Septimius Severus

Roman emperor from 193 to 211

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Lived 146–211, aged 65

Historical Figures

Wikipedia
85 languages
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Era
146–211
Aged 65

Summary

Updated 2026-06-08

He won the throne in 193 by outlasting four other emperors in a single year, then spent the next two decades pushing Rome's borders farther than they'd been in generations — north into Scotland, east to the Tigris, south across the Sahara.

Biography

About

Born in Leptis Magna in what's now Libya on 11 April 145, Lucius Septimius Severus climbed the Roman cursus honorum under Marcus Aurelius and Commodus, waiting his turn. When the emperor Pertinax was killed in 193 during the Year of the Five Emperors, Severus emerged from the scrum: he deposed Didius Julianus, crushed rival general Pescennius Niger at Issus in 194, and three years later defeated Clodius Albinus at Lugdunum. With the empire his, he turned outward — sacking the Parthian capital Ctesiphon in 197, annexing Osroene, fortifying the Arabian and Tripolitanian frontiers, and in 202 cap…

Voice

In their own words

Sourced, dated quotes from Septimius Severus

Septimius Severus

saidundated

Let none escape utter destruction At our hands. Yea, whatso is found in the womb of the mother, Child unborn though it be, let it not escape utter destruction!

— Cassius Dio, Book 77, Part 15.

Septimius Severus

saidundated

Be harmonious, enrich the soldiers, scorn everybody else.

— Statement made on his deathbed to his sons.

Septimius Severus

saidundated

You see by what has happened that we are superior to you in intelligence, in size of army, and in number of supporters.

— Herodian, Book II.

Septimius Severus

saidundated

Let no one charge us with capricious inconsistency in our actions against Albinus, and let no one think that I am disloyal to this alleged friend or lacking in feeling toward him.

— Herodian, Book 3, Chapter 6.

via Wikiquote · CC BY-SA

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