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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;GinoLR, post: 24484109, member: 128351&quot;]Excellent post about a fascinating emperor. </p><p><br /></p><p>My favourite Septimius Severus&#039; campaign is the first one, in 193, when he took Rome and seized power from Didius Julianus. </p><p><br /></p><p>He was governor of Pannonia Superior back then, at Carnuntum on the Danube (today in Austria, near the Hungarian border). He was first declared Augustus by his legions and the legions of the neighbouring provinces in Illyricum, then organized an expeditionary force to walk immediately to Rome as fast as possible. Speed was his strategy: Julianus could not organize any defence because, by the time he was informed that Severus&#039; army was moving towards Italy, it was already there... The cities were caught off-guard and opened their gates to the Danubian army. No battles, no sieges, no fights. The Senate sent delegates to negotiate with him at Ravenna but on arrival the delegates changed sides and supported Severus. When he arrived near Rome without a fight, he stopped and did not attack the city. Didius Julianus had prepared a defence with his Praetorian cohorts and even gladiators, but for several days nothing happened. Severus sent what we could now call special forces, soldiers in civilian clothes with hidden weapons who leaked into the city at night, delivering personal messages to some senators and officials, and fixing posters on the walls telling the Romans the new emperor was here to avenge Pertinax. The psychological effect was enormous: the Romans knew the invading army was already inside the city, but invisible. The Senate abandoned Julianus, rejected his proposition of negotiating with Severus and share power with him: first time ever an emperor was outvoted in the Senate! After this, the senators negotiated directly with Severus, the praetorians abandoned Julianus&#039; cause and came back to their camp, and Severus entered the city without a fight, greeted by the population. The praetorians were rounded up, disarmed and dismissed. A zero dead operation.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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