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Severus needed the support of the army to stay in power. He was after all not the legitimate Emperor and the support of the legions had allowed him to seize the Imperial diadem. The African was very conscious of the fact that he was technically a usurper and he invented spurious claims that he was the descendant of Emperor Nerva. He gave the army a leading role in the state and expanded the number of legions.<ref>Campbell, Brian. <i>The Roman Army, 31 BC-AD 337: A Sourcebook</i> (London, Longman, 1997), p 119</ref> The first African Emperor is often stated to have made the army the most important institution in the state and in fact the only one that mattered in the Empire.
The army attained a level of unprecedented level of influence in the Empire under Severus, which it never lost. Moreover, the size of the army was a considerable burden on the economy and weakened it in the longer term. The elevation of the military's influence lead to instability in the decades following Severus death. The founder of the Severin dynasty gave the army a pay increase, according to the one source he ‘gave his soldiers sums of money such as no emperor had ever given before.’<ref><i>Life of Septimius Severus: Historia Augusta</i>, x </ref> To fund these increases, Severus was forced to debase the Imperial currency.
It has often been claimed that because he debased the currency, he ultimately caused the catastrophic inflation of the Third Century. However, Severus had a full treasury and his administration of the Imperial finances was excellent. It cannot be denied that he established a precedent for Emperors to debase the currency to pay the soldiers and this was to have disastrous financial and economic consequences for the Empire, especially in the Third Century. Severus ended a long tradition by allowing soldiers to marry. This, it is claimed led to a decline in standards of discipline in the army.
