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RIC 167a.1 of Septimius Severus

Septimius Severus AR Denarius. SEVERVS AVG PART MAX, laureate head right / RESTITVTOR VRBIS, Severus in military dress sacrificing over lighted tripod, patera in right hand, sceptre in left. RSC 599.

Lot No.1856.

$ 45.

Septimius Severus was a general of great skill. Born in Africa in 146 AD, he married Julia Domna, it is said, who had a soothsayer's prediction that she would be married to an emperor. After Pertinax was killed and Didius Julianus won the throne by offering the greatest amount of money to the Praetorians, Septimius, by then the governor of Upper Pannonia, hurried to Rome with his Legions. Julianus was already dead by the time he got there in 193 AD. He disbanded the Praetorians, and then defeated his rival Pescennius Niger in the east, then Clodius Albinus in the west in 197 AD, finally dying of natural causes in Britain in 211 AD.