Septimius Severus in The Prince

Who is Septimius Severus?

Septimius Severus appears in Machiavelli's discussion as a historical exemplar rather than a narrative protagonist. Machiavelli presents Severus as the sort of ruler who wants to found and stabilize authority by mastering both strength and guile: he secures the army, ruthlessly subdues rivals, and manages subjects so that conspiracies cannot take root. In the chapter he is invoked to illustrate how a prince can avoid contempt and withstand internal and external threats by being firm, courageous, and strategically shrewd. Rather than a detailed life story, Severus functions as a practical model whose combination of military decisiveness and political cunning provides lessons for new princes seeking to retain power without falling into the pitfalls of cruelty that breeds hatred or of weakness that invites contempt.

In the book: In The Prince, Septimius Severus appears as a historical exemplar of princely rule who masterfully blends the strength of the lion with the cunning of the fox. Machiavelli highlights his ruthless decisiveness, military genius, and political shrewdness in subduing rivals and securing loyalty, using Severus to illustrate how fear, strategy, and control of the army can found and stabilize a state.

Personality

Ruthless

Machiavelli points to Severus’s ruthless decisiveness in subduing rivals to secure his rule.

Strategic

He exemplifies the blend of the lion and the fox—using force where needed and cunning elsewhere, as Machiavelli notes.

Militarily commanding

Machiavelli emphasizes Severus’s control of the army as central to founding and stabilizing his state.

Pragmatic

He is held up for adopting whatever measures are useful to keep power rather than for moral purity.

Character arc

Severus does not undergo a personal transformation in Machiavelli’s presentation; he is a fixed exemplar used to teach princes how to act. From his first mention to his last in the chapter, he consistently embodies the policy Machiavelli advocates: combine force with craft, secure the military foundation of power, and act with firmness to avoid being despised or undermined. Rather than being shown in stages of ascension or decline, Severus’s role is steady—Machiavelli invokes his example to contrast other rulers who either fell through contemptible behavior or survived through different virtues. The implicit arc is not of Severus himself but of the reader-prince: seeing Severus’s methods laid out, the would-be ruler is meant to adopt Severus’s firmness where necessary while tempering it with dignity drawn from other models, thereby avoiding the fates of less successful emperors.

Relationships

• Florentines Machiavelli presents Severus’s example as practical instruction aimed at princes and republics like the Florentines seeking stable rule.
• Lorenzo de' Medici Severus is offered as a model whose combination of firmness and prudence Machiavelli implies contemporary rulers such as Lorenzo should consider.
• Cesare Borgia Severus functions alongside other exemplars in the book as an alternative model of effective power to be compared with figures like Cesare Borgia.
• Francesco Sforza Severus’s military and political methods stand as an instructive counterpoint to the ways leaders such as Francesco Sforza secure dominion.

Why Septimius Severus matters

Severus crystallizes Machiavelli’s central themes about power: the necessity of controlling the military, the utility of fear tempered by prudence, and the importance of avoiding hatred and contempt. As a concrete historical example, he demonstrates that founding and preserving a state often requires a combination of force and cunning rather than pure virtue. Machiavelli uses Severus to argue that effective rule depends on practical measures that ensure loyalty and deter conspiracies, reinforcing the book’s pragmatic—and sometimes unsettling—advice on political survival.

Chapters with Septimius Severus

• Chapter 19

More The Prince characters

• Cesare BorgiaMajor character
• Pope Alexander VIMajor character
• Francesco SforzaMajor character
• Ferdinand II of AragonMajor character
• AAlexander the GreatMajor character
• FFlorentinesMajor character
• Lorenzo de' MediciMajor character
• Louis XIIMajor character