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Historical person

Septimius Severus

146–211

Septimius Severus was Roman emperor from AD 193 to 211 and the founder of the Severan dynasty. Born at Leptis Magna in Roman Africa, he rose through the senatorial and military hierarchy before seizing power during the civil wars that followed the murder of Pertinax in the Year of the Five Emperors.

Severus defeated his rivals Pescennius Niger and Clodius Albinus, strengthened the army and campaigned extensively in the eastern provinces. In the final years of his reign he took the imperial court and his sons Caracalla and Geta to Britain for a major northern campaign. He died at Eboracum, modern York, in 211, leaving the empire jointly to his two sons.

Simon Turney’s Caracalla approaches Septimius Severus through the dynasty he creates, showing Caracalla and Geta growing up under the pressure of an emperor determined to secure military loyalty and family succession. Gillian Bradshaw’s Dark North places Severus personally in Britain in 208 CE, where his huge Caledonian campaign draws the cavalry scout Memnon into the imperial household. Alex Gough’s Emperor’s Sword uses that same northern invasion to recruit Silus into the Arcani intelligence service, while Emperor’s Knife begins with Severus dying at Eboracum and the dangerous inheritance he leaves to his mutually hostile sons. Simon Turney’s Praetorian: Blades of Antioch: 6 goes back to Severus’s rise, following the civil war against Pescennius Niger and the victory in the east that helps establish the Severan regime.

Periods

Periods linked to Septimius Severus

Severan Dynasty193–235 CE

Series

Historical novels and book series featuring Septimius Severus (6 series)

Praetorian in Order

by Simon Turney 8 books 4.5(14,984)

The Praetorian series centres on Gnaeus Marcius Rustius Rufinus, a legionary drawn into the Praetorian Guard and the lethal politics of Commodus’s court. Investigations, covert missions and frontier commands expose him to conspiracies involving imperial relatives, prefects, freedmen, senators and rival claimants to the throne. As Commodus’s reign…

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Empire in Order

by Anthony Riches 16 books 4.5(20,598)

The Empire series follows Marcus Valerius Aquila, a Roman aristocrat forced into hiding after his family is destroyed under Commodus. Serving under an assumed name with the Tungrian auxiliaries, he moves from Hadrian’s Wall and the Rhine to Rome, Egypt and the eastern civil wars that follow the…

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The Damned Emperors in Order

by Simon Turney 4 books 4.3(4,884)

The Damned Emperors series retells the reigns of Caligula, Commodus, Domitian and Caracalla through people close enough to witness their private fears and public violence. Each novel sets later hostile traditions against the personal, dynastic and political pressures that shaped an emperor condemned by Roman memory. Rather than…

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Imperial Assassin in Order

by Alex Gough 7 books 4.4(13,574)

The Imperial Assassin series follows the soldier Silus and the Arcani, a clandestine intelligence service operating under the Severan emperors. Beginning with Septimius Severus’s campaigns in Caledonia, the novels carry Silus through the rivalry of Caracalla and Geta, political purges, frontier wars, Alexandria, North Africa and the final…

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Roma Trilogy in Order

by Steven Saylor 3 books 4.0(15,200)

The Roma Trilogy follows generations of the fictional Pinarius family across the long history of Rome. Roma begins with the city’s legendary foundation and continues through the Republic and the rise of Augustus; Empire carries the family through the Julio-Claudian, Flavian and adoptive-emperor periods; Dominus follows the later…

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Brothers of the Sands in Order

by Robert Low 3 books 4.1(2,686)

The Brothers of the Sands trilogy follows Drust, Kag and a band of former gladiators through the last decades of the Severan dynasty. Freed from the arena but still used by powerful patrons, they undertake dangerous assignments from Caledonia in 208 CE to the Syrian frontier and the…

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Standalone books

Standalone books featuring Septimius Severus (2 books)