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The life of Severus Alexander

University of British Columbia

There has been no biography published in English of the Emperor Severus Alexander since that of Hopkins in 1907. Jarde produced a more critical work in French in 1925, but since that time much progress has been made in source criticism (especially of the Historia Augusta) and there have been epigraphical and papyrological discoveries that shed new light on his reign. It has been my aim in this thesis to re-evaluate the ancient literary sources on the basis of these advances to produce a new biographical study of the life and reign of Severus Alexander. The thesis is divided chronologically into eleven chapters. Chapter I is a brief discussion of the ancient sources. Chapter II deals with Alexander's birth and the nature of his Caesarship. The third chapter discusses his accession to the principate, the titles and powers he assumed. Chapter IV deals with the date of Julia Maesa's death based on the Feriale Duranum, the Acta Fratrum Arvalium, and other inscriptional evidence. Chapter V covers the career of Ulpian and the recently discovered date for his death based on P.Oxy. 2565. The sixth chapter includes Alexander's marriage and Julia Mamaea's role in his reign. Chapter VII covers various aspects of Alexander's administration, including the consilium principis and the office of the praefectus praetorio. It includes a discussion of the Maecenas-Agrippa debate in Book 52 of Dio's Roman History. The eighth chapter is concerned with the years 226-9 and the military uprisings during that period. Chapters IX and X deal with the Persian and Germanic Wars respectively. The eleventh and final chapter includes discussion of the date, location and causes of Alexander's murder. The evidence for a proposed visit to Egypt is discussed in Appendix I; the tradition of Alexander as a strict disciplinarian, in Appendix II.

Text

2010-07-14

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http://hdl.handle.net/2429/26462

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University of British Columbia

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