Dan Snow's History Hit - Rome's African Emperor: Septimius Severus

Episode Date: November 6, 2025

We dive into the life and legacy of the North African-born ruler who rose through the ranks to seize the imperial throne. We discover how Severus transformed the Roman military, led daring campaigns across continents, and left a mark that shaped the empire for generations.Joining us is Simon Elliott, author of 'The African Emperor: The Life of Septimius Severus'. We weigh his achievements against those of other legendary emperors and ask: Does Severus deserve the title of Rome’s ultimate warrior emperor?Produced by James Hickmann and edited by Dougal Patmore.Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.We'd love to hear your feedback - you can take part in our podcast survey here: https://insights.historyhit.com/history-hit-podcast-always-on.You can also email the podcast directly at [e-mail]. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Augustus, Vespasian, Trasian, Hadrian, Marcus Aurelius, Diocletian, Constantine, Roman emperors, built and ruled over an empire forged in blood, gold, conquest and ambition. Rome was sustained by powerful men who marched at the head of legions, they waged wars across continents, and they, turned Rome into a superpower of the ancient world and maintained it as one. Today I'm going to have a bit of fun. Today I'm going to ask that question that we all want to know. Who was the greatest warrior emperor of them all? Was it Trajan? Who crossed the Danube and reached the Persian Gulf? Constantine, who dragged the Roman Empire back from the brink in the third century, fighting, well, everyone, everywhere. These were men who led from the front.

They either expanded the empire's borders or they ruthlessly reinforced that they crushed internal opposition with overwhelming force. Yet there is one man who I think often slips through the cracks of popular memory. Septimius Severus. He's a North African senator, a North African general who seized power in a brutal civil war. He reformed the army.

He fought across three continents. He rebuilt Rome and he died while still on campaign, still chasing the dream of trying to outdo every other emperor. Was Septimius Severus the greatest warrior emperor of Rome? Or was he just a contender? In this episode, we're going to dive into the life and the battles and the legacy of Rome's North African Empire. Joining us is Simon Elliott. He's a historian, he's an archaeologist, a broadcaster. He is the author of The African Emperor. He is a friend of this. podcast. You've seen him on here before. You've listened to him on the podcast before. He's been on many times. But today, we're all about Septimius Severus, and we're going to ask whether he was truly

Rome's greatest warrior emperor. Enjoy. And lift off. And the shuttle has cleared the power. so i'm good to have you back on the podcast thank you for having me back then i always love coming on your podcast well this is that thorny question who is the great warrior emperor is it trajan is it constantine is it or is it severus it's for me it's severus so if you were to look at the great warrior emperors of the roman world clearly you have trajan septimus severus constantine early diocletian etc but for me for me it's septimius severus remember septimius of Severus commanded more legions than any other Roman emperor, 33. What?

On his way up to the purple. So when Severus was emperor, he created three new legions, legio one, two and three Parthaca for his two Parthian campaigns. So it increased the number of legions from 30, which he inherited, to 33. So that's more than any other emperor before or after. Interesting. Interesting. So in terms of the kind of military complex, that was Roman its greatest extent.

And also physically as well, because Severus extended the territory of the Roman Empire to its greatest extent as well. Trajan very briefly created provinces all the way to the Persian Gulf. But Severus himself extended territories not only in Syria and into modern Iraq, but also in North Africa. And also, Severus, when he died, thought he'd conquered the far north of Britain. That's right. So this whole Romans never got further than the Hadrian's wall. Not true, as we will discuss. Absolutely.

Scotland briefly, very briefly, incorporated throne of empire by some definitions. Right, let's just do his backstory quickly before we get into his emperorship. Quite interesting as well, because North African unusual. Severus was the North African emperor, and when you look at his impact when he became the emperor, he effectively reset the empire in sort of a North African style with North Africans replacing Italians in many key postings

as governors or pro-consuls or procurators or legates in charge of legions. So Severus was very proud of his North African heritage. He was born in Leptus Magna in 145, which is in Tripolitania. So today, that is in Western Libya. Does that mean he, would he have looked different? Did Romans think about ethnicity the same way we do? Or was it a colonial Roman family in North Africa? It's a very good question.

So, remember the Roman world is a Mediterranean empire with the bits that we're in now, northwestern Europe, Bolton's. But broadly, it's a Mediterranean empire. We've got multiple ethnicities, multiple languages, people from lots of different cultures. If you're in the Roman world, you're part of the Roman world. So Severus himself was notably dark-skinned. He's often called the Black Emperor or the African Emperor. Well, he was African, and he did have dark skin. He's got the Severin Tondo in the Alters Museum in Berlin,

which is a portrait of him and his second wife, Julie Domna, and Caracalla, and a memorial damnatioed face of Gita on there as well. That's what they look like, and he's a very dark-skirts. And he spoke with a North African accent. Now, if you were to dig into his actual ethnicity, his father was Punic. So Severus probably had more in common with Hannibal, than with Scipio-Africanus, as an example. His mother was Italian, okay? But he was so proud of his African heritage, and he kept it with him all the way through his life through his emperorship until his death.

And do you get sort of gossips or people in Rome going to this guy? He's African, or was that just not a distinction in the Roman? He's one of those guys where you would certainly. not within his hearing, say anything negative whatsoever because you would be quickly removed from the scene. It will be in the arena to meet the lion. Right, okay, so he didn't face too much of that. No.

His father, is his father important? Is this a multi-generational rise to power? Does he make it all by himself? The most important person actually in the lineage before Severus is actually his grandfather, who was also called Septimus Severus, who was the big man, Eleptus Magnum, is the first person in the family to become a senator, is the first person in the family to travel to Rome. His great-grandfather, by the way, was called Septimius Mesa, which is the Punec name.

So it's his grandfather, Septimius-Severis, the same name of Severus, who actually changes the Punic Mesa to Severus and says, we're now part of the Roman world. We're embracing Romanitas. We're all Roman now. And he was the big man. Cerrus's father, for some reason, had a very quiet life as in a question, and many people think that he was ill. So he didn't make his mark.

But then Severus, Severus, the youngest son by the the way, because he had an elder brother called Gita, who was the first of the Severin people of his generation to come to Britain, because he actually was the legate in charge of Ligio to Augusta in Kalyon. So his elder brother almost made it, but Severus really made it. How do we make it in the Roman world at this time? Is it a web of connection? Was his grandpa able to hook him up with important people in Rome? Is it a rough meritocracy of just being a good soldier? How do you climb up those ranks? A bit of all of that. So firstly, he's a senator. So he's at the very top of the the pile in terms of Roman society, sort of like the top 0.0.05% of Roman society.

So in that sense, anyway, he's made it. And then from that point on, he's got his cursus anorum, so his aristocratic career path, which he follows. But to get the plumb postings from the Senate or the emperor, he's got to have good connections as well. And Severus is very good early in his life networking. And here's the interesting thing with Severus. In his early career on the cursus anorum, he's actually very good at not fighting. So this great warrior emperor is a leading lawyer, is a leading magistrate. He's got posts in Rome where he's looking after some of the key facets of the Roman world, but he's not fighting.

So this great warrior emperor at the beginning of his career seems to have been very canny, picking and choosing the posts he wants to. Not unlike Julius Caesar, weirdly. Very clever, yeah. Yeah, very, very clever like Caesar. Early, you thought actually politician. It turns out, unfortunately, there is as good a general as there are a politician. Exactly right.

Very good parallels there. So a very good politician, a brutally good politician, and they were both brutally good politicians and a brutally good military leader as well. And indeed, Severus's first major posting where he makes his name is in command of a legion. And he gets sent to Syria to command legio for Skidica, which is one of the elite legions holding the eastern frontier against the Parthians. Okay. So how old is it proximate at that point?

Probably mid-30s. An intriguing thing there is the governor of Syria at the time. is Pertinax, who in the Roman world was as famous as Julius Caesar because he was the son of a man-emitted slave, who, as we'll discuss later, becomes the Roman Emperor. And Pertinax, from that point, becomes the mentor of Severus. And it's what happens to Pertinax later, which then drives Severus to become emperor.

Well, that's often the way. So he gets this great patron. Pertanax is on the rise. Yes. Because the Roman Empire is about to experience, It's one of its reasonably regular bits of civil turmoil. Well, so Severus in Syria is married to his first wife, Pachia Matsiana, who doesn't last very long. His next big posting on the way to becoming the emperor, which we'll touch on in a second, is to become the governor of Gallia Lugdenensis, which is a really important province.

It's the big, rich strip through the centre of Gaul, running from the Channel Islands to Lyon, Lugdenham. And that's where Severus is based, and that's where he then calls. write to a lady he's met in a messer in Syria called Julia Domna, who is the daughter of the chief priest of the sun god Helia Gabulus, so fabulously, fabulously rich. And there's an undercurrent in the whole Severin story about acquiring wealth. So she's fabulously rich. And apparently Severus writes to her and says, would you be my wife? And she comes all the way to Leon. They get married in Leon. That's where Caracall is born as well. And then Gita's born as he travels back to Rome. Gita's born in Milan, so they're their two sons. And suddenly he finds

himself in 190 in Rome. And why is that important? Because we're coming to the end of the rain of the mad and bad, Commodus. So Commodus portrayed very well, I think, by Wacking Phoenix in the first movie Gladiator. His behaviours increasingly erratic. And Commodus is himself the end of this sort of a bit of a golden age of good emperors. So Severus' young career, he's rising up through Marcus Aurelius, it's stable, it's strong, it's powerful. In the background here, by the way, you also have what I call a band of brothers. So you have these individuals who fought with Marcus Aurelius and later under Comedus in the Markhamanic Wars and the Danube. And they're all friends while they're fighting together. So you have Pescenius Nijer, you have Clodius

Albunus, you have Severus, and you have Pertinax, all of whom end up fighting each other in one way shape or form the year of the five emperorses will come on to. But towards the end of 190, Severus gets a really important posting, which sets him up till later become emperor. It becomes the governor of a really important province, Panonia Superior, which is on the upper Danube. And basically, it holds the Danubian frontier from anybody like the Markhamani or the quadi or even the Salmations who are to the north of the Danube from getting into north-eastern Italy. So that is very important. And it's a capital to show it's a military province is Conlunton, which is a Legionary Fortress. That's where he is at midnight on New Year's Eve

192. And why is that important? That's important, Dan, because Commodus is assassinated. Right. So the bad Commodus. Basically, he's having all these prescription lists drawn up about who is going to throw into the arena and be fed to the lions. And in one of them, he lists the Praetorian Prefect, he's caught Chamberlain, and his mistress, Marcia. And they find out, and they panic, so they put together a plot to assassinate him. And it's one of these plots where there's various layers to it. So the first attempt, it's on New Year's Eve, 192. So around midnight, he's been boozing all day, right? And Marcia feeds him some poison sweetmeats. That should have killed him, but he's been boozing all day, and then he goes and has a bath,

and he sweats a lot of it out, or he's ill. Don't try that at home. It's not a traditional So it's failed. The plot's failed and everyone's terrified, but they have a plan B. The plan B is hiding behind a curtain, Comedus's wrestling train and Narcissus, who pops out and strangles him to death. So he's dead. Doesn't help Narcissus by the way. He ends up going into the arena in about a year's time and been fed to the lions. There's a lot of feeding to the lines in the story of Severus. So Comedus is dead. So just after midnight, the Praetorian prefect and the court chamberlain go and find the prefect of Rome, the men. heir of Rome, who's Pertinax at this point. Right. So, Pertinax is made emperor, and he's emperor for three months. He's the first emperor in the year of the five emperors. Yeah. And we all get excited about Pertinux because he's the son of a man who had been a slave and was given his freedom. Absolutely. And he's a good guy, the way he's portrayed in all the historical sources. He wanted to be a worthy emperor. He wanted to stall himself from Mokos, Orelius. Commodus are bankrupted Rome, the empire, basically. So one of the things that Pertinax does is he has a fire sale

of all of the fine clothes and the chariots, slaves and freemen who commoners had owned to put some money in the Imperial Fiscus. But he doesn't give enough of that cash to the Praetorian Guard, does he? No, it's a huge mistake for a Roman Emperor, especially at this stage with the Praetorian Guard. So at the end of the first month in January, the guard go to him and say, can we have some money? And Pertianak says no.

It's all right. At the end of months two, end of February, they come to him and say, can we have some money or we'll kill you? And he says, no. So at the end of month three, they kill him. Hey, presto, they've killed him. But this triggers sort of a brutal round of civil wars. So Severus fears, because his mentor's been killed.

Yeah. And he's got an important post in north of Italy. So he's nearby. He's got the cracked legions of the empire and the Danubean frontier behind him. So there are three candidates in play now. There is Clodys Albioness in London, who's declared emperor by the British Leisure.

Regions, Pescanius Nijer, who's in Antioch in Syria, who's declared emperor by the Eastern legions, and Severus has declared emperor by legio 14 Jemina. My favourite legion, Dan, Ligio 14 Jemina. Who hasn't got a favourite legion? It's a crack legion. 14 Jeminas won the defeated Budica. Paul Linus's legion. So, it's an A-game legion, and all the legions on the Danube and also on the Rhine declare for

Severus. So you really see the three different, well, three of the big chunks of the Roman Empire now at each other's throats. And here's where Severus has the advantage. If you look at how long it would take to get a message from Rome to Conantum, it's probably about four days, using the Imperial Post Service and the fastest travel possible, killing horses to get the message there as quickly as possible. To get it to Britain, it's going to take you two weeks to three weeks, to get it to Antioch

two weeks or three weeks. So Severus is the first in play, and he's the nearest. So he descends like a sword of Damocles. On to Rome, bringing five legions, camps out in the Forum, Romano, etc. By this time the second emperor in the year of the five emperors, Didius Julianus is dead. Very briefly, ill-favoured senator. So Severus marches into the Senate House, the courier, with sword drawn with his legion, says, I'm the emperor. And the senators say, absolutely you are.

Not a problem. So he's the emperor. So he beats everyone to it, which is important, first mover advantage. Yeah. Does he fight his two great mates, are your old campaigning buddies? So it's 193, and we're going to go all the way through to 197 before he's absolutely secure. on the throne. So he's the emperor. The family all do settle in the Imperial Palace on the Palatine Hill. Start rebuilding Rome in their image in actual fact. The North African takeover,

the reset, or the hostile takeover begins. But you've still got in place Albinus in London, and you've still going to place Niger in Antioch in Syria. So the very clever, very canny, Severus makes, Albunus is Caesar Jr. Emperor. So he's out of play at the moment. And then he concentrates on the east. So he mounts a campaign in 194, 195, defeats and kills Niger and then begins, remember this is a, by this point in his career is a seasoned veteran warrior. And he never forgets that the military got him into power. So he's always on campaign from this point. So he invades Parthia. But he receives word that Albinus has found out Sebrus has been playing him and has declared himself Emperor again.

So he went up with Sebrus having to hot foot it through Anatolia along the Danube gathering legionaries. Along the Rhine gathering legionaries, going all the way along the Rhine, while Albunus is now in Gaul, going to Lyon, because he knows that if he goes to Lyon where Severus married Julie Domna and Caracalla was born, Severus can't ignore that. So Severus and Albinus have this titanic battle, the Battle of Lugdunnam in 197, where Cassius Dio says there are 300,000 troops involved. That's a lot done. That's only 30,000 less than the entire military establishment of the Roman world. probably looking at maybe 100, 150,000 in total. So it's the biggest... Bigger than the Battle of Caney, for example. Absolutely, yeah.

It's the biggest Civil War battle in the Roman history. And it's a two-day affair. They were lucky the old Germans weren't interested in all the Huns, weren't busy attacking across the Danube at the Rhine at the time, my name? They were being bought off, probably. And always the arena beckons. And the Lions, remember, and the Severus story, the Lions play a big part.

So, so two-day battle, and Severus almost loses. He actually falls off his horse twice. and the second time apparently badly damages his leg. And many people believe based on the primary sources that he suffered from very bad gout, certainly towards the end of his life. But the chances are actually, he may well have actually very badly damaged his leg then

and it wasn't set properly. So that's what the injury was he carried for the rest of his life. But he won. That's the key thing he won. And so, of course, Albinus is beheaded. Severus gets on his charger and sort of prances over him saying, I'm the boss, etc.

Then Severus does something very, very important for where we are right now recording this pod. So he needs to bring Britain back into the imperial fold. Okay. So he sends, this is 197, he sends some of his leading generals to Britain. And remember the three British legions at that time, two Augusta 6 victrix and 20 Valeria victricks, they've been fighting in Gauls, so they've been butchered in this battle they've lost. So they start rebuilding the legions because they're certainly back in play by the time Severus comes 10 years later. But they also need to send a message to the provincial capital, London, who the boss is.

So it is those generals who order the Londoners to build the first land wall of London. The Severan land wall, which is the Roman Wall of London, which becomes the medieval wall of London, to this very day delineating the city of London, the financial powerhouse of the modern world. And why does Severus build a wall around London? I thought because there was some external threat. Because it's monumental. Oh, is that right? It's a statement saying, if I can do this,

you think what's going to happen to you if you misbehave again. It's always there as a reminder to them. And we know it's not a defensive circuit because the river wall's not built for another hundred or so years. So it's there basically as a statement. There's no external threat there. It's a statement. And I just love the idea you have this dark-skinned emperor

from North Africa speaking with a punic accent who physically demarcates modern London, and the financial powerhouse of Europe. Fantastic. You listen to Dan Snow's history. Don't go anywhere. There's more to come. So we've dealt with Niger.

We've dealt with Albinus. He's now the emperor. He is the emperor. He's he on campaign. He's trying to expand the empire. Why are we remembering him as a great warrior? not just for this victory at Lugdonum. Firstly, he hates Rome. Right. And he also hates the senators. In fact, he's famously on his deathbed when he dies in York later, we'll discuss. He tells his

son's Karakala and Gita, like each other, be nice to each other, like the military, be nice to the military, be nice to the military, and ignore everybody else. So sod, everybody else, basically. So he's a military man through and through. He hates the senators. And when he defeats Albinus and he defeats Niger, about 100 each time are executed without trial. because they've supported the loser, and then he appropriates their wealth. And a lot of it's not sent to the Imperial Fiscus treasury, but goes into the Severum back pocket.

And he doesn't care. He doesn't care who knows it. He doesn't try to hide it. And he's only in Rome as Emperor four times and then only for a matter of months. But the bizarre thing is, if you go to Rome today, the physical presence of the classical world in Rome today,

a third of it's Severan. Yeah. So the Palatine Hill, where the Imperial Palace, that's severance. That's severan. And then there's obviously the monumental arch. That Severin celebrating his victory will come to in a minute with his second campaigning path, yeah.

The Arch of the Argentarian, the Forre and Boreum, is Severin. Interestingly, by the way, has an image of Severus and Julie Domner on it, and they would have seen this, and Julie Domner's a lot taller than Severus. So she's probably a lot taller than Severus. And we've filmed in the Colosseum, haven't we? And if you go to the top layer of the Coliseum, that's the Severn rebuild. The Forumurbis marble map of Rome, which is on the Chilean Hill and the Museum now. That's Severan.

So Rome is benefiting or certainly being beautified by all this money by Severus, but he's not necessarily going there. This is a man who's become the emperor at the point of a sword, who's fought off all comers, tooth and nail, is not going to let go, and everyone wants to demonstrate their loyalty to him, because if they don't, they're going to get chopped or sent to the arena, right? So everywhere he goes, he's monumentalised, not just with the wars in London, not just in Rome, literally everywhere he goes. he doesn't like Rome. He likes being on campaign. Does he feel like a shark need to keep some oxygen going through the gills? He needs that constant flow of military victories so justified to solidify his position. Severus is a great white shark. I love that. Okay. It's absolutely spot on, devouring anybody who gets in his way. I'm often asked when I'm doing tours, and I'm talking about Cerrus why I like him. And actually, I find it difficult to answer

the question, because actually, he's not only one of the mightest Roman emperors, but he's also very brutal, and he's avaricious as well. But being a military historian, I can just look at his career, and I can see a great, great military leader there. And the next thing he does, of course, is one of the few Roman emperors to do something that is really mighty and extraordinary. He takes on the huge Parthian Empire. Graveyard of great Romans in the past. Absolutely. People who failed there spectacularly, Krasis, spectacularly. Mark Antony, etc. Many Romans have tried to campaign against the Parthians have failed. And roughly speaking, what's this modern-day sort of bits of Iraq and Iran? Where is that the world in empire? So you're looking at probably eastern Syria,

Iraq and parts of southern Iran. And symmetrically, it's on a paris with the Roman military. So when the Parthians fight the Romans, it's not a guaranteed win. It's one of the reasons why when you get a new Roman dynasty and they want some martial glamour, like, let's say Vespasian and the Flavians, where'd you

pick a fight? You could pick a fight with the Parthians because they're always there, but you might lose. So they always pick Northern Britain. Because they can guarantee they're going to get a win. But Severus wins. He picks a fight with the Parthians, and he wins. He's massively successful. He sacks the capital. On the tiger is Tessifon, one of the few Roman emperors to do this.

So for him, in his head, the martial emperor, that's a tick. Job done. So he defeats Imperial Rome's most intransigent enemy on the eastern frontier. Extraordinary. If you want to look for a nemesis for the Romans at any time throughout the entirety of the Roman Empire, it's the Parthians and later in the same space that's the Sassanid Persians. And he's done it. So it's a tick.

So the next thing he does is he decides to have a parade through his home territory, spends time in Antioch, spends time in Egypt, and that's when the Severin Tondo, this portrait is actually created when he's in Egypt. But then he goes through North Africa. And I extensively travel in Roman North Africa, and nearly every place you go to all the cities have, again, a monumentalised Severan presence. So if you go to beautiful Jamila in the Atlas Mountains in Algeria, the forum is Severan, there's a Severan arch to Caracalla,

the temple to the imperial cult is Severin, etc. It's all severan. And what you can see is, word goes round to all these places as he goes from east to west that the boss is on the way and they'll go, Christ, we better get some stuff done. Let's get cracking. Oh, right, get all the slaves out there, chink, chink, chink, chink, and then Severus arrives and oh, this is nice. This is nice. And there's also, with Severus himself, a type of monument, which is named after him called a septizonium. So the Roma's like running water wherever they go. And one of the features that they have in their world, we don't in ours, is an infeum.

So it's a nice place with tinkling water on various levels. A public drinking founder doesn't even do justice. It's a gigantic public water. Water feature. Absolutely. Severus has his own versions called Septuazonium's done. There's a huge one about 10 stories high

which he builds at the foot of the Palatine Hill in Rome where the Via Appia which goes past the Bass of Caracalla and other Severn building it's the first thing

you see as you approach the Palatine Hill. It's this 10 story high Mimphaeum called the septusonium. A lot of medieval and Renaissance Rome is built from stone from it because various popes used

it as a sort of a quarry. But also you find septusoniums across North Africa where he's been, because obviously word gets round, there's even a reference to a septusonium in Roman Leicester. Really? Absolutely.

Oh, if that survived. If that survived, what a beauty. So you're going through North Africa, he's travelling around the empire. Like Hadrian, I mean, emperors did a lot travelling in this period. He's defeated the threat in the east. What's next on his agenda? Well, Severus has done one of two things, which the poet Horace says that if Augustus, the first emperor,

the really big guy in the Roman world, Augustus, not Caesar in the Roman world, it's Augustus. The senior emperor is called an Augustus, the junior emperor is the Caesar, right? So this is about Augustus now. Horace at the turn of the first century AD, writes a poem in which he says, Augustus will only be a god if he conquers the pesky, Persians and the Brits. Ah, on either side. Persians on one side, Brits on the other. And Severus, job done.

One tick. He's already dealt with the Persians, the Parthians. Okay. So no other Roman emperor could claim to have achieved this. So Severus knows that if he can do the other thing, the pesky Brits, then he'll have achieved something which even the great Augustus didn't achieve. At this stage, there is a Roman province in Britain covering much of what is to England and Wales, but what we call Scotland today unconquered.

Let's be absolutely clear to the listeners. The Romans never fully conquered the far north of Britain, except very briefly on two occasions. The first occasion was under a grickler fighting for the Flavians and he was called back having conquered the far north all the way to the Moray Firth by Domitian. So the Romans come back

and the line goes onto the Solway Firth time becomes Hadrian's war. And then Severus also, as we'll discuss, also at the point he died, thought he'd also achieved it, but again we'll discuss because he died in York in 2.11 it was never firmly set in place.

So apart from very briefly on those two occasions, the far north is never conquered in Britain, which means that Britain, especially the north and the west, is a real place of difference in the Roman world because it has a very large military presence. I estimate about 12% of the whole military establishment in what's only 4% of the geographic area of the Principate Empire, which bends the economy in the north,

particularly where most of the military are based, to supporting the military. That's why I don't think there's any love loss between the Romano Britons living in the north of modern England and the Romans, and certainly not in the far north above Hadrian's wall. This feels like a frontier province. Absolutely, yeah.

I always call it the wild west. It's the wild west of the Roman Empire. And Severus determined to do something about that. He is, and this is Severus. I call it the Severin surge. So we're in the year 207. And in 2007, Severus gets word from Senesio, the governor in Britain, that there's trouble.

And the wording of the message Severus gets is in Rome at the time. He's very specific. He says the province, the whole province, the whole province is about to be overrun. Wow. Not the north, the whole province. We need you all reinforcements. And Severus doubles down.

He does both. So I call it, as I say, the severance surge takes place. So Severus goes to York in 207, 208, and turns York into the imperial capital of the Roman Empire for the last three years of his life. He takes the imperial family with him, so Julie Domino's with him, Caracalla and Gita are with him. takes part of the Senate, takes a huge chunk of the Fiscus Treasury. So York truly is, for the last three years of his life, the capital of the Roman world. That's where the empires are ministered from. To make sure his territories are secure, for the final time, he replaces anybody who is a provincial

governor or a legate who he doesn't trust with a North African, family members or North Africans. So by this time, the Severus reset to the Roman Empire, Severan reset, really has taken place. And he's now in York, and then he accrues an army of 50,000. men. So that's the largest force to ever campaign on British territory. You know, this is an emperor who is all about superlatives, the largest armoured campaign in Britain, the largest civil war battle in the Roman world, largest amount of territory in the Roman world, more legions than anybody else. And everything is monumentalised as well, and we see it today. To the extent where,

when he repairs Hadrian's wall before the campaign, there are so many inscriptions recording it for Severus that until the 19th century, it was called the Severan Wall. And it was only later that people realised it was Adrian's wall. So he's there, he's in York, he's ready. And it just shows how tough the north of Britain is, that it's not easy. I've come to the view that there's something more to the reason why the Romans didn't conquer the far north than the cost and the fact it wasn't economically viable. I think certainly the lowlands of Scotland would have been economically viable. If you go to Fife, some parts of the Scottish borders, up in Midland Valley, it's beautiful agricultural territory, etc. So I don't think it's that.

the Romans had provinces not because it was nice but because they wanted to rinse them dry of every single penny they could get and stick it in the imperial treasury or in Severus's case into the severan back pocket to do that the local elites had to buy into the Roman world

to run the show for the Romans and in the far north they weren't interested I just think the people in the region we call today modern Scotland just weren't having it they were not interested at all So that cost the Romans, a huge amount in terms of manpower and cost to do it. That's why Severus wanted his second tick to beat Augustus,

because he could be the first one to actually sort them out. This is Dan Snow's history here. More after this. And how does he go about doing that? He fights mild by bloody mile, doesn't he? It's an absolutely brutal campaign. Firstly, actually, reading the primary sources, it was terrible weather. And one of the reasons why the people in the far north

may have been causing problems is they may have had a harvest shot, so they may have had a famine or something like that. So it's terrible campaigning conditions, but nevertheless, in 2009, Severus launches his first campaign. He in Caracalla,

with Gita and Julie Domna staying in York to run the empire. I always think Julie Domina and Severus are a real power couple, She plays a huge role in this story. So Severus and Caracalla take all 50,000 men through the Scottish borders and they eviscerate everything before them. It's 50,000 men.

The largest marching camps ever built in the Roman world are the 70 hectare ones, which are in the Scottish borders. And if you look at the Severum phase of one of the Staingate Frontier Fort, Finderlander, the very famous one, you have the Antonine Fort removed and the platform used to create a street grid around which you get round Iron Age British houses built and one theory there is that that's a concentration camp for captives

or it's a holding camp for people being forced to work on the reconstruction of Hagen's wall all capture from the Scottish borders and the force gets to the fourth it gets to the 1st of 4th which is modern Edinburgh Glasgow people know that's a central belt and then they build a bridge of boats

do they yeah so if you look at Trajan's column you see the bridge of boats over the Danube if that's exactly what we're looking at here. I estimate it's probably 700 boats that needed and they're all made of fresh. Don't forget the Navy, the Classes Britannica, is playing a key role in this campaign as well.

So their ships aren't used for the bridge of boats. These are newly built boats. 700 to cross the fourth. Severus has got its brilliant campaign strategy and it's almost unstoppable. There's no meeting engagement in this campaign as you get with Mons Graupius and Agricler. There's none.

So no big big battle. It's all guerrilla warfare because I don't think the natives are allowed to coalesce. Severus sends Caracalla, with two-thirds of the army, including, I think, probably the three British legions, because they know the territory well, and they go along the highland line and seal off all the glens, building Glenblock forts, and eventually they reach Stonehaven. The Clattis Britannica is raiding around the coast, so anybody in the Midland Valley, and Fife is now trapped, trapped. And then at that point, Severus launches his own strike with a third of the force, and this is the elite force. it's got the Praetorian Guard.

Severus recreated the Praetorian Guard when he became the Emperor with his own veterans from the Danube twice his strength. So again, monumentalising this case manpower, 5,000 Praetorian Guards becomes 10,000. He's got the Praetorian Guard,

he's got his own pet legion. Legio 2, Parthaca, one of his three legions. That follows him around. That's his pet legion. It's got the Imperial Guard, cavalry, and equivalent number of auxiliaries. So that force crosses the bridge of boats,

and that goes through Fife, and that reaches the Tay. And when they get to Carpool on the Tay, They build another bridge of boats, and that allows them to launch themselves into the soft underbelly of native British resistance, and it's brutal, but effective. And so it takes a couple of seasons, but you're saying by the end of that, he does successfully conquer what we call Scotland today. At the end of 209, he thinks he's won, right? So the natives agree a piece. He and Caracalla take the name Britannicus, because they won. Coins are minted to show that they've been victorious. Severs goes back to York. He leaves the garrisons in place. He thinks he's conquered it.

Certainly the Scottish lowlands, as we call them today. Severus doesn't go, by the way, into Aberdeenshire. It doesn't go north of Stonehaven because he doesn't think he needs to. But over the winter, the native Britons, and by this time two confederations called the Mighty A and the Caledonians, they realize the Romans aren't going home. It's not a raid. This is a real deal. So they rebel, and it's a big mistake. because Severus goes potty, right? And he launches his 2-10 campaign under Caracallicus, he's too ill to go on it. And before he does, Cassius Dio has him tell his soldiers

to kill everybody you come across, even the baby's in their mother's wounds. And the whole campaign's repeated. It's equally successful, but it does appear as though a genocide occurred because the archaeological record shows that for the next sort of like few decades, there's a huge depopulation event in the region of the modern Scottish lowlands.

And Scotland, the region of modern Scotland, the far north of Britain, more or less disappears from the historical record for about 70-odd years. And you're going through to probably the carousing revolt in 286 before you get it sort of appearing again as part of the narrative. So at the end of the second campaign in 210, that is job done. Well, in the words, Tastas, he made a desert and called it peace. I mean, do you think depopulated, just destroyed landscape and, well, yeah, genocide taking place? Absolutely. But it didn't really help him, did it? Because he's back in York over the winter in 210. And if you look at any Roman engagement in the far north of Britain, to succeed, it needs a political imperative to drive it. So I greekler with the Flavians until Domitian lost interest. Here, Severus dies in the freezing cold of a British winter in Northern Britain in York. If you look at Roman York, it was originally the legionary fortress built by nine Hispana and later occupied by six victricks. In the central

of any Roman legionary fort or fort, you have the Principia commander's headquarters in the Praetorium house. So almost certainly the Imperial Palace was the Praetorium, which today is the undercroft in York, Minster. So if you stand in the undercroft of York, Mincey, you may well be standing next to where Severus died. Certainly in February 2.11, this mighty Roman emperor, born in the blistering heat of a North African spring to the richest family and the richest part of the Roman Empire, dies in the freezing cold, freezing cold of a British winter in York. he dies thinking he's done it. He dies thinking he's beaten Augustus,

because he's beaten the Parthians, tick, and he's beaten the Britons, tick. And he looks like he's leaving a line of succession as well. He's that other tricky Roman imperial problem. Dan, it all goes wrong very quickly. Ah, well, I don't say. So I very quickly run through what happens, and then we can talk about Karokar and Gita.

But if you look at all the other seven emperors, they're all killed. So he dies in his bed. Caracalla is about to kill Gita. Caracalla is assassinated in the 2017 having a peer against the tree in the east So Caraccarat the next emperor is assassinated

And then Macrinus who was the Praetorian prefect who was behind Caracalla being killed He's assassinated And then you have Eliagabulus who's assassinated with his mum And then you have Severus Alexander Who's assassinated with his mum So it's also not a good thing to be a mum with an emperor

But the later Severans And then you have the crisis of the third century The Roman Empire almost implodes And it's only drag kicking and screaming back into a fulfilling existence by the great Diocletian 284. And you have the Dominate Empire then. So Severus is the peak of the Severin dynasty. It all goes wrong.

And it all goes wrong because Caracalla and Gita hate each other. Yeah, that's interesting. So Severus, yes, it extends the empire. It's the last Roman Empire to add new territory to the empire. Yeah. As you say, everything's supersized, all the superlatives. But is there something in that reign? Is there something, is that decline of Rome that lots of people trace to that point at his

death. Did he do something to bring that about as well? Or is it just bad, like his kids were incompetent hating each other? I actually think, actually, there is something in that. He's a hardband emperor who has his fist over the Roman Empire, and he's physically controlling it, and he's reset it in a North African way. He's got his own placement in power across the empire and in Rome, to the extent, by the way, where it stays all the way through the seven period, quite stable apart from the emperors being assassinated. But you need him as a person, It must have had an incredible physical presence, almost terrifying, actually, to hold it together. And as soon as he's gone, there's no one to hold it together.

And Caracalla and Gita, so Severus is cremated, his ashes are put into a blue urn. Intrigingly, that means he must have bought the urn with him, so he knew he was ill and might die in Britain. And then Caracallor and Gita separately raced themselves back to Rome, because Severus has tried very hard to get the two of them to actually be diarch emperors like Marx or really. and Lucius Verus, but they hate each other. And they get back to Rome, squabble a lot, the Roman administration is glued up. And at the end of the year, Caracalla allegedly has Gita assassinated or kills him himself in the Imperial Palace on the Palatine Hill, with Gita bleeding to death in Julia Domna's arms. Bleeding to death in Julia Domna's arms. So Caracalla becomes the emperor. But even when Gita was alive,

neither had any interest in the far north of Britain or Britain, full stop. So exactly the same as with agricular at the end of the first century. Once the political imperative's gone, the line of the northern frontier drops again, and in this case back onto the line of Hager's wall again, that's the last time the Romans tried to conquer the far north of the rim. So in your opinion, you'd put Severus up against any other warrior emperor and he'd come out with victorious. Well, firstly, that's a tough question, okay?

But the answer is, yes. Tough question, yes. We always get a stray answer on this podcast. No shilly shallying around. Yeah, Severus. Ooh, Trajan versus Severus, Rome's ultimate showdown. I think Cerrus is definitely... For me, Severus was definitely

the greater military commander, yeah. Simon, thanks for coming around the podcast. In fact, you've got a book all about this if people want to find out more, don't you? Absolutely. It's coming out in September called The African Emperor through Icon Books and through Belinda Audio. Thank you for having me on, Dan.

Always love talking to you. Always a pleasure. Thanks, mate. Thank you.