Septimius Severus, died at York / heritagedaily.com
A few of you clever bloggers will deny it, but it is a fair bet that nobody knew that a Roman emperor died in Britain. Everybody knows that Hadrian, Julius Caesar and even Co-Clo-Claudius visited Britain, but Lucius Septimius Severus Pertinax, a.k.a. Septimius Severus (146 – 211 AD) breathed his last there.
Septimus became Emperor after removing the previous emperor Didius, in 193 AD, at the age of forty-seven. He is known to have been active and scrupulous in reforms of the Roman administration, especially in the Army, because as he said the Army was the real basis and source of imperial power.
Hearing in the year 208 that Britons in the north were rebelling, he took ship with a large force and sailed there, probably making a landing near Ravenspur. But a severe illness overtook him and he died in York, a Roman foundation, in 211. He is believed to have been buried there.
He was succeeded by his son Caracalla.
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