Severans

Antoninus/Caracalla (212-217)

• Becomes joint emperor with brother Geta
  • Soon murders Geta
• Mentally unbalanced
  • Dislikes senate
    • Nickname "Caracalla" from name of soldier's hood he was fond of wearing
  • Feeling returned (bad for reputation)
  • Considers himself to be a new Alexander the Great
  • Sacks Alexandria
    • Bad idea to attack your own cities
• Issues Constitutio antoniniana
  • Grants Roman citizenship to whole free population of Empire
  • Culmination of long process of extending Roman citizenship under Principate
  • Reasons unclear
    • Contemporary document claims it was to thank subjects for loyalty at time of Geta's supposed plot
    • Dio Cassius (contemporary Greek senator and historian) claims it was to increase number of taxpayers
• Assassinated at hands of disgruntled soldier (egged on by plot)

Macrinus

• Praetorian praefect at time of Caracalla's assassination
  • From Mauretania
  • Lawyer, administrator
  • Equestrian
  • Not the sort of person who normally becomes emperor
• Instigates assassination of Caracalla
• Wages campaign against Parthians to gain prestige
  • Decides to buy peace
  • Not good for prestige
  • Resorts to adopting himself into Severus's family
• Overthrown by revolt in favor of a relative of Septimius Severus

Elagabalus

• Teenage grandson of Julia Maesa, sister of Septimius Severus' wife
  • Family prominent in Syria
• Hereditary priest of Semitic god
  • El Gabal ("God of the Mountain") in form of black conical stone
• Reviled in sources as decadent pervert
  • Acted, dressed as eastern priest
  • Brings the cult stone to Rome
  • Behaves in ways that seemed normal for an eastern god, but didn't go over well in Rome
  • Supposedly under the thumb (and other things) of eastern friends
• Grandma engineers revolt of praetorians
  • Realizes his strangeness is bad for the dynasty
  • Has Elagabalus adopt his more respectable cousin
  • Elagabalus and mom duly murdered and cast in Tiber

Alexander Severus (222-235)

• Son of Julia Maesa's other daughter
• Exemplary young man of education acc. to sources
  • Favorite of Dio Cassius
• Finds it difficult to control praetorians
  • Their hostility makes Dio Cassius to leave Rome during his consulship
  • Severus seen as mama's boy under thrall of his mother
• Trouble in East
  • Ca. 224 old Parthian dynasty replaced by more aggressive Sassanid dynasty of Persia
  • Ca. 230 Sassanids invade Roman territory
  • Ca. 233 Roman invasion under Alexander Severus goes awry
  • Retreat generally successful
  • Not good for emperor's prestige
• Troubles on Rhine
  • Alexander forced to go in person to Upper Germany, 235
  • Buys peace
  • More loss of prestige
  • Rebellion stirred up by a general
  • Alexander abandoned by his troops, killed along with mom
  • End of Severan dynasty

Severan Dynasty

• Last reasonably stable dynasty of Principate
• Largest number of inscriptions from this period
• Increasing signs of lack of loyalty among troops
• Is this a result of an permanent change in attitude or simply bad luck?
  • Apart from Septimius Severus, the members of the dynasty were young and/or irresponsible
  • Acts of disloyalty may be simply caused by failure of dynasty to establish itself permanently with a line of strong emperors
  • Bad time for dynastic weakness
    • Decades after death of Alexander Severus sees a long series of major invasions that exacerbate the failure of dynastic loyalty