Septimius Severus: the African Emperor by Anthony R. Birley
Severus was descended from Phoenician settlers in Tripolitania, and his reign, AD 193-211, represents a key point in Roman history. He asks whether Septimius was a ‘typical cosmopolitan bureaucrat’, a ‘new Hannibal on the throne of Caesar’ or ‘principal author of the decline of the Roman Empire’?.