The reason that a Roman emperor features in this national dictionary is clear from the first sentence:
Septimius Severus, Lucius (145/6–211), Roman emperor, was the founder of the Severan dynasty and passed his last four years in Britain directing military operations against peoples beyond the northern frontier of the Roman province.Caracalla is a name I know chiefly because of the magnificent Baths of Caracalla in Rome. A huge church has been made from just one part of the baths. His influence on Britain was, however, considerable:
Caracalla may have completed the campaign his father had planned for 211, while an inscription set over the east gate at Carpow seems to belong to the period when he was ruling alone. The division of Britain into two separate provinces, which Severus may have decided upon in 197, was now carried into effect, with the larger Upper Britain (Britannia Superior) in the south under a consular governor with two legions and in the north the smaller Lower Britain (Britannia Inferior) containing the remaining legion based at Eboracum. In the event, Caracalla's settlement proved lasting. The reconstruction of Hadrian's Wall defined permanently the northern limit of the Roman province, though effective control extended further north to roughly the line of the later England–Scotland border.
