Ahve, and welcome to Emperor of Rome, a Roman history podcast from Latrobe University.

I'm your host Matt Smith and with me today is Dr.

Caylon Davenport, senior lecturer in Roman history at Macquarie University

and Humboldt Research Fellow at Gertha University in Frankfurt.

This is episode CXL, a ridiculous waste of time.

Not the topic to be clear, that's a direct quote from Herodian. Severus Alexander comes from a strong military dynasty,

with a string of victories against Rome's enemies,

and it's fair to say that the Roman army was less than impressed with his performance against the Sasanian and Germanic tribes.

The empire needs a leader. Should they turn to a fighter or to a weakling and his mother?

Here's Caitlin Davenport.

Severus Alexander receives messages, according to Herodian,

from his governors along the Rhine and Danube Frontiers.

And the message said that the Germans, in this case we're dealing with the Alemani,

had crossed the rivers and had invaded Roman territory.

Was this opportunistic on their part while the Romans are being distracted by the Persians

or is it just a coincidence of timing that they do this?

It's difficult to know. The movement of the alimony could have been prompted by several reasons.

They could be in search of new land to farm. It could be that they were just

intent on plundering or it could be that population increase north of the Rhine had driven people into Roman

territory in search of lands to settle there.

So it's very difficult to reconstruct their motivations and how much

they actually knew about the problems on the Eastern frontier.

...