"Severus has been acclaimed as 'the black emperor'. The fact that Severus was African has been cited as evidence that Rome was colourblind, free of racism a genuinely multicultural commonwealth. Septimius Severus was no more 'black' than Julius Caesar. Politically, culturally and racially, he was part of the broad Mediterranean elite that ruled the Roman Empire. Just as the blood of Etruscans and Samnites flowed in the veins of Italian nobles (like Augustus or Vespasian), and that of Celts and Iberians in those of Spanish ones (like Trajan, Hadrian and Marcus), so did the blood of Berbers and Carthaginians flow in the veins of an African noble like Severus."