Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 3.djvu/817

Rh SEVERTTS. of his troops, his hasty retreat, and his surrender at Itavenna to Herculius, upon the most solemn jissurances of ample protection, have been related in a former article [Maxentius]. In spite, how- ever, of all the promises of the conqueror, the van- quished prince was conveyed as a prisoner of war to the vicinity of Rome, and detained in captivity at Tres Taberiiae, on the Appian road, where, upon receiving intimation that he might choose the manner of his death, he opened his veins, and was entombed in the sepulchre of Gallienus, A. d. 307. (Panegr. Vet. i. v.; Auct. De Mori. Persec. 18, 19, 20, 25,26; Victor, de Caes. 40, Epit. 40; Eutrop. X. 2 ; Excerpta Valesian. 5 — 10; Zosira. ii. 8, 10.) [W. R.] SEVERUS. 805 COIN OF FLAVIUS VALERIUS SEVERUS. SEVE'RUS, HERE'NNIUS, a friend of the younger Pliny, who speaks of hira as " vir doctis- sinius." (Plin. Ep. iv. 28.) SEVE'RUS, JU'LIUS, a legatus of Hadrian, was first governor of Britain, from which he was summoned by the emperor to take the command of the war against the Jews. After the conclusion of this war he was placed over Bithynia, which he governed with great wisdom and justice. He must not be confounded with the Severus, whom Pliny addresses in several of his letters, as Glan- dorp has done in his Onomasticon ; for the friend of Pliny was Catilius Severus, as has been shown above. (Dion Cass. Ixix. 13, 14.) SEVE'RUS, JU'LIUS, a Roman grammarian, of whom nothing is known, is the author of a small treatise entitled De Pedibus Exposition which was first published by Heusinger, together with the work of Flavins Mallius Theodorus on the same subject, Guelf. 1755, and Lugd. Bat. 1766. It is also included in Gaisford's Script. Lat. Rei Metric. Oxon. 1837. SEVE'RUS, Ll'BlUS, Roman emperor from A. D. 461 — 465. He was a Lucanian by birth, and owed his accession to Ricimer, who placed him on the throne of Rome after the assassina- tion of Majorian. His proclamation took place at Ravenna, on the 19th or 20th of November, 461, and the Roman senate confirmed the elec- tion soon afterwards. He was an obscure man, and his name is not mentioned previous to the murder of Majorian, of which he was one of the principal agents. No acts of his reign are recorded but one, namely his condemnation of Agrippinus, and the subsequent pardon which he granted to him in 462. Leo, the Eastern emperor, declined to acknowledge him, but after- wards complied with the wishes of the powerful Ricimer, to whom we refer for the political events of the time. Severus died in Rome on the 1 5th of August, 465, or perhaps some weeks later. (Tdatius, Chronicon ; Chronicon Alexandr. ; Evagr. ii. 7 ; Theoph. p. 97 ; Jornaud. De Reb. Goth, 0. 45.) [W. P.] COIN OP LIBIUS SEVERUS. SEVE'RUS SANCTUS, the writer of an amoe- baean pastoral of considerable merit, extending to 1 32 lines, in choriambic metre, first published by P. Pithou in his " Veterum aliquot Galliae Theolo- gorum Scripta'' (4to. Paris, 1586) as, Severi Rhe- toi-is et Poetae Christiani Carmen Bucolicum. The subject relates to a murrain among cattle, which, after sweeping over Pannonia, Illyria, and Belgica, was devastating the pastures of the country where the scene is laid ; that is, probably Gaul (see V. 22). The speakers who open the dialogue are Bnculus and Aegon, both pagans ; and these are afterwards joined by Tityrus, a Christian. Buculus recounts, with deep grief, the disease and death by which his oxen had been visited. While Aegon is condoling with him, and marvelling that, although many of their neighbours had been afflicted by this calamity, some had remained altogether un- injured, Tityrus, one of those Avho had escaped, comes up, and, on being questioned, declares that he attributed the preservation of his property to the sign of the cross impressed upon the foreheads of his flocks, and to the worship of Jesus, which he himself practised, at the same time recommend- ing his friends to adopt the faith which he pro- fessed, as the only sure safeguard and remedy. Buculus, convinced by his arguments, and hoping to avert the pestilence from his herds, agrees to become a convert, Aegon also expresses his will- ingness to receive the truth, and both, conducted by Tityrus, proceeded to the city, for the purpose of offering homage at the shrine of Christ. With regard to the author little, or rather no- thing, is known ; for every particular recorded with regard to him, resolves itself into a vague conjec- ture. Ausonius mentions a Flavins Sanctus as hia kinsman {Parental xviii. xix), and Sidonius Apollinaris {Ep. viii. 11) speaks of his friend Sanctus, who had been bishop of Bordeaux ; but the composer of the eclogue now under considera- tion, is commonly supposed to be the same with Sanctus, a friend of Paulinus Nolan us, to whom that prelate addresses his twenty-sixth epistle, while Pithou proceeds a step farther, and maintains that he is also the rhetorician Endeilichius, whom Paulinus names in a letter to Sulpicius Severus (Ep. ix. comp. Sirmond, ad Sidon. Apoll. Ep. iv. 8). Accordingly, he published the second edition of the pastoral in his " Epigrammata et Poemata Vett.," &c. (Paris, 1590), as Carmen Severi Sanctis id est, Endeilichi Rketoris, de Mortibus Bourn ; and, since that period, scholars, according to their con- viction, have adopted one or other, or both of these titles. From the internal evidence afforded by the piece itself, we are led to conclude that it belongs to the 3 F 3