Septimius Severus

You go present your token, go to that same window, and get your haul of grain.

Later on, um, under Septimius Severus in the early third century, they switch it from just grain to bread, baked bread.

Uh, before you'd have to go to a baker.

Uh, there were bakers who worked with the state.

You'd bring your state grain to the baker.

It's probably subsidized how much you pay to have that grain turned into bread.

Um, later on, the emperor Septimius Severus eliminates the middlemen and says, "We're gonna give you grain on a daily, or bread on a daily basis," which is a huge logistical challenge.

We're not sure how they managed this entirely.

So there's a man named Did- Didius Julianus that offers 25,000 sesterces per Praetorian Guard member for the empire, so he becomes emperor.

There's a general out in North Africa named Septimius Severus that gets word of this, so he actually comes into Rome with a legion, kills Didius Julianus, and he creates the pattern that emperors after him will emulate.

He doubles the size of the legions and doubles their pay, and he also disbands the Praetorian Guard and fills it with his loyal men.

So emperors after him are going to enlarge the legions, enlarge their pay, and that's where this debasement process really starts to kick in.

So he's trying to force in a lot of things that he thinks are needed.

But conquest, for the most part, um, because the, the early empire is this machine that grows off of conquest, it hides a lot of those problems.

But if you even look at, when I talked about Septimius Severus earlier, you know, doubling the legionary pay, doubling the legions, the men are personally loyal to him, and that's why he's able to attack Rome.

That peace that Marius created will be a peace that will later on cause the collapse, but it takes hundreds of years to get there.

No Blacks.

And the claims that you may have seen as well, like Septimius Severus was Black over and over again, or the Aurelian Moors were Black.

North Africans are not Black.

They're not Black now, but they're more Black now than they ever were in the past, and they weren't Black back...

Suppose, for instance, the lady had died before the work was finished, or had ceased to regard Laertius with favor.

As to her identity, conjecture has, in the general dearth of information about the early years of the third century, proposed no more than two names, an Aria mentioned by Galen and the wife of Septimus Severus, the emperor's Julia Domna, who died AD 217.

On the whole, the suggestion that the work is unfinished does not seem to be made out.

Certainly, the last six lines of 10138, the last in the book where the author is speaking in his own person, seem to point clearly to the opposite conclusion.

You know, it, it would be very interesting to know what these guys look like.

Um, does it matter? Um, well, there is one place where, quite recently, it seems to matter quite a lot, and does matter quite a lot, and that's if we turn to someone later, an emperor later than Hadrian in the 2nd century CE and later, um, the Emperor Septimius Severus, who ruled between 193 and, and 211 CE.

And he raises a question that we, um, talked about a bit when we did our Cleopatra series, um, and, uh, wondered about how African and how Black Cleopatra was.

Right, because Septimius Severus was born in Lapsis Magna in Libya, in modern Libya, and, it, he, he was Rome's first African emperor, and, you know, really interesting figure, and, you know, fought a, fought a, fought a really brutal campaign in Scotland.

You know, he got about a lot, and it is a very interesting question whether he was Black.

You know, how, or, you know, what did the Africanness of, of Septimius Severus mean? And do, do, do we have any hints, or can portraiture help us with that question? 'Cause there are some quite, there are some famous images of him, but I'm not sure they're that easy to interpret.

[laughs]

No.

the reverence turned weird under Caligula, who according to Suetonius ordered the armor taken from the tomb to wear for his own divine cosplay in Rome.

In 200, Septimius Severus ordered the tomb sealed to the public and placed sacred books of magic within it to protect its secrets.

The last recorded imperial visit came in 215 AD with Caracalla.

Fancing himself Alexander reborn, he removed his tunic, ring, and belt, placing them on the coffin as a tribute.

And the man that ends up winning has one of the best names in Roman history, which is Didius Julianus, and he bids 25,000 sesterces per man, per, per guard member, and he becomes the new emperor.

Now, there is a politician who's not really a general yet, but he will become one in North Africa, uh, in, from an area named Lep- Leptus Magna, and his name is Septimius Severus.

He's actually gonna come with a legion from North Africa into Italy, have Didius Julianus killed, and then place himself upon the throne.

He's going to remove those guys from the Praetorian Guard that have been a problem, replace them with his own men, and what he does after that is this kind of key thing to what causes the debasement of currency.

Of course, while it's there, it does several campaigns.

It's got campaigns under Antoninus Pius, and then you've also got campaigns under Commodus, and then the usurpation of Albinus, and then the reconquest by Septimius Severus and his sons.

including Caracalla.

So it certainly is not just a domesticized unit.