Lucius Septimius Severus

From 193 to 211, Lucius Septimius Severus (11 April 145 – 4 February 211) was the Roman Emperor. He was born in the Roman province of Africa in Leptis Magna (modern-day Al-Khums, Libya). He rose through the ranks of government as a young man during the reigns of Marcus Aurelius and Commodus. During the Year of the Five Emperors in 193, Severus seized power following the death of Emperor Pertinax.

Severus fought his rival claims, the Roman generals Pescennius Niger and Clodius Albinus, after deposing and executing the existing emperor Didius Julianus. Niger was defeated at the Battle of Issus in Cilicia in 194. Later that year, Severus launched a brief punitive war across the eastern border, and annexed the Kingdom of Osroene as a new province. Three years later, in the Battle of Lugdunum in Gaul, Severus defeated Albinus. Following the strengthening of his dominance over the western provinces, Severus conducted a brief, more successful war against the Parthian Empire in the east, sacking their capital Ctesiphon in 197 and stretching the eastern frontier to the Tigris. He then strengthened and expanded the Limes Arabicus in Arabia Petraea. In 202, he campaigned against the Garamantes in Africa and Mauretania, seizing their capital Garama and expanding the Limes Tripolitanus along the empire's southern desert frontier.

In 208, Severus visited Britain, reinforcing Hadrian's Wall and retaking the Antonine Wall. He invaded Caledonia (modern Scotland) with an army of 50,000 men in 209, but his goals were dashed when he died of an infectious ailment in late 210. He died in early 211 at Eboracum (now York, England), and was succeeded by his sons, who were guided by their mother and his strong widow, Julia Domna, and so established the Severan dynasty. It was the Roman Empire's final dynasty before the Third Century Crisis.