Arvee and welcome to Emperors of Rome, a Roman history podcast from Latrobe University.

I'm your host Matt Smith and with me today is historian and author Dr. Emma Southen.

This is episode C-L-X-I, Syrian Matriarchy.

The Severan dynasty was founded in 193 CE by Septimius Severus, but in many ways it was

his wife Julia Domner and her sister Julia Meerser, who would go on to guide the family.

Both powerful Augusta, they were instrumental in securing their family's imperial position.

Here's Emma Southen.

So we are moving out of the Antenine period with the death of Commodus at the end of the

second century and then moving into the third century, which is when everything starts

to go a bit wonky, really wonky at the top of Roman politics and we start to properly

see military emperors.

There is a war at the end of the death of Commodus that Septimius Severus wins largely

by being cleverer than everybody else.

He is a Libyan Roman Senator as mother is Italian who moves to Libya.

He grows up in Libya, goes back to Rome, becomes a senator, becomes a general and then outsmarts

everybody when there is this power vacuum in the wake of Commodus and kind of manipulates

everybody into either standing aside or joining his side.

And he takes the throne and convincingly holds it partly because he has a lovely young

wife and two sons, which is super useful for setting up dynasty, which is what Romans

always want to see.

They want to see that there's going to be stability in the future that this isn't going

to be a one-off guy.

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