Hello, and welcome to the history of Rome, Episode 100, Black and White, and Severus all over.

On June 1, 193 AD, Septimius Severus was officially recognized as Emperor by the Senate and

People of Rome. In theory, he now controlled the whole Empire, but in practice he was only

master of its western half. Unlike the Danube legions and the British legions, who both

at this point back Severus, the troops in Syria and Egypt recognized Peskenius Niger's claim

to the throne, and would have scoffed at any attempt by Severus to order them around.

There were high hopes all around though that political tensions between East and West

could be resolved without bloodshed, but it was not to be. The basic fact was that Severus

was convinced that he had every right to the throne, and Niger was also convinced that

he had every right to the throne. Keeping the aftermath of Julius's rise and fall bloodlust

meant that one of the two generals was going to have to back down and take a subordinate

role to the other. Claudius Albinus had already allowed himself to be so subordinated, but

neither Niger nor Severus had any intention of following his example, and so, unfortunately,

have a war. But Severus was savvy about optics, as evidence by the care he took in keeping

his initial coup of bloodlust one. Well, relatively bloodlust, Julianus and the men who had murdered

pertinacs were dead, but no one liked them anyway, so they don't really count.

In all his public posturing, Severus intimated that Niger was his friend and colleague, and

that they couldn't possibly have any real quarrel with one another, since they were such

good friends and such good colleagues. Their two armies had both acted nobly in rejecting

Julianus and independently hailing their leader's emperor, but now that pertinacs was avenged,

it was time for them to act nobly again and reject discord in favor of concord.

Despite his public front of hopeful hope and friendly friendship, though, Severus and his

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