Persians, warriors, and the like, and all devotees were divided into seven classes in a way which reminds one of the Freemasons, and which has also been not inaptly compared to the practices of the Salvation Army.

Persia, however, was not the only country to supply Rome and its empire with a creed. The gods of Egypt seem to have enjoyed, during the reign of Septimius, a popularity as great as, or greater than, they had ever done. Most important among them at this time was the goddess Isis, whose worship dates back well into the time of the republic. Commodus had shown her especial honor, and had seemingly forced the unwilling Niger to do the same, while Caracalla had built her a temple and founded a festival in her honor. In Severus’ reign we find epigraphic evidence of prayer offered to Isis for the well-being of: the royal family. No deity offers a much better instance of syncretism, for she combines in herself the personalities and characteristics of Juno, Ceres, Proserpine, and Venus, added to which she seems to have been the especial patron of traders and sailors. Closely connected, too, with her were Anubis and Harpocrates. Of the Egyptian pantheon, however, Serapis seems to have been the special favorite of Septimius, who showed considerable interest in his worship on his Egyptian tour, nor was this cult deserted by his successors Caracalla and Alexander. Gradually, in fact, his popularity seems to have eclipsed that of Isis, and by Macrobius’ time he too had merged into a sun-god and become but one more aspect of the universal divinity.

Another sun-god who appears to have had no small vogue at this time was the Syrian Jupiter Dolichenus, inscriptions attest­ing whose worship come to us in considerable numbers from provinces so wide apart as Britain, Dacia, and Numidia. It is, however, to be noted that the worship of this god was almost entirely confined to military circles, and that the seeming popularity of his cult is due to the troops stationed in a province rather than to the provincial civilians. His temple also stood on the Esquiline, and to him was attached a regular priesthood by or through whom prayer and offerings were constantly made for the health and prosperity of Severus and his family. So advanced by this time was the process of syncretism that it is difficult clearly to distinguish one Syrian or Syro-phoenician god from another. Septimius’ temple to Jupiter of Damascus or Heliopolis, erected in the latter city, has already been mentioned. Half Roman Jove, half Phoenician Bal, he is not improbably to be identified with the Malakbelus, of whose worship we now begin to find traces in Rome. The Syrian goddess on whom Lucian wrote his brochure, and to whom alone the atheistic Nero bowed the knee, possessed under the Severi a temple in Rome, and was worshipped at Ostia as the goddess of prostitutes, where she was identified indifferently as the Cyprian Venus or Majuma of Antioch. Along with her may be mentioned the similar Carthaginian (i.e. also Phoenician) goddess, Juno Caelestis, a moon and star deity with whom Julia Domna was perhaps identified.

Of the Phrygian deities it is scarcely necessary to do more than mention the Great Mother, to the worship of whom Herodian and Lampridius assure us that both Commodus and Alexander Severus were much addicted. Attis is another instance of a budding sun, or universal, god; and it is a point perhaps worthy of passing notice that his priests, even the archigalli, were by this time not invariably Phrygians; they were sometimes Romans.

Of the position and importance of Christianity at this time, as of the actual numbers that religion could claim as its own, we are neither fully nor trustworthily informed. It is certain that by the year 200 a considerable number of churches were in existence. There were the seven churches of Asia mentioned by St. John—Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea, and Antioch; besides these the even then famous church of Alexandria, those of Jerusalem, Nisibis, Seleucia, Beroea, Apamea, Hierapolis, and Samosata. Of all the pro­vinces, however, that apparently most thickly peopled with Christians was Africa, in which, if we may believe Tertullian, every city could boast a numerical superiority of Christians to pagan inhabitants. Carthage was possessed of a bishop as early as 197, and some eighteen years later was the seat of a synod.

Persecutions, too, and martyrdoms were of no uncommon occurrence in this province. Among the proconsuls unfavorably disposed towards Christianity may be mentioned Vigellius Saturninus (198-200 or 201), the first, according to Tertullian, to shed Christian blood in Africa, Apuleius Rufinus (203-204), and that Scapula to or against whom Tertullian wrote his treatise. The protomartyr of Africa was one Namphamo, who suffered death under the proconsulship of Saturninus on the 4th of July, 198. Some five years later Carthage was the scene of one of the most famous of the early martyrdoms, that of Perpetua.

In general, however, persecutions seem to have been neither widespread nor systematic. The legal status of a Christian was a somewhat uncertain one. Up to the year 201 no edict or law upon the subject existed save for the famous rescript of Traian, which ordered the Christians not to be sought out or hunted down but merely punished if discovered. This, of course, left the provincial governor full power to exercise his discretion and to deal with Christians leniently or severely as he chose. A change came with the end of the year 201, when, not improbably influenced by what he had seen in Palestine in the course of his visit there, Septimius issued an edict forbidding conversion either to Judaism or Christianity.

As far as the Jews were concerned the edict seems to have been but little put into force. Judaism had always, as Tertullian observed, been a religion ‘certe licita’, and Eusebius comments on the fact that the conversion of one Domnius from Christianity to Judaism was provocative of no trouble whatsoever. Naturally enough this partiality roused a still bitterer hatred for the Jews in the hearts of the Christians, who complained that the corpses of their friends were not infrequently destroyed by the former sect as a pragmatic disproof of the doctrine of the resurrection of the body. Tertullian went so far as to speak of synagogues as “fontes persecutionum”. Of active persecution of the Christians before the edict of Severus we hear little. There seems to have been some in Byzantium before the time of its capture, though Caecilius Capella, the official who was responsible for it, is represented by Tertullian as realizing like others elsewhere that it was bound to fail in the end, and that the Christians were in reality better off than their persecutors. We hear also of a fairly vigorous persecution in Alexandria at the time of the emperor’s visit in 201, which he did nothing to check. Yet, at least in his earlier years, Severus seems to have looked upon the Christians with no unfavorable eye. He gave his son Caracalla a Christian nurse and allowed him a Jewish playmate, while he himself is said to have been cured of some disease by one Eutychius Proculus, a Christian, by whom he was anointed with holy oil, and whom, in gratitude, he retained in his service until his death. There is some likelihood, too, that the procurator Euodus, the same who was connected with the plot for the overthrow of Plautian, was no other than the Christian tutor of Caracalla to whom Tertullian refers as Torpaeion. But whatever his early views there can be no doubt that the emperor was opposed to Christianity as a religion and to Christians as a class, nor can we be much surprised at the fact. Three causes of complaint were always brought forward against them. First, the well-worn charge of flagrant immorality supposed to take place at their agapai, a charge not much more absurd than similar ones brought by orthodox Christians against the Gnostics; secondly, the flat and stubborn refusal to acquiesce or participate in any form of Caesar worship; and thirdly, that constant spirit of unrest—common to Christian and Jew alike—such as found expression in the Barchochebas’ rising some sixty years before this, and was still more agitating the hearts of the faithful about the year 202-3, at which exact time the end of the world was expected with some trepidation in accordance with the prophecy of Daniel.

Of the various sects and heresies which troubled the peace of the Church at this time this is not the occasion to speak at length. The very freedom of Christendom from outside persecution only served to foster internal strife, as Tertullian suggested. Mention has already been made of the Gnostics, with their fatalistic doctrine of morals, and their virtual denial of the doctrine of the Incarnation by the sharp division they sought to establish between the Logos or Christ and Jesus the man.

Two more sects worth a passing notice are those founded respectively by Artemon and Theodotes, the Byzantine. The latter was excommunicated in 189 by Pope Victor and the heresy soon died out. Both Artemonism and Theodotism were Unitarian in character, and denied the divinity of Christ. Another heresy to win the practically expressed disfavor of the papal see was that of Montanus, against which Pope Zephyrnius launched an edict in the year 205.

To sum up. The reign of Septimius marks almost the beginning of a period of considerable moral, intellectual, and spiritual ferment. Skepticism was rare, and the generality of mankind more inclined to believe in anything than in nothing. Though in the majority of men religion can scarcely be said to have risen above the level of credulity and superstition, yet, such as it was, it was genuine and, as a wealth of epigraphic evidence attests, publicly expressed with as little reticence as niggardliness. The renewed popularity of the oracles of Delphi and other places is typical of the age. In the domain of morals there was growing up a distinct tendency towards the ideals of purity and holiness, and though the age of asceticism had not as yet descended upon the world, the few instances where it occurred commanded instant and widespread respect. Besides this we begin to see during this period traces of that connection between morals and religion so rare in the ancient, so common in the modern, world.

In conclusion, we cannot do better than cite the words of Réville: “The religious syncretism of the early third century is the religion of a cosmopolitan society without interest in patriotism or politics, under a military despotism, without literary or artistic inspiration, without fixed philosophical opinions, yet educated, over-refined, and thirsting after a moral ideal better than that which had been handed down to it”.