Alexander Severus - Paris, France
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Metro2
N 48° 51.666 E 002° 20.138
31U E 451271 N 5412227
Alexander Severus was Roman Emperor from 222 to 235.
Waymark Code: WMEG1A
Location: Île-de-France, France
Date Posted: 05/24/2012
Views: 19
This marble lifesized bust of Alexander Severus is located in the Louvre and depicts him as the boy he was...age 14 when he became Emperor. The sculpture shows the boy with very short hair, no beard at all, and nothing below the neck. The figure seems to almost have a suspicious look as it glances at something above him to the right.
Wikipedia (
visit link) informs us that Severus:
"...was the last emperor of the Severan dynasty. He succeeded his cousin Elagabalus upon the latter's assassination in 222, and was ultimately assassinated himself, marking the epoch event for the Crisis of the Third Century — nearly fifty years of civil wars, foreign invasion, and collapse of the monetary economy.
Alexander was the heir apparent to his cousin, the eighteen-year-old Emperor who had been murdered along with his mother by his own guards, who, 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. It was the rumor of Alexander's death that triggered the assassination of Elagabalus and his mother .
As emperor, Alexander's peace time reign was prosperous. 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 apparently alienated his legions by engaging in diplomacy and bribery, and they assassinated him."