Rome's youngest sole emperor took power at 13, steered by his grandmother
In March 222 the army hailed 13-year-old Severus Alexander as Roman emperor. His grandmother Julia Maesa had engineered it, persuading the unpopular Elagabalus to adopt his cousin and then arranging Elagabalus's murder. Thirteen mostly prosperous years followed, until soldiers killed Alexander and the empire slid into half a century of crisis.
Born on 1 October 208 at Arca Caesarea in Phoenicia, he was probably first called Alexianus or Bassianus. Maesa, sister of the empress Julia Domna, judged him a better prospect with the Praetorian Guard than his increasingly despised cousin. The Senate confirmed him the day after the army acclaimed him, on 13 March 222. Some historians give the youngest-emperor title to Gordian III instead, who was only a couple of months older at his accession.
Inexperienced, Alexander relied on Maesa until her death in 224 and then on his mother, Julia Mamaea, which earned him the nickname Mamaeas. His government employed respected jurists such as Ulpian and the historian Cassius Dio, trimmed court luxury, eased taxes and set up loan offices charging moderate interest. He restored the Baths of Nero and built the great fountain known as the Nymphaeum of Alexander, which still stands in Rome. He adjusted the silver coinage several times, first debasing the denarius and later raising its silver content above where it began.
He was tolerant in religion. He allowed a synagogue in Rome and presented it with a Torah scroll known as the Severus Scroll. A claim that he wanted to build a temple to Jesus comes from the Historia Augusta, a source historians consider unreliable and partly invented. He also strengthened soldiers' legal rights, letting them name any heir in their wills.
Military discipline, however, crumbled. In 228 the Praetorian Guard murdered Ulpian in front of the emperor, who dared not punish the ringleader openly. Rome held off the rising Sassanid Empire, but when Alexander tried diplomacy and payments to settle Germanic tribes, the army turned on him. In March 235 he was killed with his mother. His successor Maximinus Thrax inherited the start of the Crisis of the Third Century, almost fifty years of civil war, invasion and monetary collapse.
Source: Severus Alexander
