The Historians' History of the World 06 [The Early Roman Empire]

The Campagna

The intelligence was received with the greatest joy at Rome. The two Gordians were declared Augusti; and Maximin and his son, whom he had associated with him in the empire, and their friends, public enemies, and rewards were promised to those who would kill them; but the decree was ordered to be kept secret till all the necessary preparations should have been made. Soon after it was given out that Maximin was slain. The edicts of the Gordians were then published, their images and letters were carried into the prætorian camp, and forthwith the people rose in fury, cast down and broke the images of Maximin, fell on and massacred his officers and the informers; and many seized this pretext for getting rid of their creditors and their private enemies. Murder and pillage prevailed through the city. The senate meantime having advanced too far to recede, wrote a circular to all the governors of provinces, and appointed twenty of their body to put Italy into a state of defence.

Maximin was preparing to cross the Danube against the Sarmatians when he heard of what had taken place at Rome. His rage and fury passed all bounds. He menaced the whole of the senate with bonds or death, and promised their properties, and those of the Africans, to his soldiers; but finding that they did not show all the alacrity he had expected, he began to fear for his power. His spirits, however, soon rose when tidings came that his rivals were no more; for Capelianus, governor of Mauretania, being ordered by the Gordians to quit that province, marched against Carthage at the head of a body of legionaries and Moors. The younger Gordian gave him battle, and was defeated and slain, and his father on hearing the melancholy tidings strangled himself. Capelianus pillaged Carthage and the other towns, and exercised all the rights of a conqueror (237).

When the fatal tidings reached Rome the consternation was great, but the senate, seeing they could not now recede, chose as emperors in the place of the Gordians M. Clodius Pupienus Maximus and D. Cælius Balbinus, the former to conduct the military, the latter the civil affairs of the state. To satisfy the people, a grandson of the elder Gordian, a boy of twelve years of age, was associated with them as cæsar.

The new emperors were elected about the beginning of July, and Pupienus forthwith left Rome to oppose Maximin. The remainder of the year was spent on both sides in making preparations for the war, and in the following spring (238) Maximin put his troops in motion for Italy. He passed the Alps unopposed, but found the gates of Aquileia closed against him. His offers of pardon being rejected, he laid siege to the town; it was defended with the obstinacy of despair. Ill success augmented the innate ferocity of Maximin; he put to death several of his officers; these executions irritated the soldiers, who were besides suffering all kinds of privations, and discontent became general. As Maximin was reposing one day at noon in his tent, a party of the Alban soldiers approached it with the intention of killing him. They were joined by his guards, and when he awoke and came forth with his son they would not listen to him, but killed them both on the spot, and cut off their heads. Maximin’s principal ministers shared his fate. His reign had lasted only three years.

Pupienus (M. Clodius Pupienus Maximus), Balbinus (D. Cælius Balbinus), and Gordian (M. Antonius Gordianus), 238-244 A.D.

[238-248 A.D.]

The joy at Rome was extreme when the news of the death of Maximin arrived. Pupienus, who was at Ravenna, hastened to Aquileia, and received the submission of the army. He distributed money to the legions, and then sending them back to their usual quarters returned to Rome with the prætorians and a part of the army of the Rhine, in which he could confide. He and his colleagues entered the city in a kind of triumph.

The administration of Pupienus and Balbinus was of the best kind, and the senate and people congratulated themselves on the choice they had made. But the prætorians were far from being contented; they felt as if robbed of their right of appointing an emperor; and they were annoyed at the German troops being retained in the city, as arguing a distrust of themselves. Unfortunately, too, there prevailed a secret jealousy between the two emperors, and it is probable that concord would not long have subsisted between them under any circumstances.

The prætorians, having to no purpose sought a pretext for getting rid of the emperors, at length took advantage of the celebration of the Capitoline games, at which almost everyone was present, and the emperors remained nearly alone in the palace. They proceeded thither in fury. Pupienus, when aware of their approach, proposed to send for the Germani, but Balbinus, fearing that it was meant to employ them against himself, refused his consent. Meantime the prætorians arrived, forced the entrance, seized the two aged emperors, tore their garments, treated them with every kind of indignity, and were dragging them to their camp, till hearing that the Germans were coming to their aid, they killed them and left their bodies lying in the street. They carried the young Gordian with them to their camp, where they proclaimed him emperor, and the senate, the people, and the provinces readily acquiesced in his elevation.