Trajan's ColumnDetail of Trajan's Column, Rome, depicting the Roman emperor's victories beyond the Danube River.© Tiziano Casalta/Dreamstime.com
The artistic currents that flowed in Rome were felt throughout the empire, the less developed areas being influenced most. In the West, provincial sculpture closely resembled Roman, although it sometimes showed variations, in Gaul especially, owing to local influences (the native element, however, is not always easy to identify). The Roman quality of portraits painted on Egyptian mummy cases shows that the Greek-speaking regions were also affected, although generally they maintained their own traditions. But by now the Greek East had become rather barren; much of its production was imitative rather than vitally creative. Greece proper contributed little, the centre of Hellenism having shifted to Anatolia, to places such as Aphrodisias, where there was a flourishing school of sculpture.
In at least one respect the East was heavily influenced by Rome. The use of concrete and cross vault enabled Roman architects and engineers to span wide areas; their technological achievements included the covered vastness of the huge thermal establishments, the massive solidity of the amphitheatres, and the audacity of the soaring bridges and aqueducts. The East was greatly impressed. Admittedly, the agoras and gymnasiums in Greek towns are hardly Roman in aspect, but, for most structures of a practical utilitarian kind, the Greek debt to Rome was heavy. Sometimes Roman influence can be seen not only in the fundamental engineering of such buildings as market gateways, theatres, and amphitheatres but even in such decorative details as composite capitals as well. Roman features abound in exotic Petra, Palmyra, Gerasa, and Baalbek, and even in Athens itself. Edward Togo Salmon Ramsay MacMullen The Later Roman Empire The dynasty of the Severi (ad 193–235) Septimius Severus
After the assassination of Commodus on Dec. 31, ad 192, Helvius Pertinax, the prefect of the city, became emperor. In spite of his modest birth, he was well respected by the Senate, but he was without his own army. He was killed by the praetorians at the end of March 193, after a three-month reign. The praetorians, after much corrupt bargaining, designated as emperor an old general, Didius Julianus, who had promised them the largest donativum (a donation given to each soldier on the emperor’s accession). The action of the praetorians roused the ire of the provincial armies. The army of the Danube, which was the most powerful as well as the closest to Rome, appointed Septimius Severus in May 193. Severus soon had to face two competitors, supported, like himself, by their own troops: Pescennius Niger, the legate of Syria, and Clodius Albinus, legate of Britain. After having temporarily neutralized Albinus by accepting him as Caesar (heir apparent), Septimius marched against Niger, whose troops, having come from Egypt and Syria, were already occupying Byzantium. The Danubian legions were victorious, and Niger was killed at the end of 194; Antioch and Byzantium were pillaged after a long siege. Septimius even invaded Mesopotamia, for the Parthians had supported Niger. But this campaign was quickly interrupted: in the West, Albinus, disappointed at not being associated with the empire, proclaimed himself Augustus in 196 and invaded Gaul. He was supported by the troops, by the population, and even by the senators in Rome. In February 197 he was defeated and killed in a difficult battle near his capital of Lugdunum, which, in turn, was almost devastated. Septimius Severus remained the sole master of the empire, but the pillagings, executions, and confiscations left a painful memory. A few months later, in the summer of 197, he launched a second Mesopotamian campaign, this time against the Parthian king Vologases IV, who had attacked the frontier outpost Nisibis conquered two years previously by the Romans. Septimius Severus was again victorious. Having arrived at the Parthian capitals (Seleucia and Ctesiphon), he was defeated near Hatra but in 198 obtained an advantageous peace: Rome retained a part of Mesopotamia, together with Nisibis, the new province being governed by an eques. After having inspected the East, the emperor returned to Rome in 202. He spent most of his time there until 208, when the incursions of Caledonian rebels called him to Britain, where he carried out a three-year campaign along Hadrian’s Wall. He died at Eboracum (York) in February 211.
Septimius Severus belonged to a Romanized Tripolitan family that had only recently attained honours. He was born in Leptis Magna in North Africa and favoured his native land throughout his reign. He was married to Julia Domna of Emesa, a Syrian woman from an important priestly family, and was surrounded by Easterners. He had pursued a senatorial career and had proved himself a competent general, but he was above all a good administrator and a jurist. Disliking Romans, Italians, and senators, he deliberately relied on the faithful Danubian army that had brought him to power, and he always showed great concern for the provincials and the lower classes. Although he had sought to appropriate the popularity of the Antonines to his own advantage by proclaiming himself the son of Marcus Aurelius and by naming his own son Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, he in fact carried out a totally different policy—a brutal yet realistic policy that opened careers to new social classes. Indifferent to the prestige of the Senate, where he had a great many enemies, he favoured the equites. The army thus became the seedbed of the equestrian order and was the object of all of his attentions. The ready forces were increased by the creation of three new legions commanded by equites, and one of these, the Second Parthica, was installed near Rome. Unlike Vespasian, who also owed his power to the army but who knew how to keep it in its proper place, Septimius Severus, aware of the urgency of external problems, established a sort of military monarchy. The praetorian cohorts doubled their ranks, and the dismissal of the old staff of Italian origin transformed the Praetorian Guard into an imperial guard, in which the elite of the Danube army were the most important element. The auxiliary troops were increased by the creation of 1,000-man units (infantry cohorts) and cavalry troops, sometimes outfitted with mail armour in the Parthian manner. The careers of noncommissioned officers emerging from the ranks now opened onto new horizons: centurions and noncommissioned grades could attain the tribunate and enter into the equestrian order. Thus, a simple Illyrian peasant might attain high posts: this was undoubtedly the most significant aspect of the “Severan revolution.” This “democratization” was not necessarily a barbarization, for the provincial legions had long been Romanized. Their salaries were increased, and donativa were distributed more frequently; thenceforth, soldiers were fed at the expense of the provincials. Veterans received lands, mostly in Syria and Africa. The right of legitimate marriage, previously refused by Augustus, was granted to almost all of the soldiers, and the right to form collegia (private associations) was given to noncommissioned officers. Because more than a century had passed since the last raise in pay for the troops, despite a steady (if slow) rise in the level of prices, Severus increased the legionary’s base rate from 300 to 500 denarii, with, no doubt, corresponding increases in other ranks. The reflection of this step in the content of precious metal in silver coinage recalls a point made earlier: the imperial revenues were constrained within the narrow limits of political and administrative reality.