The Life and Reign of the Emperor Lucius Septimius Severus (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III EARLY LIFE From the year of his birth to that of his accession Septimius may be said to have lived the ordinary life of the provincial Roman of the upper classes. His ancestors had belonged to the equestrian order, but two of his great-uncles (on his father's side) had been consulars.1 A maternal uncle/ one Fulvius Pius, seems to have incurred the censure of Pertinax during the latter's governorship of Africa.3 In this same province, on the llth of April, 146,4 was born, of parents whose names Spartian gives as Geta5 and Fulvia Pia, the future Emperor Lucius Septimius Severus. His birthplace was Leptis Magna.6 Of his boyhood we know little save for such accretions of fable as tend to gather round the youth of the great. It seems curious to think of Septimius studying Latin; still more so to hear that, in. spite of the proficiency in its literature for which Spartian vouches, he was cursed all his life long with an African accent.7 His prowess indeed as a Scholar is more than doubtful, and Dio Cassius expressly tells us that in this department his aspirations 1 Vit. Sev. i. 2. One of them, P. Septimius Aper, had been consul suffectus to M. Sedatus Severianus, Liebenam, p. 79. 2 The reversal of ' maternus' and ' paternus' in the text of the Scriptores (Vit. Sev. i. 2) is certainly correct, though Peter retains the MS. reading. Casaubon emended it as early as 1671 (ed. Lugd. Batav., p. 589). Dio Cass. Ixxiii. 17. 3, frag. eVl woujpia Kal ajrXijori'a airiX-y'a T two Tou IlfpTlfOKTOS, OTf T1jS 'A0plKiJ ?/Jf, KarefifSiKaOTO. 4 See above, p. 24. 6 His father's full name was P. Septimius Geta (CIL. viii. 19493), not M., as Ceuleneer, p. 13. Cf. above, p. 25. 6 Eutrop. viii. 18. 7 Vit. Sev. i. 4 ' Latinis Graecisque litteris, . . . quibus eruditiss...