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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Stopping the rot and then restarting it, July 21, 2008
This review is from: The Severans: The Changed Roman Empire (Hardcover)
In the aftermath of the strange reign of Commodus, the odd son of Marcus Aurelius came a period of chaos. This is the period which begins Gibbon's Decline and Fall. Into this breach stepped the Severan dynasty which managed to halt the problems that plagued the empire, at least the founder of this dynasty, Lucius Septimius Severus, did so. His successors, though not plagued by outward theats managed to waste any good reputation that the office of emperor managed to garner through increasingly strange and bizarre actions. The women of the Severan dynasty were sometimes ever worse.
Septimius Severus was aclaimed as the emperor by his troops in 193 and like so many generals managed to make himself emperor by eliminating his rivals. The next step was to see the succession through. This he proposed doing by promoting his sons, Caracalla (of the elaborate baths fame) and Geta. Caracalla, as was also often the case among late Roman emperors, was a psychopath and had his brother killed. Caracalla himself was soon eliminated and without an heir leading to another successful general to claim the throne. This emperor was Macrinus and he reigned for one year only. This was due in large measure to the women of the Severan dynasty.
When Septimius Severus became emperor, his Syrian born wife, Julia Domna became empress, and not just consort. Though they presumably clashed over the Praetorian Prefect, Plautanus. With her came her exotic family including her sister, Julia Maesa and other female relations. The succession of Macrinus was a clue to mount a coup to place her strange grandson, Elagablus on the throne.
The oddities of Elagablus are so strange that it is a testimony to the skill of the Syrian women that they were able to put over a sexually confused teen ager as the most powerful ruler in the west for as long as they did. Eventually even they gave up and promoted the candidacy of his cousin Alexander as heir. When this was accomplished, Elagablus was eliminated in the time honored Roman way, political murder.
Julia Mamaea, the mother of Alexander and the daughter of Julia Maesa was the real power behind the throne. Sevrus Alexander as he was styled faced barbarian invasions which luckily did not occur during the reigns of his more colorful relations who were clearly not up to the job. Despite an attempt to impose stronger disciplne on the army, rigid economy on the court and deferance to the senate, both Alexander and Julia Mamaea were deposed in 235 in favor of Maximinus, yet another general in string of them which would follow on up through the chaotic age that followed.
In a brief period, Grant manages to describe the triumphs and trials that the Severans inflicted on the Roman world. While not as distinguished as the "Good Emperors" who came before, they are historically important and represent a stable period of about 40 years before the real rot came to the political life of the Roman world and military power eclipsed all other sources of legitimacy. This is well worth reading as an introduction to the period.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Not much of a biography, May 18, 2008
This review is from: The Severans: The Changed Roman Empire (Hardcover)
In The Severans, historian Michael Grant recounts the period when Rome began its fatal transition into a military monarchy where an ever-growing and ever-consuming army set up and replaced rulers at will. In twelve short (the Epilogue begins on page 86) chapters, Grant balances the conquests and policies of the Severan emperors, Septimius and his relatives, with the rise (and fall) of the lawyers, the restoration (perhaps in form only) of the Senate, the establishment of Roman fiction, and the ongoing struggle of paganism with ascendant Christianity.
The book's most interesting insights center around the remarkable women of the Severan family, especially Septimius' second wife, Julia Domna, the mother of emperors Geta and Carcalla, and her sister Julia Maesa, the grandmother of two later, minor (both in age and accomplishment) emperors. Unfortunately, their chapter lasts a mere four pages, though in all fairness to the author, that is mostly because of a lack of suitable source material.
That lack of source material carries over into other areas as well, as a number of novelists are briefly explored, with Grant admitting that all but one probably fall into other periods. A similar treatment is given to the lawyers, whom we are informed, "exercised more influence on the future than anyone else of the time," yet only three are named and their works and ideas are covered all too briefly.
The book has one extremely annoying feature, which is unfortunately carried throughout. Because its organization is topical rather than chronological, the author covers many events multiple times, using notations like "as previously discussed" or "(Chapter 8)" whenever such a redundancy takes place; they are wholly unnecessary - and terribly distracting - in a book which can be read in less than two hours. There are four such on the first page of Chapter 5 alone.
Those looking for more than the barest biography of the Severan rulers would probably do well to look at another book. Those looking for a biographical dictionary of the important personalities and trends of the period will probably find The Severans worthwhile.
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5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A nicely written book, but expensive, April 1, 1998
By A Customer
This review is from: The Severans: The Changed Roman Empire (Hardcover)
Michael Grant's book, The Severans, covers a very short period of Roman history that, due to the lack of source materials, is usually left untouched. My only complaint about the writing style is that the work really needs to be read twice: once to get the general feel of the ideas presented, and a second time to follow all the references to chapters found later on in the book. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in Ancient Roman history, even though I found the price a bit high for a 90-page work.
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