 He had Italian Roman ancestry on his mother's side, and was descended from Punic forebears on his father's side.Severus' father, an obscure provincial, held no major political status, but he had two cousins, Publius Septimius Aper and Gaius Septimius Severus, who served as consuls under the emperor Antoninus Pius .His mother's ancestors had moved from Italy to North Africa; they belonged to the "gens" Fulvia, an Italian patrician family that originated in Tusculum.