427 



SEVERUS, MARCUS AURELIUS. 



Sl5VIGN, MADAME DE. 



428 



which contained his ashes, was carried to Rome and placed in the 

 tomb of the Antonini. 



Severus was one of the most distinguished among the Roman em- 

 perors. He has been compared with Julius Caesar, whom he resembled 

 in the energy of his character and in his taste for letters. He was 

 through life the faithful friend of the great jurist Papinian, whom he 

 made libellorum magister and pnefectus praetorio, and to whose care 

 he recommended his two sons. He was well acquainted with Greek 

 and Latin literature, and he left behind him memoirs of his life. His 

 habits were plain and simple. He sought out and rewarded merit, 

 and he loved justice. But he punished with inexorable severity, and 

 his great qualities were sullied by cruelty, for which it seems difficult 

 to find any apology or palliation. He embellished Rome with various 

 works, such as the Scptizonium aud the Thermae called after his 

 name, and he repaired the public edifices which had been erected by 

 his predecessors. 



(All. Spartiani, Sevenis Imperator; Herodian, ii., iii. ; Dion Cassius, 

 lib. 76, &c.) 



British Museum. Actual size. 



SEVERVSPIVS AVGPMTRPXII. 



Head of S. Severus laurelled. 



COSIIILVDSAECFEC. 



Commemoration of the celebration of the Ludi Saeculares. 



SEVERUS, MARCUS AURELIUS ALEXANDER, a Roman 

 emperor, was the son of Julia Mammsea, the sister of Soemis, who was 

 the mother of Elagabalus. He was born at Area Caesarea, in Phoenicia, 

 in the temple of Alexander the Great (after whom he was called), 

 A.D. 208. In his early years he was brought up at Rome, and during 

 the reign of his cousin Elagabalus was, by the advice of his grand- 

 mother Julia Msesa, bred in strict seclusion from the court. In his 

 education his mother showed great care and discretion, and withdrew 

 him from the temptations and perils thrown in his way by the 

 emperor. In his twelfth year he was appointed consul with Elaga- 

 balus, and was styled Caesar, the usual title of the successor to the 

 empire. He became very popular with the army, who believed him 

 to be the son of Caracalla, a notion which he appears to have after- 

 wards encouraged. The particulars of the revolt in which Elagabalus 

 was murdered have already been given. [ELAGABALUS.] On his 

 death, Alexander was made emperor, A.D. 222, first by the proclama- 

 tion of the army, and afterwards more formally by the senate. His 

 reign may rather be called the regency of his mother, who conducted 

 the chief business of government with great firmness and discretion. 

 She made it her first care to repair the ruin caused by the excesses 

 of Elagabalus. She restored the temples which had been profaned, 

 selected a council of sixteen from the senate for her ministry, and 

 appointed the jurist Ulpian praefect of the Praetorian guard. Under 

 her guidance Alexander led a life of strict but not ascetic morality, 

 giving free access to his friends, applying himself closely to the 

 business of the state, and in his leisure hours to literature. 



The attempts of the empress-mother to reform the dissolute army 

 were frustrated by their turbulent spirit. The Praetorian guards 

 revolted and murdered Ulpian, and such was the weakness of the 

 government, that Epagathus, their ringleader, was sent to Egypt, 

 that he might there undergo the punishment which it was not thought 

 safe to inflict at home. Dion Cassius informs us, in the fragment of 

 his Life of Alexander, that his own life was threatened by the troops 

 which he commanded, but saved by the management of the emperor. 

 In the latter part of his reign (about 231 A.D., according to Eckhel, 

 ' Doctrina Vet. Num./ from the evidence of a coin), Alexander under- 

 took an expedition against Artaxerxes, the founder of the dynasty of 

 the Sassanidae, who threatened to extend his empire over Asia Minor, 

 and treated the embassies fr/om Rome with disdaiu. The accounts of this 

 war differ. Lampridius (' Hist. Aug. Script.') in his Life of Alexander, 

 Eutropius, and Aurelius Victor speak of the great victory obtained 

 by Alexander, and their testimony is confirmed by a coin described 

 by Eckhel. On the other hand, the narrative of Herodia (lib. iv., 13, 

 &c.), more consistent throughout with itself, with the undisciplined 

 state of the army, and the uuwarlike character of the emperor, records 

 the defeat of the Roman forces in three separate divisions, the sickness 

 of Alexander, and his retreat to Antioch, whither however he was not 

 followed by Artaxerxes, whose resources were BO much weakened by 

 the war that he remained quiet for several years. The emperor was 

 shortly afterwards roused from a state of luxurious inactivity by the 

 news of a revolt of the Germans, who had passed their boundaries. 



He proceeded to quell this insurrection in person, but having recourse 

 to bribery to buy off the rebels, he incurred the contempt of his troops. 

 This feeling was fostered into mutiny by the arts of Maximinus, who 

 had been entrusted with great power, and the. result was a sedition, 

 in which Alexander aud his mother were both killed at a place called 

 Sicila in Gaul, A.D. 235. As far as we can gather from a comparison 

 of the exaggerations of Lampridius with the scanty statements of 

 other writers, Alexander seems to have been of a gentle aud peaceful 

 disposition, ill-suited for the command of a turbulent soldiery and 

 corrupt people, not less from his tender age and the control to which 

 he was subjected by his mother, than from an effeminacy and want of 

 firmness natural to his race and country. We have in Lampridius a 

 very interesting account of his private life and of the manner in which 

 he passed bis day. Ho bestowed great care in adorning aud iinprov- 

 iug Rome. The Thermae Alexandrinae were built by him. His reform 

 iu the currency is alluded to by a coin bearing the inscription ' lie.- ti- 

 tuta Moneta.' His other corns record his bounties to the people, hia 

 expedition to Persia and triumph, and his consecratio. He had three 

 wives : Memmia, the daughter of Sulpicius ; Orbiana, who is known 

 by her coins ; and another, who was banished by his mother, and 

 whose name has not come down to us. (Herodian, lib. vi. ; Dion 

 Cassius lib. Ixxx. ; Julius Lampridius, in the ' Historia Augusta.') 



British Museum. Large Brass. 



IMPCAESMAVRSEVALEXAXDEHAVG. 



Head of Alexander Severus laurelled, and -with the paludamentutn. 



POXTIFMAXTRPIICOSFRSC. 



The amphitheatre of Titus, -with two gladiators fighting in it ; at the side three 

 figures standing. 



SE'VIGNE', MADAME DE. MAKIE DE RABUTIN CHANTAL was bora, 

 according to her own account, February 5, 1627, apparently at the 

 chateau of Bourbilly in Burgundy. Her father, the Baron de Chautal, 

 was killed in defending the Isle of Rue against the English ; and her 

 mother also left her an orphan at an early age. The charge of her 

 education then fell into the hands of a maternal uncle, the Abbe" de 

 Coulanges, an excellent aud judicious person, whom she warmly 

 loved, and to whom she owed and owned great obligation. Possessed 

 of great personal advantages and considerable fortune, she married, 

 August 1, 1644, the Marquis de Se'vigne', of an ancient house of 

 Brittany. This connection did not prove happy ; it was dissolved in 

 1651, by the death of her husband in a duel, leaving her with a 

 dilapidated fortune and the charge of a son and daughter. The fortune 

 she soon retrieved by retirement and a judicious economy : and in 

 1654 she reappeared in Paris, where her beauty and talents placed her 

 at once in the first ranks of society. The Prince of Conti, Tureune, 

 Fouquet, superintendent of finance, and many others of less note, in 

 vain enrolled themselves her admirers ; having escaped the yoke of 

 her first ill-assorted marriage, she was never tempted to contract a 

 second ; nor, in that gallant age, was her conduct tainted by the pre- 

 valent laxity of morals. Her children were throughout life her chief 

 object, and especially her daughter, to her affection for whom we owe 

 the greater part of that admirable collection of letters upon which the 

 fame of Madame de Se'vigne' is raised. That daughter ia 1669 married 

 the Comte de Grignan, who held the government of Provence. 

 Madame de Se'vigne' died, after a few days' illness, at the town of 

 Grignan, in 1696. 



As a letter-writer she is unsurpassed, perhaps unequalled. Un- 

 studied, and not always correct, she possessed a natural eloquence, an 

 ease and liveliness of expression, which will never cease to attract. 

 The merit of her style is said by French critics to be too delicate to be 

 readily appreciable by foreigners : nevertheless its charm cannot fail 

 to be manifest in a greater or less degree to all her readers. " The 

 letters of Madame de Se"vigne," says La Harpe, " are the book of all 

 hours, of the town, of the country, on travel They are the conver- 

 sation of a most agreeable woman, to which one need contribute 

 nothing of one's own ; which is a great charm to an idle person. . . 



. . Madame de Sevigue" tells a story excellently : the most per- 

 fect models of narration are to be found in her letters. Nothing 

 comes up to the liveliness of her turns, and the happiness of her 

 expressions : for she is always touched by what she relates; she paints 

 things as' if she saw them, and the reader believes that he sees what 

 she paints. She seems to have had a most active aud versatile 

 imagination, which laid hold of all objects in succession." 



Her letters, originally published in detached portions, by different 

 persons, are priuted collectively in numerous editions. The most com- 



