Severus Alexander

Marcus Aurelius Severus Alexander became emperor in 222 after his cousin Elagabalus was murdered by guards and thrown into the Tiber along with his mother. Both boys were grandsons of Julia Maesa, who had orchestrated Elagabalus's rise through the Third Gallic Legion. Alexander's reign, the longest by a sole emperor since Antoninus Pius, brought peace and prosperity to Rome's interior. But the Sassanid Empire pressed from the east and Germanic tribes intensified their incursions. Alexander checked the Sassanids but turned to diplomacy and bribes against the Germans - a choice that disgusted his army. In March 235, conspirators assassinated him along with his mother Julia Avita Mamaea and his advisors. His successor Maximinus Thrax inherited an empire about to fracture: Alexander's death marked the beginning of the Crisis of the Third Century, nearly fifty years of civil war, invasion, and economic ruin.