The Later Roman Empire

Septimius Severus

After the assassination of Commodus on Dec. 31, ad 192, Helvius Pertinax, the prefect of the city, became emperor. In spite of his modest birth, he was well respected by the Senate, but he was without his own army. He was killed by the praetorians at the end of March 193, after a three-month reign. The praetorians, after much corrupt bargaining, designated as emperor an old general, Didius Julianus, who had promised them the largest donativum (a donation given to each soldier on the emperor’s accession). The action of the praetorians roused the ire of the provincial armies. The army of the Danube, which was the most powerful as well as the closest to Rome, appointed Septimius Severus in May 193. Severus soon had to face two competitors, supported, like himself, by their own troops: Pescennius Niger, the legate of Syria, and Clodius Albinus, legate of Britain. After having temporarily neutralized Albinus by accepting him as Caesar (heir apparent), Septimius marched against Niger, whose troops, having come from Egypt and Syria, were already occupying Byzantium. The Danubian legions were victorious, and Niger was killed at the end of 194; Antioch and Byzantium were pillaged after a long siege. Septimius even invaded Mesopotamia, for the Parthians had supported Niger. But this campaign was quickly interrupted: in the West, Albinus, disappointed at not being associated with the empire, proclaimed himself Augustus in 196 and invaded Gaul. He was supported by the troops, by the population, and even by the senators in Rome. In February 197 he was defeated and killed in a difficult battle near his capital of Lugdunum, which, in turn, was almost devastated. Septimius Severus remained the sole master of the empire, but the pillagings, executions, and confiscations left a painful memory. A few months later, in the summer of 197, he launched a second Mesopotamian campaign, this time against the Parthian king Vologases IV, who had attacked the frontier outpost Nisibis conquered two years previously by the Romans. Septimius Severus was again victorious. Having arrived at the Parthian capitals (Seleucia and Ctesiphon), he was defeated near Hatra but in 198 obtained an advantageous peace: Rome retained a part of Mesopotamia, together with Nisibis, the new province being governed by an eques. After having inspected the East, the emperor returned to Rome in 202. He spent most of his time there until 208, when the incursions of Caledonian rebels called him to Britain, where he carried out a three-year campaign along Hadrian’s Wall. He died at Eboracum (York) in February 211.

Septimius Severus belonged to a Romanized Tripolitan family that had only recently attained honours. He was born in Leptis Magna in North Africa and favoured his native land throughout his reign. He was married to Julia Domna of Emesa, a Syrian woman from an important priestly family, and was surrounded by Easterners. He had pursued a senatorial career and had proved himself a competent general, but he was above all a good administrator and a jurist. Disliking Romans, Italians, and senators, he deliberately relied on the faithful Danubian army that had brought him to power, and he always showed great concern for the provincials and the lower classes. Although he had sought to appropriate the popularity of the Antonines to his own advantage by proclaiming himself the son of Marcus Aurelius and by naming his own son Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, he in fact carried out a totally different policy—a brutal yet realistic policy that opened careers to new social classes. Indifferent to the prestige of the Senate, where he had a great many enemies, he favoured the equites. The army thus became the seedbed of the equestrian order and was the object of all of his attentions. The ready forces were increased by the creation of three new legions commanded by equites, and one of these, the Second Parthica, was installed near Rome. Unlike Vespasian, who also owed his power to the army but who knew how to keep it in its proper place, Septimius Severus, aware of the urgency of external problems, established a sort of military monarchy. The praetorian cohorts doubled their ranks, and the dismissal of the old staff of Italian origin transformed the Praetorian Guard into an imperial guard, in which the elite of the Danube army were the most important element. The auxiliary troops were increased by the creation of 1,000-man units (infantry cohorts) and cavalry troops, sometimes outfitted with mail armour in the Parthian manner. The careers of noncommissioned officers emerging from the ranks now opened onto new horizons: centurions and noncommissioned grades could attain the tribunate and enter into the equestrian order. Thus, a simple Illyrian peasant might attain high posts: this was undoubtedly the most significant aspect of the “Severan revolution.” This “democratization” was not necessarily a barbarization, for the provincial legions had long been Romanized. Their salaries were increased, and donativa were distributed more frequently; thenceforth, soldiers were fed at the expense of the provincials. Veterans received lands, mostly in Syria and Africa. The right of legitimate marriage, previously refused by Augustus, was granted to almost all of the soldiers, and the right to form collegia (private associations) was given to noncommissioned officers. Because more than a century had passed since the last raise in pay for the troops, despite a steady (if slow) rise in the level of prices, Severus increased the legionary’s base rate from 300 to 500 denarii, with, no doubt, corresponding increases in other ranks. The reflection of this step in the content of precious metal in silver coinage recalls a point made earlier: the imperial revenues were constrained within the narrow limits of political and administrative reality.

The administrative accomplishments of Septimius Severus were of great importance: he clearly outlined the powers of the city prefect; he entrusted the praetorian prefecture to first-class jurists, such as Papinian; and he increased the number of procurators, who were recruited for financial posts from among Africans and Easterners and for government posts (praesides) from among Danubian officers. Italy lost its privileges and found itself subjected, like all the other provinces, to the new annona, a tax paid in kind, which assured the maintenance of the army and of the officials. The consequent increase in expenditures—for administration, for the salaries and the donativa of the soldiers, for the maintenance of the Roman plebs, and for construction—obliged the emperor to devalue the denarius in 194. But the confiscations increased his personal fortune, the res privata, which had been previously created by Antoninus.

Severus’ social policy favoured both the provincial recruitment of senators (Easterners, Africans, and even Egyptians), causing a sharp decrease in the percentage of Italian senators, and the elevation of the equestrian order, which began to fill the prince’s council with its jurists. The cities, which had been favoured by the Antonines, were more and more considered as administrative wheels in the service of the state: the richest decuriones (municipal councillors) were financially responsible for levying the taxes, and it was for this purpose that the towns of Egypt finally received a boulē (municipal senate).

The burden of taxes and forced government service was made weightier by numerous transport duties for the army and for the annona service and was regulated by the jurists through financial, personal, or mixed charges. The state was watchful to keep the decuriones in the service of their cities and to provide a control on their administration through the appointment of curatores rei publicae, or officials of the central government. The lower classes were, in principle, protected against the abuses of the rich, but in fact they were placed at the service of the state through the restrictions imposed on shipping and commercial corporations. Membership might entail forced contributions of capital or labour to such public necessities as the supply of food to Rome. The state became more and more a policeman, and the excesses of power of numerous grain merchants (frumentarii) weighed heavily on the little man.

Imperial power, without repudiating the ideological themes of the principate, rested in fact on the army and sought its legitimacy in heredity: the two sons of Septimius Severus, Caracalla and Geta, were first proclaimed Caesars, the former in 196, the latter in 198; later, they were directly associated with imperial power through bestowal of the title of Augustus, in 198 and 209, respectively. Thus, during the last three years of Septimius Severus’ reign, the empire had three Augusti at its head.

Caracalla

Caracalla, the eldest son of Septimius Severus, reigned from 211 to 217, after having assassinated his younger brother, Geta. He was a caricature of his father: violent, megalomaniacal, full of complexes, and, in addition, cruel and debauched. He retained the entourage of the equites and jurists who had governed with his father but enforced to an even greater degree his father’s militaristic and egalitarian policy. He increased the wages of the army even further and, at the same time, began a costly building program that quickly depleted the fortune left him by his father. He forced the senators to pay heavy contributions, doubled the inheritance and emancipation taxes, and often required the aurum coronarium (a contribution in gold), thereby ruining the urban middle classes. To counter the effects of a general upward drift of prices and the larger and better-paid army of his own and his father’s making, he created a new silver coin, the antoninianus. It was intended to replace the basic denarius at double its value, though containing only about one and a half times its worth in precious metal. The only historical source to suggest Caracalla’s motive for his gift of universal citizenship, Dio Cassius, states that it was meant to increase revenues by bringing new elements of the population under tax obligations formerly limited to Romans only.

Although little endowed with military qualities, Caracalla adopted as his patron Alexander the Great, whom he admired greatly, and embarked on an active external policy. He fought successfully against the Teutonic tribes of the upper Danube, among whom the Alamanni, as well as the Capri of the middle Danube, appeared for the first time; he often prudently mixed military operations with negotiation and gave important subsidies and money (in sound currency) to the barbarians, thus arousing much discontent. His ambition was to triumph in the East like his hero of old and, more recently, Trajan and his own father. He invaded Armenia and Adiabene and annexed Osroëne in northwest Mesopotamia, joining it to the part of Mesopotamia taken by Septimius Severus. In April 217, while pursuing his march on the Tigris, he was assassinated on the order of one of his praetorian prefects, Marcus Opellius Macrinus.

Macrinus

Macrinus was accepted as emperor by the soldiers, who were unaware of the role he had played in the death of his predecessor. For the first time an eques had acceded to the empire after having been no more than a manager of financial affairs. The senators reluctantly accepted this member of the equestrian order, who, nevertheless, proved to be moderate and conciliatory; but the armies despised him as a mere civilian, and the ancient authors were hostile to him. His reign was brief, and little is known of him. He concluded an inglorious peace with the Parthians, which assured Mesopotamia to Rome through the payment of large sums of money. And to make himself popular, he canceled Caracalla’s tax increases and reduced military expenditures. A plot against him was soon organized: two young grandnephews of Septimius Severus were persuaded by their mothers and especially by their grandmother, Julia Maesa, the sister of Julia Domna (who had recently died), to reach for imperial power. The eldest, Bassianus, was presented to the troops of Syria, who had been bought with gold, and was proclaimed in April 218. Shortly afterward, Macrinus was defeated and killed, as was his son (whom he had associated with him on the throne).

Elagabalus and Severus Alexander

The new emperor was presented as the son of Caracalla, whose name he took (Marcus Aurelius Antoninus). He is better known, however, under the name Elagabalus, the god whose high priest he was and whom he quickly and imprudently attempted to impose on the Romans, in spite of his grandmother’s counsel of moderation. Fourteen years old, he caused himself to be detested by his heavy expenditures, his orgies, and the dissolute behaviour of his circle. The praetorians killed him in 222 and proclaimed as emperor his first cousin, Alexianus, who took the name of Severus Alexander.

Although well educated and full of good intentions, Severus Alexander showed some weakness of character by submitting to the counsel of his mother, Mamaea, and of his grandmother, Maesa. The Scriptores historiae Augustae, a collection of biographies of the emperors, attributes to him a complete program of reforms favourable to the Senate, but these reforms are not mentioned elsewhere. As in the time of Septimius Severus, his counselors were equites. Ulpian, the praetorian prefect, was the greatest jurist of this period, and the basic policies of the founder of the dynasty were carried on, but with less energy. This weakening of energy had disastrous results: in Persia, the Arsacids were replaced in 224 by the more ambitious Sāsānid dynasty, who hoped to recover the former possessions of the Achaemenids in the East. Their initial attacks were stopped in 232 by a campaign that was, however, poorly conducted by the emperor and that alienated the army as a result of its ineptitude. In Rome there were frequent disorders, and, as early as 223, Ulpian had been killed by the praetorians. While gathered on the Rhine to fight the Teutons, the soldiers once again revolted and killed Severus Alexander and his mother. A coarse and uneducated but energetic soldier, Maximinus the Thracian, succeeded him without difficulty in March 235. The Severan dynasty had come to an end.