Septimius Severus owed his advancement to [Aemilius Laetus]? who was the last [praetorian prefect]? of Commodus?. Severus claimed the throne in April 193 and prepared to fight [Didius Julianus]? but the legions? of Julianus refused to fight and Severus was proclaimed emperor. It was not until 197 that all competing claimants were eliminated.
In the later years of his reign Severus undertook a number of military actions in defence of Roman Britain against barbarian incursions and undertook reconstruction of Hadrian's Wall before dying in York on the 4th February AD 211.
See also Roman Empire, Roman Emperors, Byzantine Empire and Byzantine Emperors.
His family was of equestrian rank, and in 172 he seems to have been made a senator by Marcus Aurelius. In 190 he became consul, and in the following year received from Commodus the command of the German legions in Pannonia. On the murder of Pertinax by the troops in 193, they proclaimed Septimius emperor, whereupon he hurried to Italy and took possession of Rome without opposition. The legionaries of Syria, however, proclaimed Pescennius Niger emperor and those of Britain, Albinus; and only after bloody wars was Septimius able to make himself master of the Roman world.
With Septimius Severus begins the series of military emperors and the motto of his life was his dying exhortation to his sons, "let us work!" His entire reign was devoted to the welfare of the empire, and he finally succumbed to overexertion in a campaign against the Caledonians. Stern, wise, and energetic, Septimius restored peace to the empire after the misrule of Commodus and the civil wars. No emperor before Constantine was so important for the development of Roman law. </p>
It is generally assumed that Septimius was friendly to the Christians until 202, when, for some unknown reason, he became their enemy and persecutor. This rests upon an incorrect interpretation of the words of his biographer Spartianus: "In his journey [through. Palestine in 202] he established very many laws for the Palestinians; he forbade the Jews to be placed under heavy punishment, but sanctioned this in the case of Christians." This was really no new law, but only a reemphasizing of laws already existing, and was designed to check the Christian propaganda rather than to set on foot a general persecution. Nor was there any wide persecution, and there are many evidences that not only was the emperor not personally hostile to the Christians, but he even protected them against the populace. There were doubtless Christians in his own household, and in his reign the church at Rome had almost absolute peace. On the other hand, individual officials availed themselves of the laws to proceed with rigor against the Christians. Naturally the emperor, with his strict conception of law, did not hinder such partial persecution, which took place in Egypt and the Thebaid, as well as in proconsular Africa and the East. Christian martyrs were numerous in Alexandria (cf. Clement, Strom., ii. 20; Eusebius, Hist. eccl., V., xxvi., VI., i. sqq.). No less severe were the persecutions in Africa, which seem to have begun in 197 or 198 (cf. Tertullian's Ad martyres), and included the Christians known in the Roman martyrology as the martyrs of Madaura. Probably in 202 or 203 Felicitas and Perpetua (q.v.) suffered for their faith. Persecution again raged for a short time under the proconsul Scapula in 211, especially in Numidia and Mauritania. Later accounts of a Gallic persecution, especially at Lyons, are legendary. In general it may thus be said that the position of the Christians under Septimius Severus was the same as under the Antonines; but the law of this emperor at least shows clearly that the rescript of Trajan had failed to execute its purpose.
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