There is an episode, as we said, which seems to clarify very well the absolute rarity and exceptionality of the type represented in the comic strip. When the emperor Septimius Severus was approaching the end of his principality (193-211 AD), he was seized by numerous omina mortis, that is to say, presages of death, according to a literary technique present in the Scriptores Historiae Augustae. One of these occurred near Luguvallum (the present Carlisle) when a very dark Ethiopian soldier met him with a wreath formed with cypress branches: and the emperor had a fatal omen, given not only by the crown offered to him (the cypress, is known to be found in funeral places) but by the color of black skin, that color being considered in Rome, very little auspicious in the Latin religious tradition. So the emperor ordered that the man be immediately removed from his sight (SHA, Sev 22: Aethiops quidam and military number, clarae inter scurras famae et celebratorum semper iocorum, cum crown and cupressu facta eidem occurrit. iratus removeri ab oculis praecepisset, et coloris eius tactus omine).
