Gnaeus Claudius Severus

Who is Gnaeus Claudius Severus?

Gnaeus Claudius Severus was a Roman senator and philosopher who lived in the Roman Empire during the 2nd century.

Severus was the son of the Roman senator and philosopher Gnaeus Claudius Severus Arabianus by an unnamed mother. Severus was of Pontian Greek descent. He was born and raised in Pompeiopolis, a city in the Roman province of Galatia. His paternal grandfather Gaius Claudius Severus was a consul and the first Roman governor of Arabia Petraea in the reign of the Emperor Trajan, 98-117.

Like his father, Severus was a follower of peripatetic philosophy. Although Severus held no major political influence, he was considered as an influential figure in the intellectual and philosopher circles in Rome. Like his father, Severus was a friend and had a great influence on the Emperor Marcus Aurelius. It was probably Severus that introduced Marcus Aurelius, to the rhetorician Cornelianus and by his personal physician recommendation, introduced Marcus Aurelius to the Greek physician Galen. Severus with his father accompanied Marcus Aurelius on a philosophical visit to Athens, Greece in 176.

Severus served as an ordinary consul in 167 and 173. In the year of his second consulship, Severus became a patron and was made an honorary citizen of Pompeiopolis. In 173, an honorific inscription was dedicated to Severus in his birth city. This honorific surviving inscription was found on a statue base in the city: