Tag: Septimius Severus

What Did the Ancient Romans Use Latin For?

Someone on Quora has asked: “What was Latin used for in ancient Rome?” At first glance, this question might sound rather silly. After all, it seems obvious that people in ancient Rome used Latin for all different kinds of oral and written communication. This may explain why the people who have answered this question so far have all given brief and flippant responses. I initially thought about giving such a response as well. After a bit of consideration, though, I realized that this is not actually a bad question, or a silly one.

Quite simply, Latin was not the only language that people in the Roman cultural sphere used. There were many Roman people in ancient times who could not speak Latin. Also, many Roman people who did speak Latin spoke it in addition to at least one other language. In this post, I intend to first explain who in ancient Rome actually spoke Latin and then explain in what sorts of contexts multilingual people who knew Latin used it.

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Was Septimius Severus a Black Roman Emperor?

It has been widely claimed on the internet that the Roman emperor Septimius Severus (ruled 193 – 211 AD) was a black man. For instance, a blog post published on the site Rasta Livewire on 25 September 2010 describes Septimius Severus as “first black African-born Emperor of Rome” and declares that it is important for black people today to “remember and celebrate” the Severan Dynasty he founded.

The claim that Septimius Severus was a “black Roman emperor” has even found its way into peer-reviewed journals dealing with contemporary black culture. For instance, here is an article written by Molefi Kete Asante and Shaza Ismail titled “Rediscovering the ‘Lost’ Roman Caesar: Septimius Severus the African and Eurocentric Historiography” that was published in March 2010 in the Journal of Black Studies, a peer-reviewed journal on contemporary African-American culture, that advances this claim.

So, was Septimius Severus a black man? Well, it depends on what you happen to consider “black.” Septimius Severus was definitely born on the African continent; that at least makes him African. Unfortunately, there are some serious problems with calling him a “black Roman emperor.”

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