Faces of Roman Emperors: Nerva to the Severan Dynasty

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by Arienne King
published on 22 February 2021

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Septimius Severus (Artistic Facial Reconstruction)

by Daniel Voshart
published on 23 October 2020

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Septimius Severus (Artistic Facial Reconstruction) — View Full-Size Image

Septimius Severus (r. 193-211 CE) became Roman emperor in 193 CE after defeating his rivals Didius Julianus, Pescennius Niger, Clodius Albinus. To secure his reign, Septimius Severus replaced the Praetorian Guard with soldiers from his legions and executed senators who opposed him. He was a militaristic emperor who campaigned in Africa and Britain, expanding the borders of the empire considerably. He appointed his two sons Caracalla (r. 211-217 CE) and Geta (r. 211 CE) as his co-emperors in 209 CE in the hopes of a peaceful succession.

Pictured alongside the reconstruction are the busts and statuary used as references. These include the Glyptothek bust (top left); the Severan Tondo (top right); Capitoline bust (bottom left); and a coin portrait (bottom right).

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Original image by Daniel Voshart. Uploaded by Arienne King, published on 23 October 2020. The copyright holder has published this content under the following license: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike. This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon this content non-commercially, as long as they credit the author and license their new creations under the identical terms. When republishing on the web a hyperlink back to the original content source URL must be included. Please note that content linked from this page may have different licensing terms.