ALEXANDER SEVERUS (MARCUS AURELIUS SEVERUS ALEXANDER) (208-235), Roman emperor from A.D. 222 tO 235, was born at Arca Caesarea, in Palestine, on Oct. 1, 208. He was the son of an imperial procurator. In 221 his grandmother, Julia Maesa, persuaded her nephew, the emperor Heliogabalus, to adopt him as successor and create him Caesar. In the next year, on March 11, Heliogabalus was murdered, and Alexander was pro claimed emperor by the Praetorians and accepted by the senate. He was then a mere lad, amiable, well-meaning, but entirely under the dominion of his mother, Julia Mammaea, who surrounded him with wise counsellors, but who alienated the army by extreme parsimony, while neither she nor her son had a strong enough hand to keep tight the reins of military discipline. Mutinies became frequent in all parts of the empire; to one of them the life of the jurist and praetorian praefect, Ulpian, was sacrificed; another compelled the retirement of Dio Cassius from' his command. On the whole, however, the reign of Alexander was prosperous till he was summoned to the East to face the new power of the Sassanians (see PERSIA : History) . Of the war that followed we have very various accounts ; Mommsen leans to that which is least favour able to the Romans. At all events, though the Persians were checked for the time, the conduct of the Roman army showed an extraordinary lack of discipline. The emperor returned to Rome and celebrated a triumph (233), but next year he was called to face German invaders in Gaul, where he was slain (on March 18 or 19, 235), together with his mother, in a mutiny which was prob ably led by Maximinus, a Thracian legionary, and at any rate secured him the throne. Alexander was the last of the Syrian princes. His advisers were the famous jurist, Ulpian, the historian, Dio Cassius, and a select board of 16 senators; a municipal council of 14 assisted the city praefect in administering the affairs of the 14 districts of Rome. The luxury and extravagance that had form erly been so prevalent at the court were put down ; the standard of the coinage was raised ; taxes were lightened ; literature, art and science were encouraged ; the lot of the soldiers was improved ; and, for the convenience of the people, loan offices were instituted for lending money at a moderate rate of interest. In religious matters Alexander preserved an open mind. In his private chapel he had busts of Orpheus, Abraham, Apollonius of Tyana and Jesus Christ.
See Lampridius, Alexander Severus; Dio Cassius lxxviii. 3o, lxxix. 17, lxxx. i.; Herodian vi. I-18 ; Porrath, Der Kaiser Alex. Sev. (1876) ; Pauly-Wissowa, Realencyklopddie, ii. 2,526 seq. (Groebe) ; mono graph by Sir Richard Hopkins, Cambridge Historical Essays, No. xiv. (Igo7) . A. von Domaszewski "Die Daten der Scriptores historiae Augustae von Severus Alexander bis Carus," Sitzungsberichte der Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften (1917) for a different chronology. K. Honn, Quellenuntersuchungen zu den Viten des Heliogabalus and des Severus Alexander (1911) .