Severus Alexander - Roman Emperor: 222-235 A.D. -
City of Marcianopolis in Moesia Inferior: 222-235 A.D.
AVT K M AVP CEVH AΛEΞANΔPOC, laureate, draped & cuirassed bust right.
MAPKIANOΠOΛITΩΝ, Hygeia standing right, feeding serpent from patera.
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In
Greek and
Roman mythology, Hygieia,
or Hygeia, was a daughter
of the god of medicine,
Asclepius.
She was the goddess of health, cleanliness and sanitation and afterwards, the
moon. She also played an important part in her father's
cult. While her father was more directly associated with healing, she was
associated with the prevention of sickness and the continuation of good health.
Her name is the source of the word "hygiene".
Marcianopolis, or Marcianople was an ancient Roman city in
Thracia. It was located at the site of modern day
Devnya,
Bulgaria.
The city was so renamed by Emperor
Trajan after
his sister
Ulpia Marciana, and was previously known as Parthenopolis. Romans repulsed a
Gothic attack to
this town in 267 (or
268), during the
reign of
Gallienus.
Diocletian
made it the capital of the
Moesia Secunda province.
Valens made
it his winter quarters in 368 and succeeding years, Emperor
Justinian
I restored and fortified it. In 587, it was sacked by the king of the
Avars but at once retaken by the Romans. The Roman army quartered there in
596 before crossing the Danube to assault the Avars.
Between 893 and 972 it was one of the most important medieval cities in
south-eastern Europe.
Marcus
Aurelius Severus Alexander (October 1, 208–March 18, 235 AD), commonly
called Alexander Severus, was the last
Roman emperor (11 March 222–235) of the
Severan dynasty. Alexander Severus succeeded his cousin,
Elagabalus
upon the latter's assassination in 222 AD, and was ultimately assassinated
himself, marking the
epoch event for the
Crisis of the Third Century—nearly fifty years of disorder, Roman civil
wars, economic chaos, regional rebellions, and external threats that brought the
Empire to near-collapse.
Alexander Severus was the
heir
apparent to his cousin, the eighteen-year-old Emperor who had been murdered
along with his mother by his own guards—and as a mark of contempt, had their
remains cast into the
Tiber river. He and his cousin were both grandsons of the influential and
powerful
Julia Maesa, who had arranged for Elagabalus' acclamation as Emperor by the
famed
Third Gallic Legion.
A rumor of Alexander's death circulated, triggering the assassination of
Elagabalus.
Alexander's reign was marked by troubles. In military conflict against the
rising
Sassanid Empire, there are mixed accounts, though the Sassanid threat was
checked. However, when campaigning against
Germanic tribes of
Germania,
Alexander Severus apparently alienated his legions by trying diplomacy and
bribery, and they assassinated him.
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