Name That Emperor

When this Roman emperor was unexpectedly elevated to the throne, he whispered to himself a line from Homer: "Purple death and powerful fate closed his eyes."  While on campaign as emperor, he adopted a common soldier's diet, forbidding "such delicacies as pheasant and sow's womb and udders to be ordered and served for him."  He was:

a.  Domitian

b.  Marcus Aurelius

c.  Septimius Severus

d.  Constantine the Great

e.  Julian the Apostate

The line, by the way, is from Book 20 of the Iliad:

. . . τὸν δὲ κατ᾽ ὄσσε

ἔλλαβε πορφύρεος θάνατος καὶ μοῖρα κραταιή

It is part of a passage relating the murderous rampage of the grief-stricken Achilles among the Trojans when he takes the field following the death of Patroclos.  In Alexander Pope's translation:

Thy life, Echeclus! next the sword bereaves,

Deep though the front the ponderous falchion cleaves;

Warm'd in the brain the smoking weapon lies,

The purple death comes floating o'er his eyes.