Gaius Claudius Severus

Gaius Claudius Severus was a Roman senator who lived in the second half of the 1st century AD and the first half of the 2nd century AD. He originated from a family of Pontian Greek descent. Severus was born and raised in Pompeiopolis, a city in the Roman province of Galatia.

Severus was a magistrate in the reign of the Emperor Trajan 98-117. Trajan had successfully annexed Arabia Petraea in 105-106, made the region a Roman province, and Severus became its first governor. Severus remained in the office from 106 until 116. During his tenure a road, Via Nova Traiana, was paved from Aqaba via Petra to Bozrah.

The road was completed in 111 at the earliest. There are two surviving letters sent by Apollonarius, an Egyptian soldier and assistant secretary to Severus, one to his father and another to his mother; one of the letters bears the date March 26, 107, and mentions that the construction work for the road was already in progress then. These letters discuss the construction period and how the road was constructed. Severus in 112 served as a suffect consul in absentia. Severus married an unnamed Roman woman and had a son named Gnaeus Claudius Severus Arabianus, ordinary consul in 146.

Sources

• Garzetti, Albino (1974). From Tiberius to the Antonines: a history of the Roman Empire AD 14-192.
• Bowman, Alan K.; Garnsey, Peter; Rathbone, Dominic (2000). The High Empire, A.D. 70-192. The Cambridge ancient history. 11 (2nd ed.).