Severan dynasty

Alex Goff is our special guest, and he shares our passion for all things ancient Rome.

He is famous for his Roman historical adventures, and has produced series such as The Carbo Chronicles and The Imperial Assassins, which was set in the reign of the Severans.

He also writes a monthly Substack newsletter on interesting people and aspects of life in ancient Rome called Roman Lives: Life in Rome.

If you would like to know more about his work, be sure to check out his website, romanfiction.com. Alex has recently been spending a lot of time with Mark Antony, the main character in his latest series.

The first blow came with the death of Emperor Severus Alexander in two hundred and thirty-five CE, murdered by his own soldiers along the Rhine.

His fall marked the end of the Severan dynasty, and with it the illusion of firm succession.

What followed was a parade of emperors, many of them soldiers proclaimed by their legions.

Rarely did they rule more than a year or two before falling to assassination or defeat.

In the Roman Empire, uh, the crises of the third century, it came after a period of time in the Roman Empire that, which is known as Pax Romana.

Pax Romana means the Roman peace, and this is a 200-year period in the Nerva and Antonine dynasty where, uh, some historians have called this the, the, uh, best time to be alive in all of human history, living in the Roman Empire during Pax Romana, that it was the closest to utopia that human- that humans have ever come during the period of Pax Romana.

And talked about this millions of times on this podcast, um, relating to this history because if you watch the movie Gladiator with Russell Crowe, the first movie is about the death of Marcus Aurelius.

Marcus Aurelius is the last of what is called the Five Good Emperors.

The Five Good Emperors in the Nerva and Antonine dynasty is what makes up this period of Pax Romana.

And, um, it was the high point of the Roman Empire.

This is when they reached their, their zenith.

So, uh, Septimius Severus is the one who basically stabilizes the empire after the year of five, of the Five Good Emperors.

this was something else I brought up in one of my videos with saying, this is where it gets crazy, okay? You know, this is, I can't even go down all these threads.

But the Severans, which ruled in 200 AD, were actual Phoenicians.

They spoke the Punic language.

They were biologically 100%, you know, Tyrian and Carthaginian.

So, you know, it's all sodomy.

And Julius Caesar was completely participating in that.

The Severans 200 years later were completely participating in it.

This type of sodomy ritual goes back to, it's very, very, very, very, very Phoenician, and it goes back to the worship and the It's something where you just kind of have to study the worship of Astarte, and it's pretty bad.