Severus Alexander
208 – 235 · Generation XIII · Roman emperor (r. AD 222–235) · Severan
Severus (AD 208 – AD 235). Roman emperor (r. AD 222–235). Adopted by his cousin Elagabalus as Caesar; his murder on the Rhine opened fifty years of soldier-emperors. The last of the Severans, he came to power through the workings of his grandmother Julia Maesa, and his thirteen years were largely peaceful and prosperous — no sole emperor since Antoninus Pius had reigned so long. Two rising threats undid the calm. He checked the Sasanids in the East, but against the tribes of Germania he tried diplomacy and outright payment, and to the army this looked like weakness. The conspiracy that followed killed his mother Julia Mamaea and his advisers along with him, and the succession passed to Maximinus Thrax — the event historians take as the opening of the Crisis of the Third Century, with its half-century of civil war, invasion, and economic breakdown.
One of 9 people of Severan (145–235) in this archive. Septimius Severus’s line, held together by the Syrian priestly family of his empress Julia Domna.
Line of descent: Julia Maesa → Julia Mamaea → Severus Alexander.
Parents
- Julia Mamaea (180 – 235)