This book brings out more clearly the flaws in his previous book. He maintains that "By the time of Septimius Severus (AD 193-211) the empire had completely changed." This continues his poorly developed theme from
The Antonines
, that they witnessed a major change in the nature of the Roman state. I didn't really mention this in my review of that book because it really wasn't argued in any comprehensive way. And neither is this one. But he starts the book off saying this, and it is a seriously flawed statement. While it's true that there were more changes under the Antonines than is commonly recognized, they were not a decisive break with the past. If any decisive role is to be attributed to them, they should be the last of the old-style emperors, or possibly the ones who laid the groundwork for later emperors to build off of. The period under the Severans was the moment when the Empire started to change, and in the time immediately following their dynasty the changes were even more rapid. In short, the Severans were in no sense a "Changed Roman Empire." If anything they ruled under a 'Changing Roman Empire.'
So the biggest and most glaring flaw: This book is just too darn short for its topic. The entire book (including the Introduction and Appendix, but excluding the footnotes and index) is 90 pages. This leaves the chapters at under ten pages each. Even at 163 pages the Antonines was too short, but not as obviously so as this one. Which is extra annoying because unlike that book this one has the proper division of chapters. It is divided between about 1/3 imperial biography and 2/3 on selected topics, but these topics more accurately represent the whole era. Subjects such as the military, finance, religion, and the state of the provinces were all ignored in that book but are included in this one. But the chapters are so short (most are under five pages) that any information in them is too vague and unexplored to be useful. This is such a problem that what little there is to appreciate here can never compensate for it.
The imperial biography section is barely acceptable. There is nothing too surprising in it, except the brevity of the whole (28 pages). He leaves out most of the important information. He covers the outline of Severus' career in two pages and doesn't even mention Alexander Severus' Persian campaign. While he mentions in passing that the Persians would replace the Parthians after Severus, he never makes clear when this occurred nor why it even matters. To make matters worse given the lack of space (and effort) he adds a chapter on the praetorian prefects right after the chapter on Severus, in which he describes the praetorians through Severus Alexander whose reign he hasn't even covered yet. Not that the praetorians weren't important, but this is entirely the wrong place for it. Even worse, he spends an entire chapter dealing with Severus' succession plans. This could have been included in either the preceding life of Severus or the succeeding one of Caracalla. The only conceivable reason to split this short (3 page) segment off into its own chapter is to take up space and make the book seem longer.
Most of the rest of my complaints are ones I made in my Antonine review: the author's viewpoint is simplistic and analysis is nonexistent. Even the nuance of that work is gone since there isn't enough room here for him to expand on it. His big complaint about Severus is that he didn't give the empire to someone more competent than his son, something that he excused Marcus Aurelius for. So I guess he liked Aurelius better than Severus? Who can blame him, but that doesn't mean that Severus was any worse for doing it than Aurelius was.
His take on Caracalla shows that he is a traditionalist in the worst sense of the word. He only judges artwork on its perceived artistic merit. Caracalla's portraiture is strikingly unpleasant, therefore he was too. But why did he choose to be portrayed that way? This would be a good point to examine the possible reasons for Caracalla making such a break with tradition, but instead he just leaves it that he was an angry man. No mention of the advantages to an emperor of having a unique style of portraiture, or what effect the sculptures were supposed to have on the viewers. It is a very simplistic viewing of an important feature of his reign. Another example of his simplicity include his statement that the Empire was moving towards Democracy due to the importance of the army. Does he mean a meritocracy? I don't know. I'd call it an anarchy myself. But it was such an outrageous statement that I had to go back and reread it to make sure I hadn't missed anything.
This simplicity is a symptom of a sheer laziness that I find appalling. No real work was put into this book. The chapters on law, religion, and the sources are simply lists of names with a brief description. There is no analysis done. For a chapter on the rise of lawyers to not even mention a single law is an embarrassment. The section on the Christian writers doesn't even describe the most basic elements of their theology. The chapter on Roman art and architecture is simply a selection of excerpts from one of his earlier works on the Roman forum.
Like his last book, this one concludes with a question raised by Edward Gibbon. This time it is his statement that "Posterity, who experienced the fatal effects of [Severus'] maxims and example, justly considered him as the principal author of the decline of the Roman empire." Unlike in the Antonines, here Grant disagrees with Gibbon. He points out that the empire continued for 250 years after Severus in the west, and 1250 in the east. So if Severus was truly that destructive then why did the empire last so long? It's an obvious question and one that Gibbon has been lambasted for for years.
This isn't Grant's worst work (at least it's not plagiarized like
The Collapse and Recovery of the Roman Empire
is) but it's far from his best. While with his last one the problem was that he left too many topics out entirely, here the problem is that he covers everything in an extremely superficial manner. If you want to read a much more detailed look at this period by Grant then I'd recommend
The Climax of Rome
. It mainly deals with the period immediately following this one, but it makes some mention of the Severans as well and includes some good analysis of the changed the empire underwent. Another good book on this era is
The Roman Empire at Bay
. This is a detailed book which covers the empire from Commodus to Theodosius, yet still manages to be better and more informative than this book.
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