Gnaeus Claudius Severus Arabianus (113 – after 176) was a

senator A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...

and

philosopher A philosopher is a person who practices or investigates philosophy. The term ''philosopher'' comes from the grc, φιλόσοφος, , translit=philosophos, meaning 'lover of wisdom'. The coining of the term has been attributed to the Greek th ...

who lived in the

Roman Empire The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post-Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings around the Mediterr ...

Life

Severus was the son of the consul and first Roman Governor of

Arabia Petraea Arabia Petraea or Petrea, also known as Rome's Arabian Province ( la, Provincia Arabia; ar, العربية البترائية; grc, Ἐπαρχία Πετραίας Ἀραβίας) or simply Arabia, was a frontier province of the Roman Emp ...

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. Life Part of a family of Pontian Greek descent, Severus was born and raised in Pompeiopolis, a city in the Rom ...

, by an unnamed mother. Severus was of Pontian Greek descent. He was born and raised in

Pompeiopolis Pompeiopolis ( el, Πομπηιούπολις, city of Pompeius) was a Roman city in ancient Paphlagonia, identified in the early 19th century with the ruins of Zımbıllı Tepe, located near Taşköprü, Kastamonu Province in the Black Sea Region ...

, a city in the

Roman province The Roman provinces (Latin: ''provincia'', pl. ''provinciae'') were the administrative regions of Ancient Rome outside Roman Italy that were controlled by the Romans under the Roman Republic and later the Roman Empire. Each province was rule ...

Galatia Galatia (; grc, Γαλατία, ''Galatía'', "Gaul") was an ancient area in the highlands of central Anatolia, roughly corresponding to the provinces of Ankara and Eskişehir, in modern Turkey. Galatia was named after the Gauls from Thrace (c ...

. When Severus had come to

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

during the reign of

Emperor An emperor (from la, imperator, via fro, empereor) is a monarch, and usually the sovereignty, sovereign ruler of an empire or another type of imperial realm. Empress, the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife (empress consort), ...

Hadrian Hadrian (; la, Caesar Trâiānus Hadriānus ; 24 January 76 – 10 July 138) was Roman emperor from 117 to 138. He was born in Italica (close to modern Santiponce in Spain), a Roman ''municipium'' founded by Italic settlers in Hispania B ...

(117-138), he had become a philosophical mentor and a teacher to Roman noble students. Among his students was the future Emperor

Marcus Aurelius Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (Latin: áːɾkus̠ auɾέːli.us̠ antɔ́ːni.us̠ English: ; 26 April 121 – 17 March 180) was Roman emperor from 161 to 180 AD and a Stoic philosopher. He was the last of the rulers known as the Five Good ...

, with whom he had become friends. In Rome, Severus assumed a reputation as a man of spirit and as a great philosophical mentor. He was a follower of

peripatetic philosophy The Peripatetic school was a school of philosophy in Ancient Greece. Its teachings derived from its founder, Aristotle (384–322 BC), and ''peripatetic'' is an adjective ascribed to his followers. The school dates from around 335 BC when Aristo ...

and later served as an ordinary consul in 146 in the reign of

Antoninus Pius Antoninus Pius (Latin: ''Titus Aelius Hadrianus Antoninus Pius''; 19 September 86 – 7 March 161) was Roman emperor from 138 to 161. He was the fourth of the Five Good Emperors from the Nerva–Antonine dynasty. Born into a senatoria ...

(138-161). He married an unnamed woman, by whom he had a son called Gnaeus Claudius Severus. Severus was evidently a politician with a deep interest in political philosophy, as evidenced by Marcus Aurelius’ opinion of him in Meditations (1.14n): : From Severus: love of family, love of truth, love of justice; to have come by his help to understand Thrasea, Helvidius, Cato, Dio Brutus; to have conceived the idea of a balanced constitution, a commonwealth based on equality and freedom of speech, and of a monarchy which values above all the liberty of the subject; from him, too, a constant and vigorous respect for philosophy; beneficence, unstinting generosity, optimism; his confidence in the affection of his friends, his frankness with those who met with his censure, and open likes and dislikes, so that his friends did not need to guess at his wishes.

Sources

* ''From Tiberius to the Antonines: a history of the Roman Empire AD 14-192'', by Albino Garzetti, 1974 * ''Marcus Aurelius'', by Anthony Richard Birley, Routledge, 2000 * ''The Cambridge Ancient History: the High Empire, A.D. 70-192'', by Alan K. Bowman, Peter Garnsey, Dominic Rathbone Edition: 2 - Item notes: v. 11 - 2000 * Marcus Aurelius - ''

Meditations ''Meditations'' () is a series of personal writings by Marcus Aurelius, Roman Emperor from AD 161 to 180, recording his private notes to himself and ideas on Stoic philosophy. Marcus Aurelius wrote the 12 books of the ''Meditations'' in Koine ...

'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Claudius Severus Arabianus, Gnaeus 113 births 2nd-century Romans Imperial Roman consuls Galatia (Roman province) 2nd-century philosophers Roman-era Peripatetic philosophers Severus Arabianus Year of death unknown