The Ancients - Septimius Severus

Episode Date: March 9, 2023

Given his incredible career, you'd perhaps expect the name of Roman Emperor Septimius Severus to be better known. Born in North Africa in 145AD, he rose to power after distinguishing himself as a military commander at a time of great instability in the Roman Empire. Finally bringing the Year of the Five Emperors to an end, Severus was in power for nearly two decades - so how did he end up perishing in York?In this episode, Tristan welcomes back author (and Severus' unofficial 21st Century biographer) Dr Simon Elliot. Together, they explore the life and legacy of Septimius Severus - looking at his impact on the history of Ancient Rome, as well as the bloody events surrounding his campaign in Scotland, and asking how one of the most powerful men in the world was eventually bought down.For more Ancients content, subscribe to our Ancients newsletter here. If you'd like to learn even more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - enter promo code ANCIENTS for a free trial, plus 50% off your first three months' subscription.

Hi, I'm Tristan Hughes, and if you would like the Ancient ad-free, get early access and bonus episodes, sign up to History Hit. With a History Hit subscription, you can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries, including my recent documentary all about Petra and the Nabataeans, and enjoy a new release every week. Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com slash subscribe. It's the Ancients on History Hit. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host, and in today's episode, we're talking about an absolutely brutal, terrible figure. A warrior emperor of ancient Rome, a man who reigned in the late 2nd and early 3rd centuries AD, who also proved one of the most significant Roman emperors too, who also originated from North Africa and died in York. His name was Septimius Severus. And in today's episode, we've got a fan favourite of the ancients returning to tell Severus's story. He is Septimius Severus's 21st century biographer. It's none other

than Dr. Simon Elliot. Simon's been on the pod before, as I've mentioned. He's talked through topics on Roman history, varying from Corosius, the pirate king, to the mystery and the many theories behind what happened to Legio IX Hispana, to Rome's 9th Legion. But now Simon is back to talk through the story of Septimius Severus, one of his favourite figures from ancient Roman history. And as you're going to hear, the story of Severus, well, it very much is an ancient Game of Thrones. It is brutal. It is bloody, but it is also really extraordinary. And no doubt you're going to love it. So without further ado, to talk through the

story of Septimius Severus, here's Simon. Simon, good to have you back on the podcast, my friend. Tristan, it only seems like yesterday when I was recording another podcast with you. So it's fantastic to be back on. I love working with you guys at History Hit, as you know. I know, we get you back on and it's easy for me because I can just sit back and enjoy as you talk, my friend. And this one, well, Septimius Severus. It's about time we focused on a Roman emperor on

the Ancients podcast. It's been some time. And Septimius Severus, Simon, this seems to be the story of one of the most important warrior emperors of ancient Rome. It's probably actually, Tristan, the story of one of the most important human beings who's ever lived. If you look at the story of Septimius Severus, it's completely swamped with superlatives. So to give you an entry point, Septimius Severus was from Leptis Magna in North Africa, so he was African. And because he was the emperor of the Roman Empire when the empire was, I would argue, at its height, he was the most powerful African who ever lived. Secondly, Septimius Severus was a black man. So I would argue he was probably the most powerful black man who ever lived. You could argue Barack Obama may have been, but you're looking at nuancing there.

I'd argue he was the most powerful black man who ever lived. And then if you want to look at his place in popular culture, which is an area where no one's really examined it to date, although that may change shortly, in terms of popular culture, the story of Septimius Severus is the real sequel to the movie Gladiator. You know, Wacking Phoenix dies, Commodus is dead at the end of the movie Gladiator. Well, you know that within six months, actually, Septimius Severus, at the point of a sword, became the Roman emperor and then stayed the Roman emperor at the point of a sword throughout his entirety in power. Well, Simon, you kind of hinted at what the first question would

be which is of course set the context of the time period that we're talking. So late second century we've got names such as Commodus. What is the situation in the Roman Empire in those years before Severus rises to power? So a brief bit of background for our listeners Tristan. So the Roman world I split it into when I'm writing my books on the Roman world, into three different time periods. So the Roman Republic through 27 BC, when Augustus becomes the first Roman emperor. And then you have the Principate phase of the Roman empire, which runs through to AD 284, when Diocletian becomes the emperor. And then the Dominate, the late phase, which ends with the fall of the Western empire in 476. So this is in the Principate phase of empire. And it's in the middle phase of the

principate empire before you have the devastating later crisis of the third century so therefore the roman empire is at its height and you've just gone through a really lengthy period actually of stability you've had the reigns of the great warrior emperor trajan the reign of hadrian antoninus pius and then the diarchy with Lucius Verus and Marcus Aurelius. And the empire throughout much of that period until you get to the diarchy is doing really well. The empire is fairly stable and then things start happening. Principally you have the Roman Parthian War from 161 and then you have the Marcomannic Wars. The Marcomannic Wars are obviously the ones which are referenced with the Russell Crowe in Gladiator. And that actually is

a series of very severe conflicts where the Roman empire struggles and the king of the mark of marnie ends up leading his troops actually onto the coast of northeastern italy to quella so therefore this is a really serious event and it sends sort of vibrations and schisms through the roman empire and ultimately you have marx aurelius the final of the two, with Lucius Ferris dying, and then his son Commodus becomes the emperor. Commodus is probably, I would argue, the worst Roman emperor of them all. He's mad and bad at the same time. The way he's played by Joaquin Phoenix, I love it actually, because there's a real flavour of the psychotic narcissist, actually, which I think Commodus really was. It's no surprise that when Morgs Aurelius dies in his will, he leaves 40 named individuals, all very senior patricians, there to help guide his son because he knows his son's

going to struggle. And his son does struggle. And ultimately, by New Year's Eve 192-193, he's got the backs up of all the elites in Rome and he's assassinated. This begins the year of the five emperors. And so who is the person who immediately rises to power in the year of the five emperors and so who is the person who immediately rises to power in the year of the five emperors it's a really interesting figure actually somebody i've written a book about pertinax so pertinax was actually very important to the story of septimius severus because he was septimius severus's mentor every major posting that severus went to we'll talk about later pertinax in some way shape or form was above him in helping him. So Pertinax was the city prefect in Rome at the time when Commodus dies.

And the Praetorian prefect and Court Chamberlain go to him. This is on New Year's Eve 192-193. And Pertinax thinks he's going to be assassinated because many of his colleagues have been assassinated by Commodus. But actually he's shocked to find that they've come to ask him to take the throne because Commodus has been assassinated. So Pertinax becomes the first emperor in the Year of the Five Emperors. But he only lasts three months because actually he's a very honorable man. And he actually wants to model himself on the philosopher Emperor Marcus Aurelius.

And he refuses to pay a bribe effectively to the Praetorian Guard which they demand at the end of January 193 and he says no and they come back at the end of February 193 and he says no and they say well you better pay or we'll kill you and he still says no so they come back at the end of March 193 and they kill him so you end up with a power vacuum with a number of candidates stepping up principally Didius Julianus but hanging like a sword of Damocles, principally Didius Julianus. But hanging like a sword of Damocles, you have Septimius Severus in Pannonius Superior on the Danube who drops down onto Rome in a lightning strike, leading his legions into the Forum Romanum.

And he basically becomes the emperor at the point of a sword towards the end of 193 and then stays there until his death in York in 211. So just to rewind a bit there, Simon. So before Personx is assassinated Severus and Pertinax they already have this connection they've been helping each other so I mean what commands has Pertinax allowed Severus to gain in those years previously then? It's probably worthwhile if I go through a very brief and I promise it's brief biography

of Severus and probably take a minute, but in so doing, I can slot in there for you where Pertinax actually is relevant, and then it sets the scene for what comes later. So you have Severus born on the 11th of April, 145, in Lipsis Magna in North Africa. Then on the 4th of February, AD 211, he dies in York at the age of 65. He's the founder of the Severan dynasty. On his career path from the time he was born in 145, he joins the Senate in 117. He's very clever and very canny and makes sure that at every stage of his career progression along the Cursus and Aurum, he knows exactly what he's doing. So he joins the Senate in AD 170. AD 175 meets his first wife, Pacchiamarziana. They get married,

but there's no children. In 180, he meets Pertinax for the first time because he gets promoted to his first major military command, which is to be the legionary legate, so the general in charge of Legio for Scythica, which is in Syria. And at the time, Pertinax is the governor of Syria. So Pertinax takes him under his wing. And it's here, by the way, when Severus is in Syria, that he meets the real love of his life, while he's still married actually to his first wife who is Julia Domna. Now in AD 182 Severus then moves back to Rome which is where his first wife Pacimartiana dies and then Severus gets promoted again and this time to become the governor of his first province and this province is Gallia Lugdunensis which is a huge province it's the middle stretch of Gaul, all the way through from the Channel Islands through to the Alps.

And its capital is Lugdunum, modern Lyon. And that's where he becomes the governor. And there he calls Julia Domna over from Syria, where he met her and they get married. And within a year, Caracalla is born. And then within another year, Gita is born. Caracalla, his eldest son, Gita, his youngest son. And then while he's there, Pertinax himself is then promoted to be the governor of Britain.

So you can almost see the two of them just across the channel communicating and Pertinax keeping a close eye on Severus. Severus is in his first posting as a governor. Pertinax has done a number by this time. And then later in 190, Pertinax gets promoted to become the city prefect in Rome. And at the same time, Severus gets promoted to become the governor in another major province, this time a vital frontier province, which is Pannonia Superior on the Danube. And that's where they both are at the point where Commodus dies. Severus is in Pannonia Superior and Pertinax is in Rome.

Right. And then with Pertinax's assassination, Severus comes storming down with the legions into Rome itself, almost taking the emperorship by the tip of a spear, by the tip of the sword. But he's not the only one, is he, in wanting to now claim the emperorship. So the Year of the Five Emperors is a misnomer in a sense, because actually what it indicates is that it was the beginning of a civil war. So two of the five actually are rivals for the

throne at the same time that severus seizes the throne himself and severus has to then spend the next few years fighting off these rivals so the rivals are in britain clodis albinus who's the governor i love the fact that you have a governor of britain called albinus and then in the east you have pescania niger who's the governor in syria the new governor of syria now they're both actually good generals in their own right with hugely important reputations amongst the Roman aristocracy. Both had fought in the Marcomannic Wars, has had Severus, has had Pertinax. Now Pertinax is dead, Severus has now become the emperor and he has to deal with the two, the rivals. So he's very clever, Severus. Every aspect of his career progression is clever,

So he's very clever, Severus. Every aspect of his career progression is clever, almost like he felt he was born to greatness. So firstly, he makes Clodius Albinus in Britain his Caesar, the junior emperor. He takes the title Augustus, the senior emperor. And for a time, Clodius Albinus buys it. I think it's clearly a conceit, to be perfectly honest, but he buys it, which allows Severus to campaign primarily in the east to start with so he has to deal with the opponent he's got in the east which is Pescenia and Asia and he goes there and defeats

him in a major set piece battle then begins a war against the great rivals of the Romans in the east the Parthians the Persians but while he's there in 196 remember he becomes the emperor in 193 while he's there in 196 he receives word that Clodius Albinus has wised up to the fact that he's been made a fool of. And the key tell, the key giveaway, which makes Clodius Albinus realise that actually Severus is taking him for a fool, is Severus very publicly not only makes Albinus his Caesar, but later then very, very publicly makes Caracalla and Gita, his sons, his Caesars also. So Clodius Albinus sees the writings on the wall and that's the point when Clodius Albinus then decides he's going to come with all three British

legions so two Augusta from Caerleon by this time six Victrix from York and 20 Valeria Victrix from Chester it brings them all and equivalent number of auxiliaries to Gaul, also manages to convince a Spanish legion to join him as well. And the four legions then start marching towards central Gaul. And Severus gets word of this while he's fighting in the east, and he realises that he's in danger of losing Rome if he's not careful. So he has to then come back himself from the east, and he comes via the Danube, gathering the Danubian legions on the way. And you end up with a titanic battle, which I know you know a lot about as Autriste in the battle of Lugdunum,

Lyon which is probably the largest battle in the history of the Roman Empire with 300,000 men allegedly involved if you were to believe some of the primary sources probably more likely 150,000 men involved but nevertheless an enormous battle which Severus only just wins over two days by the skin of his teeth but he does win and he has Albinus beheaded and then he prances over the decapitated body on his charger ritually trampling it and from that point Severus I think has a downer on Britain. Severus has a downer on Britain as you say we're going to get back to that in time but there's so much more to Severus than just his military campaigns. I mean, if we want to focus now, he's now got rid of these rivals.

He is the emperor of this massive empire. What are his next steps, Simon? Does he start doing reforms to the empire? Or is he building great things? What's his next steps? The first thing to remember about Septimius Severus, Tristan, is that he was the ultimate military tough guy. He got power at the point of a sword.

He kept power at the point of a sword. And as you know, and will reflect later in the pod, his words on his deathbed to Caracalla and Gita when he died in York were, look after yourselves, which by the way, as we'll also cover, clearly failed, and also look after the military and ignore everybody else. While I'm giving that talk in public and not on a pod, I use a superlative that's more aggressive than military and ignore everybody else. Well, I'm giving that talk in public and not on a pod. I use superlative that's more aggressive than just saying ignore everybody else. So this is the ultimate military tough guy who stays in power at the point of a sword.

He hates the Senate. He hates dealing with Roman politics. He's negatively reflected by the likes of Cassius Dio, the senator himself, because he was very negative towards the Senate. He just wasn't interested in politics. And he tried to stay away from Rome as much as he could. So if we reflect on his military and political career, the next step is he has unfinished business, doesn't he?

His unfinished business is in the East. He's been fighting the Parthians. So he goes back. He's rear secure now. At that point, he's already sent military inspectors to Britain to bring it back into the imperial fold. He's happy with that. And we can come back to what happens in London as part of that event that event so he goes back to the east and there he fights at 198 199

a hugely successful hugely successful campaign against the parthians remember the parthians with their super heavy armored cataphract lancers and their highly skilled mounted archers are the most difficult opponents the romans could probably face before the Parthians themselves are replaced by the Sasanid Persians. I always say they're the nearest you'll have to a symmetrical threat to the Romans one-on-one. But Severus hammers them, absolutely hammers them out of sight. Launches a campaign down the Tyracus and Euphrates valleys, gets to Ctesiphon, the capital of the Parthian empire, and flattens it. Job done. And then Severus knows when to stop. Doesn't go all the way to the Persian Gulf. He basically, he's defeated the Parthians, job done,

goes back to within the empire, re-fortifies the limes in Syria and Arabia, extends them slightly, but he doesn't include a huge amount of new territory. He's very clever and very canny. His job's done, he's defeated the Parthians, the box is ticked. He then spends a couple of years having this fabulous journey through North Africa, through Egypt, through Kyrenia, through Libya, into modern Algeria. And having travelled in the region myself last year, everywhere you go in the amazing towns and cities in North africa they have this hugely impressive severan phase clearly as he approached all the town elders suddenly thought oh my god the boss is coming we better actually get everything spic and span so temples are built forums dedicated to severus archers built in his honor and they still exist today all these cities have a severan phase which is

principally what we see today, actually. Right, Simon, because that was what I was actually wanting to allude to in that previous question, you know, going away from the military things for a second. It is that monumental architecture, and you pointed, you've highlighted so well there, that this architecture seems to be largely in Roman North Africa. And do you think there is a, for example, places like Lepsis Magna where he grew up, there is a desire by Severus to ensure that places like that are greatly improved during his emperorship? I think there's a distinction here. So with Lepsis Magna, that's separate. That's where he was born. Remember Severus when he was born in Lepsis Magna. Lepsis Magna was the

richest place in the richest part of the roman empire it's very counterintuitive to us today when we we look at the world in which we live we see it through a very european northwestern european perspective actually but actually in the roman world north africa was the powerhouse it was the richest part of the empire it's also a powerhouse for the arts and a powerhouse for literature and a powerhouse for religion leptis magna was the center of it you know might not be in the capital that was carthage. Leptis Magna was the centre of it, you know, might not have been the capital, that was Carthage, but Leptis Magna was the richest part. Severus's dad was the richest person, well his granddad certainly was the richest person in Leptis Magna, so he was born into the richest part of the Roman Empire to the richest person

in the richest part of the Roman Empire. And by the way, let's reflect that he's a black man from North Africa as well, so for the Romans, I would argue that was not unusual at all. That's absolutely normal for the Romans. And so there's Severus and he's in Leptis Magna. And in Leptis Magna, he decides as he goes through, he's going to rebuild it in his image. So that's completely separate. This is him sending imperial grandeur to the place where he was born. And it becomes this fabulous, incredible place. Everywhere else he he goes to everywhere in the empire not just in north africa but everywhere in the empire there's a severum phase as everybody scrambles to impress the great warrior emperor and even in rome i can politically join the dots here very

briefly for you tristan his next move he gets dragged back to rome doesn't want to go from north africa goes back to rome doesn't stay very long as you know. While he's there, he rebuilds central Rome. If you go to the Imperial Palace, it's got the Severan buildings. I would argue about a third of the Imperial Palace on the Palatine Hill you see today is Severan. When you're on that viewing platform, the recreated viewing platform, that's the recreated viewing platform of Severus. So that's the view he and his family, Giulio Domino, Caracalla and G gita would have had looking down onto the circus maximus when you look to your left from that viewing platform into the heat and the shimmering heat in the distance you'll see the baths of caracalla well they actually were initiated by

severus and they were going to be his gift to rome they were going to be the baths of septimius severus and obviously the psychotic caracalla decided he named them after himself but they were the baths of Severus. When you go down to the Forum Romanum, the famous temple of Vesta for the Vestal Virgins, the version you see there was rebuilt by Julia Domna. So everywhere you go, even in Rome, with all its other emperors and before that the Republic,

it has a huge element from the Severan phase. And then we can talk about britain later i dare say but if you go to london the city of london today the square mile is defined by the medieval walls which are built on top of the roman walls which were built by septimius severus to tell the roman londoners what would happen to them because he was so good at monumentalizing himself if they misbehaved again so everywhere you you go, there's this unwritten story, which I'm passionate in telling because so few people know it, that there's an elephant in the room,

and the elephant in the room is Septimius Severus. And we definitely know that Severan link to Roman London very well, don't we? Having us both worked on a TV documentary project all about that a couple of years ago now. Certainly did. We certainly did. On Gone Medieval from History Hit, we set out to solve the biggest mysteries of the Middle Ages.

So many of these travellers who went out looking for Presta John, what did they think they were hearing? We explore cutting-edge research. Genetic signatures found in present-day Jewish populations were shared by the genetic ancestries we found. From everyday life to dynasty shattering events. It's a time when all the major Viking raids have started, which as Christians they think of as vengeance from heaven. And reveal the answers to centuries-old riddles. I stand up

straight in a bed, I'm hairy at my base and I make the ladies cry. The solution is an onion. I'm Dr Kat Jarman. And I'm Matt Lewis. Every Tuesday and Saturday, we'll explore some of the biggest stories, the greatest mysteries and latest research. Listen and follow on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Simon, I want to keep on roaming a little bit because I want to talk a bit more about military reforms. Now, Severus reforming the army, but also a particular unit in Rome, the Castra Praetoria, which is the Praetorian Guard. So talk to me about how Severus reforms this elite unit of his emperorship.

So there's a key word here Tristan, the key word is payback. Never cross Septimius Severus. So when Severus becomes the emperor in 193 he's drawn to Rome to revenge his mentor Pertinax. So Severus is drawn to Rome because Pertinax has been assassinated after three months in power for trying to do the right thing and he's assassinated by the Praetorian Guard. The Praetorian Guard are very interesting because often they are elite warriors and often they're not and it reflects the nature of the emperor and under Commodus they become not elite warriors. They're portrayed as being very of fate and living the high life in Rome and they just want to continue the good life and

Pertinax doesn't want them to so they assassinate him and he doesn't pay them the money they want either. So Severus comes to Rome and his first thing he does is he gathers the entire 5,000 members of the Praetorian Guard in the Forum Romanum has them strip naked all 5,000 of them and at this point they don't know what's going to happen to them he could he's got three legions maybe four with him so that's 25,000 men compared to 5,000 clearly rather a fake Praetorian Guards and his warriors by the way set the Severan warriors from the Danube are the elite soldiers in the Roman Empire at the time because they've just fought the Marcomannic Wars so they are the military tough guys fighting for the military tough guy emperor so he strips them naked but instead of killing them he basically banishes them to live the rest of their life 100 miles from Rome but then very cleverly everything

Severus does you know there's a reason it's, it's like he's got a plan, a textbook plan. He recreates the Praetorian Guard, but from his own Danubian veterans, so they are ultra loyal and ultra hard and tough. And he doubles the size. So he has 10,000 Praetorian Guards who are all completely loyal to him, not the ones who he inherited from Commodus. And that's the first of his reforms. not the ones who he inherited from Commodus. And that's the first of his reforms. And I argue in my various books on Severus that he's the first of the great reforming Roman emperors of the Principate.

And then you go into the dominating, you have the reforms of Diocletian and Constantine. But it all began, I think, with Severus. The classic image of the Roman legionary of the high Principate is going to be Lorica Segmentata, banded iron armour, imperial Gallic helmet, a couple of pillums, Gladius Hispaniensis sword, Poggio dagger, and the usual accoutrements that you'd see on any textbook

or any popular fiction book about... The big scutum shield. The big scutum shield, the big body shield, is exactly right. By the time Severus becomes the emperor, the Romans have been fighting mounted opponents more and more. They've been fighting Sarmatians who fought with the Marcomannian Quadi in the Marcomannic Wars. They're fighting the parthians who are nearly all

a mounted opponent so therefore the panoply of the severan legionary has begun to change and it's severus in some of his units that you see the introduction of a long spear to keep mounted opponents away replacing the pilum and it's under severus you see for the first time the replacement of the shorter stabbing fencing sword the gladius hispaniensis with a longer spatha cavalry sword which is a not only a stabbing sword but also a slashing sword all of that gives the legionary more reach or the auxiliary more reach you go even later probably into the post septimius severus phase of the severan dynasty you start at that point seeing the replacement also of the scutum with an oval or a round body shield,

which is more manoeuvrable than the very, very, very heavy scutum, which is specifically there to fight other opponents. This all begins, I think, this change, which is ultimately and finally manifest in the reigns of Diocletian and Constantine, begins with Severus. Well, there we go. So Severus, he kickstarts these

military reforms it's a massive military for reforms aren't they as well Simon they must take so much time to implement as well as you say this is just the start it takes many many years for him to fully implement but with his hardened army he's been in the east he's been to North Africa he's been dragged kicking and screaming back to Rome what leads him to this northwestern edge of the Roman Empire to Britain a story you know so well take it away how does he end up here and dying in York in the middle of winter yeah no spoilers no spoilers Simon come on I cannot emphasize in my research how much Septimius Severus loathed being in Rome he just literally couldn't wait to get away from Rome.

And also the drip feed of sort of scandalous narrative you get from the primary commentators is about Caracalla and Gita, who sort of are young men living in the shadow of this ultimate military hard man who's the emperor. By the way, he has more legions than any other Roman emperor as well, Severus, because for his eastern campaigns, he creates legios I, II, and III Parthica.

So he has 33 legions. No other Roman Emperor filled with 33 legions but Augustus managed with 27 after the three he lost in Teutoburg Forest so Severus has a bigger Roman army than even Augustus so Caracalla and Gita are living the high life in Rome you can join the dots he just wants to get them out of there because they're causing so much trouble they're very different characters as well you know Caracalla is a military hard man like Severus, but he doesn't have the real politic in him. And there's a real chance he was actually properly psychotic, especially given what happens later. Whereas Gita was a much more thoughtful individual,

much more into the arts, etc. And remember Julia Domna, the wife of this power couple of Severus and Julia Domna. She was a massive patron of the arts. In the Roman world, she was as powerful in her own way as Severus was. But despite that, Caracalla and Gaeta are creating mayhem and mischief, and Severus wants to get out of Rome. So he looks at what he can do. Now, any Roman emperor would, as you know, Tristan,

measure their success against not Julius Caesar who wasn't an emperor Caesar is the most important Roman to us today but to the Romans it wasn't to the Romans it was Augustus the first emperor so every Roman emperor given the chance if they lasted long enough would look at the achievements of Augustus and try and match those or better them and if they better them they could say I beat the great Augustus and there are two things which Augustus didn't do. And the poet Horace, writing at the turn of the first century BC, first century AD, says in a poem which is meant to be eulogising Augustus, the great Augustus will only be a god if he conquers the pesky Parthians, the Persians, and the pesky Britons. And Augustus did neither. So Severus has done one, he's defeated the Parthians, no other Roman emperor has conquered the far north of Britain.

The mission could claim through Agricola to have done so, but it was so fleeting that I don't think the Romans thought it counted. So Severus looks across the entirety of his world, most powerful man in his known world. Arguably, it's arguable, the most powerful man in the world at the time. What do I do to actually have my ultimate crown and glory? And he's in his 60s and he's got bad gout. He might be aware that he might not have long to live. He just wants to go out with the ultimate achievement, which is to conquer the

far north of Britain. So he decides to do it. In 207, he receives, allegedly, a letter from the governor in Britain, Senecio, saying the whole of Britain is in danger of being overrun, the whole province. It doesn't say the northern frontier, Hadrian's Wall at this time, is in danger. It's very specific. The whole province is in danger of being overrun by invaders from the far north, the bit of Britain which the Romans never conquered, modern Scotland. I need your help or I need reinforcements. And whether this was a setup by Severus or not, it's clearly a boon to him because he said, oh, brilliant, right, you can have both. So Severus goes himself and takes the largest campaigning force ever to fight on British soil. So you're

talking about 50,000 land troops and 7,000 naval troops. The nearest you'll get to that campaigning in Britain is probably in the Wars of the Roses, and it gets nowhere near to that. So this is the largest ever forced campaign in Britain. It's enormous. And ultimately, in 208, it gathers around York, which Severus turns into his imperial capital. So he doesn't just turn it into his campaign headquarters. He brings senior members of the senate he brings his imperial fiscus treasury and he brings julie domner caracalla and gita so he creates the capital city of the roman empire for this brief and it becomes a three-year period in york york for your listeners who know from the roman period north of the river ooze where the minstress today that was

the legionary fortress south of the river ooze that was the cannaba civilian settlement so he turns the fortress into the imperial capital and then he lives in the principia which is the headquarters building in the middle of the fortress and the praetorium which is the living quarters for the person running the fort in this case the emperor and he gathers around york 50 000 men he then launches two campaigns in 209 and 210 into Scotland, and it's brutal. It's absolutely brutal. You can imagine this monolithic force, like a glacier smashing its way through the Scottish borders.

Nothing can stand before it. There may be a chance that he turns some of the Roman forts to the south of Adrian's Wall into concentration camps. Soon he reaches the Forth, and when he's at the Forth, he builds a bridge of probably 900 boats, I estimate one of my books across the fourth then he divides his force into two and he gives caracal who's fighting with him gita stays with julie domner in york to run the empire remember to my point julie domner and severus are a power couple so for them it's not unusual for julie domner to be given while Severus is campaigning

the day-to-day job of running the empire. Severus is now on the 4th, divides his army into two. Caracalla gets two-thirds of it, so two-thirds of the 50,000. Severus gets one-third of it, probably including Legio II Parthica, his own pet legion, effectively, and the Praetorian Guard.

And then Caracalla grinds his way up the Highland Boundary Fault,alla grinds his way up the highland boundary fault up to stonehaven on the north sea coast and in so doing seals off the lowlands of scotland once that's done and at the same time by the way severus sends the classic britannica regional fleet to also seal off the coast once that's done there's nowhere for the natives in the far north to go they're trapped there's no evidence there was any set piece battle because they weren't allowed to gather then severus takes his third he crosses smashes straight through fife gets the carpool on the tay builds another bridge of boats maybe 400 boats crosses into the upper midland

valley so the lowlands proper there and then he smashes all the way through eviscerating everything before him and it's a brutal campaign the britain super peace at the end of 209. They all go back to York. Coins are minted. Everyone gets the name Britannica. Everything's great, except Tristan, that the native Britons aren't happy with the fact they've been so brutally treated. Clearly, and although they may have signed a peace treaty, they rebel over winter. And this time, Severus loses the plot, absolutely loses the plot. And allegedly he stands on a podium in front of his army at the beginning of the campaigning season in 210, uses a quote from Homer, from the Iliad, voicing Agamemnon, to explain why his troops have got to commit a genocide. He tells them to kill everybody you can get your hands on.

And the force goes back the campaigns fought in exactly the same way this time even if any quarter was given the first year in 209 this time there is no quarter given everybody is killed everybody is slaughtered and then there's no one to have a peace with and actually it, it looks as though, archaeologically, what we find now matches what the primary sources say. Because there's clearly a major depopulation event that takes place in the north of Scotland around this time. And it lasts for about 80 years.

You know, reforestation on agricultural land, settlements disappearing. Clearly, anybody who got into the highlands, they survived. But anybody in the lowlands, they were either killed or enslaved. And that's it. So Severus has done it. He's done something no Roman emperor has ever done. He's conquered the north of Scotland.

He goes back to York with Caracalla and Gita. But sadly, in February 211, his job done, he dies in the freezing cold of a British winter. So you think about this story arc of Severus, born in the spring, the heat of a North African spring, the blistering heat of a North African spring, into the richest family, the richest part of the Roman Empire, dying in the freezing cold of the wild west of the Roman Empire in York in 211. Simon, it's such a gripping, gruesome story. I want to keep a bit more on Severus in Northern Britain before we go to his death and the aftermath, quickly wrapping it all up. It is absolutely horrific, you know, that kind of

genocidal order, kind of almost feels like a reverse Boudicca when she and her warriors were killing everyone in sight in Colchester, London, all those centuries beforehand. And I think if I remember correctly, in one of the lowland brochs, these Iron Age houses in Scotland, which were built later than the ones further in the Highlands, that they did find a Roman spear or a ballista bolt or something in one of these brochs. So maybe that's evidence of one of these violent assaults. Just quickly on a question kind of regarding that, it's regarding the military landscape of that area of, well, Midland Scotland, I'm thinking like the Antonine Wall, but also going further down into Northern England with Hadrian's Wall too. How does Severus alter, how does his campaigns,

how does he transform this northern boundary of Roman Britain? How does he change those great frontiers like the Antonine Wall and like Hadrian's Wall? I personally think Severus planned to fully incorporate modern Scotland up to the Highland line, so the lowlands, into the Roman Empire, if he'd have survived. I think that's what would have happened. And there you'd have seen then something very different to today in that there would be full-scale remnant Roman stone built infrastructure, urban infrastructure in the lowlands of Scotland in a way that there isn't today. So we're left with two physical, main physical legacies of Severus and this campaign. One is that he did, as he got into the far north, re-fortify the

Antonine Wall and some of the forts there to give him sort of rear protection. And then on the way north, he did re-fortify Hadrian's Wall as well, below the Antonine Wall. And then clearly after Severus died and everybody went home, another phase of re-fortification went on with Hadrian's Wall as well. But they're the only two real legacies. And it's really interesting, isn't it, that if I go to one of my favourite places to go in the Roman Empire, Tristan's Corbridge, sort of in the shouting distance of Hadrian's Wall, which if you think about it, it's the farthest northern town in the Roman world, you know, by a long way, by the way. Well, that wouldn't be the case if Severus had survived. He died in February 211. If he hadn't have died, the story of the British Isles will be markedly different.

Let's go back to that wintry day in York. What happens next? So let's first reflect on a point I made earlier on his deathbed. Allegedly, he tells Caracalla and Gita, look after yourselves, look after the military and ignore everybody else. Remember remember I always use a bigger superlative instead of ignore because he was a gruff military man by the way Severus chose to keep his guttural localized North African accent this is the way it's described in the primary sources rather than have a cut glass Latin sort of Roman accent and he was educated in the finest place to be educated in Rome he chose to keep true

to his North African roots all the way through his life. And by the way, when he was campaigning in Britain, he knew that there might be trouble in other parts of the empire internally. So anybody he thought might cause trouble, he also replaced with North Africans. So he was North African to his very soul, and he went to his death as such as well. So he dies, and Caracalla and Rangiti can almost imagine them staring at each other across the funerary bed with Severus dead in front of them and they both slowly look towards the door look at each other look towards the door and they're off and they race each other literally from that point separately with their own entourages back to Rome and they're basically

hot footing it speeding along trying to get back to rome first because severus has said i want you to be the new diarchy like marcus or releasing lucius ferris but they're not interested in that at all especially the psychotic caracalla and they get back to rome and within a year probably by the end of the year in 211 we have caracalla in the imperial palace on the palatine hill probably in the rooms his father named the severum buildings stabbing or having stabbed gita to death who dies bleeding in julia domna's arms it's a tragedy simon it's an absolutely gruesome part of the story the immediate this is the immediate aftermath of severus's death as well isn't it almost completely everything that he's been aiming

for with trying to create a dynasty and that diarchy it just completely shatters with the characters who are his children with the psychotic potentially psychotic character of caracalla but severus's significance still remains and endures doesn't it because we have the whole severan dynasty which does ultimately emerge but it's a very ill-favoured dynasty. The high point of it was Septimius Severus himself. I mean, Caracalla himself is assassinated in 217 while urinating on campaign. Gita's already dead, of course, at the end of the year when Severus died himself.

And all of the other candidates, including ultimately Alexander Severus, are all ill-fated and ill-favoured as well. And of course, you have the assassination by Maximian Thrax of Alexander Severus in 235 as the event which traditionally initiates the beginning of the crisis of the third century, when the Roman Empire broadly nearly collapses across the board, and it nearly just completely implodes. You have the first large-scale incursions, proper large-scale incursions over the Rhine, you have the first large-scale incursions proper large-scale incursions over the rhine you have more incursions over the danube to match the marcomanni and the marcomannic wars you have the arrival of the sassanid persians who are a far bigger threat than the parthians to the romans in

the east and in that century you know humiliate the romans as you know you have the plague of cyprian which is a full classical ancient world plague which lasts for 20 20 years. You have economic collapse, you have civil wars, you have strife, and the empire nearly collapses. And it actually takes one of my other favourite Roman emperors, Diocletian, another military hard man. You might want to make your own judgments why I like these military hard man emperors, but Diocletian is definitely a military hard man.

At the level of Septimius Severus, it takes Diocletian to drag the empire, kicking and screaming out of the morass it finds itself in the crisis of the third century and to do that he has to completely change the nature of the empire so suddenly he's not now the princeps the first among us as you have the Augustan emperors and the principate he's the dominate emperor he's effectively a an eastern potentate totally separate from the rest of Roman society the nature of the roman empire changes and we start calling it the dominate after the word dominus so severus actually his legacy which should have been amazing in seeing britain for example the far north becoming

a normal part of the roman empire actually turns out to be a huge from the way he'd have viewed it disappointment it's a terribly sad ending to the story, actually. An epic tale tinged with tragedy, indeed. Simon, it is such an extraordinary story, that of Septimius Severus. And I'm so glad to get you back on the podcast at such short notice, too, to talk all about him in this whistle-stop 40-minute episode today. Last but certainly not least, you have written a book, well, several books, in regards to Septimius Severus. So my main book at the moment about Septimius

Severus is Septimius Severus in Scotland through Greenhill Books. And that is the story briefly of the biography, but then the story of his campaigns in the far north. Separately, I've written a biography of Pertinax, the son of a slave who became the emperor of Rome, the beginning of the Severan story, really. And I've got another book coming out, which is going to be called Roman Britain's Black Emperor, which is going to be coming out hopefully later this early next year. Well Simon it just goes for me to say thank you so much for taking the time to come back on the podcast today. Always a pleasure look forward to talking with you again. Well how about that there was Dr Simon Elliot returning to the ancients to tell the brutal the gruesome story of the emperor septimius severus i hope you

enjoyed the episode now last things for me you know what i'm going to say if you're enjoying the ancients and you want to help us out then you can do something incredibly easy incredibly quick just leave us a lovely rating on apple podcast on spotify wherever you get your podcast from it greatly helps us as we continue our mission, our infinite mission to share these amazing stories from our distant past with you and with as many people as possible. But that's enough rambling on from me

and I'll see you in the next episode.