Alexander Serverus
Caracalla was assassinated while urinating. He was followed by Severan family weaklings. One was Elgabalus in 218, emperor from age fourteen. Elgabalas was assassinated a little less than four years later in a plot formulated by his grandmother, Julia Maesa, and carried out by the Praetorian Guard. This made Elgabalas' cousin, Alexander Serverus, age 13, emperor. And he remained emperor until he was 26, with his mother continuing as his advisor. In the year 235, while in his tent during a millitary campaign, he was assassinated by military officers and he died cringing and crying in his mother's arms.
The new soldier-emperor, Maximinus, was not from Rome. He was the son of Thracian peasants – a German and an Alan. He had little respect for what remained of Rome's institutions. He was the first emperor who did not win or seek Senate confirmation of his rule. He was never to set foot in Rome. But the senators, afraid for their safety, were only silently antagonistic toward him.
Maximinus doubled the pay of his soldiers, and he upset Rome's civilians by giving money to the army that had been slated for welfare. Farmers in North Africa grew disturbed over Maximinus' high taxes, and they began to create disturbances. Romans in various parts of the empire saw Maximinus as a barbarian foreigner pretending to be an emperor. In Rome, angry packs of men hunted down and murdered his supporters. An army of North Africans, members of the Praetorian Guard, some senators, and some who saw themselves as the Romans of Old, went north from Rome to battle against Maximinus. They managed to isolate him and a some of his soldiers. To buy their safety, these soldiers killed Maximinus and his son.
Maximinus had ruled only three years – to the year 238. In the coming decades the rule of others would also be short. Soldiers would continue to choose their commanders as emperors, and some army commanders would become emperors only reluctantly, sensing the danger in it. Some of these emperors would attempt to bribe soldiers with gifts to ensure their continued loyalty, and the loyalty of some soldiers would depend on their being allowed to satisfy their appetite for booty at the expense of civilians. These new emperors would govern by decree, and they attempted to reinforce their rule with spies, informers and secret agents. In the coming five decades, only one emperor was to die a natural death, and only one was to die in battle. The rest would be murdered by soldiers,
The political chaos, meanwhile, produced a decline in respect for authority, caused in part by armies on the move within the empire, plundering towns and farms. Military-emperors sent tax collectors about the empire forcing more taxes from people.
During the first half of the 200s, taxation encouraged men of commerce to hoard their money rather than invest it. To pay soldiers, emperors debased money. Prices skyrocketed. The empire's middle class went bankrupt, and roads deteriorated.
More people had become beggars, and many others feared that they too would soon be impoverished. In Rome and other big cities, proletarians remained disinclined to organize themselves against authority, but here and there in the countryside desperate peasants did revolt, but their uprisings were not coordinated and not widespread enough to challenge the empire militarily. In various parts of the empire, bands of desperate people wandered the countryside, surviving by theft. In 235 bands of brigands had swept through Italy. In Gaul, hordes of people roamed about, pillaging as they went. Piracy grew on the Aegean Sea, and tribal people from the Sahara attacked Roman cities along the coast of North Africa.
Disorders sometimes cut off trade routes. By 250, Rome's trade with China and India had ended. Agricultural lands in the empire were going unused. With the declining economy, people moved from cities and towns to rural areas in search of food. Cities began shrinking to a fraction of their former size, some to be occupied only by administrators. Where agricultural estates felt threatened by barbarian or Roman soldiers they protected themselves by fortification, and their neighbors surrendered their holdings to them in exchange for protection. Economic relations were developing that would last into the Middle Ages.
The kind of governance put in place by Rome's revered Augustus as an alternative to democracy and the chaos he wanted to avoid, had failed.
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At the urging of his mother, aunt, and grandmother,Roman Emperor Elagabalus named his cousin Alexianus (the future Alexander Severus) as his heir in the summer of 221 CE. After realizing the possible consequences of his actions, he planned for the young Caesar’s execution. Unfortunately for Elagabalus, the tide would quickly turn against him when instead of killing young Alexianus, he and his mother would meet their deaths at the hands of the Praetorian Guard. On March 11 (some say 13), 222 CE, theRoman Senate welcomed the thirteen-year-old as theempire’s new imperial ruler.
EARLY LIFE
Marcus Julius Gessius Alexianus (Alexander Severus) was born in the Phoenician city ofCaesarea in 208 CE (no exact date in known) to Gessius Marcianus and Julia Avita Mamaea, niece of Julia Domna - second wife of Emperor Septimius Severus. Historian Herodian wrote that Alexianus was actually named after the Macedonian kingAlexander the Great. Like his cousin Elagabalus, Alexianus was also a priest of the sun-god Elagabal at the Syrian town of Emesa - something his mother would keep very quiet.
In the summer of 221 CE Alexianus’ mother and grandmother, Julia Maesa, as well as his aunt, Julia Soaemias, convinced Emperor Elagabalus to name his young cousin as his heir and grant him the title of Caesar telling him the appointment would give him more time to pray and dance at the altar of Elagabal. In reality they were worried that his attempt to replace the traditional religion of Rome with that of Elagabal as well as his unorthodox lifestyle would bring about his (and their) ruin. Elagabalus’ plan to assassinate his cousin failed - possible bribery of the Praetorian Guard was suspected. In order to have him accepted by the Guard, Alexianus’ mother employed the same ruse that had been used for Elagabalus, namely, that Alexianus was the illegitimate son of Emperor Caracalla.
ALEXANDER SEVERUS WAS THE SECOND YOUNGEST ROMAN EMPEROR EVER.
A YOUNG EMPEROR
With the death of Elagabalus, Alexianus, who had assumed the name Marcus Aurelius Severus Alexander, was confirmed by the Senate as emperor making him the second youngest to ever sit on the throne (second only to Elagabalus). However, the young emperor would never be granted any real authority as the government would be placed firmly in the hands of his mother and grandmother - the latter would die in 224 CE. Historian Cassius Dio wrote:
He immediately proclaimed his mother Augusta and she took over the direction of affairs and gathered wise men about her son, in order that his habits might be correctly formed by them; she also chose the best men in the senate as advisors, informing them of all that had to be done.
To ease the transition and erase the memory of Elagabalus, as well as regain the trust of the citizens of Rome, the Cult of Elagabal was banished and the old gods restored. Alexander’s mother wanted to portray the young emperor as a typical Roman boy with no ties to the “Syrian god.” The large black stone that sat on Palatine Hill, symbol of the Elagabal cult, was returned to Emesa. The Elagaballum, a temple built to honor Elagabal, was renamed the Temple of Jupiter Ultor. Lastly, to appease many of the members of the old aristocracy, who were far more capable and experienced than the “Syrian henchmen” appointed under Elagabalus, were restored to their previous positions. These changes enabled the government to return to a more conservative mentality.
Although Alexander’s authority was limited, there was one individual he fought to protect (in strong opposition to his mother and the Senate): the historian and Senator Cassius Dio who had been named consul for the second time. In his Roman HistoryCassius Dio wrote about his relationship with Alexander:
Alexander, however, paid no heed to them, but, on the contrary, honoured me in various ways, especially by appointing me to the consul for the second time … he became afraid that they might kill me if they saw me in the insignia of my office, and so he bade me spend the period of my consulship in Italy, somewhere outside Rome.
Julia Mamaea, known as Mother of the Emperor and the Camp and the Senate and the Country, established a sixteen-man committee of senators to advise the young emperor which was a blatant attempt to mend the rift between the imperial throne and Senate. On a personal note, she also employed a private counselor named Domitius Ulpianus or Ulpian, the commander of the Praetorian Guard and a former lawyer. She saw him as someone who could use his legal expertise to help with government affairs. While he assisted in helping introduce several reforms (a reduction of taxes, new aqueducts, and building projects), his old-fashioned ideas about discipline angered many within the Guard. In 224 CE this alienation between the guard and their commander brought about three days of riots between the people of Rome and the Guard. The riots led to the death of two commanders - Julius Flavianus and Gerinius Chrestus - both killed on the orders of Ulpian. The Praetorian Guard reacted, pursuing and killing Ulpian in the imperial palace. His assassin, Marcus Aurelius Epagothus was “rewarded” (Alexander and his mother were “persuaded” to make the appointment) with the governorship ofEgypt, but he, too, would later be assassinated.
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