Alexander
Severus
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Marble bust of Alexander Severus.
Roman artwork, 222-235 C. E
Picture credit: Wikimedia
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Roman emperor, born in 205 AD, the cousin and adopted
son of Heliogabalus, whom he succeeded in 222. The excellent education that
he received from his mother, Julia Mamaea, rendered him one of the best
leaders in an age when virtue in a monarch was reckoned more dangerous than
vice. He sought the society of the learned; Paulus and Ulpianus were his
counselors; Plato and Cicero were, next to Horace and Virgil, his favorite
authors. Although a pagan, he respected the doctrines of Christianity. Well-liked
as he was by the citizens on account of his equity, he soon became an object
of hatred to the unruly praetorian guards. His first expedition (231–233),
against Artaxerxes, king of Persia, was
rewarded with a quick victory. But during one which he undertook in 234
against the Germans on the Rhine, to defend the frontiers of the empire
from their incursions, an insurrection broke out among his troops, headed
by Maximinus, in which Alexander was murdered, along with his mother, not
far from Mainz (235).
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