425 



SEVERUS, ALEXANDRINUS. 



SEVERUS, L. SEPTIMIUS. 



426 



royal prerogative of coining money; but in 1674 he was solemnly 

 crowned at Rayghur, with all the pomp of the Mogul ceremonial, sig- 

 nalising his accession by an inroad in which he for tho first time 

 carried his arms north of the Nerbudda. His next exploit was in a 

 different direction : having secured his rear by an alliance with Gol- 

 conda, he boldly crossed the peninsula (1676) to the eastern coast, 

 possessed himself of the strong forts of Vellore, Giugi, and VVandi- 

 wash, between Madras and Pondicherry, and overran great part of 

 Mysore, to which he laid claim from his Father Shabjee having held a 

 jagheer there at the end of his life. From these conquests he was 

 recalled (1678) by the invasion of Golconda by the Moguls; and 

 though his plans were for a time disconcerted by the desertion of his 

 sou Sambajee to the enemy, he compelled Aurungzebe's viceroy of 

 the Dekkan to retire from Golconda, and to raise the siege of Beeja- 

 poor, while he exacted from the latter state, as the price of his aid, 

 the cession of all the country between the Toombuddra and the 

 Kishua. His power was now predominant throughout Southern India, 

 none of the shattered sovereignties of which were able to oppose any 

 check to his progress ; but his further schemes of aggrandisement 

 were cut short by a sudden illness, of which he died, on the 5th of 

 April 16SO, aged nearly fifty-three. His son Sambajee (who had pre- 

 viously resumed his allegiance) succeeded him ; but neither his abili- 

 ties nor his fortune were equal to those of his father, and ho was 

 taken and put to death in 1689. 



Sevajee (in tho words of Mountstuart Elphinstone) " left a character 

 which has never since been equalled or approached by any of his 

 countrymen. The distracted state of the neighbouring countries pre- 

 sented openings by which an inferior leader might have profited ; but 

 it required a genius like his to avail himself, as he did, of the mistakes 

 of Aurungzebe, by kindling a zeal for religion, and through that a 

 national spirit among the Mahrattas. It was by these feelings that 

 his government was upheld after it had passed into feeble hands, and 

 was kept together, in spite of numerous internal disorders, until it had 

 established its supremacy over the greater part of India." 



SEVE'RUS, ALEXANDRI'NUS, a Greek rhetorician, who lived 

 about A.D. 470. There are extant under his name six Narratives 

 (Atriyfi^ara), and eight Ethopoeise ('HBoirotlai). The six narratives are 

 mentioned by Iriarte as being among the Greek manuscripts of the 

 Escurial. The Ethopoeise are printed in Gale's 'Rhetores Selecti/ 

 which were edited by J. F. Fischer, Leipzig, 1772. 



An Ethopoeia, of which allocutio is the Latin equivalent, is defined 

 by Priscian to be " an imitation of a speech (sermo) adapted to the 

 character and to the supposed persons ; as, for instance, what Andro- 

 mache might have said on the death of Hector." The Ethopoeisc of 

 Severus contain, among others, the following subjects : What 

 -iEschines might say on going into banishment upon Demosthenes 

 furnishing him with means for his journey ; what Menelaus might 

 say upon Helen being carried away by Alexander ; what a painter 

 might say on having painted a girl and fallen in love with her. The 

 frigid commonplaces of these short pieces are merely curious as speci- 

 mens of the literature of the age to which they belong. 



SEVE'RUS, CORNE'LIUS, an epic poet of the time of Augustus. 

 Respecting the circumstances of his life nothing is known, except 

 that he died -very young. Quinctilian (x. 1, 89) says that he was 

 more a versifier than a poet, though he allows that, considering the 

 early age at which he wrote, he showed very great talents. His poems 

 were, 'Bellum Siculum,' the first book of which was, according to 

 Quinctilian, of considerable merit. Which Sicilian war he described 

 in this poem is not certain, but it is supposed that it was the war 

 which Sextus Pompeius carried on after he had gained possession of 

 Sicily. [POMPEIUS.] There is a poem still extant, called '^Etna,' 

 which contains, in 640 hexameters, a description of Mount .(Etna, and 

 an account of the causes of its eruptions. Now as Seneca ('Epist.' 79) 

 calls Cornelius Severus the author of a poem ' JEtna,' it has been sup- 

 posed that this poem is the work of Severus. But the language in 

 the extant poem, as well as several allusions to events which happened 

 in the reigns of Claudius and Nero, place it beyond doubt that the 

 extant poem is not the work of Severus. The description of Mount 

 jEtna to which Seneca alludes was probably only a part of the 

 ' Bellum Siculum.' A second poem of Cornelius Severus contained a 

 description of the death of Cicero, and a fragment of it, which proves 

 the great talents of the young poet, has been preserved by Marcus 

 Annalus Seneca. (' Suasor.,' vii., p. 49.) 



(Burmann, Antholog. Lat., ii. 155 ; Wernsdorf, Poet. Lat. Minor., 

 torn, iv., p. 33, &c., and p. 217, &c.) 



SEVE'RUS, L. SEPTI'MIUS, was a native of Leptis in Africa, 

 where he was born, A.D. 146, of an equestrian family. It is impossible 

 to give more than a rapid sketch of the life of this enterprising man. 



After his eighteenth year Severus came to Rome for his improve- 

 ment, and received the rank of senator from M. Aurelius. He studied 

 law in company with Papinian, who was a relation of his second wife, 

 under Q. Cervidius Scacvola ; and he received from Aurelius the office 

 of advocatus fisci, in which he was succeeded by Papinian. In his 

 youth he was of licentious habits, and he had to defend himself against 

 a charge of adultery, of which however he was acquitted before the 

 proconsul Didius Julianus, whom he afterwards succeeded in the 

 empire. After filling the quaestorship and other pifblic offices, he was 

 appointed proconsul of Africa, his native country. Under Aurelius he 



also filled the tribunate, an office of which he scrupulously discharged 

 the duties. About this time he married his first wife, Marcia. After 

 the death of Aurelius, he visited Athens; and when ho became 

 emperor, he showed the citizens that he had not forgotten certain 

 slights put upon him during his residence there. Under Commodus 

 he held the office of legatus of the Lugdunensis Provincia. On losing 

 his wife, he looked out for another whose nativity was favourable to 

 his ambitious views ; for Severus appears to have been a believer in 

 astrology. He heard of a woman in Syria whose destiny it was to 

 marry a king, and accordingly he solicited and obtained in, marriage 

 for his second wife Julia Domna, by whom he had children. 



Severus was at tho head of the army in Germany when news came 

 of the death of Commodus, which was followed by the short reign of 

 Pertinax, and the accession of Didius Julianus, who purchased the 

 imperial title. The army proclaimed Severus emperor, and the ambi- 

 tious general promptly advanced upon Rome to secure his title. 

 Julianus, after a fruitless attempt to stop the progress of Severus by 

 declaring him a public enemy, and an equally unsuccessful attempt to 

 get him assassinated, caused a senatus consultum to be passed for asso- 

 ciating Severus with him in the empire. Julianus however was shortly 

 afterwards murdered in his palace, and Severus entered Rome with his 

 soldiers (A.D. 193), where he was acknowledged emperor. 



But Severus had a formidable rival in the East, where the legions 

 had proclaimed Pescennius Niger. After arranging affairs at Rome, 

 he set out to oppose Niger, whom he defeated near Cyzicus. The 

 emperor banished the wife and children of Niger, and punished both 

 individuals and cities that had favoured the cause of his rival. He 

 also advanced still farther into the East, into the sandy plains of Meso- 

 potamia, in order to secure the empire on that side and to punish the 

 adherents of Niger. The Parthians and Adiabeni were reduced, and 

 Severus was honoured with the titles of Arabicus, Adiabenicus, and 

 Parthicus by the senate, who also offered him the honour of a triumph, 

 which he refused on the ground that a triumph was not due to a 

 victory gained in a civil war ; and he also declined adopting the title 

 of Parthicus from apprehension of provoking such formidable enemies 

 as the Parthians. 



On his road to Rome Severus heard of the revolt of Albinus in 

 Gaul, and he directed his march to that province. After the war had 

 been carried on for some time with various success, a great battle was 

 fought at Trinurtium or Tinurtium, not far from Lyon, in which 

 Albinus was defeated and lost his life. On this occasion Severus dis- 

 graced himself by that brutal ferocity which was so prominent a 

 feature in his character. He ordered the head of Albinus to be cut 

 off before he was quite dead, and he made his horse trample the body 

 under his feet. Even the wife and children of Albinus, according to 

 some accounts, were put to death, and their bodies thrown into the 

 Rhone. Numerous partisans of Albiuus were put to death, both men 

 and women, whose property enriched the perarium. Spartianus has 

 filled a chapter with illustrious names, who were the victims of the 

 emperor's cruelty, either immediately on the defeat of Albiuus or 

 shortly after. 



The restless temper of the emperor led him again into the East. 

 From Syria he marched against the Parthians, and took Ctesiphon, 

 their capital, after a campaign in which the soldiers suffered greatly 

 for want of proper provisions. From Parthia he returned to Syria, 

 from which country he marched through Palestine to Alexandria in 

 Egypt. He made many changes in the institutions of Judsea, and 

 forbade under severe penalties the making of Jewish converts. Spar- 

 tianus adds, that he made the same enactment with respect to the 

 Christians, though we cannot certainly infer from the context that this 

 took place at the same time with the enactment against Jewish con- 

 verts. The allusion however appears to be to the edict promulgated 

 in the time of Severus, which was followed by a persecution of the 

 Christians. He gave the Alexandrines a kind of senate (jus buleuta- 

 rum), and made many changes in their institutions. Severus returned 

 to Rome A.D. 203. He declined the honour of a triumph which was 

 offered to him, on account of his inability to stand in a chariot owing 

 to the gout. But his victory was commemorated by the erection of 

 a triumphal arch, which still remains and bears his name. 



In the year 208, Severus, with hia two sons, Caracalla and Geta, set 

 out on their British campaign. The object was to reduce to obedience 

 the Caledonians and other tribes in the northern part of the island, 

 who disturbed the Roman dominion. Geta was left with an army in 

 the command of South Britain, and the emperor undertook the cam- 

 paign in the north with his son Caracalla. He made his way with 

 great difficulty through a country covered with forests and without 

 roads, and though the natives fled before him, the Roman army suf- 

 fered greatly, and the loss of life, owing to privation of various kinds, 

 was immense. Severus attempted to secure the limit of his conquests 

 by constructing the great rampart, which is known by the name of 

 the wall of Severus, across the neck of laud that separates the estu- 

 aries of the Clyde and the Forth. 



The last days of Severus were embittered by the dissensions of his 

 sons, and more particularly by the undutiful conduct of Caracalla, 

 who is even accused of conspiring against the life of his father. He 

 died at York (Eboracum) A.D. 211, in the eighteenth year of his reign, 

 leaving only two children, Geta, and Caracalla, who is also called Anto- 

 ninus Bassianus, His body, or, according to other accounts, the urn 



