Germa in the context of Garamantian Kingdom

Lucius Septimius Severus (/səˈvɪərəs/; Latin: [ˈɫuːkiʊs sɛpˈtɪmiʊs sɛˈweːrʊs]; 11 April 145 – 4 February 211) was Roman emperor from 193 to 211. He was born in Leptis Magna, Libya in the Roman province of Africa. As a young man he advanced through the customary succession of offices under the reigns of Marcus Aurelius and Commodus. Severus was the final contender to seize power after the death of the emperor Pertinax in 193 during the Year of the Five Emperors.

After deposing and killing the incumbent emperor Didius Julianus, Severus fought his rival claimants, the Roman generals Pescennius Niger and Clodius Albinus. Niger was defeated in 194 at the Battle of Issus in Cilicia. Later that year Severus waged a short punitive campaign beyond the eastern frontier, annexing the Kingdom of Osroene as a new province. Severus defeated Albinus three years later at the Battle of Lugdunum in Gaul. Following the consolidation of his rule over the western provinces, Severus waged another brief, more successful war in the east against the Parthian Empire, sacking their capital Ctesiphon in 197 and expanding the eastern frontier to the Tigris. He then enlarged and fortified the Limes Arabicus in Arabia Petraea. In 202, he campaigned in Africa and Mauretania against the Garamantes, capturing their capital Garama, and expanding the Limes Tripolitanus along the southern desert frontier of the empire.

The Garamantes (Ancient Greek: Γαράμαντες, romanized: Garámantes; Latin: Garamantes) were ancient peoples, who may have descended from Berber tribes, Toubou tribes, and Saharan pastoralists that settled in the Fezzan region by at least 1000 BC and established a civilization that flourished until its end in the late 7th century AD. The Garamantes first emerged as a major regional power in the mid-2nd century AD and established a kingdom that spanned roughly 180,000 km (70,000 sq mi) in the Fezzan region of southern Libya. Their growth and expansion was based on a complex and extensive qanat irrigation system (Berber: foggaras), which supported a strong agricultural economy and a large population. They subsequently developed the first urban society in a major desert that was not centered on a river system; their largest town, Garama, had a population of around four thousand, with an additional six thousand living in surrounding suburban areas. At its pinnacle, the Garamantian kingdom established and maintained a "standard of living far superior to that of any other ancient Saharan society" and was composed of "brilliant farmers, resourceful engineers, and enterprising merchants who produced a remarkable civilization."